I thought what I said was pretty descriptive, but I'll elaborate. German and English share the same root, they're both part of the West Germanic languages. But it is a hugely incorrect to imply that German in the form (or even close to the form) it is spoken today is somehow the root of the English language, as you do in your post. German and English split over a millennium ago, and both languages have changed dramatically since then.
The example I gave was Spanish and Italian. Both are descended from Latin. Both have similar sentence structures, vocabulary, etc. But Spanish didn't descend from Italian. In the same way, English didn't descend from German, they are branches of the same linguistic family.
That might be possible for large blockbusters that are guaranteed to be released worldwide, but for a movie like No Country for Old Men, there was no way of knowing that it would be a huge financial success. If they did that, it would guarantee that worldwide audiences would never get lower budget movies in the cinema.
The quality was kept reasonably high through careful controls on the number of games that could be produced by each licensee.
Uh...obviously you don't remember the NES days that well. Even during the Playstation's worst days they couldn't match the NES for the complete mass of shitty games foisted on the public. By my memory, and through browsing other people's collections, approximately 95% of all NES games made were movie/TV tie-ins and EXTREME!!! games. Obviously there were plenty of classics too, but don't be fooled by your remembrance of all the great titles.
I understand why record companies are doing crap like this, scare tactics are basically all they have left. But movie studios already have a system that can survive the digital era. They are rolling in cash right from DVD sales, and theaters aren't going away any time soon. But the same people they are going after with lies, threats, and misinformation campaigns are the people that are going to be the biggest consumers in five or ten years. How can they not see that?
Get a comprehensive digital distribution system in place so that the "Napster of movies" never happens, and try to gain customers, not scare them away. It really is that simple.
As the author tried to explain, programmers need a solid foundation in data structures and algorithms before they should even begin looking at Java. The specific problem he calls out (which I actually feel only scratches the surface) is that Java offers such a featureful API that the programmer isn't forced to learn the basics. He is able to simply use a Hashtable, a Sort, a LinkedList, or whatever he needs without understanding why it works. Which is a very dangerous thing for someone training to be a Computer Scientist.
And like I said last time this story came up, the language has absolutely nothing to do with that. At our university, beginning CS classes were taught using Java. We learned how to implement data structures (although not Hashtables that was in a later C-based class) and algorithms in Java. We were explicitly forbidden to use outside libraries.
The reason why Java is excellent for intro classes is because you can teach somebody basic CS concepts and programming while (mostly) not having to worry about memory management, crazy compiler issues, etc. You can save that until later. If you never teach that, it's the problem of the university program, not the language.
It's January and there isn't any snow on the ground; in fact it's raining water. It's been like this year after year lately. A decade ago it would be midwinter by now, with the temperature of -20 degree Celcius and snow covering everything in a beautiful white sheet. Instead we have endless rain and mud, year after year after year. And the monkey you call president has the gall to argue the change isn't real.
And where I live the last couple years have been some of the coldest in memory and we are at 150% of normal snowpack. That doesn't mean global climate change isn't happening, and it doesn't mean climate change is happening just because your local weather is warmer.
Don't use anecdotes, even if it follows the same pattern as the real data.
You act as if your definition of fairness is objective. It most definitely is not. Let me give you this:
The reason a hot tar roofer makes shit wages is because he doesn't do anything special. He gets paid what his work is worth. Bill Gates took the time and effort to get educated, took the risk to start a company, and put in the time to build it into what it is today. The roofer did none of that. How is it fair that he has to pay a higher portion of his income to taxes just because he was more successful?
You see what I did there? That makes just as much sense as your argument. It's unfair that Bill Gates and Warren Buffet had a significant advantage of a wealthy, educated upbringing over a poor wage laborer. But it's also unfair to take more from someone simply because they did well with their life.
Fairness has absolutely nothing to do with it. We should do what is best for society, with deference to personal liberty. I happen to believe that this means taxing the rich more than the poor. But all this talk about fairness is ridiculous.
