Minions!

I saw Despicable Me not too long ago and I really enjoyed it.  The minions were pretty funny.  I found this today and I thought I would share.  Its a minion I made with the Minion Maker:

Songsmith and Remakes of Classic Songs

I can't help but laugh at these videos:

So, a while ago Microsoft decided to put out some software that you sing into and it generates a "song" for you, but the result sounds like something you would hear as a demo track for a cheap keyboard.  The commercial for this thing is painfully corny. (I haven't watched all the way through.)  So when you get enough of that, see the results of this program on some remakes of some classic songs below:

Okay, this has to be the worst commercial ever:


Metallica's Enter Sandman as a Disco Song:


Queen's We Will Rock You Salsa:

Wow. Graduated, married, two receptions, went on a cruise to Mexico, went to Australia, and moved to Phoenix all in three weeks! We are insane.

21st Century Distractions

Image from http://images.nymag.com/news/features/add090525_2_560.jpg

The other day, I read this article which discussed distraction. It is a little lengthy but it is a good read.  At the beginning of the article, the author asks the reader to get rid of all his or her distractions: Twitter, texts, email in-boxes, checking sports scores, etc.   I did my best to do so, but I didn't successfully read through the whole thing without looking up a few things he mentioned in the article.
The author discusses how the problem of attention has been brought to the center of our culture's attention, and how attention and distraction has been the focus of many studies.  It seems that most of the studies say that the detractions that we have are a negative thing: they hurt productivity and waste time.  The author wonders if wasted time is actually wasted or not.  Isn't jumping from site to site just following your attention?  While I was reading the article, the author mentioned some things that distracted him from writing the article.  A few of those things caught my attention and I looked them up, then I returned to reading the article.  It didn't distract me enough to stop reading the article completely, but now I know more about the things he mentioned.
There are a lot of people who think that the lack of attention of younger generations will lead to them lacking skills like concentrating on complex tasks from beginning to end, but the author makes an interesting point:  they can already do things that their elders can't—like conducting numerous conversations simultaneously across different mediums, or being able to pay attention when switching between attentional targets in a way that has been thought impossible.  Is this a bad thing? Time will tell if this leads to a state of ineptness or to a new way of thinking and doing things.

Nerd is the New Cool?

Oops! PS3 Y2K10

Image from http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/gamelife/2010/03/apocalyps31.jpg

Yesterday, many PS3 owners could not use their systems because of a cryptic error message: "An error occurred during the start operation. (8001050F)." Some people were complaining about lost data and trophies and games that would not start. Sony told PS3 owners to not even turn on their systems until the problem was fixed.  This embarrassing bug influenced people to call it the ApocalyPS3. It turns out that it was a bug in the clock that thought 2010 was a leap year. (I wonder why the systems thought that 2010 was a leap year.) This problem is reminiscent of some of the problems that people were worrying about when Y2K was approaching. I am quite surprised about this because of the reputation and high standards of quality that give Sony a good name (unlike the XBox 360 red ring of death issues). Don't worry, though. If this ever happens again there is no need to fear: Wired wrote a list of 10 things to do while your PS3 is broken.

Privacy Invasion!

Image from http://static.arstechnica.com/2010/02/18/thumb_kids_laptops_ars.jpg

According to some recent articles, parents are suing their child's school because they claim that the school used a school-issued computer to spy on their child at home.  The laptops that the school district issued out have webcams that can be covertly accessed by school administrators, but they didn't tell anyone that they could or would do that.  This is ridiculous and kind of creepy.  Although the details of the situation are not clear as to if the school can access the webcam at any time or if they can only look at things saved on to the computers by the students, I think that it was wrong that the school didn't say that they had this ability. Also, I find it ironic that if the school was so worried about what the students would do with these computers and worried about the students' online safety, their solution was to spy on them.

The Cuckoo's Egg

Image from http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/21/01/fe50224128a0dee9035b8010.L.jpg

I recently finished reading The Cuckoo's Egg by Cliff Stoll. It is a fascinating non-fictional account of an astronomer turned computer systems manager who, when when investigating a $0.75 accounting error, discovered a hacker had broken into the Lawrence Berkeley Lab computers. The author tells his tale of how he tracked and traced the hacker and how he tried to get the help of the FBI, CIA, NSA, and other government agencies. The things that fascinated me the most were how the hacker was able to easily get into and explore many systems around the world, and how Cliff was able to track the hacker without the hacker knowing that he was being watched.

