Rebirth

First, allow me to apologize for letting this blog lay fallow for over three years. Though life has been interesting (as in the Chinese curse), it is no reason to have neglected my responsibilities for so long.

The primary things that have distracted me from my blogs for so long as been my work towards finally earning my Bachelor's degree in computer science, my entering the freelance writing industry, and my work on a number of soon-to-be-published manuscripts. Recent world events have, however, reawakened my view that our world needs a blog like this to start drawing together the various issues our world is facing.

Take for example the issues I have been dealing with during my academic endeavor.

Our school has a fairly strong reputation for excellence when it comes to the training of future medical, graphic design and business professionals. When it comes to our computer science program, however, there are a number of issues. Our school is marketed as a "hands-on" school, meaning students learn by doing realistic exercises that give them both knowledge and experience in their future occupations ... or at least it is supposed to.

Our school has issues in this field in a number of ways. The computers we have in-school are outdated by at least seven years, as is the network hardware. The computers used for Linux and server classes are totally inadequate for the task. Classes that mutually need what equipment is available are often scheduled for the same time slots, which limits the hands on experience for the students.

Turning to the laptops (which are supplied by the school), these do not have the software necessary for the students to complete their programming assignments, even though there is an academic version available for about $100 of both Microsoft Office and Microsoft Visual Studio. Mind you, this is a school that charges $65,000 - $75,000 for a Bachelor's degree program. Even considering the school is giving us laptops and lends us our textbooks instead of making us buy them, the lack of proper equipment and software is hard to overlook.

Which leads me to this ... we as activists and advocates are, in general, no better when we approach the general public or our political leaders. In recent weeks we have witnessed massive protests against corporate and governmental corruption across the United States (the "Occupy Wall Street" movement) that illustrates this.

While protesting the corruption, no one in the groups seemed to be able to say exactly what they were protesting or what could be done to address the issues. Without a clear understanding of what the problems are and some idea of what can be done to fix the issues, we are leaving our political leaders as helpless as my college has been leaving its computer science students. Instead of just complaining about problems, let's start focusing on solutions. If a given company is refusing to clean up its act, for example, why not buy controlling interest in the company and make the necessary changes ourselves?

Sure it will take capital, but consider this a moment. Any one of us may not have a million dollars, but with a few hundred thousand of us around the world, coming up with a few hundred dollars each would add up pretty quick. Don't know about the rest of you, but I'm in!

Microsoft Proves Incompetence Once Again

Many of you are already aware of the SP3 fiasco that started in May when XP SP3 was released to the public for voluntary download. This week Microsoft switched it to a "pushed" update, listing it as a "critical update" to convince people to accept its installation.

The problem is, it is causing more problems than the issues it was supposed to fix, from perpetual reboots in some systems to, as in my case, blocked Internet updates for third party software.

Now, I can live without the MapleStory or Disney's ToonTown (if I have to), but this problem also means I cannot update my LavaSoft Ad Aware or Grisoft AVG Anti-Virus. In some cases, I have learned, Microsoft even caused problems with people updating Windows itself.

Microsoft has for years had problems with its image and the latest fiasco with XP SP3 as well as the equally irritating problems with the Windows Vista update shows exactly why it is having them. Changes to a software packet, or anything else for that matter, are supposed to make things better, not cause such outrageous hardships. Some users have even been forced to take their computers in for complete hard drive blanking and system reloading.

Microsoft needs to wake up!

This whole situation smells more of a corrupt attempt to force people to upgrade to Windows Vista or to sabotage anything that isn't Microsoft-sourced.

If Microsoft doesn't clean up its act (quickly!) it will probably see a wholesale migration to another operating system within the next two years. This irresponsibility they have been showing for years is identical to what gave innovative college students the ability to start a company that ended up topping Big Blue (IBM). I wonder who that could have been ...

Oh, right, it was Bill Gates and his buddies!

The Greatest Key to Success

"I never let schooling interfere with my education"
Mark Twain

I've been studying some of the great social and political movements of the past. By great I mean those that were found significant enough to be kept in our history books and legends. I find myself struck by a profound truth. I shall reveal it in a moment.

People in our society have some funny ideas about the keys to success. Yet I find myself realizing that most of them are lies.

Lie #1 - Education leads to success

Under this lie, it is assumed that one cannot be successful without a college degree. This has manifested itself in our society through the assumption that for most occupations candidates must have at least a bachelors degree to be taken seriously. Evidence that this assumption is a lie can be found by looking to successful men like Bill Gates who dropped out of college to start working in the computer field. We all know what happened with that.

Lie #2 - Great wealth assures success

With rare exception, accumulated wealth seldom survives more than two generations before disappearing into oblivion. Too often the children of wealthy individuals have no appreciation for the wealth responsible for their upper class lifestyle and clearly no ideas on perpetuating it into the future. Instead of absorbing this appreciation and knowledge from their parents, they become spoiled and lazy, guaranteeing their future failure.

Lie #3 - Poverty guarantees failure

Men like Chris Gardner are proof this is a lie. Chris Gardner raised himself from a poor, homeless father to being one of our nation's top, successful stock industry experts. Mr. Gardner is also a living example of the profound truth I have finally come to recognize.

Note that I did not say I discovered the truth, but said I finally recognized the truth. The truth was there all along and used quite effectively by men like Bill Gates and Chris Gardner. This truth has a name.

Allow me to introduce Personal Motivation.

Personal Motivation is a sad, lonely fellow in many cases. Like most of us, people pass by personal motivation everyday, never noticing its there, waiting in the dusty wings of our minds. Personal motivation survives on crusts of dreams and quenches its thirst with our flights of wishful thinking. The personal motivation of most people subsists much like the homeless citizens of our inner city.

People like Bill Gates and Chris Gardner have rescued their personal motivations from the streets and proven how powerful personal motivations can be. From the margins of society, these two men have built personal empires that most of America envies without ever realizing they too can have such success.

We as activists can learn much from men like these. We too have our dreams; dreams of what our world could be like, if only we would address the many problems facing our civilization. The one thing lacking, most of the time, is our own personal motivation.

Too many times we feel our activism is done because we have no choice. To truly have the energy and dedication necessary we must awaken our personal motivation. For me, mine was awakened by the revelation that it is my nieces and nephews who are going to bear the brunt of the issues we have failed to address over the years. I love them dearly and have no desire to leave the world in such a mess, no more than I would leave a gun and ammunition laying around the house when they visit.

My personal motivation is to improve our society not for myself, but for those who come after us. But the truth is, I cannot do it alone. I need the help and mutual assistance of all those who wish to improve our society. I read postings and blog entries every day from people worried about where our society is and where it is going. I say its time to do something about it. We have the technology to fix many of the problems in our world. Those that cannot be fixed by technology will no doubt take greater effort, but we can do it!

All we need is the motivation.