Origin: Russian
A term to describe the dissonance between a life lived and the "official" version of reality in the sense that people are forced to accept and believe an official narrative instead of the stark reality, because the latter is just so bad or antithetical to what was originally believed.
"When a majority of society feels themselves to be so much a part of a system that it becomes impossible for them to see beyond it; when fakeness is hypernormal."
Adam Curtis, 'HyperNormalization' (BBC, 2016)
2016년 12월 31일 토요일
2016년 11월 30일 수요일
술 상무
Jamsil Island was very, very wide. When the decision was made to carry out public water reclamation works to connect the island to land to its south, it would have made sense to have the Seoul Metropolitan government carry out works instead of tendering the job to private firms. Seoul Metropolitan submitted its application for a permit to carry out public water reclamation works on Jamsil Island to the Ministry of Construction on January 1, 1969. The Ministry of Construction rejected this application under the following pretext: "There is a concern that should the width of the river be narrowed, such a change to the surface water profile may weaken its resistance to floods. A further review will be undertaken following a report on the results of a hydraulic water experiment on the lower Han River basin in the Seoul Region."
Seoul Metropolitan submitted several more permit applications. They received no response to any of them. Then on August 26th, a reply to their permit application submitted on July 23, 1970, finally arrived. "As concerns the works at hand, a private contractor would be preferred to having Seoul Metropolitan directly carry out works." No reason was provided to the question of 'why exactly a private contractor was preferred' in the first place. However, behind the Construction Ministry's response lay a contentious back and forth regarding the collection of so-called political funds.
During Park Chung Hee's time - which is to say throughout the 3rd and 4th republics - political funds were regularly solicited. Korea's economic scale was much smaller then than it is today. I also happen to know first hand that significant excesses were committed during the political fund collections - all of which had their own long term repercussions. There was a striking feature in the way Park Chung Hee pooled political funds: he never once received anything from any business directly.
There were several channels, though. The first was to have the Deputy Prime Minister cum Economic Planning Board Minister collect the funds. The Chaebol and large corporations we see in Korea today were basically all formed during the 3rd and 4th Republics. Capital infusion and special interest rates, along with favorable tax schemes, were the three means by which the Chaebol developed under. All of these measures were under the direct control of the Deputy Prime Minister cum Economic Planning Minister. To give an example of customary practice, when large sums of capital were provided, a percentage of the funds would then be set aside to be sent up as political funds.
The second channel was to have the Chairman of the then ruling Republican Party's Finance Committee gather the funds. I'm not sure how things operate today, but during the 3rd and 4th Republics, nearly all of the large construction works let to market by the Central Government, government-owned enterprises, and the Seoul Metropolitan Government were awarded either through privately negotiated contracts or nominated competitive tenders. To say that there was no such thing as a normal competitive tender isn't an exaggeration. These nominations were at the sole discretion of the Republican Party's Finance Committee Chairman. So in practice, when a new project was ready to come to market, a percentage of political funds would be sent up. Then the size and scale of the works awarded to the various contractors would be distributed based on the amount of funds provided. The Finance Committee Chairman would take a portion of the political funds received and send them up to the Blue House with remaining funds used to cover Party operating expenses. Over the years, Kim Youngtae, Kim Seong-goen, Kim Jin-min and other notable figures would serve as the Finance Committee Chairman, occupying a more important role than either the Leader of the Floor or Secretary General. Kim Youngtae was a private citizen who was a central figure in the May 16 Coup d'tat, Kim Seong-nam was the founder of Ssangyong Group, and Kim Jin-min was the founder of Dongbu Group. Hence, it's no surprise that they were the Chief Financial Operators of their party and held outsized influence.
Annual 'Rice Cake Bonuses' (떡값) at Chuseok or the end of the year were the third channel. These 'bonuses' were facilitated by the Chief Presidential Secretary or Chief of Security.
Outside of these channels there were times when the Head of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency or Seoul Mayor would collect and send up funds. Of course, there was obvious competition behind the collecting and passing up of political funds in an effort to be seen as more loyal to the president. Demarcated lines were drawn between those in the ruling elite and those who they typically used their influence on to collect the political funds. The Economic Planning Minister would typically recieve funds from corporations, and the Republican Party Finance Committee Chairman would bring in funds from contractors. Large corporations at that time would typically have a full-time position manned by an individual responsible for sending up these political funds, which held a rank equivalent to that of the CEO. This person was the VP of Liquor (술 상무).