That was the PS2. They shipped a hard drive and Linux, but it was hard to get in Europe and pretty much impossible elsewhere. But PS3 linux is pretty cool, and for me at least is the main reason why I like the PS3 over the 360.
I look forward to the day when musicians will again be forced to perform live fairly frequently to make a living. I've had enough of this overproduced shit with pitch shifted vocals and talentless anti-creative jingle-like songwriting spawned by the music industry.
I agree to some extent, but don't act like it would be all sunny and rosy if copyright was abolished. Many excellent groups or artists may not have the ability to travel all year, such as older artists or people with physical disabilities. Others make music that relies on studio techniques that can't be replicated well in live settings.
And most of the people that make those recordings we hate so much also tour. Britney Spears, Hannah Montana, etc. all make obscene amounts of money from touring, so it's not like that shit will go away.
These are the top ten grossing tours of 2007:
1. The Police ($212 million)
2. Genesis ($129 million)
3. Justin Timberlake ($126.8 million)
4. Kenny Chesney ($71.2 million)
5. Rod Stewart ($70 million)
6. Cirque Du Soleil's Delirium ($59.4 million)
7. Roger Waters ($53.2 million)
8. Tim McGraw/Faith Hill ($52.3 million)
9. Christina Aguilera ($48.1 million)
10. Rascal Flatts ($41.6 million)
Two washed up groups that were never that good on reunion tours, two washed up musicians that used to be excellent, a skanky female pop star, a mediocre male pop star, three shitty country acts and the goddamn circus. It's not exactly a killer's row of quality music.
However I'm pretty sure the US is the most violent in the modern Western developed world.
It depends on how modern, Western, and developed you consider Brazil or South Africa. The US is an order of magnitude behind them on violent crime rates.
Just curious where you lived in Mexico and where you moved to in the US. There are some pretty large differences from state to state in the US, and I assume that it would be pretty dramatic in Mexico as well. I know a lot of people from Coahuila and Chihuahua, and to put it nicely they don't exactly instill in me a great respect for the Mexican public education system.
Americans don't want federal IDs. The states don't want federal IDs. The federal government failed to convince the states and the people that federal IDs were a good thing. Instead of giving up and letting the people get what they want, the federal government has decided to take small steps towards turning state drivers licenses into the failed Real ID, hoping that by taking incremental steps they can do it unnoticed. That's why everybody is upset.
If the Vietnam War had been protested by this generation, it seems that the country would have emptied out and the war would have continued.
That is ridiculous. Guess what? Between 50,000 and 125,000 people left the US for Canada alone because of opposition to the Vietnam War (source). Full-scale protests and majority opposition to the Vietnam War started in 1967, and the US withdrew in 1973. So looks like those protests did a hell of a lot of good.
I apologize in advance for the flame, but I am so sick of this nostalgic backwards-looking bullshit from the baby boomer generation. Just because your generation talked about free love and had some protests while they were in college doesn't mean a goddamn thing. Most of the people gave up trying to change things, took a job with a multinational, became a born-again Christian, voted for Reagan 15 years later, and fucking ruined everything. And now they're buying mutual funds. The only legitimately successful social change that came out of the 60's was the Civil Rights Movement. Everything else is self-congratulatory bullshit.
Credit cards and Governmental Debt are not investments for the future.
Um, actually they are. You just have to use them correctly. Starting a business on a credit line is good, putting a $3000 TV that you can't afford on it is probably bad. Using government debt to fund research, infrastructure, education, etc. is a good investment. Using it to fund an unnecessary war is bad.
That's not what I said at all. Of course value is subjective to an individual. But that doesn't mean you still can't measure that value and predict how and why it is going to change.
The Austrian school belief is if valuation is done by individuals, and you can't have information for each individual, then you can't extend mathematical models over the whole population. That makes some sense intuitively, but it's incorrect. Anyone who has studied populations knows that you can in fact model behavior of populations without knowing 100% of the input. That's the entire point of modeling.
