Hong’s Cave

I heard about this book on NPR and I thought it would be interesting. The subject was interesting, but the book read like a technical paper, not for a general public: mostly about numbers and repetitive themes and arguments.

I do hope for a better pension system, but I am not sure her book was able to convince me of her Guarantied Retirement Account plan.

I enjoyed reading it. I can see why some might say he and his book represent “bears”, but I think Robert Shiller is more about rationality and why the public’s perception of a possible infinite growth is just a dream.

I think this second edition came out in 2005, some time before all the talk about housing bubble bursting, but his analysis would correctly note the inevitable fall of the housing market.

I liked the fact that the historic prices used by him was adjusted to the consumer price index. I think this is really important for the true analysis of value growth (or shrinkage). You just can’t compare the face currency values in the historical senses.

Unfortunately I don’t think this book will change that much. We are, after all, irrational being (only being able to be rational for a short period of time).

This is the conclusion of the parallel stories of Peter Wiggin and Bean (a.k.a. Julian Delphiki) from Orson Scott Card, the author of Ender’s Game.

I didn’t think it was that good. As I said before, Mr. Card’s Hegemon series have this critical problem of making these kids to be so smart that his writings don’t have any real chance of coming close to it. I mean, his writings just fails those Ender’s Jeesh geniuses.

Anyway, I just wanted to finish the series so that I would have a closure to the series.

I wanted to try some short scifi short stories, and found this on Amazon.com. It had a pretty good user rating, so I decided to try it.

This is an anthology series from a magazine, “Fantasy and Sicence Fiction”. I never cared too much for the fantasy genre. And maybe that’s the reason, but I only found a few of the stories interesting. Maybe I should stick with someone I know…

[2008-01-04]

Getting Dressed from Hong Cho on Vimeo.

[2008-01-03]

Yerim in the Morning from Hong Cho on Vimeo.

[Well, I guess I am not going to work on this for a while... So, I am just going to post my unfinished draft. - Hong.]

o. “Go Your Own Way” by Cool Age [쿨에이지]

First album. They are An JeongHun [안정훈] (guitar, vocal), Jeon HongJun [전홍준] (bass, vocal) and Shin NanDa [신난다] (drums, vocal).

Punk rock. Not bad.

o. “Radio Dayz” by E Z Hyoung / Lee Ji Hyung [이지형]

First solo album. I think he used to be with an indie band Weeper [위퍼]. Unlike some of the recent solo projects, he did not play everything (although he wrote all the songs). Unless you are doing all electronica work, I think it really helps to have creative collaboration to broaden and enrich the music.

Pop/rock. Not bad.

o. “Starbow” by Starbow [스타보우]

First album. They are Jeong JongHyeok [정종혁] (vocal, keyboards), Kim DaeU [김대우] (guitar), Kim YeongSeok [김영석] (bass) and Yun YeongJu [윤영주] (drums).

Rock (Brit-ish, retro-ish). Actually a bit difficult to define the genre. Not bad.

o. “HaengBok [행복]“ by Hachi & TJ [하찌와 TJ]

First album together. Hachi [하찌] (a.k.a. HIROHUMI Kasuga [春日 博文]) is a Japanese musician/producer (he is kind of old, in his late 50s) who got interested in Korea in the 80s. TJ [티제이] (a.k.a. Cho TaeJun [조태준]) is a Korean in his 20s. Hachi wrote most of the music and played a lot of the instruments. The singing is done by TJ. He also played some instruments and wrote a couple of the songs. An interesting combination.

Acoustic/folk. Somewhat reminded me of the 80s J-POP… Or it could have been my imagination because of Hachi, but still TJ’s style also seems to fit that style.

o. “Little Fanfare” by Cabinet Singalongs [캐비넷 싱얼롱스]

First album. They are Cha JiEun [차지은] (a.k.a. PiMang [피망] (accordion, vocal), Kim MokIn [김목인] (a.k.a. Wood [우드]) (acoustic guitar, vocal, piano) and Lee DongRyeol [이동렬] (a.k.a. HaengRyeol [행렬]) (trumpet, ukulele, vocal).

Folk. Okay.

o. “Fight Against the World” by Schizo [스키조]

Second album. They are Hur Jae Hun [허재훈] (vocal), Ju Sung Min [주성민] (guitar, programming), Lee Hae Lim [이해림] (bass), Bok Nam Kyu [복남규] (drums) and Hayashi Hidehiro (sampling).

Industrial. Okay.

o. “Cloud Cuckoo Land” by Cloud Cuckoo Land [클라우드쿠쿠랜드]

First album. They are Choi JongHun [최종훈] (vocal, guitar), Shim HyeonSeok [심현석] (guitar), Kim JiHun [김지훈] (bass) and Kim ChangHyeon [김창현] (drums).