Then one day, in the second half of 1969, the Deputy Prime Minister cum Economic Planning Minister Kim Hak-legal contacted the managing directors (chairman or CEO level) of five major contractors. The managing directors of Hyundai Construction, Daelim Industries, Geukdong Construction, Sambu Civil Works, and Donga Construction. They were told to come to the office of the Economic Planning Minsters the next day at a certain time. Kim Hak-leol requested a rather large political contribution from each of the five individuals (Hyundai's Chung Joo-Young; Lee Jae-June from Daelim; Kim Yong-San of Geukdong; Cho Jung-Gu of Sambu, and Donga's Choi June-Moon).
On September 14, 1969 in the 3rd annex of the National Assembly, the constitutional revision allowing a third consecutive term for Park Chung Hee was passed, with the approving public referendum taking place shortly thereafter on October 17. In accordance with the constitutional revision, both the presidential as well as National Assembly elections were held on April 5, 1971. During this period between 1969 and 1971, there must have been quite a need for political funds, since that would explain the Deputy Prime Minister Kim's unusual request for politcal funds to this group of contractors who were outside of his normal corporate targets.
The contractors were all opposed to the Deputy Prime Ministers request. "We are already sending up political funds to the Republican Party Finance Committee Chairman every time we are awarded new projects. It just isn't reasonable for the Economic Planning Minister to now request that we send up political funds to him too." Hearing their objection, the Deputy Prime Minister proposed that in exchange for their politcal funds, they would receive the rights to the Jamsil public water reclamation works project. If they were to block the waterway to the south side of Jamsil island, connect it with the land adjacent to it, and build up a dike along its northern border, a massive section of reclaimed land would be formed. They would then have the right to that enormous amount of virgin land. The five manging directors all immediately accepted the proposal and promised to send up the political funds that the Deputy Prime Ministers had requested.
~ An original translation
from Volume III of Son Jung-mok's
'The Story of Seoul's City Planning'
Son Jung-mok: Former Director of Seoul City Planning Bureau, Internal Affairs Ministry, and Deputy Director of the National Assembly Budget Office for Planning and Management
Seoul Metropolitan submitted several more permit applications. They received no response to any of them. Then on August 26th, a reply to their permit application submitted on July 23, 1970, finally arrived. "As concerns the works at hand, a private contractor would be preferred to having Seoul Metropolitan directly carry out works." No reason was provided to the question of 'why exactly a private contractor was preferred' in the first place. However, behind the Construction Ministry's response lay a contentious back and forth regarding the collection of so-called political funds.
During Park Chung Hee's time - which is to say throughout the 3rd and 4th republics - political funds were regularly solicited. Korea's economic scale was much smaller then than it is today. I also happen to know first hand that significant excesses were committed during the political fund collections - all of which had their own long term repercussions. There was a striking feature in the way Park Chung Hee pooled political funds: he never once received anything from any business directly.
There were several channels, though. The first was to have the Deputy Prime Minister cum Economic Planning Board Minister collect the funds. The Chaebol and large corporations we see in Korea today were basically all formed during the 3rd and 4th Republics. Capital infusion and special interest rates, along with favorable tax schemes, were the three means by which the Chaebol developed under. All of these measures were under the direct control of the Deputy Prime Minister cum Economic Planning Minister. To give an example of customary practice, when large sums of capital were provided, a percentage of the funds would then be set aside to be sent up as political funds.
The second channel was to have the Chairman of the then ruling Republican Party's Finance Committee gather the funds. I'm not sure how things operate today, but during the 3rd and 4th Republics, nearly all of the large construction works let to market by the Central Government, government-owned enterprises, and the Seoul Metropolitan Government were awarded either through privately negotiated contracts or nominated competitive tenders. To say that there was no such thing as a normal competitive tender isn't an exaggeration. These nominations were at the sole discretion of the Republican Party's Finance Committee Chairman. So in practice, when a new project was ready to come to market, a percentage of political funds would be sent up. Then the size and scale of the works awarded to the various contractors would be distributed based on the amount of funds provided. The Finance Committee Chairman would take a portion of the political funds received and send them up to the Blue House with remaining funds used to cover Party operating expenses. Over the years, Kim Youngtae, Kim Seong-goen, Kim Jin-min and other notable figures would serve as the Finance Committee Chairman, occupying a more important role than either the Leader of the Floor or Secretary General. Kim Youngtae was a private citizen who was a central figure in the May 16 Coup d'tat, Kim Seong-nam was the founder of Ssangyong Group, and Kim Jin-min was the founder of Dongbu Group. Hence, it's no surprise that they were the Chief Financial Operators of their party and held outsized influence.
