steve kwan user experience designer

A good Christmas

(December 26th, 2004 - 1:15PM)

So below is a summary of my Christmas presents. Note that I opened them in a frenzy, so I might have mixed up some of the presents with the giftg-givers below. My apologies to anyone not properly credited for giving me a gift.

Not a bad haul this year. I had a great time picking out gifts for my family, and I think I did a good job. I didn't spend too much money this year, and I think I managed to satisfy everyone I bought for.

Most awkward moment this Christmas: when my mother bought a present on my behalf for my female cousin, and it turned out she'd bought sexy nighties.

Top five of the bottom five

(December 23rd, 2004 - 9:04PM)

There have been some excellent movies released this year, and I've had a good time in the theatres earlier in 2004. However, this season's winter films seem a little lackluster. Here are my recap of the five worst movies this winter.

A disclaimer: I have obviously not seen any of the movies mentioned below. This is because, as a columnist, my intent is to remain objective and unbiased. Being exposed to the suckage of the movies below would bias my answers.

Without further ado, here are the five worst movies of this season.

5: Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events
A movie where Jim Carrey once again tries to play a "significant" role. Therefore, this movie is doomed to suckage. Any movie where Jim Carrey attempts to impress is doomed to failure. One day, Jim Carrey will just have to realize that people don't want to see him act, they want to see him talk out of his ass.

4: Not available

3: Closer
How is Jude Law able to make so many movies so quickly? This has to be the fourth movie he's released in the past six months. I've seen Jude Law so many times this year that I'm starting to see him in my dreams, and not just the homoerotic ones.

This movie sucks because the market is already so oversaturated with Jude Law movies that nobody wants to see it. Who cares about a love triangle between Jude, Julia and King Arthur?

2: Alexander
This movie has Colin Farrell and Angelina Jolie. That's sex appeal for both genders. And it still tanked! That's a testiment to how bad this movie must be.

Nobody wants to see hot men play famous military leaders from thousands of years ago. And people certainly don't want to see hot women playing their mothers.

1: Fat Albert
I want to meet the guy who green-lighted this movie.

"Hey! Why don't we release a movie based on a Bill Cosby cartoon? We could get one of those two black guys from SNL to play Fat Albert! You know, the two guys who are still being 'featured.' And let's release it on Christmas! Nobody has anything better to do then! Is that PROFIT I smell?"

I couldn't think of an entry for number four. Sorry, guys. I'm sure you can think of one for me.

What is wrong with this method?

(December 19th, 2004 - 12:57PM)

I encountered a method like this in a Java project at work. Can you tell what's wrong with it?

Note that this isn't the exact method - I rewrote it from memory because the one in the code is obviously proprietary. And I haven't put this method through a compiler, so I'm not sure if it's actually valid. Just pretend it is. ;)

In any event, the problem with the above method is that it breaks down if the keys structure gets very large. This is because of this line:

workingString += keys[crntKey];

Many people probably don't pay attention to these things, but if the keys list contains a lot of values then workingString will start to get quite large. And every time you append to the string with the += operator, you may be forcing the Java Virtual Machine to reallocate memory for the string because it's larger.

The particular problem I encountered with the method above is that when enough keys were passed into the function, then workingString would get very large - around 600KB. With every iteration of the loop, the string would require even more memory as it was constantly growing. The process of reallocating that memory so many times jammed up the system.

In short, that simple function shown above was taking a long time to execute, because it was not efficiently dealing with string manipulation.

The above example goes to show how a few lines of code in Java can translate into something far larger and more problematic without the programmer realizing it.

So, the lesson of the day is:
Be wary of the memory management required for string manipulation.

Software slave labour

(December 19th, 2004 - 12:04PM)

I think that anybody working in the software field is familiar with the suspicious practices of some IT companies.

In the past I've been overworked and underpaid, and I plan not to get stuck in that position again. A lot of employers have taken advantage of the dot com crash by using it as an excuse to pay below-standard salaries and force unpaid overtime.

Employers provide all sorts of reasons for this, such as, "We need to operate this way to stay competitive," or, "That's just the way we do business." The fact of the matter is that if you are underpaid or overworked, that is usually a sign of bad management.

I encourage any software engineers, network administrators, or other IT workers out there to stand up for themselves when put in this situation. Find another job, because a better job probably exists.

Further reading: if you haven't already checked it out, you should take a look at the E.A. Spouse blog posting that's caused a lot of headaches for Electronic Arts.

Signed up for the ACM

(December 18th, 2004 - 12:06PM)

So I joined the Association for Computer Machinery (ACM), which is one of the more respected computer associations available. They've also got some great online resources and papers available, so I signed up for the ACM Portal (an online digital library).

I probably shouldn't be spending so much time reading tech articles if I want to be a balanced person, but oh well!

So I spoke to my landlord and it looks like he still wants us all to stay here even if I'm not on the lease. He wants to talk, though, which isn't a good sign. :(

Kelly won!

(December 16th, 2004 - 10:38PM)

Money money money money...moooonnney!

Look out, it's Charlize Theron!

(December 15th, 2004 - 10:34AM)

On the way to work today, I saw some woman who looked suspiciously like the serial killer from Monster. She was grinning like a nut. Hope I get home safely.

I'm going to see Damsel Fly play The Buffalo Club tonight. They play at 9:00PM. If anybody wants to come, that'd be great. I understand this is short notice.

