One nice thing about using Ubuntu is that even when things go a little haywire, it’s usually possible to back up all the important files and then just reinstall. Reinstallation is so fast — at least, compared to the plodding installation process on Windows — that it almost always is like visiting the dentist: great dread before, not so bad once you’re there.
Category: PERSONAL
Creeping Specs
I first learned the expression “creeping specs” while I was living in Montreal. Someone who was then a friend of mine got me a tech-writing job. Well, sort of a tech-writing job, but with more graphics stuff, something I was not then, and am not now, qualified to do. (I could bitch about how the “learning curve” was one I was not interested in climbing, but the honest truth is I needed the money, and didn’t turn the work away. I am only bitter because, while he extended the job for as long as he could, he also didn’t warn …
Bracing Myself for Evisceration, But At Least I’ll Probably Still Have All My Horrid Teeth
Well, Fukuoka here I come. I guess my SF-writer credentials maybe came in handy this time, for one of my proposed papers — “Another Undiscovered Country: Understanding the Particularities of Reception and Adoption of the Science Fiction Genre in South Korea Through The Examination of 21st Century Korean SF Cinema” — got accepted for the 4th World Congress of Korean Studies (the site seems not to work in Firefox/Linux… I suspect you need Internet Explorer & Windows to load it, as I was able to get at it on my dual boot) which is happening late this September in Fukuoka, …
Big Surprises and Random News
For Inner Circle Members, only! So, let’s see: One of our department assistants suddenly quit without notifying any members of our department, yesterday afternoon at 4pm. Though I was one of the people who defended her and helped keep her in her position this semester, she decided to stick me with the crappiest class assignment possible — Monday and Friday night, as late as possible. That’s been fixed, as there was no way in hell, but it’s all a mystery. (She also stuck someone in the other English department in an unfeasible course assignment, too.) That someone else is a …
Haeinsa Security, and the Chinese Earthquake
Haeinsa is the temple where the Tripitaka Koreana, carved meticulously on wooden plates, is stored. It’s a major site in Korea as far as heritage goes. I wish I’d photographed the info plate in front of the woodblock storage area, because it was more than a little amusing. It explained how the Buddhist scriptures were carved into wood in order to concentrate the power and force of Buddhism and guard Korea against Mongol invasion. So then, when the Mongols invaded and left the carvings as ashes, they went ahead and carved it all again. Well, we ended up wandering past …
Stuff Going On
Been busy like mad, and traveling for the next few days, but briefly: I’m getting my students to release stuff (or let me release their stuff) online. The first in a series of projects is now up at YouTube: my Korean students considered popular stereotypes believed in Korea about foreign countries (like France, America, South and Southest Asia, China, and Japan) and then went out and asked people from those countries what they think and feel about those stereotypes. That’s how you turn a somewhat disturbing class discussion into a learning experience. More to come: remixes/creative work from my Media …
Just… Wow.
Ellen Datlow linked this at Matthew Good’s site: Wow.
Lest My Rage Seem Misspent
UPDATE: There’s no more reason to be cautious now, so I’ll just come out with it, and hope Google gets used in the hiring process in Korea soon. The seemingly-alcoholic, clearly racist, sexist, and scummy foreign English teacher I discuss in the post below is named Patrick Stewart, who worked in South Korea at the Catholic University of Korea during 2008. (I think from 2007-2009, or maybe from 2006-2008?) I know personally of at least three cases in which he sexually harassed female instructors at our university, the Catholic University of Korea, including very late at night at their apartment …
Good Grief!
Thanks to Boing-Boing, I know that: Jimi Hendrix made a Sex Tape. And now someone else is releasing it. Psychopaths are great correspondents. (Among others.) Canadian copyright is about to go nuts. (Hardly a surprise: the USA is exported n even-more-draconian form of copyright law to Korea, and Canada’s much more of a USA-wannabe.) As someone commented — who needs The Onion? Reality is weirder!
It Worked
If you’re a Boing-Boing reader, no point in trying — you know what’s in this video and it won’t work. But if you aren’t, then watch this video once, paying careful attention to how many times the balls are passed between people. Count ’em up. Make sure you get the exact number of passes. Here’s the video. Then click and see what to do next. DON’T read this until you’ve counted up the exact number of passes.