My Own Ethics

The ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) had a code of ethics that really impress me. During my most recent read-through, I thought about how much it applies to me now that I am working at a company full-time. What caught my attention most is their section about honoring confidentiality. "The ethical concern is to respect all obligations of confidentiality to employers, clients, and users unless discharged from such obligations by requirements of the law or other principles of this Code."  At my current job, I get customer's login credentials to different services in order to build them a customized integration with our web app. There is a lot of trust that goes into this, and I need to be very careful with how I handle their information. 

Ethical Portrayal in Video Games

Manuel Noriega, a former Panamanian dictator, is trying to sue the creators of the popular video game series, "Call of Duty" for "damaging his reputation". The game portrays Noriega as a criminal and enemy of the state, which, from what I have read, doesn't seem to be stretching the truth. From what people have said, the case is likely to be dismissed. This got me wondering why it would be so easily dismissed. Does the fact that he isn't a US citizen mean that he doesn't have rights to protect his image? Does it matter that he is still alive, and should the game's creators have asked his permission to use his likeness?

The fact that he is portrayed doing things that he is actually convicted of, seems to me like the lawsuit really should be dismissed. This raises a concern about ethics in video games. Where is the ethical boundary in video games portraying real people?

My position is that a video game is a work of art, and the creator should be free to portray people as he wishes, within reason. Once the portrayal becomes slanderous and legitimately damaging to someone's reputation, then I feel there are grounds to take action against such portrayal.

Gaming Addiction

Games are great. When the mood strikes, I thoroughly enjoy a good video gaming session. I look forward to the day when I have children and I can play games with them. When that does happen, it will be important for me to set rules as to what games are acceptable, and how long they can be played. I feel that moderation will be important in helping my children not become addicted to gaming.

There Goes Everybody

The book "Here Comes Everybody" has some interesting concepts, but my favorite one dealt with the imbalance of participation. Shirky states that with technologies like phones, internet, and social medias, people are more free to say and do things with so many more people. This freedom gives anyone the tools to contribute equally in a given project, but not everyone participates equally. An example is given that over 3,000 Mermaid Parade photos were posted on Flickr by about 118 different people, but 10% of the people contributed more than 50% of the photos. The most active photographer took about twice as many as the next most active photographer, and the 3rd only half as many as the 2nd.
It might seem like this type of contribution would be harmful to large social systems, but it actually helps drive them. Apparently only a very small percentage of wikipedia users ever contribute, but that is enough to create value for millions and millions of users. I find it interesting that in many social systems, this creates a type of hierarchy based on pure performance, as opposed to a workplace situation where leaders are chosen on how long they've worked there (in general). Open source projects gain leaders through the most active contributors, and I think this is a great thing, because they are naturally the most qualified to be leading such efforts.

The Cathedral and the Bazaar

In 1997, Eric Raymond wrote an essay titled, "The Cathedral and the Bazaar". In this essay, he speaks of two different types of software development models, the cathedral model where source code is available upon release of each new version, and the bazaar model where the code is developed over the internet in public view. I can see that there are pros and cons to each, but the bazaar model makes a lot of sense to me. With tools like Github and Bitbucket, it is easy to fix or enhance a public repository of code, and then ask the owners if they'd like to incorporate the changes through a pull request. I am partial towards the bazaar method because I have been a part of this process a few times, and it is fulfilling to contribute my knowledge and skills towards software that many people use. Raymond also makes a good point that, "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow." Since all the code is in public view, anyone can look it over, check for bugs, and perform quality assurance. These are the types of things that make the bazaar model awesome in my eyes.

Open-Free-Share-Source-Ware

I recently watched Revolution OS, a documentary about the origin story of open source software and things like GNU, unix, and linux. One of the themes of the documentary was the difference between Open Source and Free Software. Richard Stallman, the creator of the GNU project, and the originator of the free software movement explains that free here is like "free speech", not "free beer". Anyone has the freedom to study, maintain, change, distribute as they please. I found this idea extremely interesting compared to people like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs who were on the absolute other side of the spectrum, monetizing software as quickly and effectively as possible. I don't personally think there is a "good" and a "bad" model, but that both are necessary for their different purposes. That being said, I'll normally go through the occasional headache of open source/free software than pay for something that I don't have much money for.

Social Media to Share the Gospel

I don't normally "produce" social media (I'm only writing this blog because it is required to graduate from BYU in the CS major). Sure, I'll consume, but I don't post my feelings on Facebook, I don't share pictures of my food on Instagram, and I don't re-tweet funny quotes from celebrities on Twitter. It's not really who I am. Unfortunately for me, Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have recently been inviting members of the church to use social media as a medium to share testimonies, strengthen one another, and invite others to come unto Christ. Evidence of this is seen through full-time missionaries being allowed to use Facebook to help them share the gospel. I fully believe that I should be using social media in order to benefit others, but I just haven't figured out what the right way for me to do that is. Heck, maybe righting this blog is the first step.

