Study Journal 6

--------------Nov 19

It is amazing how prophets repeatedly will predict things to come way a head of their time. The article about the computer in the church from 1980's was that way.

The tools and steps that were made 30 years ago, and 500 years ago, are things that we needed to have happen to be able to do the things we do now with technology in the church. It may mean that the things we do now are only small steps compared to what is to come.

Social Media can be a distraction. But it also can be a huge help in sharing the gospel. The church is always on the forefront of technology and as we follow instruction from church leaders, many times its only later we later see how happy we are that we followed. This is very relevant to technology in the church.

--------------Dec 01

Church and Translation guest speaker

Translation suite used to help in church transaction

Database of past translation, machine translation

World Studio, travel studio, Microsoft translation

Studio programs help 30% faster in translation

Important for computer scientists, the users need to understand why they need it, how it will help. Make it easy

Sometimes you need to sell your products to your customers so it will be used. - This is an important idea that is faulty of many products that have come and gone. Its not bad to sell the product to your own team.

Some users got an additional 200% while other got minimal gain, maybe with better training people would be more effective.

Auto-suggest simple, and helps users be more effective.

Simple and helpful features are the successful ones

--------------Dec 03

Facebook, good or bad? Kid brags about crime he committed, then gets arrested

Just because we can, doesn't mean that we should. example: Jurassic park

Child porn vs adult porn. Where is the ethical line? What about virtual child porn? is that ok where child porn isn't?

Evil resides in the hearts of men. We are control the computer, for good or evil. 

--------------Dec 08

Family Search guest speaker

Honesty, Steve jobs admitted to stealing ideas. But his actions changed the industry forever. Which unethical things, do we justify most?

FamilySearch talked with Ancestry. Family Search said wouldn't it be cool if we had record hints? that year ancestry has it, and billion dollar industry. Ethical?

Now the church has record hints, copied. Is it ethical?

Many inventions helped bring our time with FamilySearch 

from microfilm, to OCR tech.

OCR tech has index 182 million records in 4 weeks, instead of 3 years of human indexing.

Pretty soon, the computer should be able to faster and more accurately do our genealogy work. when is that unethical? when is that ok? President Eyring, said we should be careful.

Current Event 6

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/09/wired-church-technology_n_1139551.html

Many churches are adopting technology as a part of their normal service. Many pastors now use digital formats of their weekly program instead of paper handouts which has resulted in some congregations reducing their need for printed paper by 2 million sheets per year. "Hashtag" blank is now often used during sermons. The congregation is encouraged to tweet the about the lessons they hear. There are now even specially made pulpits, built in iPad slots, be constructed for these churches. While for many, these changes are beneficial and ease the learning of the doctrine. For others though who are too poor to afford the technology, start to feel excluded. Trying to guess, what is the fair amount of technology to use, does not have an easy answer. What percent of the members can be left behind to increase the immersion of younger generations? How much money is reasonable to spend in order to include members who won’t change from their traditional ways? Although there is no law or strong religious belief against advancing the technology use in churches, the way it is done must be done carefully in order to be ethical. These churches should provide basic means of participating even for those without expensive electronic devices. In addition, I believe they should have available the basic technical training needed to fully participate during church for those members who are not technologically minded. With these essential needs met, segregation in congregations can be avoided.

Study Journal 5

Nov 05

The idea that women shouldn't be placed in gender roles / gender degrees. Samuelson taught that women should be in the sciences if they wish or medical or any role. Although for male and females, all should remember to leave balance in their life.

Even here at BYU, maybe especially here at BYU, there is a large barrier for women to cross in order to succeed in computer science. with minor changes, and a better attitude for students for fellow students, maybe we could have more success.

Interesting comment is that men didn't always have overwhelming number compared to girls in computer science. At one point women and men were about the same. They have been decreasing over the last some years. This is why it is important we fix this down going trend, while we still can.

The discriminating factors that cloud the culture of computer scientists needs to be lessened. These factors are hard to see and is why there are programs like the Gender HCI Project to help identify these issues.

