Thursday, January 31, 2008

Working for the Church

I'm in my third year working for the Corporations of the Presiding Bishopbric. It's fascinating watching, from the inside, how an organization I've been a member of all my life operates. I've grown up knowing the this is Christ's organization, but I've never thought of the very human errors and processes that make up all the levels of the Church. The Church is an inspired organization, run by individuals called of God, but the average person working for the Church doesn't have big revelations regarding exactly what they should do in their day to day lives. The Church operates much as we are told to run our lives; stay in tune with the Spirit, make decisions, check in frequently to make sure your not far off base, and move ahead. It's wonderful watching the principals of the Gospel put into action by those who steer this world-wide organization.

Monday, January 28, 2008

Send in the designers

The medical industry has undergone a veritable revolution when it comes to provider technology, but patient technology is stuck in a 70's time warp. The insulin pump is a good example: the device is functional and reliable, to be sure, but there's no thought given to the usability and design of the pump.

Young technology companies with a fresh industry perspective can help fix this problem. Unfortunately, the inherent risk in developing a life device is too high for new companies. If an insulin pump's hardware fails silently, or a software glitch causes insulin to be dosed at the wrong levels, the patient's life is at risk. This exposes young companies to legal liabilities they can't financially handle.

If a revolution is going to happen, the existing medical device manufacturers need to rise to the challenge. They stand to benefit the most by by making devices that integrate smoothly with life.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

College isn't the end of learning

Nobody knows what a CS degree should be teaching, but it doesn't matter. College can't teach everything needed to be successful in a future job; the decisions made about curricula will always be random choice from a myriad of possibilities, and there will always be people who think those choices were bad.

Once I get a job, the rest of life will have little to do with what I'm learning in school and everything to do with my personal drive and learning patterns. The cool things I learn are almost never in class, but through my own study. This won't change when I graduate, and it's this capacity to learn on my own that will determine what kind of employee I'll be.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

The RIAA == Neil Postman

The RIAA is run by people like Neil Postman. The core problem with governance in the RIAA is they don’t understand their business. Postman shows the same flaw of understanding; take this gem from a speech he gave in ’98:

“School teachers who are enthusiastic about [television’s] presence always call to my mind an image of some turn-of-the-century blacksmith who not only is singing the praises of the automobile but who also believes that his business will be enhanced by it. We know now that his business was not enhanced by it; it was rendered obsolete by it, as perhaps an intelligent blacksmith would have known.”

If the blacksmith’s business is defined by using a forge and handling all metal work in the area, then yes, that sort of blacksmith is gone. But if you define the blacksmith as someone who works with metal to create and fix, then blacksmiths are very much in business. Postman didn’t recognize automobiles were a boon to blacksmiths because he didn’t understand their real business. Similarly, the RIAA doesn’t recognize that file-sharing is beneficial because they don’t understand their business isn’t only distributing music, but providing entertainment through music.

Monday, January 14, 2008

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Oh good, the world can see me = )