Parking Vultures

The sun filtered through the trees, lighting the stairs ahead of me. I quickly stepped down the several flights of concrete steps on the edge of campus. I almost forgot how cold it was as I considered all I needed to study once I returned to my apartment. I entered the vast parking lot and instinctively started scanning up and down the packed aisles for a white Eclipse. For me this was a typical ritual. I knew I parked in the last few isles, but my memory was fuzzy on the exact location. 

At that moment I heard a car idling quietly behind me. The sound faded some as I walked further down the isle. I didn't turn around to look, I didn't need to. It was noon. Parking vultures aren't unknown to BYU campus. However, it's a mystery as to why we have them. Despite all the complaining frequently heard among the student body, there is in fact a surplus of parking spots. I might otherwise have some sympathy for them.

In a futile attempt to evade the predator I took a sharp left, cutting through an isle of cars. I heard its engine fire up as it raced down the isle to meet me on the other side. I tried to ignore the car that was slowly inching along behind me as I tried to spot my small white car among all the other small white cars. A second vulture came around the corner and slowly drove past, enviously glaring, seeing I had already been claimed.

With a sigh of relief I finally spotted my car in the next isle. I cut through another isle but proceeded slowly. When the vulture zipped past on the other side I popped out just behind him. He slowed down, jealously eyeing me in the rear view mirror. I discretely unlocked my car doors as I approached, hoping he would think I was cutting through again, he took the bait. I quickly jumped in my car and waited. As far as the vulture was concerned, I had vanished. Just as another passed, I started my car, put it in gear and pulled out, pleased that no-one was rewarded for vulturing my spot. 

Out of curiosity, I drove by the Marriott center parking lot. As usual there were still plenty of open spaces. Why don't the vultures just park there? Students argue that the Marriott center is much further away. It's not, I checked:

Even if it was further, I don't understand why you would rather follow people around a parking lot for 20 minutes hoping to score a spot when you could just park a little further and use this thing called "the leg."

How is this rational? Pray tell.

Available spaces from 9 - 12:

• Marriott center parking: At least half
• Indoor practice facility parking: None

Walking distance to library at center of campus:

• Marriott center parking: ~.52 miles
• Indoor practice facility parking: ~.53 miles / with several steep flights of stairs

Time to walk this distance:

• ~13 minutes (for exceptionally slow people)

Time vultures claim to spend looking for a parking spot:

• 20 minutes

Leisure Time, and Transaction Costs

It's important for us to develop balance in or lives. New media outlets such as the internet make it much easier to exercise leisure time. There are lower transaction costs to engaging in leisure activities. As a result, it takes minimal planning and coordination to switch from work to leisure. When these activities are always accessible, it's highly tempting to burn time on them rather than doing real work. Of course, leisure time is important, but it needs to be taken in moderation. Ease of access to leisure activities means that people will have to exercise a higher degree of self-control to make good use of available time.

Technology is Not Destroying the "Fabric of Our Society"

Most people will agree that spending significant amounts of time online every day is unhealthy. This assumption is so general that it's easy to show that it's false as a tautology. Certainly certain specific activities, such as playing Farmville all day is a waste of time and can be considered unhealthy. However, what if that time is spent, reading, doing homework, and communicating with friends? If these same activities were conducted offline, no sane person would call it unhealthy. It's important to make a distinction between the mode of communication and the specific activities you are involved with. For example, if you are spending the whole day on Facebook, the problem isn't an "internet addiction," but rather, an addiction to  communicating with your friends. Of course anything done in excess  can become a bad thing, but you would hear a lot less hysteria about how "technology is destroying the fabric of our society," if people stopped blaming the mode of communication as opposed to focusing on the detrimental effects of specific activities.

