Combine that with their full Intellisync package, and you've got the sexiest work phone ever.
I bet you were one of the people who were complaining about the iPhone lacking a keyboard, but now that someone else makes a touch-screen smart phone, it'll be the sexiest work phone ever.
Now I think Apple forbidding 3rd party development is about the worse move ever, but hey, it's happening anyway. Either way, the important thing isn't what features a phone has, but how well those features are implemented.
A) The hack in question isn't about running unauthorized programs, but about allowing the iPhone to work on any GSM network.
B) "Normal" iPhone users might not be willing to go through the trouble of hacking the iPhone to run additional problems, but thankfully there are some clever iPhone users who have made it easy for the rest of us. Run a simple GUI program, wait a couple minutes, and you have a nice little package manager built right into your iPhone. It gives you a list of installable applications, and with a couple taps of your finger, it will download apps from the internet and install them.
I wouldn't call it "understaffing" if people are more productive and can get their work done.
But yes, I'd agree that overstaffing can cause a drop in your company's productivity. It seems counterintuitive, since you'd think more people would do more work. However, if you have 1 guy sitting around doing nothing because there isn't enough work to do, that person will usually start fooling around in ways that distract everyone else. Also, everyone else will see the guy not doing anything and think, "If he doesn't have to do anything, why should I?"
If you have enough work that everyone in your company is generally busy most of the time, then you're in pretty good shape. If a given person isn't busy enough, have him/her review things, double-check things, organize things better, or whatever other odd-jobs might be hanging around. Keep everyone busy, but not working too hard for too long.
Good point. A good manager will find work for his/her employees, will help motivate people, and will monitor people to make sure they're doing the expected work. However, I think that a good manager will also expect that no one is going to work 8 straight hours each and every day. It's not even all that healthy for people when you can get them to do it.
In fact, I think that 1/5 of an 8 hour work day (about an hour and a half) is pretty close to the right amount of "wasting time". I might drop it down to an hour instead, but people need a little down-time. 15 minutes here and 15 minutes there-- it adds up.
I definitely agree with the spirit of your post. People waste time at work? So what?
You ask people to spend the majority of their waking life, somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 hours a day 5 days a week, in a little cubical, and you're surprised that they aren't hard at work for that entire time? They're people. They should be able to occasionally talk to people and read things that interest them.
It'd be a problem if you were only asking people to work 5 hours a day, 4 days a week, and people were wasting time on the job. I've had too many jobs, though, where there simply isn't more than 6 hours of work each day, but i had to be there for 10 hours. And those 6 hours of work were stressful, and the breaks kept me from snapping someone's neck.
Also, there's a question in my mind about what constitutes "wasting time". I work in IT. Is it a wast of my time to read Slashdot? Sometimes. But sometimes it's very informative. I've learned a lot from my web browsing while "wasting time", and a lot of that knowledge has benefitted my employers. I also used to "waste" a lot of time screwing around with various hardware/software products, which also lead to increasing my knowledge.
Being "productive" 24/7 just shouldn't be anyone's goal. A little experimentation/exploration/contemplation is useful.
One, remember - management is more about people skills than technical expertise.
I would say that it's very important to remember that the skills needed to do a job aren't the same as the skills needed to manage people doing that same job. One of the most important things to remember, IMO, is to stay cool-headed. Try not to get rattled. If you're frustrated, annoyed, scared, or confused, then try not to let it show.
As a manager, it's your job to keep your peers and superiors informed about anything that they need to know. It's your job to protect those under you from politics and business minutia that will distract them from their work. In general, you should imagine that it's not your job to do the "work" anymore, but instead you'll be working very hard to make sure everyone else can focus on their own tasks without worrying about anything that it's not their job to worry about.
If it helps, think about it as though you work for those who report to you. You have to figure out what they your underlings need to be able to work efficiently and try to provide it. Sometimes that's being responsible for making plans and keeping things organized. Sometimes that means keeping higher-level managers/executives off their backs. Sometimes it's as simple as making sure everyone has the equipment and office supplies they need.
Meanwhile you have to also keep them in line and keep them productive. If you're too nice, they'll walk all over you, show up late, and do practically nothing. Also, you have to try to keep your bosses happy.
It's tricky, complicated, and a lot of work. Don't think that just because you aren't doing the "work" that your job will be easier. It's a big balancing act, and if you don't stay balanced, it can turn into a disaster rather quickly. That's why it's so important to keep your cool. Your effectiveness will have a lot to do with projecting the right image and keeping a good reputation. Acting out of anger or frustration will work against you.