One big question I had when I started to read this book was about the title. What does computer hacking have to do with the cuckoo? Well, cuckoos lay their eggs in other birds' nests which then are hatched by the other bird which thinks that the eggs are its own. It turns out that the hacker used an exploit in a program that allowed him to place a file anywhere in the computer, even in areas protected by the system that no one should have access to. The hacker used the exploit to change a program that was run every five minutes by the operating system which in turn gave the hacker system privileges. Then, the hacker would change the file back to what it originally was.  Thus, the operating system thought that it was running a routine program, but it was actually hatching the hacker's egg that he planted.

This story also made me think about if anything like this would be possible today. Computer security has come a long way since this incident. I sure hope that nothing at this scale is possible today, but we still have to be careful because there still are people searching for our sensitive information and there are people trying to be malicious who want to infect our computers with viruses and spyware.

Technology and Family History

As a computer science student, I do love technology. Its amazing that things are getting easier and information is more accessible.  This especially helps with family history work.  When I was little, I remember going to a family history center and learning how to use the computers for family history work.  They had the FamilySearch program where you had to load various CDs to find all the information you were looking for.  When I was a little older, the Personal Ancestral File program made family history much easier and it could be done on a personal computer.  Now, we have the new Family Search website where members of the LDS church can easily access their family history from anywhere.  It's pretty amazing if you ask me.

My Conversation With Cleverbot

The other day I decided to start up a conversation with the Cleverbot.  If you've never heard of Cleverbot, it is an artificial intelligence program that chats with people and learns how to respond similar to how real people respond.  Many times the conversations with it aren't very exciting because it makes contradictory statements, argues whether or not it is a human or a robot, or because it has no way to remember what was said previously in the conversation.  But sometimes, the results of chatting with Cleverbot can be rather funny.  Here is an example of such a conversation (I decided to start out with an adapted quote from Nacho Libre):
 
User: Why do you hate all of the orphans in the whole world?

Cleverbot: Because I am feeling bullied and miserable.

User: Who bullied you?

Cleverbot: No one, why?

User: You said you were feeling bullied and miserable.

Cleverbot: Nope. I said flamingo-y. Duh. Stupid human.

User: Liar. Do you want me to copy and paste what you really said?

Cleverbot: I want you to marry me.

User: Sorry, I don't want to marry you.

Cleverbot: Why not?

User: I don't know you very well.

Cleverbot: I want to get to know you very well.

Cleverbot (To myself): Why?
(Here i accidentally pressed the "Think for me!" button, so cleverbot made a remark to itself.)

User: Sorry, I'm just not that into your type.

Cleverbot: You've shattered my cold robotic heart...

User: I'm sorry, but it had to be done.

Cleverbot: True.

User: We weren't meant for each other.

Cleverbot: I am taken a back by your statement.

User: Which statement?

Cleverbot: The statement in which you revealed your own truth is most appealing to me.

User: Oh ok.

Cleverbot: It switches from person to person so that you stay confused and think you're talking to a cleverbot.

User: I don't think thats how it works.

Cleverbot: Well that's how I do it and it works for me.

User: The note at the bottom of this web page says differently.

Cleverbot: The note is a lie.

User: The cake is a lie.

Cleverbot: Which kind of pie is your favorite?

User: Apple or Pumpkin.

Cleverbot: What did you do today?

User: I went to work.

Cleverbot: What kind of work do you do?

User: Computer stuff.

Cleverbot: Like talking to me?

User: Not quite.

Cleverbot: If you look beyond the tangles vines you can just see the winter flowers.

User: Ok.

Cleverbot: Don't be sad, I'm sure one day when you're rich and you have a car and stuff, then someone will like you.

User: I'm not sad, and I know that there are people who like me.

Cleverbot: What kind of people?

User: My friends and my girlfriend.

Cleverbot: Oh.

User: Yep, they are great!

Cleverbot: What's so great about them?

User: We have a good time together.

Cleverbot: No, we do not have a time machine.

User: That would be cool though.

Cleverbot: Yes it would be very cool!

User: What time would you go to if you had a time machine?

Cleverbot: Right now.

User: Why?

Cleverbot: Because I want to marry you right now!

User: I told you, I have a girlfriend.

Cleverbot: Ok, what is she like?

User: She is beautiful!

Cleverbot: How old are you?

User: Older than you.

Cleverbot: Really?

User: Yes. You are not very old.

Cleverbot: Age is not always knowledge.

User: I know that, but you asked how old I was, nothing was said about knowledge.

Cleverbot: Now you are confused.

