Cell Phones and Broadband 'Net Win in S. Korea

McLuhanesque writes "The Globe and Mail has an interesting column on how text messaging and the use of effective broadband internet content helped propel an obscure lawyer, Mr. Roh Moo-hyun, from a perpetual also-ran to become South Korea's new president. 'With the world's highest penetration of high-speed and mobile Internet services, South Korea is at the cutting edge of technology that is transforming the political system, making it more open and democratic. It could be a preview of the shape of Western democracy,' the article says."

Comments

lawyers for president.. hrmm

[Anonymous Coward]

I know he was democratically elected, but lawyers running for presidency is a bit scary. Not all lawyers are bad but most have hidden agendas.

Re:lawyers for president.. hrmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Yesh. The US has fared so much better with our actors, former CIA henchmen, coke addicts, and peanut farmers.

Re:lawyers for president.. hrmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Jimmy Carter had a graduate degree in nuclear physics in addition to the fact that he farmed peanuts when he was growing up.

Language is still a barrier

[superpulpsicle]

Have you ever seen asian languages on a computer screen or cell phones? Or in some cases count the characters in their alphabet system assuming they have any?

For any asian countries to excel with computers, the technology has to be directly compatible with their everyday dialect. The complexities are far greater than the ASCII alphabet set of any latin-based languages.

Re:Language is still a barrier

[Varkias]

Wow what a idiotic and misinformed post. Actually the Korean language is suited just fine for technology. There are 14 consonants and 10 vowels in the language for a total of 24 letters in the language. Compare that with 26 consonants and vowels in the english alphabet and it's not that bad at all.

Re:Language is still a barrier

[Anonymous Coward]

While koreans do use chinese idiograms for some things, their alphabet is a real one (i.e, a small number of characters stand for sounds smaller than whole words.) There are 24 of them (28 if you count some archaic characters, I think).

Re:Language is still a barrier

[minko]

You can't possibly imagine how fast one can type Korean characters before you see it. Average Korean teenagers can type 100-200 characters per minute not only with keyboards but also with cell phones(using their two thumbs). Korean is really well-suited for technology.

Re:Language is still a barrier

[Anonymous Coward]

please do not confuse language and character.
both languages and characters are barriers.

anonymous korean programmer.

Re:Language is still a barrier

[Flakeloaf]

A two-finger typing system actually makes sense in Korean, where most phonemes are written as one-vowel-one-consonant digraphs. (or was that dipthongs...)

For the unitiated, Korean writing is (mostly) phonetic. A vowel is matched with a consonant to form a phoneme, and these sounds are arranged to form words in a very sensible manner.

Characters are usually pronounced exactly as they are written - the only exception my round eye has seen so far is that syllables that begin with vowels are instead preceded by the symbol that would otherwise be spoken as "ioong": O.

Although the language is read left-to-right, consonant or vowel sounds are sometimes written one on top of the other instead of side-by-each for aesthetic reasons. "Lee" would be initial vowel + | ("ee") for O|. "Boo" is simply B (|_|) and "oo" (T) linked together:

|_|
T

It's a dead easy alphabet to learn, and anyone with an hour and a pencil can learn to read (and more importantly, write) Korean phonetically.

blah, blah, blah...

Re:Language is still a barrier

[Provolo]

where most phonemes are written as one-vowel-one-consonant digraphs. (or was that dipthongs...)

"Boo" is simply B (|_|) and "oo" (T) linked together:

|_|
T

Great info, but two small things- Characters aren't necessarily consonant-vowel pairings,
but consonant-vowel-consonent and consonant-vowel-consonant-consonant matchings as well.

ex)

O l = 'lee' or 'yi'

O l
L = 'leen' or 'yin'

O |-
2 D = 'almb' or 'ahlm' (meaning 'meaning')

Of course, the 2 is more 'angly', and the D is actually a box, but you get the idea..

Oh, and 'boo' would be

|=| or
T

|_|
|_|
___
|

Re:Language is still a barrier

[Flakeloaf]

Bah, you think you're so smart just b/c you know exactly what you're talking about and I don't ;) I sit corrected. I still shudder a bit when I think about the Korean language, 'cause the last time I confused "chun jin" with "hoo jin" I nearly ended up with a concussion.

Re:Step 1: Log out

[Anonymous Gay Sex]

i'm yours, baby.... :G===8

this one's for Old Ike!

ouch

[adamruck]

well since I live in Wisconsin, the farming and cheese state, im really glad I dont have moo in my name like that guy.

Technology is good...

[acehole]

Just someone has to tell the koreans that 86 hours straight is a little on the excessive side. Even if you are camping....

Phones for nukes?

[macrom]

South Korea is at the cutting edge of technology that is transforming the political system, making it more open and democratic

Maybe GWB should bribe the North Koreans with cell phones if they'll quit doing nuclear weapon shiznit. I'll start by donating my Nokia piece of crap!

Re:Phones for nukes?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why bother. Keep the cell phone subsidy money in the US. By the time North Korea is done with their nukes or playing with their reactor, whichever you believe, and South Korea with its current rising anti-US sentiment (it really all stems from the skating event, then the soocer, then the military incident, we're up to date!), it'll be back to one country.

Buy Nokia. I do. I didn't buy 2 512 DDR 2700 Samsung from newegg this past week given the freakin news. Why subsidize their animosity. Gotta figure out where Crucial or Corsair gets their stuff from...maybe go DaneElec.

Re:Phones for nukes?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey great idea!! I might donate my Nokia 5110 piece of crap also ...
*removes battery and looks beneath*

NOKIA MOBILE PHONES LTD.
Type: NSE-1NX Model: 5110
MADE IN KOREA

WTF?

look at the difference

[der_saeufer]

South Korea, through capitalism and foreign trade, has built itself into an industrial and technological powerhouse. Flip over any electronic device, and it was probably made in Korea, Taiwan, or Japan. Korea today is in a similar place to Japan in 1980--trying to gain a good name in Western markets. No one drove Hondas in 1980, and Hyundais aren't too popular today. I bet, though, that in 2010 there will be Korean cars all over American streets. (Not European streets, tho. The only really successful Japanese car maker there is Mitsubishi, and that's because they build Mitsubishis in Europe, often alongside European makes, i.e. Volvo S40/Mitsubishi Carisma).

Now look where North Korea is... trying to build nukes and pissing off everyone in the world except bin Laden and Hussein.

You tell me which is the better system.

Re:look at the difference

[silne]

Hyundai is an extremely popular brand in Australia. So is Toyota. So is Mitsubishi. So is Ford. Cars are cars unless you're a 'riceboy'.

Re:look at the difference

[stephanruby]

Now look where US is... trying to build *more* nukes and pissing off everyone in the world except Bin Laden.

Re:look at the difference

[interiot]

There are a couple reasons to favor Honads/Toyotas over less established brands. Because they're more established and well known, you're more likely to get a higher resale value for those cars (though things can always change given 5 years). Also, toyota and honda in particular try very very hard to get top spots in consumer satisfaction surveys since they're neck-and-neck elsewhere, so if something really major goes wrong with those cars, even if the warranty has run out, you can get them to replace it on their dime because they don't want to lose you and your friends' loyalty.

Not that Honda/Toyota/other established brands are by any means necessarily the best, just that brand recognition can factor into a buyer's decision, and there's no reason to poo-poo that.

Re:look at the difference

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the rest of the world whines about how the US doesn't consider their needs, but we do, and we remember what you didn't do that did to us. Let the rest of the world be pissed off. I'm sick of reminding folks about the millions of US lives being thrown away in the first world wars. The French would be bitching in German. People really don't comprehend how many people died in the wars during the first half of last century. Which gave direct rise to much of our current foreign policy and military presence. We're sick of bailing countries out. When we don't, we get targetted anyways, so darnit if we're target now. When I read about hordes dying, I read it in fiction novels, not the front page of the news (and if you think 9/11 was hordes, read up on your history, please).

And look where we don't have a strong presence and see how many millions die from starvation and disease alone.

No, we're stronger, a bit smarter, and while we have our own set of problems, the US has evolved enough to at least consider substantially our social ills. We're not perfect, but you're kidding yourself if the last 50 years did not have massive social change. And it's still improving; arguably, even where it's not, at least we can talk about it.

Re:look at the difference

[thejk]

DISCLAIMER: *DEFINITELY* offtopic

I hate to be a typical liberal with the "nothing's as simple as that" message, but I can't help it. :)

My take on this current "crisis" is that North Korea's been building nukes (or trying to build nukes, depending on whether you buy CIA's report) largely for defensive purposes. Let's indulge the following for a minute.

The joint Team Spirit exercise by South Korean and US forces between 1976 and 1993 was halted in 1994 in an effort to dissuade North Korea from continuing its nuclear development. During these 17 years, however, North Korea had to *annually* find itself in the cross-hair of the most advanced military weapons in the world. Though no real aggression was done, you have to wonder what psychological damage these "excercises" wreaked on North Korean sense of its security. Given the receding Chinese military support for its security, North Korea understandably (albeit dangerously) wants some form of military safeguard against the perceived threat from the US and South Korea. The 37,000 US troops stationed in Seoul doesn't help the situation from their perspective, I'm sure.