I agree. That is exactly what I think should happen. Somehow or another, a given portion of the physical infrastructure will be owned/controlled by one entity. Whether it's the federal government, a specific municipality, or private business. However, there should be regulation preventing that entity (the one who controls the physical infrastructure) from controlling the traffic going over the physical infrastructure. There should be some fee charged for having access to that infrastructure, either through an actual fee or through taxes, but it should not be discriminatory. Access to the infrastructure should be generally open.
I'm running into the same thing with FIOS right now. Keep seeing/getting ads, but Verizon keeps telling me it isn't available. They won't tell me where it is available, and they won't tell me when it will be available in my area.
Well it doesn't sound like the problem is regulation per se, but shitty regulation. Any government regulation should encourage competition and/or encourage the development of broadband infrastructure. What's the point of handing over an entire area to be "owned" by a single company, regardless of the wishes of the inhabitants of that area. What kind of regulation is that?
Right. I really don't know why people fail to categorize the Internet as "infrastructure". Roads, bridges, sewers, water, electricity, and the Internet are all the same sort of thing.
Sure, you think of the Internet as a bit of a luxury, but I bet running water and paved roads were considered a luxury once. Individuals, private businesses, and governmental organizations are all relying on the Internet on a daily basis. It seems like this sort of infrastructure should either be public or heavily regulated.
Last I heard, "hookers" weren't considered vital for economic growth. In fact, the last I heard, prostitution was still generally illegal.
At least compare it to other kinds of infrastructure. Say, "They don't have running water or roads either. OMG!! An infrastructure crisis! They probably don't have electricity either. An electricity crisis!"
Well... a couple of things. First, most ISPs won't actually give you a real map of where there coverage is. It's really sketchy. Sometimes you can't even tell until you go to order the service. I remember doing a check a few years ago where I entered my address into Verizon's online thing, and it said I could get DSL. Then I tried ordering it, and they said that the website was wrong.
Second, if you RTFA (or even the summary), the guy bought a house three-tenths of a mile outside the broadband coverage. So basically that means that they guy down the street could get broadband and he couldn't. It's pretty understandable why he wouldn't catch this ahead of time.
It does look cool, but can I ask what your business model is? (i.e. how will you be making money?) Is this going to be a pay service?
To be perfectly honest, it looks pretty great, but I'm personally a bit tired of getting locked into a specific service. That's the only problem that I would have with it. I have my own servers, plenty of online storage, and I don't entirely like storing my data on another company's server, not really knowing the people running the company or security practices, etc.
But the software looks like a good idea. Any chance you'd consider selling licenses when you're done so that people could use it on their own servers?
What if you're syncing with a server, and you start out with 10 files, all of them synced between the two. Two files get deleted from the server, one gets deleted from the laptop. You create three new files and change 2 of the files on the laptop, and change 3 files on the server. Now, you want to sync the two in such a way that all of these changes get propagated. You want to delete all the files that were deleted from either computer, move the new files to the server, copy the changed files to the server, but you want to be careful about conflicts. If the same file got changed on both machines, you want them excepted from the sync or else resolved in a controlled way.
How do you do that with rsync? It doesn't seem to be designed to handle that well. I use rsync for one-way synchronization, but unison seems to be better suited for a two-way sync.
Unless... am I wrong? Maybe there's some rsync tricks I just don't know.
What it doesn't do is answer the basic question of why we need another set of document formats.?
Another format isn't really a problem. Depending on your goals and needs, it might make sense to create a new file-format. There's a reason why we have GIF, JPEG, and 24-bit PNG, and haven't tried to drop 2 in favor of the third-- they each have their own strengths, weaknesses, and uses. I don't see why word-processing formats should be different from that.
The key thing, however, is that any new formats be kept open and documented so that other programs can support them if the developers choose to do so. AFAIK, there are no secrets or patents that keep developers from supporting iWork documents. They're just XML, and OpenOffice could support them if OpenOffice developers think it's worth the effort.
However, I'd love to hear from Apple about why TextEdit in Leopard supports ODF and iWork does not.
I'd like to hear that too. I've submitted feedback on iWork 08 to Apple, requesting that they include support for ODF. I didn't know that ODF was supported in TextEdit in Leopard, and it makes me wonder whether Apple build ODF support into the OS instead of building it into the application, meaning that iWork will be able to support ODF in Leopard.
I think Pages has been and is misrepresented as a word processor. It's really a page-design and layout tool. Rather than "Apple's word processor" I think of it as "Indesign lite".
