Novel, Useful, Unobvious

Few things can ignite my anger the way patent trolls do.  A patent protects ideas and art that are novel, useful, and not obvious.  A troll takes that protection and uses it to bludgeon anyone innovative enough to use those ideas in a practical manner.  The troll does not do this to protect his own artwork, most likely he didn't even come up with the idea in the first place.  Entities that buy into the creative world, but refuse to participate in through means other than litigation, need to be stopped.  They do not simply impede progress and innovation, they seek to reverse it to fill their own pockets. Massive changes need to be made to protect that which is novel and useful, and I would be more than a little happy if those changes were to inflict a great deal of suffering on patent trolls.

Theft of Knowledge

Knowledge is power.  Knowledge that is stolen represents a theft of power.  What information cannot be kept safe is power that cannot be controlled.  Often the distribution of knowledge is beneficial, the more scientists have access to the more they can improve upon.  Other knowledge is better kept secret, protected from those who would misuse it.

Information about an individual is power.  Knowledge of a person's habits, their interactions, their emails and social interactions with others, gives some power over that person.  Data on a person places you in a position to interfere with their interactions.  It allows you to understand their motives and their goals.  In an unprotected Internet, or an insecure Internet, leaving a digital footprint can leave you with a weakness that others will exploit.

We need to be able to exist on the Internet without fear of exploitation.  We need to be able to share knowledge, to be able to improve the available resources of all mankind.  If we have to live in fear that our openness will be exploited our progress will be hindered.  Trust is imperative to the cause of progression, and I fear that the abusive actions of some will destroy the trust of the many.

The Age of Answers

In one of Isaac Asimov's short stories he describes a computer that learns and improves upon itself.  You could ask it almost any question and it would have an answer for you.  We're beginning to catch up with science fiction. We're building machines that will learn, that will mimic the human brain, that will dream.  Maybe not that last one.  But the world will begin to change once machines can give meaningful answers to complex questions and solve complex tasks.  Siri, do my taxes.  Siri, build an algorithm for me. Siri, compose a new song for me.  Those tasks may seem silly or awkward to ask of a computer, but talking to a computer at all seemed silly a few years ago.  We are doing everything we can to automate our world and our daily lives.  It's not impossible to believe that we could automate ourselves into irrelevance, and I'm not entirely sure that would be a bad thing.

A Tree of a Different Color

A few of my older relatives like to brag about their trips to Europe and the family history records they've found their.  A great-aunt of mine came back from a trip to Germany with rolls and rolls of pictures of birth and marriage records she had gotten from old church buildings.  I have access to those now, not because she took those picture, those pictures are in boxes now. No, I have those records because they are available online.  With a few flicks of my fingers I make that same trip to Europe, to Switzerland, to the Czech Republic.   It's easy to do genealogy now.  I can do it in my pajamas while lying in bed, or on my tablet in class, or with my phone on a bus.  Genealogy is like green eggs and ham, you can enjoy it anywhere.  Try it, you'll like it.

The Fiber Race

 Google Fiber is coming to Provo this month. I'm pretty stoked and many of my friends outside of Provo are jealous.  Almost as exciting is that AT&T is finally taking notice. The race for fiber internet is finally heating up, even if it's only in a few cities so far.  Improvements to network infrastructure are going to be essential to an increasingly online world.  In the 90's most homes would have maybe one computer.  Now most people have a computer, a smart phone, and a tablet on top of that.  Internet connectivity is expected everywhere and we expect it to be fast.  The continued growth of internet wielding technologies is dependent on a quick and stable network.  I'm hopeful that service providers and communication giants will realize where the future is, and if they want to have a horse in the race they'll need to start improving network infrastructure everywhere.