Nov 10

The quote about how the link between violence in video games and increased aggression in players was one of the most studied field in this area. This was fairly interesting statement, I think I may want to come back to. Even if I don't want to believe it sometimes.

Addiction is an important topic which I see in most parts of the world. The addiction through video games though I had never thought as an issue. During the information discussed from the readings, I noted the amount of ideas given, suggests this is a bigger issue than I would have imagined.

addictions can also be caused through social media and not just social video games. This suggests we need to be proactive to defend ourselves and families against this issues.

Nov 12

Studies show that tech groups succeed better with both gender groups vs just all males or all females. One of the important reasons to help support the fix of the gender imbalance.

Females are in schools (more graduate then males), many in the work field… so this shows women driven out someone in the path. If these culture or other points are fixed, then there is a chance the culture problem will be fixed

We say different things for males doing the same thing a females is doing something. (usually more negative for females). We do different thing for males / females. The CEO example (golfing, basketball … more), female=(uhh… not sure). This is one of the major issues according to speaker.

Females in tech: They are different than males. Different life styles. Example: Cant make it to breakfast or evening meeting because of family. By switching to lunch time, the women can make it now. Little changes can make all the difference.

Nov 17

A big statement reminded to us in class was that the average person uses social media 16 minutes per hour. This may have meant 16 minutes per hour while at work, or maybe 16 minutes per hour throughout the day. Ether way that is a lot of time that is used on social media that could be used for beneficial reasons. (if using social media to communicate isn't a reason enough.)

We re-read the study done about for women in computer science. The study examined how stereotypes pushed or attracted people into computer science. It was suggested that women would return in much larger scale to computer science if simply non-stereotypical objects replaced stereotypical objects in computer science environments.

Interesting in that in the article, when non-stereotypical objects were used as the environment, not only were their more females, the males felt more uncomfortable, and resulted in less males. This may make a strong point that males are (maybe unknowingly) pushing and wanting a particular environment that females do not like.

Current Event 5

http://bowdoinorient.com/article/10569

The gender imbalance of those who study computer science has been an obvious fact since the beginning of computers. From the start, the culture around programming was unique and very influential. One example would be the effect this culture has done to the strict business culture. Although it has thought to be very progressive, in general the culture has had a repelling effect towards females. The programming scene was a guys thing. In the article by, The Bowdoin Orient, they report how this imbalance of genders is starting to change. There was the a whole conference focused on women in computing in which 12,000 female college students attended. This was unthinkable a few years ago. There was one school in particular which had a doubled female enrollment in their computer science program over a short period of time. Other schools are also approaching this trend. Companies are providing extra support for women programmers. These events are advancing us closer to a time where we may not have the issue of not enough support for women in computer science. This will allow it to grow more naturally. Maybe a more important effect of these treads is that the current female-excluding programmer culture will change for the better.

Study Journal 4

Oct 27

• In the dot com boom, there were 3500+ new .com companies. This is a huge amount of new companies, in which most when to IPO very fast.
• One example of an IPO first day money is from ChaseFlow which started at $28 and rose to $125. This wasn't actually all that good for company. This meant that many investors would just "flip", and sell their cheaply bought stocks on the first day for a huge profit.
• Friends of Frank where those who got to work with Frank and get in to huge deals
• Black Friday is the term given to the day when everyone started selling and the dot com era ended for many companies

Oct 29 postman (talked about on Nov 3)

• One of the biggest ideas through out the article we talked about is that technological changes have pluses and minuses. This is important to allow ourselves to open our eyes to the idea of something new
• I like the comment about the trade off of technologies. To ask the question, "What will a new technology undo?" is an important one. Culture is one that takes the hardest hit usually.
• The idea that technology becomes mythic was originally surprising for me. After we discussed, the alphabet, or automobiles, I come to realize I really have no idea how the different life was without those. It is very unnatural to try and think about how life would have been without actively studying a history.

Nov 03 - tangled in the web, I have a question, Families and the Internet.

