The Tyler Cowen

• Hilarious reading (and accompanying video) of a poorly written game review. Via The Awesomer. 

The Tyler Cowen

1. History of Wikipedia. Via Infoaesthetics.
2. Funny European stereotypes. No one knows how to stereotype quite like those Europeans.  Via The Browser
3. A profile of the man liberals love to hate. Via The Browser. 

The Cold

It was -16 C here in Seoul last weekend. That is really effing cold. However, after seeing the video below (via Gawker), I guess I can't complain.

The Tyler Cowen

1. Great graph illustrating sequelitis from Box Office Quant. Via Cool Infographics. 
2. Interactive infographic listing the various carbon footprints of everything from bananas to soccer matches to trans-pacific flights. Via Information is Beautiful.
3. Interesting article on the rise of China, understood as the rise not of an economic system or nation but of an ethnic group. I wonder what Benedict Anderson would say?
4. Three interesting pieces on North Korea, all from NKEconomyWatch. The first is an in-depth analysis of North Korea's refugees. The second is potentially terrifying news (now redacted) about possible Chinese troops being stationed in North Korea (WWIII here we come). And the third is a collection of brutal anecdotes surrounding the consolidation of Kim Jong un's power. 
5. Marginal Revolution's US fact of the day is depressing.

"American schools are more segregated by race and class today than they were on the day Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed, 43 years ago. The average white child in America attends a school that is 77 percent white, and where just 32 percent of the student body lives in poverty. The average black child attends a school that is 59 percent poor but only 29 percent white. The typical Latino kid is similarly segregated; his school is 57 percent poor and 27 percent white.

Overall, a third of all black and Latino children sit every day in classrooms that are 90 to 100 percent black and Latino."

Mythbusting Zombies

Rooster Teeth on how easy surviving a zombie apocalypse would be with guns. I've always thought the classic, shambling zombies would be a cinch to survive. They shamble for chrissakes! I've had a herd of 5 year olds chasing me before but managed to escape unharmed. Zombies, if anything should be easier. (Granted, the zippy zombies from 28 Days and Weeks later scare the ever-living crap out of me.)

In any event, it appears that I'm not far wrong. Three non-military types (sorta) manage to fare quite well against the shambling hordes the myth-busting scenario comes up with. Even a young lass with zero experience using a shotgun can easily dispatch her aggressor in three shots...more than enough time to survive his advances. (Via Kotaku.)

Inglorious Basterds Review

What is your favorite Quentin Tarantino movie?

This could be a Rorchach test for a specific subset of our pop-culture population. His movies cover a wide swath of subjects and locations but are anchored by the twin weights of beautifully written dialogue and a fetish for violence. There is also, somewhere, vengeance simmering, perhaps to justify the blood and our revelry in it. And finally, across the board, a tint of camp through which Tarantino's passion shines and makes him a celebrity of a stripe not normally seen in directors.

So what is yours? Pulp Fiction with its loon-juicingly sexy dialogue? Reservoir Dogs with its most disagreeable violence? Is it the sleek Kill Bill which nails the naval-gazing of Samuri-Cowboy mutual respect better than any anime? Or perhaps the fractured camp of Death Proof which, in killing its original leading ladies, grainy film, and sex appeal halfway through, might be the clearest of Tarantino's indictments of modern film?

HUMOR!!

Funny stuff.

Via Kotaku. Japan, sort your shit out indeed.


Bluetooth Assholes via The Awesomer:


Bulletstorm Parodying Halo:


aaaaaaand some slapstick to round it out:

The Tyler Cowen

1. National Geographic on what it will mean to have 7 billion people on Earth by the end of 2011. Via The Awesomer. 
2. US diplomacy with Japan and thoughts about East Asia.
3. Photos of North Brother Island's post-apocalyptic environs. 
4. How Facebook likes work. Via The Browser. (Now like us.)

Heading out to the countryside for hiking and hedonism. 

The Tyler Cowen

1. Great article on North Korea's misguided propaganda. 
2. Found via the above, a video of said propaganda in all its hilarious humorlessness. 

A simple definition of irony

"Irony, put simply, is a gap between words and their meaning, a space across which speaker and listener exchange a knowing wink."

That's from an article about the rebirth of irony in China. A good read which relates heavily to the humor situation in Korea, particularly among older Koreans. (Course, the vocabulary of the above is a little too complex for my students.)

Why is irony such a uniquely western phenomenon? Though younger Koreans can appreciate ironic jokes more readily than their parents (no doubt a product of increased access to westerners and a popular culture that borrows heavily from the west), the standard mediums for humor remain wit and slapstick.

Here's a total shot in the dark for an answer:
Western society (Europe, North America) is a diverse animal. Immigration and urbanization has thrown together people from across a broad spectrum of cultural histories. Irony grew out of a basic human desire to feel connected. Disparate people used irony to replace the bases of connection (culture, ethnicity, history) that traditionally serve to make people feel part of a community. The 'knowing wink' filled an important social hole left by immigration. Over the decades, irony became fundamentally tied to western culture.

This understanding helps explain why irony is less common in more homogeneous societies like China and Korea. The connectivity provided by the knowing wink is not as important for feeling connected to one's fellow man in these cultures since there are so many other grounds for connection. Though this will change with globalization's maturity, we are still at the inception of this culture clash. And irony, as anyone knows, takes practice.