Microsoft was afraid it would inspire mass migration to Linux in Germany.

The offerings of ethnic restaurants in foreign countries are often adapted to better suit the tastes of the local people. Look at Chinese food in the US--it's quite different from what you'd get in China. Then look at Chinese food in Japan--it's different from both of the above. Or just look at pizza in Italy, multiple regions of the US, and Japan.

"I use my tongue to test if it's delicious or not," said Nimmalairatana. "I think the government should consider using a human to gauge authenticity."

I don't know... Being a taste tester for Thai food sounds like a good way to suffer severe burnout.

I find it a bit concerning that my answer stays the same either way...

That's because you didn't pay to get the premium portion of the article.

HP Poland gave the government official bags filled with hundreds of thousands of dollars of cash

What are 'official bags'? Are those the ones with a big dollar sign on the side?

Personally, I live in dread of the day when we're overrun by immortal fruit flies and cancer-immune mice.

Nothing. But if they're caught circumventing a court order, expect the judge to come down on them like a ton of bricks.

I'd expect a device (RFID?) that's active when the car is in operation would be installed in the owner's car, and the phone would have an app that's paired to the device check for its signal. Depending on the range, it may or may not reach passenger seats, but this would only be an issue when the person is a passenger in their own car.

Well, if you'd quoted a bit more of the text, it might seem a bit more reasonable (emphasis mine):

"For any agricultural plant, having a genome is a prerequisite for any sort of high technology breeding or molecular modification. Without a genome, we couldn't do any real advanced research on coffee that would allow us to improve it — not in this day and age."

So, yes, you can do selective breeding without having the genome sequenced, and you can try to determine over the course of generations which plants have or may produce the desired traits, but if you do have the genome, you can greatly speed up the process by genetically checking the qualities of the plants and basing your choices on that.

"I'm sorry, professor, but Coursera encrypted my homework."

It is awfully entertaining to picture the entire company, from the CEO down to the poor bewildered intern frantically protesting that she's not even a real employee, being dragged off in handcuffs to jail, though...

Literally!

Hey Slashdot, does anyone knows why telegrams are peppered with the word 'STOP'? Was there no punctuation mark to use a period?

Apparently, when telegrams were in widespread use, four letter words were free but punctuation cost extra.

Hell, I'm a grown man with a good job and here I am arguing on the Internet in the middle of the night, I've got the defenses to fight this to a greater extent and I even struggle with it.

Now, that's just silly. You should be arguing on the Internet while you're at work, like the rest of us.