Study Journal #6

17 March 2015

1) Why do we need to make a concerted effort to forcibly add women to the computer science industry? That's not to be sexist. It;s a legitimate question in my opinion.

2) CS is all about creativity, so women in CS would bring a different kind of creativity. That's a good reason to me!

3) It's interesting that the majority of women are introduced through male role models.

4) She talks about uneven balance of male and female teachers at different ages, but that wasn't my experience. I had a pretty even balance through all of grade school.


19 March 2015

1) Microsoft's website mentions that it's most important to get a variety of creativity and ideas, rather than focus on gender/ethnicity. That makes sense to me...

2) The stats that he's showing should be put in perspective be seeing tech college grad stats and other contextual data.

3) I hate pie charts.

4) Sometimes the church doctrine and culture send conflicting messages about gender roles, especially with whether or not women should strive for high-paying jobs.


24 March 2015

1) I don't think addiction is ever a good thing. His examples of "good addictions" are life sustaining dependencies, like food. That's not the same thing as an addiction.

2) Addiction is a tricky word because it's unclear what it includes. Does it include all dependencies? Anything habit forming? Anything that alters brain chemistry? Anything that makes a chemical dependency? Our vagueness sort of makes us argue about different things all at once.

3) I think he did the right thing blowing the whistle. The scriptures say that we'll suffer for our good choices sometimes but that we'll be compensated for it eternally if we endure it well.

26 March 2015

1) We do become a representative of the company for which we work, but at the same time they reflect on our character. We may represent our company well by our behavior, but if the company's purpose is not good, that will reflect on our character in the eyes of others.

2) It's depressing, but unfortunately true that many people are more interested in sensationalism than they are with truth. That seems to put those people in a different category than those who "seek the truth but know not where to find it"

3) Having the distraction of technology gone is really a blessing sometimes. I think that's one reason why people like the temple, though they don't realize it. Getting rid of my facebook account a few years ago was one of the best things I've ever done because it freed up so much time and mental resources.

Why Strive For Women In The Tech Industry?

The distribution of the sexes in the technology industry is heavily skewed towards men. Many believe that it is important to encourage more women to enter technology fields because of the unique perspective and qualities that women bring to the industry. While gender differences alone may be of some benefit, I believe that a more important reason to actively work to include women in computing is that they are a massive subset of our population that does not enter the industry's talent pool. Women in general do think differently than men, but any given woman will think differently than many other women. A single woman will think like some men as well, so there is not necessarily a drastically unique, gender-specific skill set that men or women in general bring to the industry. The real value of striving to encourage women in computing is the sheer number of potentially outstanding individuals that may now contribute to the technology field as a whole. Therefore, we must actively foster a culture which will entice women to pursue tech education and add to the set of exceptional individuals in the industry.

Study Journal #5

5 March 2015

1) It seems sooo foolish to invest in a company that hasn't shown that they could possibly be profitable. All the investment seems like jumping on the band wagon.

2) The frenzied  attitude during the bubble forced people to make fast choices, which either made them poor or unethical or both.

3) Flipping companies is like a get-rich-quick strategy, which is never a good call.


10 March 2015

1) He says to dare to follow your ideas and stuff, but it's so risky when you don't know if the ideas will even work or be marketable. Going all in on such a project is really a gamble.

2) Wow that's so frustrating that the legal junk got in the way of the light device. Sometimes the law can hinder much more than it helps. I hope the light thing does end up on the market though because it sounds awesome.

3) I'm surprised that such recent graduates have been able to create such epic inventions. I wonder if he's really just exaggerating the importance or intensity of their inventions.


12 March 2015

1) Even though we wouldn't be responsible for the fornication in the first example, it would still be good to do what you could to help your brother and sister.

2) Heavenly Father has done a really great job doing things physically to help faithful spouses resist divorce.

3) This open level of conversation is really important to have with our kids!

Digital Transparency in the Workplace

Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/12/technology/slack-the-office-messaging-app-that-may-finally-sink-email.html?ref=technology

My personal thoughts:
When I send an email at work, I specify the recipients and thereby enjoy a high level of privacy with my coworkers. However, new business communication applications would make all messages (or at least the default for all messages) public to the whole company or team. The hope of transparency is that it will increase unity and productivity among employees; I share that hope, but I do so for different reasons than others usually cite. For example, I believe that with access to all office communication, a new employee would more easily understand the state of his new workplace and his role in the company which would enable him to meaningfully contribute sooner. Full transparency would also improve collaboration on projects because people with questions may find ready answers from an unexpected team member or be guided by another's work on his facet of the project. Most importantly, public office communication would encourage civil conversation from bosses or between coworkers who might otherwise speak more harshly than they should. I strongly believe that transparency is the best digital communication practice in the workplace and that all companies should seek to incorporate technologies into their offices that enable such transparency.

Study Journal #4

19 February 2015

1) Having data is powerful, but it does little good unless you can either sensor it or analyze it. Data is not sufficient for power.

2) It seems like people can accidentally wander into their own ethical dilemmas just as much as they come upon them.

3) Cliff really does transform a lot. The most drastic and interesting change for me comes in the way his passion for chasing the hacker builds and how he starts to feel connections between ethics and this kind of hacking.

24 February 2015

1) Having the Holy Ghost and the Gospel of Jesus Christ makes decisions about when to speak out over ethical issues easier because we understand many universal truths.

2) Open door communities are always small. therefore, the Internet can't be open door.

3) As far as making dangerous knowledge public, I don't know what's right, but I have no desire to know such things personally.

26 February 2015

1) Non-compete classes are a good idea, I think, because they prevent especially dishonest/unethical behavior. Stealing clients to a side business is really messed up.

2) People being dishonest and inflexible are really the root of all this IP hassle. I can't wait til the millennium when we can put aside this legal baggage. It weighs down progress so much.

3) I can't see myself ever having to worry about IP stuff. I don't have an extremely inventive mind, so patents and copyrights are out, and I'm not into marketing, so that's trademarks off the list.

03 March 2015

1) I bet it was pretty nerve racking to know a hacker's attacking but not know how to protect yourself from them. Those early net admins had a weird situation to deal with.

2) The old theft definition, depriving somebody of their property, is an unfortunate definition for the kind of theft that technology allows.

3) In terms of physical spies, you have to have a traitor for the best espionage. You don't necessarily need that for computer stuff-weak security (aka stupid people) are a better door to classified information in the cyber realm.

Hacking Hindsight

Recently, I had several family members come to me with expressions like, "My computer is acting strangely," and, "I've been having a ton of adds pop up when I'm on the internet." I investigated and found that each computer had been infected by a virus through social engineering. Few hackers today have the technical skill to brute force their way through a firewall, but they have become adept at fooling people into inviting viruses in through the front door. I believe that much of the money that we invest in developing secure systems should be used to educate users on basic computer safety skills. Training people how to check links before clicking them and recognize phony emails or security warnings before responding to them would ruin the profession of social engineers. Hackers target people more than computers; therefore it is the user, not the software, that merits our greatest effort reinforce. We must remedy our pervasive computer security ignorance. If we do not, our computers will continue to easily fall victim to cyber attacks.