voilà

I have never heard them called anything other than "chatbots". And "bots" can refer to a variety of small programs. Then again, what can you expect from Salon?

Minimal needs? I am reminded of a scene from Preston Sturges' Christmas in July:

Betty Casey : Two can live as cheaply as one.
Jimmy MacDonald : Who wants to live cheaply?

42 was the answer to "life, the universe, and everything". Adams said it was a joke. Adams's jokes were funny back when I was a heavy pot-smoker. Now I am just heavy.

I'm with you on this. There are a bunch of children who get attention by signaling that they care about $CAUSE, but who don't know enough about life to have any opinions worth listening to. They want to live in Star Trek, but their ideas would create the Matrix. They are the kind of people who want to tell other people how to live, but when they reach old age they hopefully will realize how full of shit they are. Sort of like I did when I realized how stupid I was in my younger, more impressionable days.

And how did anyone "rein in" Hearst and Pulitzer, the publishers most associated with yellow journalism? There were some lawsuits and legal decisions, but mostly it had to do with a declining interest in the kind of sensationalistic headlines and stories that characterized that period. At some point, will people finally abandon clickbait crap? Doubtful, considering there are still plenty of tabloids and a proliferation of clickbait websites. What "Google and them" could do is simply stop responding to queries with results from know low-credibility sites. Not sure those would be replaced with anything of high quality, though, as it seems most legitimate news sites now charge for their content.

Holy shit. Who is this written for? As an adult, I am sort of past the childish need to "love" animals or find them cuddly. Jesus Christ, get on with the fucking story already.

Not a bit. Most of my friends use Android devices. I guess. The only time I hear from an iPhone user is to complain about some bullshit like this or to namedrop their choice of phone. I can't be arsed to put up with this kind of crap.

Reminded me of the data haven that was built in Neal Stephenson's novel, Cryptonomicon.

I have been waiting since 1962 for a flying car, or at least a jetpack! Where is it?

Troll or not, after reading the phrase, "Google's freewheeling office culture", I wondered what James Damore might have to say about it. I guess whether something is a clique or a cult depends on whether you are in it or not.

Because I once worked at an actual newspaper, and because I was taught to explain terms that might be unfamiliar to the general reader, and because despite having read, watched, and listened to all kinds of media over *cough* years, for others: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p....

FTFY

...an egg-white product then, is it? Sort of like "plant-based meat" or other terminology that flies in the face of reality.

You realize you are wishing your fellow humans dead? Pretty shitty.