Because a monoculture sucks even if it's an open-source monoculture.
Palm made every mistake that Apple was told to
on
What Happened To Palm?
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Every mistake that the pundits wanted Apple to make, Palm tried.
They licensed out their OS. Then, because the licensees were complaining about Palm's unfair advantage, they split into separate hardware and software companies. They even bought Be, which everyone said Apple should have done instead of buying NeXT.
So what happened?
Well, the software side (PalmSource) came out with a fancy new OS based on the BeOS stuff they bought. And...the licensees all said "We'll get to it."
So PalmSource said, "Oh, and the 6.1 version will be even better!" So the licensees (including PalmOne, the hardware side) said, "Great! Tell us when it's ready."
So PalmSource panicked and said, "...um, great! Um...hey...we'll make our next OS based on Linux!" And the licensees said, "Oh, okay, we'll wait for that one then."
And so, without planning to, they committed the one fatal error when you're up against Microsoft - they stood still. Microsoft can't catch a moving target, but stand still and they'll run you over. The PDA market dried up and all the licensees bailed. PalmSource got sold off to a Linux company. PalmOne decided to make a Linux OS of their own, and it'll be ready Real Soon Now.
They did DirectX/Windows updates of them a few years back. (Same cockpit graphics, but 3D-accelerated graphics for the ships, as I recall.) Included all the same annoyances ("Oh, I finished a mission in X-Wing! Quick, quit out and back up my pilot file before trying another mission!") and even "fixed" at least one bug, rendering one of the training missions much more difficult. (I forget the details, but in the original DOS version, a ship you're supposed to defend is immune to damage from one side or the other...in the Windows version, this bug is fixed.)
I'm pretty sure they run under Windows 2000, so presumably they'll run on XP as well, if you can find them...
That's okay, the contents of djb's notification emails are misleading too. I would hardly consider the following a remote exploit:
Somebody emails you a file
You, apparently without ever looking at it, run that file through something like jpeg2avi or nasm
Gasp! You've been 0wned!
This is no more a remote exploit than somebody mailing you an executable that you run. Clearly the fact that the bash shell will let you run an executable that will do unexpected things means that there's a remote exploit in bash!
Because it's not dusting off the rock, it's abrading it so it can see inside. Doing that to solar panels is bad, mmkay?
Cost isn't the issue in cleaning off the panels; mass and effectiveness are the issues. The panels are very large; something that could dust them off would be very massive, which would mean that it would cut singificantly into the scientific payload. So you'd have a rover that could go forever, but couldn't do any research...
except that not even that would work. The dust that will cover the panels is too small for a mechanical system like that to really be effective. The Rover FAQ says 1-2 micrometers.
In other words...yes, this is rocket science, and yes, they did think of your brilliant idea, and yes, it got shot down in flames because it doesn't work.
There are several CF-based players on the market. Even discounting the RCA Lyras with their RIAA-happifying encryption, there's the Nex, the Diva, and the Moveman.
I've read the RFCs. I have the O'Reilly book as well. There is a lot of information in the O'Reilly book that is not in the RFCs. (Information on robots.txt, for example. A lot more proxy information than the RFCs contain. Some basic information on WebDAV. These are just a few things I found flipping through my copy.)
Sure, you can find all this stuff online. You buy a book so you have a well-organized place to find it all together, though. This book succeeds marvelously at this task.
I question why people think FTP is 'faster' or 'more lightweight' than HTTP. HTTP is a fairly lightweight protocol, and what overhead it does have is massively outweighed by the size of the files when you get into the multi-megabyte range. Add in that everything can be done in one transaction via HTTP (compared to logging in, changing to the right directory, activating passive mode if needed, starting the transfer, opening up a second TCP connection for the data transfer, etc. for FTP) and I really don't see a performance advantage to FTP.
Security-wise, HTTP is a big win over FTP if only because it makes your port-filtering easier - "allow to 80" is simpler and less likely to cause unintended holes than all the things you need to do to support FTP active and passive connections. Certain FTP server software has a reputation as having more security holes than IIS, but there are FTP servers out there that are as secure as Apache.
