Please, do not waste my time, with nonsense like this.
Thanks.
ROCK ROCK, ROCKAWAY BEACH
What people are calling “AI” nowadays has ruined Google search results.
This literally brainless idiot called “AI” has been fucking up my typing for years now.
Now I have to pretend that it’s “thinking” when it tells me “Al Pacino was likely in his twenties when he appeared in ‘Scent of a Woman’.”
It’s not even government agents reading messages that we have to worry about now.
It’s flipping motherboards that are overheated, running programs that poorly imitate the thought patterns of stupid people, that can crack any password and hack any system.
Fuck “AI”.
You may or may not want to avoid my blog for typing that, haha.
Did any of you ever read “Dune”? I read the first four novels.
The second one (“Dune Messiah”) was the best, closely followed by the fourth one, “God Emperor of Dune.”
The first one is great, the third one (“Children of Dune”) is also very good. But, it breaks out of socially and environmentally-oriented science fiction and dives deep into pure space opera.
Which is OK, we all know I love Star Wars haha.
After “God Emperor,” the Dune franchise dove headfirst into a shallow pool of self-referential nonsense, and anyway long story short, I am sure they are all entertaining and well-written, but after “God Emperor”, I am not interested.
I mention the “Dune” saga because the premise of that saga is that, a few hundred years before the first novel, in the storyline, humanity abolished “thinking machines.”
This was after “thinking machines” proved to do much more harm than good.
Al Pacino was 50, I think, when he starred (not “started,” don’t correct me haha, I had to back up and type it again) in “Scent of a Woman.”
I watched that movie on Netflix last year, and realized, “Hey, I am now probably around the age Al Pacino was when this movie was made.”
So I typed into Google: “Al Pacino age Scent of a Woman” or something like that.
Google “AI” search results told me he was “likely in his twenties” when the movie was filmed.
I do not fear “AI” because it is evil.
I fear “AI” because it is stupid.
Not the idea of AI, not the concept of AI, the actual AI that governments are investing a lot of money in, and like three or four people are getting rich from, is itself stupid.
Imagine when “AI” begins deciding court cases.
Imagine when “AI” begins writing the law.
What is it even doing?
It doesn’t know, itself.
It’s just recognizing patterns, and attempting to reply in a way that replicates what someone asks it.
When “AI” gets smarter, everything in the literal world will get worse.
Not just Google search results.
Thank you for reading my rant.
I am so angry today / 오늘 너무 화가 나요
I don’t like to repress my emotions. In order to let them go, I must let myself feel them first.
나는 내 감정을 누르고 싶지 않아요. 감정을 보내기 위해서 나는 우선 내 자신의 감정을 알아야 해요.
It is ok to feel angry sometimes. What’s important is that I don’t take that anger out on other people, even the people who made me angry.
가끔 화가 나는 것은 괜찮아요. 중요한 것은 다른 사람들에게 심지어 나를 화나게 만든 사람에게도 화를 분출하지 않는 것이에요.
People will not always treat me the way I treat them. But that fact is no excuse for treating anyone badly.
사람들은 내가 그들을 대하는 방식으로 똑같이 나를 대하지 않을 거예요. 하지만 그 사실은 누구에게도 나쁘게 대할 수 있는 변명이 될 수 없어요
My teacher is very wise. She helped me calm down today. Thank you, teacher!
제 선생님은 매우 현명해요. 오늘 선생님이 제가 기분을 풀 수 있게 도와 주셨어요. 감사해요, 선생님!
힘든 선택
월요일 아침에, 날씨가 지난주 보다 따뜻했어요. 그래서, 만약에 내가 긴팔을 입으면 오후에 더울거라고 생각했어요. 그래서, 나는 반팔 폴로 셔츠를 입기로 결정했어요. 지난 여러달동안 나는 이 셔츠를 입지 않았어요.
나는 이 셔츠를 입고 거울을 봤어요. 충격적이게도 나는 나의 살을 발견했어요. 나의 배는 작은 비닐 안에 큰 빵덩어리처럼 보였어요. 정말 당황했어요, 그리고 나는 오늘 학교에 갈 때 이 옷을 입을 수 없다고 생각했어요. 왜냐하면 아이들이 나를 보고 웃을 것 같았기 때문이에요. 또한, 나의 동료들이 나의 큰 배를 보면 내가 부끄러울 것 같아요.