• In the story about the wife who first learned about the computer, she ended up using to play games 4-7 hours a day. This was because it was just too easy to use, and it replaced the harder but more important tasks, with a very easy one.
• In the article about, "I have a question", the church has a definite stand internet protection for our families. Some of the important points were to keep computers in a public place, and to talk with our families to understand the dangers.
• In the talk by Charles Knutson, he talks about how parents should react with the internet and computers. Interestingly, he let us know that the computer is not bad, and we should not turn it off. Actually, we need to leave it on! we should have a filter, but the key is to teach our families. We should have active conversations with our kids to protect them and us.

Current event #4

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Passcode/2015/1030/Glitches-to-riches-The-hackers-who-make-a-killing-off-software-flaws

Within the last few months, the view on hacker activity has drastically changed. Hackers as in those who search for vulnerabilities to exploit an application, have almost always been thought as an unethical use for a computer. For example, a few months ago there was a number of incidents written about a group of hackers who had been finding vulnerabilities in big applications and then selling the information to third parties. They claimed to be a group of terrorists. Very recently, the view for many people on hacker activity has shifted to a more neutral or even positive one. According to the article I have attached above from CSMonitor, companies have placed bounties on themselves to encourage external hackers to find bugs in the software. One hacker earned 63,000 dollars in bug bounty money through one company alone. While this tactic has protected companies from some hacker attacks, some in the public worry that this will open a new age of hackers. It will attract many more programmers to engage in hacking. It will also give a safe ethical way for hackers who would do mischief, to practice their skills.

Study Journal 3

Oct 06:

My thought when we talked about passwords

Passwords being a bad thing? Things ever going this way is very

surprising to me. I can see the sharing of ideas and open software being supported, but

the absent of passwords isn't something I would have seen many people supporting.

Support teams are the key to monetization of open source software.

This opened a whole market of jobs.

The partnership (in compatibility)  of Apache and Linux grew very quickly because of the community that used them also went to help develop both of them.

Oct 08:

Trade secrets (example of coco-cola), never expire, but if they are ever found out, they are not protected by law.

IP, Intellectual property, gives the right to exclude others from using it. Lasts 20 years. Companies want to have big portfolios to fight and defend each other from going to law.

Copyright, in expression, not ideas. ok to use with news, and schools.

Oct 13:

Ethical stand of Cliff in the beginning of the book, open to freedom of action.

small government, people just shouldn't bother each other. to just be nice

Technical background of Cliff in the beginning of the book, astronomer. basics of computer systems.

could have easily been a computer systems manager.

Maturity of Cliff in the beginning of the book, he was non committal. would be happy to watch others

do unethical things as long as it didn't involve himself. little apathy.

Oct 15:

Ethical stand of Cliff near the end of the book, hacking is unethical, people should care about computer security

Technical background of Cliff near the end of the book, Security minded, had the health paranoia,

knew the technical details for networks and security.

Maturity of Cliff near the end of the book, he was committal (gets married). He thinks for himself,

deciding what is ok or not, not just following a group (whether that is the government or college life he knew)

Oct 20:

freedoms available in different countries vary. Example: China doesn't have freedom of religion, only those chosen go to college. Not all information is accessible.

Ethics is not the same as law. Example word of wisdom, law of chastity,

The first amendment, freedom of speech. Sharing how to make a pipe bomb is legal (ethical? maybe not), making the bomb is not legal. Is this ok?

Current Event 3

https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2015/10/introducing-accelerated-mobile-pages.html

Open source projects still make huge changes for users in our day. Google has announced an open source framework called Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP). According to the article, the framework would use existing web technologies to help developers create faster mobile webpages. This change could be revolutionary for especially those who don't have fast internet like we do here in the Untied States. I find it great to see a big company like Google releasing projects under the Apache License. If this idea becomes successful, it will improve the experience on the internet for many users. Projects like these are some of the advantages to the open source movement. It gives the community a chance to help improve their fellow community members. We will see in the near future though if this movement will last. This will likely depend on if Google continues to support this project.

study journal 2

9/22

I found it fairly interesting that when the computer was just being invented, the motivation behind improving the computer was the same as today. People wanted to hack away and make something useful out of some currently useless.

