It's supposed to be comparative between everyone, not just who you happened to be in class with.

> example of why I remain self employed

There's a tradeoff: self-employed people will usually have to do more clerical and administrative work. I personally get bored with that and I'm not very efficient at it.

Maybe an old-fashioned keyboard/mouse automation tool can help some? (Can't vouch if adding AI to such helps.)

It could be to encourage learning the AI tools more so than automation itself. If you automate something that doesn't need automating, you are still learning to use the tool. Any real automation can be considered a bonus side-effect.

...what profits?

Sam and Elon should get a room and bang.

No! They might have demon-seed kids. The next generation doesn't deserve such horror.

Slap me!

(I'm getting a pay-wall, so can't verify.)

Skip grades altogether, but make sure everyone gets the equivalent of a B-minus at least (using traditional scoring). If you only get a "C" you probably didn't pay enough attention and don't deserve to pass. Allow one make-up test.

Amazon I.T. .... your ridiculous middle management and their obsession over metrics make stories like these pathetic, yet not unexpected at all.

I.T. is going down a spiral where management treats you like a "digital janitor". I'm old enough to remember this being a fairly respected career path. People in most offices had a combination of fear and awe of the "I.T. guys" because ultimately, there was a realization the entire business relied on the technology to survive. If the server or network went down, everything ground to a halt. You simply didn't treat the team poorly who held the keys to the kingdom.

It's a very different atmosphere today. Now, everyone's worried about how to cut costs and achieve the maximum return. I.T. may be critically important to a business's success, but nobody cares. There's the constant suggestion that AI is about to replace half of them anyway, and the trick is to wring every bit of productivity out of the existing staff until they quit. Then you just replace them and repeat.

If you're reading this and thinking, "It's not like that at all where I work!", congratulations! You're part of a diminishing bit of sanity out there. The last place I worked like that, though? The owner passed away and the company was sold, and it's no longer an exception to the rule.

The idea someone needs to micro manage their "knowledge workers" to the extent they keep tabs on how many feet their mouse has rolled each day? Well, that's plain insulting they'd even think it's sensible!

"Iran is piddly compared with America in every way. Except killing their own people/protesters."

Hold my Diet Coke.

If you don't think coercion is force then you cannot be reasoned with

Quotas are crap whether positive or negative.

Grading standards should be based on something sensible, not comparison to the class, but to an objective standard. It's not sensible to penalize people for being in an exceptional class.

UCSC had it right when they refused to issue grades. Alas these days they will if you ask them to, which defeats the purpose of not doing it.

I'm obviously against yet more AI-fueled surveillance dystopia hell; but when the people whining work for fucking facebook; and know what that company does, it seems like a "all who draw the sword will die by the sword; dumbass" situation.

Every time I have someone else's tobacco smoke come into my car in traffic I wanna puke. I don't get a chance to object to their face. If smoking is so fucking great, why don't they roll the windows up?

I want companies to think before hiring so that they do less firing. That naturally means they're going to do less hiring. But firing causes chaos and overhiring masks actual unemployment. If you're not employed for long enough to get out of a hole, it doesn't count in terms of the nation's economic health, but it looks like it does because it reduces unemployment statistics.