Too much gaming

I lived with a gamer once. He spent most of his time hunched over his computer in his dimly-lit room. At night, he would continue playing, only stopping to use the bathroom and eat a frozen burrito or some cold cereal. Now and again, he would burst out in uncontrollable laughter, sometimes in the middle of the night. He chose to socialize virtually in his MMORPG rather than verbally with his roommates. The rest of us would occasionally invite him to go out and do things but he would politely decline. His hygiene had crumbled into ruin to the point where we could tell he'd walked in the room just by inhaling. To this day I regret that there wasn't a more concerted effort to encourage him to change. How does this happen to a 6'8" 18-year-old football player? Gaming was for him, as it is for many, a serious addiction in every sense of the word. It can start off as a healthy way to blow off some steam or spend time with friends. In rare but gradually more frequent cases, real life becomes a mere side effect of being alive; the game is where one's new life continues. Games are not inherently bad but severely skewed priorities are.

What's in store for family history?

Huge advances were made with family history in the 1980's and 1990's with the advent of personal computers. Although the physical copies of past family history work have their own intrinsic value, their purpose was better carried out by the digital revolution. In the late 2000's, the next innovation was FamilySearch Indexing, which was far more inspiring to those without a desire or time to compile a complete family history. Indexing names taps into the power of crowd-sourcing but, more importantly, it helps relieve a healthy amount of guilt from members of the LDS Church (myself included) who had yet to do any family history. What's next for this field? We've only just scratched the surface.

How to get the word out

How do you get the word out? Social media is really the answer in most cases. Take the Orabrush, for example. This ordinary oral hygiene tool with no real glamour has become a household name. Originally its owner considered sending it to the graveyard of advertising: the infomercial. This uninspiring, overenthusiastic and underwhelming format has doomed many great products. Instead of mercilessly beating his cherished invention, he took it to a group of marketing students at Brigham Young University. They leveraged the power of today's great social media sites, Youtube.com, and advertised it as a no-brainer product for young adults. The clever part is that they made something that people not only want to watch, but that they want to share. The rest is history. Once you tug on the world's heart strings or tickle its funny bone, you'll be able to get the word out.

What if indexing could be done by a computer?

This is a question that I've asked myself on a number of occasions. While I do believe that one feels a real sense of accomplishment after finishing another batch of names and that many who participate feel the Spirit of Elijah as they participate in this work, that's not the reason why indexing is still done by humans. The advent of computing has immensely streamlined many of the operations of the Church. Computers have saved countless hours, tons of paper, and millions of dollars. I'm sure that members of the Church before computers felt blessed to perform service by carrying out these sometimes tedious tasks, but that didn't stop the Church from replacing this service with a computer program. That same person can now bless the lives of others with the technology that took his previous service opportunity from him. So why doesn't the same thing happen with indexing name for temple ordinances? To put it simply, computers don't read cursive (yet). I'm sure that when the day comes that they can, members around the world will bless the one who creates the technology and speeds up the work, not curse the one who denied members the opportunity to serve by indexing names.

Get with the program

The beauty of Capitalism is that businesses are rewarded for doing more for their customers. Let's say we have two companies, A and B. Company A has been around for 60 years. During that time, it developed a ground-breaking business model and a brand-new product that revolutionized the industry. It's now grown to become the largest company of its type and nearly dominates the market. Company B started up 3 years ago with the help of 3 employees, a good product, and social media for advertising. Both companies offer a product designed to solve the same problem. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. This is where capitalism shines. What if Company B suddenly takes a huge hold of the market? It doesn't make sense to Company A; B's prices are higher. A closer inspection reveals that B's product is slightly better, and they offer better service to customers. Is this fair? What if Company A loses its grip on the market and, as a result, is in danger of going out of business? After all, it's been around for 60 years. Shouldn't it stay around? The only way to revive Company A is to do more for their customers. If they don't, they lose. However, if they do, everybody wins. Not only is A revived and the customers pleased, but B will be forced to either lower their prices or create an even better product. This cycle will continue in a glorious self-correcting fashion. That's the beauty of Capitalism.

Photo Copyright Laws

An encounter I had with United States Photo copyright laws earlier this year.

Better together

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This is clearly evident with the open-source software movement. It's astonishing how much great software comes from a loose network of freelance programmers who do it just because they like to. That's the case with many excellent software packages such as Gimp, Blender 3D, and the various flavors of Linux operating systems. The work that is created with these free tools is spectacular regardless of how much it cost to build them. Open-source software is challenging the current beliefs of big software companies.