This sounds similar to my experiences in an engineering program at a state school, just replace "Indians" with "Chinese", and instead of the TA either being in collusion or just didn't care, it was the professor that didn't care. Same sort of project, except the program was run during class on the screen during project evaluation day where we could see what everybody came up with. There was a project from a previous semester that got an A which every group had passed around. Of the 10 or so teams, probably 3 delivered what looked to be original projects, a few more looked like they had changed the UI a bit, some took the UI and and just changed the font/color, and the 3 teams of Chinese students all turned in the same project unaltered in any way. The project was 80% of our final grade, and they got As.

This devastating raid resulted in the expulsion of 0.00025% of India's students.

I'm pretty sure this has always been the case. The first time I was conscious of it was during the unabomber case when all of the news outlets were going through Ted Kaczynski's past to find the narrative they wanted. It's just a lot easier now.

The first e-reader I had was a Sony touch. It worked really well for me, but I'm also just reading fiction on it and not scientific journals. It never took an hour to start up for me. I tried using it with the europe lonely planet ebook on a road trip once, and it was a bit useless since the maps and any images took forever to load. That sort of thing is not really what it was designed for though. For just reading normal books, it was great. I liked it better than the Nook and Kindle offerings at the time.

Can I buy a superfish loaded Lenovo laptop now, then join a lawsuit?

The risk of getting struck by lightning is pretty low, but I'm still not going to stand in an open field with a metal rod during a thunderstorm.

I am really glad I went to a "smart" high school program because of this. Once I got into a crowd of other Smartest Motherfuckers, I realized that I really wasn't, and amongst the Smartest Motherfuckers, I was only about average. Then I graduated and went to college and was like "wait, where are all the other Smartest Motherfuckers?". Then I went and got a real job at Some Company that's nothing special, and I've largely forgotten what I learned in high school.

When did this happen? What is the cause?

I see the same thing where I live...I don't usually see many people shopping in that area though.

Not everybody seems capable of determing what sources are trustworthy and what sources are not. Combine the same self-perceived-intelligence and pig-headded-ness with a distrust of "government" or "the man", and there you have it. At that point, the "mainstream" "trustworthy" sources are just a part of the conspiracy, so the only sources to be trusted are those on the fringe that are supressed and bringing you the real truth.

I have a good friend who is a very smart autodidact, but also a massive skeptic. You could probably put him in the "holocaust denier" camp because of this. I've gotten into arguments with him about it a couple times, and the sources that he always brings up are aryan nation affiliated internet forums or postings on these forums linking to sources elsewhere. The main contention is the number of Jewish holocaust deaths. Of course, the sources that I cite to counter his arguments are all part of the Isreali Jewish conspiracy.

I think you just made nimbius's point for him. Sure, you can systemd gentoo, but you don't have to. From the gentoo wiki page that you linked, at the very top: "It is supported in Gentoo as an alternate init system."

This is how Linux was. If you didn't like the way something worked, you used something else instead. Unlike the large distros that are moving more towards "here is all your crap", love it or leave it.

...exactly his point.

I think most people treat the law as suggestions. Have you ever gone faster than a posted speed limit?

I have a SmartTV that's about 3 years old now, and it seems like every three days it updates something or other.

I don't think I've dnoe that in over a year....I'm kind of afraid to at this point.