This isn't the first time companies have come out with hardware to fill a demand while the standard was being fought over. (V.34 and V.90 come to mind specifically.) Companies put out the early releases because people wanted them - then, when the standard finalized, a firmware upgrade brought everyone up-to-date.
I hardly think that somebody releasing product (with promise of upgrades - go check their website, they state that 'If the certification materially changes the principal operating features of our pre-standard 802.11g products, we will replace or upgrade any of those products at no charge and provide toll-free technical support.') based on a not-quite-finalized standard deserves to be called 'proprietary, non interoperal' and similar bad words.
SnapStream 2.0 includes a tie-in to the guide at titantv.com, which includes links you can click to automatically set recording times/lengths.
It's out, I use it. The site also claims to provide dynamic links for Win-TV PVR, WinDVR, and PowerVCR II, although I've never tested them with it.
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Because a monoculture sucks even if it's an open-source monoculture.
Every mistake that the pundits wanted Apple to make, Palm tried.
They licensed out their OS. Then, because the licensees were complaining about Palm's unfair advantage, they split into separate hardware and software companies. They even bought Be, which everyone said Apple should have done instead of buying NeXT.
So what happened?
Well, the software side (PalmSource) came out with a fancy new OS based on the BeOS stuff they bought. And...the licensees all said "We'll get to it."
So PalmSource said, "Oh, and the 6.1 version will be even better!" So the licensees (including PalmOne, the hardware side) said, "Great! Tell us when it's ready."
So PalmSource panicked and said, "...um, great! Um...hey...we'll make our next OS based on Linux!" And the licensees said, "Oh, okay, we'll wait for that one then."
And so, without planning to, they committed the one fatal error when you're up against Microsoft - they stood still. Microsoft can't catch a moving target, but stand still and they'll run you over. The PDA market dried up and all the licensees bailed. PalmSource got sold off to a Linux company. PalmOne decided to make a Linux OS of their own, and it'll be ready Real Soon Now.
I'm pretty sure they run under Windows 2000, so presumably they'll run on XP as well, if you can find them...
This is no more a remote exploit than somebody mailing you an executable that you run. Clearly the fact that the bash shell will let you run an executable that will do unexpected things means that there's a remote exploit in bash!
Cost isn't the issue in cleaning off the panels; mass and effectiveness are the issues. The panels are very large; something that could dust them off would be very massive, which would mean that it would cut singificantly into the scientific payload. So you'd have a rover that could go forever, but couldn't do any research...
except that not even that would work. The dust that will cover the panels is too small for a mechanical system like that to really be effective.
The Rover FAQ says 1-2 micrometers.
In other words...yes, this is rocket science, and yes, they did think of your brilliant idea, and yes, it got shot down in flames because it doesn't work.
There are several CF-based players on the market. Even discounting the RCA Lyras with their RIAA-happifying encryption, there's the Nex, the Diva, and the Moveman.
They did it already. Here you can see Earth, the Moon, and Jupiter, as seen from Mars orbit.
Sure, you can find all this stuff online. You buy a book so you have a well-organized place to find it all together, though. This book succeeds marvelously at this task.
Security-wise, HTTP is a big win over FTP if only because it makes your port-filtering easier - "allow to 80" is simpler and less likely to cause unintended holes than all the things you need to do to support FTP active and passive connections. Certain FTP server software has a reputation as having more security holes than IIS, but there are FTP servers out there that are as secure as Apache.
I hardly think that somebody releasing product (with promise of upgrades - go check their website, they state that 'If the certification materially changes the principal operating features of our pre-standard 802.11g products, we will replace or upgrade any of those products at no charge and provide toll-free technical support.') based on a not-quite-finalized standard deserves to be called 'proprietary, non interoperal' and similar bad words.
SnapStream 2.0 includes a tie-in to the guide at titantv.com, which includes links you can click to automatically set recording times/lengths.
It's out, I use it. The site also claims to provide dynamic links for Win-TV PVR, WinDVR, and PowerVCR II, although I've never tested them with it.