The article seems to make it sound as if these companies are bringing a lot to Debian, but as many others have pointed out, all these touted enhancements already exist.
So really, what the article should emphasize is that these companies are acknowledging they need the support of the Debian world behind them, in order to compete against the strong de-facto corporate standards being set out there by RHEL and SLES.
Apparently the LSB alone wasn't strong enough.
Whether these companies have anything worthwhile to contribute back to Debian waits to be seen, however. Hopefully they'll be willing to donate resources in the form of either funding or developer time to the foundation if their new distros are successful.
Well, of course those aren't innovations if you abstract out that much. By that line of reasoning, you could say the computer wasn't an innovation, as we already had the abacus, or TV, or our own fingers to count on, and our own hands to make shadow puppets on the cave wall for images!
Eclipse has an expansive plugin architecture never before seen in an IDE.
Xen runs operating systems "natively" simultaneously; it's not an ordinary emulator like VMWare.
Cell processor == Atari jaugar? WTF?
Grid computing != mainframe, unless you want to contend that a midieval chinese rocket is the same as a nuclear missle.
IBM, Oracle, and open source don't innovate? How about Eclipse?! Xen and hypervisor technology? Grid computing? The Cell processor? Damn, there's so many things.
As far as market innovations that Joe Average would care about, though... no, they don't "innovate" much. And most of the innovations that happen in the software world come incrementally, through the efforts of multiple organizations and countless developers.
About the only good thing to ever have come from Redmond is the.NET framework and the XMLHttpRequest object.
Ironic that Microsoft can't seem to make hardly any cash off two of its best innovations ever.
There never will and never should be a "linux desktop". Linux is a kernel, and last time I checked, kernels don't have desktops, unless it's Windows, and the desktop is active desktop, a feature of IE, embedded in the kernel itself.
What we will probably see in the future, however, is a distro-independent package manager based on autopackage instead of.deb or.rpm. At this point, that's probably the most praticle thing to focus on. It'd also be cool if said package manager could set up some sort of/Applications symlink folder.
That's the pragmatic approach. A kickass 3rd-party package manager. It's a bit too late and probably unneccessary (not to mention futile) to tell every OS developer and distro where they *must* put everything.
Joe User should care less about filesystem hierarchies anyway. Just give him a nice frontend to resolve all this chaos down below.
RedHat buying Sun? How can anyone take what you say seriously when you say something as stupid as this?
Yeah, you're probably right; I was just making a wild guess, and have my head down in code too much to really pay attention to stocks. I was just trying to think of companies with an interest in Java, but as someone mentioned Nokia, that sounds like the best bet yet.
Sun will never open source Java because they're too afraid that the Eclipse foundation will essentially fork it out of Sun's grasp into the hands of the open source community. This is an inevitability, but Sun's desire to hold on to Java, while possibly giving the company some credit with a few groups, ruins their image with most, and smothers Java into irrelevancy as the open source scripting languages (PHP, Python, Ruby) mature into enterprise use.
Eventually, Java will become open source once Sun is bought, probably either by IBM or RedHat. Then and only then, Java may get up to speed with the rapid pace of 21st century software development.
All the same, Java will just be a dialect of the open infrastructures of the future, where choice of programming language for web development will undoubtedly make little difference.
Apple's move to Intel is not going to threaten Linux; it will actually help Linux. The free operating systems thrive on standards, and where there is more diversity in computing, standards become more neccessary.
I want Apple to slug it out Microsoft; that's the way it should be. Linux? Let Linux just keep sliding into the cracks as ever; the slow steady rise.
"Linux" itself could never compete against Microsoft anyhow; it would have to be a Linux-weilding company. And while the Linux desktop will definitely make inroads soon overseas and within corporations, I don't see any of the distros having a "cool" and/or "friendly" consumer image on par with Apple or even -- ack -- Microsoft, any time soon.
But give it about 10 years, and in all those places Linux has trickled in, the cracks will have expanded quite wide. We've just got to keep working, and be patient.
After all, who uses Kleenex brand tissues anymore? Who uses Q-tip brand cotton swabs? Linux is the generica of operating systems. It's inevitable, but not quite here yet.
Maybe some Mozilla proponents would like to pretend that it's a pure w3c implementation, but it still has plenty of propriety extensions itself.
However, one strong advantage Mozilla's proprietary stuff has over IE is that it gives you the ability to prototype first-class DOM objects, so you can build an IE-emulation layer for completely cross-platform scripting without a lot of browser-version-checking tangled into your code.
