They could always try a telephone or bullhorn and ask some questions including permission to enter.

The difference between ISIS and the USA, is that when the USA tortures or murders innocent people, it forces news organizations to sue under the FOIA for pictographic or video evidence. When ISIS does that stuff, it posts the evidence to youtube. Either way, the actions are despicable, ISIS is just less media savvy (the US having learned from Viet Nam the importance of limiting what gets published).

That makes sense for tomatoes, but nuts store really well.

You jest, but why has it become such a novel concept to grow nut trees where there is no need to water them at all, that it can be seen as joke? I don't know about almonds -- maybe they need hot weather -- but walnuts grow fine over large swathes of the country without ever being watered by anything but the rain.

Gazzilions of years ago or whenever it was, when the oil we use now was floating around in the form of giant mats of algae, some belching deadly hydrogen sulfide as they decompose, there was a lot more life on the planet. But do we really want to live on a world choked with so much scum? Over time, that algae turned to oil and the carbon really was sequestered -- but now we're putting it all back into circulation -- I suppose it could become more animals, more corn, more people, but it could also become massive amounts of stinking toxic slime.

This is marked funny, but think about it for a minute. Our computers, phones, tablets -- even watches -- are collecting way more information than this Barbie is and yet how many people think these ubiquitous machines are creepy? Not many. The lesson here might be this: the shape of the surveillance device doesn't make it creepy -- what it collects is what makes it creepy. Oddly though, very few people are creeped out by their own phone.

Two conclusions based on "shape irrelevant":

1) Barbie, phones, computers etc. etc. have become extremely creepy surveillance devices (this is where I am, which is depressing, because I've loved technology for so long).

2) Barbie, phones, computers etc. etc. are surveillance devices and surveillance is totally not creepy -- just don't care.

To mix and match 1 & 2 though, making barbie creepy and siri not, is inconsistent and illogical.

I've been studiously buying official boards because that means money went back to Arduino in some way (http://arduino.cc/en/Main/FAQ , scroll down a little to the official board part).

However, if they're just going to be burning their time and money on litigation -- well, I'm not so keen on supporting that and I think I'll just start buying clones.

I'm not religious, but curiosity got the best of me so looked up all your citations and I just don't see it:

Luke 1:41-44:
https://www.biblegateway.com/p...
We all know Mary has a magic fetus, and the fact that it's nearness to another fetus, which jumps in the womb in response, seems a special case. Most fetuses aren't exposed to gods.

Psalm 51:
https://www.biblegateway.com/p...
"Shapen in iniquity and conceived in sin" -- so sex is a sin that sets in motion a chain of events that leads to people. That seems pretty thin, especially when the writer near the end talks about how god doesn't care about burnt offerings, and then four lines later about all the burnt offerings he is going to give god. If sex is a sin, so are the products of it. Doing an abortion would be a corrective action and should have god's support.

Psalm 139:
https://www.biblegateway.com/p...
This one seems basically at odds with 51 which decried conception as a dirty nasty sin. Now we're hearing how the writer was "knit together in my mother's womb" and how awesome god is at knitting. When does a ball of yarn become a sweater? That isn't answered here. Is a partially completed garment the same as the marvelous completed garment? That isn't answered here either. What is jarring though, is that right after explaining how god is the uber-knitter, he goes into talking about how much he wished god would help him kill and destroy all his enemies. Psychotic.

Jeremiah 1:5
https://www.biblegateway.com/p...
Sounds like god is talking to a specific person who will be a prophet to all nations. I'm guessing Jeremiah was that dude? Is there any evidence that all people in all times and places were getting this special attention from god, to be prophets to each other? If they all know the same stuff -- why would they have to be prophets to all nations?

Hosea 12
https://www.biblegateway.com/p...
So this sounds like a denunciation of some dude name Ephraim who became rich using scales calibrated in his favor, made a treaty with Assyria, trades with Egypt, and by the way, the people who live in Gilead really suck, they sacrifice bulls! About the only part I can see related to abortion is that Gilead grabbed his brother's heel while in the womb (I assume they are twins, else this gets really crazy), but it comes in this long stream of insults, kind of like calling him a motherfucker even if not literally true. I don't really some much on topic here -- it's just a big long insult and people say all kinds of shit when insulting people.

For the most part, the fire department doesn't drive around stripping off insulation from electrical wires or drilling little holes in gas pipes under your house. Sure they _theoretically_ could, but the CIA is actually at this very moment doing this exact thing.

The biggest part of this story is a poisoned Xcode, and it's not even mentioned in TFS. WTF?

The security researchers also claimed they had created a modified version of Apple's proprietary software development tool, Xcode, which could sneak surveillance backdoors into any apps or programs created using the tool. ...

The modified version of Xcode, the researchers claimed, could enable spies to steal passwords and grab messages on infected devices. Researchers also claimed the modified Xcode could "force all iOS applications to send embedded data to a listening post." It remains unclear how intelligence agencies would get developers to use the poisoned version of Xcode.

https://firstlook.org/theinter...

I think a lot of people aren't expecting a handout from their own gov't, but at the same time, aren't expecting to actively thwart and hamper their ability to be self-sufficient. The whole H1-B thing is like workfare for foreigners coupled with forced unemployment or reduced wages for locals.

Ignoring the assholes making fun of you for being interested and explaining why, you can start learning right now:

igs: http://pandanet-igs.com/commun...
kgs: https://www.gokgs.com/

I know you can play the Gnu Go Server on kgs, if you want to avoid playing with a person for a while. You can also install it on your computer: https://www.gnu.org/software/g...

You are correct, however, if the GP wants to uses sakes, he could write it "for fucks' sakes".

Really? /. is the mediator of all things moral I guess?

This guy had a point and correctly analyzed the military uses of this technology long before it was widely part of the public consciousness. What he says is still true and it doesn't take much thought to envision some pretty horrific self-locomoting autonomous weapons that GPS makes much more likely. The problem slashdotters may have with this guy is that he might be a luddite (or he could have just been a visionary protestor without an inherent hatred of tech) -- but in looking like a luddite, there is a knee jerk reaction. Like most knee jerk reactions, it's rather poorly thought.

There is also the possibility that /. has been subverted into a pro-government, pro-military, pro-establishement mouthpiece by the numerous shills of such groups. Maybe you're one of them.

I use my twitter account mostly to find news on rare occasions (one per month approximately), barely ever write. I don't even have a facebook account at all. I am part of the general public. Because some people use twitter and FB to self-expose everything, is not a basis for supporting government intrusion into every person's private life.

Here's the way to stop it. Gather some DNA from high level politicians. Replicate enough of it so it you have useful quantity. Spread it around crime scenes, porn, whatever. Make sure that politician is in a DNA database.