Snowden

My thoughts on Edward Snowden are similar to how I feel about whistleblowers. Even if it is done is the best of intentions it is still wrong. Snowden believes he was doing things for the right reasons, he honestly believes this. And so to him, he is justified. But if he truly believes in his cause, why is he not trying to communicate with the government directly. I don’t think he needs to return to the United States to receive his punishment as one of the articles suggests. But rather than going through reporter and writing pages online, why isn’t he making a more concerned effort to contact leaders in the NSA or the CIA or congressmen and congresswomen? He shouldn’t be going through these back channels but rather be going direct to the source and tying to work through the problems with the law so that he can return the United States as he says he will when he is satisfied with the reform. Just a note on this, I honestly don’t think he will ever return to the United States without facing life in prison. I don’t see the laws changing enough for that to be avoidable.

He had an extreme moral qualm about us targeting hospitals and schools as targets for our hacking sites. But one thing it doesn’t seem like he addressed was simply whether or not there was strategic value to stacking these sites. To me it seems logical that if we are targeting these places we probably have good reasons to – foreign enemies are probably transmitting through here to throw hackers off their trail. But in an attempt to stay on the same playing field we monitor these places as well. If we were never finding any useful information from these sites, then we would discontinue surveillance from these sites and concentrate our efforts on places where we were getting interesting information.

Next why did he choose to leak the information to news sources only. I think it would’ve been more effective and possibly scarier for congress to know what he had in his pocket but was unknown to the public. This would’ve motivated them to move quicker to change rules and stop him from publishing it. Now that the word is out, they have already covered their asses so they can lolligag around when changes will actually be made. The damage is done, they can wait to make the repairs because there is no huge leak in the roof – metaphorically of course.

Lastly to note on surveying my personal data, there is a saying out there that has the basic meaning of: if you’ve got nothing to hide, why hide? And that’s the way I feel. If I’m not doing anything illegal or menacing, I don’t care if the government sees it. Whether or not I want my mom to see it is another issue. But some stranger sitting at a desk who isn’t going to use my name or anything, I could care less. I have more important things on my plate to worry about.

Overall I think what he did was wrong. He is a traitor. He did harm United States politics, in my opinion. He should return to the States, and he should face his punishment. His honest and true reasons behind it do not justify the actions he took. It’s a sad truth in my opinion, but if you pardon him, I think it’s a slippery slope about who else and what else is pardon able.

Project 2 Reflection

I think the biggest and most important piece of information we included was about time management. Maybe I think this is a lot more important because I’ve been interviewing with so many companies and I have been applying to even more companies, but I wish I knew the commitment level each application takes. Each application is asking for the exact same information. They want to know your education background, your work experience, your extracurriculars, and what makes you different from all the other candidates. But every company wants it in a different format in a different order on a different page. And of course you can’t just send in your resume (even though it contains all the info they want), you have to rEgypt everything and then hopefully they will look at your resume and see how you wanted everything to be formatted and everything you wanted to include. And even though typing each application only takes an hour or two (let’s say an hour and a half just on average including writing a cover letter and such), after you apply for ten jobs you’ve already spent fifteen hours and you haven’t gotten anywhere but hitting the “send” button.

Now let’s say half of these companies decide you are good enough for an interview. This means for each of these companies you have to at least a hour (probably more like two) researching and reviewing exactly what it is about them that you like, what area you want to go into, what the job description actually entails, locations choices, and the list can keep going. So now you’ve spent another ten hours (twenty five total so far) before you even get to the interview process.

Now you finally start getting to talking to people. Each interview takes around an hour and a half commitment from making sure your suit is clean (doing laundry if it isn’t) making sure you get to campus on time, and then actually going through the interview. So this stage takes a total of seven and a half hours. We have already spent over thirty hours on job stuff and gotten no where near an offer.

Let’s be generous and say of these first round interviews, you get invited for three final round, super days, or on sites. This means you have to set aside at least two days (one day for travel, one for interviewing), but sometimes three days to attend their interviews. And we get lucky, and we get an offer from one of them. This means from the starting ten companies, we’ve spent 175+ hours to receive one offer… Now imagine if you started with thirty companies. Or fifty.

Having to deal with all of the time I had to set aside from school, friends, or just relaxing is honestly exhausting. And draining. I really wish I could’ve known the demand that applying to jobs would take so I could’ve taken an extra class during my junior or sophomore year just so I would’ve had a lighter work load and could’ve managed everything better.