Here's an example of a simple (and incomplete) IE-emulation layer:
If you copied yourself atom-for-atom, would you be able to control and think for the copy, as well as yourself? Would you be able to see through two sets of eyes and think with two brains?
If not, then consciousness isn't a product of physics, because You can only be You, and a copy is now Someone Else.
I'm not arguing neccessarily for the soul, just the Self.
But isn't that all the soul really is? That I am Myself?
I guess the problem is that none of us knows an objective reality except through the "treaty of reality" we as a species have (mostly) agreed to, known as science....
If you made an atom-for-atom copy of yourself, would you be able to think for and control both bodies simultaneously?
If not, then the other body is not me, it just has my memories and body.
Googling around, there are some pretty good guesses by now as to what are the revolutionary aspects of Nintendo's console. Most people agree it has to do with two things: the innovative online model, and the controller.
Not everything's known yet about either, but here are some of the announced/predicted features:
Online Model: Free P2P Networking Game downloads Nintendo Power Online
Controller: Pressure-sensitive Gyroscopic control Simplified design
You may wonder what's so "revolutionary" about the online model, other than being free, and its P2P capabilities. Well, it's been announced that the Revolution can be played on both televisions and computer monitors, and there's also been an announcement that some "online" games will only allow you to play people you know in real life. Put two and two together, and it's likely that the Revolution can serve as a wireless hub to power your own personal home arcade: multi-player games can happen on multiple televisions around the house as the action is broadcasted wirelessly to each screen, and DS's can get involved somehow too. Indeed, Nintendo is setting up 1000 such wifi hot-spot "arcades" around Japan. Also, Nintendo has been a heavy invester in arcade technology the past several years. Also, N's been a big pusher for connectivity. This is the culmination of these investments.
Nintendo has been trying desperately hard to bring back the social aspect to gaming, to bring back the arcades of old. Now with this design, every person just owns a piece of the arcade.
I'm really a KDE fan, for the most part. Gnome does have its strengths, though -- like, the gnome panel is more flexible and robust, and gapplets seem a better concept than the system tray.
But KDE is far more integrated and feature-rich, by light-years.
However, Gnome's strength is in the apps that run on GTK: Firefox, Thunderbird, Gaim, Evolution, Beagle, OpenOffice, Eclipse, and well -- Gnome's games kick the shit out of KDE's shoddy selection.
Why do developers choose to write these great apps with GTK instead of QT? I'm not familiar with GUI development on Linux, so could someone who maybe is familar with both toolkits enlighten me?
Also, is there performance loss when running GTK apps under KDE? Is there extra load to have widgets from both toolkits running?
Thanks!
To add to that, I feel sorry for people who think science ~can~ reveal everything about us...
because then all we are as people is just a bunch of soft machinery.
I take offense that I'm just a robot, thank you very much!:)
Questions like "what is right or wrong", or "why am I here" are not things science concerns itself with. Human culture has many other facets that are important, and thank goodness science isn't meant to reveal everything about us as creatures...
or frankly, our race would be very dull and probably despised and rejected by more advanced races!
I say all this because I just can't comprehend why some of these ridiculous obnoxious fundamentalists (who are the only ones that ever get any press in scientific journals) want to attack science so much.
Science isn't everything, and neither should it be. So they shouldn't act like schools are trying to make it so.
I mean, I enjoy science, but I can't say it's helped make me a nicer person.
I said this in the context of a self-creating universe, in which the universe is its own creator, which is the scientific view -- and frankly, the only view science can really take.
Well, I'll correct myself: I suppose maybe it hasn't been completely proven, but with the observation of the cosmic background radiation of the big bang, it seems to have been created at some point.
By "created" don't just assume I'm talking about divine creation, just cause and effect.
I don't think, though, that many scientists talk about a non-created, ever-existing universe anymore. I just assumed that since this has left the discussion, it must have been proven somewhere.
I know evolution isn't suppose to even explain origins, just how life gets along ~after~ originating, and we can definitely observe it on many levels in our world.
But still, I've always wondered this: evolution by natural selection produces new species by infintesimal increments of adaptation. Why is it that when we observe the fossil record, we don't see such a gradual shift? We have hundreds of thousands of fossils now, from many strata, and we just keep uncovering a lot of similar species over and over again.
I'm not trolling against evolution here: I think it's a valid theory that has been observed. I just think that some form of evolution other than by natural selection must be taking place in order to explain what's been observed from the fossil record.
