Facebook Reaches the World

"Facebook's user base is nearly as large as the US population," states the headline. And of course, this announcement was made by Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook's CEO) on the company's blog. Technology is taking over the world--and apparently, so is Facebook. But if Facebook is so important to staying up-to-date with technology, why not Twitter? And LinkedIn? And Squidoo, Flikr, YouTube and a million other networks that are equally "vital?" I think that's why I've shied away from them for so long. Yeah, they might serve a purpose every now and then (I used LinkedIn to try and contact a girl from my mission), but most of the time the only purpose they serve is to make you feel just a little better about your supposed social status. After all, who doesn't love to find out that "[t]here are a total of 3 messages awaiting your response"? Even if some of them are from Prince Albert Kohl who "am [sic] a Singaporean citizen," there's something exciting about personalized messages. It's only too bad Google's Autopilot was only an April Fool's Day joke. :)

Getting to The Edge

I'm a bioinformatician, and very much so.  I am of the opinion that, through the proper application, computer science can solve all of our medical problems.  Unfortunately, I am not the only one with this opinion which leads me to my aggravation with the Age of Technology.  With scientific data following a greater-than Moore's-Law growth, so must the programs analyzing and using the data.  Which means that, in order to achieve anything significant, one must also be on the edge of an ever-increasing bubble.  They must achieve the best the soonest, forcing me to fight for position and prestige with the learned PhD and professional individuals who have had far more experience than I have.  Perhaps all of this fighting and knowledge in the Age of Technology will further the goals of a bioinformatician, and that of humankind as a whole, but all I've seen is a lot of back-biting, an overprotection of one's underdeveloped ideas, and, worst of all, a huge degrade in the product in order to ship on time.  In my humble opinion, this is the real problem the Age of Technology is facing:  When agencies are willing to dish out millions of dollars to the very few who claim to be able to "perform the best" or "get results the quickest" (and rightfully so), what happens to those of us who are concerned about accuracy?  About relevance?  And about finally creating a product that is not intended just to put us in position to fight for a Nobel Prize, but will actually produce something that will benefit humanity?

Which makes me wonder, if my education is designed to place me on the "outskirts of the bubble," why should we wast a week learning about UML design in a Software Design and Testing class?  But that's a topic for another day.

...Just Created...

It's been a long time coming--this blog has. But finally it's here. There's about three reasons I can think of for my creating a blog:

1) Sometimes I like to soap-box. But I've found that not everyone is as knowledgeable (or perhaps I should say "interested") as I am in certain topics. So a blog provides a perfect platform to satisfy my ranting itch.

2) My CS 404 class requires us to create one. Enough said.

3) I can get my mother to subscribe to my blog. This will not only let her know what's going on in my life, but will also help her to be more trusting of the ever increasing amount of "new-age" technology. Maybe one day she'll have the art of texting perfected.

I'll let you guess what the title has reference to...