Annual 'Rice Cake Bonuses' (떡값) at Chuseok or the end of the year were the third channel. These 'bonuses' were facilitated by the Chief Presidential Secretary or Chief of Security.
Outside of these channels there were times when the Head of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency or Seoul Mayor would collect and send up funds. Of course, there was obvious competition behind the collecting and passing up of political funds in an effort to be seen as more loyal to the president. Demarcated lines were drawn between those in the ruling elite and those who they typically used their influence on to collect the political funds. The Economic Planning Minister would typically recieve funds from corporations, and the Republican Party Finance Committee Chairman would bring in funds from contractors. Large corporations at that time would typically have a full-time position manned by an individual responsible for sending up these political funds, which held a rank equivalent to that of the CEO. This person was the VP of Liquor (술 상무).
Then one day, in the second half of 1969, the Deputy Prime Minister cum Economic Planning Minister Kim Hak-legal contacted the managing directors (chairman or CEO level) of five major contractors. The managing directors of Hyundai Construction, Daelim Industries, Geukdong Construction, Sambu Civil Works, and Donga Construction. They were told to come to the office of the Economic Planning Minsters the next day at a certain time. Kim Hak-leol requested a rather large political contribution from each of the five individuals (Hyundai's Chung Joo-Young; Lee Jae-June from Daelim; Kim Yong-San of Geukdong; Cho Jung-Gu of Sambu, and Donga's Choi June-Moon).
On September 14, 1969 in the 3rd annex of the National Assembly, the constitutional revision allowing a third consecutive term for Park Chung Hee was passed, with the approving public referendum taking place shortly thereafter on October 17. In accordance with the constitutional revision, both the presidential as well as National Assembly elections were held on April 5, 1971. During this period between 1969 and 1971, there must have been quite a need for political funds, since that would explain the Deputy Prime Minister Kim's unusual request for politcal funds to this group of contractors who were outside of his normal corporate targets.
The contractors were all opposed to the Deputy Prime Ministers request. "We are already sending up political funds to the Republican Party Finance Committee Chairman every time we are awarded new projects. It just isn't reasonable for the Economic Planning Minister to now request that we send up political funds to him too." Hearing their objection, the Deputy Prime Minister proposed that in exchange for their politcal funds, they would receive the rights to the Jamsil public water reclamation works project. If they were to block the waterway to the south side of Jamsil island, connect it with the land adjacent to it, and build up a dike along its northern border, a massive section of reclaimed land would be formed. They would then have the right to that enormous amount of virgin land. The five manging directors all immediately accepted the proposal and promised to send up the political funds that the Deputy Prime Ministers had requested.
~ An original translation
from Volume III of Son Jung-mok's
'The Story of Seoul's City Planning'
Son Jung-mok: Former Director of Seoul City Planning Bureau, Internal Affairs Ministry, and Deputy Director of the National Assembly Budget Office for Planning and Management
2016년 10월 31일 월요일
Lead & Lag Indicators and the Podcast Industry
There have been some good discussions on the Hotpod paid members forum looking at all of the channels for revenue generation available to podcasters. Over the past year or so live shows seem to have really become a very interesting new mode and expression of fan engagement that also serves as a healthy and robust means of generating revenue for many shows. A fellow member @mijustin provided some great food for thought on high- and low-impact advertising
To this outsider it seems that advertising via podcasts (when done right of course) could also highlight a third potential categorization: hyper-purchase intent. I would define this sort of advertising as that which targets those high-intent listeners with products or services that are both relatively novel and obviously within the semiosphere of the subject or topic of the podcast (episode) at hand, but not something that was directly searched for ahead of time. Case in point, these days I've taken a keen interest in several podcasts like 'Epicenter Bitcoin' and 'The Bitcoin Show' that discuss cryptocurrencies (e.g. bitcoin, ethereum). People curious about cryptocurrencies will find these shows. And when they do they will hear ads hyper-directed towards them about digital wallets to put any funds they purchase in like the jaxx wallet (jaxx.io) or digital currency escrow services like escrowmybits.com and others that they may have not have thought about before, but upon hearing will be (more) apt to check out and maybe consume.
