ROK Drop Open Thread – November 14, 2010

Tags: Open Thread, Open Threads

• Glans
  9:00 pm on November 13th, 2010 1

  I got the point of the cartoon, but I would have understood it better if I had known that BAH means basic allowance for housing and LES means leave and earning statement.

• ChickenHead
  9:08 pm on November 13th, 2010 2

  "Have you say here and by the way I put Tom on comment moderation to see if he tones down his trolling."

  For the record, I'm not big on moderation.

  Tom is a Korean nationalist followed by an Asian-centric with a dislike of America and Americans… and he frequently expresses this.

  The real fault here lies with those who take all of his comments with equal seriousness and importance and believe they all need responses.

  This shows some very thin-skinned behavior on the part of many responders… which frequently reinforces some of the complaints he has about whitey.

  Tom's thought-out comments filled with disagreeable, yet valid, points should be addressed. His hateful little one-liners that have no truth in them should be ignored instead of responded to with long posts telling him why he is wrong… which he obviously knows… as that was the point.

  Perhaps there should be more group encouragement to keep the conversations on-topic… and some pressure to discuss off-topic nationalism and racism and other isms in an "open thread" such as this.

  Anyway, I have something to say in an open thread but it is unrelated to this so it will be in the next post.

• kushibo
  9:16 pm on November 13th, 2010 3

  Tom is a Korean nationalist

  … who firmly believes that Korea will naturally and inevitably get sucked back into China's orbit and so they just shouldn't fight it? Really? A Korean nationalist?

  If you're a leftist nationalist in Korea, the only thing you hate nearly as much as American influence in Korea is Chinese influence in Korea. If you're a rightist nationalist, American influence is forgivable or even beneficial, while you loathe Chinese influence in Korea.

  Given that parts of his official bio are almost certainly falsified, I don't take his word that he's a Korean anything.

• Tom
  9:41 pm on November 13th, 2010 4

  Don't moderate me. I promise to behave better. I like America!

• archieb
  9:50 pm on November 13th, 2010 5

  Kushibo, everyone knows the Korean right favors US influence and the leftist Koreans favor Chinese influence. We all know it. Why are you trying to rationalize it away?

• Zilchy
  9:50 pm on November 13th, 2010 6

  Regardless of Tom's nationality and what card he likes to play at any given time, the bottom line is, he takes an antagonistic approach to a large portion of his postings. His valid points are masked/mixed in with anti-American, Anti-western rhetoric and this phenomena is consistant, regardless of whether or not he uses an emoticon to portray sarcasm or play time.

  Everyone who decides to weigh in on any particular topic should have equal right to do so. I also agree, moderating can be tricky and other than outright, flagrant political incorrectness, it should not be a standard. In my opinion, this site is very liberal and offers much freedom of speech. If a consistant distraction is enough to warrant moderation, then ultimately, GI Korea has the final say.

• ChickenHead
  9:57 pm on November 13th, 2010 7

  ChickenHead's Review of Samsung's Galaxy S Smartphone

  Korea's cell network is great. Korea's cellphone culture sucks.

  I have had one crippled piece of shit after another.

  I had one phone where there was no space on the virtual keyboard… meaning you had to go to the special character menu to get a space when typing a text message. I have had Bluetooth that didn't allow more than one item to be sent at a time… meaning the 300 pictures in memory were impossible to get off… unless you used Samsung's special software over USB… which hijacked the media player, installed a toolbar and, according to my firewall, made contact with an IP address in Hong Kong that is a known dump for a trojan… which, apparently, Samsung was unaware existed on their crappy install disk.

  I can go on and on about Korean phones obviously designed by deaf and blind old people who never used a phone.

  Further, I have always been irritated that Korean cellphones in third world countries were much better than the ones in Korea… a Filipino under a palm tree with no running water in his hut could have a touchscreen with a slide-out keyboard and a trackball while Korea was still offering flipfones with 1.3 megapixel cameras in a range of exciting new colors.

  I came to an uneasy truce with my last phone, a sharp little touchscreen that was considered high-end 13 months ago. The interface was actually usable, the Bluetooth wasn't crippled to the point of uselessness, and I could remove the compact flash card so I didn't need to install infected spyware to transfer pictures.

