Social Media, Ender Wiggin, And the War With Eastasia

Recently, Kevin Geary posted a horrifyingly muddled, cynically manipulative article on the rhetoric of “both sides” of the so-called “vaccine debate.” (Like the “debate” over evolution, this isn’t a debate: it’s an extended performance of the Dunning-Kruger Effect, wherein people who cannot think logically sit around patting themselves on the back for being more logical than the people who actually can think logically.) Since I wish to deprive Geary of hits benefit — for reasons I’ll mention in more detail below —  here’s a donotlink-shielded link to the article, in all its horrendously ignorantist glory: Bringing Much-Needed Sanity to the Vaccine Debate: I normally would …

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Itaewon and the Imjin War (異胎圓 or 梨泰院?)

Update (11 Feb. 2015): Commentary on Facebook has been helpful, especially this comment by Heyjin Jeon: In 1457, King SeJo (Son of King Sejong) said to the Minister of Finance, “Make workhouses for poor people at Bojewon, Hongjewon, Itaewon.”It’s before Imjin War. I think “梨泰院” listens like “梨泰院” and people made new meaning about the name. http://sillok.history.go.kr/url.jsp?id=kga_10305007_002 Here’s the relevant passage from that source: 다만 염려되는 것은 가난한 백성이 병든 사람과 더불어 뒤섞여 거처하기를 싫어해서 이로 인하여 뿔뿔이 도망하여 흩어지는 일이니, 보제원(普濟院)·홍제원(弘濟院)·이태원(梨泰院) 등 세 곳에 별도로 진제장(賑濟場)을 두고 사람을 임명하여 감독 관장(管掌)하게 하고, 또 오부(五部)의 관리로 하여금 날마다 윤번(輪番)으로 왕래하면서 검속(檢束)하고 …

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Partially Recovered: Stellar Region

This is probably of limited interest to most readers, aside from tabletop RPG fans. (Basically, I recovered (from the Wayback Machine) a snapshot from a time one and a half decades ago, when I was running an online turn-based tabletop roleplaying game–sort of–by email, without all the amazing resources available to RPG enthusiasts today.)

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