The problem I see with many people is that they see evolution as binary. Everything must be an advantage to be passed on and that mutations are bad. No, mutations are normal with some providing advantages and some are disadvantages. And as you pointed out, some traits have no effect whatsoever. Other traits appear to be a disadvantage or an advantage given the right environment. Fair skin, for example, is advantage in places like Norway where more vitamin D is produced with less light. It is a terrible disadvantage in places of high sunlight like the Sahara, American Southwest, etc.
And some traits are both an advantage and disadvantage like sickle cell anemia. It cuts the lifespan by years and is painful to deal with. However genetically it provides those with the genes an advantage when it comes to malaria which can cause death.
Evolution is results driven, not goal driven that is true. Now figure out how the results of two partial stages has an advantage over surviving that doesn't last for any length of time.
Again, evolution is not goal driven. Your second sentence contradicts your first admission. A trait survives when it provides or benefit or is neutral. You keep forgetting a trait that provides no advantage can be passed. The issue is really if a trait that proves to be a disadvantage affects a species ability to procreate.
No animals have A and B, but somehow we are supposed to believe that animals having A/B existed and had enough advantage to beat out those having A, on their way to having B, but the A/B didn't beat out those who ended up B only.
I can take from your long-winded and illogical sentence that you're never seen a dolphin or whale in your life?
This would indicate that B is evolutionary superior(advantageous) to A, such that many animals starting at A, and developing B, ended up at B, while completely replacing the A/B combinations.
Again, evolution is not goal driven. You keep insisting that B must be "superior" to A will surely mean that all As dies. In many ways dogs are "superior" to wolves but yet wolves still exist. They exist because "superior" is a judgement not science. Wolves have advantages over dogs and disadvantages over dogs. One of the main disadvantages is that dogs can live with humans whereas wolves cannot; however, wolves are much better suited to living in the wild than dogs.
The problem with macro evolution is the inherent issues with the "in between" stages that are mostly useless, being neither good for one thing they are coming from or good for the thing they are changing into.
That seems like eerily familiar with the creationist concept of irreducibility which is considered to be a flawed concept. Two things to remember is that evolution is not goal driven and exaptation has been demonstrated countless times.
Because it enabled you to play Helix DRM files on the iPod. The DRM was still there.
Er what? Circumventing DRM is still circumventing DRM. I think you assume that removing DRM is the only violation of the DMCA; it is not.
But the music industry didnt want Real selling non-DRM mp3s just like they didnt want Apple doing it so Real had to sell DRM ones but make them compatible with iPods
Which makes it then Real Player's issue to either build their own player then not hack Apple's system. To be fair the music industry wanted everyone to have incompatible ones so that everyone has to buy multiple copies.
Which is play music from which Apple didn't get a cut of the purchase price. But from the user's perspective it is to PLAY MUSIC and from the perspective of the music industry that that music is copy-protected. Real accomplished the latter 2 but Apple didnt want to have to compete with Real so they worked to block Real music from working on iPods
This makes no sense at all. From the user's perspective any device has to play music formats and not all formats are compatible. But the standard at the time is not Harmony, not Fairplay but MP3.
By default OS X groups windows by application, so if I have 5 terminals open (quite common) it's a pain to find the one I want. Similarly the lack of multiple desktops is a pain. I'm sure there's a way to change both these things (I've installed stuff for multiple desktops before) but it's not as easy as I've found in Linux.
Er, what? So you don't know how to use Expose and Spaces is Apple's fault.
Plus the application management systems like ports and fink have fewer packages and aren't as well integrated into the system.
And that is a problem with all Linux and Unix. Not every package is integrated.
Then go to the store, but a Toshiba laptop, and install OS X on it.
http://www.tonymacx86.com/laptop-compatibility/106791-laptop-compatibility.html
The reason for this is fairly simple, I can easily make my Linux boxes work and interact the way I want, but with Apple... not so much.
For someone who uses Linux and OS X, I spend a lot of time using command line in OS X. I have no problems using Unix commands. Some of the options vary with OS X but most of the commands are the same. How is it different for you?
I think that's integral to the Apple philosophy of the walled garden. They figure out what they want the product to do, they figure out the workflows, then they build the product so that the given workflow works really well and seamlessly. If you want to do something a little different it's not great, but it works. If you want to do something real different like play oggs or use a different client then there's a very simple solution, don't bother.
Maybe for the iOS products not their computers.
I don't think the aim is necessarily anti-competitive, I think they're just trying to protect their walled garden. If Realplayer has a buggy client that screws up syncing that's Realplayer's problem, if they have a buggy client that screws up the sync to the iPod that's suddenly Apple's problem. If you want to understand why all the Apple fanboys go around bragging that Apple just works it's because Apple doesn't let them do any of the things that don't work.
Because Apple never promised their customers that they would play RealPlayer's Harmony music. They promised they could play MP3s which are the standard, AAC which is the successor to MP3 and at the time FairPlay which was AAC with their DRM. Nowhere did they promise PlaysForSure or Harmony (AAC with RealPlayer's DRM).
It has nothing to do with circumventing DRM. Anyone with an audio cable could already do that.
Yes which makes it all about Real getting Apple devices to do what they were not intended to do.
Just because the fetuses are over 40 years old doesn't make me feel better about the wrong done to them. We are going to probably disagree because for me this boils down to the question of when life begins and what I believe theologically. At the end of the day for me, those fetuses were people that had their life terminated by someone else.
Again, they are not using fetuses. The origin of the cell line was from 40 years. For example if they sample you today and find that your cells make good cell lines, they may be that cell line long after you die. Sometimes they use cell lines from people who have donated their body to science. I would guess there would be advantages to using fetal cells as they are embryonic cells.
Second it is not clear that they are even using them at all. In testing vaccines, a researcher may use a cell line and not know the origin of them. The anti-vaxxers have made the objection that they are using aborted fetuses when they themselves don't know which lines were used in the testing. Some do not use cell lines to test at all.
I've noticed several design suggestions in your code.