The delay in publishing this story is excessive, even by slashdot standards. Was GCHQ reluctant to release it on their tech news site while the Democracy Forum conference in Bali and CHOGM in Sri Lanka were still ongoing?

Exactly. GCHQ moves to dismiss your case on grounds which it cannot specify for reasons of national security. Game Over.

Speaking of extra steps, what's the point of the terminals that ask the user to verify the amount?

The display on the terminal is coming from your bank. It is the amount that you are actually being charged. The display on the cash register is showing whatever the shop wants it to show, and may not necessarily equate with what they are requesting from the bank.

and obviously most people have neither the tech nor the interest to clone mag stripe cards;

I'd be very surprised if the criminals couldn't get their hands on the equipment. It is widely available and not particularly expensive.

Vulture capitalists would never turn down 3 billion dollars. They may be vultures, but they know very well when to cash out.

Snapchat, a rapidly growing messaging service, recently spurned an all-cash acquisition offer from Facebook for close to $3 billion or more, according to people with a vested interest in the company's valuation.

Rarely. If the movie is any good, it can take years if ever to show up on Netflix streaming. Plenty of movies just aren't there.

If the studios offered legal ways to stream their most popular new releases, it would affect their loss of revenues from piracy, which would lose them political leverage. How will they get the next successor to the DCMA passed then?

using a software robot that directs search engines not to access the pages.

Don't tell me the Tories have perfected software robot technology. We'd better hope its not the powerful txt variant, or it will be the clearest sign yet that the reptilian shapeshifters have been successful in conquering our planet's political sphere.

Blockbuster in the US must be different than the rest of the world. I was reading TFS, thinking who in their right minds would have "fond memories" of the McDonalds of video rental stores, which consisted of one wall of new releases (half of which was dedicated to the top ten), and another wall of top ten titles from the past couple of years. Then a rack in the middle with a few other titles that seem popular enough to keep around. If you wanted indie films, the local mom and pop video store was the place to go. Unfortunately, they were the first to suffer due to downloads, as the unwashed masses all want the latest blockbusters that the mom and pop doesn't have the bulk buying power to be able to invest in a large enough quantity of to ensure they always have some copies on the shelves over the short term that it will remain popular.

C code without any APIs can't exploit a potato.

Is that a challenge?

I don't think they've ever "targeted the Nexus device" within two weeks of it becoming available, so I don't think it is fair to claim that "This is not the case this go round".

One day, when Intel, ARM, Nvidia and peripheral manufacturers all close down their R&D departments and become pure factories churning out the same thing year after year. Until then, there is a need to keep Linux development active.

Psychological addiction is all in your head. You can get addicted to absolutely anything (including non-chemical things like gambling), and you can wake up one morning and quit cold turkey. The real danger from alcohol is the physical addiction. Alcohol is one of the few drugs that can be life threatening if a serious alcoholic suddenly can't get any. As long as the replacement drug is not physically addictive, then it is a big improvement.

There were no dupes, and all TFS's had perfect spelling and grammar.

Actually, that's the real one. If you're seeing dupes, misspellings and poor grammar, and the articles seem to be a bit behind other sites, then it is probably a rushed retyping of the original.

The main difference here is that a typical ICE powered car has the fuel tank only at the rear of the car. The Tesla and other electric cars have batteries spread across the entire underside of the car, so more opportunity for impact that punctures through the shielding.