Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Brett Hansen's LiveJournal:

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Sunday, November 19th, 2006
3:01 pm	I'm going to be an uncle. That's screwed up. (Comment on this)
Sunday, October 29th, 2006
10:05 am	Gay marraige I have been strongly in favor of homosexuals right to marry for some time now, but I heard something on a conservative talkshow today that changed my mind. It was an anti-gay activist from Idaho speaking in favor of an amendment to the state constitution defining marraige as a union between one man and one woman. He said that the state should not be forced to recognize homosexual marraige as "morally equivilant" to heterosexual marraige. I realized that I completly agree. The government is absolutely prohibited by the first amendment from making any moral judgment on the issue whatsoever. I had heard the idea before, but now I'm convinced. Our country needs to ban marraige. In fact, it seems a pretty strong argument could be made that the first amendment already does ban marraige, and the supreme court just hasn't noticed yet. It is a religious institution being endorsed by the gonvernment, and that is illegal. That being said, I would still get married. So would almost everyone else looking to get married. The only difference would be that the government would no longer be in a position to decide which churches marraiges it wished to honor. It wouldn't honor any of them, but anyone who wanted to could come down to the courthouse and join themselves to another person financially if they wished. They could sign official hospital visitation contracts if they wished. Conversly, you church would still be perfectly free to not acknowledge any other churches marraige. People's right to be bigots would not in any way be infringed, the way it would if the government used the term "marraige" to recognize a homosexual or more than two person union. This is important, since the same amendment that protects homosexuals from legally supported religous persecution also protects every citizen's right to be a bigoted asshole. All that being said, it will never happen. People simply don't care enough about the rule of law to think the subject through. We operate on a system where we make laws because they look good, and we enforce the ones we like, and marraige looks really good. No politition would ever win an election advocating the end of marraige. And if you think the cries of "activist judge!" are loud now when our supreme court does the job we hired it for, just wait for this one. "The government is saying my parents were living in sin!" I will have to continue supporting gay marraige, not because it is a perfect solution but because it is the best one that is likely to be available for my lifetime. (Comment on this)
Friday, October 6th, 2006
1:29 pm	Despite the fact that I had reletivly poor test performance all week, I remembered, with 4 minutes left on a CS 317 test to do an inductive proof (proof that N-3 -4n is divisible by 3, I think), why I love this line of study. I get to solve puzzles and get graded for it (and later, get paid for it). Maybe they won't all be that fast, or fun, but *some* of them will. I think the proof was pretty well done, too, assumeing the teacher can make out my handwriting. (Comment on this)
Saturday, August 26th, 2006
1:53 am	I looked at my last entry... and I suppose my life has changed quite a bit. The changes seem predictable enough thouh, given the closure of HCC, and anyway, I don't feel much like writing about them tonight. The short version: My school closed, I trasfered to WSU, Sheena and I got an appartment in Pullman, I like it here. So, back to why I was posting. I was thinking, insurance is stupid. Now don't get me wrong, I can cetainly see why it's there. I know I certainly don't save any money to help anybody I might hit with a car, and the fact that I must have insurance protects tha hypothetical accident victem. What I mean is that insurance does not fit the typical "furthering my own best interests helps society" model that makes capitalism work. The problem is that insurance penalizes competence. If I am a lucky but terrible terrible driver that has not yet had an accident (through luck, obviously it will happen sometime), I pay the same monthly fee as a good but less lucky driver. The problem is that I as a terrible driver am more likly to see a reward (being covered for the costs of an accident) than the good driver. In fact, if the good driver is very very good, is reward is that insurance gets him nothing at all when he avoids all possible accidents. The problem, of course, is that the good driver still pays for insurance. I thought about this tonight as I drove around, currantly uninsured. I want to be insured of course, it being the law, I just don't have the money at the moment. I was stressing out about it earlier today, when I realized that I didn't have much of a problem. I am a very good driver. I have been the driver involved in a total of four accidents in the 12 years since I first got my learners permit. In one, it was entirly my fault, I was 15 and