Like I said, it is a nice theory and it has some fine points that have been influential in mainstream thought. But they reject popular theories even though those theories have been empirically proved to be correct (at least as much as you can in social science). Until I see some hard proof that a country running on these principles can be competitive with a country running the current system, I will remain deeply, deeply skeptical.
However, when you have a government that wants to start wars and doesn't have the money to pay for it, they need to borrow and print money to pay for it, which causes inflation and will eventually destroy the currency. What makes you think that the hyperinflation that many countries experience could not happen here?? Do you think it's because of superior intelligence or undertanding of economics??
Well not to sound like an asshole, but yes I do think it's because of our superior understanding of economics. Hyperinflation just doesn't happen in the countries that have our financial system. If it does it is because of events that aren't related to fiscal policy, such as war and social upheaval. Even if you disagree with what the Fed is doing, you can't possibly challenge the fact that the people there are absolutely some of the finest financial minds the world has to offer.
When you look at the economic state of the world today, there are a few countries that are the most prosperous societies that the world has ever seen. All of them have the same fundamental financial system. You're trying to tell me that system is flawed. You're trying to tell me that the system you would prescribe, which as part of its basic tenets rejects scientific principles of empiricism and mathematical modelling, is a superior system. I hope you'll excuse me if I'm more than a little bit skeptical of said system.
What if your parents caught you doing something illegal? Should they not punish you? Should they instead go straight to the police and turn you in? What kind of Gestapo bullcrap is that? Do you really want to live in a police state where you can't even confide in your own parents?
The school administrators are not the parents. We'll sidestep the issue of administrators searching facebook to find this, which is not their job, and quite frankly is completely fucking ridiculous. But if they encountered "dangerous behavior" or illegal actions they should *at most* call the parents, let the parents know, and offer the kids some advice about substance abuse. Other than that, they should leave them the fuck alone. It's not even your parents' job to live your life for you, let alone the goddamn high school principal. I hate to break the news to you, but damn near every high school kid has tried drugs or alcohol at least once.
If it's happening off campus and has no direct, immediate relation to what is happening on campus, it's none of their fucking business! If they're a school administrator, they should, you know, administer the school. Not raise the children.
. Andrew Jackson has written "I killed the Bank" written on his tombstomb. His reasons for wanting to kill the Second Bank of the United States: "It concentrated an excessive amount of the nation's financial strength in a single institution. It exposed the government to control by foreign interests. It served mainly to make the rich richer. It exercised too much control over members of Congress. It favored northeastern states over southern and western states. " from wikipedia. You think anything has changed??? The current Federal Reserve was by the top families(Morgans, Rothchilds , rochefellars) in Jekyll Island (look it up). Do you think they were looking out for the good of the public?
Actually that's a pretty good point, although not the way you seem to think it is. Andrew Jackson was a fine rhetorician, but a shitty economist. In 1836 the Second Bank was abolished and 99% of the US debt was paid off. Do you know what that (along with another stupid Jackson economic decision, the specie circular) triggered? The first large-scale recession in American history.
And calling the Austrian school of economics respected doesn't quite get the idea of it across. To me, the Austrian school is like communism. I don't mean this in a knee-jerk right-wing way, because Austrian-style economics is most definitely not anyway related to Marxism. What I mean is it is a theory that makes sense, it has a large following among academics, has had a great deal of influence on mainstream thought, but as as whole is completely unfeasible for the modern world. I mean how can you take something seriously if one of their basic tenets is that economics is subjective? I for one have no desire to have a president who ignores basic principles like mathematics and statistics in his economic policy. And if current theories on banking and inflation are so wrong, then why the hell do all the most prosperous countries in the world make them work so well? That's a question I would very much like answered.
The biggest knock against Hillary (and Bill) is that they'll say ANYTHING to get elected. It's all about manipulation.
