Chan's Personal Blog

Today at work we hit a major milestone. For the last five years, my work place has been building a large web application for the University. It was decided a long time ago that we would share this application with other institutions. The powers above decided that it was important for public universities to produce public goods, so they decided to release our software under an open source license. I've mentioned open source software a few times before, but to reiterate what it is, it is software that lets you have the source code, and it allows you to modify it, study it, and share it. In many cases, it's also free of charge.

This has been many years of hard work, and we finally did it. It has been an on-going work place joke about when we would release our software as open source. We had two years of legal non-sense from an organization that approves open source licenses, and it seemed like we were never going to go open source. When we finally got approved, we kicked into high gear to get everything ready for open source. We spent a term or two cleaning up our code, and improving it before we released it.

A lot of work has been put into getting our code ready for the release. We went through and cleaned out a bunch of obsolete and old code. Our code has gone from 330,000 lines of code, down to 243,000 lines of code. The most significant changes in the last little while was: bringing code up to XHTML standards, upgrading our database abstraction layer to promote database portability, security upgrades, removing obsolete code, implementing a plug-in architecture, moving from cookies to sessions, and refactoring ugly code.

This last three days alone, we've put in over 40 hours of work already. Working overtime always yields funny stories. Whenever we pull overtime hours, we order delicious delivery food. A few years ago, we tried to get delivery from Swiss Chalet, but their call centre (which is in a different city) refused to deliver to UVic because they didn't recognize the postal code. My boss went to Swiss Chalet for a dinner shortly after that incident, and asked one of the waitresses if they delivered to UVic, and the waitress replied of course since UVic was in Saanich. Today, we attempted to order food from Swiss Chalet again. So my boss called Swiss Chalet, and the customer service rep said they didn't deliver to UVic, and then my boss insisted that UVic exists and it's in Saanich, so the rep talked to his supervisor. The supervisor got us to transfer our call to the Swiss Chalet restaurant in Victoria. Talking to the restaurant, they checked to see if any of their drivers were willing to journey to Ring road, and we got a resounding no because the drivers were afraid they'd get lost! Bah! Are there no drivers brave enough to enter the Ring?! Now I'm cranky that I didn't get my shot of chalet sauce!

In either case, we promised a bunch of interested parties that we would release on June 29th, and we did so.... five minutes before midnight. Anyways, horray, we're officially open source now!

Now the challenge will be to build a community around our project.

Today, Ottawa passed Bill C-38 legalizing gay marriage. This was no surprise ever since the Liberals launched their sneak attack last Thursday in order to fast track legislation. Nevertheless, there were quite a number of interesting stories related to gay marriage today.

There were 158 votes for gay marriage, 133 votes against gay marriage, and 17 absentees (people who didn't show up to vote because of sickness, or people who didn't want to vote with party lines). I don't have a detailed break down of how each party voted, and how backbenchers VS cabinet ministers voted, but I'll have that later. Gay marriage passed by a margin of 25 votes which is a lot smaller than I thought it would have been, especially considering the Liberals said all parliamentary secretaries and cabinet ministers must vote for the gay marriage. This guarentees 70+ votes. The NDP also said the entire party must vote for gay marriage, or suffer consequences. In either case, the vote results kind of surprised me because of all the absentees.

The big story today was Liberal Cabinet Minister Joe Comuzzi resigning as a cabinet minister so that he could vote against gay marriage.

From the CBC article:



Someone else that was making headlines was NDP MP Bev Desjarlais who went against party orders, and voted against gay marriage:


I applaud MPs who sacrificed their political power and went against party orders to fulfill the wishes of their constituents' wishes. It must have been a very difficult thing to do. I wonder at what point do you yield to the wishes of your riding's constitutents, and go against party orders. It's a delicate balancing act. Is loyalty to the party leader more important? Or is loyalty to your voters more important?

There are some interesting quotes from the CBC's article on each party's view on same-sex marriage. Here are some of the quotes from it:


In either case, the battle over gay marriage is not over at all. Gay-rights activists have already declared their intentions to challenge religious institutions once again. They want to remove any church/mosque/temple's charitable tax status if they refuse to support gay marriages.