a half, and I bumped an old beat up truck pulling out of a parking spot. In the second I took a free red, not noticing that someone going well over the speed limit was coming over the hill towards me, I turned into the guardrail, avoiding the other vehicle, and only cosmetically damaging my own. In the second I was rear-ended, the other driver was completly at fault but the only damage was cosmetic so I didn't get him into any trouble. In the fourth, soon after the third, I rearended somone causing only cosmetic damage and I they let me go. The problem I see is that I was insured for all of those. My insurance didn't pay me or anyone else anything in any of those cases. I have paid thousands of dollars since I got my license at 18, and never once has my insurance helped me or any victem of my carelessness in any way. On the otherhand, there have been two different times someone elses insurance has paid to fix the medical problems they caused me... so I see that insurance does sometimes help. Back to what I said was the problem though... The people who insurance helped were bad drivers. In both cases, the person who caused an accident injuring me were unsafe and should not have been allowed on the road. They were both people for whom unsafe driving was a longstanding habbit. They probably did not pay insurance much hirer than mine, however, one being in his thirties and the other being female. As a male in his mid 20s, I paid very high insurance, even though I never needed it. This makes me imediatly think "socialized insurance is the only way to go", but Sheena pointed out that socialized insuarance wouldn't be likly to have enough on hand to pay for expensive surgeries or substantial pain and suffering settlements. She has a great point, and it leaves me feeling lost and confused. The current system is obviously wrong, I have been paying a company for years that has never once done me a bit of good, but I can't for the life of me think of a better system. It makes me hate capitalism, the genoiuoses in our society simply aren't rewarded for bettering society for thinking of solutions to problems like this. The geniouses go into private practice, and the problems like this simply don't get solved. Brett (Comment on this)
Saturday, July 1st, 2006
12:48 am	So, I didn't end up having a beer with Ryan. I just rode along with him to the store, he had about an hour free to hang out, but I wanted to get home. I realized what I really needed was just to talk/complain with a fellow HCC student. It was nice, although the situation is still going to be nasty. (Comment on this)
Friday, June 30th, 2006
10:13 pm	I don't think I need to tell people who know me than while I'm a smart guy, I'm more than a little bit of a screw up. I've been lucky enough to be given several chances and going to college and getting into the carreer that most interests me, computer programming. What frustrates me most about the turn my life just took is that this time my school career isn't my fault. That sounds like the kind of excuse those who know me might think was familiar. They might be expecting something like "If I was at a school I liked more" or "If I liked my teachers" or some other similar excuse. Not this time. This major scholastic setback is inarguably not my fault. Yesterday, it was announced that my school is closing at the end of the summer. This causes a lot of problems, the most imediate one being what excatly am I going to do in September now? Henry Cogswell College was not considerate or thoughtful enough to tell it's students this before deadlines for fall admission... and my grades aren't all that spectacular anyway. And I know, I know, the grades thing is my fault, but this was it! I wasn't going to need to transfer again, I was actually getting my degree this time, and bad grades or not I was progressing towards a degree. So now I have to either not go to school at all in the fall, or go somewhere that will take *me*, and that means their standards are pretty low. I might have a shot at WSU, since I went there before. I really dont' know. What I do know is that I drank all the wine already, and I think I'm going to go have a beer with Ryan, one of the friends I've made here that I will suddenly probably never see again after about a month. (Comment on this)
Friday, May 19th, 2006
6:02 pm	I took another silly online test You scored as Method Actor. You think that gaming is a form of creative expression. You may view rules as, at best, a necessary evil, preferring sessions where the dice never come out of the bag. You enjoy situations that test or deepen your character's personality traits. </td> Method Actor 100% Storyteller 58% Specialist 50% Tactician 42% Casual Gamer 33% Butt-Kicker 17% Power Gamer 8% Law's Game Style created with QuizFarm.com (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 5th, 2006
7:58 pm	I heard about something from the ferrett's livejournal, and thought I'd comment on it. I think fear factor is like being able to go to the circus without leaving your couch. That is all. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, March 24th, 2006