That's true of any politician that has a legitimate chance of winning a national election, because that's what it takes to win a national election. Ron Paul can mop up in his home district, but he doesn't stand a chance against a guy like Mitt Romney who will quite literally change his stance on fundamental moral/philosophical beliefs to gain a few percentage points. I realize candidates are real people and not machines, but every single thing they say or do in public on the campaign trail has been analyzed and approved by multiple highly paid advisers. Not a goddamn thing they do or say is "genuine". As soon as everyone realizes that instead of being swayed by Hillary tearing up a little or Obama giving a good speech, we can fix the problem.
I don't care how a candidate appears on TV. I don't care how well they can speak. I don't care if they're attractive or pronounce the word nuclear wrong. What I want to know is this: the candidate's history(as evidenced by their voting record or what legislation they supported if they were a governor), their stated platform, and how effectively can they implement those positions (much more subjective, but still measurable). That's the only thing that should matter.
Do I get moved when Obama speaks? Of course I do, I'm human and I deeply care about this country. But that's manipulation. Just because he's a good speaker and talks about change, reform, and hope doesn't necessarily mean that is what will happen. The bottom line is this: you can't judge a politician's beliefs or ability on what they say, particularly in a campaign of this magnitude. There's a hundred million dollars behind that supposedly human moment and effective speech, and I guarantee you they aren't spending that much money to have a candidate speak honestly about their opinions. They're spending it to hire people to tell them what to say and get them elected.
Yeah, that was the exact moment I forever swore off Rolling Stone. Their music coverage has been shitty for as long as I've been alive, but at least their political pieces were mostly interesting. I can't believe they printed that piece of shit article. If you're wading into waters you know little about (ie science and medicine) shouldn't you at least consult people to make sure the basic premise of the story were correct? Heads should've rolled on that one.
Yes, in the "real world" you don't want everybody reimplimenting their own linked list or hashtable. However a beginner must learn the concepts behind those data structures in order to advance, and Java just makes it too easy to use the standard set of classes.
If you're teaching a data structures class and you allow students to use those libraries, the problem is not with the language. That's like complaining that calculators make math too easy. It's completely trivial for professors to ban specific libraries in a program, forcing the students to do it on their own. This issue is completely independent of the language used.
I'm not trying to be rude here, but if you're honestly suggesting that it's easier to get non-mainstream music from a shop or "legitimate" on-line source, you're either have no idea what you're talking about or live literally next-door to an amazing record shop. The reason all the music you listed above is commercial pop is because, well, you sorted for popularity! You wouldn't judge the quality of a good record shop by the top ten rack they have at the front of the shop. The Piratebay has a far greater selection than any record store (on-line or off) that I've ever seen, and it's just a public tracker. The speeds are comparable to commercial sites for all reasonably popular albums (anything released in the last 6-12 months or old and popular).
If you're on at a good private tracker you have access to quite literally hundreds of thousands of albums, nearly all of which are higher quality than other online sources, and with download speeds that are actually better than commercial sites. You can find things like a 45 that only had 5000 copies made and has been out of print for 20 years. If they don't have it, you can request it and most likely you'll have it within the week.
Slashdot Mirror
I thought what I said was pretty descriptive, but I'll elaborate. German and English share the same root, they're both part of the West Germanic languages. But it is a hugely incorrect to imply that German in the form (or even close to the form) it is spoken today is somehow the root of the English language, as you do in your post. German and English split over a millennium ago, and both languages have changed dramatically since then.
The example I gave was Spanish and Italian. Both are descended from Latin. Both have similar sentence structures, vocabulary, etc. But Spanish didn't descend from Italian. In the same way, English didn't descend from German, they are branches of the same linguistic family.
German isn't the root language for English any more than Italian is the root language for Spanish. They've been separate for a long damn time.
That might be possible for large blockbusters that are guaranteed to be released worldwide, but for a movie like No Country for Old Men, there was no way of knowing that it would be a huge financial success. If they did that, it would guarantee that worldwide audiences would never get lower budget movies in the cinema.
