The Modern Tragedy

In the year 1800, our ancestors had to work hard to survive. The middle class citizen had to choose between working and starving. In the United States today, there isn't a stark choice between working and starving. Soup kitchens provide food as long as people can get to them. Often parents provide for their children long past the age at which children can provide for themselves. The modern tragedy is not physical starvation; it is mental starvation. An idle course is the natural course for most people. Laziness used to be inhibited by necessity; now it is a disease that is fed by technology. Technological time-wasters are an easy addiction. People are forgetting how to work and a dearth of work is destroying the human spirit.

Faith: The Unsung Motivating Factor

Time is money; a familiar adage.  This phrase implies that time wasted is money wasted.  It claims that money should be the focus of every person's life.  We are given time, we should translate it into money.  But is everything motivated by money?  In this age of technology, motivation comes from many different sources.  When the public can communicate, events and individuals can motivate others for their cause.  People all over the world are donating their time and resources without the motivation of money, from building the Linux operating system and compiling Wikipedia articles, to providing relief for victims of the tsunami in Japan.  It is easy to believe that people want to do something good and make a difference in the lives of others.  But I think what it comes down to is faith.  Faith in something more vast than we can imagine.

The first entries written for Wikipedia were in answer to a request from Jimmy Wales, the founder.  There was no shared encyclopedia and there was no evidence that Wikipedia was a good idea.  But the people who wrote those entries couldn't have done so just to pass the time.  They had faith that eventually what they wrote would turn into something much bigger than just a few articles.  Linus Torvalds, the chief architect of the Linux kernel, wanted help writing an operating system.  He didn't know that people would help.  He had faith that he could get people to cooperate and help fellow programmers.  When people in other countries are suffering, churches and organizations gather their resources to help.  Many of these organizations's helpers donate their time and even more people give money, food, and clothing.  None of these projects would have succeeded without the faith of the participants.  Money is a motivator, but faith is a major player in the decisions of people across the globe.

A Woman's Perspective

View my video on discrimination at this link:

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/11499540/discrimination

The Price of Piracy

A song costs 99 cents on iTunes; that doesn't sound very expensive. The iPod Touch 4th Generation can hold 14,000 songs. When it takes $14,000 to fill an iPod, suddenly 99 cents a song sounds a little more pricey. Many people can't afford to buy music, at least not in the quantities they would like to. Everyone can listen to their favorite songs for free with popular sites like Pandora. There are many sites that make piracy an enticing alternative as well. The cost to iTunes for each additional song download is negligible. So why don't we see 10 cents songs? They would still generate a profit. At 10 cents a song, I would be willing to buy lots my favorite songs. It's no surprise that more people pirate songs than buy them when it's infeasible to fill up an iPod at the going rate. The battle against piracy cannot be won in the courtroom. Until songs are legally available at a reasonable price, artists and companies can expect people to go to convenient, free sources for their music.

Detrimental Reverse Discrimination

Reverse discrimination is thought to be the solution for generations of repressed women. This is demeaning and harmful to both men and women. Men are told a woman less qualified than them has more rights than they do. Some women are in positions they can't possibly compete in, all for the sake of equality. When a less-qualified woman is given a position over a more-qualified man, that man is being discriminated against. In addition, the under-qualified woman feels lost, confused, and ultimately inadequate for the position. These feelings of self-doubt are exactly what reverse discrimination is trying to avoid. As a woman in the computer science field, I do not worry about discrimination. I have not faced discrimination. I do worry about those who would overestimate my abilities based on my gender. People who do so are destroying computer science and decimating the morale of computer scientists.

The Big Bang

The Internet has exploded. At it's inception, only government workers knew of it's existence. But since the 1980's, the Internet has experienced exponential growth. A world-wide computer connection system is difficult to fathom, even though it already exists. One of many communities tapping into this resource is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS Church). The internet is an immeasurable help for the LDS Church's Family History Program.  As the members gather data about their ancestors, records from across the world are available for perusal and individuals are able to find and communicate with relatives in different countries. Despite the evils of the Internet, it is helping to move a good work forward. This powerful tool merely needs to be used constructively.

A Means to An End

What did people do before computers?  For college students, computers are a way of life.  From school work and jobs, to news and entertainment, computers can effect every aspect of life.  Immeasurable on-line resources eliminate the need to leave the house for information or amusement.  Despite this wealth of information, we shouldn't rationalize avoiding other good things in life.  Facebook chatting cannot replace a face-to-face conversation.  Video streaming cannot replace live entertainment.  A computer cannot capture the wonders of real life.  Computers are a tool; they should enhance our lives, not consume them.