Over and above the discussion of advertising though, I was reminded of terms that are popular with Q-HSE experts in the construction industry and how they may be applied and used by podcasters. Of course - but of course - I am talking about lead and lag indicators. Lag indicators, when used on infrastructure projects, are things like manhours without an accident, or simply the number of fatalities or injuries. They are retrospective metrics that are important yesterday. Their assumed importance for tomorrow's decision making cannot be understated either, however, their actual predictive value is quite low. Thus if decision making is made based largely on such lag indicators things can get obfuscated pretty quickly. For example, after someone dies on a project there is usually a push to highlight every potential hazard on-site, so every single near-miss (incident) is recorded. As a result, from one day to the next you go from what looked like a relatively safe site to a death trap without any clarity on where "the real" trouble areas are. Rankings, CPM-rates and clarity on other podcast metrics that I and most others have been calling for fall into the lagging indicator category. Since these measurements are still in the process of being standardized as they relate to the audio on-demand sector, I think most of us have felt it sufficient to chase the rabbit down the fly trap so to speak as it relates to forecasting how we think things will settle for these indicators.
But don't we already know how things will turn out if we only focus on lag indicators? A few powers will settle (if they haven't settled already) on standardized metrics and we will have top-50 or top-100 list of shows that will take a large portion of the pie. The flip side of lag indicators are what's called 'lead indicators' or positive performance indicators. In construction these indicators manifest themselves in things like educations and trainings. Interestingly enough they also seem to have already appeared in podcasting in the form of live shows. A more developed - but still directly related - form is the traveling tour version of these live shows. Direct support via Patreon campaigns or simple fan to producer payments using bitcoin/ethereum are additional examples of lead indicators that are simply unaccounted for in traditional lag indicators. What is incredibly interesting is that lead indicators in podcasting, in addition to being great signals of a shows continued future success based on direct audience support, is that they clearly demonstrate a direct relation with bottom line growth.
Heading forward it would behoove those involved with producing on-demand audio to develop and standardize more leading indicators, sharing best practices along the way. This way content creators and owners of content can better understand that their active role is integral to the success of their work - their role simply doesn't stop after producing a show - while pulling on the availability of useful lag indicators to help keep everyone honest and on their toes while innovating forward, without being beholden to such metrics as the ultimate measure of what defines a shows success and profit or failure.
To this outsider it seems that advertising via podcasts (when done right of course) could also highlight a third potential categorization: hyper-purchase intent. I would define this sort of advertising as that which targets those high-intent listeners with products or services that are both relatively novel and obviously within the semiosphere of the subject or topic of the podcast (episode) at hand, but not something that was directly searched for ahead of time. Case in point, these days I've taken a keen interest in several podcasts like 'Epicenter Bitcoin' and 'The Bitcoin Show' that discuss cryptocurrencies (e.g. bitcoin, ethereum). People curious about cryptocurrencies will find these shows. And when they do they will hear ads hyper-directed towards them about digital wallets to put any funds they purchase in like the jaxx wallet (jaxx.io) or digital currency escrow services like escrowmybits.com and others that they may have not have thought about before, but upon hearing will be (more) apt to check out and maybe consume.
Over and above the discussion of advertising though, I was reminded of terms that are popular with Q-HSE experts in the construction industry and how they may be applied and used by podcasters. Of course - but of course - I am talking about lead and lag indicators. Lag indicators, when used on infrastructure projects, are things like manhours without an accident, or simply the number of fatalities or injuries. They are retrospective metrics that are important yesterday. Their assumed importance for tomorrow's decision making cannot be understated either, however, their actual predictive value is quite low. Thus if decision making is made based largely on such lag indicators things can get obfuscated pretty quickly. For example, after someone dies on a project there is usually a push to highlight every potential hazard on-site, so every single near-miss (incident) is recorded. As a result, from one day to the next you go from what looked like a relatively safe site to a death trap without any clarity on where "the real" trouble areas are. Rankings, CPM-rates and clarity on other podcast metrics that I and most others have been calling for fall into the lagging indicator category. Since these measurements are still in the process of being standardized as they relate to the audio on-demand sector, I think most of us have felt it sufficient to chase the rabbit down the fly trap so to speak as it relates to forecasting how we think things will settle for these indicators.
