Month: October 2017

Caveat: Paperclips

Banalities & Journaling / Found Online / Philosophy & Cultural Criticism / Science & SciFi

I did something yesterday that I haven't done in a long time: I became immersed in a rather mind-numbingly stupid game. 

In fact, I was led to this game from a philosophical discussion of the AI Paperclip Maximizer problem, in a blog I often read. I suggest you read that, first (it's short).

picture

The game is called, naturally, "Universal Paperclips." It's in the genre of what are called "clicker" games – basically, just webpages with a few clickable controls that allow one to manipulate a kind of limited universe.

The object of the game is to fill the universe with paperclips. You start making one paperclip at a time. Click. Click. Click.

After some time, you develop automation, and then an artificial intelligence to do work for you. And then space exploring-drones, matter-to-paperclip conversion technology, paperclip-to-drone conversion technology. Etcetera. It's entirely text-based. And I spent 10 hours yesterday, filling the universe with paperclips. I believe the specific number of paperclips I produced was on the order of 30,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (30 septendecillion = 3 x 10^54). Perhaps that's current best guess as to the mass of the universe, in grams (and maybe each paperclip weighs about a gram, right?).

But then the game told me I had run out of matter. So I had to stop. Fortunately, it was bedtime.

It was addictive, but it was mostly a one-shot experience, I think – once you've filled the universe with paperclips, you feel satisfied but there is little incentive to keep repeating the experience. That means I don't feel bad recommending the experience to others.

[daily log: paperclips, 30,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000]

 

Caveat: New Evidence of Dialectal Divergence in Korean

Banalities & Journaling / Kids / Teaching & Methodology / The Wonders of Work

 

Some linguists have speculated that the divergence of dialects between South Korea and North Korea has become substantial. The vast infusion of foreign vocabulary to the "standard Korean" of the South over the last 7 decades has been largely bypassed by the North. Some South Koreans have told me they have a hard time understanding the snippets of North Korean broadcasts they sometimes see. 

Last night my student James gave me new evidence.

I have a rule in my classes: "only English." I'm a speaking skills teacher, after all. I want them trying to speak English if at all possible. But sometimes, I get in trouble, because I often phrase the rule during enforcement as "no Korean" as opposed to "only English." I've had students either pretend, or, if talented, actually using snippets of Japanese or Chinese they know, for example. 

So I overheard Jae-yeon speaking Korean.

"James. Were you speaking Korean? What about our 'no Korean' rule?"

There was a long pause. "Oh no, teacher. I was speaking North Korean." He grinned at his own cleverness.

"Is that a different language?" I asked, laughing.

"Oh yes. Very different!" He asserted. His friend agreed, nodding vigorously.

In fact, this was so funny, I didn't take away a point as I normally do when I catch kids speaking Korean while that rule is in effect.

For the future, I have to remember to keep the focus on "only English." 

[daily log: walking, 7km]

Caveat: 총명은 둔필만 못하다

한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean) / 한국어 속담 (Aphorisms & Proverbs)

I tried to learn this aphorism from my book of aphorisms.

총명은 둔필만 못하다
chong.myeong.eun dun.pil.man mot.ha.da
intelligence-TOPIC poor-handwriting-ONLY unable-do
“Intelligence can’t even do as well as poor handwriting.”

Even if you’re smart, if you don’t take notes or document things well, you won’t get far. This comes down to “diligence is worth more than smarts,” and is thus somewhat similar to those sayings in the vein of “Success is 99% perspiration, 1% inspiration.” I suppose I myself suffer from this shortcoming. I’m bad at taking notes. I am often trying to teach my students to take notes, and realizing how inadequate I am to the task, myself.
[daily log: walking, 6.5km]

Caveat: Karma Guy

Banalities & Journaling / Kids / My Photos / The Wonders of Work

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My student who goes by Michelle is a pretty talented caricaturist for a 2nd-grader. She drew this picture on the white board and told me it was me. I was impressed. I look like that dad character from the TV animated series "Family Guy."

[daily log: walking, 7km]

Caveat: Confused Poemifying

Found Online / Not My Poetry / Quotable

There was a young man
From Cork who got limericks
And haikus confused

I don't know the origin of this… poem… but it's circulating on the internet. I found it quite funny.

Another unattributable internet-sourced quote, somewhat humorous:

"I have a computer in my pocket that lets me instantly access the entirety of human knowledge. I use it to look at pictures of cats."

[daily log: walking, 7km]

Caveat: Sources of Intrinsic Motivation

Banalities & Journaling / Teaching & Methodology / The Wonders of Work

There is a fifth-grade girl named Hye-min in my ED1-M cohort. A smart girl, but more impressively, she's quite "academically motivated." Yesterday, there was the following conversation.

We were doing an exercise in class, basically a kind of rudimentary, note-taking and/or summary effort from a bit of example writing.

Hye-min: "This is very boring."

Teacher: "I know." 

Hye-min: "That makes me angry!" 

Teacher: "I see."

Hye-min: "So then, I work really, really hard." 

Teacher: "Hm. Because you're angry?"

Hye-min: nods.

Teacher: "So that's why you're such a good student."

