A relatively recent addition to our professional vocabulary “Whistle Blowing” is the term given to outcry against corrupt or incompetent behaviour within an organisation. It came into prominece in the late 1980’s following the Challenger disaster in which a space shuttle exploded shortly after take-off killing all seven crew members including a schoolteacher onboard.
So what does it mean to be ethical? In essence ethical people exhibit three main traits: honesty, integrity and loyalty.
In the early 60’s there was a view of companies that was not all flattering - they were money grubbing greedy and the general public view of them was “pretty untrustworthy”. Companies were essentially lacking corporate integrity. These days companies can see the bigger picture and its worth their while to present a good image to their target audience.
In this post we introduce “Professional Ethics” and the principles behind professional ethics.
Click to continue reading “Ethics for Engineers and Computer Scientists - Part V.”
Context is a bigger concept in IT than people realise, and I’m not just talking about programmming. It occured to me just now actually. While writing a report I realised that what is defined as “spam” and “junk” on the internet is just a matter of concept.
I propose a question: Is “spam” spam if you’re actually interested in enlargement / cheap sources of viagra?
You could, theoretically, design a “context engine”
Input: Users context, target material
Output: Valid material (whether it be spam or search results or an ad-free webpage).
It’s the permise intelligent spam filters and Google Adsense works on - so its technically implementable. The real question is: What defines a persons context?
Build this kind of profile is “scary” to a lot of people. But implemented safely and correctly can be a useful tool - especially when creating content that is customised to the user.
But wait… (continuing from before) … the Utilitarian would argue: “If the greater number benefit, what do intentions matter”. But why are intentions important? In this post we’ll discuss Virtue Ethics, Moral Pluralism and Cultural Relativism.
Big words. I know.
Click to continue reading “Ethics for Engineers and Computer Scientists - Part IV.”
Updating is good. Vista is bad. Never before have I been afraid to update a computer - things are even worse with Vista than with XP. Once you update you are no longer assured your computer will work just as it did before, and essentially this is a Microsoft problem.
If you’re here you’ve discovered your internet has slowed down to a crawl after the latest round of updates (or maybe out of the box). You’ve checked with your ISP and tried other computers on your network and the internet is still working, Google definately isn’t taking 10 minutes to load as a new standard practice.
Click to continue reading “Internet Slow after Vista Update”
Some may say it’s a little too early to start guessing Google’s goals for next year - we’re just past halfway 08. I disagree.
If Spam is to be believed:
Solar cars are stupid -
The concept is flawed. What is the point of using the roof of your car to generate electricity, when you can easily place 10 times as many panels on the roof of your house and access the power through infrastructure known as “the power grid”. For all that extra cost and technology you add a mere 5 km to distance travelled. This is given the fact you dont park your car in the shade.
Hydrogen cars are a distraction -