9:11 am	I just heard a very funny quote on the science fiction short story podcast site I've been obsessivly going through all the stories on lately. It's escapepod.org I believe, and it's a great site. "Remember kids, it's ok to take candy from strangers if you gang up on them, and you're in disguise" (Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 14th, 2006
6:24 pm	I've had a crazy math idea involving factoring large semiprimes stuck in my head, and I've just run into a big problem with some of the underlying assumptions... I knew the problems had to be there, or someone far smarter than I am would have done it already but it's still frustrating to run into them so quickly. I'll keep working on it a bit, the big problem isn't the idea itself, it's in the major method I was going to use to speed up an otherwise pretty slow method. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 8th, 2006
3:26 pm	I just heard something pretty funny... Apparently, not long ago, some people stole the Olympic torch from the athlete carrying it. Not surprisingly, the sprinting champion who had been carrying it caught them. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
1:03 pm	I heard a couple of interesting things in the last couple of days... I actually heard the word "impeachment" for the first time from a respected (semi)public figure. A former Justice Department employee under Nixon who voted for Bush in both elections has said that if Bush continues to insist that he is above the law, he must be impeached. I really liked and respected the way he said it. He didn't seem to want him impeached, like most Republicans critical of unwarrented wiretapping, I think he approved of the surveillence itself and only objected to the fact that it was illegal at the time it happened with no attempt by the administration to legalize it. The second was with regard to the violent protests in Muslim communities to an unflattering cartoon featuring the prophet Muhammad. Iran has started a contest for cartoons about the Holocaust. This seems like the kind of thing that could get nasty fast, but I think the editor of the Danish newspaper that ran the original cartoon in the first place had a great idea. He offered to run the Iranian contest winner the same day the Iranian paper does. I think this did a good way of trying to calm down rightfully offended Muslims, while still standing up for free speech. (Comment on this)
Friday, February 3rd, 2006
5:44 am	Hmm... getting too tired to study. I think I'm going to have to sleep soon, and hope I do alright... I'll try to cram as much into my head as I can before bed, but I think it's time to leave the computer. (Comment on this)
5:03 am	Well, it's starting to look like I won't get any sleep at all, but maybe if I work fast and stay focused I'll get 4 or even 5 hours. That's an incentive at least. I just did a pretty complete job on a Database Engineering assignment. Not as cool as Programming languages, but still cool. Also, I just bought a book from a guy with a really cool name: Nattapol Sitthimahachaikul I believe that might actually be the longest name I've ever seen. Back to work (Comment on this)
3:58 am	Damn inconsistant insomnia I've decided that my insomnia picked a stupid day to go away! I can't sleep yet, and I want to! Well, I suppose it didn't actually go away tonight, it went away yesterday, but it was still bad timing. It was funny, I didn't even realize I had fallen asleep until I shifted and put my foot on the heater. That woke me up fast enough, but I just turned off the t.v., moved my foot, and went back to sleep. Anyway, I'm pretty much just typing to break up the monotony and keep me awake. Time to get back to work (Comment on this)
1:13 am	I realized I don't post often Anyway, just thought I'd write a few things while I'm thinking about it. It looks like after a short scare, my financial aid will all be coming in reletively when I expected it too, and I should be able to live a comfortable if thrifty life without searching for more money until August or so. That's good, because this semester in school is facsinating!! I'm not entirly caught up with the class, and I'm actually really frustrated with myself over it. Fortunatly, I'm only a little behind since I've actually been going to class and doing my homework. I think with one week of moderate work I'll be even, and staying caught up shouldn't be too tough if I give it some time and effort. I think I'm going to ask Gordon (my computer science teacher and academic advisor) if we have a compiler course required here. If not, I might consider doing that for my senior project, the more I learn in my programming class, the more I want to see how this stuff really works. Anyway, back to cramming for tomorrow's tests, Brett (Comment on this)
Wednesday, January 18th, 2006