Modern rock. Okay

o. “GgumEui IlBu [꿈의 일부]“ by JaeJuSoNyeon [재주소년]

Third album. They are Park GyeongHwan [박경환] (a.k.a. afternoon) (vocal, guitar) and Yu SangBong [유상봉] (a.k.a. sabo) (guitar, vocal).

Folk/pop/rock. Okay.

o. “Seba” by Seba [세바]

First album. They are Kim Moo Gwon [김무권] (violin), Kim Yeong Hyun [김영헌] (bass), Han Jeung Hee [한정희] (piano), Choi Jung Wook [최정욱] (cello), Heo Hyeon Ju [허현주] (flute), Hahn Woong Won [한웅원] (drums, percussions) and Ma DoWon [마도원] (composition, arrangement, directing).

Jazz, I think. Okay.

o. “Say Hello to Every Summer” by Elena [엘레나]

First album. Her name seems to be Jeong WuMin [정우민] (a bit boy-ish name :p). The album was had a great participation by Espionne (a.k.a. DJ Soulscape, Park MinJun [박민준]). It seems she used to play keyboards for many indie bands (Cosmos, Julia Hart, etc.).

Pop. Okay.

An interesting read on globalization although I don’t quite agree with the choice of the word “flat” with “the world” (what he wants to say, probably, is “The hierarchies in the world is getting flatter”).

I did agree with most of what Mr. Friedman said. Indeed, the recent developments and changes in the technologies and international political atmosphere have been improving the efficiencies in the economical and social structures of the world, affecting almost everyone in the world.

Of course, as the author admits, these changes are not all positive (although he is trying to stress that aspects). Some use these developments for positive changes (e.g., bringing some third world countries living standards up) where as others use them for destructive purposes (e.g., efficient global recruiting and organization for terrorists).

Maybe it was a subject outside this book, but he did not go further into how to possibly solve these issues after he identified them and what might be the difference (e.g., having a hope for a better future or not). So, although the book was indeed an interesting history lesson in the recent decades, I don’t think it would be enough to give a guidance to the future leaders for how to bring everyone into the constructive benefits of the recent changes.

But still, I thought it was a very good read.

This was a very interesting book. I have just a passing interest in the modern physics and its attempts to unify the forces and the particles. My last physics book was The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene, so I assumed that the String Theory (or various String Theories as it turns out) was it and it had been “proven” to be the only (?) viable theory in the contemporary physics scene.

Well, this book by Lee Smolin definitely put a huge doubt in that assumption. Although I don’t have the facility to independently verify all his claims, but he makes very convincing arguments against the String Theories as the unifying theory and its many unresolved issues (one of which is it has not been able to predict any new and unique experimental results). What came clear to me from Mr. Smolin (who was at one time a String Theory proponent) is that the String Theories have so many adjustable variables that they can be adjusted to fit any experimental results without uniquely predicting a new phenomenon (they haven’t been able to for the past 25 years or so).

The book is not only about the science. It is also about the sociological issues in the physics community. Mr. Smolin describes it as a society who is very susceptible to fashion, exclusive, hierarchical, and authoritative (mostly due to how the funding works). My first thought after reading his description was it really sounds like a religious organization. Mr. Smolin argues that the sociological atmosphere in the physics community (for the past 25 years or so) has made most of the brightest minds in physics to follow fads in the String Theories and has made exploration of other options very slow.

Anyway, I recommend this book to anyone who has interests in modern physics.

Well, it was completely a surprise!

There once was this ramen-ya in San Jose called Do-Henkotsu. What made this place unique among a dozen or so ramen-ya in the area was its regional color and the owner’s (whose name I never got to know) pride in it.

The ramen itself was pretty good, maybe not the best, but different from most of the Kanto-style ones. The shop also displayed quite a few posters and offered magazines about Tokushima, a town in Shikoku where the owner is from (it’s where I learned about “Awa Odori”, a local festival whose dance I recognized immediately while watching “Kaze no Haruka”).

But the best part about the restaurant was the “itame”, stir-fry rice dishes. I still remember first trying the “nira itame” (stir-fry with leek, vegetables and pork over rice), then “kimchi buta itame” (stir-fry with kimchi, vegetables and pork over rice), and then finding out that “kimchi don” was the same as “kimchi buta itame”, but cheaper! :p Man, I really really loved “kimchi don”.

Then it closed, in early 2007 and is replaced by another (more generic) ramen-ya, Kahoo in March 2007. This place serves pretty standard ramen with their own “spicy” versions.

I’ve seen the chef of the new restaurant before. He used to help out the Do-Henkotsu’s owner. I think I first saw him late last fall. I was thinking he must be helping out and was secretly hoping that this new guy might be a new “franchiser”…

But alas, he was just learning the ropes, and the transition plan must have been going on for quite some time. I am just sad that I didn’t have a chance to say thank you and goodbye.

So, thanks for all the kimchi-don and other itame I enjoyed. If you ever plan to get out of a retirement, again, let me know.