Charity in the Workplace

Our readings for this week focused heavily on Christlike attributes, especially charity. I chose to interpret these attributes in the scope of my coming professional life as a software developer. With graduation and full-time employment just around the corner, now is the time for all of us to decide what kind of employee, co-worker, and leader we want to be throughout our careers. I appreciated the focus on charity in our readings. It is obviously a hugely important Christlike attribute for our life now and the eternities, and it is just as important in the scope of ethics in the workplace. We wouldn't discriminate against other co-workers if we felt charity towards them. We wouldn't misuse the powers of technology to exploit people or steal intellectual property. In all ways, our behavior should uplift and inspire those we work with. The code we write and the products we create should be appropriate and wholesome and designed to benefit people as much as possible.

Screen Dependencies (Vlog Post)

So, I'll be honest - I missed the bulk of the smartphone and tablet wave that swept through society 3 or 4 years ago. Before my mission, everyone had flip or slide phones; after it, everyone had smartphones and was crazy about games like Angry Birds. Now, I don't feel like "smart" devices are bad; however, they are very powerful devices. They have a lot of potential to suck us in and consume our time and attention if we aren't careful. But, in my opinion, even worse than the adults consumed by their screens are the children who are being raised by their parents' "smart" devices. I'm not just advocating less screen time for kids - though I do think that is a good idea. But it just saddens me to see parents who must resort to their tablet or phone to keep children quiet and behaved. What are we teaching children who must play Angry Birds in order to behave during church meetings? If we show our kids that they cannot be happy without a screen in front of them, we are setting them up to fail in life.

Balancing Priorities

I spend the vast amount of my time on the computer. These days, that time is almost entirely spent doing homework. Over the summer, my time was consumed with work. On the weekends, I find time to do personal programming projects. As a programmer, it makes sense that my time is often spent in front of a screen. However, even when I'm not doing "busy" stuff like homework, I do tend to spend most of my relaxing time on electronics. I like to play games to unwind at the end of the day. I chat with people on Skype. I even draw on my computer. However, I do feel like I live a balanced life. I don't waste all my time browsing social media or doing raids on MMOs - as the readings for our class make all forms computer overuse sound like. I don't neglect my classes or my work, and I certainly don't neglect my family life. I feel like it is definitely possible to use computers heavily without being unbalanced. You must know where your priorities are - God first, family second, work third, and fun last.

Big Brother is Stopping You from Watching

Book post response to Access Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering by Ronald J. Deibert.

Internet filtering is a touchy subject. On the surface, it feels wrong, Preventing people from seeing or reading about certain topics - especially while hiding that you are doing so - seems dishonest and even manipulative. This is particularly the case when the material being filtered is political in nature Many of the countries "featured" in Access Denied utilized their internet filtering for this purpose. I suppose the biggest question we need to ask ourselves is, is the internet something that should be filtered by the Powers That Be? Filtering on a personal or family level seems fine. Parents have the responsibility to raise their children in righteousness, and protecting their family from inappropriate material is an important part of that responsibility. But there is something immoral with governments deciding what should or should not be allowed to be viewed or posted by the people - be it internet or TV or print. I guess this is really a freedom of speech issue, when you get right down to it.

The Top 5%

I have had a fair amount of exposure to open-source projects, but I have contributed basically nothing to any of them. However, I do feel like being able to contribute to such projects is a sign of a great programmer. In Eric Raymond's The Cathedral and the Bazaar, Raymond quotes a friend who suggests that "open source has been successful partly because its culture only accepts the most talented 5% or so of the programming population." If I haven't been able to find my way into open source, does that mean that I'm not among the top 5% of the world's programming population? Do I want to be? What does it take to reach this level? I think about some of the developers I know who participate in open source a lot. A major difference between them and myself is the level of drive they seem to have. These people never stop programming. They seem full of good ideas and creative solutions. I want to be more like that. I want to be in the top 5%.

Should Software Be Free?

Why is there such conflict over free software or open source software vs proprietary software? I honestly feel like there is a place for both in our world. Open source software is fantastic for its collaborative value. Developers can all contribute their good ideas or come to the source to learn from other great developers. Additionally, users can find a free program to serve just about any purpose they need fulfilled (e.g. Linux for a free OS). In general, I feel like open source contributes a lot to programming as a whole. However, paid software also serves an important role. I feel like proprietary software is much more important and widely-used by companies rather than individuals. In general, paid software feels like a more complete and polished product. It comes with better support and more accountability on the part of the developers who are selling the product. I don't think there should be big debates on free vs proprietary software; we should utilize them both.

So What If My Facebook Icon Isn't "I'm a Mormon"

When I hear church leaders talk about the proper uses of modern technology, I have to pause and analyze the way I use computers. I know that technology is a morally neutral thing; it is not good or bad in and of itself, but it can be used to good or evil ends. I personally don't use a computer for many 'good' ends, but I also certainly don't use it for evil. For example, I program. I enjoy programming. I feel like spending time programming is a good thing to do because it helps me grow and develop my talents--but it's certainly not indexing or building my family tree or sharing Mormon Messages on Facebook. Still, I feel okay about my personal use of technology. I do find opportunities to share the gospel and just be a good example to the people I interact with in digital areas. I try very hard to not let my computer use get in the way of living life--especially my family life. Overall, I do feel like I put technology to good use in my life.

