Computer Ethics and The Church of Jesus Christ

When we graduate from BYU, if not already, we will be the technology experts of our circles of friends. This gives us a greater responsibility to show how to properly use technology. Specifically, how to avoid pornography. We need to open the eyes of many who either take computers out of their homes, or just put their head in the sand believing that their kids won't have problems with computers in their homes. Parents need to know that no filter makes computers perfectly safe. They need to know that kids have a lot of time on their hands when they are alone at home. If they are "hooked" they can spend hours trying to figure out how to view inappropriate material while losing any way of being apprehended. The principles need to be taught to children before they hit puberty. This gives them a way to know that sex is wonderful, but if pulled out of the context of marriage, it can become one of the most destructive and damning influences on the earth.

Online Gaming

I started playing online games when they first came into existence. It gave me an incentive to learn how to type and I had a way to spend my free time with friends in my ward. I was on the cross country team, and I played the viola in the orchestra. However, my grades were not as they should be and only improved when I stopped playing video games all together.  Online games are especially difficult to stop because there isn't a way to pause the game.  The games I played did allow a pause, but no one wanted to wait so they would resume the game before I was ready. This caused conflict between me and my mother. She would want me to do a chore, and I didn't want to because I was in the middle of a game. When most of my gaming friends moved, I decided to focus on school. No one ridiculed me during the time I wasn't playing video games, but it was difficult finding a social life.

Do Record Companies Benefit Musicians?

UPDATE: I have since learned that many pop musicians actually don't write their own music. Record companies supply them with what to sing, and thus record companies need to subsist to have musicians perform new music. I have since change my stance on this issue.

Information Theory

According to "The Information", people didn't have the same concept of information before the use of computers. People used the word information for different purposes much like the word force was used differently before Newton. "We can see now that information is what our world runs on: the blood and the fuel, the vital principal." Information has been defined as what is communicated between two entities. This line of thinking has permeated over the sciences, and it is hard to imagine their existence without information theory. For example, in Biology we think of DNA storing information and passing this information along to other parts of the body and to future generations. African drummers of the nineteenth century and earlier were able to communicate much faster than than anything the West had before the telegraph. An interesting aspect of information is that it can be compacted and have still have the same meaning. However, when there is redundancy, the communication is much clearer. African drummers compacted language to beats by taking out words and then added redundancy to the drum beat so that other people could understand what they were saying. Information theory has revolutionized our society so much so that we don't know what it is like without Information Theory's impact.

Women and Computer Science

I have overheard several conversations between male Computer Scientists and a female Computer Scientists where the male tries to underscore to the female how hard Computer Science is.  To me, it almost appears that males are unconsciously trying to deter females from studying Computer Science.  I think that this constant bombardment from male Computer Scientists is detrimental and should stop.  Of course, if a female doesn't want to study Computer Science, I don't think she should.  During my stay at Brigham Young University, I have noticed that many female Computer Scientists start the program only to drop out of it.  It is my hope that they may be encouraged in their desires to program.  Women have much to contribute to Computer Science.  For example, there are studies that show that women are much better at multitasking, and this would be invaluable in studying the higher programming principles of parallel programming.  In an article from Elder Samuelson,  we learn that individuals should make their own decision about what they will study.  For example we shouldn't generally tell women that they have to have more of them studying Computer Science.  It is my belief that people should be encouraged in their chosen areas of study.

Open Source: A Sustainable Development Model?

     The open source model of programming has shown that high quality software doesn't need to be written by paid employees.  It is exciting that open source communities can turn out software with fewer bugs than software written by companies.  What it does show, however, is that the high-quality, open source software needs to be tested and used by programmers.  As explained in the article, some feel that all software should be written in the open source environment.  This raises a concern of sustainability.  Volunteer programmers can write software that out-paces software from companies, but these volunteers will still need to earn a salary.  It is beneficial for both programming models to work in synergy.  Programmers can use the open-source software they write to do exceptional work in their paid jobs, while doing volunteer work that benefits all programmers on off-duty time.