Uh...obviously you don't remember the NES days that well. Even during the Playstation's worst days they couldn't match the NES for the complete mass of shitty games foisted on the public. By my memory, and through browsing other people's collections, approximately 95% of all NES games made were movie/TV tie-ins and EXTREME!!! games. Obviously there were plenty of classics too, but don't be fooled by your remembrance of all the great titles.
I understand why record companies are doing crap like this, scare tactics are basically all they have left. But movie studios already have a system that can survive the digital era. They are rolling in cash right from DVD sales, and theaters aren't going away any time soon. But the same people they are going after with lies, threats, and misinformation campaigns are the people that are going to be the biggest consumers in five or ten years. How can they not see that?
Get a comprehensive digital distribution system in place so that the "Napster of movies" never happens, and try to gain customers, not scare them away. It really is that simple.
And like I said last time this story came up, the language has absolutely nothing to do with that. At our university, beginning CS classes were taught using Java. We learned how to implement data structures (although not Hashtables that was in a later C-based class) and algorithms in Java. We were explicitly forbidden to use outside libraries.
The reason why Java is excellent for intro classes is because you can teach somebody basic CS concepts and programming while (mostly) not having to worry about memory management, crazy compiler issues, etc. You can save that until later. If you never teach that, it's the problem of the university program, not the language.
And where I live the last couple years have been some of the coldest in memory and we are at 150% of normal snowpack. That doesn't mean global climate change isn't happening, and it doesn't mean climate change is happening just because your local weather is warmer.
Don't use anecdotes, even if it follows the same pattern as the real data.
Buddhism, but that's the same reason Buddhism isn't (relatively speaking) widespread and popular.
You act as if your definition of fairness is objective. It most definitely is not. Let me give you this:
The reason a hot tar roofer makes shit wages is because he doesn't do anything special. He gets paid what his work is worth. Bill Gates took the time and effort to get educated, took the risk to start a company, and put in the time to build it into what it is today. The roofer did none of that. How is it fair that he has to pay a higher portion of his income to taxes just because he was more successful?
You see what I did there? That makes just as much sense as your argument. It's unfair that Bill Gates and Warren Buffet had a significant advantage of a wealthy, educated upbringing over a poor wage laborer. But it's also unfair to take more from someone simply because they did well with their life.
Fairness has absolutely nothing to do with it. We should do what is best for society, with deference to personal liberty. I happen to believe that this means taxing the rich more than the poor. But all this talk about fairness is ridiculous.
That was the PS2. They shipped a hard drive and Linux, but it was hard to get in Europe and pretty much impossible elsewhere. But PS3 linux is pretty cool, and for me at least is the main reason why I like the PS3 over the 360.
I agree to some extent, but don't act like it would be all sunny and rosy if copyright was abolished. Many excellent groups or artists may not have the ability to travel all year, such as older artists or people with physical disabilities. Others make music that relies on studio techniques that can't be replicated well in live settings.
And most of the people that make those recordings we hate so much also tour. Britney Spears, Hannah Montana, etc. all make obscene amounts of money from touring, so it's not like that shit will go away.
These are the top ten grossing tours of 2007:
1. The Police ($212 million) 2. Genesis ($129 million) 3. Justin Timberlake ($126.8 million) 4. Kenny Chesney ($71.2 million) 5. Rod Stewart ($70 million) 6. Cirque Du Soleil's Delirium ($59.4 million) 7. Roger Waters ($53.2 million) 8. Tim McGraw/Faith Hill ($52.3 million) 9. Christina Aguilera ($48.1 million) 10. Rascal Flatts ($41.6 million)
Two washed up groups that were never that good on reunion tours, two washed up musicians that used to be excellent, a skanky female pop star, a mediocre male pop star, three shitty country acts and the goddamn circus. It's not exactly a killer's row of quality music.