Hye-min: "I know."

It wasn't exactly funny – it was more, just… insightful.

[daily log: walking, 6.5km]

Caveat: Disassembly

Banalities & Journaling / Databases, Smartphones & Computers

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One thing I spent some time on over my little holiday was in trying to cannibalize my old notebook computer.

I had this idea I could take out the hard drive and install it into my desktop. The notebook computer is the one I bought immediately prior to coming to Korea, in 2007, so it is 10 years old. The screen died a few years ago so I quit using it, but I had it lying around with this idea to salvage the hard drive, and I finally attempted it.

I succeeded in extracting it, and plugged it into my desktop (using the CD/DVD drive connectors – they're all standard connections, and plug together like legos). But the drive was unreadable. I guess it decayed or froze up or something.

Anyway it was fun taking the old notebook apart. In the picture: the hard drive on the lower right, the CPU is the little square thing in the middle right. It was a good computer, and served me well. At one point, I had it running three operating systems (triple boot: Linux, Windows 97, Windows Server). 

[daily log: walking, 7km]

 

Caveat: That One Freaky Tree

Banalities & Journaling / My Photos

picture

Walking around my neighborhood yesterday (picture at right), I saw this one tree, a few blocks from my apartment building (near the district prosecutor's office, behind the Lotte Department Store). 

The tree seemed to have been unclear on the signaling involved with respect to the arrival of fall. It's far ahead of any of its peers. Why this one tree?

I think I've also seen the same tree changing "too soon" in previous  seasons. Is it a genetic freak? Or maybe it's ensconced in some weird microclimate? Perhaps the district prosecutor's building exudes some strange air that tastes strongly of coming winter.

[daily log: walking, 1km]

Caveat: sic a principiis ascendit motus

Media (Texts/Music/Movies etc) / Not My Poetry / Philosophy & Cultural Criticism / Science & SciFi

Hoc etiam magis haec animum te advertere par est
corpora quae in solis radiis turbare videntur,
quod tales turbae motus quoque materiai
significant clandestinos caecosque subesse.
multa videbis enim plagis ibi percita caecis
commutare viam retroque repulsa reverti
nunc huc nunc illuc in cunctas undique partis.
scilicet hic a principiis est omnibus error.
prima moventur enim per se primordia rerum,
inde ea quae parvo sunt corpora conciliatu
et quasi proxima sunt ad viris principiorum,
ictibus illorum caecis inpulsa cientur,
ipsaque proporro paulo maiora lacessunt.
sic a principiis ascendit motus et exit
paulatim nostros ad sensus, ut moveantur
illa quoque, in solis quae lumine cernere quimus
nec quibus id faciant plagis apparet aperte.

– Titus Lucretius Carus (Roman poet, 99BC-55BC),

The above are lines from Book II, lines 125-141, in Lucretius' De Rerum Natura.

Here is a prose translation to English, by John Selby Watson, 1851.

For you will see there, among those atoms in the sun-beam, many, struck with imperceptible forces, change their course, and turn back, being repelled sometimes this way, and sometimes that, every where, and in all directions. And doubtless this errant-motion in all these atoms proceeds from the primary elements of matter; for the first primordial-atoms of things are moved of themselves; and then those bodies which are of light texture, and are, as it were, nearest to the nature of the primary elements, are put into motion, and these latter themselves, moreover, agitate others which are somewhat larger. Thus motion ascends from the first principles, and spreads forth by degrees, so as to be apparent to our senses, and so that those atoms are moved before us, which we can see in the light of the sun; though it is not clearly evident by what impulses they are thus moved.

This is about Brownian motion. It was written a bit less than 2100 years ago.

[daily log: walking, 1km]

Caveat: On Holidays and Bridge-days and Disregarding the Government’s Mandated Holidays

Banalities & Journaling

Yesterday I had a very strange work schedule, because this week is the giant "Korean Thanksgiving" holiday (추석 [chuseok] harvest festival). In order to maximize teaching time while still providing at least most of the government's mandated days off (which are greater in number this year than in past years), Curt got creative with the schedule. I had a full-on schedule but it started in the morning instead of the afternoon. It was a pretty hard day, but anyway that's why I didn't post to my blog except for my little poem.

Part of why the holiday is longer this year is because Chuseok (which floats dates each year, following the traditional lunar calendar) managed to drop right between two Gregorian-calendar holidays, "Foundation Day" (which is today) and "Hangul Day" which is next Monday. So in theory we have a full seven days off, including bridge days Friday and Saturday. In fact, the schools and government offices were closed yesterday, too, leading to a 10 day holiday with 3 bridge days, but Curt opened yesterday and will open next Monday, too, leaving a 6-day block. 

So here I am at the beginning of my long government-mandated-and-mostly-observed holiday. I have made a strong commitment to not do very much – I did a lot with my personal holiday to Australia a few weeks ago, and so now I'm OK with doing basically nothing. I am not an ambitious person anymore – if ever I was one. 

I will work on my writing, maybe take a few hikes if the weather doesn't get too hot or sunny, maybe do an in-depth cleaning of my apartment (the dust on the bookshelves is embarrassingly deep). 

[daily log: walking, 2km]

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