  Of course I was annoyed that the same model in America also had wifi and an FM transmitter to play MP3s on the car stereo… but it was a usable phone with a good camera.

  Last week, getting into a taxi with a long jacket shattered the screen between the door and seat. At 80,000 to fix, I decided it was time to get a full smartphone… wifi, GPS, apps, etc.

  I'm not much of an early adopter for overpriced, first generation electronics… but the Galaxy S seemed to do what I need for now. Sure, no-glasses 3D touchscreens will be out in 6 months but I can live with what the Galaxy S does for a year or two.

  The interface is good, it has lots of cool navigation and mapping software, I can look at the Internet on my wifi or use the 3G network if I am not near a hotspot. The camera is good and the augmented reality software is mindblowing… meaning I can go to a rooftop, hold the camera up over the city and using image recognition, GPS, compass and internal motion sensors, it will give me a text overlay of apartment and property prices as I move the screen around. I can also do Google searches by speaking to it… and it is almost never wrong. I set up a http server with some freeware and shared all my movies, music and security camera feeds which I can access right on the phone from anywhere. Personal cloud computing is here.

  So I love what this phone can do!

  But I hate this phone.

  First, the gravity sensor is off by several degrees… incorrectly calibrated from the factory… which screws up a lot of stuff. This is a well-known issue on the Internet… yet Samsung keeps churning them out all screwed up… as if the factory floor is unlevel and they don't know what to do about it. Further, there is a terrible lag and jumpiness whenever these sensors are used… which isn't the case with iPhones or even some other Samsung smartphons I have seen. Many people blame software and claim there is an update that partially fixes this… although my friend's Galaxy S doesn't seem to have this problem.

  But that isn't the REAL problem.

  The real problem is that the phone is unusable. I have had it for 4 nights and every morning when I wake up, the thing has crashed. As an alarm, it is untrustable and as a phone, it has to be checked frequently because at crashes throughout the day. And there seems to be no reason. No software is running and I have even killed all background processes… along with lots of other tweaks to see if I can get it not to crash for a couple of hours.

  Further, it freezes up a lot… not when doing any high-power processing… but when doing things like surfing the internet, watching a movie, arranging the desktop icons, updating phone contacts.

  So, needless to say, I unhappy.

  Monday, I will exchange this phone for a replacement in case I somehow just got a lemon. If the new phone has the same issues, I will make it my hobby to inform the public about Samsung phones…

  …and, then, I will probably wind up getting an iPhone… which is a big step for me because I LOATH Apple and their corporate-nanny culture of control.

  But, I have the smartphone bug now… and, while the hardware is amazingly advance yet the operating systems are amazingly crippling, I can still bend the phones into doing my will if they will just STAY-THE-FUNK-ON and not lock up.

  Stay tuned.

  Anybody else have a smartphone story?

• kushibo
  10:04 pm on November 13th, 2010 8

  archieb wrote:

  Kushibo, everyone knows the Korean right favors US influence and the leftist Koreans favor Chinese influence. We all know it. Why are you trying to rationalize it away?

  Huh? We all know it? Hardly. Korean nationalism is adamant that there should be no foreign influence in Korea. It's certainly not about replacing one hegemonic power with another. Even the North Koreans seriously downplay how much influence China has in their country.

  The most favorable thing a leftist nationalist might say about Chinese influence in Korea is that it serves a necessary evil by providing a counter to American imperialism until that American hegemony is ousted, but that is a far cry from Tom proclaiming that Korea should spin off from the US and go and cleave itself to China, its natural and historic buddy.

  And most of those few who might have said that scrapped that idea two years ago when Chinese students ran amok in Seoul and gave South Koreans a taste of what a Chinese hegemony would look like.

• kushibo
  10:12 pm on November 13th, 2010 9

  ChickenHead wrote:

  Anybody else have a smartphone story?

  My LG cell phone in Korea is now five years old. I use it when I'm back in Korea and it serves me well. I can take a few pictures with it, it is great for actually making calls, and it's easy to send both Korean- and English-language text messages. I liked it so much that my first cell phone ever in the US, which I purchased four years ago a few months after I arrived in Hawaii, I made sure to purchased an LG.