It depends on how modern, Western, and developed you consider Brazil or South Africa. The US is an order of magnitude behind them on violent crime rates.
Just curious where you lived in Mexico and where you moved to in the US. There are some pretty large differences from state to state in the US, and I assume that it would be pretty dramatic in Mexico as well. I know a lot of people from Coahuila and Chihuahua, and to put it nicely they don't exactly instill in me a great respect for the Mexican public education system.
Americans don't want federal IDs. The states don't want federal IDs. The federal government failed to convince the states and the people that federal IDs were a good thing. Instead of giving up and letting the people get what they want, the federal government has decided to take small steps towards turning state drivers licenses into the failed Real ID, hoping that by taking incremental steps they can do it unnoticed. That's why everybody is upset.
That is ridiculous. Guess what? Between 50,000 and 125,000 people left the US for Canada alone because of opposition to the Vietnam War (source). Full-scale protests and majority opposition to the Vietnam War started in 1967, and the US withdrew in 1973. So looks like those protests did a hell of a lot of good.
I apologize in advance for the flame, but I am so sick of this nostalgic backwards-looking bullshit from the baby boomer generation. Just because your generation talked about free love and had some protests while they were in college doesn't mean a goddamn thing. Most of the people gave up trying to change things, took a job with a multinational, became a born-again Christian, voted for Reagan 15 years later, and fucking ruined everything. And now they're buying mutual funds. The only legitimately successful social change that came out of the 60's was the Civil Rights Movement. Everything else is self-congratulatory bullshit.
Um, actually they are. You just have to use them correctly. Starting a business on a credit line is good, putting a $3000 TV that you can't afford on it is probably bad. Using government debt to fund research, infrastructure, education, etc. is a good investment. Using it to fund an unnecessary war is bad.
I'm pretty sure I wouldn't know that, because I did read the article and it wasn't anywhere on there.
That's not what I said at all. Of course value is subjective to an individual. But that doesn't mean you still can't measure that value and predict how and why it is going to change.
The Austrian school belief is if valuation is done by individuals, and you can't have information for each individual, then you can't extend mathematical models over the whole population. That makes some sense intuitively, but it's incorrect. Anyone who has studied populations knows that you can in fact model behavior of populations without knowing 100% of the input. That's the entire point of modeling.
Like I said, it is a nice theory and it has some fine points that have been influential in mainstream thought. But they reject popular theories even though those theories have been empirically proved to be correct (at least as much as you can in social science). Until I see some hard proof that a country running on these principles can be competitive with a country running the current system, I will remain deeply, deeply skeptical.
Well not to sound like an asshole, but yes I do think it's because of our superior understanding of economics. Hyperinflation just doesn't happen in the countries that have our financial system. If it does it is because of events that aren't related to fiscal policy, such as war and social upheaval. Even if you disagree with what the Fed is doing, you can't possibly challenge the fact that the people there are absolutely some of the finest financial minds the world has to offer.
When you look at the economic state of the world today, there are a few countries that are the most prosperous societies that the world has ever seen. All of them have the same fundamental financial system. You're trying to tell me that system is flawed. You're trying to tell me that the system you would prescribe, which as part of its basic tenets rejects scientific principles of empiricism and mathematical modelling, is a superior system. I hope you'll excuse me if I'm more than a little bit skeptical of said system.
The school administrators are not the parents. We'll sidestep the issue of administrators searching facebook to find this, which is not their job, and quite frankly is completely fucking ridiculous. But if they encountered "dangerous behavior" or illegal actions they should *at most* call the parents, let the parents know, and offer the kids some advice about substance abuse. Other than that, they should leave them the fuck alone. It's not even your parents' job to live your life for you, let alone the goddamn high school principal. I hate to break the news to you, but damn near every high school kid has tried drugs or alcohol at least once.
If it's happening off campus and has no direct, immediate relation to what is happening on campus, it's none of their fucking business! If they're a school administrator, they should, you know, administer the school. Not raise the children.
