It is if you have operators and engineers that have any brains

But out here in reality, what operators and engineers have in brains they make up for by the absence of give-a-damn. Laziness can trump smarts every day of the week, and the path of least resistance is a damn fine malware vector.

that have any brains, There are tons

Speaking of brains... that's a comma splice. If English is your first language, please return to third grade to learn not to do that.

There are tons of CNC machines not being infected out there.

There were tons of numerically controlled machines out there infected by this very mechanism. The fact that it wasn't CNC machines this time doesn't mean it can't be CNC any time in the future. The attack is feasible.

You're not the target demographic. That doesn't mean it's a bad idea. These kinds of phones will be bought by tech nerds in their 20s.

Glassholes, you mean.

modular IBMPC / overclocking crowd.

Modular PC. Not exactly the stirring precedent I'd go looking for.

Thus, even if you have access to a movie for free through Netflix, using the Voice Search for that movie will only bring up Amazon's paid options.

You make that sound like a bad thing.

--Signed,
Jeff Bezos

Wait, what?

Burning Man has greeters like Wal-Mart has greeters?

O_o

I think you're missing the point.

As far as I can tell, the point is "You're wrong, because I, and only I, am right. It doesn't even matter if you agree with me. You're still wrong, because you're not me."

Yeah, doesn't make sense to me, either. Probably all the heatstroke and pharmaceticals.

Do we really want to send reality TV loving cretins to colonize other planets?

Three words:

Golgafrincham "B" Ark.

No, you're thinking of Raymond Luxury-Yacht (pronounced "'Throatwobbler Mangrove").

Heinrich Bimmler? From Minehead? I have no idea why the TSA would be interested in him. After all, he wasn't the head of the Gestapo for 10 years... I mean, 5 years... I mean never.

You gotta cook the beef somehow.

Ok, well, maybe not "gotta"...

Split screens can often be confusing (being distracted by another player's screen portion and missing something on your screen portion).

And that's why I will always regard split-screen console gaming as overrated and hopefully to never be resurrected.

"Hey, dude, where are you going? You're stuck on a wall!"

"Bullshit, I'm running my ass off. No, wait, I'm looking at the wrong half of the screen."

So I despise split-screen because I'm terribad at it.

Think of it as unplanned pen testing. Kinda like how rape is unplanned sex.

For companies, they're basically pirate ships populated by people who think of themselves as laws unto themselves, as glorious buccaneers .

Ok. Who else read this sentence and visualized the Crimson Permanent Assurance sailing the Bounding Main (Street)?

I had to smile, even though the real topic is depressing as hell.

You don't believe in "chilling effects?" Threats regarding non-disclosure often include themselves in their subject matter... "you can't disclose X, Y, and Z, and you also can't disclose that you can't disclose X, Y, and Z"... and the threat can be sufficiently onerous to be credible.

I think you overrate the intimidating power of nominally legitimate instruments of judicial power, and underestimate the power of simply dragging someone through the courts for years on end. The process is its own punishment, and the threat of the process is quite often enough.