Darwin thought we'd have a multitude of transitional species by now. But we don't. Where's this gradual continuum of evolution in the fossil record???
I think this is a very valid question, and I would appreciate any mod points to be able to get it some attention. I would very much like a good informative answer to this.
Well, whether one believes in a god or not, the blame rests not with god anyway, but with wealthy people who refuse to share, or else just distance themselves so conveniently from the problem.
You raise a very good point that there is no difference between claiming that the Universe is self-creating or that a Creator is self-creating -- or that creation is not necessary for one or the other. However, we already know that creation is a necessary step for the Universe, since it has been proven to have had an origin.
I believe, though, that you're taking the argument that both a self-creating Universe or Creator are equally logical, and so the extra step of adding a Creator seems excessive, like having an unfactored equation.
For a little bit of fun philosophical metaphysics, consider this: the god of the Jewish and Christian faiths calls himself the "I Am"*, which also translates as the "To Be". It seems to me that their god claims that he ~is~ the very property of Existence itself.
The difference between having a Universe or Creator as the origin of existence is basic: a Creator has a self-will, while a Universe doesn't.
So while thinking about origins bends logic in any case, it seems a degree more logical for a Creator to be self-creating, since it would have a self-will, both possessing and being the source of all existential phenonema.
The base of all existence to the philospher, if not to the scientist, is simply, "I am". Perhaps this is in fact God.
And for that matter, even the scientist has to base all observations on the law of "I am" before any observations can be made. Call it a prayer to an implicit God. But in this sense, we all must be believers.
* "I am" is translated in English Bibles as "the LORD". A real shame.
As much I dislike this Dvorak guy, and usually disregard his sensational opinions, I really think he may be on to something this time...
Apocalypse apoc = new Apocalypse(); apoc.cue();
Now, while I doubt the industry will suddenly implode as he asserts, I do think that it'll start to slowly asphixiate over the next decade or two before totally splitting into two separate industries with totally different philosophies and forms of presentation.
It should be mentioned that already in Japan, people are becoming increasingly bored with the state of gaming as it is, and it's for this reason Nintendo is hedging all of its bets -- the entire house of Mario trading cards -- on changing the way people interact with games, instead of just improving the graphics. Granted, Japan is the nation of pinball RPGs and other weird-ass games, so maybe their opinions don't apply to the rest of the world, haha.
Nintendo has always been a Japan-centric company, but with this trend of video-game disenchantment also starting to appear in Europe, I guess they're hoping America will eventually follow suit too. This is less likely, though, given how Americans like their media to do one thing: guarantee them an evening of vegetation until work tomorrow.
But as I mentioned, I personally think the games industry will divide: one side moving back towards the classic definition of "video game" that emphasizes a more abstract form of entertainment and focuses on gameplay; the other side will move increasingly towards movies and blend with them to create a new interactive cinematic experience.
I think when it's through, movie-games will no longer be "games" anymore, though, but something new, and a separate industry for the most part from what we consider video games today. The new industry's success will be dependent on Hollywood, so until Dvorak prognosticates the movie industry's future, who can say for sure what will happen?
Oh they will. Or have you all forgot how insidiously devious their marketing department is? Remember Zelda last year?
Nintendo knows it's either this year's E3 or they start preparing to go 3rd party within a few years. And they haven't forgotten the humiliating showing two years ago, when they featured Pac-man of all things.
I think they're milking this media underdog thing for all it's worth.
... for the diversity of life.
I had a post somewhere else in this mess of posts about how scientists use words like "Big Bang" or "Cambrian Explosion" to describe sudden phenomenon that they can't understand. This sounds too much like miraculous talk -- not the work of a God, but whenever science doesn't have an explanation, they tend to just gloss over the problem in much the same way Creationists do.
First off, a word to Creationists: if the creation story is literal, then you must also believe that the devil is a literal snake.
Now, on to Evolutionists. This theory explains very little. It applies a very loose pattern to an inconsistent pool of data. Whenever the fossil record doesn't support Evolution, that information is generally supressed in some way.
When Creationists can't explain the earth's complexity, they throw God in. When Evolutionists can't, they throw Time at the problem.
You know what I've observed when animals must make significant adaptations in order to survive? They DIE! I'm not talking changing spots or growing a little larger or smaller.
The amount of good luck required to make Evolution work is laughable. It's as wishful thinking as every species fully-formed popping up out of the ground.