Why MBA's Stink at Managing Software Projects

Open-source software introduced a new model for organizing software development. The approach is sometimes referred to as a bazaar since it has similarities to the mechanics of free-markets. One reason it works so well is that it was created by developers, for developers. We all have certain frustrations with how software projects are run in the workplace. It's not uncommon for people with minimal development experience to be put in charge of directing software projects. Direction and deadlines are set by those that are completely out of touch with what it actually takes to build software. This may explain why so many software projects are delivered late and incomplete. Management may want to ship a product in a months time, but that goal may be wildly out of touch with what it actually takes to build quality software.  As a result, corners are cut, and mountains of technical debt are accrued.

One of the reasons open-source software tends to be of such high quality is that many of the hurdles in traditional corporate development are minimized since those who understand it are the ones setting goals and providing direction. Google's success in technology can, in part, be explained by how they have embraced this concept. The most competent engineers at Google are the ones who determine the companies direction. This really shouldn't be a revolutionary idea. Those that know software the best are those that can make the most intelligent decisions about timelines and specification changes.

Despite how well developers like working under an open-source model, it's never going to totally replace the traditional managed model of development. As much as we enjoy working with open-source, at some point we also like to get paid.

R.I.P. Mr Dewey Decimal

The internet is creating significant change in society and it's happening much faster than anyone could have anticipated. Whether this change is good or bad depends on who you are exactly but it appears that in the end it will be a net good. The internet makes distribution of information extremely easy and cheap for anyone to do. Businesses that have traditionally profited on publishing and distribution will be most affected. As a result organizations like book publishers, newspapers, and the music industry are going to have to institute significant changes in their business models if they want to stick around.

It will be interesting to see how libraries are transformed by this change. It's much easier and cheaper for everyone to distribute books in electronic form.

It doesn't make sense anymore to have to go to a library to do research. Professors often require students to pull sources from other places from the internet for research. Does this really make any sense? Most serious scientific journals are available online, what's the point in requiring students to spend hours in a library to find the same information? Learning to use a library is not a valuable skill, at least not anymore. There is absolutely no chance that the internet is going to disappear. This is a similar argument that teachers used to have against calculators in math classes. Now that we have them we can spend our time focusing on understanding higher level concepts rather than dealing with the rote minutiae of manual symbol manipulation. In the same sort of way, the internet lets us get to the information we need instantly so we don't waste our time wandering aimlessly through a dusty old library trying to work the Dewey decimal system. Sorry Mr. Dewey but we really don't need you any more.

Sidejacking with Firesheep

Many popular web services like GMail and Facebook are vulnerable to a serious security flaw known as sidejacking. These attacks work by capturing session id's sent unencrypted from your browser. If the traffic is sent over wifi, this sort of attack is especially trivial. Firesheep is a Firefox extension that puts this attack into the hands of the masses. Once a user installs the extension they can easily access online accounts of anyone using nearby wireless networks. This highlights a major security vulnerability that many web services have either not been aware of, or simply chosen to not fix. It isn't difficult for web services to guard against this attack. The easiest way is to force users to use a TLS connection when they log in. Hopefully, Firesheep will raise awareness of the issue so sites will start locking down access to their users accounts.

http://www.securityweek.com/firesheep-extension-firefox-enables-hacking-masses-hijacks-browser-sessions-ease

Digital Music Distribution

Using technology to protect intellectual property tends to annoy consumers. Digital rights managements (DRM) has no way of distinguishing between copying music for resale and copying for personal backup. The recording industry implements strategies assuming they can't trust their customers. They are right to not trust them but their approach inconveniences all customers, not just those violating their IP.

Several years ago amazon opened a DRM free digital music store. They provide a massive selection of mp3's for 99 cents. The popularity of amazons music store has driven iTunes to remove DRM from their music as well.

It has taken a while, but the market has imposed some sanity on digital music sales.Digital music sales are beginning to surpass physical CD sales. This is a little scary for the recording industry since it makes it much easier for artists to distribute music independently. A lot of the barriers to getting your music published just arent there any more. As a result, the recording industry will likely begin to be marginalized in the future. They just act as a middle man that artists are beginning to realize they can do without.