What’s up with orphans in Korean dramas?

I am new to this field, but have just noticed a curious thing. All of the Korean dramas I have been watching seemingly had or have developed plots, that feature orphans as main characters … o.O

I had no bias other than high viewership ratings, but that should not be the reason for such skewed results … maybe orphans just make for a good/dramatic plot … your theories are very welcome. 😉

My “random” sampe:

Update:

Oh My ZSH

I was using ZSH for quite a while now instead of Bash. But thanks to Ryan Bates’ screencast about Oh My ZSH I finally came around to properly configure it and use it to its full potential.

I immediately created my own theme and was able to extract custom plugins out of my previous configuration. One of them might even end up in a pull request. 🙂 I used the custom plugins mechanism to split up and spread my configurations across all of my machines. So now I have a consistent set of configurations and I can activate them individually according to each machine’s purpose (i.e. no need for KDE specific settings on a server 😉 ).

A nice productivity and consistency boost. 😀

War Surgery

There is a documentary on war surgery (be warned: it’s quite graphic) that was brought to my attention. It was produced by the the medical division of the International Committee of the Red Cross and shows general principles of war surgery covering things like wound debridement, lower limb amputations, skin grafting of injuries from land mines and high velocity impacts.

I’ve just come around to watch it and well … it’s not easy to stomach … 😐 Though the documentary seems quite old and not of good audio-visual quality it’s still quite “graphic”. There are basically two levels you have to deal with in comprehending what you are seeing.

The first one is that war is nasty. And it produces some seriously disturbing imagery that stays even when the actual combat action is over … considering mines there, doesn’t even need to be “combat action” any where to result in casualties. People wounded under such circumstances don’t really get medical attention immediately and if they do, it’s most likely inadequate. So when they reach a adequately equipped facility their wounds will be in quite a bad state. But one thing that you begin to realize and that makes your stomach cringe is the realization, that in contrast to (fire, vehicle, etc.) accidents that may produce similarly graphic injuries war injuries are inflicted deliberately! :/

The second thing is the reality of surgery. This might come as a surprise to some of you, but surgeries – especially on non-healthy tissue – look quite nasty in themselves. Some get easily upset from blood or scars on the surface, but the world that is underneath your skin is quite squirmy (if that’s the right word 😉 ). It’s gory, it’s gooey and you might realize that though the person being operated on is unconscious he is quite “alive” inside … and then there is the surgeon cutting, clamping, “soldering” (i forgot the medical term), sewing, etc. … and they are not very gentle at doing that … 😐

So be warned, this is “starker Tobak” as Germans would say. 😉

Google hat angefangen Andoid 4 für Nexus S auszurollen

Vor einigen Wochen kam noch die Meldungen, dass Google Mitarbeiter bereits Vorversionen von Android 4.0 für ihre Nexus S bekommen.

Nun scheint Google (zumindest in den USA) Updates auf Android 4 für alle OTA zu verteilen. Ich freu mich schon 😀

Update:

Ich habe gerade meine Updatebenachrichtigung bekommen … mal sehen 🙂

Lawrence Lessig interviews Jack Abramoff on corruption in Washington

It seems there was a public interview of Jack Abramoff by Lawrence Lessig under the banner of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at HLS, of which Lessig is the director.

There are two nice write-ups with pictures and quotes. There is also a video of the interview. 🙂

Internet Finds: Mijn moskee is top

“Mijn moskee is top” is a funny (as in unfamiliar 😉 ) show broadcast by the NPO where they visit mosques around the Netherlands and try to give an insight into the their respective communities and let them explain why they think their mosque is “top”. 🙂

The nice thing is, you can catch old episodes on Uitzending Gemist (the NPO’s web portal for already broadcast programs). 😀 The downside is, to do so, they expect you to have Silverlight (really bad 🙁 ), but also offer Flash as an alternative (less bad, but still).

Repetitive Strain Injury

Recently Charlene Tessier blogged about RSI and how to counter it which I happened to pick up on Planet Ubuntu.

It is an interesting read … especially for those who spend extensive amounts of time sitting in front of a computer. There are technical solutions to the problem (yes, we love them 😉 ). But in the end you should be making a conscious decision to develop habits that naturally counteract the symptoms and effects of RSI. Well … if you want to “live long and prosper” that is 😉

Internet Finds: Radio silence puts subs on nuclear alert

If you are the captain of a British nuclear submarine, how do you find out if your home country is still there?

Secret orders to the captains say that these deadly instructions are to be opened and acted upon only if the submarine cannot tune in to Radio 4’s Today programme for a given number of consecutive days. That is a reliable sign that Britain has been hit by a nuclear attack.

and then what?

Reports suggest that the Prime Minister’s letter, written just days after he won the 1997 election, offers the submarines four options: to put the vessels under US command, to make their way to Australia, to launch a nuclear strike against the enemy or to use their own judgement.

and this is what the foreign secretary has to say:

“Perhaps it’s a not so subtle bid by the BBC to increase the licence fee to pay the electricity bill.”

m(

Found on

Manchester Evening News: Radio silence puts subs on nuclear alert