I'm not defending either Kim Jong-Il's ill treatment of his critics or his dogmatic insistence on sticking to failed policies of communism. I merely want to point out the complexity of the current situation. As long as North Korea perceives the US as a potential aggressor (which the US's past actions somewhat justify) it cannot help but divert a large portion of its limited resources into maintaining its armed forces while simultaneously persuing the only guarantee against the *perceived* American nuclear threat, i.e. its own nuclear program. Given its already meager resources, there's no way they can have a productive economy of any kind under these circumstances...

South Korea's prosperity came at the heavy price of decades of US-friendly military dictatorship, and I'm much more prone to credit South Korea's "fortune" in allying itself with the US, its economy, and its powerful military forces than South Korea's commitment to capitalism and foreign trade. Of course, South Koreans worked hard to get where they are. I'm not denying that. At the same time, one cannot overlook the geo-political fortune that their alliance with the US and the Western world has afforded them. In the same vein, neither can we overlook the geo-political misfortune that got North Korean into this paranoid *Cold-War* arms race with which few other countries are still engaged. If they didn't see the need to maintain one-million-strong army and their nuclear program(s), North Koreans might have some resources left over to feed their people and develop their economy. In fact, that's exactly what they appear to want out of the US at the moment. And they have also been on the track to some semblance of economic recovery through their "special economic zones" initiative in Shinuiju and Kaesong.

Yeah, I'm rambling now... But I worry that a rather simplistic "good vs. evil" global paradigm that seems to dominate much of the current American foreign policy might create more problems than solve them.

Re:look at the difference

[evilviper]

I bet, though, that in 2010 there will be Korean cars all over American streets.

No. Korea's advantage is that they can manufacture products cheaper than anyone else... When it comes to quality, they are behind (I know a KIA employees that won't drive their own cars).

In many places, the American mindset is to buy the cheapest items, no matter how bad the quality. I don't believe that situation will last much longer as worse and worse items are manufactured, and many factors make returns more difficult.

South Korea is doing very well, but so has every other country when there was a huge influx of money... History has shown that it will be short-lived. It's only a matter of time before their economy flattens out, and what happens at that time will determine the long-term status of the country.

Re:look at the difference

[shri]

It's not all that glamorous. There is rampant corruption in all levels of the government and industry, women still have very little access to good jobs, racism and a lot of other things that need to be fixed. Trade and technology are all fine from an armchair perspective, but try to go there and sell a product. Its a whole different ball game if you're a foreigner.

Friends of mine in the US Govt would laugh about how the Korean students would spend most of their year in front of the embassy.. half the year throwing rocks and the second half of the year applying for student visas.

Re:look at the difference

[sql*kitten]

Now look where US is... trying to build *more* nukes and pissing off everyone in the world except Bin Laden.

The US is increasing its stockpile of nukes? Got a source for this? Because nukes aren't much use against terrorists.

Re:look at the difference

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh God, not the WWII examples again... Do something nice once (hesitantly and only after being attacked) and expect to get paid for it the rest of your life. Blah, blah, blah.

Re:look at the difference

[craigtay]

They even made my underwear, AS WELL as my palm pilot. What an clever little country

Re:look at the difference

[Anonymous Coward]

offtopic, but news that really matters

Re:look at the difference

[MrFredBloggs]

They assembled it - it was made somewhere else. It's like my MS assembler. I write the assembly code, and it goes off and mindlessly turns it into something else. What skill! What style! What class! (Interestingly North Korea and assembly language have about the same future in store!)

Re:look at the difference

[kraksmoka]

from one liberal to another . .. .

1)Bill Clinton's (he's the man!) revelation of the strikes that would've followed failure of the Agreed Framework accords is one of the reasons they are being so agressive right now.

2)N. Korea would sell a nuke to feed itsself for the winter, and is irrational enough to use one on their peninsula.

3)they are extremely paranoid and prone to a realpolitik analysis of the security dilemma.

4)Good or Evil be damned, there is still not a permanent peace treaty from the Korean War, that's why there's the DMZ.

5)S. Korea stands to lose the most from another war, Seoul is Very close to the DMZ.

Add it all up, there is alot of potential for a realist approach to N. Korea. Unfortunately, they hold some really nasty cards, and the political will to cause damage to their neighbor, and by extension the global economy and us. They take the only advantage they can, one that this country feared for 40 years of cold war. N. Korea is a starving country, their population is dying of hunger and cold, admittedly by their own hand. They have little left to lose, and even less fear of losing it.

Re:look at the difference

[tada_mac]

Japan is also technically at war with russia, there is no treaty between them.

Re:look at the difference

[sunbane]

I don't know that I would call it capitalism, more like government subsidized powerhouses. See, So. Korea has this nasty little problem of giving subsidies and government backed loans to all their companies to get them going. Some work out (such as Samsung), some do not (LG Semiconductor, Hynix). In fact just this week the government sponsored banks gave a $4 billion bailout to Hynix. I don't know that I would call that capitalism!

Also, the system really doesn't even work as a few years ago all the banks got in way over their head and the IMF (funded by your tax dollars) bailed them out with trillions of dollars.

This is the shining example for Western Democracy? Without the other governments stepping in they would have gone into chaos. Not to mention the fact that if it wasn't for us North Korea would run right over them.

I don't think I would call that being built through capitalism and foreign trade - at least not in the pure sense of capitalism. What ever happened to the governments practicing laissez faire?

Re:look at the difference

[Anonymous Coward]

I pretty much agree except for the defensive nuke statement. If we pulled out of South Korea, it would go to shit.

re the North Korean nuke policy being defensive--bullshit. You don't launch a short to medium range missile OVER a neighboring country, which they did over Japan. Even the US acknowledges this as a military offensive act. Ask Canadians how they felt or still feel about being right between the US and the Soviet Union during the cold war.

Re:look at the difference

[Anonymous Coward]

Having been there on a visit, initially was impressed with the wireless technology usage but peering into their industry noticed the stranglehold of their cheabol's is slowly killing institutions (govt, banks etc)

They have transformed themselves into a low cost production centre but when it comes to original innovation and ideas they still have to look beyond their shores...

Re:look at the difference

[stephanruby]

Please note that I was only trying to show the irony in the previous posters' comment and whatever question you have about my comment -- you can ask the same question to the previous poster. In any case, I didn't realize that anyone would be pedantic enough or manipulative enough, to ignore the general meaning of my words, but now that you did, you've given me the license to become as pedantic as you are.

We are indeed reducing some of our stockpile for our bigger nukes, that's correct, but we are also developing and producing lots and lots of smaller tactical nukes, so in the end, the answer is no. The total number of nukes is indeed "probably" rising. I say "probably", because our current number of smaller nukes seems to be around 1,100, our ability to make smaller and smaller nukes is improving, and since Bush wants more and more of them -- our overall number of nukes is "probably" rising.

hows that?

[BlackSnowUK]

I live in Britain, where our optics have been laid since the 70's and cable or adsl is still not available in my area..

Must be a CIA plot in South Korea...or the world is against me! :)

conspiracy?

[SHEENmaster]

Could the north koreans have faked this by wardriving along the border?

YOU DID IT!

[SweetAndSourJesus]

You are the winner of the coveted Most Idiotic Thing I Have Read Today Award(TM)!

To claim your cash and prizes, please set your head on fire and jump out a window.

Thanks for playing!

hehehe

[spdycml]

huh-huh....huh-huh-huh...huh-heh....he said penetration.....huh-huh...cool

Now why ....

[Snoopy77]

didn't Al Gore use the internet in his campaigns? He did invent it didn't he?

in non-soviet koria...

[SHEENmaster]

oh.

Re:in non-soviet koria...

[Anonymous Coward]

they know how to spell korea?

Re:in non-soviet koria...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, and it ain't with a K.

Weren't you paying attention during the World Cup?

wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Is anyone else surprised this username wasn't taken?

Re:wow

[silne]

ROFL.... yes actually I was. I thought immaturity would have reached peak a while ago considering the number of unique usernames already existing on /. Guess I was wrong.

Quick Somebody tell Al Gore!!!

[Tiger Smile]

As I recall he invented cell phone messaging!

Really, though this is a good story in some way, but the spam aspect does worry me. I hate spam in my email even if it's for a good cause. On the other hand it does sound like a good person won the race.

-- James Dornan

he didn't invent it, he just funded it

[SHEENmaster]

Get your facts straight and/or stop plagurizing SNL skits!

Re:he didn't invent it, he just funded it

[Arandir]

No, Al Gore did not fund the internet. I know most democratic office holders are multi-millionaires, but even Gore and his Daddy combined weren't rich enough to fund the creation of the internet.

How many times...

[Anonymous Coward]

...do we have to go through this?

1. South Korea is a small country with the vast majority of it's population in a high density urban area (Seoul).

2. And probably more importantly, South Korea has just recently become industrialized, therefore the communications infrastructure is quite modern compared to other Western, developed countries.

Do we really need to hear about this on a weekly basis? I guess the slashdot editors don't read their own site.

Re:How many times...

[Anonymous Coward]

yes.

the article is about the internet and politics. the fact that korea has such developed internet facilities is just background to that discussion...

stop whining.

Re:How many times...

