The Ders Blog

Been looking for a good summary of the whole Sony rootkit fiasco.  There's a wealth of information to be found, but it's more than most people likely want to read.

Now I've found one:  this list of 49 questions by Scott Granneman of SecurityFocus.  Enjoy.

In the news this week:

Japanese youth are behaving more and more like chimpanzees.

Thirteen good reasons to switch from Internet Explorer to Firefox.

The San Francisco Chronicle is caught plagiarising the New Yorker.

Sony's new copy-prevention system opens a Pandora's box of virus possibilities.  Yikes.

And finally, I have terrible news to report.  The bird flu as arrived in Hongdae, disguised as a cocktail bar.  It's a jungle out there.

I want this book.  It's one more must-read for anyone doing web development.

I also want a month off to read it really, really carefully.

(Dream on...)

If I transliterate Sunday's post into English according to the Ministry of Culture's God-awful Romanization rules, it looks like this:

Hangeul Dei

Tudei in aneureu eobeu Hangeul dei ai aem raiting mai entaireu poseuteu in Hangeul.

Nat daet ai rilli haebeu aeniting peuropaundeu tu sei.  Peureuhaepseu ipeu ai woreunteu so reiji ai wodeu reuk eop daet areutikeul eobaut hau Hangeul ijeu deo peureupekteu raiting siseutem aendeu kaen bi yujeudeu peoreu eol deo raenggwijijeu in deo woreudeu... aeniwon haepeun tu rimembeureu diseu areutikeul aendeu haebeu eo ringkeu?

The scary thing is that I can actually read this stuff.

Upon searching for some of the claimed virtues of Hanguel that I alluded to in my 프리벼스 포스트 I discovered a bit more than I bargained for.

According to the office of the president:

The Korean language has a well-developed and expansive vocabulary, and therefore, it is very difficult to express fully in foreign letters.

Yes, other languages have very limited and boring vocabularies.  And someone please explain the cause and effect in the sentence.  I don't get it.

However, due to its scientific design, it is quite easy to approximate the sounds of foreign words in the Korean alphabet.

Sure, if you're deaf to any language other than your own.  It still amazes me how many people (of all language groups) don't seemt to get that other languages have different sounds than theirs.

The next section takes the cake, however.

The following are some examples of English words expressed in Hangeul.

London - 런던

New York - 뉴욕

Hong Kong - 홍콩

I am a boy - 아이 앰 어 보이

Good morning - 굿 모닝

The last one reads more like goon morning than good morning.  That's what I want: to wake up in the morning to a bunch of goons.

In particular, because of its simplicity and the rather small number of letters, Hangeul is very easy to learn even by children and foreigners.

Even foreigners?!?!  Amazing.  I'm going to get started right away.  All these years and I thought the Korean writing system was beyond me because of my, er, foreign-ness.

Next I found a video (direct link) which claims, among other things, that...

Hanguel can express sounds from nature more accurately than other languages.

Again, works for the phoneme-deaf.

Countries that have a language without an alphabet system can use Hangeul as their alphabet without a problem.

They actually show an example of this!

Hanguel is a cultural asset that will facilitate Korea's standing in the world.

Wtf?!  How the hell do you facilitate a standing?

The movie also includes a section on "Hangeul dancing" where dancers make the letters with their bodies.  Sorry, folks.  The Village People already done that about 27 years ago.

투데이 인 아느르 어브 한글 데이 아이 앰 라이팅 마이 엔타이르 포스트 인 한글.

낫 댓 아이 릴리 해브 애니팅 프로파운드 투 세이. 프르햅스 이프 아이 워른트 소 레이지 아이 워드 륵 업 댓 아르티클 어바웃 하우 한글 이즈 더 프르펙트 라이팅 시스템 앤드 캔 비 유즈드 퍼르 얼 더 랭귀지즈 인 더 워르드... 애니원 해픈 투 리멤브르 디스 아르티클 앤드 해브 어 링크?

Having worked at MECC in the early 1980s, I remember this program well.  Never imagined it would become a classic.