Time Managment

My New Year's Resolution starts today! For the next year, I will carefully track and record the usage of my time. As a working college student with a family, my life is full of responsibilities. When I do not carefully manage my time, my obligations quickly pile up, stressing me to the breaking point. The quality of my work suffers. My quality of life suffers. My family suffers. In this chaotic state, I vow to never fall behind again. Yet two weeks later, there I am struggling to keep afloat in the flood of procrastinated responsibilities I created. The solution is simple; I need to stop putting off for tomorrow what needed to be done yesterday.  Every night before bed, I will account to myself, in perfect honesty, what I accomplished during the day. Hopefully this accountability will lead to spending more time on meaningful activities and less time on things of no worth.

My Descent Into Darkness

Lying on the flat of my back, all I could think was my life was over. All the training I had done, every practice, every run, every tireless morning in the weight room, it was all for nothing.  In the blink of an eye, I went from being a highly recruited High School athlete to nothing more than another washed up baseball catcher with bum knees.  As I sunk into the depths of despair, my friends introduced me to World of Warcraft. What started as a harmless game to keep me busy during my rehabilitation, quickly turned into a world of possibility. The comradery I once felt on a sports team, and longed for, could be found in a virtual world from the comfort of my couch. Just as I had in sports, I felt that if I did not fully commit and try my best, I would let my team down. Addiction set in as I began skipping school, staying up all night, and dodging friends just to play the game. If it were not for the patient perseverance of some dear friends and family who pushed me to serve a mission, I may still be playing today.

Women In Engineering

Oakland Mills High School needs women in engineering. It is not just for boys. See Coach Yarn to sign up today.

Passionate Research

       Innovation in computer science over the last fifty years has stemmed from big businesses allowing computer scientists to explore their passions. FORTRAN was developed mostly at night by eager programmers at the IBM research labs. Unix was simply a pet project worked on by Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson at Bell Labs eventually leading to the creation of C, the most common programming language in the world. Years later at Bell Labs, Bjarne Stroustrup developed C++, the first language to implement object oriented features. All three of these revolutionary projects started as research projects simply because the inventors wanted to push new technology to the limits and expand the bounds of human knowledge.

       In order for innovation to continue to occur, passion needs to be explored, not deterred. Both FORTRAN and C were developed in research facilities where people were hired with the explanation, “You come and we'll give you excellent equipment and you will work with nice people and in a year, you will tell us what you did. (“Go To”. Steve Lohr. ch. 6. pg 112). Most of these employees had more lucrative offers elsewhere but chose to go where their passion could be explored.

      As the lure of money has grown, we have seen less and less business environments where researchers can follow their passions. When you are hired, you are working to put money in the bosses' pockets. With deadlines to meet and strict guidelines to follow, people are less likely to take the risks of innovation. Over the last 20 years, the number of computer scientists has grown exponentially but the rate of innovations has not. This will change quickly if big businesses decide to let brilliant minds follow their passions as they were once allowed.  

Equal Partners in Marriage

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sees men and women as equal partners in the eternal relationship of marriage. As equal partners, husbands and wives work together to fulfill all the duties required to maintain a family. Typically these duties fall into traditional gender roles. However, in some homes, the mother may need to work or the father may choose to stay home. I come from a home where my mother has worked almost my entire life. In the summer months, my Dad stayed home and ran a day camp for children with two working parents. We spent long afternoons biking around the city, playing kickball, going to the park, and having picnics. My Dad had to take the lead in nurturing and caring for the children while my Mother worked.  While this situation may not have been ideal, my parents were able to work together and still fulfill all parental responsibilities. Many other parents, like mine, do not follow traditional gender roles, but can still fulfill all parental responsibilities by working together as equal partners.

An Open Source Education

The philosophy of an open source project is simple; universal access to a products design allows anyone to make improvements to the product for the benefit of all. This leads to an interesting process where people will work for free to improve an existing product. A person is driven to work on the project because it is of personal interest to them. Interest is a powerful motivator. It can turn the pure drudgery into a pleasurable pursuit. In a high school education, students see learning as a boring job. Instead of being motivated to learn, students are motivated to get good grades.The interest is not there. High schools can learn how to motivate students by understanding how open source projects keep programmers interested. The key is universal access. An open source programmer can see what others are doing, what projects are available, and then choose what he or she wants to work on. This same flexibility can be integrated into high schools by having less required classes and offering a larger breadth of electives. With a more open education system, students will become more invested in their education because they are in classes that are of interest to them.