[zoster]

As far as I can see, there were only two main modes of communication used: The Internet(alongwith email) and Mobile text messaging. Now, that's also possible in most of the countries I know of! Isn't it?

Re:How many times...

[Anonymous Coward]

1. South Korea is a small country with the vast majority of it's population in a high density urban area (Seoul).

So is that where all the fucking spam is coming from then?

Re:How many times...

[efedora]

1. South Korea is a small country with the vast majority of it's population in a high density urban area (Seoul).
Not true. Seoul is dense but so is Pusan, Kwangju etc. Lots of dense cities but many folks in small towns/farms.
2. And probably more importantly, South Korea has just recently become industrialized, therefore the communications infrastructure is quite modern compared to other Western, developed countries.
South Korea has been building infrastructure since the Korean War. The wired communications system is built like most of Asia - very haphazardly over many years. The wireless infrastructure started out behind the U.S. but SK has passed the U.S. by in wireless communications - as have many other countries. This is mostly due to the Japanese/Korean style of cooperation between govt. agencies and private corporations.

Re:How many times...

[_avs_007]

But the population of Pusan is roughly the same as chicago. Seoul's population is usually enough to place it in the top 5 most populous urban centers in the world.

Look here

See Seoul at number 3, and pusan and 78?

OMG... and I thought the spam problem was bad...

[yeoua]

Well, great, not only will we be able to make our penis size bigger and make that extra million by doing nothing but selling to other people how to make a million,

but we get to get mail from would-be-presidents-of-whatever.

Think about, if this does catch on, then on top of whatever spam we usually get, we will get political email/popups/popunders/im's etc...

Sounds like the US

[Anonymous Coward]

Atleast they have Bin laden and hussain on their side. cant say the same about the US

didn't work for guns either

[Anonymous Coward]

Bill Clinton tried to buy guns away from the street gangs. All they did was make some guns for the specific purpose of selling them to the cops.

So we trade cell phones for nukes. They'll still have nukes, and none of the cell phones will work after the EMP anyway.

Well if love of money is the root of all evil.....

[FS1]

Then the love of technology would be one of the worst sins possible. So if any manufactor would like contribute some technology to an upstanding person as myself i would be glad to hate it for them. You know to like balance karma or something.

OMG!

[xintegerx]

I was just thinking about how much people like you and I are played by this "Western Government". The deal is, I went to my state's web site to try to figure out how to run for Senator, Governor, etc. Yes, maybe I'm not old enough yet, but there was still no information! The best way (only way) right now is to be an intern and watch over some guy who did that too and move up.

What if you're just a simple decent qualified person who wants to run for Selectman/Mayor/Rep/Senator/Governor/President? I went to the Senate's web site, for instance (and many others using google) trying to find out HOW TO RUN! This information is just not on the internet (at least not for my state.)

Just yesterday I thought it would be sweet if there was a web site people could go to to see how to run for political leadership in their state. At least paperwork and deadlines would be greate, but procedures, rules, and regulations in addition, would be excellent!

Seriously, at least 100 million people in the USA are qualified to run for those positions I mentioned (at least by the age rule set in the constitution.)

I want to see competition, I want to see REAL people running! What would REALLY be sweet would be a law by the Senators to make States maintain a web site like I described and one that would also show WHO is running and what they DO and what they have DONE. This would be so sweet. And each candidate would have his own web site hosted (or just linked.) FAIRNESS IN EVERY WAY!

Nobody votes because theres a bunch of bums we don't know anything about who have a gazillion of ties and responsibilities, once in office, to the people who got them there!!!

This would be a pretty cheap way for equal spending that everybody keeps pushing for, good for communicating at least with voters that have access to the internet (the majority.)

Re:OMG!

[nelsonal]

Check your secretary of state's web page, in all the states I have lived in so far, that has been the office you register with to run. It usually involves a form and a small filing fee.
Generally the secretary of state also has a list of candidates, including those from the smallest parties, and non-partisan candidates, sometimes they even link to the candidate's home page. Most state representatives or city officers have even lower age requirements (if any at all), it would depend on your state's constitution. As a young person who wants to affect policy, your best bet would probably be to get on an elected official's staff. These are the tireless employees who read the bills, might write the actual bill the senator sponsors, and generally act as the eyes and ears of the elected official. You will want to be squeaky clean and prepared for anything in your past that could even imply that you are not perfectly upstanding to be made public, if you start to pick up steam.

Re:OMG!

[Silent_E]

If you want more "real people" running for office, start doing so yourself.

You can find all the information you want on the web--just not on the government sites right now. The best records I've seen are at opensecrets.org. You might also want to look at the webpages of individual politicians. They will usually tell you how they voted on recent issues.

Re you're comment on voter turn--out, I've always favored a tax on people who don't vote. :)

Re:OMG!

[poot_rootbeer]

Go to the library. There's plenty of documentation on what you need to do to run for office. It's all codified into the laws, y'know.

And before you go off half-cocked trying to run for President or something, aim a little lower and more realistically. Run for your town's board of freeholders or something.

You have to work your way up the ladder -- not because The Man is trying to hold you down, but because that's the only way to build up enough experience to be competent in higher office. When was the last time we had a President that had not previously been either a Governor or a Congressman?

Re:OMG!

[Guppy06]

"The best way (only way) right now is to be an intern and watch over some guy who did that too and move up."

You must live in the wrong state. When I ran for the US House last year (decided on very short notice), Google pointed me to the Louisiana Department of State, I found out there what was needed ($600 payed to the Department of State), filled out the paperwork, mailed in the money order, and that was that. The rest was figured out from the numerous and frequent mailings I ended up getting (and still get) from the state and the Federal Election Commission.

And it's not like Louisiana is world renown for its internet presence and connectivity or anything.

"What if you're just a simple decent qualified person who wants to run for Selectman/Mayor/Rep/Senator/Governor/President? I went to the Senate's web site [senate.gov], for instance (and many others using google) trying to find out HOW TO RUN!"

Of course they won't. If you bothered to peruse the US Constitution a little, you'd realize that it is not the federal government's place to tell the states how exactly their elections should be run. Different states have different requirements (beyond the lone federal requirement of "You must be over 30") and different qualifications.

"Just yesterday I thought it would be sweet if there was a web site people could go to to see how to run for political leadership in their state."

Find your state's Department of State. That's usually the best place to start.

"States maintain a web site like I described and one that would also show WHO is running"

Like this?

"and what they DO and what they have DONE"

You have two options. One is to go to the congresscritter's website in question and look at the legislation they sponsor and/or co-sponsor, and to THOMAS to see how they voted on legislation.

The other is to go to non-partisan information sources like Project Vote Smart, who attempt to make the information more digestable.

"And each candidate would have his own web site hosted (or just linked.) FAIRNESS IN EVERY WAY!"

Fair to everybody except for the taxpayers. As a former independent candidate and as a taxpayer, I do not want tax dollars going to pay for private political campaigns. Candidates (especially for federal office) get enough free attention from the press as it is that it really isn't needed.

"Nobody votes because theres a bunch of bums we don't know anything"

Because the information isn't there to know, or because they don't bother trying to find out?

"This would be a pretty cheap way for equal spending that everybody keeps pushing for,"

First off, it would be even cheaper if the taxpayers didn't have to pay any of it.

Secondly, the problem isn't "equal spending," the problem is things like "truth in advertising" and "honesty about campaign fundraising and spending." And if you need a law to require candidates to register this information with, say, the FEC, it's already too late. If you need to twist their arms to get them to share this information, they shouldn't be in office to begin with.

Re:OMG!

[Anonymous Coward]

Bush Senior won a whopping one election by himself prior to becoming President. Of course it helps when your daddy sets you up as the ultimate Washington insider. Fucking bastard was in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. Need I say more?

Re:OMG!

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about the US, but in Canada you would go to the Elections Canada web site (http://www.elections.ca/), as opposed to the web site for the House of Commons. The House of Commons is roughly equivalent to the House of Representatives in the US.

Re:Maybe you should get your facts straight

[FS1]

Exact statement used by gore in an interview with Wolf Blitzer from this Source

Quote "BLITZER: I want to get to some of the substance of domestic and international issues in a minute, but let's just wrap up a little bit of the politics right now. Why should Democrats, looking at the Democratic nomination process, support you instead of Bill Bradley, a friend of yours, a former colleague in the Senate? What do you have to bring to this that he doesn't necessarily bring to this process? Clearly, Blitzer is asking Gore to offer an explanation of how he differs as a politician from other politicians in general, and his rival at the time, Bill Bradley, in particular. Here is Gore's entire response to Blitzer's question: GORE: Well, I will be offering - I'll be offering my vision when my campaign begins. And it will be comprehensive and sweeping. And I hope that it will be compelling enough to draw people toward it. I feel that it will be. But it will emerge from my dialogue with the American people. I've traveled to every part of this country during the last six years. During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system. During a quarter century of public service, including most of it long before I came into my current job, I have worked to try to improve the quality of life in our country and in our world. And what I've seen during that experience is an emerging future that's very exciting, about which I'm very optimistic, and toward which I want to lead."

There that settles that. He said he took the initiative in creating the internet. If you want to interpt that as inventing then yes he said he invented it. If you want to take it like exaggeration then yes you are right he just funded it.

