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Karma

2010-04-08T07:38:00.000-07:00

Every aspect of a person's life is effected by their ethics. Good ethics will improve personal and professional relationships, work habits, and self esteem. This is important in the workplace, because a business is made from its employees. Employees are like the bricks in a house. One weak brick can compromise the integrity of the home as one unethical employee can put the company at risk. Whether it's simply cutting corners or plagiarize code, it puts the company at risk for bad quality, customer dissatisfaction, or even legal repercussions. This applies to our family and social lives as well. We may not always see it, but good ethics are required for a good life.

Charge By the Hour and We'll Watch Our Hours

2010-03-24T19:05:00.000-07:00

The Right Tool in the Right Hands

2010-03-22T14:20:00.000-07:00

We debate banning guns so that killers won't have them, yet we freely give guns to the police. The gun isn't any less dangerous with one than the other. However, if a killer has a gun we feel afraid, but if an officer does, we feel safe. The Internet is the same. There is a lot of bad that happens on computers, but there is just as much good. The Church uses computers to do everything from record keeping to missionary work. With these tools, they are able to reach thousands of people and do much more. Just as the officer is able to save lives with a gun, the Church is able to change lives with computers. In this case, its the right tool in the right hands.

Many Hands Make Light Work

2010-03-18T08:29:00.000-07:00

Everyone is good at something, but no one is good at everything. When one person writes code his or her talents and shortcomings show through. When many people write code the talents of one can override the shortcomings of another. This is what open-source thrives on. The users know what they want. They are able to look at the code and find what needs to be done. They then report it so someone else can fix it or they fix it themselves. Open-source basically repeat this process thousands of times in parallel. This allows bugs to be found quickly and solutions created efficiently because the strengths of many are applied. That is the strength of open-source.

It's a Small World After All

2010-03-15T12:08:00.000-07:00

Two hundred years ago if America was to speak with Britain it required several months on a boat. One hundred years ago America could talk to Britain over the phone, but to work with the British it still took travel time. Even ten years ago work, commerce, and other forms of interaction between nations was drastically different. Now we can communicate and interact instantly; now the world is flat. We can communicate, interact, and even do business almost instantly across the world. We have all become neighbors which is both a great and horrible thing.
Today a person can get on the internet and within ten minutes buy a computer from Bangalore, which is built with parts from Japan, Ireland, and India, and shipped in ten days or less. Because of both technological and political advances we are able to do business faster and buy many products cheaper. The flat world promotes peace because we are able to work together efficiently, making war unprofitable. There are many great benefits that come from a flat world.
Making everyone neighbors though is not all a good thing. We must adjust. Strategies and tactics used in the past won't work in this world. We need to be careful. With everyone as you're neighbor secrets can't be kept, and it is harder to keep the unwanted out.
Things are changing, and at an incredible rate. We as a people must change with it. We can use the good and avoid the bad. As we do, the world will truly be small after all.

Something Between Giants and Pirates.

2010-03-04T07:52:00.000-08:00

Copyright laws and those who break it. Is it a case of corporate bullies squeezing every last penny from the downtrodden consumers or malicious pirates picking the pockets of the hard working American? Probably both. Who owns a piece of music? When you pay for it is it completely yours or are you just paying for the right to use it? Clearly if we blatantly break copyright laws by selling, downloading, and distributing illegal copies then we remove the producer's incentive to create the product. So we need laws to limit this. Yet if the producers charge too much or too often for the product they will remove the incentive to buy the product. So their greed can't have free reign either. We need a balance. Something to keep both the corporate giant and the cyber pirate at bay.

Keys Pressed to Install Windows: 800,000. Keys Pressed to Break it: 1.

2010-03-01T20:39:00.000-08:00

We hear about hackers breaking through holes in major operating systems, or coaxing users to install bugs with cleaver ploys. Turns out all they need is one key pressed, and they're in. Should they be perfect after several years, or will they always have their problems. There seems to be a never ending supply of holes for hackers to enter and exploit. Can we expect a perfect system? Perhaps not. We will always have one more hole to watch out for, just ask Microsoft.

Does Information Everywhere Cause People Not to Think?

2010-02-22T19:42:00.000-08:00

'If_you're_stupid_it's_not_Google's_fault', or so says a recent study. With information that used to take us hours in a library now being accessible in a just a few clicks, is it possible that we will be less intelligent for it? A large part of Academia is thinking about what we learn. The time and effort that used to go into our studies helped solidify our knowledge, and build our own ideas. If we get answers so quickly that we don't need to take time to think about the question we will likely lose the ability to ponder or meditate. On the other hand, getting access to so many differing ideas on one subject can spark the mind. Perhaps, those who are trying to learn use the internet as a springboard, while those who want easy information use it as a crutch.

