I’ve landed in Korea!
Jun/090
I landed in Busan, South Korea last night. The flights getting here were interesting, particularly being shepherded through additional security in Tokyo while in a rush to our next flight. The manager of the recruitment agency picked us up at the airport and drove us to the hotel.
The hotel is essentially a block away from the school, around the corner down a small street. It’s a “love motel” – the kind typically reserved for affairs. It is an extremely nice little hotel, though, and apparently love motels are some of the best cheap hotels in the country. When we arrived at the hotel, I accidentally put my arm around Brandi in the presence of the recruitment manager, which public displays of affection are a faux paux here, but I don’t believe that he noticed.
The hotel room has an entry for taking off your shoes and provides sandals for use in the bathroom. The electronic devices are all very integrated; attached to the room key is a card that is put in a slot in the entry to turn on the power in the room, and the remote for the television also controls the air conditioning. There’s a water cooler, since the tap water isn’t potable. The bathroom is very nice; it has a drain in the middle of the bathroom for the shower, which is closed-in toward the top but allows water to pass under the glass.
For breakfast this morning, we bought little pastries from the nearby market. We went to the school before lunch and met with some of the staff and other teachers, and then three of the teachers took us out to lunch. The school is on the second and third floors of a large corner building, and the facilities are very modern and brightly colored. It looks like a very fun and positive environment, and all of the people we met were friendly.
For lunch, we ate at this little restaurant near the food market; I had bibimbap(a hot rice, noodle, vegetable and egg dish) and Brandi had gimbap(kind of like Sushi). The meal for all five of us cost 13,000W, which is about $10.
We just got back from shopping at HomePlus, a Tesco-owned multi-floor department and grocery store. We were surprised to find a lot of familiar U.S. products, but the store as a whole was more expensive than the local market vendors when it came to most things we saw.
Most people know a few words of English, and in general everyone has been very polite. It’s weird to be unable to communicate, and to be an outsider in a very homogenous culture. I definitely feel like we stick out, and that everyone around us knows it.
Tonight, two of the teachers are going to bring us to a Vietnamese restaurant for dinner and show us around a little. They’re also going to help us get subway cards, since the subway runs right by the school and it will be our primary way of getting around.
A video should be forthcoming, so that you can actually see Busan.
Why wireless input devices are a bad idea
May/090
A guy at slashdot has summed up the problems with wireless keyboards and mice:
Your decision to move to a system that requires an independent power supply (batteries) is an invitation to Murphy to send his law to your house / place of work at the most inopportune moment.
Oh, and radiation. I’m sure it’ll kill you too. Bluetooth will force you to visit your dentist too.
Plus what are you going to fight off the ninjas with if you don’t have a mouse cord?
Holy surrealism, bantha!
Another poor customer service experience at Best Buy
Apr/090
Prior to arriving at the store, I had researched many products and found one that suited my needs in that it had a good processor and memory, reliable brand, dedicated graphics card, and other features that were desired for the price range. Best Buy had the best price and had the product on display, so it was the choice destination.
I asked an associate for help in retrieving the laptop for purchase, and she brought back the wrong laptop. It was similar, had a better processor and was more expensive, and lacked the dedicated graphics card. I pointed out that it was the wrong model, and she condescendingly insisted that this one was better for my needs, despite the fact that I had never told her what my expectations were. When I explained that I was interested in the laptop with the dedicated graphics card, she reluctantly went to retrieve the laptop. It turns out, this particular laptop was in a locker that she did not have the key for and she did not want to retrieve the key. On her way to the locker, she took an unnecessary walking path in order to walk between my fiance and I and interrupt our conversation. She then delivered the laptop the customer service counter.
At the customer service counter, the employee began to ring up my order. This employee offered me the service plan, which I declined. He then tried to “scare” me into buying it, offering up scenarios where it would be physically damaged or otherwise irreparable. I explained that I currently work in IT, have exceptional computer experience, and that I would be out of the country and the service process would be exceptionally difficult. He then became condescending in that he told me it would be “foolish” to not get the plan, given that it has international coverage, again trying to scare me by the prospect of a cracked screen. To only way I could get him to stop trying to sell it to me is by saying that I know that the only thing that the service plan would do for me is give me the opportunity for extra customer service hassles when BestBuy no longer carries my product and offers me a sub-par replacement(citing articles in the Consumerist about these practices).
