Dan has asked a very tough interesting and challenging question this week: At the moment of death, when you realize that there’s no way out, you worry about those being left behind — at least, we think we will. But this isn’t about who we would worry about. Instead, it’s about those who have already died. If you could go back and do a five minute “exit interview” with them, you could tell them the good (or bad) news about what happened in the years that followed. Which five people would you do this for? What would you be sure …
Month: October 2004
H. floresiensis
Hobbit remains found in Indonesia. Okay, no, they’re not like hobbits. They’re just little people. But they’re real, and I think the history of early humans just got a bit more interesting.
Mainly of interest to the sane
The following links are of interest only to the sane and semi-sane. Marmot’s got a couple of good links on, one about the newest trend in Korean plastic surgery and other assery; and another on the Taiwanese government’s idea of intelligent discourse… via food-fight. John, if you’re reading this, well, I am feeling even more strongly what I said about democracy last night: there has got to be a better system than this. Build the computers that are smarter than us. Engineer the supermen who can sort us out. Something, something… please. Finally, I’ve posted a comment after this very …
A Cool Cabbie, Once Again
I remember the days when, while first really studying Korean, I would take taxis with anticipation in my heart. You see, there is something that nobody tells you when you first arrive in Korea, about the act of learning Korean. Most people just want to learn survival Korean, as they don’t intend to stay long, so they have no idea. Others turn so bitter that they think the whole prospect is insane; or they are too lazy to make any headway; or they are, as I was for a while, burnt out in terms of studying Korean, and have forgotten …
The Bridge of San Luis Rey
On Sunday night I read the short novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder. It wasn’t anything I spent money on, I actually got it at the place where it will shortly turn up once again: at a local bar, where English books are left for anyone who is interested in them to borrow them. This book is alright, I suppose, and while I don’t understand why the book won him a Pulitzer Prize in 1928. To me, it seems a somewhat unremarkable novel in almost all respects. Perhaps he affected American literature so profoundly that the …
Conservative Catholic Illogic and The Question of Gay Marriage
These comments are now here very late, in repsonse to a post from September. Backlogs are like that. I’ve been reading the blog Katolik Shinja, by a Catholic fellow named Joshua who, like me, is living in Korea. Well, he’s often writing about all kinds of Catholic topics and I think he’s the most conservative Catholic I’ve ever come across, save one substitute teacher I met in high school. Well, recently he posted about gay marriage and “the Catholic perspective”, and I commented on his post and some of the comments he added to the post in response to some …
Habits, Schedule, and Like + Infinitive Activity Sheet
Yet another activity sheet, this one done up for the girls at the high school, using a bunch of common verb phrases and some question & answer patterns for expressing like or dislike of a given activity, frequency of the activity, and schedule of activity. It should take a good hour of class, and follow-up activities can be interviewing another kid in the class, making a daily schedule, (after teaching, “What do you after that/next?”) and anything else you can think up. Not pretty, but usable.
This Weekend’s Readings
The Great Divorce, by C.S. Lewis (1946) Towing Jehovah, by James Morrow (1994) In the last 24 hours I’ve finished these two books with rather radically different views on similar issues. I’m not sure how much I have to say about the different views except to say that I am certainly more comfortable in Morrow’s understanding of the world than Lewis’s, and that Morrow is certainly more respectful of different views than Lewis. Lewis tells a story of a visitor to Hell and Heaven. Though the traveler goes by bus from one realm to another, the mode of his writing …
And Then There Were Three
That’s what Myoung Jae said on Friday night, after I talked to the guys. Short version: I’ve left the band. Not easy, but something I felt necessary for me. No bitterness, no big fight, like the stupid way people leave bands on TV and in movies… no drama like that; just a kind of slightly sad, “See you later,” and a lot of gratitude that’s probably too unspoken, as I nonetheless turn my energies to other things. Long version follows:On Friday night the band had a practice, and I played as best I could though, with some of the new …
Aye, Robot
I didn’t get to Friday’s question on Friday because, well, I’ll write about that in my next post. For now, I’ll turn to the question, which is one of my own: Imagine that you had a robot custom-built for your home, but one of limited abilities. It is, after all, one of the first domestic bots ever built. Which five tasks, chores, or jobs would you have it configured for, if it were limited to five specific tasks? I’m assuming I’m living in an apartment basically like my own, though maybe a little bigger and with a separate room for …