""We grew up in a time where [Microsoft] Word documents changed to Google Docs. We were curious why this wasn't happening for software engineers,"

Because software engineers -- at least those who have been around a while -- understand that your data's home should be on your computer.

Apparently it is illegal to use someone's trademark without permission in a film, and the image of an iPhone is trademarked.

Please cite the relevant statute, then.

My boss likes to expound on how the code is the documentation, and comments aren't permitted in the code, and we will not have any documentation, yada yada.

Your boss is a fucking idiot, your project is doomed, and you should be actively looking for your next job.

Code communicates to machines. Comments and documentation communicate to human beings. Anyone incapable of understanding the difference should never be allowed in the profession.

Though I bow to your experience, not quite the same, I think. First, not called a "bulletin board"; second, not being used by people in their homes using diverse personal computers, but running on mainframes from one manufacturer in university and business setting.

The distinguishing feature of a BBS was that all you needed was terminal software (or heck, a terminal) and a modem. You didn't need the same type of computer as the people you were communicating with.

Having watched my dad degrade from a normal human being to a 95 year old frail wreck of a person that is hallucinating pigeons in the living room and thinks they're real, I tend to agree

I'm sorry for your father's condition and the stress it puts on you.

On the other hand, there's the 102 year old karate master mentioned in this article, still teaching. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/2...

Aging is a tremendously individual thing.

I'm not even 50 and I'm already done with this life.

I hit 50 next month. I'm just getting started.

Be sure to distinguish the way you're living now (which, if you're dissatisfied with it, "being done" might be fine) from the potentials of life in general.

...and the cost from 0.01% to almost nothing.

If you ignore the cost of electricity, that is. https://theconversation.com/th...

You need to learn what the word "democracy" means. And no, it doesn't mean "everyone participates in every decision"

Actually, it pretty much does. The idea that a republic -- the form of government that failed Rome, collapsing into Empire -- is somehow democratic, that there is such a thing as "representative democracy", is at the core of our problems.

Essential reading: Roslyn Fuller's Beasts and Gods .

I wrote more on the topic here.

Actually, computers cannot do reasoning or knowledge at all. Both things require understanding and insight. What they can do is data storage and real simplistic logical and arithmetic operations really fast.

"Actually brains cannot do reasoning or knowledge at all. Both things require understanding and insight. What they can do is electrochemcial signaling and memory via synaptic modification."

(Point being, if "real" reasoning or knowledge can exist in a couple kilograms of fatty meat, there's no a priori reason reason to believe it cannot existing in digital circuits. Which is not to say it does so exist currently!)

This seems like the kind of feature you would use in a really simple application that is never going to be translated into another language and where setting up a configuration system and template engine and dealing with having to deploy more than just a single file becomes more bother than its worth.

So...most applications, then.

I grew up on a family farm, we raised much of our own meat (Beef, Chicken, Pork) and I don't see ANYTHING unethical in the process.

Person who grew up exploiting animals sees nothing wrong with animal exploitation. Surprise.

The animals are well treated...

Being killed for the profit, pleasure, or convenience of others is a strange definition of "well treated".

Yes, that's what I though reading this. Nothing new here. Good idea to deploy more of these machines, yes, but the technology has been proven for years in Baltimore's trio of trash wheels, Mr. Trash Wheel, Professor Trash Wheel, and Captain Trash Wheel, pulling millions of pound of trash out of the harbor the past few years.

I started using WhatsApp ~5 years ago, some friends I have in various parts of the country started using it for a group chat. That chat group is still going today.

E-mail. You re-invented the e-mail list, and you clog up bandwidth with pic/vids/audio because you're on devices without real keyboards. And you made it into a walled garden. Brilliant.

Now, how does that work when you're somewhere where data coverage is spotty or non-existent and you need to send or recieve a brief message?

We have e-mail for long messages over the internet. We have SMS for short messages over the cellular phone network.

while it is true free speech was critical in the fight to end slavery, it also critical in maintaining slavery as the status quo.

Bullshit. Abolitionist material was regularly banned in the south, hobbling the abolition movement.

After slavery was abolished, free speech helped enable decades of 'jim-crow' laws,

Again, bullshit. Jim Crow laws were created by the state. State action cannot enabled by citizen's right of free speech; only citizen action against the state can be.