Position Vlog: Internet Privacy

12/10 SP Spiritual Wellness

I am often struck by how damaging unethical behavior is to ones soul. That there exist immediate soul altering effects from committing sin. Proverbs 6:32: “But whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding: he that doeth it destroyeth his own soul.” Studying the new testament I often wondered what had lead the Jews to be so spiritually deadened that they were the only people that would crucify Jesus, and I think that this hints at this. There’s something about sin, especially sins that you explicitly know to be bad, that literally destroys your capacity to have faith. Not only faith in god, but in others. In yourself. In a way the Jews of Jesus’ time simply could not believe in him because of the damage they had done to themselves, damage they were unwilling to heal.

12/03 SP Distinguishing Reality

As someone who is a self described “gaming enthusiast” I often find myself confronted by the stories of people who have gone too far with their interaction with video games. I am very aware of the destructive nature these things can have, and when asked about how do I avoid letting myself from being pulled in I tell people that I try to make sure I make sure I stay grounded in reality. I’m not talking about blurring a games reality with my own a la Tom Hanks, but about keeping perspective that they are just games. Remember that there’s a pause button, using the pause button, and if I’m going to play something without a pause feature that real life takes precedence if something wants my attention. To keep myself grounded to the people I know in “meat space” that they are quite literally my reality.

11/19 SP STEM and Gender

One of the things that bugs me the most about being a computer science major is the lack of women in the field. When I sit down in a class and can count the number of girls in the room on one hand, part of me sighs and wonders why. What makes computers more alluring to men than women? What about STEM fields tends to attract more men than women anyway? I’ve talked about this with my wife quite a bit and we both think that it’s mostly stems from societies views of the STEM fields. We don’t see many toys that focus on building or learning science targeted a girls. Crackerjack programmers in movies and TV are almost always men, socially awkward men at that, and when they do try to have women in those roles they misportray what programming is like to a hilarious degree. As a society we have work to do, but I do think we’re getting better at this.

11/12 SP Don't forget to build Cathedrals

As I have spent time musing about the Free/Open Source Software (F/OSS) movement it came as a surprise to me that a F/OSS model of development isn’t, in fact, the smartest way to build any and all products. Using the F/OSS model tends to cause a project to lose focus. This explains one of my main problems with Android, that while Android is a very well made product that does it’s various jobs well, it isn’t a cohesive experience like iOS or even Windows Phone. While I doubt that Android is without a unifying vision, the very nature of how F/OSS development is done makes it hard to keep everything tied to that vision. It is important to remember why some people build cathedrals, to do a very specific thing the best they can.

11/07 SP The Church and Technology

It is doctrine that humanity’s breakneck pace of innovation is due to the opening of the heavens as part of the Restoration. This is why whenever God’s church uses these technological advancements I perk up and try to pay attention because it is in this use of these technologies the purpose of their revelation is fulfilled. Isn’t it mind boggling to think that the entire creation of facebook and the advent of smartphones and social media was so that we “might bring one more soul unto Him”? It goes to show how serious the Lord is about tending to his flock. It makes me wonder how much more He is going to reveal unto us as time goes on. I, for one, would have never guessed social media would be as big of a success as it is. What’s next for us to feel like we can’t live without it? I just hope I remember to use it to spread his word.

10/31 SP Dealing with Easy Duplication and Distribution

It has occurred to me that our society’s inability to figure out how to properly control and govern software and deal with related issues partially stems from how incredibly easy it is to now distribute and duplicate information. Before the introduction of the computer and a text file the fastest way to obtain a copy of a book was to have one literally pressed onto paper from a printing press. These days acquiring a copy of a book is trivial, and even with a primitive network connection the amount of time and energy it takes to distribute it is trivial. The basis of our current law system never needed to take this triviality into account. If someone wanted information, it usually took some real effort to get it. How do you protect something from copy and distribution when doing so is essentially free? How do you properly protect ideas?