While there are reasons to complain about the current state of the internet, it _is_ an achievement of mankind which has transformed the world in many ways.
If you are able to put yourself in the shoes of the people to whom you are explaining something, the rest will follow. Consider what they already know and how you can bring them to your point by starting with something familiar and known.
If you have that point covered, the rest is "thinking clearly" and "expressing oneself clearly". These require practice as much as placing yourself in the shoes of the audience.
I have the faculty to feel what others feels, and that's worse in my case. I feel when I lose them, which make me start to want to explain more, which in turn worsen the situation.
Maybe in that case I should try to stop that feeling and go with my initial idea ... while keeping in mind whom I'm adressing to (like you say in your comment)
One aspect of placing yourself in their shoes is to feel how they feel. Another aspect is to see what they understand from what you are trying to explain. This requires a different kind of skill - of trying to see things from the perspective of different context, culture, skill, knowledge or language (do these words mean the same things for them?). It is this aspect that I had in mind and from your answer I get the impression that you meant the former instead.
It's not needed to sustain the business but it is needed for those who invested in it and would like to cash out on a higher valuation - which typically is achieved through growth.
I use it but chiefly because the regular gmail does not work for me with my browser configuration. For many operations, the mouseclick does not work at all. The basic HTML version at least works.
It's not good form to post such information publicly. Also, it probably is in violation of a few confidentiality clauses you signed. On top of that, this also violates the author's privacy.
I'm afraid I disagree with your last statement. It is possible that perhaps I've just been so fortunate that all the people I've ever come across are mostly similar in what they want from life. It seems to be the same all over the world: general well being, safety and security of their family and their future.
People disagree on priorities and not everyone's incentives are the same but I've never felt that by default people are bad. I'm no scientist (or sage) and just an average human. So, this is just how I see things and not based on expert scientific inquiry. Make of it what you will.
To be honest, I don't know where this comes from. It is of course possible to do what many would call "overly clever" things with templates in C++. However, in modern C++, even the unappealing syntax is mostly hidden and it is such a pleasure to use the standard library or to build something like it. C++ strongly subscribes to the principle of "if you don't need/use it, you should not pay for it" (in terms of performance). Given that and the constraint of backward compatibility, it does a pretty solid job of providing a kind of generics for a systems language. If those constraints do not apply to someone, they may perhaps be able to find something else which suits their needs better.
I do concede, however, that it is a real struggle to learn enough C++ to get comfortable with it and not feel like there are too many booby-traps for one to feel safe with it. So, whenever people ask me if they should learn C++, I discourage them unless they are going to need it for their job, or they intend to go into game development, finance or some such thing.
Anyway, I think I've begun to ramble. If you'd like to try and see the thought process behind how C++ came to be what it is, "The Design and Evolution of C++" is an _excellent_ read and I couldn't recommend it highly enough.
Please do consider that school teachers have unappreciated jobs while they work with insufficient resources to build the future of our socieities. Just imagine "classroom control" for classrooms at different age-groups. If you feel jaded/worn-out/burnt-out by the software field, though teaching can be rewarding, please do try and understand what it entails before getting into it.
Perhaps you already know all this and in that case please forgive my unsolicited advice.
I'd agree here. My wife was a teacher (teacher of the year in her second year, promoted to admin in her last) but left after 8 years. Why? The depressing realities of the state of the teaching profession - she decided she wanted to leave it behind to work with me in software and is much happier.
An important aspect of removing things from life is to make a decision about whether you intend to continue having something as a part of your life - either in thoughts, ambitions or as an object you possess. Without resolving this, the question of "should I keep this?" can not be answered satisfactorily. Our time is quite limited and these choices are either made actively through conscious decision making or passively through inaction. I am still trying to learn to make the decision actively.
You're right, however sometimes trying to shove things out of your life may not be easy or effective. I personally decided to dig deeper and understand why I accumulated that amount of stuff in the first place.
Instead of wasting time trying to actively make this decisions and drain your mental energy, why not try semi-passive observation? I found that putting everything away and getting things that I regularly use from that pile, and getting rid of the least used part regularly (weekly, monthly, semi annually, etc.) works best.
This way also decluttering doesn't feel like swimming upstream, at least for me.
A common solution to this problem is to make the decision based on the cost of replacing the items. If you haven't used an item in 3 months and it takes 20 minutes and $20 to replace then that's a candidate for throwing out. If if takes 3 days and $300 to replace with little resale value then that's a candidate for storing.
Sometimes I'll just put everything in my way into a cardboard box (for instance, everything on my desk, or the majority of a cluttered shelf). I write the date on the box and put it in a closet. The rule after that is I can take things out of the box if I need them, but I can't put anything else in. Any time I find a box with a date more than 1 year old I just donate the whole thing to a thrift store without looking inside.
On the contrary, to me it appears that we are in agreement. You have found a method (to figure out what can stay) that works for you and I'm yet to find mine. I will consider if your method could work for me.
We are actually in agreement, you're right. I just wanted to say that trying to decide too actively on what to keep, and what to let go may be too tiring and working against your purpose.
The method I mentioned is a way to set things in motion, and your brain unconsciously decides what to keep by getting it from that pile. Then you can give the rest (or some of it) away.
When talking about hobbies, relax and passion, why the need to make decision actively?
The hobbies often change as reaction to changes in environment - you like puzzles when work is underchallenging, but when work is mentally challenging you switch to different past time. You craft because you seen something inspiring, then you make music and some time later return to crafting when something inspiring comes around. You are tired so you do nothing, work was slow and boring so you are in mood to create on weekend.
No reason to ditch tools in the meantime, large benefit of having them is that you can switch impulsively without planning.
It doesn't have to be hobbies all the time. It can be stationary, sweaters or anything.
Only the author of the article is making her case over the hobby items or tools, however minimalism doesn't dictate the type of item to be reduced.
For a general rule for me, if you are planning to use it, you should keep it. At least in my case this rule works very well and prevents additional purchases effectively.
While there are reasons to complain about the current state of the internet, it _is_ an achievement of mankind which has transformed the world in many ways.