Boring and un-interesting, here is a link to the 41 page design document for my webcrawler project in CS 240 at BYU. None of the method bodies have been implemented so this document is pretty much worthless.

As of today, Steven Hansen is a BYU undergrad in the Electrical Engineering program.  He is currently working on a fun project to design an automous race truck that can navigate around a swimming noodle pylon course.  He is planning to graduate in December of 2009 (this year!) with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and minor degrees in Spanish, Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science.

The main reason Steven Hansen has this blog is to give himself and other’s that might run accross this blog an archive of a few random things that would otherwise be hard to find.  It also has turned into a bit of an archive for school assignments and other little projects.  Once he is out of school this blog will probably turn into a record of my progress at work.

The only complaint Steven Hansen has with life are long lines or being required to park extraordinarily, excessively far from his classes at BYU.  It is hard to find anything else that is really in need of complaining about on a regular basis.

Here is a link to the Steven Hansen website.

Known helpful files that can be run on the cs machines for cs 240 at byu.

~cs240ta/bin/robotest
~cs240ta/bin/sort240test

Also, a * star in my notes, final exam question here

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This twenty-first century history book opened my mind to many new ideas. I am definitely going to finish reading the rest of the chapters now that the semester is over. The author Thomas L. Friedman gives endless examples of outsourcing, insourcing, homesourcing, etc. The flattening world is really affecting all levels in nearly all industries.

One of the most interesting forms of flattening that he talks about in his book is the flattening of even one industry with another. He mentions how search engine optimization has become a joint venture between mathematicians and marketing experts. Industry experts in one are crossing over to all sorts of other fields finding new ways to use their existing knowledge, or by expanding their existing knowledge a little. This fits in line with the advice given during lecture to keep our focus fairly broad or at least open to new possibilities.

It would go a bit too far to say that a jack-of-all-trades would be the one to win the game. Being a master of none will still keep you from progressing. It has brought me to have the desire to expand my knowledge especially in this field to other aspects; but also to realize that these same skills and knowledge could be applied to many other types of projects.

In fact, I have even seen that progress while going to school. My current job is as a web manager for a local company that provides a marketing tool to the international market. I started working for people in this market a few years ago with only a homemade Internet programming knowledge. I had a couple of beginning java courses in my portfolio, but in reality I didn’t have real schooling for the types of projects I was working on. Since starting I have never taken any Internet programming type classes at school, nevertheless, my ability to perform in this position has dramatically increased.

One of the considerable factors are definitely the detailed verilog/vhdl and c programming that are part of the core classes in the electrical engineering program at Brigham Young University. I haven’t ever used either of those programming languages in any of my projects for work. But the coding style, thoroughness, creativity, and optimization that are taught in the electrical engineering courses helps me solve problems in different languages. This similar to a missionary going to a foreign mission takes everything he has learned about the gospel in their native language and applying it to the new foreign language they begin using to find converts.

Friedman questions (continuing on the topic of education), “If the jobs of the new middle require you to be a good collaborator, leverager, adapter, explainer, synthesizer, model builder, localizer, or personalizer, and these approaches require you, among other things, to be able to learn how to learn, to bring curiosity and passion to your work, to play well with others, and to nurture your right-brain skills, what does that specifically mean for education?” This question and the pages that followed forced me to re-examine my education. After feeling really good about my education as I outlined previously, I have began to think that it still might not be enough.

I need to begin actively receiving extra education and training on other social and creative aspects of both business and life in general. The employee that has the ability to bring new ideas to the table and keep even ahead of their boss are going to be the ones that keep their jobs here in the United States. As a programmer and designer you are able to wear more hats at the same time and therefore be the one leading the process or at least being a crucial aspect of the lead. Other times when you are not the lead designer, you can be giving suggestions and even going out of your way to make sure things are done in the most innovative way you can conceive.

Another aspect is the hope I have to move up the management ladders and later spend more time managing people then bits and signals. It is a skill that I feel I had in my younger years with my peers at school and on the mission. However, moving into a more heated workplace environment, my clients and employers have banked on my detailed programming ability. If I am to take a more management type roll, it will require more personal effort in pushing in that direction. This requires both acting the part of finding ways to manage where I can, without stepping on anyone’s toes, then allowing the current decision makers to see those qualities.