Technology and the Church of Jesus Christ

Technology can and will be used for both good and evil purposes.  If we sit idly by, and do not use it for good, who else will?  We need to use it for good to make a positive impact in the world.  It is our responsibility and a charge of  stewardship to use these new technologies wisely.  It is important to know that we can gauge our use of new technologies by asking ourselves if it helps us be more loving and helpful to other people.  Another aspect of measurement is to see if the invention is drawing us closer to Christ.  The internet is one of the most important inventions of the past few decades.  This is a major opportunity for the church of Jesus Christ and its members to make a mark of good in the world.  We can do this by not being anonymous and doing things online that are in tune with our standards.  Some members of the Church of Jesus Christ have used blogs, and others have used social media to share their beliefs and personalities.  This will help those not of our faith as well as our own families as they see our true faithfulness on the web.

Record Companies and the Advent of the Internet

     Telegraphers required great skill to do their job, but their profession became obsolete with the invention of the telephone.  Record companies faced a similar situation when the internet was invented.  However, record companies sold the need for their existence by saying that they support the musicians by spreading their art and funding them.  Today, the free exchange of music online can do the same thing.  Musicians make most of their money on performances and make very little on music sold to the public through record companies.  Many even claim that the record companies enslave musicians.  The record companies used their large amounts of money to work the court system to their advantage.  Record companies should be a thing of the past.  Society no longer needs them, and the internet can do the job that record companies claim to do.

The Birth of Computer Security and Espionage: The Cuckoo's Egg

Computer security has been a rising concern since the sixties.  There appears to be two sides on the information, or computer security, debate.  Governments wish to hold back information from other countries so that they have an advantage.  They argue that this makes their citizens and governing bodies safer.  It also protects their interests.  Hacktivists on the other hand, want to give this information for all to see and study.  Hacktivists hold that this is what actually promotes citizen's interests and will level the playing field for all people in the world.  After reading the Cuckoo's Egg, I was able to see the frustrating bureaucracy that one needs to go through to track down unethical programmers.  With all the privacy protections, the person tracking hackers has a much less chance of actually nailing the perpetrator.  For the case in the Cuckoo's Egg, the hackers were doing bad things like selling secrets to another country.  This action is even against the Hacker Manifesto where they are to give their findings to everyone, not just one or two entities.  I can now see why the government wanted to give the NSA more rights to find criminals. It is a difficult job and makes it harder to track down a hacker than to be one.  One important thing that was discussed in the Cuckoo's Egg is that people need to be able to trust that their information is safe.  It is a sad thing that some unethical programmers spend their whole lives learning how to break into systems when they could be benefitting everyone in the world with new computing technologies.  Some people have paranoia because their information may not be safe and it is hard to tell if it is safe.  The sad thing about this is that the government doesn't trust its citizens and the citizens don't trust their government.

Twitter and LDS General Conference

I used twitter with general conference for the first time and found that I was paying attention more than before.  I was pleased with the experience.

Graphene poised to revolutionize our society

Graphene is a one atom thick material at about .33 nanometers high.  It can conduct electricity better than copper and is 300 times stronger than steel.  It can stretch to 20% of its original length and is stronger than a diamond.  Because of these amazing properties, engineers are considering reinforcing plastic with Graphene, making it stronger and conductive at the same time.  Others are using it for energy storage, improving batteries and fuel cells.  Still others are using Graphene for biosensors.  Because it is so thin, electronics can now be found anywhere, even clothes, walls, and appliances.  Phones and tablets can be constructed flexible and thinner.  Some are even trying to use this new technology to replace silicon to make smaller, faster electronics.  7,500 patents have already been filed on inventions using Graphene.  Thanks to this amazing discovery, our society will be impacted in unforeseen ways and may outpace what plastic did for the human race.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/02/tech/innovation/graphene-quest-for-first-ever-2d-material/index.html#

Turning the hearts of the children to the fathers and the hearts of the fathers to the children

According to "The Information", people didn't have the same concept of information before the use of computers.  "We can see now that information is what our world runs on: the blood and the fuel, the vital principal."   As I sat in my temple class today I saw an application of the principles in this book.  Before baptisms for the dead were done in the Nauvoo Temple, people did this ordinance in the Mississippi River.  Because no records were kept, there were many duplications of baptisms, making some of these redundant.  The prophet Joseph Smith had a revelation that these ordinances needed to be recorded on earth to be recorded in heaven.  Now that we have a greater knowledge of what information is, we are better able to deal with the vastness of the family connections within the human population.  This vastness is not much compared to what God can handle, but we are able to help move the work forward as we use this new understanding of information and computing in the form of familysearch.org.