From the Times Colonist article:


I think more and more attacks will be launched against religious rights in our land as activists opposed to the church have mastered the art of lawsuits in the courts. Our rights won't be stripped away all at once; rather, they will be slowly eroded away. That's my prediction at least. The majority touts that Bill C-38 will protect religious rights, we'll see if it works out.

There was a lot of political action in Ottawa this week. Parliament was supposed to shut down for the summer break this last Thursday. The Conservatives wanted this so that Bill C-48 (the $4.7 billion NDP budget amendment) and Bill C-38 (gay marriage bill) would be delayed until the Fall. The Bloc did not support Bill C-48 either.

Then, Paul Martin wanted to extend parliament. Originally this didn't seem possible, but Mr. Martin was able to cut a deal with the Bloc saying that if parliament was extended, then we would have a vote on Bill C-38. So the Liberals won the vote, and parliament was extended.

Many members of parliament (MP) expected the budget vote Bill C-48 would come on Monday. Budget votes are matters of confidence, meaning if the budget was defeated, the government would collapse, and a new general election would need to be called. MPs who were opposed to the gay marriage bill C-38 saw bringing down the government as the only way to stop the gay marriage bill. Now, you know the stakes; the Liberals had to survive the budget vote in order to move on to the gay marriage vote.

There weren't any important things left to vote on during Thursday afternoon, so some members or parliament started leaving. This is when the Liberal sneak attack came. It's summarized quite nicely in this article from the Globe and Mail entitled, "Hire-wire Vote, Connviance or Shrewd Tactic."


Thursday night, the Liberals saw that a number of Conservative MPs were missing. This was their chance to pass the C-48 budget bill. The Liberals had found an obscure clause in the law that let them bring the budget vote up right away. The Liberals, NDP, and Bloc made a deal to end the debate on the budget bill, and brought it to a sudden vote. The final vote was 152 yeas VS 147 nays (with 7 Conservative members absent, which would have contributed 7 nay votes).

The defend marriage site has an interesting analysis of what went down Thursday in Ottawa.

In either case, the Liberals scored a huge victory, not an honourable one, but a victory nevertheless. I personally think this shows what a cunning and slimy party they are... they are true politicians. It definitely caught the Conservatives by surprise.

Next week will very likely be the final vote on the gay marriage bill, and it should be a very interesting week in politics. If it does pass, it is quite fitting that Paul Martin will be able to tout his victory during gay pride month. It should prove to be yet another great Liberal social experiment if it were to happen.

This is the last hurdle for gay marriage in Canada.

To end on a less gloomy note, I did see this funny picture of Stephen Harper in the Winnipeg Sun's article entitled, "Harper Comes to T.O." (A quick article about the leader's reaction to Thursday's vote.)


Heck, I'll throw in a funny picture of Paul Martin too.

Some of you may remember Howard Dean as a presidential hopeful of the Democratic National Party competing to run for the party in the 2004 U.S. Election. He lost the primary race, and dropped out of the race. You may remember the infamous Howard Dean screaming speech.

In either case, after losing the race, Howard Dean became the Democratic Party Chairman. He recently made some really stupid remarks against the Republicans.

The article from CNN is entitled, "Dean defends remarks about GOP."


I think it's pretty funny that other leading Democrats have distanced themselves from Howard Dean, and claims that Dean does not speak for the party. Ummm.... he's only the chairman of the Democratic Party!

It's also ironic that Howard Dean accuses the Republican Party of being a monolithic White Christian party. Last time I checked, Howard Dean is also a White Christian, and he leads the Democratic Party. That's a good attack against Republicans?

I was watching some political analyst on the CBC evaluate Howard Dean's remarks after they came out. The analyst notes that 67% of the Democratic Party conists of White voters while 82% of the Republican Party consists of White voters. He further explained that to the untrained observer, it would appear that the Republicans were a mostly White party; however, the Republican party reflects the demographics of the U.S. more accurately. I looked at the CIA World Factbook's article on the U.S., and sure enough, the demographics show that 77% of the U.S. population is white. So, it's no surprise that both parties are mostly white.