Nevertheless, Friedman offers one more quote form Bill Gates in his “bottom line” to this topic, “…Some of my best software developers are Japanese. You need to understand things in order to invent beyond them.” Innovation will have to play a critical role in my future and according to this quote the way to get there is with a very fine and thorough understanding of everything leading up to where we trying to go.

Friedman also notes many other advantages I may have over my outsourced job competition. These advantages include living in the United States where we have free capital market, full of both scams and corruption along with securities and honesty. We live in a market where society is excited about innovation and technology, so at least for now the world will continue producing many new products to please the consumers in the United States and later that will trickle into the other global markets.

In conclusion, with jobs being outsourced to China or India, it only changes one thing in my personal plans for my future: Instead of just shooting for the stars, I need to find new ways of shooting to those stars and leading others to shoot towards the stars as well, though not necessarily the same stars every time. With the flattening world, I also need to flatten my focus a little more.

By Steven Hansen

The article, “Multicore Is Bad News For Supercomputers” published November 2008 in the IEEE Spectrum, introduced some interesting points that are very significant for the future of computers. The main motivation for this article is the fact that current processor engineers have been reaching what people feel are plateaus in the technology and the only way to increase processor performance further is to add more and more processors together. This article details on a high level the performance of computers as multiple cores are added to the same system. Adding additional cores to multi-core systems does not necessarily mean an enhancement in overall speed or processing power.

The article notes that adding more processors doesn’t speed up the process specifically for informatics processing requiring very large data processing with requiring large databases of information. For many circumstances like solving differential equations the calculation can be split up into “grids” so that the physical location of the multiple processors can handle the data in their corresponding grid, and so the multiple cores are able to perform separately and achieve faster results. Nevertheless, there are increasing instances that in data processing in large systems require data being processed from another core, creating dependencies that slow down the overall system. Adding more core processors only splits the process up more and creates more dependencies on other cores.

Another problem is that the multi-core is limited by the surrounding architecture and this traditional architecture standard that computer manufacturers have been implementing for years is not adequate for the large multi-core processors. There are significant bottlenecks in the memory, bus, and peripheral communication that create limits to the amount of data that the processors can actually receive, leaving the processors to waste time waiting for the data to arrive.

According to the sources cited in the article after about 8 multi-cores there is no significant increase in performance and it actually can level off or decrease depending on the situation. This has caused the government to form an organization to research and communicate with hardware developers to create new standards that can be followed in the next 5 to 10 years that will allow for a new breed of computers that can really utilize the power of multiple processing cores.

This article actually proves the point of staying on top of current news and information in technology. The only way advancements can really be made is if we are always on the cutting edge of technology increasing our boundaries and keeping up on the future. Without understanding the future of technology current development could leave out critical pieces that will only slow down the ever increasing pace and need for growth in all industries.

All it requires stay informed with the advances and issues is setting up a few methods of easily receiving new information. A few methods include: adding the IEEE spectrum feed to a frequented feed reader, reading the news of some favorite companies and industries, and continuing education both in traditional classroom methods and industry seminar style information sessions.

By Steven Hansen

This one was my real pride and joy of the summer since it was my first project in a very long time that I got to have a little bit of creative fun with an actual presentable production.  Along with my group we put together a pretty cool travel brochure for our make believe travel agency Kedost travel group.

Click here for the PDF download

So, I just posted a bunch of my essays that I have done for my Spanish classes over the last few months.  A few of them of some decent literary value to them while at the same time they probably don’t merit being published anywhere except on my own personal blog.  Don’t take that as an apology for poor quality or a downgrade of their quality, since that should only be judged by the actual content within each individual work.

