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After reading the “ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct,” I was impressed by the importance of establishing a strong, professional ethical code early in your life. This wasn’t something I had ever thought about before because I assumed that the ethical code you apply to your everyday life would be satisfactory for the situations that arise in a professional environment. However, after reading some of the points outlined by the ACM, I see that there are situations you should prepare yourself for. It is important to know, or at least have some idea, how you will handle certain situations before they arise. Then, when you are actually faced with the decision, it will be easier to follow through and make strong ethical choices.

Some people will tell you that gaming is a waste of time and a bad habit. My position is that online gaming can be a great outlet when monitored. Furthermore, having great outlets is important to any balanced life. When gaming is used as an outlet and a stress release from the busy and hectic lives we live, it can be the perfect form of escape. I understand, however, that online gaming can very easily turn into a nasty, time wasting addiction. I have personally stayed up till 6 am playing online games and recognize that there is a fine line between harmless fun and harmful addiction. In other words, you need to set limits for yourself to keep gaming from becoming an addiction. Personally, I have found several ways to keep gaming on the fun side of the line rather than the harmful side. Things that have worked for me include setting time limits for myself, having multiple outlets such as basketball or spending time with my wife and friends, and finding other ways to get outside. Gaming can be risky, but if you take the necessary precautions then the outlet gaming provides will be beneficial. Online gaming allows you to release stress, engage your mind with problem solving, build friendships, and even nurture existing relationships by playing with friends or family. Ultimately, I think online gaming is a great outlet that can help you maintain balance in your life.

There are so many ways to spend our time. We have school, work, family, church, and recreation. Keeping each of these things in balance can be a very difficult task. It is so easy to let one or two of these aspects dominate our lives and let the others fall by the wayside. In “Just a Game?” by Knutson and Oswald, the addictive nature of online gaming is explored and ideas on how to keep gaming in balance with the other aspects of your life are explained. The key idea that I took away from this article is that self regulation is of utmost importance. We have to be responsible enough to set realistic time limits for how long we will spend gaming and then follow through. Along with this we must self-monitor the impact online gaming has on our life and decide if it is healthy or not. If we find that we are becoming addicted to a game (or anything really) we should limit the amount of time spent on the activity or walk away entirely. If we can watch ourselves closely, and act quickly when we notice the obvious signs, it will be much easier to keep our lives balanced and ultimately live a fuller, happier life.

In Clay Shriky’s Here Comes Everybody, he discusses the recipe for successfully forming an online group: “a plausible promise, an effective tool, and an acceptable bargain with the users.”  The ingredient I want to focus on is the promise as I think this is the most important ingredient.  The promise is the reason why someone would join a group.  You have to be able to promise your user an experience and an ease of use.  If you can’t show your user why they should be connecting with others through your social media outlet then you aren’t promising them anything and will fail.  Shirky also mentions that you must be improving the effectiveness of your users.  If you can’t promise to help them accomplish something in a better, easier, and more enjoyable manner then they aren’t going to change the way they are already connecting.  Shirky gives three suggestions for how to make this promise to your users and I see Facebook as an excellent example of these suggestions. The first is to make joining the group easy. Facebook certainly does this. All you need is an email address and you can create a new account. Facebook also helps you start connecting by offering up potential friends that have similar interests, likes, and friends.  The second suggestion Shirky makes is to create personal value for your users. Facebook gives this to its users by allowing them to connect with friends and family that they can’t see everyday, allowing them to have a little glimpse into their life even if they live far from one another. The third suggestion from Shirky is to subdivide the community.  Facebook, again, is an excellent example of this. The very nature of Facebook is to divide the community of ALL Facebook users down to those who are your “friends”.  This can mean family, close friends, co-workers, or even acquaintances you don’t know very well. Facebook also lets you follow different groups so that you can connect with people who share similar interests thus dividing the community even further. When a social tool can promise its users a great experience, I feel that they have a much higher chance of successfully connecting the world.

In class we watched a video about the beginnings of open source software like Linux and GNU.  While I value the accessibility and the opportunity for collaboration, I do not think that open source is the only way to go with software development. I readily acknowledge that people’s ideas are their own property and they can do with them as they wish. If a developer comes up with a great way to solve a difficult (or easy) problem that could help thousands of people, I think it is his prerogative to copyright his idea and sell it for a profit.  If it truly is a great solution to the problem, he will likely make lots of money as he is able to provide this service to many people.