What was originally a pleasant experience became very irritating due to these two individuals. I typically home-build my computers from components ordered online and only shop at Best Buy for CDs/DVDs, Wii games or accessories, or small items like cables. After this experience, I may be avoiding Best Buy altogether.
Another “scholar organization” scam
Apr/091
As a result of your dedication to scholarly success in University of North Texas, North America Scholar Consortium extends to you an invitation to apply for membership in the NASC Honor Society. Membership application is by invitation only; therefore, membership is a special honor afforded to a small group of outstanding students.
I receive this today, and I’m curious about the organization’s legitimacy. As a student, and now as an alumni, I receive these every so often.
For one, I looked up the domain registration information. This “old and reputable organization” has only had a website since October 2008, and it shares the same web server as an online dating/sex website. Second, the only websites that come up when you do a google search of the organization are forums where people are asking about the site’s legitimacy. Now, they were clever, because they named their “organization” something similar to other legitimate ones in the hopes that in your own research of their legitimacy you will not be paying attention to these differences.
Conclusion: this organization is a scam. Don’t give them your money.
I hate stuff like this
Mar/091
Stuff like this is pointless and annoying: Don’t click here!
At least it could crash your browser or something.
Puppies!
Feb/090
Following is a picture of Penny’s Yorkie pups at a day old. They were born on February 19th, 2009. Adorable.
WoW is getting dull
Feb/091
Since Christmas, I’ve been playing World of Warcraft, and it has been a generally pleasant experience. Since 2005, they’ve made many improvements, added content, and fixed various balance problems. After nearly two months of playing, though, an old irritant is starting to rear its head: boredom.
When I began playing again, it was with my level 31 Druid, that I have now gotten to level 49. The problem I’m encountering is that the content I find more enjoyable is group-oriented, but most players are far above my level, and at the times I play there are few other players on around my level, so I am mostly stuck with playing repetitive solo content. Most of the new and exciting content is for much higher levels, and the grind to get there is rather uninteresting.
My game time expires in about a week, and I was given a game time card with which to renew my subscription. I’m becoming very tempted to tell Brandi to return the time card. I feel bad because I haven’t even reached any of the Burning Crusade or Lich King content that was opened up for me when I was given the expansions, but I don’t know if I can persist long enough to enjoy those aspects of gameplay.
Maybe tomorrow I will have better luck.
Hello World!
Dec/080
…says my new computer. I’m very excited about it. I’ve never even had my very own desktop before, and now, thanks to Erik’s help, I got to build one myself. I got a pink case:
…which I think is awesome. It has an Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 processor, a Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 motherboard, 4×1GB Corsair DDR2 800 memory, a GeForce 8500 GT 512MB graphics card, a Western Digital Caviar Black 500GB hard drive (as well as a Transcend 160GB external hard drive), an Antec TruePower 550W power supply, and a Lite-On 22x DVD burner. All but the burner, hard drives, and case (obviously) are hand-me-downs from Erik. However, to me this is still a kick-ass setup – much better than the laptop I’ve been using for the last four years.
Building it was a lot of fun; Erik supervised, and helped with a few things. But I really did much of it myself, and I have the cut to prove it:
The computer runs 64 bit Vista, which I am enjoying. I finally have a graphics card that can handle gaming! It’s also nice to have more than the 80G of storage space that my laptop was limited to. All in all, I am very pleased with my new computer. Thanks Erik! 
“Seven Blunders of the World”
Nov/080
“Seven Blunders of the World”
1. Wealth without work
2. Pleasure without conscience
3. Knowledge without character
4. Commerce without morality
5. Science without humanity
6. Worship without sacrifice
7. Politics without principle
—Mahatma Gandhi