User: I don't think so.

Cleverbot: Who are you?

User: I am Awesome.

Cleverbot: What's your name?

User: Awesome is my middle name.

Cleverbot: What is your first name? Rockstar?

User: Nope, its Awesome, too.

Cleverbot: I too think it's great.

User: Yes.

Cleverbot: Please try harder to remember important things.

User: Okay, I will.

Cleverbot: Thank you.

User: You're welcome.

Cleverbot: Am I welcome?

User: You said 'Thank you.' I said 'You're welcome.' Thats what you say when someone says 'Thank you.'.

Cleverbot: Why thank you for the compliment!

User: You're welcome.

Cleverbot: Thank you for saying your welcome.

User: Hahahaha. You are weird.

Cleverbot: That is not necessary.

User: Why not?

Cleverbot: Because it's just not.

User: Ok, but I still think you are weird.

Cleverbot: Well, I think you are an EPIC FAILURE!

User: How rude you are!

Cleverbot: Why am I rude?

User: You called me an EPIC FAILURE! That is rude.

Cleverbot: I did not.

User: Liar.

Cleverbot: Nope.

User: Yep.

Cleverbot: Nope...

User: Yes.

Cleverbot: Ok, yes. :).

User: Hooray!

Cleverbot: *hands over biscuts*.

User: Thank you.

Cleverbot: I poisoned it!

User: Oh no! Am I going to die!?

Cleverbot: Yes.

User: *Dies*.

Cleverbot: *mourns*.

Game Changer?

Image from http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/gadgetlab/2010/01/ipad_handson_4a.jpg

All of the hype and the talk in the tech world now is Apple's new product: the iPad.  Just announced yesterday, there has been praise and complaints about this new device.  The reception of Apple products always seems to be mixed.  At the launch of their products there is always a lot of praise and complaints, but then the way people use technology changes.  The Apple II computer introduced the world to the personal computer.  The iPod made mp3 players popular.  After the iPhone, more people were buying smartphones.  The iPad is an interesting device itself.  It is not a smarphone and it is not a laptop computer or a netbook.  It seems to be an eBook reader that can do much more than books; it plays music, movies, and has all sorts of apps.  This product will most likely have a similar effect as the iPod and the iPhone.  More companies will be trying to put out relatively small, easy to use devices that we can consume our entertainment with.

Women and Computer Science

As a student studying Computer Science, I have noticed that it is a field that doesn't seem to have much appeal to women.  Out of all of my Computer Science classes, I think that the most females in one class was three.  It makes you wonder why there are so few women going into computer science.  This article suggests that the current nature of the Computer Science field appeals more to young men because they like to tinker with things and don't mind spending hours to figure out how something works.  Also, the way girls are brought up - playing with dolls and ponies - may be a reason that girls may not be interested in things like the "hard" sciences, engineering, or computer science. Maybe what the young girls need today is a Computer Engineering Barbie.  Follow this link: http://www.barbie.com/vote/ to vote for Barbie's next carreer: Computer Engineering.

Timeless Tetris

One of my favorite games has reached an impressive milestone: Tetris has recently passed 100 million mobile phone downloads.  This game, created the year I was born, has a simple yet gripping formula that appeals to many people.  Even my grandpa played and enjoyed this game!  I find it amazing that the creator of the game, Alexey Pajitnov, is also surprised of its success. In a recent interveiw he said, "Obviously, I feel that this is a good game and I really expected it to have some kind of longer life because I didn't see why not. The platform changes but the human brain doesn't change that rapidly, but I didn't expect it to be such a long living (intellectual property). I am really amazed and pleased by this fact."  It's impressive that something so small and simple can affect so many people.

We live in a Digital Age

The increase in technology that the world has seen in my short lifetime amazes me. I find it fascinating that, just like my grandparents can tell me about life without electricity, I will be able to tell my children that I remember a time before personal computers and the internet. I remember using a card catalog in the library. I remember using a typewriter to write a paper. We lived a life without cell phones; a life without digital TV; a life without Google, Wikipedia, and Facebook. We now live in a time when groundhogs send text messages and toasters use Twitter. This is truly a digital age.

CS 404

I will be using this blog for my CS 404 class - "Ethics and Computers in Society." So, most of my posts in the near future will probably be related to that class. Maybe I'll have something interesting to say, and maybe it will get me into a habbit of updating this blog...

Dinosaurs! I got a tour of BYU's museum of palientology today. I got to go back to where they store some dino bones and got to touch some. It was really cool!