Bob’s Blog

Google has decided to begin a medical records program, starting at the Cleveland Clinic hospital in Cleveland, Ohio. Some 10,000 patients participating in the test run will have their personal heath records (PHRs) moved to their Google accounts, allowing them to access their records from any computer with an internet connection. This may seem like a brilliant new idea, but in fact several other companies (including Microsoft) are also looking into this industry. As with any venture, online PHRs have their pros and cons. The benefit comes from being able to access your records anywhere. This allows you to visit any doctor, and they’ll be able to access your health records and provide you informed service. The drawback is privacy. Putting your data online makes it easier for others to steal it. Additionally, marketers could exploit data that would otherwise be confidential. These are serious issues. Unless Google and other interested companies can develop a secure way to keep PHR data confidential, the development of this industry will lead to more harm than good.

In the last 150 years or so, the general interest in genealogy has been steadily increasing. Starting in the mid-1800’s, governments began to make more meticulous records of birth, death, and census data. The first genealogical societies began around the same time. Today there are thousands of such societies, and people are searching out their ancestors like never before. This increased interest leads to the collection and processing of more data than ever before. The result is that millions of genealogical records are generated every year, and billions of records are now accumulated in various institutions around the world. Searching this data can be a daunting task for the genealogically inclined individual. Thankfully, the technology used to process genealogical data has improved as steadily as the interest in genealogical research and the collection of that data. Today’s greatest challenge is digitizing and indexing data. Another important challenge that emerges from millions of people searching their ancestry is the duplication of work. The research of isolated individuals often turns up common ancestors. Without a central repository of genealogical data, these isolated researches will duplicate each other’s work. The solution to these problems is the linking together of existing genealogical databases through common standards and cooperation. When genealogical societies get together and cooperate to bring all their individual work into a comprehensive whole, the family of Man can finally be completely linked.

Jesus Christ sent His apostles to all the world to preach the gospel. The apostles traveled far and wide preaching and baptizing. We’re most familiar with Paul’s travels from Acts and the Epistles. Paul’s epistles are laced heavily with doctrinal corrections cautions about apostasy. Despite their best efforts, the apostles just couldn’t keep up with the Church as it spread across the nations. The only way to communicate was in person, by emissary, or by letter, and these methods were simply not effective enough. Soon the Church as the apostles defined it was gone. When The Church of Jesus Christ was restored in 1830, technology had not improved much since the time of Christ; life for the average person was still much the same. There was, however, one major improvement: printing. The Bible was widely owned and The Book of Mormon could be widely distributed cheaply because of the printing press. Since that time the technology of communication has improved manyfold. Now, the gospel can be spread electronically, through the internet and other media. Were it not for this dramatic increase in technology, a global Church would be impossible. Technology, especially computers, has enabled The church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to spread throughout the world and still retain centralized leadership. Surely technological advance is inspired by God, at least partially, for this purpose. 

We all write every day. Reading and writing are part of every job, every school assignment, every game, and even our interactions with each other. We value literacy so highly that it’s one of the first things we teach our children. With the advent of computers and the internet, writing has become easier than ever. With a little training and practice, the average person can produce more than 30 words per minute. That same person can then publish his or her work for the whole world to see on the internet. Many people find great satisfaction in publishing in this way (myself included). And yet, most people (school-aged people especially) hate writing.  Perhaps the reason is the effort required, or the rules to follow Perhaps it’s because for most people writing is a chore, an assignment, or a punishment. Whatever the reason, too many people are unused to writing seriously. The result is a large number of people who are unable to form complete sentences without resorting to slang, or worse, vulgarity. I attended a production of on of Shakespeare’s works last week. The program stated that Shakespeare used over 20,000 words–1,500 of which had never been seen in print before. It also claimed that in his day the average person used more than 1000 different words in every day speech. In comparison, it claimed the average college graduate uses about 600 different words every day. The truth of this claim is perhaps suspect, but the trend is true. We don’t use our language enough. The art of eloquent speech and writing is dying. That’s why inventions like blogs that let the average American publish his own words are so important. More and more people are writing, about anything and everything. They are reviving writing as an art form and introducing it as a form of recreation.

A current court case involving a man suspected of participating in child pornography has drawn media attention due to some possibly incriminating evidence stored on a password-protected computer drive. There have been more recent posts, but this post on news.com is the most detailed. Essentially, a judge tossed out a subpoena attempting to force the defendant to reveal his PGP (Pretty Good Privacy, a common encryption scheme) password. The decision was based on 5th amendment rights. It has been appealed. This case raises an important question: Can a suspect be legally forced to divulge passwords? With a search warrant police can require entry to a house and even to a safe, so why not a computer? A password is in some ways like the key to a house or safe. However, a computer password is not “hardware” (like a key) nor is it likely that a law enforcer could gain access without the password (a house or safe can be broken into if the key is not given). Good encryption schemes are very hard to break. It all comes down to the age old debate: which is more important, the right to privacy or the need to enforce the law? I don’t know what I would answer. I want criminals caught, but I would be outraged if forced to divulge my own password(s). Then again, I would probably be just as annoyed if my house or car were searched. Do I have the right to conceal evidence from the law? Do they have the right to demand a privileged search (assuming probable cause)? These issues didn’t even exist 20 years ago. The decision of the appellant court on this case will be critical in years to come as more and more of our lives become digitized.

The internet is at the same time a treasure trove of valuable information and a junk heap of useless data.  This dual nature is unique to the internet; nowhere else do we find such indiscriminate conglomeration of information.  Before Google (and other modern search engines), finding the diamonds of valuable information in the rough of the junk heap was a tedious process.  Google has revolutionized the way we use the internet, making information increasingly more accessible.  The power available at our fingertips raises the important question of how to use that power.  Certainly seeking to gratify our base urges is not the best way to use the internet.  We must be responsible with our time and our resources.  Rather than pointlessly gather data, we should use our data-gathering capabilities to enhance our lives and those of others.  The internet can be a great force for good if we use it responsibly.

Post numero dos! Yippee! So this post is not in December like I said it might be. In fact, I’ve been married for more than six months now. Married life is definitely the good life. We moved into Wymount family housing after the wedding and lived there until school got out. Then we came to Midland, MI, for the summer. We’re really enjoying it here. It’s a quiet town, in a way. Most of the town is employed by Dow Chemical or one of its subsidiaries. We’re both interns at Dow this summer. Danielle is in the Accounts Receivable group and I ended up in IT auditing.

My first audit was fun. I worked with EDI and Lockbox. Both are essentially non-user interfaces, and Lockbox doesn’t even have it’s own processes anymore. For Lockbox we documented how it’s not it’s own application anymore, and for EDI we did some security and change management review. Since the audit ended, I’ve been working on the department website. We’ve been upgrading from MS Acces to SQL Server, which took a lot of work revamping the server scripting. We’re also converting an old Access application to a web form. That is turning out to be a very fun project. In the next couple weeks I’ll start work on my second and final audit of the summer.

Danielle, meanwhile, has been writing documentation and determining global policy for certain processes in Accounts Receivable. Last week and this week have also been quarter close, so she’s been busy working on that as well.

Life’s treating us well here in Midland. It’s peaceful, inexpensive, and we’re making big bucks as interns. We’re saving up money for the coming school year to pay tuition and housing (though housing and food I can usually pay out of my part-time job’s wages). Good times!

This is my first post. We’ll see if I ever make a second. I’m really just putting this blog here for the fun of it. Feel free to check back every once in a while.

I’ll probably be using this as a secondary journal, so it might be boring for most people. But if you want to know what’s up in my life and get info about me and my family, come take a look.