But don't we already know how things will turn out if we only focus on lag indicators? A few powers will settle (if they haven't settled already) on standardized metrics and we will have top-50 or top-100 list of shows that will take a large portion of the pie. The flip side of lag indicators are what's called 'lead indicators' or positive performance indicators. In construction these indicators manifest themselves in things like educations and trainings. Interestingly enough they also seem to have already appeared in podcasting in the form of live shows. A more developed - but still directly related - form is the traveling tour version of these live shows. Direct support via Patreon campaigns or simple fan to producer payments using bitcoin/ethereum are additional examples of lead indicators that are simply unaccounted for in traditional lag indicators. What is incredibly interesting is that lead indicators in podcasting, in addition to being great signals of a shows continued future success based on direct audience support, is that they clearly demonstrate a direct relation with bottom line growth.
Heading forward it would behoove those involved with producing on-demand audio to develop and standardize more leading indicators, sharing best practices along the way. This way content creators and owners of content can better understand that their active role is integral to the success of their work - their role simply doesn't stop after producing a show - while pulling on the availability of useful lag indicators to help keep everyone honest and on their toes while innovating forward, without being beholden to such metrics as the ultimate measure of what defines a shows success and profit or failure.
2016년 9월 30일 금요일
Seinfeld's 3 Steps for Creatives
1. Inspiration
2. Execution
3. Obsessive Attention to Detail
Source : "Awards Chatter" podcast
< https://audio.simplecast.com/45456.mp3 >
2. Execution
3. Obsessive Attention to Detail
Source : "Awards Chatter" podcast
< https://audio.simplecast.com/45456.mp3 >
2016년 8월 31일 수요일
How to Take Notes
Recently there have been a slew of articles that made me feel like a kid again. There was an article that taught me how to tie my shoes, one that showed me how to tie a scarf, and another on how to use toilet paper properly. I've re-learned so many things recently it'd be embarrassing to continue.
So here I am, an almost - but at the time I started writing this not quite - 30 year old (re)learning how to tie my shoes and live life. For a quick second I thought I was some oddball outlier. But then I started to take a look around - like really looked closely at everything again - and I was surprised (in a not so surprised way) to see so many people re-learning how to tie their shows, for reals.
When it comes to basic tasks and activites from eating to excersing and thinking, my bet is that most of us learned how to do these things by simply just following along. Following whom? Our parents, siblings, relatives, teachers, and friends of course. And that's generally good enough. We learn a small, but crucial aspect of a task, and as we get older we develop and build out our skill/know how of that task.
Let's take the example of note taking as a case-in-point. Most learn to take notes in elementary school or middle school. We were advised to keep seperate notebooks for each specific subject. As we matriculated through high school, university and beyond, this idea of 'seperation' probably continued. Maybe you now keep an array of different pens to identify different subjects, or use a specific filing technique when you save notes and documents electronically or perhaps you have different sized post-its to catagorize different thoughts. Or maybe you are "that person" who meticulously labels mini-tabs before you stick then on pages like bookmarks with medieval metadata.
With this hypothetical example at least, the guiding philosophy - that thought at the center of what note taking (as we learned it) is - has been 'seperation of different thoughts and ideas for some specific purpose.' And it works, up to a point. How many of you still have your notebooks from middle school, let alone from university or even your planner from last year? Trick question; it doesn't matter because even if you still have your old notebooks, or a hard drive full of documents, they have probably been left untouched. Everything written down or saved now remains lost and covered in that original seperation; such loss is built into and anticipated by the very way we learned to take notes.
Things are getting a little deep, no? I mean, I thought we were just talking about note taking right?! Well, we're about to get even deeper. We will now represent, symbolically, what note taking always has been but never thought of as being, what note taking has been to us, and what it could be in order to show a better way to take notes.