Slashdot Mirror
The article seems to make it sound as if these companies are bringing a lot to Debian, but as many others have pointed out, all these touted enhancements already exist. So really, what the article should emphasize is that these companies are acknowledging they need the support of the Debian world behind them, in order to compete against the strong de-facto corporate standards being set out there by RHEL and SLES. Apparently the LSB alone wasn't strong enough. Whether these companies have anything worthwhile to contribute back to Debian waits to be seen, however. Hopefully they'll be willing to donate resources in the form of either funding or developer time to the foundation if their new distros are successful.
Well, of course those aren't innovations if you abstract out that much. By that line of reasoning, you could say the computer wasn't an innovation, as we already had the abacus, or TV, or our own fingers to count on, and our own hands to make shadow puppets on the cave wall for images! Eclipse has an expansive plugin architecture never before seen in an IDE. Xen runs operating systems "natively" simultaneously; it's not an ordinary emulator like VMWare. Cell processor == Atari jaugar? WTF? Grid computing != mainframe, unless you want to contend that a midieval chinese rocket is the same as a nuclear missle.
IBM, Oracle, and open source don't innovate? How about Eclipse?! Xen and hypervisor technology? Grid computing? The Cell processor? Damn, there's so many things. As far as market innovations that Joe Average would care about, though ... no, they don't "innovate" much. And most of the innovations that happen in the software world come incrementally, through the efforts of multiple organizations and countless developers.
About the only good thing to ever have come from Redmond is the .NET framework and the XMLHttpRequest object.
Ironic that Microsoft can't seem to make hardly any cash off two of its best innovations ever.
It's strange that as Ubuntu seems to be moving away from Debian, other distros are moving toward them.
There never will and never should be a "linux desktop". Linux is a kernel, and last time I checked, kernels don't have desktops, unless it's Windows, and the desktop is active desktop, a feature of IE, embedded in the kernel itself. What we will probably see in the future, however, is a distro-independent package manager based on autopackage instead of .deb or .rpm. At this point, that's probably the most praticle thing to focus on. It'd also be cool if said package manager could set up some sort of /Applications symlink folder.
That's the pragmatic approach. A kickass 3rd-party package manager. It's a bit too late and probably unneccessary (not to mention futile) to tell every OS developer and distro where they *must* put everything.
Joe User should care less about filesystem hierarchies anyway. Just give him a nice frontend to resolve all this chaos down below.
Great! Now all the C# developers can take their skills over to Linux development.
Yeah, you're probably right; I was just making a wild guess, and have my head down in code too much to really pay attention to stocks. I was just trying to think of companies with an interest in Java, but as someone mentioned Nokia, that sounds like the best bet yet.
Sun will never open source Java because they're too afraid that the Eclipse foundation will essentially fork it out of Sun's grasp into the hands of the open source community. This is an inevitability, but Sun's desire to hold on to Java, while possibly giving the company some credit with a few groups, ruins their image with most, and smothers Java into irrelevancy as the open source scripting languages (PHP, Python, Ruby) mature into enterprise use.
Eventually, Java will become open source once Sun is bought, probably either by IBM or RedHat. Then and only then, Java may get up to speed with the rapid pace of 21st century software development.
All the same, Java will just be a dialect of the open infrastructures of the future, where choice of programming language for web development will undoubtedly make little difference.
Apple's move to Intel is not going to threaten Linux; it will actually help Linux. The free operating systems thrive on standards, and where there is more diversity in computing, standards become more neccessary.
I want Apple to slug it out Microsoft; that's the way it should be. Linux? Let Linux just keep sliding into the cracks as ever; the slow steady rise.
"Linux" itself could never compete against Microsoft anyhow; it would have to be a Linux-weilding company. And while the Linux desktop will definitely make inroads soon overseas and within corporations, I don't see any of the distros having a "cool" and/or "friendly" consumer image on par with Apple or even -- ack -- Microsoft, any time soon.
But give it about 10 years, and in all those places Linux has trickled in, the cracks will have expanded quite wide. We've just got to keep working, and be patient.
After all, who uses Kleenex brand tissues anymore? Who uses Q-tip brand cotton swabs? Linux is the generica of operating systems. It's inevitable, but not quite here yet.
Maybe some Mozilla proponents would like to pretend that it's a pure w3c implementation, but it still has plenty of propriety extensions itself.
However, one strong advantage Mozilla's proprietary stuff has over IE is that it gives you the ability to prototype first-class DOM objects, so you can build an IE-emulation layer for completely cross-platform scripting without a lot of browser-version-checking tangled into your code.
