Yes, I’ve read the spy who came in from the cold, and i tried to read a perfect spy
I liked the first one but its very raw and dark, no glitter and glamour
I quit the second one, part of the book are flashback scenes and I had a hard time staying concentrated, i forgot why exactly i didnt like those scenes
Given Apple’s moat is their devices, their particular spin on AI is very much edge focussed, which isn’t as spectacular as the current wave of cloud based LLM. Apple’s cloud stuff is laughably poor.
Every time I read an article like this I end up in a rabbit hole of reading about ice ages, sea level changes, and how the human evolved throughout it. It’s mind boggling that only 20000 years ago the sea level was 120 meters lower and much of Northern Europe was covered in ice
I wonder how rapidly the change occurred - were the people aware of it happening? Did they have people saying “don’t listen to Yarg! These recent floods are just normal weather…”
It was a relatively sedate 2m per century a lot of the time, but there was one catastrophic Tsunami event called the Storegga Slide around 6200 BC that would have been pretty dramatic.
At that time time they were still hunter gatherers. So they might have been aware of their surroundings, but I presume not as much if they would have been a sedentary community.
The first communities started to settle more or less after the ice age ended, the sea level had risen and the planet had a more pleasant climate around 10000 years ago (source: I'm not a professional on this topic, just summarising what chatgpt tells me)
Why would hunter/gatherer cultures be less aware of their surroundings? They depend on them a lot more; need to know where to move next to find good food sources for the current season. Plus, it's not like these people haven't had sacred spaces that they visited, which requires knowing how to get there from wherever you currently are.
My uneducated guess is: probably not before writing was invented. Populations where nomadic, changes were likely slow and life expectancy was much shorter. With no record keeping it is unlikely they had means to notice the changes.
In last few years I’ve been to multiple very mediocre hotels and restaurants with 4.5 or higher rating, so there is definitely some sort of manipulation going on.
Frankly, if I had a restaurant I would also try to crank up my rating.
It’s still useful though, the above experiences taught me to actually read the reviews, and read between the lines. It just takes more time.
This year I tend to ignore restaurants with rates lower than 4.7 as this usually means they are not really worth the money. I do the same evaluating places to stay on booking.com. If it's an apartment it has to be at least 9.5 and have more than 50 reviews. Otherwise the reviews could be just all fake. Good hotels usually start around 9.0 (I think people have higher expectations against hotels in general thus lower ratings).
I have to say re-building those internal scales takes a couple of brain cycles in my head every now and then, but I'm already used to those skewed ratings after checking IMDb reviews for years and learning that anything below 7.2 is a total crap and the rating above 8.0 usually marks a masterpiece.
When my manager wanted to put me on a pip, an experienced HR friend recommended me to speak to an employment lawyer asap. They would help for a relatively small fee, and a percentage if they win. In many countries PIPs are subjective, and courts nudge to protecting employees. A lawyer can help you prepare to document and catch errors. It doesn't solve your problems but at least you have the chance to get a premium for your frustration.
This was not in the Netherlands, so things might be different, but probably similar to a certain extent.
The problem is there's not much they can do until you're terminated, and after termination you need to wait six months to a year while a regualatory body investigates until you get your "letter to sue", and even then the $ you get will probably not be enough to retire on.
In the meantime, you'll have an employment gap and an employer who plays fast and loose with the law, so they might be willing to do other things like shit talk you during reference checks.
Even if they did something egregious like fire you for a protected reason despite ample evidence it's very hard to do anything about it if they're adamant they don't want to make a reasonable settlement offer.
Protip: getting legal insurance for employment shenanigans is like $30 a month in the Netherlands. If you need it once in your life it'll have paid for itself.