En los Estados Unidos experimentamos marginación en varios diferente casos.  Un ejemplo muy importante es lo de los indígenas de esta tierra.  Cuándo los conquistadores llegaron a la tierra de los Américas, los nativos americanos  estaban obligados a salir de muchas de sus tierras nativas.  Unos año después, aquí en los Estados Unidos el gobierno  si dieron cuenta de que los derechos que nuestro constitución fue producido para proteger, fueron quitados de los nativos americanos.  Entonces, el gobierno decidieron regalar terrenos o sitios suficientes grandes a los indígenas.   Ellos pudieron formar sus propias leyes y aun recomenzar de tener su vida antigua.  La resulta moderna de esta acción es que los nativos americanos han sido muy marginados.  Hasta que el gobierno y muchas otras organizaciones han tratado de darles la oportunidad de unirse con la populación general de los Estados Unidos.
Sin embargo, también hay muchas otras personas que han llegado de ser marginadas aquí en los Estados Unidos.  En la historia de nuestro país, hay muchos grupos sociales y culturales que han sido marginados.  Por ejemplo, las mujeres, los americanos africanos, los japoneses, los mormones, los pobres, los ricos, y muchos más.  Las mujeres no tenían derecho de votar por mucho tiempo.  Los americanos africanos fueron esclavos.  Los mormones tenían que mudarse varias veces hasta que llegaron a un desierto de Utah.  Los pobres tal vez no están aceptado dentro grupos sociales de los que tienen más dinero.
¿Qué es la respuesta? Tenemos que continuar de reconocer las personas que han sido marginados y simplemente aceptarles y darles las mismos derechos como deben tener como ciudadanos de los Estados Unidos.

En el mundo, veamos que hay muchos problemas  en cada país que existe.  Pueden ser problemas  económicos, sociales o culturales.  Muchos sitios tienen problemas de la pobreza y muchos sitios tienen problemas con la riqueza.  Cuando un grupo social decide que quiere cambiar a sí mismo o a otro grupo, aparecerán personas que no piensen lo mismo.  Quiere decir, hay muchos problemas de muchos diferentes clases.
El gobierno de los Estados Unidos se ha auto-asignado como el superpotencial, o sea el policía del mundo entero.  En muchos piases, las personas están contentos que los Estados Unidos han llegado para ayudarles.  Muchos  personas consideran su propio gobierno incapaz de ayudarles, entonces, están muy agradecidos de recibir ayuda de la extranjera.  Sin embargo, muchos creen que los Estados Unidos solo esta ayudando a otros países para cumplir de sus propios intereses. Aún que los Estados Unidos esté ahí “ayudando” al otro país.  Les están exigiendo de cumplir con las normas americanas.
Yo creo que hay muchos casos en el mundo, por los cual los Estados Unidos realmente está haciendo lo correcto de estar ayudando o policiando la personas de otros países.  Resulta que muchos problemas que tienen otros cultures, grupos, o países, también tienen afectos a la los Estados Unidos.  Entonces para proteger las creencias de libertad, debemos estar ayudando a otros personas un todo los países a recibir los derechos que cada ser humano debería adoptar. Sin embargo, debemos tener cuidado, que no creamos más problemas en el tratar de componer las problemas que existen en el presente.

El cine negro salió durante un tiempo poco después del Segundo Guerra mundial.  Muchos de los películas durante este tiempo fueron hechas por prepuestos muy moderados, pero eso dio a los actores y autores del cine una libertad que los grandes componías de cine muchas veces pueden quitar.  Entonces, parece que esto primeros películas que son conocidos como los primeros verdaderos del cine negro como El Desconido del tercer piso realmente abrieron la puerta para este época del cine negro   Es interesante notar, que los directores y críticos no se clasificaron este tiempo como periodo de un nuevo estilo hasta unos décadas luego.  Retorno al pasado, dirigido por Jacques Tourneur, se clasifica durante el periodo clásico del cine negro.
Retorno al pasado tiene varios cosas estereotípicas del cine negro.  Uno es del mujer fatal, una mujer que tiene la maestría de capturar el héroe por su belleza.  En este película la personaje toma esta papel es Jane Greer como Kathie Moffat.  Ella es el razón principal por el cual Bailey (Robert Michum) siga cayendo en problemas y aún la muerte al final de la historia.  También en esta película siga la moda de varias otras películas que salieron durante este periodo en que tiene un detective como al protagonista.  Otro característica que encontramos en común con otros películas de este periodo son los flashbacks o escenas retrospectivas cuando muestra el pasado al que Bailey retorna al final de este cuento.
En final el ultimo aspecto de los cine negros que emplea esta película es al fatalismo.  La idea de que aún después de ser muy inteligente y hacer todo lo que pueden el héroe todavía llegará a lo inevitable.  Tal como el movimiento implacables de los fenómenos naturales, Bailey llega a estar con la mujer fatal en el fin de la película.  Bailey intenta de buscar una manera de escaparla y cambiar el resulta final, pero Kathie produce el pistola y hace que el héroe continua juntos con ella.