Presidents, governors and mayors all do this kind of thing -- call up private businesses and ask them to do stuff. The mayor may call a local business and ask it to reconsider withdrawing its sponsorship of the local youth baseball league. The governor might call up union leaders and senior management in a strike, particularly if it affects things lots of people need like transit or health care.

This is the exercise of *soft* power, of influence rather than of compulsion. Obama can't call Apple and compel them to change their stance. But he can call Tim Cook and *persuade* him, possibly with more success than Michael Lynton, particuarly given that the two may be having some kind of dispute. Ego *does* play a role in CEO decision making.

6 bucks to see a shitty movie?

Leave it to Sony to make money from having crappy IT security...

Don't worry, it will be available outside the US. The internet treats territory protection as what it is: A bug. It will route around it.

Right out of the playbook of "how do you market a shitty movie that has been panned by critics left and right so people would STILL want to see it, no matter how big a stinker it may be".

It's almost like they hired Uwe Boll as consultant.

It differs in such a way that I pay my utilities for their use. I use water, I pay for it. I use power, I pay for it. It's not like I have to pay extra again to use power I already bought.

Make that legal? As far as I can tell such shit is already legal. What would keep them from doing it? You bought their crap, it sure says something like that they can fuck with you any way they like in the fine print, so what's not legal about it?

Consumer protection whatnow?

The East India Company was founded in 1600. They ruled an entire subcontinent. They raised armies and waged war in their own name. The authors of the bill of rights knew about the power of corporations.

No, but 3d printers need some input. Only allow corporate, sorry, government approved input and we're good to go.

If it stopped at gun printing... but you know, we have this tech in place to keep people from printing guns, why can't we keep them from printing those trademarked (or patented, whatever) car parts? There's a business to protect here!

What security? The security of its maker against your outrageous idea of actually using something you buy the way you want?

You're not supposed to control your appliance! If you would, you could not only fix them instead of replacing them, you could find new applications for them instead of buying another, specialized, one. And the maker could not at will end its life so you'd be buying the next one, bigger and better than your old 6 month old ancient garbage.

It's not a bug. It's a feature.

We will never do major exploration of deep space where we get closer to another star than to this one. If we do, humanity can define two constants in file headers.

Some politician's restaurant/hotel finally got the shitty reviews it deserves and we somehow got to compensate them for it.

This, and a billion times this.

9/11 would NOT have worked out if the drill for hijackings had not been "cooperate and nobody gets hurt". Today the pilot's capsule is locked. And no matter what kind of threat you would bring to the table, the pilot will NOT unlock it. Kill a hostage? Do it. If I open, you kill us all. Kill ALL hostages? Do it. If I open, I die too.

There is NOTHING you could threaten a pilot with to make him open the door. He actually has the ORDER not to cooperate with you, so there is not even going to be any kind of repercussion against him if you skin everyone in the back alive.

9/11 worked once, because the safety procedures concerning hijackings operated on a false premise. They don't anymore.

I can understand why they are forbidden, but if I read your post correctly they are utterly useless for a terrorist attack. If it incapacitates the attacker itself, it better be a (suicide) bomb, i.e. the attack itself being carried out by the time the device is set off. You don't accomplish much in terms of terrorism by incapacitating a plane full of people (hint: the pilots don't really get any of it, so the plane keeps flying, though I could be inconvenienced if the flight attendants are out of order and I can't get my soda, oh the humanity!).