If you take a wide lens towards what note taking - or the recording of anything for that matter - has been throughout the history of humankind, it has simply been a long, running recording of thoughts & ideas. These recorded thoughts are all essentially functions: they are all linked to some specific thing (e.g. a passage in a book, a specifc topic, a particular lecture, an assignment, a to-do etc...). On top of that, over-arching relations run through these thoughts and ideas (e.g. time, place, a broad topic, a general thing, mood or behaviour). Much like a river, recorded notes pierce through time, are firmly connected with and touch their sorrounding environs and flow through space timelessly. This we can symbolize with the character '流'.
Now let's try to represent the essence of what note taking has been. The philosophy we etched out above should help. The driving force, the reason why we take notes is 'for some specific end' and thus we may re-present this idea with the symbol which has been used to convey acting for some things sake: '爲'.
Despite the shortcommings with taking notes focused solely on some specific end, it's hard to entirely refute the positive value or effect - however short lasting they may be - in our drive towards a better way. On the contrary, a synthesis should be what we strive for. Thus, for simplicity we can simply add a negation repesented with the symbol '無' to what we have thought note taking has been so that the resulting essence of the couplet is one where a specific end does not exist, but in the absence of such an end all ends are possible or '無爲'.
When all elements are combined we are left with '流無爲' or a flowing non-doing (i.e. not doing something for some specific end; doing something with all ends being possible without any any end being a direct impetus, focus nor a consideration of the original act). This is best exhibited in the 流無爲 note-taking app Diaro. Try it out. Use it. Carry it with you. Save it in the cloud. Add and update this flowing list across platforms and devices. Pay a little money to use it, forever. Give it to your children.
Basic tasks and how well we carry them out form the foundation of every other activity we engage in. If we can do basic things better, it would make sense that any unlocked efficiency could ripple through every other thing we do. Today, the best ways of doing things are readily available and shared through the internet. So, if we can learn the best way to do the basics, we no longer need to settle for what's simply been good enough.
So here I am, an almost - but at the time I started writing this not quite - 30 year old (re)learning how to tie my shoes and live life. For a quick second I thought I was some oddball outlier. But then I started to take a look around - like really looked closely at everything again - and I was surprised (in a not so surprised way) to see so many people re-learning how to tie their shows, for reals.
When it comes to basic tasks and activites from eating to excersing and thinking, my bet is that most of us learned how to do these things by simply just following along. Following whom? Our parents, siblings, relatives, teachers, and friends of course. And that's generally good enough. We learn a small, but crucial aspect of a task, and as we get older we develop and build out our skill/know how of that task.
Let's take the example of note taking as a case-in-point. Most learn to take notes in elementary school or middle school. We were advised to keep seperate notebooks for each specific subject. As we matriculated through high school, university and beyond, this idea of 'seperation' probably continued. Maybe you now keep an array of different pens to identify different subjects, or use a specific filing technique when you save notes and documents electronically or perhaps you have different sized post-its to catagorize different thoughts. Or maybe you are "that person" who meticulously labels mini-tabs before you stick then on pages like bookmarks with medieval metadata.
With this hypothetical example at least, the guiding philosophy - that thought at the center of what note taking (as we learned it) is - has been 'seperation of different thoughts and ideas for some specific purpose.' And it works, up to a point. How many of you still have your notebooks from middle school, let alone from university or even your planner from last year? Trick question; it doesn't matter because even if you still have your old notebooks, or a hard drive full of documents, they have probably been left untouched. Everything written down or saved now remains lost and covered in that original seperation; such loss is built into and anticipated by the very way we learned to take notes.
Things are getting a little deep, no? I mean, I thought we were just talking about note taking right?! Well, we're about to get even deeper. We will now represent, symbolically, what note taking always has been but never thought of as being, what note taking has been to us, and what it could be in order to show a better way to take notes.
If you take a wide lens towards what note taking - or the recording of anything for that matter - has been throughout the history of humankind, it has simply been a long, running recording of thoughts & ideas. These recorded thoughts are all essentially functions: they are all linked to some specific thing (e.g. a passage in a book, a specifc topic, a particular lecture, an assignment, a to-do etc...). On top of that, over-arching relations run through these thoughts and ideas (e.g. time, place, a broad topic, a general thing, mood or behaviour). Much like a river, recorded notes pierce through time, are firmly connected with and touch their sorrounding environs and flow through space timelessly. This we can symbolize with the character '流'.