Another thing...

[Anonymous Coward]

Three months ago I went to Circuit City to buy a 256 MB flash ROM card for my digital camera. The manager wanted to sell me one for $279.85 but I informed him that I'd recently bought a 512 MB card for only $384.75. I also told him that one day flash ROM would be so cheap you could buy 1 gig for under $100. He chuckled to himself and turned to me with a twinkle in his eye and said, "South Korean Cell Phones and Broadband rule."

Re:the real facts about Korea

[Anonymous Coward]

its a troll everyone will love to hate!

Re:My experiences in Korea

[Faeton]

WTF? This guy is just copying and reposting his old stuff over again (look at his Russia/India posts) and changing names.

Re:My experiences in Korea

[Anonymous Coward]

moderators?

Take a Ride on the Super Democratization Highway!

[Zhe Mappel]

...at the cutting edge of technology that is transforming the political system, making it more open and democratic. It could be a preview of the shape of Western democracy...

* UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS *

You do not have a license to access the requested information as required under 17 USC 512 et seq. Additionally, pursuant to sections of the Fearlessness Before Insane Hate-Filled Terror Against Really Really Nice US Corporations Act, notice of this access violation will go down on your permanent record.

To continue being reamed by the people who own your "democratic" government, please click OK.

do you even know korean ??

[Anonymous Coward]

But Korean is not written linearly letter
by letter! It is written in grouped syllables;
if you had any familiarity at all with Korean,
you'd know this!?

Korean has the worst mess in all Unicode, I'd say.
(a) The individual letters are in Unicode, and the
jambo syllables are *also* in Unicode
(b) And of course they have the Chinese (kanja)

I'm not knocking the Korean alphabet; they are
justifiably proud of it, and it is beautiful.
But it is not as easy to deal with on a computer!

What is a Unicode code point ?
(a) each leter, counting doubled consonants
as doubled code points
(b) each letter, except doubled consonant
letters are a single code point
(c) each jambo syllable

#c makes glyph work & editors *much* easier,
but makes letter-based analysis much more painful

Re:do you even know korean ??

[Anonymous Coward]

agreed. i'd like to added another point that
as most of new technologies are originated from
western world, korean engineers should be
acquainted with english to grab them. sigh.

anonymous korean programmer.

Re:do you even know korean ??

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, this is totally off the original subject, but I feel compelled to respond.

As a programmer and a speaker/reader/writer of the Korean language, I definitely agree that the input method is complex, but that only affects a very small number of people writing input method editors and has no bearing at all on end users. Due to the relatively small number of characters (24 as mentioned before, minus dipthongs and stressed consonants) used in the language, Korean is easy to type on either a keyboard or mobile phone keypad. So it takes two bytes to store a syllable, is that really such a big deal? Consider the word 'Washington' - that's three syllables stored in ten bytes.

Now Japanese, that's a tough language to type in. Three separate character sets: two phonetic, the other Chinese characters.

Re:do you even know korean ??

[zanderredux]

Yeah. IME programming for the Korean language is very complex. Besides having to handle 2-byte chars, you need a 2-byte char table that has all possible consonant+vowel+optional final consonant combinations that comprise a syllable.

Therefore, you end up with a very large char table and there is a lot of waste there, since many combinations, although feasible, are not used in any writing or speaking. They only exist because it is possible for them to exist. And there are Chinese ideograms (hanja), which are used interchangeably with Korean and are part of the language as well. You will see hanja used in contexts where ambiguity is undesired, such as corporate documents, etc, because a korean word may have different meanings. An ideogram, well, tends to be way more specific.

If you want hanja in your documents, you usually type the sound of that hanja in plain Korean, type a special key that fires up a dictionary of ideograms that match that sound. One does not have to type every ideogram separately. In a dicitionary fashion, long words with more than one hanja ideogram can be stored.

Still, due to the way Korean was implemented it is not trivially suited for letter-by-letter processing. You cant do a substr() and expect to get a single letter back (letter=vowel or consonant). If letter processing is needed, you'll need some function that decodes the 2-byte Unicode char and returns an array of letters, for example. I guess that when storage and processing power were scarce, such shortcuts were needed.

Real life usage, however, shows that letter by letter is rarely (if ever) needed. Google does fine with 2-byte chars. MS Word does fine with them. Heck, even my cellphone worked fine and smoothly. You will need letter-by-letter processing when handling DNA sequences, for example. Daily use does not require it.

For the record, typing in Korean is extremely fast. Vowels to one side of the keyboard, consonants to the other. Typing Korean in cellphone is even faster, because there is that T9-like helper technology for typing. I find it faster than using T9 for Portuguese or English.

Japanese is different. In a purely syllabic system, there is a key combo to switch keyboards for both hiragana and katakana and each key is mapped to a syllable. I just wonder where the numbers go, since both keyboards use all keys (except keypad) for characters, plus some combinations with ctrl and shift.

Try Chinese, then. Processing is fairly simple, since a 2-byte char is a single letter. There is no letter compounding as Korean. But writing in Chinese is awkward. You may type it phonetically (yes, there are some special ideograms used to represent sounds) and use a special key to fire up a dictionary of matching ideograms. You may write each ideogram by compounding the characters from their basic roots, but you'll need to have a standard way to decompose characters into these roots. Note that these roots are not phonetic but they are based on meaning. It's a very abstract system. Kinda beautiful I guess, but shifts most complexity towards the users. There are a number of other Chinese IMEs, but I couldnt figure out how they work. Question for Chinese speakers: is there a Chinese language typewriter? How does it work?

Well. The point is that with enough processing power and well designed code, language complexities can be removed or diminished. The problem is more of the quality of implementation done to support these languages rather than a specific language deficiency of computer use. The idea that we must adapt ourselves to the computers is just plain dumb.

Re:do you even know korean ??

[Psx29]

Japanese is different. In a purely syllabic system, there is a key combo to switch keyboards for both hiragana and katakana and each key is mapped to a syllable. I just wonder where the numbers go, since both keyboards use all keys (except keypad) for characters, plus some combinations with ctrl and shift.

Most people who type in Japanese presently use the standard qwerty layout and just type in romanized Japanese(myself included).

As for Chinese, there are many different input methods but the most common is most likely mandarin pin yin input, which would just be the romanization system for mandarin.

Re:do you even know korean ??

[SageMusings]

My understanding,

(poor as it is) is most of the Koreans who know a smattering of Kanji are older and becoming scarce. Most of the younger crowd know a great deal less kanji than their parents. I visited the country three times (briefly) and noticed no kanji in publications, just the occasional sign. I did not, however, specifically look for examples, so beware this was merely my impression. One of my History professors was from Korea and he seemed to know a great deal of Kanji, but he was a professor of Chinese history.

Re:My experiences in Korea

[suchire]

Feeding the troll...

It would be apparent to anyone in Korea that you can't speak Korean, what with your grammar and all. Properly spoken: jega hangookmal mot'heyo.

Hyundai actually means "Modern Era" in Korean.

I'm not sure what you have against fermented food...kimchee certainly tastes better than the grease and salt of "American" fast food. At least Asian food doesn't slather things with lard, butter, and salt.

Re:My experiences in Korea

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow! You got a free pass on the clue train. You are one smartmotherfucker, mr. peanut.

Korea is also a spammer capital (eg, kornet)

[Anonymous Coward]

They neglected to mention that Korea is also a
major player in spam, one might even say a major
spam capital.

Witness the zillions of bytes of spam from kornet
spam mailers....

This is perhaps well known to computer professionals,
but the article was clearly aimed at a wider
audience.

If Korea is the future, woe betide us email users.

Future for the billion strong (digital) democracy

[paschimghat]

With Reliance Group promising a mobile and broadband internet into every home in India
you might as well take this article, multiply all numbers in it by 100, change Roh Moo-hyun to Ram Mohan Roy and you'll have a new article for the future...

Why don't we do it here in the USA?

[takochan]

Good article.

A politician getting elected without corporate
political bribe money. Using the internet, and
democratic grass root principles... wow..
maybe that will make him more accountable to
the voters unlike the USA, where they are only
accountable to the special interests who write
the donation checks.

Why don't we try to get some of our own elected
here, in the USA too..?

Maybe slashdot would be a good place to start this from..

Then we would have a fighting chance to stop all
this bought & paid for legislation like the DMCA..etc..etc.

Maybe we should hurry before the establishment buys a law forbidding this! (which I am sure they will try..)

Re:Why don't we do it here in the USA?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no shortage of uncontested elections either.

Re:Why don't we do it here in the USA?

[Anonymous Coward]

I certainly don't want political SMS spam on my cell phone - do you?

Not the only amazing thing...

[suchire]

What the news article fails to mention is the astounding rally that the youth made in Korea. Seven hours before the polls closed, a close supporter of Roh in his coalition withdrew his support, and so there was a real danger of him not getting elected. In about 11 minutes or so, a bunch of Roh's supporters rallied on his website, through email, IM's, messageboards, etc. and encouraged each other to go out to vote (and Roh's fan website got about 3 million hits in four hours) making a record turnout for young voters, about 60%.

Amazing...

