Debugreality

How does a purely flat organization lead to no constraints or accountability? In a flat organization every member needs to be responsible for actively upholding the organizations vision in the same way that this article is advising the managers need to actively uphold their companies vision.

It's the lack of an active vision that creates problems not the hierarchical or flat structure of the organization.

For example a democratic process can be used to maintain an organizations active vision including resolving disruptive people and processes.

I can see a lot of publishers offering special deals for purchasing through their website instead of through the app store to offset the 30%. For example "Subscribe via the web and receive 3 months free subscription."

At least until Apple further restricts their terms...

To add to your post I attended a school based on the summer hill philosophy and one of the reasons all the students went to class was because the whole school set up the timetable democratically at the start of each semester.

This led to some interesting subjects like yoga and womans rights but it also provided subjects of interest to nearly all the students so there was more desire to attend and learn.

An additional bonus of this kind of system is that often subjects like computer games development require some grounding in maths which makes these kinds of abstract subjects more desirable.

It was also clear that these core subjects are requirements for further education so there was always enough desire from people wishing to attend university to keep the core subjects going.

That was a bit tounge in cheek but after discussing this with my partner I think perhaps a more constructive use of class room cameras would be to facilitate peer review and ongoing skill improvement. Similar to code reviews by programmers.

Put cameras inside classrooms that parents can login to online at any time of day and I think we will see a vast improvement in schools. Just a thought :)

Helicopter parenting and teacher/student learning as compared to self directed learning strike me as two current trends that may lead to learned helplessness in our society.

So many people in my life need constant encouragement to help overcome learned apathy. I'm not really sure what the main cause is but they seem to be likely candidates.

Any plans to make this an openid server? It would be a good way to validate groups that other applications that require validation could leverage off.

There are many many ways of being "smart" and I've found most people are smart in at least one way or another. Either they are socially smart, or they are very fast to learn something or they are very good at thinking deeply to work out a complex issue. Maybe they just have a great memory.

It sounds like you are admitting to being socially dumb which is a good thing, admitting it is the first step to improvement.

Keep your eye out for other people around you who are socially smart and try and learn from them. Imitation is the our most basic learning strategy and can work well as a starting point.

I was reluctant to sign up because I suspected you would be asking for my credit card details. If it is free to register then you should mention that.

I don't think the fact that false leads are investigated is really the problem. But that investigation should be resolved much more quickly and much more transparently.

Really the harm seems to be in they way people are being treated not in trying to prevent child abuse etc...

I had a thought regarding the radiation shielding issue I'm not sure how they calculated the mass but it seems to me if they focused on shielding the sleeping "pods" and allowed other common activities to be completed with these small areas so the crew could spend upwards of 80% of the trip in these tiny protected areas of the ship then they could greatly reduce the protection material needed...

Developing the core functionality is only 30% (or less) of the work, creating a finished product requires a lot of spit and polish!

Oh another good trick regarding shyness is to focus on your motive. Why be fearful if you are acting with the other persons interests at heart. Try doing things for others, like smile to make them happier.

A lot of people are in the same boat as you, why should you all be miserable :)

There is some good comments here about practicing, the trick is to find what works for you.

Make a list of small things you think you can try. Try them. If one doesn't work for you that's ok, write down what you learn from it not working. Maybe you can try it a bit differently next time, or try something else.

Just keep at it, it usually takes a few missteps to learn new things so don't worry about it. That's part of learning.

Good luck!