Mormon.org

“The Standard of Truth has been erected; no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing; persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, calumny may defame, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent, till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished, and the Great Jehovah shall say the work is done.” - Joseph Smith Jr.

Like the stone cut out of the mountain without hands, the Gospel of Jesus Christ continues to roll forth to all the Earth. In the early days of the church, I’m sure it seemed an impossibility that every single person in the whole world would hear the message of the restoration. By utilizing modern technology, the church is growing faster than ever. In the privacy of their own home, people can search, and find answers to deep questions of the soul through Mormon.org. People wonder “Where did I come from?”, “What is my purpose?”, and “Where am I going?”. Unfortunately,  most are too embarrassed to talk about these questions with others, especially not two missionaries knocking at their door. The new Mormon.org  overcomes this embarrassment by allowing anonymity to all that are seeking answers. As technology advances, the church will use it to spread the Gospel until  “it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear.”

To Be Understood

The purpose of writing is to convey the thoughts and feelings of the author to the reader. Careful rules and procedures in writing have been determined through years of experience to help authors avoid ambiguity. Many writers see grammar as a burden, a set of rules to be painstakingly checked over and over until a piece complies perfectly. This is not so. As a fence helps to protect a child from wandering into the road, grammar shields a writer from wandering words. Without the rules, writing becomes nothing more than words on a page. Imagine a book with no punctuation, capitalization, or formatting; it would be almost unreadable. While this is an extreme example, it demonstrates the importance of rules in helping the reader to understand the text.  While these rules do not guarantee the reader will come to comprehend the author's thoughts and feelings, it provides a common framework for the writer and reader to understand one another.

Creativity Conquers

"Creativity, as has been said, consists largely of rearranging what we know in order to find out what we do not know. Hence, to think creatively, we must be able to look afresh at what we normally take for granted."

— George Kneller

Innovation requires creativity. Creativity requires taking lessons learned from one field of study, and applying it to a new field of study. Cliff Stoll, an astronomer by trade, found himself transferred to work in the Lawrence Berkeley Lab. His research, observation, and record keeping skills brought a new perspective to the lab that eventually uncovered and resolved major security loop holes. Having individuals who study different branches of academia fosters an environment conducive to creativity. As these experts collaborate to solve a common problem, innovation will naturally occur. 

With the onset of the Information Age, data security has become one of the world's greatest concerns. For years, security experts and mathematicians have reviewed security systems in order to stay one step ahead of hackers. These experts study the same proofs, take the same classes, and come from a similar academic background. A new creative approach to the subject is needed in order to make the next major step in security. We need experts from all fields to unite in the study of security. This collaboration will bring a fresh look to the security problem, stimulating innovation and creativity.

The problem is pervasive. The world needs secure ways to store data. Hackers are continually seeking to find and exploit security weaknesses. It is going to take the creativity and teamwork of experts in every field to stay one step ahead of hackers.

Adobe Hacked

http://gigaom.com/2013/10/04/adobe-source-code-breech-its-bad-real-bad/

Adobe has been hacked! Most hacks of major computer companies have little effect on the end user. This hack has the potential to be very different. With the source code stolen for such widespread products as Adobe PDF Reader and Flash Player, hackers can now carefully look through every line of code to find an exploit. Most security exploits take thousands of tests and countless hours of trying to find a loop hole. With the source code, this process will be exponentially faster. Unfortunately, all we can do as an end user is wait and see what the hackers do with this information. Perhaps the best line of defense is to not use Adobe products until this breech has been resolved. Adobe PDF Reader is easily replaced with others such as Sumatra PDF or Foxit. Unfortunately, Adobe Flash is not so replaceable. Most sites with online streaming or videos require it. Giving up online videos while you wait for a security breach to be fixed is a lot to ask for some, especially since we don't know when the hackers will strike. It could be in weeks, months, or years. There is no way to predict. It's left up to us to weigh the pros and cons and decide if the risk of attack is worth the cost of protection. As for my house, my wife is calling me for an evening of Lie to Me on Netflix and a big bowl of ice cream. Who could pass that up?