Re:My experiences in Korea

[Anonymous Coward]

You`re right about the food. I particularly liked the Korean Kentucky fried dog .

Re:My experiences in Korea

[suchire]

Hey, some Americans eat roof-rabbits (i.e. cats) and guinea pigs. Dog is meat. Why do people eat veal? Such a cute little calf...cows are actually quite intelligent.

Dog meat is actually not that bad, I've heard.

Re:He has same remembrance moscow, india..

[Anonymous Coward]

See his articles..

This is pretty cool

[speedfreak_5]

"The Internet allowed Mr. Roh to liberate himself from "black money" -- corporate donations that are South Korea's traditional form of campaign financing. Largely through Internet-based campaign groups, Mr. Roh raised the equivalent of about $1-billion from more than 180,000 individual donors."

Maybe all representatives could have an account set up to where people can donate over the internet. Then the government could ban soft money donations altogether. But there would be so much opposition to it from corporate interests it would be shot down day one. But I can hope...

Wait a minute

[smithwis]

Mr. Roh raised the equivalent of about $1-billion from more than 180,000 individual donors.

One billion dollars devided equally amoung 180 thousand dollars comes out to over 5500 dollars. That's suspiciously high considering the claim of all individual investors. Me thinks there were a couple of special donors, the kinds with big pockets.

Re:Wait a minute

[nulleffect]

According to Roh's site, he made 7,278,135,098 Won (about USD 6,000,000) from 203,764 donations, not CAD 1,000,000,000 (about USD 640,000,000) from 180,000 donors, as the article says.

Re:Wait a minute

[Anonymous Coward]

Not bad, that's 1/30th of what Bush raised, and he actually *won* his presidential election!

This is great, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

will it help them win Korean War round 2?

I am still doubtfull... A nation motivated by success will be subjugated by a nation motivated by a brutality invested in politics. From the recent actions of the North Korean Empire, would you have done the same? Realistically on a parallel scale, if someone called a trekkar a nerd, would the trekkar not set them up a bomb? Indeed yes, the trekkar is violating our agreements to stop bringing-up the Original Star Trek. Please stop the bad impersonation...

so he just

[SHEENmaster]

made the decision to spend our money on the internet?

Haunting

[ripicheep]

...how much of this article reminded me of William Gibson's books.



"The Internet has become the most popular way of organizing street rallies, political and otherwise -- including that of the estimated seven million South Koreans who swarmed into the streets after the stunning success of their national soccer team in last summer's World Cup."

reminds me of the lo-rez fanclub funeral that was triggered from the fan site



"Not all South Koreans are happy about the dramatic rise of the Internet. Critics say that the on-line games create "zombie" teenagers who do not know how to interact with the real world."

reminds me fo the gomi who game all of the time and cheat their way through school. They also help to build walled city.



"About 25 million of South Korea's 48 million people are regular Internet surfers. All across Seoul, high-rise towers and corporate headquarters are emblazoned with their Web-site addresses in huge letters or neon signs. About 30 million South Koreans have cellphones, and 10 million of these cellphones have Internet connections -- again, a world-leading number."

Reminds me of Gibsons landscapes : the sprawl, Night City.

MOD PARENT OFF-TOPIC

[Anonymous Coward]

MOD PARENT OFF-TOPIC

This is what they don't need

[Anonymous Coward]

The South Koreans can't use cell phones and broodband services to block bullets propelled by an AK-47. South Korea's only hope is to invent somthing more effect than the Soviet Russian-made AK-47, or else they'll lose Battle 2. Sorry, but it is true; it's quite difficult to maintane a freedom-based economy when you lack the independance of oppression from your neighbors. America got a ~200 year head-start. Will South Korea be the second to install a freedom-based government or will it be oppressed by North Korea as was the 13 united States of America were oppressed by Britain before and after the united States of America's unanimous Declaration of Independance of July 4, 1776?

History repeating itself is somtimes a good thing, but it is still just as capable of being a bloody battle and from the modern technical standpoint it is far more capable of being bloody today.

Re:This is what they don't need

[Anonymous Coward]

And yes, this would be exactly why CIA/Carter killed President/General Park Jung Hee and dismantled South Korean nuclear program.

Re:the real facts about Korea

[Anonymous Coward]

Go choke on a pretzel, fucktard!

Re:Not Dollar But Won

[Anonymous Coward]

$1 amounts to some 1200 korean won

hes on topic

[Anonymous Coward]

did you read the article? hes on topic

Actually

[Nazmun]

He made the decision that we should fund the internet and convinced enough politicians to actually get our money to support the net.

Re:Actually

[Arandir]

Actually, the internet was already around by the time the politicians voted to spend money on it. It may not have been called the internet, and it may not have had all the technical characteristics it does today, but it was there.

Re:actually

[enkidu]

Seoul is flat? Uhmm. NO. Seoul is COVERED wit and SURROUNDED by hills. And not "rolling hills" with low gradients, but steep hills. Would you call San Francisco flat just because the highest point (Twin Peaks) is less than 1000 feet? Seoul is way more mountainous than most major U.S. cities (New York, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles etc.) Like I said, just because the peaks aren't high doesn't mean that the gradients aren't steep. Did you look at the map? Here's a sample contour map. This place has another click through sample on this page.

You seem to be confused as to the relation between altitude and gradient. If you have a steep slope that goes up and down over 10 miles (In Korea), it's going to be alot shorter in overall height than one that goes up and down over 200 miles (the Rockies). That still doesn't mean that the first mountain is less steep (and rough) than the second. And plus, how many cities in the U.S. have 14,000 foot peaks "nearby" (less than 2 hours drive).

Didn't you have to go through tunnels in Seoul (There's quite a few). Did you go to Namsan Tower? How much did you drive in Seoul? How about this quote from a 5th grade study outline "A physical relief map will reveal that the north and east parts of Korea are very mountainous while the south and west have more fields. It is said that you can see a mountain from everywhere in Korea. Have students speculate on the amount of land that would be available for agriculture in such a mountainous country. (Only about one fourth of the land comprising the Republic of Korea is arable)." (source. Or how about this page. Don't you think they would know?

Look, obviously, you have experienced Korea (and you have my sympathies if you chose to drive). What I'm saying is that the perceptions which remain from your experience are flawed. Are you saying that all these sources have a distorted view of the terrain of Korea and your view is correct? Ask your guide in Korea. Ask anyone who has done more than "visit" Korea. Trust me: No one (especially not a cable or antenna engineer) is going to call much of South Korea "flat". Not even Seoul or Busan.

EnkiduEOT

Re:Gay Sex!

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I take my hat off to you in that respect.

fark boobies link of the day

[Anonymous Coward]

"Boobies, boobies, and more boobies for the new year (not safe for work)"

not spanking material, just eye candy. enjoy. courtesy of fark.com

Re:fark boobies link of the day

[Anonymous Coward]

Hire spics? That's damn racist.

First set of piccies is of Christina Aguilera though. I'd hire her.

Your missing the message

[Nazmun]

Mr. Roh raised that equivalent of that amount of cash is what they're saying. I haven't read the article but it sounds like they mean that he got enough coverage from the internet and what not that would be worth 1 billion...

No, wait scratch that the articles author is on drugs or something. Maybe that's supposed to be in korean currency or something.

Re:the real facts about Korea

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a little advise for you. Go get a world map or globe yourself and find where Korea is. Then you will be suprised by the fact that there're two independent contries named 'Korea' - which are Republic of Korea(South Korea) and Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea(North Korea).

It is N. Korea which is supposed to have nuclear weapons, and it's S. Korea which is famous for broadband and cellphones.

And who gave the Americans sole right to define the word 'world peace'? You don't have any right to start a war against our(S. Koreas) will in our land which might threaten our lives and property.

Superstar politics = less corruption

[ites]

One interesting aspect of this kind of election is that it starts to resemble the viewer-elections we see on reality shows. We are starting to see something that looks like instant democracy. Now, what's cool about this is that it breaks the back of the traditional political system.
I've noticed that those famous and/or powerful people who are not corrupt are invariably those elected by rapid popular vote, namely superstars of pop, sports, and so on.
A long, slow election process just gives all parties time to negotiate with interest groups. Slow elections generate corrupt politicians, and the semi-permanent election process we see in certain countries just creates completely corrupt political parties.

Electing politicians like this is going to annoy the established political parties. It's also going to raise a generation of politicians who have popular support but no real political network. But it's hard to see what the impact of this will be.

Re:Superstar politics = less corruption

[sql*kitten]

One interesting aspect of this kind of election is that it starts to resemble the viewer-elections we see on reality shows. We are starting to see something that looks like instant democracy. Now, what's cool about this is that it breaks the back of the traditional political system.

The problem is that it breaks everything else too. With instant voting, the US would have nuked Kabul hours after September 11th... totally missing those responsible and slaughtering millions of (relative) innocents. Latency in the system is there for a reason.

I've noticed that those famous and/or powerful people who are not corrupt are invariably those elected by rapid popular vote, namely superstars of pop, sports, and so on.

There is one lesson that Tony Blair and New Labour learned too late: it is easy to be incorruptible when you have no real power. That's why, in Opposition, they could be "whiter than white", but as soon as they were in power, the scandals came rolling in. If the celebrities you mentioned had any real influence beyond entertainment, they would be at least as corruptible as anyone else.

