The Digital Chosunilbo has a piece up: Space exploration appears to be a field of great interest among Koreans. As evidence of this, on Friday alone more than 600 people expressed hope of becoming the country’s first astronaut. According to officials at Seoul’s Science and Technology Ministry and the Korea Aerospace Research Institute, the number of potential candidates for the job reached over 200 just two hours after online applications became available at 9 a.m. on Friday. The screening process has four stages through which two finalists will be selected by the year’s end. After a rigorous 15-month training program …
Category: ASIDES
Thinking of Publishing?
alg explains all. Or, well, lots. (via SFCrow’sNest.)
Seeds of Change
Seeds of Change is a documentary about Monsanto and other biotech monsters and their influence on the world. Made in Manitoba, Paypal if you like it. (via How to Save the World)
“IMF wins new powers to police global economy”
When I saw the title to this article, which is the title of this post as well, I gaped. Why? A theme in an old, abandoned novel was the life of a WTO-UN soldier who was policing economic-development zones: a Chinese soldier, one of the many “extra” men who could not marry in Chinese due to shortages of women, who was serving in Africa. But he was literally “policing” the development of the economy in whichever country I plopped him into. I think this character needs to make another appearance, as the idea is pretty cool. But maybe it’d be …
Dear Mr. President
I’m not a big fan of protest songs, or pop songs in general, but I have to admit Pink’s Dear Mr. President was pretty interesting to me. I think I’ll look at it with my Media English, if the studio track is clear like the sound of the YouTube video linked above at Crooks and Liars.
Do Hiveminds Dream Of Folksonomic Tags?
Here’s a very cool post at Emptybottle.org about folksonomic tags, VR, and more. Very cool linkage to games I’ve never heard of but feel more interested in than most games I’ve seen so far.
North Korean slaves in Russia
North Korean slaves is an interesting article by Alain Devalpo about North Korean workers exported into Russia. “There were three waves of North Korean worker immigration during the 20th century,�? explained Larisa Zabrovskaya, a historian who is based in Vladivostok. The first started with the end of the second world war and the liberation of Korea, when Soviet fish-treatment factories called on North Korean manpower. In the 1950s there were about 25,000 of these workers and their families living in the Soviet Union. “The second wave took place after a secret meeting between Leonid Brezhnev and Kim Il-sung (3) in Vladivostok …
Looking to Learn Chinese?
Try Chinesepod. I wish there was a good one of these for Korean. In fact, it’d be a great project for someone like Kangmi. (via A Glimpse of the World.)
Repeat after me:
P2P is not hurting the music industry. P2P is not hurting the music industry. P2P is not hurting the music industry. Got it? Here’s yet another study that demonstrates it. (via Sivacracy)
Empire’s 50 Greatest Independent Films
Two links via Everything Isn’t Under Control: Cat and Girl’s comic generator Empire’s list of the 50 Greatest Independent Films.