BYU CS 404

Rise to the Top

2010-04-08T08:58:00.000-07:00

We live in a world of degrading ethics and morals. Where high standards were once expected, today they are an anomaly. There is, however, a silver lining to this sad truth: an ethical person now stands out amidst the crowd. So while society as a whole is on a downward slide, opportunities are opening for individuals to stand up and exercise moral courage in doing what's right. It is more imperative now than ever before for people to stand for what is right, since so few are willing to do that today. Especially in the professional world, where Enrons are commonplace, ethical dealings are essential. It seems that people care less for their reputations and standards than they do for money. The business professional who upholds his reputation and conducts himself with dignity will be a rare treasure in days to come. So decide now to be that rare treasure. Perhaps your example will help society rise to higher standards as well.

Video Blog

2010-03-25T23:00:00.001-07:00

I made the satellite animation on blender 3d, the music on Renoise, and the video was edited with iMovie.

Computers and the Kingdom

2010-03-23T09:41:00.000-07:00

As a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints I spent every waking hour thinking about and attempting to bring the life-changing message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to as many people as were interested. In the back country of Kentucky and Indiana, our mission was the home of almost 200 missionaries. A central office in Louisville organized and directed the work of those missionaries and provided referral information about people who were likely interested in hearing the message. I had the rare privilege of spending 6 months of my mission serving in that office. It was there that I learned just how much well-designed computer systems improve efficiency in the work of the church. The church created a database system called MOS to handle the missionary office work. Unfortunately, MOS was extremely lacking in features and the result was that a lot of work that should have been computerized was being done by hand. It was better than having no computer system at all, without a doubt, but things could have been much more efficient. During the course of my time in the office, I wrote some programs that connected with the MOS database and extracted information in a more meaningful way. I was able to automate many tasks, some of which took hours, and allow them to be completed by simply pressing a button. Perhaps the most useful of these was a program that automatically sent the referrals out by text message. In short, this experience showed me just how much of a blessing computers can be in the church and how much improvement there can still be in the processes. I believe that the church is improving the way it uses technology, but the best is yet to come.

The Open Source Takeover

2010-03-18T08:58:00.000-07:00

Microsoft Windows is universally despised yet also universally used. Why? The issue is compatibility and not performance. The average computer user cares little about the operating system he uses, so long as it can run the programs that he wants to run. For several decades, Microsoft has dominated the operating system world, which means that almost all programs that people use are written for Windows. However, a revolution is under way that is already beginning to challenge the Microsoft giant. Open source software is slowly but surely taking over the computing world. Linux, an open source operating system, is far more powerful and secure than Windows. Almost all open source software is written for Linux, and increasingly, commercial software is being written to be compatible with Linux as well. Currently, the main programs that people use (or equivalents) are available on Linux. It is the less common programs that are keeping most people from migrating to Linux. As those programs also become available, Microsoft will lose its position. It's about time.

Pancake is a Bad Shape

2010-03-16T09:25:00.000-07:00

The World is Flat, by Thomas Friedman, was not, as you may have guessed, written in the medieval ages. Nor does it refute the physical spherical shape of our planet. Instead, it refers to the global equality which comes through technological advances. It is fantastic to think how technology has increased the quality of life for people all over the world. Yet it is not all fun and games. The social flattening of the world has many negative implications.

The American economy and freedom give opportunity for upward mobility. The joy of living in such a country is that very prospect. The idea that anybody from any background, including the depths of poverty, can start a company, be successful, and change the world with good ideas and hard work, is heart-warming. Yet just as a flat tire slows a car down, a flat world inhibits such small companies from being successful.

Gigantic companies such as WalMart and UPS followed the American success pattern. They started small, but grew to success and world influence. Along the way, they have burned the bridges they crossed to get there. Can you imagine trying to create a retail store chain to compete with WalMart? Starting from nothing in such an area would be nearly impossible now. The competition is too large to compete with.

Similarly, a flat world hurts individual workers in fields like computer science. With cheap communication around the world and cheap technical labor in places like India, it's difficult for American workers to stay competitive. Why would a company pay five times more for an American computer scientist to do the same job as an Indian computer scientist?

The flattening of the world is really all about competition. When a company can outsource to India or offshore to China to do the same job but for much less, they will do it, at the cost of many domestic jobs. In the end, it gives the American consumer the latest technology for a much lower price, but it also gives the same American consumer a much lower paying job. Do the two balance each other out? You decide.