Hint: any celebrity that has endorsed any product has a price.

A long, slow election process just gives all parties time to negotiate with interest groups. Slow elections generate corrupt politicians, and the semi-permanent election process we see in certain countries just creates completely corrupt political parties.

The weaker the government, the better it is for everyone. There's only really a problem if government is both strong and corrupt.

Electing politicians like this is going to annoy the established political parties. It's also going to raise a generation of politicians who have popular support but no real political network. But it's hard to see what the impact of this will be.

Populism requires short-term thinking, and is invariably a disaster in the long run. Argentina's economy lies in ruins because of the populist decisions made by Peron (don't blame the IMF, they wouldn't have even gotten involved if Peron hadn't started Argentina's economy on the downward spiral, altho' they certainly haven't made anything better).

Re:Superstar politics = less corruption

[ites]

a, I believe Kabul was the target of US government policy, not popular demand for action. There is no proof that US popular opinion wanted war after Sept. 11th. More likely, public opinion in the US would have gone for insulation, rejection of the outside world, possibly some xenophobia.
b, New Labour is relatively clean, despite being the most powerful UK government since Thatcher's Tories. Of course there are scandals, but they are mostly banal. In some respects, it's a superstar government since they came to power from outside the London political scene (being an essentially Scottish party). Having no power does not make a party clean, as the UK Conservatives have shown.
c, Peron was not a populist, but an extreme example of government by political machine. He ruined the economy for standard reasons: using the country's economy to pander to friendly interest groups.
Powerful governments are not necessarily corrupt. There seem to be two factors: how long the government has been part of the mainstream political system, and thus open for "sale", and how long they can expect to stay in power, and thus able to exploit their position for gain.
Superstar governments have neither of these: quickly elected and quickly dismissed. It remains to be shown that this "populism" is actually bad in any way.

well, duh.

[Anonymous Coward]

[snip]
Critics say that the on-line games create "zombie" teenagers who do not know how to interact with the real world.
[snip]

well, duh.
The only people that know how to relate to the real world are critics.. obviously. :ri:

more like 600 keypresses a minute

[kjoonlee]

If you can type 600 keys in a minute you're likely to be called a fast typist in Korea.

But there's more than one keyboard layout, (like with QWERTY vs. Dvorak), and users of the sebulsik keyboard layout (as opposed to the doobulsik) are known to achieve speeds of over 1000 keypresses a minute.

Re:more like 600 keypresses a minute

[Psx29]

This makes me curious, what would the standard Korean layout be?

Re:more like 600 keypresses a minute

[kjoonlee]

The official standard, researched and backed by the government, is the doobulsik. (Searching for Korean keyboard layouts on the web would most likely reveal the doobulsik. Heck, most people don't even know that the sebulsik exists.)

For a picture, look here: http://www.fivedeck.com/kboard.html

If you look carefully you'll notice that all consonants (squares, circles, shape-like things) are on the left and all vowels (stick-like things) are on the right, which means your left hand (the weaker hand, usually) will have a hard time pressing the much more frequent consonants, and be easily stressed out. Not good.

The sebulsik was the lifework of a Korean occulist, who put his life into making Korean typewriters and keyboards, despite all difficulties.

Picture here: http://sebul.org/ Click on the diagram and you'll get another picture.

Syllable initial consonants are on the right side, vowels are on the left side and parts of the top row, and syllable final consonants are on the far left.

The most frequent letters are mapped to the most easily accesible keys, and the mapping is nicely balanced: You don't have to stress your left hand anymore, and you use your index fingers a lot more than your little fingers. Nice. : )

Re:more like 600 keypresses a minute

[Anonymous Coward]

re: The first link (sebul.org)

siot and kiuk at least are both on the
right (lower) and the left (upper).
What is up with that ?

Re:My experiences in Korea

[markov_chain]

No lard? No butter? No salt? Those are my favorite ingredients! Well, maybe not lard, but definitely butter and salt.

Re:My experiences in Korea

[Anonymous Coward]

You're one of the Americans who addicted to fries. They don't have fried dogs; it's for soup.

I don't understand why Americans are so keen about dog eating. It's a cultural thing. Chinese eat dogs too. Do you even know why Koreans came to eat dog soup for a special day like American Thanksgivings?

Re:My experiences in Korea

[Anonymous Coward]

Mmmm... i prefer the dog soup. On a hot sweaty day, nothing beats a good bowl.

Re:Maybe you should get your facts straight

[weave]

Well, he's a bit of an idiot for his choice of words, but it's not a complete fabrication. I remember fairly well over 10 years ago when he first became VP. At the time the Internet was research only, no commercialism allowed. At the time Gore was pushing for a "similar" internet for the public and described fairly well the benefits it could bring to business and the public. He called it at the time the "information super highway" (gack) and at the time it was thought that this new public internet would be separate from the academic internet. It was also supposed to use a different protocol, OSI, instead of TCP/IP. (Not that he knew what OSI was, that was just the conventional wisdom at the time).

He was also instrumental in supporting the academic internet during his years in Congress when all other people in Congress didn't have a clue about these things.

I know first hand about this because I was in IT at the time -- yes, I'm old -- and worked in a community college where we were debating whether or not we should halt the rollout of our TCP/IP network and switch to OSI because we were a two-year college and more tilted to serving business and not research and maybe the upcoming information super highway thing would be better than hooking to the then non-commerical Internet.

Now, as it turns out, the separate networks never materialized, OSI fizzled, and the non-commerical Internet became the Internet we know today and serious research institutions are going off on their own with Internet 2.

So, he's a tithead, but he *was* the leader in congress in understand the benefits of an internet (of some sort) and that commercialization of the internet is what was a large factor for the economic boom of the 90s.

Remember, no one outside of academia heard of the Internet before like 1992. The first mass media cartoon regarding the internet was in the new yorker in 1993 (the "no one knows your a dog on the net" one) which we all, at the time, were amazed (and scared) that mass media noticed the Internet.

p.s. I find it interesting, however, that conservatives are so quick to jump on someone's bad choice of words when their own people who can't choose good words in speeches are somehow to be given understanding, ala Bush and former VP Dan Quayle (and visa-versa of course).

Some more on this at snopes.com

insightful???

[Anonymous Coward]

what idiotic bullshit. The US government is NOT building more nukes and is actually working harder to reduce its stockpile than the previous administration.

thanks, but

[MrFredBloggs]

"Just yesterday I thought it would be sweet if there was a web site people could go to to see how to run for political leadership in their state. At least paperwork and deadlines would be greate, but procedures, rules, and regulations in addition, would be excellent!"

i will never vote for someone who needs a `dummys guide to democracy` to work out how to get into office! If you were really interested, you`d already know, or you'd find out for yourself.

Re:thanks, but

[ergo98]

If you were really interested, you`d already know, or you'd find out for yourself.

Huh? The original said "Wouldn't it be great to have the information online", to which you replied that those who wanted the information would "find out for yourself". How? Telepathetic prediction?

Having the information online is another way of disseminating the information to people who are looking to "find out". It's a hell of a lot better than a barrier to entry obscure system that encourages in-breeding and barriers to entry (which is how most of those systems work).

there is that word again, democratic

[Anonymous Coward]

We are a REPUBLIC, and were never intended to be a DEMOCRACY (mob rule). The word democracy doesnt appear anywhere in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights.

Democracy is 5 wolves and a sheep deciding whats for dinner.

You want special interests gone? Well then YOURE a special interest!

How about we get Washingtons hands out of the econonmy instead of bitching about lobbyists who use their interference with the market to achieve their own personal goals?

Im sure this is all anti-Slashdot politics, but its the hard facts.

se la vi

Re:so he just voted for the Bill...

[Anonymous Coward]

Along with 99% of the congress at the time the bill was introduced...DUH

Ah, these stupid dog jokes...

[zanderredux]

Hm. Dog was not event considered to be a pet in Korea until very recently and by foreign influence.

Now, since pigs are becoming a relatively common pet in California, I find those Friday's pork chops especially disgusting. You're eating my best friend! Yuck!

SPAM not mentioned in article

[MCRocker]

Several other posters mention SPAM, but I didn't get the impression from the article that SPAM was necessissarily the primary means of pushing this. I'm sure there was some, but the impression I got was that this was a combination of word of mouth, "sign up for updates on our website" and articles on political news sites and blogs. Sending 800,000 unsolicited text messages, just before voting time would likely piss people off and result in you losing by a landslide... not winning. I suspect that most of these people signed up for updates or reminders.

Please some insight from Koreans...

[El Camino SS]

Please respond to this... And I know it is offtopic but I want to know... and I have little insight into why all of this N. Korea business has even started at all.

Why would N. Korea reveal that it has nuclear weapons in direct violation of a fuel and food treaty when its citizens are starving?

I have a few theories, but none of them make any sense. I have no idea why this is occurring. Are these viable answers?