When the Going Gets Tough, It's Not My Problem

In The Cuckoo's Egg by Clifford Stoll, the protagonist Cliff tries several times to go to various governmental agencies for help in tracking down a hacker who is using his university's system to access government computers. While these agencies are more than willing to ask him questions and get information, they're very unwilling to tell him anything in return. Furthermore, they're unwilling to actually do anything. They don't want to help monitor the hacker, and they don't want to take responsibility for trying to track him down. As a reader, I felt some of Cliff's frustrating while reading about how unhelpful the people in authority were being. It's a situation I could totally sympathize with. How many problems, discovered by seemingly unimportant people, could potentially have enormous impact on society? How do you properly inform the correct people? How do you make sure the problem is treated as a priority? This is a general human problem, but it can apply to the field of computer science in unique ways. What if you discover a bug in some software? Should you exploit it? Quietly report it to authorities? Fix it yourself and submit a patch? Spread the word about it all over the internet? What do we do if people report a problem to us? How do we know if a problem is important enough to be worth our resources? These and many other questions are big considerations in software, and especially in open source software where developers like us have more opportunity to make a positive difference.

A 'Shocking' Reminder

Read the article here.

Computer software is far from perfect. Everyone knows that, especially programmers. So, when a major exploit in a ubiquitous program is revealed, it shouldn't come as a major shock to anyone. However, it does bring up some significant topics of conversation. I linked to the above article, not because it talks about the Shellshock bug, but because it discusses the importance of ensuring the quality of any software we write. We don't want to have to re-invent the wheel every time we write software. We certainly don't want to have to start from scratch when updating an existing product! However, there seems to be so much innate trust in existing code that we often take for granted the security of what we're building on top of. I feel like there needs to be a shift in the mentality of programmers everywhere. We need to not wait for our code to become battle-hardened by having problems discovered 'in the field', as it were; we must become diligent in our testing in development.

The Theft of the Nerds

Sometimes it feels like there really is "nothing new under the sun." Occasionally, we may come up with a good idea, but it can't be that creative, right? Surely someone else has thought of it before. Or maybe we do see it as a good idea, but we can't think of any real use for it. What happens, then, when someone comes along and sees our idea and recognizes the true potential it has? Are they justified in taking that idea from us and making it their own? Is it morally right for them to profit on the application of the idea without conceiving the idea themselves? This moral dilemma was exploited extensively by the big names in the personal computer world, such as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. It's how they rose to the top. Most of their great ideas weren't even theirs; they were just the ones who saw how to apply the ideas. The world has benefited greatly from this exploitation; however, I feel that it is still a very wrong thing to do. Ideas should be improved on, but never stolen.

Ballooning Internet Coverage

What are the basic human needs? Any wilderness survivalist would tell you that you can live long without food, water, and shelter. Psychologists might talk about the need to interact with other people. Google is trying to add internet access to that list. On a high level, I can understand their reasoning. A few weeks ago I traveled to visit some family. It was admittedly annoying to not have cellphone reception for almost the entire trip, preventing me from texting my friends. Google's Project Loon would bring cellphone reception and internet access to a greater range along my trip - though their highest priority is to provide mobile internet access to remote individuals, not travelers. On a deeper level, though, it strikes me as an odd sense of priorities. I would sooner have more food and cleaner water in Africa than internet-bearing balloons. Of course, who knows what positive effects could come from sky-high balloons floating above internet-impoverished people?

Read the original article here.

The Tug of War Between Convenience and Privacy

With more and more microcomputers popping up in items all around us, life is becoming much more convenient. Thermostats learn our temperature preferences. Refrigerators can report when food is low and assemble a shopping list for us automatically. Hugely convenient, right? But then you learn that these "smarter" devices are reporting the things they learn about your living habits. Do we feel secure about that kind of data being gathered almost as a side effect of these products' convenience?

I have worked in enough areas to see how hugely convenient data can be to companies. They can use this data to learn what things are important to their customers. They can even use it to identify problems in their products. Gathered data, when used anonymously, can benefit everyone. I am a big fan of the anonymous feedback that products gather for this reason. However, the flipside of the coin - gathering specific data about specific individuals and identifying it with them - is wrong, and there's really no way around that.

Link to article

Why Don't We Have Teleporters

I probably spent an average of one hour on the school bus every day throughout grade school. More than once, I wishfully daydreamed of having a teleporting device that would allow me to commute instantaneously between home and school. But, even then, I understood that such a device would have dramatic impact on our societies. No longer would we need cars, trains, or planes. We wouldn't be as dependent on fossil fuels. But people would hardly take the time to travel anywhere anymore. No one would pause to appreciate the beautiful scenery flying past outside their car window. Obesity would probably become a bigger issue because people wouldn't need to get up and move around as much. In Neil Postman's Five Things We Need to Know About Technological Change, he mentions that culture always pays a price for technology. I find this concept hard to accept, but hard to disagree with. Technology always brings change, whether good or bad. I understood this intrinsically, even as a young grade school student.