Even from the beginning of the computer, there was "open source" motivations and monetization motivation. Both really driving the progress of the computer very fast.

I thought it was pretty funny how the culture of those who programmed in the first days of computer, sounds a lot like the culture of the hobbyist programmers in our current days.

9/24


The amount of risk each of these big players took are huge. They had chances which most wouldn't have, but still they had to take them (or lose them).

I found the amount of work each of these big leaders needed to do and the sacrifice needed was insane. Like Bill Gates working all night fixing the program on the nights before one of his big presentation. I thought that sacrifice was funny that he didn't shower. Nothing was just given to any of the successful in this pc history.

Another big piece of this puzzle for success, was all the connections each of them had. The connections with their colleagues in their own company, and the connections with other companies, like IBM and Microsoft.

9/29


copycatting was huge! I never realized how much was taken from Xerox.

Effective communication is huge. Seeing the fail of Xerox was all about the tech guys not being able to convince the business guys of the huge chance they had.

An interesting point is the amount of predictions like from Oracle actually come true. It seems at the time it might have sounded a like he was telling a science fiction story. I think that applies today as well, and we should be ready to peruse those future looking ideas.

10/01


quiz day

Current Event 2

http://www.zdnet.com/article/apple-combats-cyberattack-begins-ios-app-store-scrub/

Ever since the beginning of the personal computer, hackers have tried and succeeded in breaking down secure systems. Apple's iPhone store is no different. Hackers have found an exploit through the seemly unbreakable system. Through attacking the clients of developers IDE and by mimicking the security layers, they were able to steal millions of users confidential data including bank information. Although we are surprised that this could happen to Apple, we really shouldn't be. This is what the evolution of the personal computer has been about from day one. It's been about a "hacker" looking to push existing technology to do something it couldn't do yesterday. Sometimes this is for selfish reasons, but whether it be security, sound processing, game development, or etc, it is events like these that push our technology to the next level.

Study Journal 1

9/08

There is a difference between ethics and morality in this day and age.

Ethics is about doing the right thing, not just knowing the right things.

Many of us use errors in logic in order to come up with our ethics. Some times on purpose. Called fallacies.

9/10

Situational ethics follows the ideal "all you need is love"

These "ethics" allow for flexibility in the answers. If we followed this in the courtroom, the judge you had would decide what happens to you, not actually what happened

As attractive as situational ethics is sometimes, it is only just justifying an action. To become more like God we should be very hesitant to agree with and follow situational ethics as our sense of direction.

9/15

As we observe something thoroughly we will see things how they really are and may see things in a greater light then we have before.  ie the fish.

  

Order of ignorance - progressively worse but not necessary a requirement to have all levels for lower levels
 

When we don’t open our eyes (humble ourselves) to understand there are things we don’t know, we are in worse shape than if we knew we had lots left to learn.

9/17

Speeding ethical? Even though everyone does it? This doesn't decide ethics. It is still un ethical

Class room ethics, if are using computer other then for class is unethical

Laws don’t have to be ethical. Alma 14. laws back in history

Current event 1

http://www.cnet.com/news/fake-uber-drivers-allegedly-pick-up-female-passengers/

Uber, the highly popular smartphone taxi service, has been in hot water recently. There have been a number of accounts of individuals who have been raped while using their service. I wanted to I bring up this article to relate it to the topic of situational ethics. The company of Uber is continuing to develop and expand even though they are supporting a system where such immoral acts are being committed. Through their current actions shown in continuing to develop this service, they are supporting the "greater good," which is to help millions of people to get to locations at a cheaper fair. Uber chooses to fight these issue of rape and kidnapping when they are getting bad publicity, but they have never really fixed the problem as a whole. Their actions show they want to always make decisions based on the welfare of their customers, but their customers have conflicting interests. Some customers wanting a cheap service that works, and others especially after being attacked, want safety. The company has to taken action on a case by case basis. This pattern of action seen by Uber is essentially a heavy use of situational ethics to protect their companies customers. If continued this route, I see no clear future in Uber ever fixing the core issue of unfit drivers picking up and abusing customers.

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