Don't forget to flush
One of the most important things I've had to learn as a computer programmer is how computers remember and process information. When you write software you are generally going to be storing information of some kind and then doing things with that information. Every single piece of software I have ever encountered used information in one way or another.
Now, most computer code is written in such a way that the information is gathered into a temporary location first. Depending on the programming language and what type of software you are building this location is known by names such as The Session, RAM, Variables, and other things, but the bottom line is that more often than not the information gathered by the program is temporary. As soon as you leave the program, or turn off your computer the information is lost. You need to write additional code to store that information in a permanent location, such as a database, hard drive and so on.
The process of moving information from a temporary location to a permanent home is known as persistence and it's one of the more difficult things developers do. Being able to do it well is the difference between a successful application and one doomed to failure. Imagine how well Amazon.com would do if they kept the items in your shopping cart in temporary place, or if they weren't able to store your shipping address, forcing you to enter it each time you place an order. Persisting information so that it can be reused at a later time is key to their success.
The human brain is no different. When we process information from our 5 senses, that information first goes into a temporary location known as short-term memory. When you meet a new person for the first time your brain will likely start to run a program called Social Greeting. Circumstances may dictate you run a different program such as Stranger Danger, but for now let's assume a less harmless encounter. For most people this program gathers visual data, such as whether this new person is male or female, hair and eye color, and unfortunately if the person running Social Greeting is male, some other details that seem critical in the moment, but in reality probably shouldn't occupy so much space in memory. (Yes, ladies, we know where your eyes are and thank you for the reminder). The program also gathers audio data including their name, whether they speak English or not, as well as data from the other 3 senses.
Fast forward to some number of minutes, hours, or days into the future. If the software your brain is running has been designed properly you will still remember things about this person. You will probably be able to identify them in a photo-lineup. You may remember what they smelled like (ladies are especially good at remembering when the smell is Too-Much-Old-Spice) and if you're lucky you may even remember their name. This is because your brain has the ability to persist information gathered by the various programs you run each day into your Long-term Memory.
Your brain is essentially one enormous computer program and you are the programmer. It came preloaded with the necessary drivers and input devices to allow you to capture information, but how you use that information is entirely up to you. You can be programmed, but contrary so popular belief, you are the only one that can write your software. You were given complete control of your operating system by the System Administrator. This does not mean that writing your own programs is easy, only that it is possible. You can't always control the stream of information coming in, but you decide how to best process and store it.
The tools needed to program your own brain are becoming scarce and less common. We hear stories about people that rise above their situations to achieve great things and it seems like a miracle that they are able to accomplish great things. We have become a society full of people that allow ourselves to be programmed by others and at the heart of this issue is social media.
Raise your hand if you have a Facebook® account. Now raise another hand if you're on Twitter®. How about Instagram®? Vine®? Snapchat®? Google+®? E-Harmony®? Shall I go on? Now I'm not saying that any one of these is in and of itself an evil that must be eliminated from our society. I think Facebook is an amazing tool that allows me to keep in contact with friends and relatives that I might otherwise not be able to reach. Social media can be a great force for good by allowing people to organize efforts in mass in support of a cause. But the flip side of that coin is the sheer volume of information to which you are subjected.
Let's go back to the person we met a few paragraphs ago. Do you still remember their name? Probably not, and that's because we have become terrible as a society at persisting information. We scroll through our news feeds and timelines processing tiny bits of information in mass quantities but never moving any of it into our long-term memory. To use a personal example, in the past 60 seconds I processed the following information: 6 pictures of some one's new truck, a photo of one person I know and several people I'll likely never meet in my lifetime, someone is nervous about a big test tomorrow, somebody really loves their husband, the Utah Jazz won (I already knew that, having watched the game, but now I know twice), some one's child lost a tooth, someone spent time with one of their grand kids, somebody just finished cleaning up their kids toy room and is happy to "be done with it" (must be a first time parent, otherwise they'd know better than to be happy that they are "done" cleaning), somebody posted something in Spanish and my Spanish is so rusty that I'm not even going to bother trying to translate it. And the list goes on, and on, and on, and on...
And I will remember none of this tomorrow.
It's far too easy to get caught up in these micro-bursts of information and neglect other more important things. We fail to remember (no pun intended) that unless we move the information to our long-term memory it will be gone. We need to take time to process worthwhile information and then store it permanently. The scriptures counsel us to "treasure up in [our] minds the words of life" (Doctrine and Covenants 84:85). When you treasure something you don't treat it as another drop of water in a sea of useless information. You stop and think about it. You ponder and consider it carefully. You figure out how you can use it to enrich your life. And most importantly you persist it so that you can use it later.
Just as a computer programmer must sift through all of the information being gathered in the program and decide what to store permanently, you must "seek out of the best books words of wisdom" (Doctrine and Covenants 109:7) and then store that information permanently.
