Happy New Year

I resolve to finish the handful of unfinished posts percolating in my draft box. I also resolve to drink less, live more, and figure out how to pay for grad school.

Happy New Year one and all. May midnight find you with an attractive member of whatever sex you prefer, giving you the ol' eye from across the room.

The Tyler Cowen

1. Peter Beck on North Korean economic progress. It touches a lot of the points I made two days ago but is better informed (and I daresay better written). 
2. In line with our recent articles on signs of improvement, the Institute for Far East Studies summarizes North Korea's economic progress in 2010. From the always-excellent North Korean Economy Watch.
3. Also from the North Korean Economy Watch, an amusing list of products and advertisements uniquely North Korean. 
4. And another article on the organic capitalism springing up in the North, this one from the Economist which focuses on the threats of unstructured reunification by focusing on the comparison to East and West Germany. 
5. How to improve baseball from The Hardball Times (via The Browser). Discussions of how to improve baseball always make me think fondly of The Sports Guy's rants. 

Teaching English in South Korea

Seoul

Times have been growing increasingly austere for foreigners teaching English in South Korea. When I first started teaching in 2005, the economy was booming. Korea's newly developed middle class had made their money through fierce competition and, like all parents who had struggled for success, wanted to give their children every advantage. For kids, this translated into an education regimen that would make even the nerdiest westerner blanch. 

The Tyler Cowen

1. A look back at Foreign Policy's art this year, for which the magazine has been nominated twice by the National Magazine Awards. 
2. North Korean rice prices jump after the shelling of Yeongpyeong. With currency pegged, economic reactions to world events play out elsewhere. Thanks to the North Korean Economy Watch.
3. The evolving state of artificial intelligence. It wasn't until we abandoned our attempts to mimic human logic that artificial intelligence started to really take off. Via The Browser. 
4. After successfully flexing its muscle, a softer South Korea now appears open to more dialogue with the North and is expressing concern about the rights of North Korean citizens. 
5. Wonderful subway-map inspired understanding of capitalism and misery via Cool Infographics.

Youth and Young Manhood Review

Young kings circa 2003. Might as well be 1973.

I remember first hearing the Kings of Leon while scrolling through the contents of a friend's iPod. (Remember those? The one's with a scroll-wheel? It made the most delightful clicking sound as you wound your way through a list.) The song I heard was none other than Happy Alone off their first full-length album Youth and Young Manhood. In my youthful impatience, I listened to the first few seconds and, deciding I knew what I was in for, flipped to another song before the vocals kicked in. That simple piece of impatience cost me untold cool points as I am just now getting into the band when they are too popular to be considered cool.

Mission Statements

Here at BofHam we're facing something of a conundrum. The presence of one of our senior staff in Seoul has shifted the focus of our blog away from pop culture (particularly as it pertains to video games) and toward politics. As a result, we have been forced to better organize BofHam by creating a list of tabs at the top of the page. While the home screen will continue to be the ideological melting pot of our various interests, the reconfigured tabs should give the reader a better idea of where to find the content most appealing to him or her.

Thanks, as always, for your patronage and interest.

Love,
The BofHam Team

Darwinism in North Korea

Just how childish is DPRK leadership? Let us count the ways...

1. They never say thank you.
2. They throw fits when they don't get their way. 
3. They don't share.
4. They lie even when condemning evidence is thrust in their face.
5. They demand constant entertainment with little thought to the costs.
6. They want presents upon presents. 

The Tyler Cowen

1. Next year's wars by Foreign Policy. Happily, the Korean peninsula is not on their list. (Although their list seems to be solely populated by countries ripe for internal strife.) 
2. Consumer culture in North Korea. 
3. Beautiful piece about snowflakes and how they relate to people from the New Yorker. (Try to ignore the polarizing red herring regarding global warming at the beginning.) Via The Browser. 

Almost 2011 and still yet a flying car in sight. 

The Tyler Cowen

Embedding videos! Is there nothing we can't do?

1. 38 North on brinksmanship on the peninsula. Don't know if I agree yet. 
2. Corrections to the U-bend of happiness. Statisticians think the relationship is pretty weak. 
3. Stranded Buses
4. The ever-charming Gawker on Kim Jong-un's popularity
5. Nice photos of an environmental tragedy

Grand Theft Auto IV Review

Is there any medium more ripe for watchdog scandals than video games? Movies are protected by a culturally-accepted rating system that is generally trusted to keep the more impressionable from consuming the darker stuff. Books, notwithstanding the recent uproar over The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure, seem to be past their scandal-causing prime of the Enlightenment. Even music, which as recently as twenty five years ago was knitting Tipper's panties into a knot, seems to have been accepted by the permed-soccer-mom mafia.