그래서, 나는 두가지 선택을 생각했어요. 하나는 가능한 한 빨리 내 아파트 안에 헬스장에 가서 운동을 시작한다. 둘 새로운 셔츠를 산다.
나는 첫번째를 선택했다.
Am I Supposed To Know My Wife’s Blood Type?
As you all have probably figured out, I am not anywhere near “the cusp” or “the cutting edge” or whatever of popular culture. So you’ll have to forgive me for being (I think) 10 years late with my review of this one movie.
The movie is “Gone Girl,” and my review of it is basically, it’s the stupidest goddamn movie I have ever seen.
Now to be fair, some of my all-time favorite movies — “UHF,” “Airplane,” “Life of Brian,” “Hot Shots,” “The Naked Gun,” etc. ad nauseam — are beyond any shadow of a doubt, pretty goddamn stupid.
But these movies are intentionally stupid. Their being stupid is the whole point: we the viewers are supposed to watch and laugh at the utter stupidity of not only the plot of these quite stupid movies, but also at the utter stupidity of the characters:
“Don’t call me Shirley.”
“Badgers? We don’t need no stinking badgers!”
“For God’s sake, I’ve even got my father’s eyes.”
…and so on.
Anyway, I never watched “Gone Girl” until last night, and I fell asleep about halfway through, before the evil wife character’s shenanigans are shown; and in the first half I kept saying “oh my God, this movie is stupid” until I rolled over and fell asleep.
Little did I know, the stupidity of the first half of the film was nothing compared to the stupidity of the second half. I mean without even getting into the obvious misogyny of the film’s script, without even attempting to describe the “boys will be boys” macho bullshit the film defends without apology — “I was saying what you wanted me to say,” is roughly what Ben Affleck’s character says to his wife, after she sees him on TV — the dialogue and the plot of “Gone Girl” are so completely idiotic and dumb that in my opinion, it should be in the same genre as “Hot Shots,” “The Naked Gun,” and those sort of films.
And hey, I don’t know or really care what went on between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard a few years back, but it seems like the Depp side kept saying “oh, she’s just like Gone Girl!”
And now that I have actually seen “Gone Girl,” I realize that this argument carries roughly the same weight as “but in ‘Airplane,’ the auto-pilot was a blowup doll, so there must be a blowup doll in the cockpit up there.”
Anyway, O’Bannion is still Affleck’s best role.
Get Off My Lawn
Just scrolling through Facebook and Instagram, and occasionally Twitter…
I noticed something.
All this “gen x” “millennial” “gen y” “gen z” whatever, is —
And please listen to this:
The leveraging of your — yes, your — inevitable process of aging to create revenue for useless products and businesses.
“Gen Z thinks Gen X should stop wearing ankle socks,” and so on.
Personally, I wear the smallest, thinnest socks possible because my feet get hot.
A lot of body heat is dissipated through the feet.
I don’t give a shit what anybody from “Gen X” or “millennials” or whatever thinks about that.
I don’t wear the shortest socks possible because I care what it looks like.
I wear them because god dammit, my feet get hot.
Why in the hell should I care what someone else of any age thinks of that?
We are losing this, as a culture. This ability to elevate practicality over, well, over whatever “Gen X” and “Gen Z” is.
When I was a kid, adults didn’t give the slightest bit of a shit about what kids thought was cool.
Now, it’s like every adult is trying to cowtow to what flipping young people like.
Young people are idiots!
When did we forget that?
No disrespect meant to young people. You’re doing the best you can.
When I was your age, I was an idiot, too.
But listen to me: you don’t know shit about anything.
You’re getting a taste of it. And you’re understanding more and more every day.
It gets better. And it gets worse.
So what? That’s life.
The best part is, as long as you don’t grow old giving a shit what young people — or any people — think about you, you’re gonna wear the most comfortable goddamn socks you can get.
Get off my lawn.
Who Mistook The Crap For Genius
All things spring from the past
And disappear into the future.
However, there has never been a “past”
And there will never be a “future.”
To go one step further:
There has never not been a “past”
And there will never not be a “future.”
How is one to proceed?
(Spoiler Alert)
Before I write anything else, I want to say that I am genuinely a fan of Robert Downey, Jr. as an actor. I think he’s great, and he’s been in a lot of great movies.