LDSCONF

We are living in a collaborative world. Everything is reviewed and worked together on before it is complete. Twitters LDSConf just takes the same approach to note taking for General Conference. Thousands of people gather online and list 140 character quotes and notes from conference as we listen. When you miss a joke, it will be posted in about 20 seconds.. When you want to copy a quote exactly into your notes, it will be posted in about 20 seconds. If you fell asleep and missed part of a talk, just look back over the tweets for a quick summary. I think this is an ingenious way to watch conference. The only down side is it is easy to get caught up in the tweets and lose track of what the speaker is saying. There is a careful balance to be had. This great tool can also be very distracting. LDSConf on twitter is just another opportunity to collaborate and work together to get the most out of conference.

An Adventure To The Past

“This packrat has learned that what the next generation will value most is not what we owned, but the evidence of who we were and the tales of how we loved. In the end, it’s the family stories that are worth the storage.” -Ellen Goodman

In my basement lies a closet full of memories collected by my Grandmother. She was a photographer extraordinaire. Every trip to the park, every family gathering, every holiday, there she was snapping away pictures from the corner. Even at the age of 92 she was still gleefully taking pictures and developing a roll of film each week. In her old age, she would spend hours pouring over pictures, carefully labeling and documenting them. FamilySearch.org gives me the opportunity to share these cherished memories with the world. I can upload photos, stories, documents, and records for my ancestors. As I go through Grandma's memories, I hope to uncover ancestors who are prepared and ready for temple ordinances. They will be forever grateful for the countless hours Grandma spent carefully recording her personal family history. Grandma found a way to serve her family forever. Her work is the greatest gift she could leave to her posterity.

Violence and Video Games

Video games do not cause children to become violent. Video games create an alternate reality that appeals to some more than the reality of the real world, thus leading them to act out their video game fantasies in real life. In this case, the perpetrator is Minecraft. Minecraft is a game touted for its ability to breed creativity, cooperation, and social skills. This child sought to live out his in game reality of defending himself from zombies in the real world. This is not the fault of a video game. Video games are designed to be enjoyable. If they were not enjoyable, people would never play them. The root of the problem of children acting out video game fantasies lies in the parenting. This stands true for most situations where children act out. When parents are involved in the lives of their children, those children tend to be more responsible for their actions. Parents can also become aware of worries and fears in their children before they are acted upon by talking to them. Video games are not the real reason for the increase in violence in youth. The real reason is a lack of parent involvement.

http://www.ryot.org/a-9-year-old-brought-a-whole-bag-of-weapons-to-school-to-play-real-life-minecraft/391205

Seizing Opportunity

As Steve Ballmer retires, his biggest regret was not taking a risk while CEO of Microsoft . As Ballmer said earlier in his announcement, “we are almost uniquely poised to seize the opportunity.” The problem is that Microsoft chose not to. In the ever-changing world of technology, innovation is the key to success. When it came to deciding between embracing new technology or sticking with the system that got Microsoft to where they are today, they chose the latter. It is no wonder that discontented shareholders are pressuring Ballmer to step down. Under his leadership the company has plateaued. Without taking risks and branching out, Microsoft cannot grow. The company investors came to love was founded on seizing opportunities to innovate. While it was not always the best product, they always has a product in there contending for the market. By choosing not to seize the opportunity when phones developed, Microsoft showed investors they are no longer cutting edge. By not taking an opportunity they were “uniquely poised to seize,” Microsoft showed investors they were not willing to take a risk and innovate.

Teaching to Test

In America, the accomplishments of 12 years of schooling are summed up in 2 statistics; a GPA and an ACT or SAT score. Colleges then rate students upon these two statistics and judge who is prepared for college and who is not. Many will say colleges take into account extracurricular activities and organizations, but in reality, if a student does not meet the minimum criteria, they are not even considered. This provides no incentive for students to study topics of their interests if those topics will not increase test scores. Likewise, there is no incentive to teach extracurricular topics. High School students need to be taught much more than how to simply score well on a test. High School needs to be a time of exploration. Students should be encouraged and incentivized to try new things, think creatively, and develop their talents. Until students are judged on more than just two numbers, High Schools will continue to churn out students who have only learned how to pass tests.