In their decision to abandon reunification, North Korea is eliminating all symbols that represented a unified Korean peninsula. I found that some of these logos, including Air Koryo’s, were actually quite beautiful. Their national air carrier logo featured a flying crane with wings shaped like the Korean Peninsula. To learn more, check out the following article from NK News.
North Korea’s national carrier Air Koryo has changed its logo to comply with a new state policy opposing unification with South Korea, according to NK News analysis. The former logo featured a flying crane with an outstretched wing in the loose shape of the Korean Peninsula. But the peninsula shape has now been replaced with a more tapered wing with stylized horizontal stripes.
The presence of pet dogs and strollers for small dogs is highly noticeable in South Korea, including where I live. A recent article from Korea JoongAng Daily suggests that the increase in dog strollers might also be due to changes in policies at shops and venues, which now require dogs to be in strollers for entry.
In Korea, more venues require pets to be kept in carriers or strollers when indoors. This trend has led to a rise in dog strollers as a necessity for pet owners who wish to bring their furry companions along when they go out. […] The Hyundai Seoul department store in Yeouido also offers dog stroller rentals. The store allows pets in strollers or carriers in most areas, except for food sections. Hyundai Department Store has adopted similar policies across its branches, catering to pet owners by permitting indoor access for pets in designated strollers or bags.
You should check out this informative Vox video that discusses why electric cars require artificial sound. The video provides captivating insights into the technology behind sound production in electric cars, known as “Acoustic Vehicle Alerting Systems,” and the creative designers who develop distinctive sounds that meet specific criteria.
In a recent episode of the BBC podcast “Thinking Allowed,” Grazia Ting Deng shares fascinating research on the spread of Chinese-owned coffee bars in Italy. As a former Bologna resident, I too was initially surprised by the high number of bars managed by Chinese or Chinese-Italian people. These bars served some of the best and most reasonably priced coffees, cappuccinos (complete with coffee art!), and breakfast pastries. The only aspect I didn’t like was that their cafes were often selling lottery tickets and having gambling machines in the back.
Grazia Ting Deng, Lecturer at Brandeis University’s Department of Anthropology, explores the paradox of “Chinese espresso". The coffee bar is a cornerstone of Italian urban life, with city residents sipping espresso at more than 100,000 of these local businesses throughout the country. So why is espresso in Italy increasingly prepared by Chinese baristas in Chinese-managed coffee bars? Deng investigates the rapid spread of Chinese-owned coffee bars since the Great Recession of 2008 and draws on her extensive ethnographic research in Bologna. She finds that longtime residents have come, sometimes resentfully, to regard Chinese expresso as a new normal and immigrants have assumed traditional roles, even as they are regarded as racial others.
Here is a noteworthy product announcement from Cloudflare. To combat the increase of AI-related web crawlers, the company is introducing tools to assist companies in managing and monetizing their website data. According to their blog post, this also tackles the issue of AI services decreasing website traffic by users opting for LLM services instead of visiting websites.
The rise of AI Large Language Models (LLMs) and other generative tools created a murkier third category. Unlike malicious bots, the crawlers associated with these platforms are not actively trying to knock your site offline or to get in the way of your customers. They are not trying to steal sensitive data; they just want to scan what is already public on your site.
However, unlike helpful bots, these AI-related crawlers do not necessarily drive traffic to your site. AI Data Scraper bots scan the content on your site to train new LLMs. Your material is then put into a kind of blender, mixed up with other content, and used to answer questions from users without attribution or the need for users to visit your site. Another type of crawler, AI Search Crawler bots, scan your content and attempt to cite it when responding to a user’s search. The downside is that those users might just stay inside of that interface, rather than visit your site, because an answer is assembled on the page in front of them.
See also this news article on The Register.
While reading The Korean Herald at my local library, I came across a column by Robert J. Fouser about the “soundscape of Korean cities”. It’s possible that he’s correct about cities like Seoul being quieter due to reduced noise from cars, public transportation, and people. However, I can certainly confirm that there are other noise disturbances, such as the music coming from street shops and the sounds of people’s digital devices (notifications, audio from videos). Here’s an excerpt from the article:
The sounds of the digital revolution are everywhere, most noticeable in the beeps of notifications. Sometimes a beep nearby causes people to check their phones. And the ubiquitous KakaoTalk sounds are now embedded in the soundscape of Korean cities. By law, cameras on Korean mobile phones are required to produce a shutter click, which creates a burst of clicks when many people take pictures of the same thing.
It seems to me that the acceptance of noises greatly varies depending on the place. My local library is one of those places that is incredibly quiet and serene. There’s even a sign reminding people to be mindful of their noise levels when using the keyboard and mouse.
Tim Harford released another outstanding episode in his “Cautionary Tale” podcast series. The episode is called “Flying Too High: AI and AirFrance Flight 447” and tells a a frightening tale of a fatal plane crash caused by pilot errors when the fly-by-wire system temporarily malfunctioned.
The episode presents interesting concepts, one of which is the de-skilling of pilots, causing them to make incorrect assessments and take wrong actions because of lack of experience of flying without the systems. The automation paradox is that as automation becomes more sophisticated and reduces the need for human intervention, human skills become even more critical for handling exceptional and often dangerous situations.
In my exploration of Heinrich Schliemann, a German archaeologist and businessman, I came across information about his involvement in funding the demolition of a medieval “Frankish tower” at the Acropolis of Athens. The transformation and adaptation of monuments under the prevailing zeitgeist is quite revealing. If you’re interested in the Acropolis changes, Dr. Rachel Kousser’s article on Khan Academy is worth a read.
Within and beyond the ancient world, the Parthenon had many lives. Rather than ignoring them, it is useful to acknowledge these lives as contributions to the building’s extraordinary continuing vitality. […] When contrasting its present-day state with the first photographs taken in the mid-nineteenth century, we can see how much has been intentionally removed: a Frankish tower by the entrance to the Acropolis, an Ottoman dome, mundane habitations. […] In its current iteration, the Acropolis has been returned to something resembling its pristine Classical condition […] This feels like a loss: a retardataire effort to reinstate a selective, approved version of the past and to erase the traces of a more difficult and complex history. As such it stands as an example, and perhaps also a warning, for our current historical moment.
An interesting “memory strategy” featured in this MIT Press Reader article draws inspiration from actors’ approaches to memorizing dialogue.
In describing how they remember their lines, actors are telling us an important truth about memory — deep understanding promotes long-lasting memories. […] Focusing on [the] visual, acoustic, and conceptual aspects […] correspond to shallow, moderate, and deep levels of processing, and the depth of processing that is devoted to an item or event affects its memorability. Memory is typically enhanced when we engage in deep processing that provides meaning for an item or event, rather than shallow processing. Given a list of common nouns to read, people recall more words on a surprise memory test if they previously attended to the meaning of each word than if they focused on each word’s font or sound.
The following video from “Le dessous des images” explores the popularity of cooking videos on platforms like TikTok. Those cooking videos offer a seductive experience with quick edits and a POV perspective. Furthermore, the video compares these new formats format by looking into the history of cooking shows on television. What crossed my mind was how those videos simplify the cooking process, making it seem easier for everyone. However, this approach also means that they omit many of the steps involved in cooking, especially in comparison to older educational cooking shows. One surprising example is the segment showcasing an old French show centred on rural cuisine, even showing the actual process of butchering a duck.