This isn’t meant as an insult to him or his acting ability, please don’t misconstrue it as such. 🙂
Getting to the point, I watched “Oppenheimer” today, and if I were given the “Oppen-tunity” (sorry, couldn’t resist) to re-cut the film, I would limit his presence to the scene where he invites Oppenheimer to come to his retreat or whatever for physics geniuses, the one where Albert Einstein is living, and maybe one or two quick scenes toward the end.
A quick thought on that:
When Robert Downey Jr’s character — a politician who (according to the film) was behind a McCarthy-era smear campaign against Oppenheimer some years after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki — watches Oppenheimer approach Einstein (who is childishly tossing rocks or something into a pond) we the viewers see the two cinematic representations of these two physics icons from a distance. As Einstein turns to greet Oppenheimer, the wind blows his hat from his head, and causes his — that is to say, the actor portraying Einstein’s — hair to blow upward, momentarily reminding us of any number of photographs we have all seen of Albert Einstein, with his notoriously unkempt white hair going every which way.
As I watched the film I felt I was (perhaps) being condescended to: I mean for example instead of a few quips about relativity or (God forbid) a little more explanation about why Einstein didn’t endorse quantum mechanics (other than a reference to the famous “God does not play dice” quote), all we the viewers are given to identify this actor as Albert Einstein is a quick shot of his hair (which was probably a wig) blowing in the wind.
But with regard to that scene, as well as the one at the end where the conversation between Oppenheimer and Einstein is revealed, I think that if I were given the Oppen-tunity to re-cut this film — not remake, not recast, not redirect, merely to re-cut — I would leave both those scenes in, and leave in most of Robert Downey Jr.’s parts in those scenes, but remove most of the rest of every other scene he is featured in.
Here’s why:
His character in the film provides a frame through which we the viewers can see J. Robert Oppenheimer, in that Oppenheimer is being interrogated and asked to justify many aspects of his professional and personal life, and (as we learn near the end) Robert Downey Jr.’s character was (according to the film) the reason Oppenheimer was being interrogated.
In that sense, his presence is necessary, and I wouldn’t remove him from the film entirely… just mostly.
And again, this isn’t meant as an insult to Robert Downey Jr., I am a fan of his work.
But what happens is that the center of focus of the film’s narrative arc is shifted from the sense of guilt we might imagine Oppenheimer feeling at being responsible for the deaths of a couple hundred thousand people to some vague, poorly executed pissing contest between Oppenheimer the political figure (as opposed to the physicist) and some McCarthyist politician who (according to the film) held a grudge against Oppenheimer, and because of that grudge tried to smear Oppenheimer in the political sphere in order to advance his own career.
The reason you lost interest in that last long, convoluted sentence is the same reason I honestly almost got up and left the theater midway through the post-Trinity test anticlimax of the film, one which lasts somewhere between half an hour and ten thousand years, as cliched “suspenseful” music builds and builds in the background, getting louder and louder until the characters (most of whom aren’t even physicists) have to scream in order to be heard over it.
That reason being, it’s flipping boring.
If I were given the Oppen-tunity to re-cut the film, all of this would be removed, because (in my opinion) it transforms what could have actually been a very good film about the moral implications of inventing the atomic bomb into a political pissing contest.
That said, visually (Albert Einstein’s hair included) “Oppenheimer” is a stunning film. It’s just way the hell too long.
There is a scene where Oppenheimer is making a speech to Los Alamos scientists and employees after the bombs they built were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and during the speech Oppenheimer imagines that a bomb has been dropped on this crowd, and he envisions a pretty woman in the crowd having layers of skin being peeled back off her face, in the way that an atomic bomb blast might (presumably) affect someone within the blast radius.
After this vision, he finishes his speech and goes outside, where he sees one of the scientists who helped build the bomb vomiting uncontrollably, presumably because of guilt related to his participation in research that led to the horrific deaths of a couple hundred thousand Japanese people.
This is the climax of the film. What comes after is the frame of the story attempting to become the story itself, and (spoiler alert) other than the final scene where the conversation between Einstein and Oppenheimer is revealed, about 90 percent of all of this should be cut out, because it ruins the film.
And, to repeat, it shifts the moral question regarding guilt at having “become death, destroyer of worlds” to a political pissing contest between Oppenheimer and Robert Downey Jr’s character, whose name I don’t remember or care to look up.
The film could have been very good, and indeed is very good, in places. But there’s too much political bickering and too many shifts between time periods — and regarding that, the use of black and white for one time period is a tad esoteric, as the only reason I can guess it might have been used is to make this time period look like black and white television, i.e. to mimic news footage of McCarthy-era hearings?
