Leave it to the Law

At one point a group of ethical men created a constitution for the country.  After hours of grueling work and a lifetime of preparation, our nation's people receive a sort of "code of conduct" to help us remain ethical.  As time has gone on people have become less ethical, thus causing more laws to come about.  Laws are created by lawyers.  Lawyers aren't always ethical.  The result?  We can be following all of the laws as best we can and not be ethical.  Example, I used Napster way back in there day before there were any laws against downloading music.  To truly remain a person of high ethics one must turn to themselves and to God. Sadly, the world is headed towards the lawyers.

Fake Identities In Actuallity

While on my mission I saw people get baptized and then proceed to miss church because their gild was fighting a major battle.  Eventually they stopped coming all together.  I've seen the pernicious effects of addicting online gaming behavior with several people in my life.  Gaming doesn't attract me so it's easy for me to refrain from it, so I've needed to put forth effort to understand those overcome by its addictive nature.  On the flip side we have social norms and certain cultures that prevent people from expressing their true identity when they are dying to.  We are so quick to condemn those living a fake identity in cyberspace and never think that maybe we are causing those around us to actually live a fake identity.  It looks like people need to put forth some effort to understand these people's true identities.

Family History Still For Old People

Previously family history work took a lot of time, hence old people dominated the field.  But in recent years the time needed to accomplish any family history work has greatly been diminished, though people's mindset hasn't changed much.  Sadly, the time I was most exited about doing family history work was when I was a missionary teaching weekly classes about it.  This is sad because as a full-time missionary we couldn't do family history work.  But now I can!  Yet I don't.  Why?  Well I have an aunt or two that is crazy about family history work and it's gotten to the point that I once again must spend a lot of time to find out anymore information about my ancestors.  There is still plenty of work to do like indexing, but general indexing doesn't bring the same kind of thrill as researching your own ancestors.  I know I don't stand alone here.  In my mind I can't help but thing that family history is still for old people.  Will family history ever be as thrilling to me as it has been to my aunts?

Here Comes Me!

    "It wasn't until the student's writing assignments became blog posts did the quality of their writing increase dramatically" -Dr. K..
    People, writing music, recording music, making videos, and dancing.  These are all things I love.  The fact that the time and effort I put into the things have a guaranteed audience greatly enhances my desire to continually stay involved in such activities.  What would I be doing at my age had I been born 10 years prior?
    Networking has brought about justice.  Before now a person had to get past the men wearing suites who "know what people like" in order to do what they love.  But now that unofficial monopoly can be bypassed, giving opportunity to anyone that wants to be seen and heard.  Anyone can share anything they feel anytime!  Knowledge about anything is at everyone's fingertips, something the world didn't see coming.
    Does having all information at everyone's fingertips introduce danger into society?  I don't think so.  Within modern day networking we are seeing the formation of several connected graphs incomprehensibly large in size.  The connections being added to these networks cause a true exponential growth in complexity.  These complexities are what's protecting us; they're what make our passwords and other forms of encryption safe.  Social media, and other cyber-networks, simulate a non-deterministic Turing machine, a device that is believed impossible to exist.  But such complex data structures can not efficiently be processed, or traversed, in a reasonable amount of time even by the world's fastest super computers.  Such networks are only as dangerous as are the methods used to traverse them which is significantly lowers the chance of information being used to resurrect Big Brother.
    Of course networking has brought about justice assuming people are truly free to express themselves.  What about China?  The largest population simply being restricted from the planet's greatest sources of information:  Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, MySpace, Google, etc..  This is only damaging.  True dead-weight-loss.

Symbolizing China'a Great Firewall

    Having information at our fingertips is a new concept and the potential it gives the human race has not even come close to being breached.  We are now living in a modern-day Renaissance.  Previous obstacles that prohibited so much creative expression have disseminated, leaving behind doors of opportunity that can be opened by a person's effort alone.  So how are you taking advantage of what is no longer holding you down?

Steve Was Inspired

New technology is created when God needs it to be.  Technology has only enhanced the world's opportunity to receive the gospel; it speeds up the work.  I'm not an Apple fan, but I don't necessarily hate Apple either, but I often surprise people when I say, "I believe that Steve Jobs was inspired."  I believe the time came that God wanted iPads (tablets) on the earth and Steve Jobs was the one chosen to receive the proper inspiration to bring them about.  Were Henry Ford or the Wright brothers not inspired either?  Ironic how hordes of people obsess over their little gadgets,  loving them more than they love God.  What did their little gadgets ever to for them?