  But at the same time, I find the phone services in South Korea a bit daunting to use. There are too many of them and, even if you speak Korean all right, they can be rather confusing. Maybe with a newer phone, things would be easier and clearer.

  Nonetheless, that experience has made me think that when I eventually get a new cell phone in Korea it will be an iPhone. Admittedly, I haven't tried the other phones, but I find the iPhone approach very, well, approachable. Everything is clear and the iTunes store acts as a filter that would, I feel, shelter me from the onslaught that is the Korean cell phone infosphere. This is completely biased, but a Samsung phone in Korea — even a smartphone — would seem to get me inundated all over again.

  Maybe I'm wrong about that, but that's why I would buy an iPhone in Korea as well.

• Partake
  12:53 am on November 14th, 2010 10

  I've had my IPhone here in Korea for about a year and I have very few complaints. I got the medium plan and added enough txts so I never run out. Costs about 80,000 Won a month. If I had to do it all over again I'd get the cheapest plan as I find I don't use the phone nearly enough.

  Oh, last month I did a bad job cleaning the screen with soap and water and ruined the back-light, I bought a new lcd screen from Amazon and replaced it myself for less than $30.

  When I go back to Hawaii I'm going to get a droid smartphone with Verizon. I've used Sprint, AT&T, and Voicestream in the past and they were all pathetic compared to Verizon. I don't necessarily think all the other smartphones like the droid have completely caught up with the Iphone, they're good enough for me.

• Chris In Dallas
  2:54 am on November 14th, 2010 11

  Tom is one of the strangest trolls Ive ever experienced. In any other instance where Ive seen a Tom-like character show up with no support/enabling network to draw on, they either quickly disappear or moderate their attitudes. Tom has had amazing staying power despite having no allies here. This makes me more inclined to believe the kushibo theory of Tom being some sort of agent provocateur meant to sow discord.

• Retired GI
  3:09 am on November 14th, 2010 12

  # 10, Well YEA! I like him/her/them. When TOM does have a point, it is a good one. Been happening more often too. You just have to understand the TOM will make your positive a negative if possible. That and TOM feeds on the frustration that many show. TOM is a "stand alone". Perhaps TOM is a group of "chinamen or chinawomen". Maybe a bored Korean with too much time, who enjoys messing around here. In any case, we give TOM much feedback.

  TOM is OBVIOUSLY interesting to the individuals here and therefore an asset.

• tokyojesusfist
  5:45 am on November 14th, 2010 13

  Retired GI, you are a homosexual child molester and murderer, and also a coward and a traitor to your country.

  Where is the evidence, you ask? Why, it’s in every post you have ever made here!

• Marcus Ambrose
  8:31 am on November 14th, 2010 14

  I submit that Tom is actually a U.S. lover/Korean hater that deliberately tries to make blood shoot out of your eyes and have you think/hate that a Korean would say all of those things.

• Leon LaPorte
  9:13 am on November 14th, 2010 15

  Tom almost never responded to short and simple (and pointed) questions. He knew he was going to get trapped.

• kushibo
  9:29 am on November 14th, 2010 16

  Marcus Ambrose wrote:

  I submit that Tom is actually a U.S. lover/Korean hater that deliberately tries to make blood shoot out of your eyes and have you think/hate that a Korean would say all of those things.

  Marcus, while I am not 100% certain he is Beijing agitprop, I am as convinced as I could be that he is not who his bio says he is, and what you're suggesting is a possibility I considered (and still consider from time to time).

  That said, his inadvertent falling back to Sinocentric positions that are anathema to nationalist Korean positions, plus my first-hand experience with rank-and-file PRC students involved in day-to-day agitprop, makes me believe that that is a very likely explanation, and probably the most likely.

• a listener
  9:42 am on November 14th, 2010 17

  Well if this thread is any inclination, love him or hate him, TOM certainly is a character that has left an impression on us all. So in his absence I will post these in rememberance

• Leon LaPorte
  10:04 am on November 14th, 2010 18

  "What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence." – Hitchens

• Zilchy
  10:19 am on November 14th, 2010 19

  What I find interesting, Tommy Boy has not yet responded. We could assume that He/she/it/them has already viewed this thread and has decided either not to respond or wait until a later time to weigh in.