Bradley Manning – Security Leaks

To start off, I want to clarify; I do not identify myself as a conspiracy theorist. I do believe the government keeps huge amounts of data and information secret from the public. But I do think they have good reason to do so. And further I think they have a significantly large amount of intelligent and conscious people who make the decision of what to share and what not to share. I think things like executive privilege are necessary for governments to work the way they do. These people dedicate their lives to politics or our military and I think their decisions are not taken lightly. Even though sure I would love to know everything, and I can understand the desire of those who vehemently oppose government secrecy, I think people are good at heart, and the decisions those in a position to hold or reveal secrets are probably doing what they are doing for the right reasons.

So moving on to discuss how I feel about Manning’s arrest. I think it is 100% an act of treason to leak what he leaked. I understand his intention, I think he genuinely thought he was benefiting the public by leaking all the information, but I still don’t think that justifies his actions. There was a quote saying something to the effect that he thought he was the only one intelligent enough to determine what should or should not be shared with the public. That line alone gives me enough information to stand firmly against him. I do think he genuinely believed that, but I also think he might be slightly delusional to actually believe nobody above him or in his position previously had ever questioned the system and brought it to the attention of someone with the power to open those documents to the public. It’s crazy to think he was the first. And it’s crazy to think he was the only one smart enough to make those incredibly massive decisions.

I am not going to claim I know anything about politics or how countries interact with one another on anything but a very superficial level. I am not a political science major and I know there are people much smarter than I am who could explain to me in a very detailed way how Manning’s leak affected the political climate at the time, how its affected now, and how it will be affected in the future. I think what he did has had and will have caused turbulence in the political realm. Now the same security systems are not going to be trusted nearly as much and I’m sure some countries are now weary about discussion with the United States because of the leaks.

Overall I think Bradley Manning is a traitor. A traitor with good intentions, but a traitor none the less. He wanted to help the public out, but I believe he did more harm than good. Exposing some flaws and some shady doings are great, but I think shaking up the whole security of our government in the long run is a huge detriment that will be felt for some time.

 

CoC

On my first pass through reading some of the codes of conduct, they seemed a little frivolous. They seem to consist of obvious characteristics and restraints that produce an even more obvious goal. I don’t think I need to be told to be “considerate” or “collaborative.” I think working in the field that we all have chosen to work in means that we already have to be these things and more (or at least if we want to be successful). So why then is it 100% necessary to have these things included? Why do groups like Python require it for sponsorship? These parts of the codes seem to be evident without being stated.

On the whole, we as a technology community are relatively forward thinking. We are all accepting of different creeds, religions, sexual orientations, or whatever you could use to discriminate people. And further, we all lean towards the introverted side of things as compared to the extroverted side. So if we have something to say that could be taken offensively by someone else, we rarely ever voice it even to just avoid the conflict. It’s no longer the 60’s, and we are not characters from Mad Men where we constantly say and do however we feel towards people without thinking of the consequences. We are conscious and deliberate in our actions.

I think the anonymous writer said it in an extremely accurate and concise way: “If you act like something other than relevant skill entitles you to anything from us, then please, I beg you, leave me alone.” Simple enough. If you don’t have skills that make you superior (race, color, etc.) then why should you act superior? What objective quality can someone possibly have that allows them to demine others or refuse to work with them or skirt responsibility when something goes wrong? There isn’t one. It’s plain and simple: there really is no reason to act outside of a code of conduct – even without being told so.

All that being said, I am going to contradict myself. Although for me, everything in the codes may seem self-explanatory, I know I cannot assume everyone else shares my beliefs and my opinions. I understand that for a small minority it does need to be expressly explained that you can or cannot act a certain way. Especially when dealing with issues of who is superior to whom. I can see the merit in it, but I am not completely convinced of its complete necessity. I do think it is a way for corporations or groups to almost cover their own backs for when something does happen, they have some moral ground to already be standing on. And as the anonymous writer also explains, this can be used as a means to only work with certain individuals. It all lies in the subjective. Who is to say what exactly is offensive? And further if someone offends one individual for one reason, can we guarantee that it will offend another similar individual (or all similar individuals) for the same reason? I don’t think so. I can see the reason for having them; it does create an air of political correctness. But when everything is said and done, we are debating a topic that can never be expressly written down in concise words to cover it exhaustively. We are trying to define morality.

Burnouts

I want to get this right. I want to make sure I can clearly identify why I have felt burned out. I think there are hundreds of factors, but I’ve broken it down into the five that I think are the most accurate and impactful: overwork, ambition, disinterest, money, and work-life balance. Let me preface this all with this is my opinion, based on my experience. I am not trying to whine or complain. This is just what I have to say.  I have never been in a position where my company is being acquired, so the thought of being given “Golden Handcuffs” is an incredibly foreign concept to me. But the feeling of burning out is something familiar to me.