"Happy Birthday to Yo....." Oh Wait, That Song is Copyrighted

    An individual lawyer does his best to win a case because:  1)  They'll make more money.  2)  Their reputation will go up which will make them worth more.  3)  They might actually care about the case.  Because of these lawyers' behaviors we have had numerous court cases finish with the bad guys winning.  Over time these types of lawyers have brought about an incapacitated patent system.  They only care about winning their care no matter if it's ethical or not.  Patent laws kill creativity and turn the American dream into a nightmare.  Excessive amounts of time and money are wasted in the many patent related cases instead of being invested into business/family productivity.  The Happy Birthday song is copyrighted, hence you only hear it in big time movies that can afford paying for usage rights.  The "Happy Birthday" song is a huge part of our culture, but at one point some lawyer won a case which allowed that song to be copyrighted despite it being created long before and in turn thrashing that part of our culture in our media.  Have you ever wondered why we don't see more foreign films brought to America?  They simply can't afford our copyright laws.

Piracy Is Wrong! However... (vlog)

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Communism vs No BETA Testing

The cycle of software

When you force the people into their occupations productivity declines immensely.  I feel telling a group of testers what they should be looking for in a product is of a similar nature.  The small number of beta testers are bound to come to a consensus far before the masses do.  In fact the masses may never come to a consensus  hence software is in a never ending cycle of being improved.  The communist beta testers disturb this cycle by not only slowing it way down but fixing what's not broken and allowing errors to roam free.  Would you have wanted to be aboard that rocket launched by North Korea last year?  We're in a world now where bad software can mean identity theft.  Basically bad written software can allows villains take your life away.  Personally I prefer software to be more thoroughly tested and therefor lessening the change of my identity being stolen.  So please, no more beta testers.  I don't want to be put on that rocket.

I was hacked...by a woman.

Sandra Bullock playing the part of a world class hacker.

Have you ever pictured the hacker being a woman?  We all know that characters like the one Sandra Bullock played in "The Net" are too good to be true, or are they?  Woman and men are different.  Our minds are different.  Why are a large majority of gay men involved in musical theater?  Why are they gay?  When answers to these types of questions begin to become unreachable things turn political.  So why are there less woman in computer science?  Well, women might just possibly be less interested in the field in general.  But this doesn't answer the question. When a certain sex is a minority in a certain field of study people freak out, for surely discrimination was on the move.  That or women simply prefer other fields of study more.  I do feel that there are less women in computer science because they are less familiar with computers in general.  Men like football more then woman.  Men like computers more than women.  I believe that as computer science becomes part of the k-12 standard curriculum that we'll see more women come into the computer science world but that men will still dominate the field.  However, I don't think the world will ever fully understand, on a scientific level, why men and women are so different.  We should all hail to Paul McCartney's words when he sang, "Let it be.  Let it be.  Let it be, oh let it be."

The Cuckoo's Egg

         90% of the work gets done in the last 10% of the time.  Why is this?  We see time and time again people not thinking about their long-term futures.  "What's important is here and now!"  The famous band The Grass Roots summed it up perfectly in their song Let's Live For Today.  It isn't until a deadline approaches and the reality of, 'I need to do something, and do it quick' do we feel motivated to act.  Nothing good comes from this kind of behavior, yet it must be innate for we witness such behavior in all of us to some extent.
        At the time the events of the book The Cuckoo's Egg occurred computers which were interconnected via long-distance-networks were a new technology.  The three-lettered agencies didn't get involved in the case because they felt like they didn't need to.  There was no incentive.  Little did they know getting involved in the future was inevitable.  I am amazed at how the character Cliff received almost no help from anyone and the help he did get wasn't from any sort of government official, that is until only 10% of the time remained.  Only when things turned completely awry did any government official decide to do anything, for they had no choice.
        Acting this way is completely inefficiency. In an industry that is as fast moving as the tech industry government officials need to always be on their toes to restrain malicious attacks from occurring.
        In the earth's history we have never seen such a dramatic change in society.  The first network capable computers made and sold to companies required such a high esoteric knowledge that no wonder numerous back doors existed.  There were no regulations regarding software being sold, computer security, etc..  The government was clueless, for all the techies were in the private sector making and selling their new toys to anyone who would buy.  It was a free economy and the invisible hand was shoving economy forward faster than the people could handle.