In certain programming languages persisting is referred to as flushing, so as you process the ever-growing streams of information in your life, don't forget to flush.
Now, most computer code is written in such a way that the information is gathered into a temporary location first. Depending on the programming language and what type of software you are building this location is known by names such as The Session, RAM, Variables, and other things, but the bottom line is that more often than not the information gathered by the program is temporary. As soon as you leave the program, or turn off your computer the information is lost. You need to write additional code to store that information in a permanent location, such as a database, hard drive and so on.
The process of moving information from a temporary location to a permanent home is known as persistence and it's one of the more difficult things developers do. Being able to do it well is the difference between a successful application and one doomed to failure. Imagine how well Amazon.com would do if they kept the items in your shopping cart in temporary place, or if they weren't able to store your shipping address, forcing you to enter it each time you place an order. Persisting information so that it can be reused at a later time is key to their success.
The human brain is no different. When we process information from our 5 senses, that information first goes into a temporary location known as short-term memory. When you meet a new person for the first time your brain will likely start to run a program called Social Greeting. Circumstances may dictate you run a different program such as Stranger Danger, but for now let's assume a less harmless encounter. For most people this program gathers visual data, such as whether this new person is male or female, hair and eye color, and unfortunately if the person running Social Greeting is male, some other details that seem critical in the moment, but in reality probably shouldn't occupy so much space in memory. (Yes, ladies, we know where your eyes are and thank you for the reminder). The program also gathers audio data including their name, whether they speak English or not, as well as data from the other 3 senses.
Fast forward to some number of minutes, hours, or days into the future. If the software your brain is running has been designed properly you will still remember things about this person. You will probably be able to identify them in a photo-lineup. You may remember what they smelled like (ladies are especially good at remembering when the smell is Too-Much-Old-Spice) and if you're lucky you may even remember their name. This is because your brain has the ability to persist information gathered by the various programs you run each day into your Long-term Memory.
Your brain is essentially one enormous computer program and you are the programmer. It came preloaded with the necessary drivers and input devices to allow you to capture information, but how you use that information is entirely up to you. You can be programmed, but contrary so popular belief, you are the only one that can write your software. You were given complete control of your operating system by the System Administrator. This does not mean that writing your own programs is easy, only that it is possible. You can't always control the stream of information coming in, but you decide how to best process and store it.
The tools needed to program your own brain are becoming scarce and less common. We hear stories about people that rise above their situations to achieve great things and it seems like a miracle that they are able to accomplish great things. We have become a society full of people that allow ourselves to be programmed by others and at the heart of this issue is social media.
Raise your hand if you have a Facebook® account. Now raise another hand if you're on Twitter®. How about Instagram®? Vine®? Snapchat®? Google+®? E-Harmony®? Shall I go on? Now I'm not saying that any one of these is in and of itself an evil that must be eliminated from our society. I think Facebook is an amazing tool that allows me to keep in contact with friends and relatives that I might otherwise not be able to reach. Social media can be a great force for good by allowing people to organize efforts in mass in support of a cause. But the flip side of that coin is the sheer volume of information to which you are subjected.
Let's go back to the person we met a few paragraphs ago. Do you still remember their name? Probably not, and that's because we have become terrible as a society at persisting information. We scroll through our news feeds and timelines processing tiny bits of information in mass quantities but never moving any of it into our long-term memory. To use a personal example, in the past 60 seconds I processed the following information: 6 pictures of some one's new truck, a photo of one person I know and several people I'll likely never meet in my lifetime, someone is nervous about a big test tomorrow, somebody really loves their husband, the Utah Jazz won (I already knew that, having watched the game, but now I know twice), some one's child lost a tooth, someone spent time with one of their grand kids, somebody just finished cleaning up their kids toy room and is happy to "be done with it" (must be a first time parent, otherwise they'd know better than to be happy that they are "done" cleaning), somebody posted something in Spanish and my Spanish is so rusty that I'm not even going to bother trying to translate it. And the list goes on, and on, and on, and on...
And I will remember none of this tomorrow.
It's far too easy to get caught up in these micro-bursts of information and neglect other more important things. We fail to remember (no pun intended) that unless we move the information to our long-term memory it will be gone. We need to take time to process worthwhile information and then store it permanently. The scriptures counsel us to "treasure up in [our] minds the words of life" (Doctrine and Covenants 84:85). When you treasure something you don't treat it as another drop of water in a sea of useless information. You stop and think about it. You ponder and consider it carefully. You figure out how you can use it to enrich your life. And most importantly you persist it so that you can use it later.
Just as a computer programmer must sift through all of the information being gathered in the program and decide what to store permanently, you must "seek out of the best books words of wisdom" (Doctrine and Covenants 109:7) and then store that information permanently.
In certain programming languages persisting is referred to as flushing, so as you process the ever-growing streams of information in your life, don't forget to flush.
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