True, but this has begun to change with Pages '08. They've obviously put some work into improving the text-input functionality of the program while keeping the excellent layout/design functionality.
I think you're right in the sense that Linux is actually pretty good already, even on the Desktop. For most purposes I deal with in my job, the the big issue would be to get pixel-perfect clones/ports of programs like Soundforge and Photoshop. Admittedly, I've been working for media companies for a while, so my vision is a little skewed. There are media programs that do a lot of the same things as Windows/OSX counterparts, but they really aren't usually as refined and mature. I'm sorry, I know people will jump down my throat on that one, but it's been my experience.
I think there are an awful lot of things that could continue to be refined, matured, fixed, or whatever you want to say. There's still work to do, but I don't think there are gaping holes in Linux anymore.
If you had access to good-quality programmers and really wanted Linux to excel and take more market-share, my advice would be the following: Involve a variety of usability experts and experienced users from a variety of fields in your process. In my opinion, this is the area where lots of developers fail (not just FOSS developers, but Microsoft seems pretty guilty of this). Sometimes programmers just don't have the right perspective on things because they aren't really power-users of their own software.
As someone who's done some graphic design, I'll tell you that I don't think Photoshop/Illustrator are perfectly intuitive or sensible. As someone who's been a network admin, I don't think anyone has yet solved issues with data-storage involving backups and archives. Imaging isn't as easy as it should be. E-mail/Calendar/Contact management is still pretty retarded. As a user thinking about usability, even OSX has its problems.
When I've talked to my peers in each of these fields, we tend to have the same problems, and though there's no shortage of developers working on the related software, it sometimes seems like developers just don't know what the problems are.
So I guess I'm saying that Linux developers (and Windows developers and OSX developers) should really be communicating with their users better about what problems actually need to be solved.
I don't understand most of this, but one thing in particular occurs to me-- do we know it's really a "hole"? I mean, if we're measuring certain sorts of radiation to tell us what's out there, far away as it is, do we know that there's actually nothing there? Or could there be something there that is absorbing that radiation? Or something in between that's interfering with the radiation getting to us?
More to the point, it'd be as though waiters allowed you to add or subtract 5 grains of salt to any dish, but that caused the whole meal to take 4 hours longer to cook. Are those 5 grains of salt worth waiting around for 5 hours, or are you willing to trust the cook?
It's funny how this conversation goes. You're talking about the internet as a kind of important infrastructure, but mostly people talk about it as a business service. You're describing AT&T as running the roads while AT&T is trying to convince Congress that they're just running a taxi service. In general, I think people are failing to make the case that the Internet is infrastructure of the sort that the government should be involved. I'm not saying it's not infrastructure, but only that the argument isn't being heard in the mainstream.
Of course, convince people that it's infrastructure and it'll just be neglected like the rest of the infrastructure in the US. Bridges are falling, dams are crumbling, the train system is pretty much dead. Give it a few years, and even the highways won't be drivable.
Maybe the developmentally disabled kids need a lot more help to be functional (and if they don't get that help as kids, we end up feeding them their whole adult lives), and the genuises don't need as much help?
The idea that smart kids don't need help and guidance is total BS. Yeah, I get it, you want to think that you were so utterly smart as a kid that you didn't need any help. It's not true, though. Most likely you excelled at certain things because those were the things that you got the best kind of help for them.
Admittedly, sometimes "the best kind of help" isn't very restrictive and allows the child to explore on their own. However, it takes a lot of paying attention to kids to know when they should be allowed to explore and when you, as an adult, should intervene and help. Gifted children need that level attention as much as anyone, and not giving it to them will stunt their intellectual, emotional, and psychological development.
If enough people start complaining about ads, illegal porn and security breaches (mark my words on that last one), these freedoms will be put up on the chopping block.
Why would people complaining about ads, illegal porn, and security breaches put freedoms on the chopping block? People have been complaining for years, but have shown no ability to do anything to fix it.
I'm not in favor of some governmental agency attempting to regulate the internet, but I am saddened to see people acting this way. Regarding both the spammers themselves and the people who buy things from spam (thereby making spam a viable business), these creatures make me pessimistic about people in general.
Does this mean my website in 1998 may not have really been "BEST OF THE WEB"?!
What's really silly to me is that people even bother submitting their software to these sites for approval. It's a total scam anyway, so why not just copy the 5-star award image from someone else's website?
Slashdot Mirror
Combine that with their full Intellisync package, and you've got the sexiest work phone ever.