Off the hook

(December 13th, 2004 - 7:03PM)

So I called my landlord and told him I won't be renewing my lease. It's a shame; I love the house and he's a great guy, but unfortunately I can't afford to get stuck footing the bill every month if a new guy can't fill the empty room.

He told me he'd get back to me in a few days with his decision about what to do. I've really put him in a bad spot here, and he might have to rent out the house to a family who is willing to foot the whole bill - which doesn't bode well for my other two roommates. If he decides to rent the place out to a family, that probably means I'll have to move.

In any event, this is a huge burden off my mind. I hate breaking bad news, and I hate confrontations. I hope that this goes smoothly and I get to stay in the house.

Rebel Billionaire vs The Apprentice

(December 11th, 2004 - 7:01PM)

So my girlfriend has me watching The Apprentice. For the uninitiated, this is a show in which a man with horrible hair makes contestants compete in business tasks to determine who he should hire.

My mom has me watching Rebel Billionaire. This is a show in which a man with good hair and horrible everything else makes contestants compete by swimming with sharks and scaling buildings in their underwear, because this will somehow determine who is best to run a company.

For those of you who have a life and don't watch these shows, let me summarize their differences for you.

• Donald Trump, the host of The Apprentice, determines which of the show's contestants is best fit for a well-paying, but ultimately insignificant job in his enterprise.
• Richard Branson, the host of Rebel Billionaire, determines which of the show's contestants is best for for running his entire corporation.

• Donald Trump assigns meaningful business tasks and evaluates his contestants based on their success.
• Richard Branson assigns meaningful business tasks and evaluates his contestants based on their willingness to do something ridiculously stupid afterwards.

• Donald Trump is famous for his awful hair. He's the rotund guy who stuffs himself into a $10,000 suit.
• Richard Branson is a scrawny, scraggly man who looks more like a crack addict than a billionaire.

• When it comes time to fire someone on Rebel Billionaire, Richard Branson thanks the firee for his time, apologizes, and gives them a plane ticket.
• When it comes time to fire someone on The Apprentice, Donald Trump tells them, "You're fired," flashes them the universal "bang!" hand gesture, and sends them on a cab ride.

So which show is better? Well, I'm not sure yet. Probably Rebel Billionaire, even though nobody watches it. Except me and my mom.

The Rugby Club

(December 10th, 2004 - 10:29PM)

Went to the Rugby Club with Wesley, Mike and Mathieu. Drank lots. Still drinking. Am drunk. Will post later.

Software development at MINISIS

(December 8th, 2004 - 9:27PM)

So I was visiting the MINISIS Inc. website, and I found this diagram explaining their expertise in archival software:

I think it pretty accurately describes the MINISIS Inc. development strategy. And no, this diagram isn't taken out of context. See the presentation.

What?

(December 8th, 2004 - 10:15AM)

News article of the day:
Love expert fingered over breast fondling quackery

I think the title requires no further commentary from me.

Why am I updating?

(December 7th, 2004 - 8:40PM)

So why am I updating stevekwan.com? Is anything I write on here meaningful? To myself or anyone else? Does anyone care?

Although I take a degree of pride in the fact that this site is drawing so many hits, because this is a public site I can't say what I'm really thinking all the time. This is unfortunate, because there are a lot of things I'd like to talk about.

But all in all, I think that maintaining a blog is fun and it gives people a way to keep tabs on you. That is a little creepy, but it's valuable in this day and age where it's so easy to lose touch.

So I'm watching Rebel Billionare, which is like a less boring version of The Apprentice, with a less evil host.

Overhaul

(December 5th, 2004 - 12:00PM)

So the site has been pretty much redone.

What do you guys think? Personally, I think this new design is far classier than the old one.

I finished my research course, so now I can reclaim my life. I think I'll go to the gym later today.

Something I found on Fark.com: a great sports article. Nothing weird about that one.

No more floating head

(December 4th, 2004 - 7:08PM)

So my floating head on the right-hand side of the screen has been removed.

People have said many things about that head, such as, "it's narcissistic," or even, "it's creepy." So I spared myself further controversy and removed it.

I'm sure some of you will miss stevekwan.com's floating Steve head; I have been told that "it wouldn't be stevekwan.com without it." But you'll just have to adjust. I'm afraid that a few Steve-ophobes out there didn't like having my visage staring at them all the time.

Expect a little more look-and-feel overhauling on this site before I'll leave it alone. I'm hoping it will look really slick and very different before it's done.

Research, research, all day long

(December 4th, 2004 - 10:17AM)

So I'm working like mad to finish this research proposal for my BCIT course. It's due at 11:55PM tonight, and while I've got a lot done, there's still quite a bit that needs to be written before I can submit it.

I can't wait until this course is over so I can reclaim my weekends.

1991

(December 3rd, 2004 - 2:57PM)

Last month, this site got 1991 visits, or 21695 hits. That is just scary. How did I become so famous?

So Damsel Fly updated their website. I highly recommend you check it out.

I think I'll continue to update the look & feel on this website. Now that I'm an Internet celebrity, I should make the site presentable.

String manipulation is evil

(December 2nd, 2004 - 1:26PM)

I fixed a bug in some code at work that was making certain large queries take long periods of time. It's amazing how a few lines of inefficient code can take down a system.