I'm guessing that one possible reason is whilst encryption is moderately rare - then they might assume that any encryption means a greater chance of something to hide and hence they can focus on it.
And of course that unencrypted stuff is easier to track though less immediately suspicious.
Anybody work in forensics and can give us an insider viewpoint?
The first thing that crossed my mind is that all these species are localized to one particular area and hence rather vulnerable if the environment changes in any way.
You only need to introduce 1 badly chosen predator and its the Stephens Island Wren all over again.
I agree with the other posters, this should be preserved. Or at least the 1st one.
Anybody else remember "First Footprint City" from the BBC SciFi series Earth Search?
If there is a real compelling scientific justification to see how the materials have survived then designate one of the other landing sites that is deemed less important and send the robot there. After all several Apollo missions went to the moon.
Sending one for Apollo 11 sounds more like a badly thought out publicity exercise then anything else.
Give me a wall screen TV or a whole ceiling panal light and I'll be impressed.
It has no real purpose unless somebody sells something from it...
My favorite game of all time for gameplay?
Tie Fighter the original when you play as an Imperial pilot to take down the rebel scum.
Graphics? Terrible, but the Gameplay? second to none. That really got you involved.
I'm probably in a minority here though
I disagree.
I think that when any technology - be that DVD, FaceBook, Internet Explorer - reaches a mass audience and is perceived to be good enough to meet the users needs it is more or less impossible to dislodge even when there are technically superior products out there.
The only way a new product will ever dislodge a entrenched rival is when they offer something unique and compelling or are readily interchangeble with the old one.
I kind of get what they are saying, but I see more evidence of entrenched mass market products that are seen to have reached an acceptable level of functionality and ease of use.
A better solution would of been "This firmware update identifies the use of 3rd party batteries and alerts the user to the risk of using them. It monitors the voltage output and shuts down the camera if it determines that the battery is insufficient or possibly dangerous. And invalidates the warranty too". This would of left open the choice to the user - after all there are a great many very good 3rd party batteries and they have saved my bacon in the past.
By monitoring the voltage I mean the camera can detect an abnormally fast voltage drop against its usage that might mean a defective or damaged battery - naturally it cannot detect if the battery is about to get white hot and set fire to the camera, but hey the user was warned and the warranty invalidated. I would expect the manufacturer to check the damaged camera EEPROM and say "aha! according to our data log you used not panasonic batteries, thats no repair for you!".
By removing the element of choice they raise the natural suspicion that this decision was taken on commercial grounds, not safety and risk a consumer backlash and dissatisfaction.
My first thought was to laugh myself silly with a touch of indignant rage.
But actually I take this a bit more seriously.. There is a well known phenomenon (that I am sure somebody else knows the name of) where people tend to believe what they read and we are not the target audience of this advertising tripe. Many people who will read this (and do not know better) will believe it and follow it and pass it on. And that irritates mes.
In this fraternity we all sit back and mock the ridiculous claims and statement in their FUD and sales - but at the end of the day they are quietly winning the war with one ill educated person swayed towards their cause after another.
I sure have no answers, but I do not feel like mocking this kind of crap anymore.
At work I use FF - but I am forced to use IE for the corporate portal because apparently only IE can possibly work on the portal, so they paid somebody to edit the script to reject all "non-approved" browsers. That is the end result of ill informed high up decisions based on fluff like this.
Are the conservative estimates an example of the Scotty factor. In other words if the team is 90% confident that the mission will last 5 months do they then quote 3 to management - that way if they mission carks it after 4 then they are still covered? I would imagine even the scientists and engineers are very concerned about managerial aspect like project tracking and meeting specification now.
More to the point, how do they estimate such a difficult and unpredictable mission parameter anyhow? I mean somethings like battery life, wear and tear and so on must be quite well understood, but others like the stress of launch, damage, and the great "other" option must be much harder to predict.
What I notice is that the primary mission has finished and I just bet that the men in suits are circling the project with their budget cutting shears - but then we get new data, stunning imagary and confirmation of old predicitons.
This just goes to show that given the cost of assembling and launching this missions it makes absolute sense to supply funding until the mission carks it. What would of happened if the budgets for the two Mars rovers was removed after the (very short) planned life cycle was finished?
So, does anybody know how long term budgets are assigned, reviewed and extended to cover missions that exceed their predicted life span? I'm kinds interested.
I'm not dead! I feel fine! I think I'll go for a walk! I'm getting better!
Honestly, its like the monster that will not die, nothing works - garlic, holy water, silver bullets, stake, decapitation, fire and even the BFG9000 could not finish it.
Just stay down, everybody will be much happier and we are all waiting for the party.
"No matter where you go, there you are..." -- Buckaroo Banzai
