While I agree with you, I think you're forgetting how little competition there is as far as desktop OSes go. Microsoft is practically trying to run Windows 10 into the ground (disable pro features with the anniversary update, then force everyone to upgrade to Enterprise, for example), while Apple will never officially allow OS X on anything other than their products even if hell freezes over. This leaves Linux as a serious competitor with significant advantages in its community driven design, that allow a group to fork and existing project and make a modern desktop OS suitable for the average user. The problem is mostly that no one has bothered to do that, or done so successfully (Chrome OS was a great try, and I think it's here to stay, but it's still a little too locked down).
I have a t450s and have been running Fedora since last version, never had any problems that weren't related to what I changed on the OS. I'd consider the user experience overall to be more smooth than Windows, though not quite perfect. You may have an issue with nonfree binaries/codecs not working out of the box, but I've resolved all of those with rpmfind.net[0], and haven't had to worry about third party repos. Obviously that'd be a problem for some users.
I think Korona[1] is a spin of Fedora that has this stuff included by default, so if you want Linux that works out of the box, Korona + any Thinkpad is probably your best bet.
You're greatly over simplifying early American politics. Neither the French nor English were a consistent "common enemy". Rather there was extensive debate as to which would be/was a better ally or worse foe, and the US got into conflict with (and conducted mutually beneficial diplomacy with) both on several different occasions in the years after its founding.
(Below are several events in which the early US was aligned with either side, note this changed frequently)
The people who were hit the hardest are still growing up, and many of them yet to reach voting age. I think change will come, but that will be after the death of the old guard (from age), and when this generation becomes the largest voting block.
Spotify pays artists as much as piracy does, in many cases, while be socially acceptable and normalized.
For example, I got a book at Barnes and Noble the other day, and when I responded to the cashier's pitch for a Barnes and Noble card with something like "No thanks, I get most of my books through torrents", they looked at me like I was trying to talk about the taste of baby meat. Your average content consumer pays for media, and there is no definitive evidence pirates would pay for music and media if free downloads were not available. Spotify, on the other hand, is targeted at those people who would normally buy music, and offering a cheaper alternative that also pays the artist substantially less (almost nothing, in some cases).
I see your point and I guess I hadn't thought of it like that. In my case, I pay for Spotify as a replacement for pirating. I probably buy more music now in a physical form now that cassettes and records have become available. I would point out that the reason I pay for Spotify is not due to the access to music (I could get most of it for free online), but for the convenience... I can't store all the music I want to hear on my phone and I don't want to run a Plex server or whatever 24/7 to deal with that problem (let alone buy a bunch of drives and fill them with music!). I also appreciate the curation they provide (the Discover Weekly is a regular source of artists I've never heard of before), so I think there are some intangible benefits to the artists from Spotify beyond the meager pay. I've definitely gone to shows based solely on having heard an artists on Spotify.
I'm not sure how sold I am on the idea that Spotify converts more people away from buying music "the old fashioned way" than it does convert former pirates into now (meager) paying customers, but I can definitely see it as a possibility. Unfortunately buying music sucks. Having to keep track of, discover, and store music (in any medium!) sucks. Especially if you aren't a collector of some kind. Spotify/Google Play/Apple music make that easier and that's why people are going to pay for it.
While I agree tech is hurting music, the recording industry has been ripping off artists since records were popular. The entirety of Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, for example, is about artists not making any money off their music[1], and it was released shortly after the ARPANET was created. The biggest change with digital music piracy is that record companies are also earning less.
Another case that I think shows the music industry likes to have things both ways was the Eminem digital sales vs. licenses lawsuit that got settled privately (I mention elsewhere but here's a link):
Not to mention the industry wants all its aging / legacy acts to not think about how sound recordings before 1972 may be eligible for return to the creators rather than the business enterprise that owns them currently. It's complicated but financially worth the trouble for some!
>Also, results of this study
do not indicate that drivers with detectable
THC in their blood at the time of the crash we
re necessarily impaired by THC or that they
were at-fault for the crash; the data availabl
e cannot be used to assess whether a given
driver was actually impaired, and examination of fault in individual crashes was beyond
the scope of this study
If there was a general increase in accidents, I think you would have a point, but all this conclusively demonstrates is that there has been an increase of marijuana usage among the population of Washington. The thing about how these drug tests work, is that they do not test impairment or if someone was high at the time, but if they were high within the past few hours to days. I think you're misunderstanding, that even if there is THC in someone's bloodstream, it does not mean they are high. It is possible that none of the drivers in the study were high at the time of their crashes, and all of them smoked the day before. It is also possible that every single one was high during the collision. Due to the nature of the testing, the linked study is not very conclusive on at least what you're trying to prove from it.
I think authoritarian left wing communist "transition states", are what most people mean by communism now. The word has evolved and changed meaning. Also, I believe that because the two are synonymous, and there never was any "true communism" implemented according to many, expressing communism as the above isn't too factually inaccurate. If someone calls their self something, and is labeled that thing, they'll eventually be that thing. In this case, "communist" governments.