  We know your watching and just itching to use another . Anything constructive to add to the conversation? Two Face, are you there? Hello?

• GI Korea
  1:51 pm on November 14th, 2010 20

  Yes Tom does make good points from time to time thus why I have not outright banned him. I am giving him a one week moderation warning and then he will be allowed to comment freely again.

• Retired GI
  2:08 pm on November 14th, 2010 21

  #13, Must be (that time of the month) again!

• Zilchy
  8:07 pm on November 14th, 2010 22

  ChickenHead States:

  Korea’s cell network is great. Korea’s cellphone culture sucks.

  I have had one crippled piece of shit after another.

  I had one phone where there was no space on the virtual keyboard… meaning you had to go to the special character menu to get a space when typing a text message.

  Korea's cell phone culture is indeed something to behold. Not so much from the technological point of view, but from a social perspective. The drone-like, catatonic state of public cell phone use in this country is scary.

  I have a 15th century, LG Cyon cell phone and the way the text messaging is set up, it takes 20 minutes to compose a 5 sentence message due to your following nightmare statement: "meaning you had to go to the special character menu to get a space when typing a text message." Exactly! Which is the main problem. There are so many useless options like emoticons, quote bubbles, shapes, pictures, arrows pointing in all directions, peoples faces etc. It's absurd.

  It's my humble opinion that texting should be limited to certain situations. Composing a 7 sentence text message when one could easily dial the fucking number and verbally communicate the information, and MORE, is just plain dumb. To me, this is a big problem and it's not just S. Korea. It's prevelant in many other countries and as human beings, we are losing our basic skill set of human to human interactions and technology is the culprit.

  The day is fast approaching when cyborgs will be commonplace. At the point when a female cyborg with a functioning vagina becomes affordable to most, the human race is all done!! The vag-borg will be unprecendented success!! Gauranfuckingteed!!

• tokyojesusfist
  9:20 pm on November 14th, 2010 23

  Retired GI, you are a homosexual child molester and murderer, and also a coward and a traitor to your country.

  Where is the evidence, you ask? Why, it’s in every post you have ever made here!

  .

• Retired GI
  9:58 pm on November 14th, 2010 24

  22, glad I could fill your empty day little girl

• Burma Bob
  2:26 am on November 15th, 2010 25

  Chickenhead, once you join the cult of Apple, your next child will be named "iChickenhead".

  I love the iPhone, but despise AT&T. For one, their overseas roaming charges are absolutely rapacious ($20/mb for data, $2+/min for phone). As I travel most of the year in China, the thing must be turned off as soon as I land. Don't want to take the chance of jailbreaking the phone and end up in some communications hellhole.

  In emergencies in China, I do fire it up for the location and mapping features, which are pretty amazing, and have gotten me un-lost right away. The Chinese apps are all pretty useful.

• ChickenHead
  3:15 am on November 15th, 2010 26

  I'm convinced.

  "glad I could fill your empty day little girl"

  Sounds very child molest-y to me.

  I guess the proof IS in the postings.

  Say, tokyojesusfist, where did you download the cool macro to make that same awesome post over and over?

  Oh, wait. I found it. It is in the members only download section of www . I'm A Petty Idiot With No Imagination . com.

  I guess nobody else here has a membership so we will have to rely on you to keep us up to date with the latest trends.

  Keep up the good work!

• Sonagi
  7:21 am on November 15th, 2010 27

  Say, tokyojesusfist, where did you download the cool macro to make that same awesome post over and over?

  Oh, wait. I found it. It is in the members only download section of www . I’m A Petty Idiot With No Imagination . com.

  Is that copyrighted or in the public domain?

• ChickenHead
  2:39 pm on November 15th, 2010 28

  "Is that copyrighted or in the public domain?"

  Of course it's copyrighted… but for you, Sonagi, I will grant a 5 year, royalty-free license for non-commercial use.

• tokyojesusfist
  7:22 pm on November 15th, 2010 29

  Retired GI, you are a homosexual child molester and murderer, and also a coward and a traitor to your country.

  Where is the evidence, you ask? Why, it’s in every post you have ever made here!

  ,

 

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