Agreed 100%. I would also like to add for the original poster that if you are not in a position where you feel that doing more than your job description is actually fulfilling to you in itself no matter if you always get external validation for it or not, chances may be that you are not in a company, environment or position that is right for you.

If you are truly passionate about what you do, you automatically want to do more than expected of you just because it's fun. It makes it much easier to pursue your goals when your goals are not only in external rewards, but also in the work itself.

Also, a great way to direct your career path is to shine in those aspects outside your job direction that you want to pursue. If you want to do more programming, show off your programming skills. If you want to have a management position, show off your leadership skills etc.

No. A real man makes choices for himself and his family. He is proud of his successes (no matter what they may be) and deals with the consequences.

More importantly, though, he knows that his choices are his, and not necessarily the objectively correct ones. He knows that his perception of paths that others take is always more or less flawed, and just because he may not appreciate, or even see, most of the rewards on those paths, they are there, just as others may not see or appreciate the rewards along your path.

While you find your rewards in being able to spend a lot of time to build cars, others may find rewards in being able to spend enough time to do what they are passionate about and get paid enough for doing them to have others build the cars of their dreams for them instead of suffering through building a car that they don't want to build and being able to fulfill their - not your - dream vacations whatever they may be.

Now, granted, some people choose to live up to other peoples expectations rather than their own. Some of them are caught up in career paths that does not lead to their own life goals, but goals of their parents or others. Just as people who choose to pursue other goals in life than careers should not be confused with people who doesn't pursue their goals at all, neither should those who are unhappy because they are living someone elses dream instead of their own be confused with those who are passionate about their careers and use it to pursue their dreams.

You mean like Playboy Magazine?

In Soviet Siberia, the environment chooses *you*...

It's not censorship if a country's state owned TV channel refuses to air certain content. It is, however, censorship if they ban others from starting competing TV channels or ban competing TV-channels from airing certain content.

Remember, Google doesn't build Chrome OS primarily for today's infrastructure. They build for the future, with tomorrow's technology.

A few early adopters will take the hit, accept the flaws of an OS runs best when online in a world where the infrastructure doesn't support it everywhere. These are probably mostly going to be urban people in areas where Turbo 3G and WiFi connections are no problem.

You don't even have to visit the future in order to experience a world where you are can be online virtually everywhere - even in rural areas (and for peanut money). Just visit Scandinavia for instance.

I was on a train between Gothenburg and Stockholm about two years ago. Too cheap to pay for the Internet connection on the train, I used my ~$12/month unlimited Turbo 3G with my laptop. I dropped connectivity 3 times, the longest time was about 5 minutes. That was two years ago and that train goes through some very rural areas!

4G is around the corner, and that is probably what Google has in mind for Chrome OS. High-bandwith and low-latency connectivity available virtually everywhere.

In the near future, Internet connectivity will not be an issue 99.9% of the time in any places most people are ever likely to go. With Google Gears as a backup-solution for those few occations, I don't really see connectivity as being a major problem.

Why not? Have you ever heard of Spotify, Joost or Voddler?

Actually, that's not really what Wikipedia says.

No, it is a geek issue. Sure, cloud storing isn't for all data and web based apps isn't the best solution in all cases, but that doesn't mean that there aren't a lot of cases where they do make perfect sense.

I wouldn't store anything in the cloud or edit anything in a web app that I wasn't willing to send in an unencrypted e-mail message over the Internet. I also wouldn't use web apps for things that are critical and possible to perform offline, but for everything else, it's definitely mainly a geek issue.

No, they caught on because people obviously care about different things than you do.

See, not many people care if they need to download a 30k executable or a 100k javascript. They also don't care if that executable can perform whatever they need done in 0.2 seconds instead of two seconds for the web app. And they definitely don't care that you think that it's almost parasitic. Really? Why should they care about anything else than getting the job done in the most convenient way?

They care that they can get things done that they doesn't do very often, without having to find, install and run a piece of software locally - and risk getting malware at the same time or slowing down their computers.

Web apps are convenient. The user doesn't have to bog down his computer with tons of applications that he doesn't use very often and he doesn't have to worry (to the same degree) about malware. He will always have the latest version and he can access it no matter if he is at an Internet cafe in Thailand, at a friend's house or home at his desktop.

You may not like it, but web based apps definitely have several advantages over traditional, local apps and they do make sense a lot of time for a lot of people. Especially simple tools that may not be used very often, but also Office Suites (if you want to access your documents from everywhere), translation software or other software that constantly needs updating of data.

Sure, they may not - from a purely technical standpoint - be the most efficient applications. They may use up more bandwidth and total resources than local apps, but as long as they smoothly enough and are simple enough to use, noone except for the most pedantic programmers will care or even notice. They will just notice that it's simpler and takes less effort for them than downloading and installing a local app.