Overwork is the most obvious, but I think it’s also the easiest to overlook. It’s easy to let the hours slip by when you want to hit an achievement. Especially in college, where we do a majority of our work in the evenings, its only too easy to sit down with a cup of coffee at 9:00 PM and then look up and see you’ve gone through two pots and its 3:30 and you haven’t even left your desk for more than a minute to go to the bathroom or refill the bowl of chips you’ve mindlessly been eating. Doing two or three of these a week (or even a month) really affects me. Although I get out of bed at 8:00 or 9:00 the next morning, I am not awake until noon. I walk around like a zombie all day, my emotions are high strung, and I am waling a tightrope until I can finish classes or work and finally reach those twenty minutes of bliss I allow myself to nap before starting to tackle the next stack of assignments I have. Breaking up work and allowing yourself to have mental down time helps prevent this.

Next is ambition. This may seem like an odd one to credit burning out to but I think it’s closely tied to overwork. I consider myself an incredibly ambitious person. I feel I can always be pushing myself to do more and to do better. I always want to be the best. And because of this I have found myself overextending and reaching to touch too many goals. And more times than not, I fall short of more goals than goals achieved. Signing up for work and projects (both in a formal sense as well as you just telling yourself) makes you ambitious. But it also leads to not being able to devote the required brain activity to anything and causes you to be stressed about finishing them all. This starts a vicious cycle of stress to doing work to overworking to stress. Time management and self-control are necessary to prevent this.

Third, disinterest I think runs rampant with college kids and early career adults. When we accept a job position, we all walk into the office the first few weeks with rose colored glasses. We think everything is great. We have a very regular work schedule. We can leave work at work. We are getting a regular paycheck. We are living in a cool place. Whatever is going on, I think there is something that is distracting us from the reality of it all. Now I don’t want to jump to the conclusion and say this is everyone, but I would not be surprised if it was common. After the first few months, we will wake up one morning, and think: “What the hell am I doing? I hate my job.” We will realize because of the money, or the house, or the friends we have been making, we haven’t really paid attention to work. The place we spend most of our time at, the place we spend a majority of our energy at, the place that is draining us, we never knew what was going on. Once this realization occurs, burnout soon ensues. Actually paying attention to your surroundings helps mitigate this.

Along the same lines, money causes the burn out. Even after we realize we don’t like our jobs, it’s hard to leave that nice pretty check. I mean look at all those zeros. A couple months ago, we were lucky to be able to pay rent and textbooks. Now everything seems to be a little easier. Sure we might not like our jobs, but we are too scared or too naïve to continue to search for greener pastures where we can actually be happy. All because of those little slips of paper that come over week or so that make a little number we check on or phones go up. You need courage to severe ties and push to find something better.

Lastly, and I think most importantly is work-life balance. It’s easy to become wrapped up in a routine. Like the writer in “Avoiding Burnout” said, it’s easy to get off work and immediately sit down in front of the computer or the television. It’s easy to get off work and then just not really accomplish anything and before you know it is time to go to sleep to get back up and return to work. There become two parts to your day: work and not-work. This isn’t even a slippery slope, this is a cliff. You need something to balance out work. For me I try to work out three of four times a week – but I know that’s not enough. On the days I don’t work out I try to work as a bartender or brewery at a place down the road – not because I need/want the money, but because I like what I do, and it allows me to exit work mode and enter a more creative mindset. When I don’t do that, I try to cook, or meet up with a friend. As difficult as it is, especially as the introvert that I am, I try to keep as active as possible while keeping my mind out of work mode. It would be so much easier to just sit on the couch and watch television but I feel so much better when I am doing something.

I had an interview recently, and I was actually talking with the CTO, CFO, and COO of the company in a panel interview. I asked them about the work life balance of the company, and one of them responded: “I think work-life balance is bullshit. I want employees who are always thinking about work and solving problems.” Neither of the other two high ups even flinched when he said that. I knew this company was not right for me. Sure every company wants their employees to be super effective, but which company wants their employees to hate work and burn out in a matter of weeks. I am not going to say this was the reason I walked out, but I will say this had a big impact. After a brief break, I decided to thank them for their time, and cut the interview short. I knew that was not the place for me. It’s necessary for companies to value work-life balance. It’s imperative.  And just the same, it’s imperative to manage these factors in my life to avoid a burn out.