I mean, black and white is often used to indicate that something happened in the past, right? In “Oppenheimer,” the black and white portions of the film take place in the middle of the overall timeline. To be clear, things that happen both before and after the black and white parts of the film are in color.
So it’s like, in terms of overall timeline:
Color —> black and white —> color again.
Why? I don’t know.
But like I said, the film is visually stunning, in places. In the first half of the film, the surround sound of the theater is also used to amazing effect, with the sounds of explosions happening unexpectedly from time to time.
But to give a completely honest assessment of the film, these unexpected explosions actually woke me up a time or two, when the film went much, much too far into the “political pissing contest” frame story of the film and abandoned both the interesting scientific discoveries briefly mentioned as well as the actual moral conflict of J. Robert Oppenheimer as a historical figure.
If I were allowed to re-cut the film and remove 90% of its extraneous bullshit, it would be an excellent film.
But honestly, I don’t think I could stay awake long enough to do that.
Apologies to Robert Downey, Jr., you are an excellent actor, in my opinion. 🙂
More Culture Vulturin’
Should have stayed home today. I have been sick, and I stayed in all weekend to recover.
Yesterday, I realized that my sore throat might be worse because I haven’t been drinking enough water. And I also realized, it may also be aggravated by the unfiltered tap water I have been drinking at home.
So, I decided to locate and buy a Brita pitcher. Not all supermarkets carry them. My beloved Hanaro Mart doesn’t, Lotte Mart (also awesome, but in a more pretentious, nouveau riche sort of way) doesn’t…
The only supermarket chain I found that supposedly has them is Home Plus. For the record, Home Plus is also awesome. There’s two of them in Gimpo (at least circa 15 years ago, when I lived there) and I went there all the time. The ramen aisle at Home Plus is one of the greatest things I have ever been fortunate enough to experience.
Anyway, I decided yesterday that in spite of needing some recovery sleep, I would make a quick trip to Home Plus and get a Brita pitcher. First I wanted to eat something, and I didn’t want to eat at home, so I took the elevator down to the ground floor and walked around my apartment complex to see what was open.
I walked a hundred yards or so and felt dizzy, so I decided not to go. I got 3 two liter waters before I did, because like I said, I didn’t want to drink any more tap water, because I have heard you shouldn’t. To be clear, I am reasonably sure it’s actually ok to drink it, but filtered water tastes better.
I decided to try Coupang. Coupang is a super-fast, super efficient Korean delivery service that can bring you basically anything, and it’s always there by the next day, sometimes sooner.
While I respect the good people at Coupang and stand in awe of their efficiency, as a visiting foreigner I am personally opposed to the service in a deep and profound (or maybe I should say “shallow and ridiculous”) way, simply because being in a beautiful country like Korea, and furthermore being in (or right outside) an amazing city like Seoul, I can’t for the life of me understand why anyone wouldn’t want to go out exploring every chance they got, especially since people like me are not permanent residents. But I digress.
Long story short, after a lot of phone screenshots and Google translates, complete with getting locked out of the signup process temporarily for entering something the wrong way too many times (Coupang has fantastic security features), I finally managed to place my order.
Initially, the Coupang app told me my Brita pitcher would arrive the next day (Sunday), so I watched a few episodes of Divorce Attorney Shin on Netflix and took a nap. Some time later in the day, I got another notification saying my pitcher would be there that afternoon or evening.
It got there about 4:00 pm or so. I eagerly tore the bag open, impressed with Coupang despite my deep/shallow philosophical objections to it, a bit giddy even…
And the goddamn thing was busted.
Luckily, Coupang has a fantastic return system. You request a return, repackage the item as best you can, and leave it by your door. Within a day, Coupang will replace your item and retrieve the damaged one.
It’s really a great service. But as I said, personally, I would rather go and get whatever I want to buy, simply to have an excuse to go look around a bit.
My pitcher came with 2 filters, one that’s in it now and one that I will put in there in about a month. And I resolved to go out and buy replacement filters, instead of having them delivered.
Getting to the point, today I felt better. So I decided to make a quick, 2 subway stop trip to Lotte Mart to stock up on Taurin energy drinks. Hanaro Mart (which is in my neighborhood, no need for a subway ride) doesn’t carry them.
Well, I got to Lotte Mart and it was closed. Apparently they close every other Sunday.
