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/