The labels set the per-play payment rate. This is not the streamer just being cheap. The labels call the shots here. In general, a "station play", where the consumer is just listening to whatever was curated or programmed to be the next song, is of lower value than an "on demand" play, where the user specifically chose a song or album of songs to hear. So depending on the type of play, the pay rate will vary. But don't think for a second that Pandora or any other streaming service has much say here. The labels call the shots, it's their music, and if you as a streaming service don't like it, tough titties, play someone else's music then. If you think these numbers are small, bitch at the labels. To be fair, the streamer has huge costs; development, infrastructure, bandwidth, staff, the whole shebang. With what little money they net from subscriptions or ad revenue goes into maintaining these things. The lion's share gets paid to the content providers. If you increase the cost of the stream, yay label, yay artist, but the cost of maintaining the business becomes higher and less sustainable. The model is by no means perfect, and the future will hopefully yield a more equitable disbursement flow, but hopefully that sheds some light. Troll away.

The album shows up in my collection, but it didn't download to my device and take up valuable space without my knowing. And I have "AUTOMATIC DOWNLOADS" switched on. The album was essentially given to me for free, and is available for me to download at will. Nobody forced anything on me. What's all the fuss? I don't see the issue (yet?), if there is one.

I feel that there is an unfair expectation put upon new grads here. "graduates...are often ill prepared for the work force." The unwritten expectation here is that the graduate will be proficient at programming, and able to code at their employer's request the day they graduate, as if colleges and universities are just pumping out coding machines ready for the factory floor. I think it's entirely unreasonable to expect a fresh grad to have the wherewithal to code in a real world production scenario on day 1. At university, they've been schooled in the concepts and skills they will need to help them grok the scenarios they will later encounter in the work force. That's what college is, a place to learn; some application is needed, most certainly, but the foundational learning is crucial. Software engineering programs aren't like a trade school, where after 1-3 years you come out a skilled plumber or other skilled craftsperson ready to rock it. But that's how I feel that the aforementioned employers are viewing software engineering, like a trade, that has specific parameters to learn, the graduates of which should immediately be plug-and-play in the workforce. This kind of naive short-sightedness permeates the software industry, and reveals itself in computer-illiterate management and product-owner types who's mindset is analogous to "it's just programming, its all the same". "Oh you went to school for programming? So you can fix the e-commerce system then." "You know Java so you can you fix the web page layout issues." "Is it fixed yet?" External coding schools and programs are fine, but if they aren't teaching theory and the foundational concepts, they're just creating a bunch of do-it-yourself coders who, in my decades of programming experience and now software management experience reveals, are more often than not sloppy cut-and-paste hacks who burden the forums with questions they would know the answers to with proper foundational education. This is not always economically feasible for some, I know, but that's a different topic. Get the degree. You'll be glad you did.

I'd recommend a class in assembler language. It's sufficiently nuts and bolts to reveal the nature of the computing world.

Why don't they just change directions like Apple did and put Unix underneath?

This has nothing to do with shaking up corporate culture, agreed. But I mean, the back slash as a path separator was just wrong from the beginning IMO. Could MS regain developer community support by realigning its foundation from DOS to Unix? Developer support == apps == users == happy, in simplest terms. I have no stake in the matter, I'm an Apple person (talk about lock-in). I just want to see such an instrumental contributor to the industry get itself back on track.

It's a nice idea, and I imagine we will implement intelligent forecasting in cars. I can't wait to see it. But in reality you can't anticipate the actions of other drivers, bicyclists or pedestrians. So yes, you may get to the light when it's green alright, and that's great. If you're in the suburbs with low traffic, win. However in urban environments or in moderate to high traffic this won't be as useful as there are any number of reasons you couldn't cross an intersection on a green light; a line of cars already trying to get through slowing you down, grid lock, someone turning left against oncoming traffic, someone turning across a busy crosswalk, a bicycle coming out of nowhere, etc. Better intersection design, and improved intersection flow controls should accompany more intelligent cars in order to alleviate some of these gotchas. Nonetheless, a step towards efficiency is a positive step.

Heh. Does this mean my car will develop friends? Romances even?

The stimulant in cacao is Theobromine. Different chemical.

Oh, I get it. The WEB-CAM was within a reasonable distance of the wayward photographer, not the VIEWER OF the web-cam. If that's the case, I stand corrected.

Given the curvature of the earth, can you see 100+ miles? No.