The Cuckoo's Egg

  Clifford Stoll's experience with following and catching a hacker was absolutely amazing. What impressed me most about his story is his absolute dedication to tracking the hacker down, and his use of his log book.
  Throughout the book, Clifford makes it very clear that he was dedicated, and almost obsessed, with catching the hacker. It put quite a strain on his family life, and even though it was upsetting him, he couldn't let it go. Even though it was extremely difficult, he persevered. What impressed me the most is that his specialty wasn't even in computing, but astronomy. He was able to learn so many things on the fly. It makes me feel foolish that I get frustrated and give up on something if I can't find it on Google. If I could have that kind of dedication to my career, I could really excel. At the same time though, there needs to be a balance, because no career accomplishment is worth having a bad family life.
  Another thing that stuck out to me was the importance of Clifford's log book. He was able to keep track of and record almost everything that the hacker was doing. There were multiple times where having this information recorded really saved his bacon, proving to his boss, the FBI, the CIA, and others of what was really going on. It makes me appreciate how important keeping good records will be in the industry, as well as in my daily life. I'm sure there are many situations that arise in the workplace where having kept good records would be beneficial.

Relocate or else!

The popular website Reddit has recently come out that they are having all remote workers either relocate, or quit. Many people are up in arms about that decision, especially people that aren't working for Reddit. My initial thought is that that doesn't seem very fair to the workers that were hired on remotely. If an employee is doing their job well, and creating value for the company, it doesn't seem right that they would be given an ultimatum like that. Now, before I start accusing Reddit of being unethical, it is important to point out that they are offering a "generous" relocation package or a 3 month severance package. In my opinion this does help mitigate the issue, but I feel that if their whole purpose was to get all their developers in house, they should slowly make it happen by not hiring remote workers, and only hiring new workers locally. It would be a lot slower, and might not get them to 100% in-house, but it would make things much closer to what they want, and it would be much more ethical in my opinion.

http://venturebeat.com/2014/10/01/after-raising-50m-reddit-forces-remote-workers-to-relocate-to-sf-or-get-fired/

Why I Haven't Done Family History Work for 8 years.

The first time I was introduced to indexing (in the context of genealogy) was in my freshman year of college. There was a challenge in our stake to be the ward that indexed the most names, and I of course wanted to win. I learned a little about it, talked with my roommates, and we decided to attack this whole indexing thing. The next night we tried downloading the software needed to do the indexing, and an issue occurred on my old laptop. A few blue screens of death and issues registering my account was enough to turn me off of genealogy for quite a while. I know that I really should spend some of my time doing something worthwhile like family history work, but I haven't been able to get over the mental block to do so. How will I get past this issue? I don't know. Right now I am just focusing on passing my classes this semester so I can graduate.

The Bash Bug

Recently a new bug was found in the bash shell, which is quite discouraging, seeing as how it can effect any device running bash connected to the internet. I personally am a great lover of technology, and I've been excited as technology continues to advance with the internet of things. This issue has made me rethink how great the internet of things really is. There is a really large risk involved with hooking "everything" up to a single system. It is almost like putting all of our eggs in one giant basket, and one serious bug, like the bash bug, could potentially wreak some major havoc. Is the convenience of automated lightbulbs or smart A/C units connecting to the internet really worth the risk that they inherently bring with them? I want to say yes, but that could just be the techno-geek inside me speaking out.

Bash Bug Article

Call of Duty Lawsuit

Manuel Noriega, a former Panamanian dictator, is trying to sue the creators of the popular video game series, "Call of Duty", for using his likeness in the game and "damaging his reputation". The game portrays Noriega as a criminal and enemy of the state, which, from what I have read, doesn't seem to be stretching the truth. The author of the article makes it sounds like the lawsuit will be dismissed, and that got me thinking about why this would be so easily dismissed. Does the fact that he isn't a US citizen mean that he doesn't have rights to protect his image? Does it matter that he is still alive, and should the game's creators have asked his permission to use his likeness in the game? The fact that he is portrayed doing things that he is actually convicted of doing seems to me like the lawsuit really should be dismissed. This raises a concern about ethics in video games. Where is the ethical boundary in video games portraying real people? Would Noriega have a legitimate case if he was being portrayed as the Devil and doing ridiculous things like eating babies? Under what circumstances would I have a case if I was being used in a video game?

-Click the Title of this blog post to see the original article from cnn.com

Being Used By Technology

I read an article entitled "Five Things We Need to Know About Technological Change", which gives an interesting opinion on how we need to be conscientious about how we use technologies, and what side-effects technology can have on society. While I didn't agree with all 5 points that were made, I did agree with his conclusion, that "we need to proceed with our eyes wide open so that we many use technology rather than be used by it." If I watch Youtube and surf the web aimlessly for mindless entertainment, am I really using technology, or am I being used? I feel guilty after wasting time consuming media in that fashion when I could have used remarkable technologies that I have for the benefit of someone else. I could have shared an inspiring message on facebook, tweeted a link to an inspirational talk, or reached out to a friend or family member.