I bet you were one of the people who were complaining about the iPhone lacking a keyboard, but now that someone else makes a touch-screen smart phone, it'll be the sexiest work phone ever.
Now I think Apple forbidding 3rd party development is about the worse move ever, but hey, it's happening anyway. Either way, the important thing isn't what features a phone has, but how well those features are implemented.
Good catch. That would be a typo.
A) The hack in question isn't about running unauthorized programs, but about allowing the iPhone to work on any GSM network.
B) "Normal" iPhone users might not be willing to go through the trouble of hacking the iPhone to run additional problems, but thankfully there are some clever iPhone users who have made it easy for the rest of us. Run a simple GUI program, wait a couple minutes, and you have a nice little package manager built right into your iPhone. It gives you a list of installable applications, and with a couple taps of your finger, it will download apps from the internet and install them.
I wouldn't call it "understaffing" if people are more productive and can get their work done.
But yes, I'd agree that overstaffing can cause a drop in your company's productivity. It seems counterintuitive, since you'd think more people would do more work. However, if you have 1 guy sitting around doing nothing because there isn't enough work to do, that person will usually start fooling around in ways that distract everyone else. Also, everyone else will see the guy not doing anything and think, "If he doesn't have to do anything, why should I?"
If you have enough work that everyone in your company is generally busy most of the time, then you're in pretty good shape. If a given person isn't busy enough, have him/her review things, double-check things, organize things better, or whatever other odd-jobs might be hanging around. Keep everyone busy, but not working too hard for too long.
Good point. A good manager will find work for his/her employees, will help motivate people, and will monitor people to make sure they're doing the expected work. However, I think that a good manager will also expect that no one is going to work 8 straight hours each and every day. It's not even all that healthy for people when you can get them to do it.
In fact, I think that 1/5 of an 8 hour work day (about an hour and a half) is pretty close to the right amount of "wasting time". I might drop it down to an hour instead, but people need a little down-time. 15 minutes here and 15 minutes there-- it adds up.
I definitely agree with the spirit of your post. People waste time at work? So what?
You ask people to spend the majority of their waking life, somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 hours a day 5 days a week, in a little cubical, and you're surprised that they aren't hard at work for that entire time? They're people. They should be able to occasionally talk to people and read things that interest them.
It'd be a problem if you were only asking people to work 5 hours a day, 4 days a week, and people were wasting time on the job. I've had too many jobs, though, where there simply isn't more than 6 hours of work each day, but i had to be there for 10 hours. And those 6 hours of work were stressful, and the breaks kept me from snapping someone's neck.
Also, there's a question in my mind about what constitutes "wasting time". I work in IT. Is it a wast of my time to read Slashdot? Sometimes. But sometimes it's very informative. I've learned a lot from my web browsing while "wasting time", and a lot of that knowledge has benefitted my employers. I also used to "waste" a lot of time screwing around with various hardware/software products, which also lead to increasing my knowledge.
Being "productive" 24/7 just shouldn't be anyone's goal. A little experimentation/exploration/contemplation is useful.
One, remember - management is more about people skills than technical expertise.
I would say that it's very important to remember that the skills needed to do a job aren't the same as the skills needed to manage people doing that same job. One of the most important things to remember, IMO, is to stay cool-headed. Try not to get rattled. If you're frustrated, annoyed, scared, or confused, then try not to let it show.
As a manager, it's your job to keep your peers and superiors informed about anything that they need to know. It's your job to protect those under you from politics and business minutia that will distract them from their work. In general, you should imagine that it's not your job to do the "work" anymore, but instead you'll be working very hard to make sure everyone else can focus on their own tasks without worrying about anything that it's not their job to worry about.
If it helps, think about it as though you work for those who report to you. You have to figure out what they your underlings need to be able to work efficiently and try to provide it. Sometimes that's being responsible for making plans and keeping things organized. Sometimes that means keeping higher-level managers/executives off their backs. Sometimes it's as simple as making sure everyone has the equipment and office supplies they need.
Meanwhile you have to also keep them in line and keep them productive. If you're too nice, they'll walk all over you, show up late, and do practically nothing. Also, you have to try to keep your bosses happy.
It's tricky, complicated, and a lot of work. Don't think that just because you aren't doing the "work" that your job will be easier. It's a big balancing act, and if you don't stay balanced, it can turn into a disaster rather quickly. That's why it's so important to keep your cool. Your effectiveness will have a lot to do with projecting the right image and keeping a good reputation. Acting out of anger or frustration will work against you.