Now let's try to represent the essence of what note taking has been. The philosophy we etched out above should help. The driving force, the reason why we take notes is 'for some specific end' and thus we may re-present this idea with the symbol which has been used to convey acting for some things sake: '爲'.
Despite the shortcommings with taking notes focused solely on some specific end, it's hard to entirely refute the positive value or effect - however short lasting they may be - in our drive towards a better way. On the contrary, a synthesis should be what we strive for. Thus, for simplicity we can simply add a negation repesented with the symbol '無' to what we have thought note taking has been so that the resulting essence of the couplet is one where a specific end does not exist, but in the absence of such an end all ends are possible or '無爲'.
When all elements are combined we are left with '流無爲' or a flowing non-doing (i.e. not doing something for some specific end; doing something with all ends being possible without any any end being a direct impetus, focus nor a consideration of the original act). This is best exhibited in the 流無爲 note-taking app Diaro. Try it out. Use it. Carry it with you. Save it in the cloud. Add and update this flowing list across platforms and devices. Pay a little money to use it, forever. Give it to your children.
Basic tasks and how well we carry them out form the foundation of every other activity we engage in. If we can do basic things better, it would make sense that any unlocked efficiency could ripple through every other thing we do. Today, the best ways of doing things are readily available and shared through the internet. So, if we can learn the best way to do the basics, we no longer need to settle for what's simply been good enough.
2016년 7월 31일 일요일
Biphasic Effect
An effect wherein, low and high doses of the same substance can produce opposite effects. For example, marijuana. Colloquially these opposite states are expressed by an individual when they say they are either 'high' or 'stoned', with the former state the result of a low dose, and the latter - of course - the result of too many hits to one's dome, or ingestion of a high dose edible.
2016년 6월 30일 목요일
Identity is the New Money
By David Birch. I'm about to pick it up in a Portland, Oregon Powell's. Blast off in 3-2-1...
2016년 5월 31일 화요일
Korean PC Game Rooms & Kakao Talk
What do a piece of parking lot management software, a former Samsung employee and Kakao all have in common?
A lot.
That former Samsung employee of course being Kim Bomsu. He of course - of course - was responsible for getting a former Seoul National University Graduate School buddy who later became a coworker at Samsung SDS to adapt a piece of software originally developed to manage paid parking lots to instead help PC Room managers keep track of individual users and how much time they spent using a machine and how much they owed. He then of course - of course - went on to market the hell out of that software (i.e. offering it for free, of course) to every other PC Room located on the Korean Peninsula until every PC Room on the peninsula had it installed and relied on it to an insane degree.
With that platform in place, Kim Bomsu and crew created Han Game, a gaming platform made up of simple, digitized card and board games, and embedded it in the PC Room management system. In half a year, Han Game amassed 10 million users, and it's server fees were about to bankrupt the team, but then the CEO of a fledgling web portal approached Bomsu and offered ㅇㅇㅇ won to acquire Han Game.
That CEO was ㅇㅇㅇ, also an alumnus of Seoul National University and Samsung SDS, and Naver was the web portal who at the time was fighting the twin giants of Yahoo Korea and Daum.
A lot.
That former Samsung employee of course being Kim Bomsu. He of course - of course - was responsible for getting a former Seoul National University Graduate School buddy who later became a coworker at Samsung SDS to adapt a piece of software originally developed to manage paid parking lots to instead help PC Room managers keep track of individual users and how much time they spent using a machine and how much they owed. He then of course - of course - went on to market the hell out of that software (i.e. offering it for free, of course) to every other PC Room located on the Korean Peninsula until every PC Room on the peninsula had it installed and relied on it to an insane degree.
With that platform in place, Kim Bomsu and crew created Han Game, a gaming platform made up of simple, digitized card and board games, and embedded it in the PC Room management system. In half a year, Han Game amassed 10 million users, and it's server fees were about to bankrupt the team, but then the CEO of a fledgling web portal approached Bomsu and offered ㅇㅇㅇ won to acquire Han Game.
That CEO was ㅇㅇㅇ, also an alumnus of Seoul National University and Samsung SDS, and Naver was the web portal who at the time was fighting the twin giants of Yahoo Korea and Daum.