A Matter of Trust

2010-02-17T19:17:00.000-08:00

It's easy to view the internet as just a bunch of information. By this reasoning, a person can conclude that there isn't really much wrong with someone perusing through computers for information. The truth is, there is more at stake than just some leaked information. When a hacker attacks a computer, trust is lost. Because of this lost trust we need encryption, passwords, anti-virus software, and many other things that slow down the sharing of information.

The book gives the example of a community that doesn't lock its doors. One day, a house is burglarized. Because of this, the rest of the community gets locks on their doors. The community is no longer an open door community and it is not likely to go back. One person choosing to break the trust can have a lasting effect. The same is with the internet. If there weren't people trying to break into private information, there would be no need for passwords. If there weren't people trying to break passwords, we wouldn't need encryption. Now that we have these things, the thought of going without them is laughable. Ironically, these things have their downsides. They make information inaccessible to some people who would use it appropriately. They slow down the computational process, in order to put up their defenses. If it were possible for there to be trust on the internet, information could flow much more freely.

Unfortunately it cannot now. We've been burglarized, and there's no going back. We can't prevent other people from breaking trust, but we can do our part to keep it.

Your Great Great Grandfather is my Third Uncle Twice Removed!

2010-02-04T08:33:00.001-08:00

The Internet is like a large roaring fire. We hear so often that it is filled with danger, and not to get too close to it. With all the danger though, there is a lot of warm fuzzy goodness that comes from the fire. The Internet has allowed the church to provide fast and easy access to genealogical records. This information would have required hours upon hours of digging through files, papers, and microfilm to find before. So though the Internet is filled with negative, it has plenty of positives along with it.

Too Few Prepared

2010-01-28T08:25:00.000-08:00

http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-10441824-245.html?tag=newsEditorsPicksArea.0

A century ago no one worried about "cyber" attacks, or had any inkling what they were. Now, every major company in the United States has large amounts of information and resources in cyberspace. Yet, are they adequately protected? This article suggests otherwise. According to the article "Only 57 percent said their organization installed security patches and updated software on a regular schedule." Truth be told, that's frightening. The internet is getting faster and the computers are getting more powerful. We need to make sure we keep our computer security on the same track.

What?! Nerds Aren't Attractive?

2010-01-28T08:16:00.000-08:00

http://news.discovery.com/human/nerds-women-computer-science.html

There is no one reason why computer science has few women. From pressure on women to avoid the sciences due to prejudices, to social pressures and expectations. With all the possible causes, could it be that our fashion sense, recreational hobbies, and social quirks are what is driving them away the most? They say that women in computer science are lucky because their odds are good, but unlucky because the goods are odd. Is this a factor in why there are so few women? According to a recent study it is. Computer science has a nerdy reputation, for video gamers and code junkies. So if we want more women in the discipline, we need a makeover.

Bits, Bytes, and Barbies?

2010-01-25T21:05:00.000-08:00

Go to any computer science class on any university campus and it isn't hard to see that one gender outnumbers another. As a member of the L. D. S. church, I believe that men and women have many inherent differences. These differences make us unique and give us different viewpoints from which to address life. This doesn't make either of us better than the other, just different. As far as it goes for computer science, the subject would certainly benefit if more women were in it. With video games, advertisements, and more our culture draws more men to this discipline. We need to provide more incentive for women to join our ranks. I won't claim to know exactly what that is, but we're computer scientists. We'll tinker at it until we figure it out.

You've got to fight for your right to. . . surf?

2010-01-20T13:26:00.000-08:00

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/01/20/google.china.talk/index.html

The internet is a fast pace place. With just a click, a person can access information about anything from how make a cake to how to make a bomb. As Americans on the internet, we have a huge level of freedom, which is good, but certainly comes with it's own problems. China has for years required censorship on the internet. When Google entered the Chinese internet they were required to use government censorship. The idea of the government protecting the people comes at a cost. With this, the government has a large amount of power, with little or no accountability. The problem with this idea was visible when the government filters on Google were used to track Chinese human rights activists. Though it is true that there are dangers and pitfalls with the fast paced internet, there are dangers just as invasive and destructive with too much restriction. The importance is in the accountability of the user, not the restriction of the provider. In essence, I agree with Benjamin Franklin when he said, "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

"With great power, comes great responsibility," says Uncle Ben.

2010-01-13T14:45:00.000-08:00

Every technological advance our world has experienced has brought us something useful, at the cost of something else. The internet is brimming with opportunity to improve or degrade us as a people. This doesn't call for us to abandon technology in order to avoid the negative, it simply means we need to understand it. When we are aware of both the benefits and deficits that come with modern technology, we are able to use them to our greatest benefit and avoid the pitfalls that they bring. Take, for instance, my brother Kyle. While working a road construction job, a careless man entered the construction site and hit my brother. The accident cost my brother his left leg. That doesn't mean that I, or my brother, are going to give up driving cars because accidents happen. We simply need to be aware of the danger so that we don't use that particular technology carelessly.