Insert Creative Title Here (But Make Sure You Copyright it First)

2010-03-04T09:11:00.000-08:00

Perhaps you have heard arguments that illegal file sharing benefits musicians by giving them free publicity. I can definitely see that there might be some truth to that. However, file sharing goes far beyond just music. Illegally copied software does very little to benefit its creators. If file sharing is legalized based on the benefits it has to musicians, then there will be nothing to stop sharing of other content, including software. I suppose I'm rather biased on this subject. Perhaps I write this with purely selfish motives. You see, I will soon be graduating with a degree in computer science and I hope to make my studies worth something. If software engineering is no longer lucrative because all software is shared illegally, then companies will stop producing new software. This means that the job market for computer scientists will diminish and I won't be able to get a job. So yes, I speak with selfish motives, but I also speak for the betterment of society. Allowing illegal activity to continue to the point that it destroys an entire field of study is far from progress. I think the main issue here is that people like to be able to get something for nothing and want the laws to change to allow that.

More Information, Less Knowledge

2010-03-02T09:14:00.000-08:00

Technology has revolutionized the way we communicate. Because of the increasing popularity of the Internet, it is easier than it has ever been to share information and news. However, these wonderful technologies bring with them grave consequences. We are at risk of sacrificing quality of information in favor of quantity. Anybody can put anything they want on the Internet and share it with the whole world. We have all heard the warning that you can't trust everything you read, especially on the Internet. I submit that soon there will be such rapid flow of pointless babble that nothing will be worth reading. Currently, there are sources I trust for information online, such as major news networks. With the increasing popularity of online news sites, these news networks are facing major financial hardships and are being forced to fire many of their employees. Many are considering charging for online viewing of their news. Because there is so much free information out there, people will just stop using major news networks altogether. The market for news will shrink and the news networks will shrink with it, firing many educated, talented reporters and writers. Yet these are the very people whose work we would rather be reading. I fear that soon we will find ourselves getting news from postings by middle school students and not from reputable sources.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8542430.stm

Buzzy fixing Buzz.

2010-02-22T23:58:00.000-08:00

Google, the pioneer of Internet development, recently released a new gadget for their Gmail email service. With the name "Buzz," it aims to provide a basic social network between people who already use Gmail. It didn't sit well with many of Google's customers. Initially, many thought Buzz was intended to be a replacement for Facebook. In my opinion, if Google was trying to compete with Facebook, they would have made Buzz much better than it is. But the complaints actually weren't about the lack of features. Instead, the complaints came mostly about privacy issues. Many complained that when they signed up for Gmail, they were signing up for an email service and not for a social networking service. This is the part that confuses me: Google Buzz is entirely voluntary. It is a feature that has to be activated by the user. Additionally, Buzz does not give other people access to your information, but only to what you post on Buzz. If you are concerned about privacy, then just don't post anything you don't want the world to see.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/maggieshiels/2010/02/google_buzz_scorecard.html

The Evolution of Computer Security

2010-02-18T08:57:00.000-08:00

We live in the age of information, where everything is recorded. I can't search for a simple cookie recipe on google without etching the act into a giant log of search requests. But for most of us in the younger generation, we can't imagine a time when it was possible to connect to the Internet unnoticed. Yet not too long ago, Internet traffic was only loosely monitored. What caused this shift from lenience to tight security? Necessity.

When classified information is compromised because of a lenient approach to computer network monitoring, it's not hard to imagine that policies might be changed. That's exactly what happened. Over the years, hacking and other computer attacks have lead to heightened network security. Yet, as security has tightened, viruses and hacking have not been eliminated, as might be expected. If anything, the problems are worse than ever.

I remember learning in Biology about survival of the fittest. Our textbook showed a colony of bugs eating potato plants and explained the effects of spraying them with pesticide. Initially, many of them die and the treatment seems effective. Yet, a few years later, the bugs are back eating the potatoes. This time, however, they are immune to the pesticide. They are the descendants of the few bugs that were able to resist the pesticide in the first treatment. The attempts to eliminate the bugs only gave rise to a stronger generation of bugs. The same concept applies to computer security. Heightened security in computer systems gives rise to a smarter, stealthier generation of computer hackers.

Our computer systems today are being bogged down with security features, firewalls, and logging processes. Yet today's hacker is so technologically advanced that these crippling features are as useless as throwing rocks at a tank. Is the solution to install more security features? I think not. Instead, computer users should be educated about the computer threats that exist. If every computer user out there were as clever and capable as the hackers, it's hard to imagine that hackers would have much power. Some attempts have already been made to educate the populace about computer security, but I submit that it is not enough. So I offer this plea: if you are technologically capable, spread your knowledge. If you're technologically inept, it's time to learn.

