In 1955, Philip K. Dick wrote a short story, "Autofac", about self-replicating machinery. Still a good read, IMO.

Been there, done that, wondered "What were we thinking?"

In selecting an instrumentation framework for a test system, we went through a careful process of defining what was important, listing the pros and cons of each competing option, ran some tests to see if both would run the instruments we needed, ... Aaaand chose the worse option of the two, as events ultimately showed. The choice was evidence-based, reasonable on the basis of what we knew at the time, and suboptimal. The system worked, but we had to do some ugly stuff to make it work.

Sometimes you just can't outwit Murphy.

This is the wrong place to ask, "ask slashdot" is also controlled by the NSA.
They have been spending years building cover identities and collecting karma, so they can control ./
And that's why this post is going to be modded down, see, I told you so!

Just look at this bitmap on my smartphone. (Ha! I just KNEW that QR codes were evil!)

Israel never announces a test before they do it.
Also, the only ones with the capability to detect it are the US and Russia.
The Russians probably knew exactly what it was when they saw it.
So, maybe they are the ones trying to create a scare.

It was designed to be solved by people down under.
you are holding it upside-down.

Nowadays, anything the shrink does not like is "highly functioning Autism"

Came here to say this.

That was an act on "America's Got 'Talent' " a few seasons ago. It even went through a few rounds. No $#!@. I haven't watched since.

Two important things are missed here:
1) Google mainly bought the patent portfolio for defensive purposes, not as revenue engines in themselves. The point of the suit is that MS wants to use the patents without paying for them. It's basically a move in the MS-vs-Android war.
2) The judgement doesn't pass the smell test. Read the articles over at Groklaw for the details, but the judge here is ruling that Motorola must accept patent pool rates for a pool they don't belong to, rather than negotiate rates using the methods of the group they are a member of. The whole proceeding has been slanted toward the home team (MS) the judgment seems to be very much an overreach, and probably won't survive appeal.

can you get sued for carrying or expressing the gene without a license?

While I agree that the article is nonsense, I have seen something slightly related.
Often at an interview, someone will ask you a question that he recently tried to solve himself.
Sometimes it's a clue that they don't know what they are doing.
This happened to me more than once.
If the guy that is supposed to be your next manager asks you such a question, especially if you try to explain a simple solution to him and he does not understand it, this is a red flag.
In that case, you thank your favorite deity and politely disengage, considering yourself lucky you found out so fast that you shouldn't be working for him.

Correct: we have one of these, so I immediately went to perform the update just to find it was already done.