Anyways, I think Howard Dean's comments against the Republicans were kind of stupid. It does a very poor job of differentiating his party. Quite frankly, when did it become a bad thing to be a white voter? I've said this once before on my blog, and I'll say it again, I hate it when politicians treat races as monolithic voting blocs, STOP PROFILING VOTERS BASE ON RACE!. Everyone talks about equality for all unless you're a white person between the ages of 18-55.

I think this will be some party slogans that Howard Dean will use to differentiate his party from the Republicans for the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election:

"The Democratic National Party: Now with more blacks!"

"The Democratic National Party: We worship Satan!"

I found this amusing article from ABC News entitled, "Police In Arizona Seek Monkey For SWAT Team." The term SWAT stands for Special Weapons And Tactics, and I think using monkeys would qualify as special.

From the article:


Awww.... that's so cute! The monkey will have its little kevlar vest, and its little tactical shotgun, and a small breach charge, how cute! It'd be pretty embarassing getting taken down by a helper monkey though. Criminals beware!

And there you have it, useless news you can use!

I just got back from Eton and Ang's wedding reception. What a day it has been. It all started with the wedding ceremony in the afternoon. The service was led by Pastor Randy Hein at Lambrick Park Church. (If I recall correctly, he was the youth pastor that came with us on our grad trip (1995) on the S.A.L.T.S. trip.) The ceremony was short and sweet, with a Christ-centred talk about marriage. It was quite nice. In my opinion, nothing is more beautiful than two committed Christians married, fortified in the solid rock of Christ. I think that is one of the greatest testimonies and examples of the love of God.

The reception was held at McMorran's Restaurant off of Cordova Bay Road. It was a buffet style dinner, and there were a lot of goodies. They had lots of salads, salmon, shrimp, mussels, clams, pasta, roast potatoes, and mmmmm roast beef. I also had a piece of cheesecake for dessert. Very good meal, thanks very much for it Eton and Ang .

I joke that this was another informal grad class reunion as ~20% of our grad class was at this event. It made the entire event that much more special and fun. The Bulks were the life of the party as usual . During the dance, it was also entertaining watching this one kid bust a bunch of moves as if it was the last night on earth.

I remember the first time I met Ang at Dave's farewell party last October. When I was at the party, Eton told me that he was going out with Ang, and I was like, WHAT?!!, you have a girlfriend? When did this happen!? I also remember the two of them made a very good greek salad, and I remarked to Eton that Ang was definitely a keeper. I'm glad it all worked out.

In either case, best of luck to you Eton and Ang as you move to Calgary and start a new life. I'm sure you'll always remember Victoria when the winter hits. But hey, there are a few advantages with living in Alberta. Firstly, every man, woman, and child gets an oil revenue stipend of +$1,000. Secondly, you're completely surrounded by conservative-minded people. Keep in touch.

Thank you so much for sharing this amazing day with me. It is a good day to be alive. Somebody else better get married soon, I'm itching to play paintball (this is our standard bachelor's stag party event).

Cheers

Here's another weekly dose of anti-Communist China propaganda. Let me make it abundantly clear that I don't hate Chinese people, I only hate their communist government.

In either case, I came across this article from Yahoo news entitled, "Many in U.S., Canada View China as Threat." On the surface of society, nobody seems to have problems with doing business with China. However, the polling from this article seems to reveal a very different story.

From the article:


In my opinion, the polling data suggests a very conflicted foreign policy. On one hand, Canadians see a more powerful China as an opportunity to reduce our reliance on the United States, through stronger trade. On the other hand, the article says most Candians think we shouldn't expand trade with China because of its horrible human rights records. The two seem somewhat mutually exclusive.

We don't want to do business with countries that don't respect human rights on one hand, and on the other hand we want to make money. I think the position is quite ironic especially as Canada touts itself as a champion of human rights.

I'm sure part of the desire to become less reliant on America is caused by anti-American sentiment in our government and population right now. In my opinion, it is kind of silly. Our trade ties between both countries are the tightest in the world, and many countries in the world look to our relationship with envy. Our cultures, trade, and security is so tightly coupled that it'd be very difficult to reduce our dependence on America.

Later on, I'll talk about why our intelligence and military agencies views China as one of our biggest threats.