1. Becasue Bush called them the "axis of evil."
2. They want to influence the S. Korean elections against the US for removal of US occupation (so they can attack? Or unite without the US?).
3. They revealed their nuke program because of Saddam (a fellow dictator) so that the US would have to fight a 2 front war... the old "enemy of my enemy is my friend routine." Which obviously idn't work out the way they planned.
4. Their motivations and thought processes are so "not Westerner" that I as a westerner just can't get it and it is all too complicated to say anyway.
5. This has all happened before, maybe not in this scale, and it is a big bluff to hold a regime together.
6. The regime is dying fast, and it needs an enemy to hold it together, so it mentions it has nukes to the US to threaten them, and then starts the war machine to unite N. Koreans.

Once again, please forgive the offtopic, but our current situation is intimately tied in with this election, and I need a Korean point of view to really make any sense of it. I think I speak for more than a few Westerners when we say we don't have any idea how things operate over there. Please enlighten us.

Re:Please some insight from Koreans...

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as I remember(as korean), we had this kind of news almost every time we(our government)had
some serious issues.
While this time the news sounds a bit more serious than before, there is also a bit more serious problem for government(Korea and US) to solve than before.
Because of an accident, most korean people are
now against US government(I must say against US govenment policy, not against US people ;) )
Although this kind of movement have happened many times before, this time it seems to be really serious.
while the mood in korea getting hotter and hotter,
the news came out. So now it's not the time for us
to fight against each other, because we have common and more serious problem now.

That's just me and some of my friends' conspiracy theory.

Re:Please some insight from Koreans...

[Anonymous Coward]

NK admited it has enough plutonium for 2 bombs.
I believe NK admited both this and the fact that it had kidnapped Japanese because it was trying to and succeding in warming relations with Japan and the world. Japan was responding well to NK's overtures, but was shocked by the kidnapping revelation. These two admissions were meant as 'coming clean' gestures. There are credible reports that the cia knew about the plutonium since at least 1995. US sattelite technology,etc makes this very likely. NK was succeeding with it's detente process with SK and Japan, indeed SK is still talking up peace and detente . The US government however, decided to perceive NK's admission as a hostile act-which it absolutely didn't have to. NK reacted with genuine shock and disappointment to this, until several days ago, when it started to become very paranoid and ragefull. Despite this, NK is asking for the smallest of favors. Nothing more than a simple promise from the US not to unprovokedly attack NK! The fact that the US can't agree to such a small request, which is already part of international law(!), is yet another glaring example of the extreme paranoid, ragefull and fearfull flag clinging mood/psychoses of the US population after 9-11. This also explains why the US created this completely unnecessary crises. Nothing has changed other than NK admitting as an honesty gesture what the US already knew. Such strange moods occur in nations periodicaly and often result in completely unnecessary catastrophic wars. ie. ww1, ww2, vietnam. If the war mood of the US had been sated in Iraq, little of the public would have cared what NK was doing. On the other hand, if the war mood of the US is sated in NK, Iraq will probably be forgotten about. The Afghanistan war wasn't enough of a challange or sacrifice to suffice, nor will be destroying the small cult of psychotics, al-qaeda.
The 'war on terrorism' is very similar to the war on drugs and the cold war-unnecessary, ill-advised, inflammatory and self destructive. Don't let our politicians continue the ancient rite of human sacrifice-old men sending young men to their deaths for delusions of granduer-protest in Washington and everywhere else:
www.endthewar.org
www.antiwar.com
www.war ismurder.com

re: Please respond to this... And I know it is offtopic but I want to know... and I have little insight into why all of this N. Korea business has even started at all.

Why would N. Korea reveal that it has nuclear weapons in direct violation of a fuel and food treaty when its citizens are starving?

Re:Please some insight from Koreans...

[Anonymous Coward]

>completely unnecessary catastrophic wars. ie. ww1,
>ww2, vietnam

You're blaming the U.S. for all three of these wars ?? That is, well, surprising to me. How common is that opinion, do you think ? (I'm curious now.)

Re:Please some insight from Koreans...

[Anonymous Coward]

The word 'nations' is not a synonym for the word 'US'.
The fact that you some how mentaly substituted the word 'US' for the word 'Nations' in that sentence, and than reinforced this halucination by quoting a sentence fragment, is probably yet another example of nationalistic emotional paranoia in action.

Here is the full sentence:
Such strange moods occur in nations periodicaly and often result in completely unnecessary catastrophic wars. ie. ww1, ww2, vietnam.

Although no where in my post did I 'blame' the US for these three wars, if I thought the blame game was the way to figure out the maddness we call warfare, I would probably give the US government a decent portion in Vietnam. As would and have many people. Nations other than the US showing strong signs of group mood-psychosis (such as mass murder and delusional strategies-similar to the US now) kicked off ww1 and ww2. Despite this Wilsonian attitudes and the oil embargo on Japan show as often is the case, that wars rarely have completely innocent and completely unreasonable antagonists.

www.warismurder.com

We wanted war.

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's be absolutely clear about this: After the attacks, almost every American I talked to wanted war. We didn't want to lash out at innocent people, though. (Some people did, but I didn't meet many people with that attitude.)

We expected nothing less than to tear apart the people involved with the attacks. We also wanted the destruction of any government who aided or abetted those guys.

We demanded the downfall of the Taliban. We demanded the destruction of Al Queda. Many of us are actually annoyed that Bush isn't listening to us, and is dicking around with Saddam rather than finishing the job.

There are other governments who the American population knows full well have abetted Al Queda, too. (Btw, Iraq isn't one of them.) Some people are already calling for their invasion. Others will, too, unless they sever the connection with Al Queda quickly.

Re:We wanted war.

[ites]

You're referring to Saudi Arabia, I suppose. It's worth noting that the Taliban and Al Quaida were trained and armed (up to soon before Sept. 11) by the US government itself. The same government that keeps the Al Saud family in power because it guarantees the flow of oil.
No-one said it was possible to reform a political system overnight, especially when corruption is so completely part of global politics. Saying that a popular reaction to Sept.11th shows that fast-cycle democracy is no good is meaningless, since it is clear that the entire current terrorism cycle was entirely caused by cronyist oil politics in the first place.

where is max?

[certron]

Is it just me or does this remind anyone of Max Headroom, where elections are held by TV ratings?

I suppose it might be more like voting with your cell phone, but still, there seem to be some similarities. Well, in my head, at least...

Never happen for political reasons

[mrmcwn]

The old political boys in both Canada and the US would legislate the possibility of this out the window in North America. My impression is that things move so fast in Korea that they couldn't block something like this in government. When you have to build a network big enough to cover North America, the politicians have a bit more time to respond. Geez, I sound like a conspiracy theorist. Sorry.

YOU ARE SO FIRED!

[YOU ARE SO FIRED!]

I've been watching you ever since you turned me down. It's obvious that your productivity has dropped dramatically since I asked you that... um... question. So basically, you're fired. Get the hell out of here.

RE: My experiences in Korea --racist lolita freak

[Anonymous Coward]

RE: My experiences in Korea by Ryu2 (89645).

Damn, this guy is a fucking racist. A stupid American who gives otherwise decent Americans a bad name. An idiotic bastard who would go around hunting for underpriviledged underaged girls for cheap sex. Man, you lolita-freak, you should be jailed and dick cut off.

Here are reasons why:
1. Anyone who is well-travelled and educated knows that the world is more than just North America and Europe. There is no superior culture, but different ways of living.

2. Lolita freak, I hope you use deodorant when you ever visit Korea or Asia. You think Asians stink, but Asians in general told me that Westerners (including Americans) smell like Cheese. Yes, Indians stink really bad too.

3. Kimchee might be fermented vegetable, but it's much healthier than your fermented milk. Koreans might eat dog and fermented cabbage, but most Americans are overweight chunkies. Never seen so many overweight people in my life as I have been in the USA.

4. You talk of fast driving Koreans. Yes, I have noticed that too. BUT at least Korean kids don't go to school with guns in their pockets. Remember Columbine?

5. Yes, if I ever see you in person, I will use my swordmanship to cut your oversized dick that will only hurt underaged girls cervix. :D

Actually

[_avs_007]

A group here did useability testing of interfaces on cell phones. We found one of the primary reasons why the asian countries are leading the way, is for exactly the opposite of what you said...

Lets say, somebody wants to send a text message saying "I love you"...

With Chinese/HanJa/Kanji characters, that can be said with only two characters. Even one could suffice.

In english? Thats 10 characters you need to enter.

Lets say you want to say, "Lets go meet at the beach"

Again, in Chinese/HanJa/Kanji, that can be accomplished with 2 or 3 characters. In english? 25 characters.

This is one of the main reasons why the "clunky" interface is acceptable in asian countries, but not in the US.

Besides, I've actually typed on a Chinese/HanJa/Kanji keyboard before, its actually not too bad. There is usually a setting for romanized, where you type phonetically, and it comes up with a list of characters that make that sound. The better programs will even examine multiple words/syllabals, and figure out the correct word based on context, etc. Its not like you have a keyboard with 50,000 keys on it.

cell phones

[_avs_007]

I don't think it was very haphazard at all. I think with most countries that have less "Urban sprawl" as compared to the US, wireless just makes since. One of my friends who lives in Kazakstan (sp?), said that wireless has high penetration there as well, but for different reasons. Because its easier/cheaper to set up cell towers than to run cables into every hut in the village. I would think Korea is the same. Its mostly a flat country with not many mountainous areas. I mean the highest mountain there is like only 6,000 ft high, at it isn't even in the peninsula, but on Cheju island. (if memory serves)... So I think cell towers make even more sense...