        Cliff did contact certain government officials who understood technology, but they were minorities.  The men upstairs in the government agencies had no idea what damage could be done through malicious hacking because they weren't techies themselves.  This was a time when hackers ruled the world.
        What should people learn from this book?  It reminds me of the Human Genome Project.  The government put a ridiculous amount of money into the project.  A private company decided they'd do the same project by themselves, putting much less money into it, thus a race for the human genome had begun.  The government project failed and the private company succeeded.  Why?  Those in the private sector put their hearts and lives into their work.  They chose such a profession because they wanted to.  They had less overhead.  The government moves slowly and those on the project worked for the government rather than for mankind.  The private sector always wins.  Unfortunately this is where the worlds best hackers stand.  So what do we do?
         Help Cliff.  Investigate, find out who the bad guy is, then support the good guy in their quest.  Cliff worked for man kind.  He followed the hacker so as to put an end to people getting their computers hacked into.  He worked for free.  He won.
        It wasn't easy for him.  The phone traces could have been done with little effort had the government helped.  But Cliff had to overhear a woman speaking in the background over a phone call and then lie to an operator to trace part of the hackers line.  The government inhibited his ability to succeed.  Something is very wrong with this picture.
        Cyber investigations should not be left entirely to government officials.  They shouldn't be a matter of "Who has authority?" and "Who doesn't?", but rather "Who is the best at the task at hand?"  The government should seek out these people through thorough investigation and then help them capture the bad guy.  This would not only be more efficient, but more effective as well.  The private sector always wins.

No G'maps for iOS6, Apples Descent Has Begun

When you expect to arrive at your favorite fast food restaurant but then end up at a maternity home you know something is wrong.  We all know Apple is trying to become like Big Brother and control the world like any socialist/communist would, but they just can't succeed in this.  Their latest products have only been average, and now by providing users with their own simple-don't-work maps even the hard core Apple lovers have to admit that Apple's map features suck.  We all know that if Steve were still here he would not have allowed Apple to released the maps in what seems to be beta stage.  Apple is no longer gaining fans like it once was, but rather current fans are getting disappointed.  Could this be the beginning of Apple's inevitable descent?

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The Apple is Human

I do not believe that Apple is capable of coming out with "the next big thing" time and time again and I feel this is the beginning of my time to shine.  Pundits rave and rant about how great or terrible Apple is, but at the end of the day it's just a bunch of men wearing suits who once had a great idea.  So why are people crazy about getting the latest iPhone 5 which wasn't that great?  Because in the past Apple has given us revolutionary products year after year and despite what critics say this phone is keeping the revolution going.  I'm sorry, but John Lennon disagrees.  Apple isn't going to die, but it's going to get smaller.  Apple no longer has anything that leads the way, even their ipods lack buttons which is a nightmare for runners and other athletes.  Steve is gone.  Apple is going.

A response to this article.

Big Brother Is Coming To The USA

Assuming I remain a good citizen, I don't see what's so bad about face recognition technology coming to the streets of the USA.  The last thing I want are more Ted Bundys running around.  If used wisely this could help find the nation's top most wanted criminals, or any of the wanted criminals really.  Sure I'll feel a little violated, but as long as they don't abuse this technology then the trade of for feeling constantly violated should be worth it.


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Change Is Good. Technology Is Good.

What comes first isn't always the best.  In fact I'd say most of the time this isn't the case.  People that rant, "The printing press annihilated oral tradition."  I say "Good."  Oral tradition was a great way to lead future generations astray and it only existed because there where no other methods.  Being a God fearing man, I believe that technology comes around at the time when God sees it fit to come around.  You can take anything that is new, notice what changes it brings about, then labels those changes as "bad".  OR you could see what the new creation can do and think of a whole new realm of possibilities that are now at one's fingertips as a result of the  creation's coming into existence.