Or "Program performs well at solving a problem it's optimized for"

So.... DON'T learn to code, then?

I bring in my own color of lo-carb Monster, thank you.

HR doesn't put people on PIPs. Managers do. The manager's persective you replied to is very accurate.

As someone in mgmt, I promise you, no one sits around and says, "Do you know what we haven't done in a while? Let's put some people on PIPs." I will say this. The new buzzwords around the office are "AI", "ChatGPT", "CoPilot", and "Gemini". People sell the Board on the idea that programming is 15% faster using these tools. They tell the IT managers to put their money where their mouth is: If you can deliver the same with 15% fewer people, cut the payroll 15% and return it to the shareholders while delivering the same as last year. Yes, in some cases, you have an organization that's upset that it only made 9 billion dollars last year instead of 10 billion dollars. On the other hand, everyone is happy when their 401(k) is up this year or their pension is healthy and not underfunded, right? These things depend on share prices hitting targets. So back to the plight of the mgmt group that has to lay off 15%. How do you suggest that gets done? Ideally, a manager doesn't just walk up to someone's desk and yell, "Get the hell outta here". It shouldn't be the first time that employee becomes aware they're not performing as well as the rest of the group, right? it should be part of the regular communication with all the workers. And if you're having these discussions, they should be documented as to why. Whether you believe the reasons listed or not, they shouldn't be discriminatory in nature. Managers should at least have to meet that apparent fairness threshold. Hence, the dreaded PIP. As the Churchill misquote goes, it's the worst way to let someone know they're at risk in that bottom 10-15%, except for all the others.

Haolong, has this been goin' on?

The other thing that happens is the Gaggle model looks for "kill", "bomb", etc. but they're never as good as people at determining context. On social media, there are dozens of words that get you de-monitized or banned and you hear podcasts discussing issues with replacement words that seemed to evolve overnight, so you don't hear "suicide" but you hear "self delete", you don't hear "rape" or "sexual assault" but you hear "grape" and "SA". The more aggressive the model for determining threats, the more aggressively the users will develop a Cockney level inscrutable slang to defeat it.

This sounds energy intensive. Now my earbuds will last 20 minutes?

Can't that issue get solved by a software update? The bumper sensor makes sure the front of the car has 10 yards of clearance, a quick hi-torque electric speed up and slow down and no more cone. Of course, the vandals evolve to step 2 - cat and mouse game.

You may be right, I'm not a Disney accountant, but it strains credulity that a $5k/night hotel is with hundreds of rooms is unprofitable.

Andrew Yang answered this. He said it doesn't work because if a talented entrepreneur emerges, a VC investor in Silicon Valley calls that person and says, "Leave your flunky loser employees in (middle american city) and fly out to San Jose and we'll do something BIG! So the concentration remains in NorCal because that's where the "synergy" is.

Also - if they owned the property as an investment property they could deduct about 1/27 of the value in depreciation. People act like this is some "tax hack" but it's really the tax code recognizing the issues above and compensating for them.

It's a rough proxy for IQ (abstract thought capability and retention) and diligence / compliance. It's not the specific skills learned in HS themselves. No, you're probably not doing trigonometry in your adult life. But the smarter kids I knew could absorb what was needed with a minimum of work, and since homework counted, their willingness to consistently DO that work also counted for something. Were you naturally diligent? Or were you a pain in the neck that complained about everything and rebel against the system? In some instances this is a preferred personality trait, in many, it's not.

In a post apocalyptic world where anti biotics are scarce, and we need to differentiate an illness between a bacterial infection and something else....

From the article: "The new laws, however, will not restrict vape sales. Data indicates that at least some New Zealanders haveswapped their nicotine habit from cigarettes to vapes." In my anecdotal discussions with my daughter, it's the old generation using cigarettes and the teenagers carrying around "nic sticks". We may not have the volume of data on nic sticks that we have on tobacco but what's come out so far isn't good. Also, more generally, this is what happens when we over-subsidize things like healthcare. First, the cost structure goes waaaaaaaaaaaaay up because hey, I'm not payin'. Then most people become dependent on (governments or insurance cabals) because they couldn't possibly afford their own. Lastly, the new overlords arrive to tell you what you can and can't do, because you no longer have the individual right to cost society money.