I agree. That is exactly what I think should happen. Somehow or another, a given portion of the physical infrastructure will be owned/controlled by one entity. Whether it's the federal government, a specific municipality, or private business. However, there should be regulation preventing that entity (the one who controls the physical infrastructure) from controlling the traffic going over the physical infrastructure. There should be some fee charged for having access to that infrastructure, either through an actual fee or through taxes, but it should not be discriminatory. Access to the infrastructure should be generally open.
I'm running into the same thing with FIOS right now. Keep seeing/getting ads, but Verizon keeps telling me it isn't available. They won't tell me where it is available, and they won't tell me when it will be available in my area.
Well it doesn't sound like the problem is regulation per se, but shitty regulation. Any government regulation should encourage competition and/or encourage the development of broadband infrastructure. What's the point of handing over an entire area to be "owned" by a single company, regardless of the wishes of the inhabitants of that area. What kind of regulation is that?
Right. I really don't know why people fail to categorize the Internet as "infrastructure". Roads, bridges, sewers, water, electricity, and the Internet are all the same sort of thing.
Sure, you think of the Internet as a bit of a luxury, but I bet running water and paved roads were considered a luxury once. Individuals, private businesses, and governmental organizations are all relying on the Internet on a daily basis. It seems like this sort of infrastructure should either be public or heavily regulated.
Last I heard, "hookers" weren't considered vital for economic growth. In fact, the last I heard, prostitution was still generally illegal.
At least compare it to other kinds of infrastructure. Say, "They don't have running water or roads either. OMG!! An infrastructure crisis! They probably don't have electricity either. An electricity crisis!"
Well... a couple of things. First, most ISPs won't actually give you a real map of where there coverage is. It's really sketchy. Sometimes you can't even tell until you go to order the service. I remember doing a check a few years ago where I entered my address into Verizon's online thing, and it said I could get DSL. Then I tried ordering it, and they said that the website was wrong.
Second, if you RTFA (or even the summary), the guy bought a house three-tenths of a mile outside the broadband coverage. So basically that means that they guy down the street could get broadband and he couldn't. It's pretty understandable why he wouldn't catch this ahead of time.
It does look cool, but can I ask what your business model is? (i.e. how will you be making money?) Is this going to be a pay service?
To be perfectly honest, it looks pretty great, but I'm personally a bit tired of getting locked into a specific service. That's the only problem that I would have with it. I have my own servers, plenty of online storage, and I don't entirely like storing my data on another company's server, not really knowing the people running the company or security practices, etc.
But the software looks like a good idea. Any chance you'd consider selling licenses when you're done so that people could use it on their own servers?
What if you're syncing with a server, and you start out with 10 files, all of them synced between the two. Two files get deleted from the server, one gets deleted from the laptop. You create three new files and change 2 of the files on the laptop, and change 3 files on the server. Now, you want to sync the two in such a way that all of these changes get propagated. You want to delete all the files that were deleted from either computer, move the new files to the server, copy the changed files to the server, but you want to be careful about conflicts. If the same file got changed on both machines, you want them excepted from the sync or else resolved in a controlled way.
How do you do that with rsync? It doesn't seem to be designed to handle that well. I use rsync for one-way synchronization, but unison seems to be better suited for a two-way sync.
Unless... am I wrong? Maybe there's some rsync tricks I just don't know.
What it doesn't do is answer the basic question of why we need another set of document formats.?
Another format isn't really a problem. Depending on your goals and needs, it might make sense to create a new file-format. There's a reason why we have GIF, JPEG, and 24-bit PNG, and haven't tried to drop 2 in favor of the third-- they each have their own strengths, weaknesses, and uses. I don't see why word-processing formats should be different from that.
The key thing, however, is that any new formats be kept open and documented so that other programs can support them if the developers choose to do so. AFAIK, there are no secrets or patents that keep developers from supporting iWork documents. They're just XML, and OpenOffice could support them if OpenOffice developers think it's worth the effort.
However, I'd love to hear from Apple about why TextEdit in Leopard supports ODF and iWork does not.
I'd like to hear that too. I've submitted feedback on iWork 08 to Apple, requesting that they include support for ODF. I didn't know that ODF was supported in TextEdit in Leopard, and it makes me wonder whether Apple build ODF support into the OS instead of building it into the application, meaning that iWork will be able to support ODF in Leopard.
I think Pages has been and is misrepresented as a word processor. It's really a page-design and layout tool. Rather than "Apple's word processor" I think of it as "Indesign lite".
