Why Can't People be Computers?

The best thing about a computer is that it only does exactly what you teach it to do.  No more, no less.  To programmers, this can also be one of the biggest frustrations.  Sometimes I'll be up at 2 a.m. yelling at my computer, wishing it would do the correct thing instead of what I've programmed it to do.

Sometimes I wish that I were a computer programmed by God and that I always did the right thing.  Then I remember that I WAS created and programmed by God, but he didn't program me to always do the right thing...  So God must be evil right?  Wrong.  He created us in His image and allows us to make our own choices.

A lot of groups and organizations like the ACM try to teach us what choices to make.  They even encourage us to spread their doctrine and encourage others to make similar choices.  This can be a good thing, but God has already laid out His doctrine and we can learn about  it in the Book of Mormon and the Holy Bible.

If you are a Mormon programmer, start spreading what the Book of Mormon teaches like you spread your nerdy computer science beliefs.  If you aren't a Mormon programmer then read the Book of Mormon and contact the missionaries.  Then learn to code.

Be Here Now

When I was growing up, my brother-in-law would tell me to "be here now" whenever family was over and I was texting my friends.  I would grudgingly put my phone away and pretend to be bored with the family conversation.  I grew to love that time spent with family and I learned many valuable life lessons from those simple conversations.  My brother-in-law might have saved me from a lot of trouble with those three simple words "be here now."  Text conversations can be useful at times but a face to face conversations are always more meaningful and will always build better relationships.  The same holds for all other forms of virtual communication.  Living in such a technological world it is tempting to do all of our communication through virtual channels but if we succumb to this temptation, we will gravely regret it.

Fireside Reflections

The Time Goblin Gobbles Time

We - smartphone and laptop owners - spend disgusting amounts of time on the Internet.  Whether it's playing games, posting to Instagram, reading the blogs of people we will never meet or writing our own, it is hard to justify the time spent.  Obviously, some things we do on the Internet are productive and beneficial, but if we divide all of the time we have ever spent on the Internet into the categories of productive and wasted it would be hard to spot the Titanic of productive as it crashes into the glacier of wasted.  We can all site instances where someone's smartphone shot helped the police to catch a criminal but we can site a thousand more where some form of Internet addiction ruined someone's livelihood.

I would like this post to be a productive use of my time instead of time wasted and so I am going to challenge whoever reads this to try something.  Over the next 7 days, when you are about to get on your phone or your laptop and you think it's going to be a waste of time, don't do it.  You be your own judge.  If, at the end of the week, you don't see an improvement in your productivity, please comment on this post and tell me how wrong I am.

Coder and Coderess

DotA... LoL... WoW...  No I'm not making up words, laughing out loud or astonished with my own intelligence.  I'm talking about things that no girl has ever heard of, nor will she hear of in this post (you're going to have to look it up girls).  The reason every girl who has read to this point is googling right now is the same reasons there are a total of two girls in my five computer science classes.  When I was 17 I thought it was cool how I, as master chief, could slide-snipe someone across the beach of Zanzibar and stick a converging Warthog all as I listened to the Killers in the comfy armchair of my bedroom.  In this setting, unknown to me, the desire to be a coder was born.  Girls don't have that seed planted because they are doing responsible things when they are 17.  My wife was in Phoenix getting straight A's and prepping for the academic decathlon while I was in Sandy having system-link-Dr-Pepper-all-nighters with my friends.  I wish it weren't true, but it is.  There's a direct correlation between hero skins and lines of Java written.

Software Wonders of the World

We, computer scientists, have a congenital belief that if you clumped our brains together, the pile would be the new center of the universe.  We believe that in the solar system of software uses, our uses are planets and the uses of everyone else are debris.  Though we are clearly more important than everyone else on earth, we must consider their needs as well.  Give us a pizza and some coke and we'll happily stay up all night programming a fix for Emacs, but we must learn to love staying up all night to make the UI more beautiful just because our customer asked for it.  Good software is not is not written because it "scratched a developer's personal itch."  Good software is written because the developer was excited about the project and it is shameful that we only get excited about projects we have a personal affection for.

e-testimony

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is on a mission to make people joyful by bringing them to Christ.  I am a happy person because I follow Christ and keep Heavenly Father's commandments.  When I meet someone who is not a Mormon, I want to convert with an undying desire.  I don't want to convert them because of some diabolical or egotistical desire.  I want to because I know they would be permanently and eternally happy for their choice.  I am not perfect, but I have joy when I follow the Savior.  I am flawed, but not due to anything I have learned from the true gospel of Jesus Christ through the LDS Church or the Book of Mormon.  I know Christ lives.  If you are a Mormon, share your testimony through all of your channels.  If you are not a Mormon, contact the missionaries and read the Book of Mormon.  I promise, you will be happier if you do.