So, as I wandered around aimlessly, bored out of my skull, I decided to find and go to a nearby Home Plus to see if they had Taurin 10 packs, and to make sure the nearest Home Plus had the right Brita filters for future purchases.
I got back on the subway and rode another 10 stops or so, making one transfer, and somewhere along the way — probably when I pulled out my wallet to get a thousand won bill to buy a bottle of water — I lost my T-Money transit card, which had about 20,000 won on it, roughly $20.
I had to tell the security guard that I lost my card (Google Translate is an amazing tool, in case I haven’t mentioned that) because you have to scan your T-Money card when you leave the subway, as well as when you go in.
I bought another one at the Home Plus stop (Hapjeong) and followed the signs to Home Plus… and it was also closed today.
So, I went into a nearby Starbucks and had a Caramel Macchiato, and typed most of this on my phone. I left because a good looking, well-dressed young Korean couple needed a place to sit, and I was sitting at a table designed for two people.
Anyway, I didn’t get any Taurin drinks, I don’t know if the Hapjeong Home Plus carries the right kind of Brita filter, and I lost a transit card with about 20 bucks on it. Gonna look for it on the way back, but I am not optimistic about finding it.
Shoulda stayed home. 🙂
The Culture Vulture, Part 3
This one’s gonna have to be short. I am in a crowded Starbucks near Seoul Forest. Not sure what that is, to be honest, a park of some sort, I am assuming.
I got here via the yellow line, which goes from Cheongnyangni Station to Incheon. I went to Cheongnyangni (I will check the spelling later on that one) this afternoon to sort of scout things out, because I want to make a solo trip out to Gangchon, an area in Gangwon-do I went a few times with friends years ago.
It took about 45 minutes to get to Cheongnyangni from my apartment, so I may as well figure on an hour traveling time, whenever I decide to make the trip. Might go tomorrow if I am feeling better.
Got kind of a light cold. Got it from coworkers.
Anyway, the train to Ganchon leaves from Cheongnyangni. I know it takes about an hour to get to Cheongnyangni, but it might take another hour to figure out where the right platform is, ha ha. I wandered around for a while there today and didn’t find it.
Matter of fact, I am here at Seoul Forest now because I was looking for the Gangchon train platform. I saw that the yellow line goes through Apgujeong — aka gorgeous Korean lady central — and I had originally decided to go to one of the 4-5 Starbucks there and type this, but when I heard “Seoul Forest” over the subway PA (in the English version of it), I decided to look around for a bit. Gonna finish my cafe latte and do that.
I walked all around Cheongnyangni Station. Like I literally made a loop around it. It’s a pretty big station, connected directly to a Lotte Mall.
The area around the station is more of an “old Seoul” area than anywhere I have been yet. I walked through an “open air” market where all sorts of stuff was for sale — fish of all kinds, kimchi, rice, as well as many different types of meat, many cuts of which still had feet attached to it — and it was a really cool place to walk through. I wore my mask the whole time — I’ve had it on all day, I have it off now to drink my coffee, but I am sitting alone — and I will wear it when I am looking around Seoul Forest.
The open air market is something every foreigner visiting Korea should experience at least once. What’s striking, aside from all the strange food items and interesting smells, is the way order seems to self-generate out of what could easily be abject chaos.
People walk every which way, in close proximity to each other. Buying, selling, carrying armloads of whatever they’re selling… and nobody bumps into each other.
Meanwhile motorcycles, scooters — the moped kind and the “rascal” kind, somebody on a rascal almost hit me but he yelled out just in time for me to move — as well as cars weave in and out of the mass of humanity… and nobody gets run over.
I mean sure, I am sure sometimes there are accidents. But they don’t seem to happen very often, considering how close everyone is to each other, in the purely physical sense.
It’s tempting to attribute this to “Korean people” and some unknown, exotic trait they must have… but I don’t think that’s it.
I think it’s cultural. I think that people in this environment learn from an early age to be considerate of other people, while still making their way through the crowds in a self-interested and even aggressive manner.
Everybody’s got somewhere to be, and they’re making their way there as fast as they can. But at the same time, nobody’s running into each other.
Try this in south Arkansas, and there would be fistfights every five minutes.
Here, everybody moves smoothly through the crowd, ajosshis sitting off to the side under canopies, eating bossam and drinking makgeoli or soju, ajummas arguing over prices, foreigners enchanted with the whole scene, probably sticking out like sore thumbs.
Anyways, I gotta go. Gonna go look around in Seoul forest.