Sharing your ideas freely on the internet is a tricky path. On one hand you are sharing some portion of a solution with everyone. They can then adapt and modify that solution to fit their needs which leads to ingenuity. On the other hand, instead of coming up with the solution themselves, they can be confined into seeing the solution one way. This can lead to a lack of creativity and a worse product overall. Open source can be a great tool; however, if we rely on it too much then we will lose the innovative thinking that drives the tech industry forward.

Why aren’t there more women in Computer Science? I think the main deterrent is the culture we are raised in. Case in point, I bought my niece and nephew a Christmas present last year; I gave my niece an art kit for drawing and coloring and I gave my nephew a doctor’s kit. Do I think my nephew would be a better doctor than my niece because he is a boy? Of course not. Do I think my niece would be a better artist than my nephew because she is a girl? Again, of course not. But I gave them those presents without much thought of the culture I was passing down. I think these small cues that we as a society demonstrate to our children have a huge impact on the way they view themselves and their potential. High school is also a formative time where teenagers can learn that they “aren’t good at math”. Sadly this idea can stem from the unintentionally biased comments or attitudes of a teacher and can have far reaching effects.  If we hope to increase the number of women in the hard sciences, I think a cultural shift is needed. We need to treat women, from a young age, as if they belong in math and science; otherwise, a change will never occur.

After reading an article from Church News and Events, found here, I have realized the importance of real relationships. Social media is a great tool and allows people from all over the world to communicate with each other, but a real relationship cannot survive via social media alone. Relationships are best in person; it’s difficult to convey laughter, facial expressions, sarcasm, emotions, and the natural back and forth of dialogue over the internet. The article quotes Elder Bednar, who said, “I am not suggesting all technology is inherently bad; it is not…But I am raising a warning voice that we should not squander and damage authentic relationships by obsessing over contrived ones.” This quote makes me think of Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, online gaming, and many other social distractions found online today. Our generation is consumed by the number of Facebook friends we have, the number of likes and followers we get, and the scores we can show off to our cyber friends. As Elder Bednar pointed out, we can’t let our obsession with these things damage our relationships with family and close friends, the relationships that really matter.

My favorite part of the Cuckoo’s Egg was the innovation and the dedication that Cliff showed while tracking down the hacker.  I especially appreciated the genius of “Operation Showerhead”. Cliff and his girlfriend came up with an excellent idea so as to get the hacker to stay connected for a long period of time so that they could trace his location. Knowing that the hacker was interested in military information, they made large amounts of false data relating to the military which would keep the hacker downloading for several hours and thus allow them to complete a trace on his location. I thought this was a genius idea and think it’s a valuable lesson to apply to myself and my future career. When solving problems, we need to leverage the information given. In Cliff’s case, he used the knowledge of what the hacker was after against him to aid in his capture. In my career I don’t anticipate I’ll be catching hackers, but it will still be important to leverage all the available information when solving bugs or coming up with solutions to difficult problems. Sometimes it is easy to overlook the importance of these bits of knowledge, but with practice and discipline I think I can learn to see these minute details for what they really are: keys to excellent solutions.

I read a really cool article about the innovation of a physicist in Spain. Dr. Naomi Alexander has created a new method of security that simply requires a person to walk past a wall and the system can detect if the person is carrying anything under their clothes. Her system is called “Alfa3” and is based on the technology of millimeter wave imaging which “uses thermal imaging to see the difference in temperature between the body and objects that aren’t part of the body.” I am really impressed with the innovation of this physicist and her team. By taking technology that is currently in use in other security systems and altering the way it is applied she has been able to create something totally new.  “Alfa3” could potentially save hundreds of lives and will certainly make life a lot easier as we go to airports, stadiums, concerts, etc.

See the article here

After reading 5 articles about the developments in family history and how much easier it has become to find your ancestors, the guilt has set in. I have done very little genealogical work and with the convenience of modern technology there really isn’t any good excuse for it.  Joesph Smith said that “it is necessary … that a … welding together of dispensations … should take place… from the days of Adam even to the present time”.  Doing genealogical wok is a way to wield yourself to your family. Then your family to your parents and grandparents and so on.  Family history allows us to bring the human race together as one big family with the purpose of providing soul saving ordinances to all. It’s very easy to get caught up in the here and now and forget about those who have come before, but genealogy helps us remember where we come from and that we are all in this together.