Here's an example of a simple (and incomplete) IE-emulation layer:
http://webfx.eae.net/dhtml/ieemu/
The soul has no physical location in time or space.
Therefore it's useless to study scientifically, though science relies on its existance.
It's the ultimate encapsulated object.
If you copied yourself atom-for-atom, would you be able to control and think for the copy, as well as yourself? Would you be able to see through two sets of eyes and think with two brains?
....
If not, then consciousness isn't a product of physics, because You can only be You, and a copy is now Someone Else.
I'm not arguing neccessarily for the soul, just the Self.
But isn't that all the soul really is? That I am Myself?
I guess the problem is that none of us knows an objective reality except through the "treaty of reality" we as a species have (mostly) agreed to, known as science
If you made an atom-for-atom copy of yourself, would you be able to think for and control both bodies simultaneously? If not, then the other body is not me, it just has my memories and body.
Googling around, there are some pretty good guesses by now as to what are the revolutionary aspects of Nintendo's console. Most people agree it has to do with two things: the innovative online model, and the controller.
Not everything's known yet about either, but here are some of the announced/predicted features:
Online Model:
Free
P2P Networking
Game downloads
Nintendo Power Online
Controller:
Pressure-sensitive
Gyroscopic control
Simplified design
You may wonder what's so "revolutionary" about the online model, other than being free, and its P2P capabilities. Well, it's been announced that the Revolution can be played on both televisions and computer monitors, and there's also been an announcement that some "online" games will only allow you to play people you know in real life. Put two and two together, and it's likely that the Revolution can serve as a wireless hub to power your own personal home arcade: multi-player games can happen on multiple televisions around the house as the action is broadcasted wirelessly to each screen, and DS's can get involved somehow too. Indeed, Nintendo is setting up 1000 such wifi hot-spot "arcades" around Japan. Also, Nintendo has been a heavy invester in arcade technology the past several years. Also, N's been a big pusher for connectivity. This is the culmination of these investments.
Nintendo has been trying desperately hard to bring back the social aspect to gaming, to bring back the arcades of old. Now with this design, every person just owns a piece of the arcade.
I'm really a KDE fan, for the most part. Gnome does have its strengths, though -- like, the gnome panel is more flexible and robust, and gapplets seem a better concept than the system tray. But KDE is far more integrated and feature-rich, by light-years. However, Gnome's strength is in the apps that run on GTK: Firefox, Thunderbird, Gaim, Evolution, Beagle, OpenOffice, Eclipse, and well -- Gnome's games kick the shit out of KDE's shoddy selection. Why do developers choose to write these great apps with GTK instead of QT? I'm not familiar with GUI development on Linux, so could someone who maybe is familar with both toolkits enlighten me? Also, is there performance loss when running GTK apps under KDE? Is there extra load to have widgets from both toolkits running? Thanks!
To add to that, I feel sorry for people who think science ~can~ reveal everything about us ...
because then all we are as people is just a bunch of soft machinery.
I take offense that I'm just a robot, thank you very much! :)
Science can only answer scientific questions.
...
Questions like "what is right or wrong", or "why am I here" are not things science concerns itself with. Human culture has many other facets that are important, and thank goodness science isn't meant to reveal everything about us as creatures
or frankly, our race would be very dull and probably despised and rejected by more advanced races!
I say all this because I just can't comprehend why some of these ridiculous obnoxious fundamentalists (who are the only ones that ever get any press in scientific journals) want to attack science so much.
Science isn't everything, and neither should it be. So they shouldn't act like schools are trying to make it so.
I mean, I enjoy science, but I can't say it's helped make me a nicer person.
I said this in the context of a self-creating universe, in which the universe is its own creator, which is the scientific view -- and frankly, the only view science can really take.
Well, I'll correct myself: I suppose maybe it hasn't been completely proven, but with the observation of the cosmic background radiation of the big bang, it seems to have been created at some point. By "created" don't just assume I'm talking about divine creation, just cause and effect. I don't think, though, that many scientists talk about a non-created, ever-existing universe anymore. I just assumed that since this has left the discussion, it must have been proven somewhere.
I know evolution isn't suppose to even explain origins, just how life gets along ~after~ originating, and we can definitely observe it on many levels in our world.
But still, I've always wondered this: evolution by natural selection produces new species by infintesimal increments of adaptation. Why is it that when we observe the fossil record, we don't see such a gradual shift? We have hundreds of thousands of fossils now, from many strata, and we just keep uncovering a lot of similar species over and over again.