True, but this has begun to change with Pages '08. They've obviously put some work into improving the text-input functionality of the program while keeping the excellent layout/design functionality.
I think you're right in the sense that Linux is actually pretty good already, even on the Desktop. For most purposes I deal with in my job, the the big issue would be to get pixel-perfect clones/ports of programs like Soundforge and Photoshop. Admittedly, I've been working for media companies for a while, so my vision is a little skewed. There are media programs that do a lot of the same things as Windows/OSX counterparts, but they really aren't usually as refined and mature. I'm sorry, I know people will jump down my throat on that one, but it's been my experience.
I think there are an awful lot of things that could continue to be refined, matured, fixed, or whatever you want to say. There's still work to do, but I don't think there are gaping holes in Linux anymore.
If you had access to good-quality programmers and really wanted Linux to excel and take more market-share, my advice would be the following: Involve a variety of usability experts and experienced users from a variety of fields in your process. In my opinion, this is the area where lots of developers fail (not just FOSS developers, but Microsoft seems pretty guilty of this). Sometimes programmers just don't have the right perspective on things because they aren't really power-users of their own software.
As someone who's done some graphic design, I'll tell you that I don't think Photoshop/Illustrator are perfectly intuitive or sensible. As someone who's been a network admin, I don't think anyone has yet solved issues with data-storage involving backups and archives. Imaging isn't as easy as it should be. E-mail/Calendar/Contact management is still pretty retarded. As a user thinking about usability, even OSX has its problems.
When I've talked to my peers in each of these fields, we tend to have the same problems, and though there's no shortage of developers working on the related software, it sometimes seems like developers just don't know what the problems are.
So I guess I'm saying that Linux developers (and Windows developers and OSX developers) should really be communicating with their users better about what problems actually need to be solved.
I don't understand most of this, but one thing in particular occurs to me-- do we know it's really a "hole"? I mean, if we're measuring certain sorts of radiation to tell us what's out there, far away as it is, do we know that there's actually nothing there? Or could there be something there that is absorbing that radiation? Or something in between that's interfering with the radiation getting to us?
More to the point, it'd be as though waiters allowed you to add or subtract 5 grains of salt to any dish, but that caused the whole meal to take 4 hours longer to cook. Are those 5 grains of salt worth waiting around for 5 hours, or are you willing to trust the cook?
It's funny how this conversation goes. You're talking about the internet as a kind of important infrastructure, but mostly people talk about it as a business service. You're describing AT&T as running the roads while AT&T is trying to convince Congress that they're just running a taxi service. In general, I think people are failing to make the case that the Internet is infrastructure of the sort that the government should be involved. I'm not saying it's not infrastructure, but only that the argument isn't being heard in the mainstream.
Of course, convince people that it's infrastructure and it'll just be neglected like the rest of the infrastructure in the US. Bridges are falling, dams are crumbling, the train system is pretty much dead. Give it a few years, and even the highways won't be drivable.
Maybe the developmentally disabled kids need a lot more help to be functional (and if they don't get that help as kids, we end up feeding them their whole adult lives), and the genuises don't need as much help?
The idea that smart kids don't need help and guidance is total BS. Yeah, I get it, you want to think that you were so utterly smart as a kid that you didn't need any help. It's not true, though. Most likely you excelled at certain things because those were the things that you got the best kind of help for them.
Admittedly, sometimes "the best kind of help" isn't very restrictive and allows the child to explore on their own. However, it takes a lot of paying attention to kids to know when they should be allowed to explore and when you, as an adult, should intervene and help. Gifted children need that level attention as much as anyone, and not giving it to them will stunt their intellectual, emotional, and psychological development.
If enough people start complaining about ads, illegal porn and security breaches (mark my words on that last one), these freedoms will be put up on the chopping block.
Why would people complaining about ads, illegal porn, and security breaches put freedoms on the chopping block? People have been complaining for years, but have shown no ability to do anything to fix it.
I'm not in favor of some governmental agency attempting to regulate the internet, but I am saddened to see people acting this way. Regarding both the spammers themselves and the people who buy things from spam (thereby making spam a viable business), these creatures make me pessimistic about people in general.
I'm not denying that it's the world we live in, but apparently the world we live in is absurd.
Does this mean my website in 1998 may not have really been "BEST OF THE WEB"?!
What's really silly to me is that people even bother submitting their software to these sites for approval. It's a total scam anyway, so why not just copy the 5-star award image from someone else's website?