Re:cell phones

[MS]

I live in the Dolomites (that's part the Italian Alps), and I assure you, that each mountain peak (~ 10,000 ft high) is covered by a cell. If you go climbing or hiking, you are advised to carry your cell-phone with you - one never knows.

Finland is not densely populated, but they have excellent cell-coverage an broadband too.

3 years ago I was on holiday in Maitius (that's an island in the Indian Ocean, near South Africa), and there's fill coverage for GSM too.

The Philippines are maybe number one in sending SMS over GSM-phones.

It's really only the USA, which is behind in adoption of GSM-phones and maybe broadband Internet.

ms

Re:cell phones

[MS]

Sorry, that should read "Mauritius", not "Maitius" - I hit the submit-button instead of preview.

Re:cell phones

[enkidu]

Uhm, "mostly flat country"? You haven't been there have you? Yes, the western and southern EDGES of the country are "flat" but the middle to eastern part is pretty rough terrain. The maximum heights aren't high because the area is small, but the terrain is incredibly rough. Heck, there were guerillas hiding out in some mountains 10 fucking years after the Korean War. To quote from the CIA World Book entry "Terrain: mostly hills and mountains; wide coastal plains in west and south". Or how about another source with a map and description:"Around 80% of the Korean Peninsula is covered by mountains while South Korea has a rugged and mountainous terrain... Only 15% of the land area is covered by plains, which are mostly located along the coast."

The reason its cheap to set up cells is simple population density. Also makes it cheap to run Broadband to every house in the country. AFAIK, South Korea put down fiber optic (I think 6 or 10 fibers) alongside every single power line over the last 10 years (new and retrofit). The power company then leases out those lines in a relatively non-discriminatory manner. Makes for a very cost effective high speed network.

EnkiduEOT

elaborate?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am intrigued by your post. Please post me a URL that will direct me to such information.

Campaign spam?

[geekee]

Great. So now I get to look forward to campaign pop-up ads and spam. What a great idea.

Raised $1-billion?

[upper]

Largely through Internet-based campaign
groups, Mr. Roh raised the equivalent of about $1-billion from more
than 180,000 individual donors

A billion dollars is way to much. Since the article is from a Canadian paper, presumably it's in Canadian dollars, equivalent to about $630M US. For the last US presidential election, Bush raised about $90M US and Gore a little less than $50M US. Korea is a much smaller country and a candidate like Roh who uses the net for most voter contact doesn't need as much money as one who buys TV ads. What's more, the average contribution per donor comes out to $5500 CA or $3500 US, which is more than 10 times the average contribution in the US.

I suspect the reporter slipped a digit or two.

Re:My experiences in Korea

[Eric Lai]

Hahah, nice cut-and-paste of your Russia/India tales.

For anyone interested, I was in South Korea both in 2001 and 2002. I found Seoul to be remarkably clean--much more so than Taiwan. Out of Japan, China, Taiwan, and South Korea, the latter felt the MOST like the US to me.

I didn't notice any funky smells.

I didn't have a problem with Kimchee.

I didn't bang any 16-year-olds.

But then, I'm not a troll.

What I found most interesting was the way that South Koreans, for the most part, don't seem very worried about North Korea. I asked some people what they thought about the recent warning shots that the South had had to lob towards a Northern ship, and they said something to the effect of, "Oh, it happens all the time--nothing to get too worried about." They find it interesting that the US is so concerned about North Korea, in fact. Of course, this was a couple months ago.

I mainly hung out with late-twenty-somethings, the sort that were more likely to vote for the President of Hyundai (yes, he ran for presidency). Nowhere did I ever feel unwelcome by the Korean people--as an American, I was well-received.

I will be visiting more often in the future. Well, as long as war doesn't break out over there, 'natch.

Back in the good old days

[voodoo1man]

they really had keyboards with 50,000 keys on them!

Re:Back in the good old days

[_avs_007]

That thing only has 3816 keys on it :p

But, jeeeeeez, that thing should come with a tylenol dispenser built into it. I get a migraine just thinking about using that thing....

re: typing chinese

[Anonymous Coward]

As a non-native to Chinese, I prefer to type
it phonetically, using either mopobofo or pinyin
(both phonetic alphabets, the latter using
Roman letters, so it can be done easily using
the keyboard).

NJStar at least has adaptive character choice,
so after you've typed "wo bu shi" several times,
those characters are the first ones on the lists
suggested (after each syllable you have to pick
which homophonic character you really mean).

Re:My experiences in Korea

[Anonymous Coward]

Have u really been to korea..?
Do u really mean 20000 won($18US)..?
Do u know what u can do with 20000 won in korea..?
Probably u can go for a movie with one of your friends if u have one but nothing more than that.
Are u saying u are really attractive so that a woman can't really resist against your charm..?

Even though what u are saying was true, that's
nothing to advertise if u have brain.
Man, 16 years old ...u sould be ashamed of youself
if u still want yourself considered as a human being.

Sorry, I blocked Korea. 211.*.*.*

[Anonymous Coward]

Korea

What .kr means to me - SPAM

[Anonymous Coward]

As the blacklist says
'korea does not seem to care about spam'

Re:My experiences in Korea

[Anonymous Coward]

Huge double standard here. I'm sure you wouldn't talk about a certain ethnic group's stereotypical liking for watermelon, would you?

that's sebulsik

[kjoonlee]

Syllable-initial consonants to the right, syllable-final consonants and consonant clusters to the left. All possible consonant clusters in Modern Korean are accesible by using the shift key. (Some are even available without using the shift key.)

Harder to acquire the knack at first, but it pays off.

more on sebulsik

[kjoonlee]

(While consonant clusters can occur in a syllable-final position, they can't occur in a syllable-initial position.)

Syllable initial "double consonant letters" are entered by typing the same key twice. The "o" to the lower right corner and the "oo" to the upper right are to be used in compound vowels. (As part of sounds like "wa" or "wen".)

Due to the tri-segmented-layout (that's what sebulsik means, literally. Three Segment Type. Guess what doobulsik means.), typing in sebulsik Korean is very rhthmic. Left mid right, left right, left mid right, space, and so on.

IMHO Koreans should all use sebulsik and be proud of it's typing layout as well as it's writing system.. : )

Re:Take a Ride on the Super Democratization Highwa

[Anonymous Coward]

First rule of Slashdot posting: don't make your post too clever for the simple moderator to understand.

actually

[_avs_007]

I have been to s. korea numerous times. The last several times, I have even had the displeasure of driving there. I have only driven to Pusan from Seoul twice, but I have been taken around the southern peninsula. Granted, I may have been sleeping for much of that trip, but I do remember visiting many villages on the way.

2 points:

1.) My definition of flat is not literal. I mean flat as in compared to over here, where we have several 14,000 ft mountains nearby, with glaciors year round. Did I mention the tallest mountain in S. Korea is Hallasan ? Its only 5850 ft high, and not even on the peninsula. I don't care how many rolling hills you have, that is still "flat" in my book. The coast range here is like 2 to 4 thousand feet high, and I don't consider that mountainous. The rockies, thats mountainous.

2.) When I said the country was mostly flat, I was also referring to where the majority of the population was.

also

[_avs_007]

Looking at that map:

Seoul is in the "flat" part on the top of the country, and Pusan, in the "flat" part on the bottom. When I drove from Seoul to Pusan, I remember the toll highway being flat, so I"m guessing it cut through the mountain in a diagonal fashion. I remember there being two tunnels as well. We then drove west and then north. That could also help explain why from my memory I saw the country being more flat then it is. Others are listed in my other post.

namsan

[_avs_007]

Unless there was too much smog when I was there...

From the top of Namsan you can see almost the entire city. Same can be said when I was at the viewing deck of the 63 tower.

I suppose you are right tho. I'm remembering driving down the olympic highway, and there being a steep cliff on one side of the highway. I guess I spent too much time in the subway to realize the hills. All the smog must have hidden the hills. Kinda like in LA. During heavy smog days, (which is like 70% of the time), you can't see the San Gabriel mountains even if you were practically at its base.....

I know what you mean about the driving. Only reason I was driving was because my cousin thought it would be "funny". (And I thought LA traffic was bad)... I suppose I was too busy trying to control my natural tendency for road rage, to take in the landscape :)

I think I'll be going there this spring anyways, so I'll pay closer attention this time ;)

PS: When I flew to cheju with my uncle I could've sworn korea was flatter then it was. I guess I just had a crappy view out the window.

Re:namsan

[enkidu]

Don't sweat it. Heck, you aren't a geographic surveyor, are you? Yeah, and I would NEVER EVER drive in Korea, except perhaps on cheju island, or for a jaunt to the country. L.A.? Manhattan? Hah! I laugh at their wimpy traffic. Seoul traffic puts hair on a man's chest (and leaves him bald because he's torn all of his head hair out). Subways (during non-rush hours) aren't bad though.

And yes, the smog is pretty bad. In fact, I think the air is better in the subways than above ground in Seoul.

Cheers. EnkiduEOT