I'm not trolling against evolution here: I think it's a valid theory that has been observed. I just think that some form of evolution other than by natural selection must be taking place in order to explain what's been observed from the fossil record.
Darwin thought we'd have a multitude of transitional species by now. But we don't. Where's this gradual continuum of evolution in the fossil record???
I think this is a very valid question, and I would appreciate any mod points to be able to get it some attention. I would very much like a good informative answer to this.
Well, whether one believes in a god or not, the blame rests not with god anyway, but with wealthy people who refuse to share, or else just distance themselves so conveniently from the problem.
You raise a very good point that there is no difference between claiming that the Universe is self-creating or that a Creator is self-creating -- or that creation is not necessary for one or the other. However, we already know that creation is a necessary step for the Universe, since it has been proven to have had an origin.
I believe, though, that you're taking the argument that both a self-creating Universe or Creator are equally logical, and so the extra step of adding a Creator seems excessive, like having an unfactored equation.
For a little bit of fun philosophical metaphysics, consider this: the god of the Jewish and Christian faiths calls himself the "I Am"*, which also translates as the "To Be". It seems to me that their god claims that he ~is~ the very property of Existence itself.
The difference between having a Universe or Creator as the origin of existence is basic: a Creator has a self-will, while a Universe doesn't.
So while thinking about origins bends logic in any case, it seems a degree more logical for a Creator to be self-creating, since it would have a self-will, both possessing and being the source of all existential phenonema.
The base of all existence to the philospher, if not to the scientist, is simply, "I am". Perhaps this is in fact God.
And for that matter, even the scientist has to base all observations on the law of "I am" before any observations can be made. Call it a prayer to an implicit God. But in this sense, we all must be believers.
* "I am" is translated in English Bibles as "the LORD". A real shame.
As much I dislike this Dvorak guy, and usually disregard his sensational opinions, I really think he may be on to something this time ...
Apocalypse apoc = new Apocalypse();
apoc.cue();
Now, while I doubt the industry will suddenly implode as he asserts, I do think that it'll start to slowly asphixiate over the next decade or two before totally splitting into two separate industries with totally different philosophies and forms of presentation.
It should be mentioned that already in Japan, people are becoming increasingly bored with the state of gaming as it is, and it's for this reason Nintendo is hedging all of its bets -- the entire house of Mario trading cards -- on changing the way people interact with games, instead of just improving the graphics. Granted, Japan is the nation of pinball RPGs and other weird-ass games, so maybe their opinions don't apply to the rest of the world, haha.
Nintendo has always been a Japan-centric company, but with this trend of video-game disenchantment also starting to appear in Europe, I guess they're hoping America will eventually follow suit too. This is less likely, though, given how Americans like their media to do one thing: guarantee them an evening of vegetation until work tomorrow.
But as I mentioned, I personally think the games industry will divide: one side moving back towards the classic definition of "video game" that emphasizes a more abstract form of entertainment and focuses on gameplay; the other side will move increasingly towards movies and blend with them to create a new interactive cinematic experience.
I think when it's through, movie-games will no longer be "games" anymore, though, but something new, and a separate industry for the most part from what we consider video games today. The new industry's success will be dependent on Hollywood, so until Dvorak prognosticates the movie industry's future, who can say for sure what will happen?
Oh they will. Or have you all forgot how insidiously devious their marketing department is? Remember Zelda last year?
Nintendo knows it's either this year's E3 or they start preparing to go 3rd party within a few years. And they haven't forgotten the humiliating showing two years ago, when they featured Pac-man of all things.
I think they're milking this media underdog thing for all it's worth.
... for the diversity of life. I had a post somewhere else in this mess of posts about how scientists use words like "Big Bang" or "Cambrian Explosion" to describe sudden phenomenon that they can't understand. This sounds too much like miraculous talk -- not the work of a God, but whenever science doesn't have an explanation, they tend to just gloss over the problem in much the same way Creationists do. First off, a word to Creationists: if the creation story is literal, then you must also believe that the devil is a literal snake. Now, on to Evolutionists. This theory explains very little. It applies a very loose pattern to an inconsistent pool of data. Whenever the fossil record doesn't support Evolution, that information is generally supressed in some way. When Creationists can't explain the earth's complexity, they throw God in. When Evolutionists can't, they throw Time at the problem. You know what I've observed when animals must make significant adaptations in order to survive? They DIE! I'm not talking changing spots or growing a little larger or smaller. The amount of good luck required to make Evolution work is laughable. It's as wishful thinking as every species fully-formed popping up out of the ground.