Actually that's a pretty good point, although not the way you seem to think it is. Andrew Jackson was a fine rhetorician, but a shitty economist. In 1836 the Second Bank was abolished and 99% of the US debt was paid off. Do you know what that (along with another stupid Jackson economic decision, the specie circular) triggered? The first large-scale recession in American history.
And calling the Austrian school of economics respected doesn't quite get the idea of it across. To me, the Austrian school is like communism. I don't mean this in a knee-jerk right-wing way, because Austrian-style economics is most definitely not anyway related to Marxism. What I mean is it is a theory that makes sense, it has a large following among academics, has had a great deal of influence on mainstream thought, but as as whole is completely unfeasible for the modern world. I mean how can you take something seriously if one of their basic tenets is that economics is subjective? I for one have no desire to have a president who ignores basic principles like mathematics and statistics in his economic policy. And if current theories on banking and inflation are so wrong, then why the hell do all the most prosperous countries in the world make them work so well? That's a question I would very much like answered.
That's true of any politician that has a legitimate chance of winning a national election, because that's what it takes to win a national election. Ron Paul can mop up in his home district, but he doesn't stand a chance against a guy like Mitt Romney who will quite literally change his stance on fundamental moral/philosophical beliefs to gain a few percentage points. I realize candidates are real people and not machines, but every single thing they say or do in public on the campaign trail has been analyzed and approved by multiple highly paid advisers. Not a goddamn thing they do or say is "genuine". As soon as everyone realizes that instead of being swayed by Hillary tearing up a little or Obama giving a good speech, we can fix the problem.
I don't care how a candidate appears on TV. I don't care how well they can speak. I don't care if they're attractive or pronounce the word nuclear wrong. What I want to know is this: the candidate's history(as evidenced by their voting record or what legislation they supported if they were a governor), their stated platform, and how effectively can they implement those positions (much more subjective, but still measurable). That's the only thing that should matter.
Do I get moved when Obama speaks? Of course I do, I'm human and I deeply care about this country. But that's manipulation. Just because he's a good speaker and talks about change, reform, and hope doesn't necessarily mean that is what will happen. The bottom line is this: you can't judge a politician's beliefs or ability on what they say, particularly in a campaign of this magnitude. There's a hundred million dollars behind that supposedly human moment and effective speech, and I guarantee you they aren't spending that much money to have a candidate speak honestly about their opinions. They're spending it to hire people to tell them what to say and get them elected.
Yeah, that was the exact moment I forever swore off Rolling Stone. Their music coverage has been shitty for as long as I've been alive, but at least their political pieces were mostly interesting. I can't believe they printed that piece of shit article. If you're wading into waters you know little about (ie science and medicine) shouldn't you at least consult people to make sure the basic premise of the story were correct? Heads should've rolled on that one.
If you're teaching a data structures class and you allow students to use those libraries, the problem is not with the language. That's like complaining that calculators make math too easy. It's completely trivial for professors to ban specific libraries in a program, forcing the students to do it on their own. This issue is completely independent of the language used.
I'm not trying to be rude here, but if you're honestly suggesting that it's easier to get non-mainstream music from a shop or "legitimate" on-line source, you're either have no idea what you're talking about or live literally next-door to an amazing record shop. The reason all the music you listed above is commercial pop is because, well, you sorted for popularity! You wouldn't judge the quality of a good record shop by the top ten rack they have at the front of the shop. The Piratebay has a far greater selection than any record store (on-line or off) that I've ever seen, and it's just a public tracker. The speeds are comparable to commercial sites for all reasonably popular albums (anything released in the last 6-12 months or old and popular).
If you're on at a good private tracker you have access to quite literally hundreds of thousands of albums, nearly all of which are higher quality than other online sources, and with download speeds that are actually better than commercial sites. You can find things like a 45 that only had 5000 copies made and has been out of print for 20 years. If they don't have it, you can request it and most likely you'll have it within the week.