New Cyber Military Forces

Governments and corporations have long been exposed to the threat of hacking.  Now the UK has created a military task force specifically for the virtual battle space.  In addition to physical military tactics there is now a very real virtual aspect of military battle as well.  In the past governments have focused most of their virtual efforts on defensive battle.  For instant they utilize strong encryptions, track connections, the use of virtual forensics.  But it is now clear that a strong offensive virtual attack is a very real deterrent to enemies.  BBC quoted Philip Hammond: "Our commanders can use cyber weapons alongside conventional weapons in future conflicts."  Cyber space is the new military frontier. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24321717

Current Event CS404

Technology that makes it possible to produce three-dimensional objects with precise detail is becoming increasingly accessible to the average citizen.  Private individuals can purchase a 3D printer for approximately the same price as a personal computer.  3D printers are coming to more homes and will probably be a part of mainstream society, much like smart phones are today.  With the 3D printer people can produce a wide variety of objects.  They can create games, toys, models, boat parts, and even guns.  While it is unlikely anyone would object to their neighbor creating toys for their children, gun production is a bit more controversial.  On one hand there are many organizations that would support increased gun production, and citizen access to firearms.  As 3D printers become more viable and cheap, more people will be able to make their own guns at home.  It would seem to be in the best interest of organizations, such as the NRA, to support the use of 3D printers. On the other hand the increased accessibility of guns will make it more difficult for governments to enforce gun laws.  For example, the gun design in the following article was removed from the owner’s website.  However others already downloaded the design and could still post it or use it in the future.   In order to enforce laws regarding firearms in the future, the government will need to adapt.  Law enforcement will need to employ the same degree of innovation as those who created the technology in order to effectively enforce regulations.   

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/16/tech/innovation/museum-acquires-3d-printed-gun/index.html

Is it bad to be innovative? CS404 smallish post

Technology isn't inherently bad,  it just needs to be used properly.  Studying the effects of technology will enable people to make wiser decisions.  We may not know the effects of technological change right away, but this shouldn't be the reason we don't use new technology.  Risk is a part of life, and it will arise with or without technological change.

Today I came across this error while programming in Racket:

lambda: found a lambda that is not a function definition

I found out that I got this error by using the Intermediate Racket instead of Intermediate with lambda Racket

Today I was programming in Racket and I came across this error:

define: expected only one expression after the variable name area, but found 1 extra part

I fixed the problem by changing (define area(shape) ... )  to (define (area shape) ... )

Today I encountered

Notice: A non well formed numeric value encountered

When I was coding in php with different date formats.  It turned out that my second parameter needed to be turned into a number (seconds)  I used strtotime()

Today I had a wonderful experience at the Worldwide Leadership Conference for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  It was great to remember that love for others is very important and is like a lubricant in the work of the church of Jesus Christ.  Love for those outside of the Church and those inside.

Yesterday at work,  I came across a need to search and replace text across multiple files.  The sed command seemed to be the appropriate command.  On my Macbook Pro computer, sed needs a few different inputs than its Linux counterparts.  While I was able to find the fact that if you want sed to copy the changes to the original files, (you need to do something like this:  sed -i "" "s/form/forms/g"   The "" being very important.  As I found at: http://dev.totodotnet.net/post/17360058466/using-sed-command-in-mac-os-x This alone, however doesn't do what I wanted.  I needed to feed in text as sed is really a text stream reader.  To feed in the proper text, I found that you can do this:

find . -name '*.txt' -print0 | xargs -0 sed -i "" "s/form/forms/g"

 Placing the period allows the command to know to search through sub-directories.  This was the key point that I needed as I didn't want to do this for just one file.  Of course form and forms would be replaced with a regular expression that would search and replace text that you wanted to change.

Another thing that I learned is that if you want to use a regular expression variable in the aforementioned sed command,  you need to use ( )  to enclose the saved portion, and then use a backslash one like this: \1 to use this save information from the select portion.  Of course you can have more than one set of parenthesis, so you would need to use \2 and other numbers as seen fit.