4:37 pm	I don't right very often but I think major life changes are a good time for an update. I'm in a new appartment now, an extremly run-down one in Everett. It's very spacious though, and will be very comfortable if a couple things get fixed. The windows don't work, and I'm not sure I trust the stove. It's pretty dirty. I'm a little nervous about the thought of going to class tonight now that the gas is going. I kind of want to stay close and see if I smell anything odd. I keep imagining I do, of course, but that's to be expected. The reason I'm so nervous, is because have of the stove won't light. The pilot light is on, so no gas should be getting out, but if the thing were working as intended, it would light. That means I can't trust it. I'll have Joel (the maintence guy and local representative for the owner/manager/whoever) take a look and make sure my room won't blow up while I speak. I could cook though, in theory. I suppose if there was much gas near the stove, the pilot light would light it already, but my fear is that it would collect near the ceiling. Anyway, it's probably just paranoia, but in this place I can't tell. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, October 23rd, 2005
10:03 pm	This will be an interesting experiment So, I've never actually posted one of these in my journal, and I thought I'd give it a try. You fit in with: Humanism Your ideals mostly resemble that of a Humanist. Although you do not have a lot of faith, you are devoted to making this world better, in the short time that you have to live. Humanists do not generally believe in an afterlife, and therefore, are committed to making the world a better place for themselves and future generations. 20% scientific. 80% reason-oriented. Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com (Comment on this)
Friday, October 7th, 2005
4:43 pm	How hard can factoring be? So, I've been looking more and more lately at an interesting thing in modern computer science and math. There are a LOT of problems that are really easy to solve... it just takes a very long time. For example, a company is offering $150,000 to someone who tells them what two prime numbers are factors of the number: 18476997032117414743068356202001644030185493386634 10171471785774910651696711161249859337684305435744 58561606154457179405222971773252466096064694607124 96237204420222697567566873784275623895087646784409 33285157496578843415088475528298186726451339863364 93190808467199043187438128336350279547028265329780 29349161558118810498449083195450098483937752272570 52578591944993870073695755688436933812779613089230 39256969525326162082367649031603655137144791393234 7169566988069 Is this question hard to answer? No. I could write a program this afternoon that could solve it. Pehaps that's a little cocky, perhaps it would take me into the night, I'm not sure. I could write this program, put the number in, and then run it. I honestly have no idea when it would finish running. I wrote a program that ran for a day once without finishing, and it was nothing next to a simple, brute force approach to this problem. The real problem here isn't solving it, it's solving it FAST. I have no idea how to do that, but you can be sure that if I did I'd complain a lot less abotu not being able to pay for school. (Comment on this)
Thursday, October 6th, 2005
12:16 pm	Well, as long as you spell "creation" wrong, you can teach it. I have to be heading out soon, but before I do I thought this deserved a comment: http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/10/06/evolution.trial.ap/index.html In case that link doesn't always stay valid, the basic idea is that there is a lawsuit over a textbook that presents intelligent design as a valid scientific alternative to evolution. I think this is ridiculous, of course, but that is not what's so crazy about this lawsuit. The suit is because they have evidence to show that after a policy change that would stop creationism from being tought, they changed all references to "creation" to "design" or "intellegent design". What really upsets me is that apparently teaching intellegent design is legal, while teaching creation is not. They are the SAME THING! In the same way that Intellegent design does not depend on any specific designer to be followed or worshiped, creation also does not advocate a specific deity. I can understand some govermental officials being so stupid as to think that changing that word meant they were teaching a different subject, but a teacher should know better! After all, does it matter if I tell you I learned geometry in 9th grade, or if I tell you I learned about lines and angles and shapes? NO! Grr... Anyway. The whole idea of intellegent design tought in a science class is a crime against the minds of our children. I would have no problem teaching it in a critical thinking or philosophy class, it certainly is a topic to consider, but it is not a scientific one. Nobody I have ever heard of has advocated history teachers warning students that the idea that we might have been created, memories intact, 5 seconds ago is a posible alternative to history having actually occured. It's true of course, that MIGHT have happened, but there's no evidence to support it, so we don't teach it. Anyway, I'm rambling again. I do that a lot. Maybe it's best that I do it here in a journal nobody has to read instead of to their face where it would be rude to just walk away. Here, you can walk away and I'l never know. (Comment on this)