Creating Genealogy

2010-02-04T08:58:00.000-08:00

The technology that drives genealogical search can be improved. While I was growing up, computers were becoming widespread and the internet was taking hold. Such technology was a fact of life for me. As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the addition of an internet connection to our home was largely motivated by an interest in genealogy. Because they were among the first things I knew about on the internet, genealogy databases seemed to have been around long enough that I assumed they were perfect. It is only within the last few years that I have realized there is more innovation to be done in the field of genealogical technology. I speak to my fellow members of the church in the field of computer science. Computer science is a new and constantly improving field. Though, like me, computers and technology may seem a fact of life to you, don't let that deter you from finding ways to improve the technologies that exist. Some members of the church come from strong families where their genealogy has been done all the way back to the 15th century. If they can find work to do on their genealogy, we can certainly find improvements to be made in technology that has been around for less than two decades.

Apple's iPad

2010-01-27T21:29:00.000-08:00

Apple Computer, known for leading the technological world in innovation, announced their newest product yesterday: the iPad. It failed to meet my expectations. The iPad doesn't introduce any new technology or ideas, which is not usual for an Apple product. As far as I can tell, it has no functionality beyond that of an iPod touch. Perhaps Apple thought that making it large enough that you could no longer carry it in your pocket would be appealing. I was especially disappointed to hear that Steve Jobs views netbooks as cheap, slow laptops. Jobs' comment reveals a skewed perspective that his company's products deserve to be purchased because they are expensive. But what if the product's features do not match the high price tag? The iPad actually runs slower than most netbooks. Not only that, but it is incapable of running a full operating system. Instead, the iPad uses an operating system that Apple designed to run a phone. The result is a product that doesn't even deserve to be called a computer and is certainly incapable of competing with the supposedly inferior netbooks. Don't be fooled by the clever marketing. Apple doesn't deserve your money for this one.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8483654.stm

The Social Life of a Computer Scientist

2010-01-25T21:11:00.000-08:00

Social pressures steer women away from technological fields. Despite what stereotypes may dictate, nerds are not antisocial. If you don't believe me, try putting two of them together and make a comment like, "I just upgraded my RAM to 64 gigabytes!" I'm not sure how this works, but that statement will unleash a flood of computer conversation that has enough nerdiness to send an entire football team running for cover. Nerds thrive in the presence of other nerds. What does this have to do with women? Women don't have conversations like this! There is no niche in the social market for women who enjoy discussing the processing power of their computers with each other. Because such personalities only emerge in the presence of other like-minded people, the technology nerd has not manifest itself in the female. Thus, women who have the interest and talent necessary to thrive in a technological field find themselves faced with a dilemma: are they willing to put up with a lifetime of social interaction with nerds? The answer is often no. The solution is for engineers and computer scientists to shake the nerd stereotypes. If the technology industry had the reputation of being filled with people who are socially capable and interesting to talk to in more aspects of life than just computers and technology (yes, there are other aspects of life), then women would line up to get their degrees. So stop reading this blog! Go call up a nice girl and take her out to dinner. Most importantly, stop thinking about computers and start thinking about people.

Twitterpated

2010-01-21T09:06:00.001-08:00

I have never used twitter and I don't plan to. After reading an article (see link below) on the subject of twitter addiction, I'm even more firmly resolved. The initial idea of writing short snippets about daily activities sounds a lot like a journal, which is usually meant to be read only by the writer. Twitter opens such daily snippets up for the whole world to read. Who would want to read daily updates of the minor, boring details of someone else's life? If you're reading about someone you really care about, why not talk to them in person? It seems especially sad to be the one reading daily updates on the life of someone who spends all day on the computer writing tweets. Personally, I never want to contribute to such a mindless substitute for actually living life and interacting with real people.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8459311.stm

Technology makes us stupid

2010-01-14T09:15:00.000-08:00

People are stupider today than they have ever been. In a matter of seconds, I can access more resources on any subject than I could possibly find time to read. You would think that with such a widely-available supply of information, stupidity would be near extinction. And yet, I submit that the ease of communication today is in fact a catalyst for stupidity. Precious kernels of knowledge that took the most brilliant minds generations to acquire are being placed in the hands of people who never learned how to add 2+2. We take knowledge for granted. As technological advances make information more easily available, they steal from us the wisdom that can be gained in the acquisition. There is something important about struggling to find an answer. It brings experience and understanding that cannot be gained from having the answer delivered on a silver platter. So the next time you are trying to find the answer to something, try using brainpower instead of processor power.