2016년 4월 15일 금요일
2016년 3월 28일 월요일
Justice (as defined on the TV drama 'Billions')
Justice:
Rooted in truth,
watered by tenacity and
flowering in wisdom.
Maybe the single most beautiful expression of man kind.
~ U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of NY Chuck Rhoades (Billions, s01e10)
Rooted in truth,
watered by tenacity and
flowering in wisdom.
Maybe the single most beautiful expression of man kind.
~ U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of NY Chuck Rhoades (Billions, s01e10)
2016년 2월 29일 월요일
Note Taking
**rough draft**
Recently there gave been a slew of articles that made me feel like a kid again. There was an article that taught me how to tie my shoes [link], one that showed me how to tie a scarf [link], and another about the best way to fold toilet paper [link]. I've re-learned so many things recently that it'd be almost embarrassing to continue.
How funny is that image? An almost - but not quite - 30 year old learning how to tie his shoes; I think anyone would laugh out loud if they saw that in real life. But, if you look around - and I mean really look closely - I think you may be surprised to find how many people are actually re-learning how to tie their shoes, metaphorically that is.
When it comes to basic tasks and activities like eating, excercising and thinking, all of us have a specific method we employ to carry out each activity. My bet is that for such '"basic" activities, most of us simply learned how to do those things (i.e. basic methods) by simply following along. Following whom? We learned by following parents, siblings, relatives, teachers and friends of course. And that's generally good enough. We learn a basic method based on a simple principle (e.g. ' Over, under, pull it tight;
make a bow, pull it through to do it right', chew before you swallow) and as we ger older we may stick to the basic method or build out more advanced techniques a top it.
Let's use the the example of note taking as a case-in-point. Most learn to take notes in elementary school or middle school. We were advised to keep seperate notebooks for each specific subject. As we matriculated through high school, university and beyong, this idea of 'seperation' probably continued. Maybe you now keep an array of different pens to identify notes on different subjects, or use a specific filing technique when you save notes and documents electronically or perhaps have different sized post-its to categorize different thoughts or mini-tabs you stick on pages to help you find what you read or wrote.
With this hypothetical example at least, the guiding philosophy - that thought at the center of what note taking as we learned it - has been 'seperation of different thoughts and ideas for some specific purpose'. And it works, up to a point. How many of you still have your notebooks from middle school let alone from university or even you Samsung planner from last year? My guess is not many. Even if some of you still have your old notebooks, or have a hard drive full of documents, they have probably been left untouched, if not lost. But is being left untouched just another kind of loss anyways? Thus it would seem that loss is either built into and anticipated in the method of note taking we learned that embraces 'seperation' at its core.
Things are getting a little deep, no? I thought we were talking about note taking right?! Well, we're about to get even deeper. we're about to represent the essence of what note taking has been as a symbol. If we think back to what we said is the philosophy of note taking is (the seperation of different thoughts and ideas for some specific purpose) it should be clear that the driving force, the reason why we have taken notes is 'for some specific end' and thus we may use the following symbol: '爲'.
So now that we have symbolized what note taking has been, let's think about what note taking is, broadly. To define note taking as bluntly as possible, I would say: note taking is simply a long, running recording of thoughts and ideas. Thought broadly, recorded thoughts and ideas are all essentially functions; they are all linked to some specific thing (e.g. a passage in a book, a specific topic, a particular lecture, an assignment, a to-do etc...). On top of that, there are over-arching relations that run through these thoughts and ideas (e.g. broad topics, general ideas).
Recently there gave been a slew of articles that made me feel like a kid again. There was an article that taught me how to tie my shoes [link], one that showed me how to tie a scarf [link], and another about the best way to fold toilet paper [link]. I've re-learned so many things recently that it'd be almost embarrassing to continue.
How funny is that image? An almost - but not quite - 30 year old learning how to tie his shoes; I think anyone would laugh out loud if they saw that in real life. But, if you look around - and I mean really look closely - I think you may be surprised to find how many people are actually re-learning how to tie their shoes, metaphorically that is.
When it comes to basic tasks and activities like eating, excercising and thinking, all of us have a specific method we employ to carry out each activity. My bet is that for such '"basic" activities, most of us simply learned how to do those things (i.e. basic methods) by simply following along. Following whom? We learned by following parents, siblings, relatives, teachers and friends of course. And that's generally good enough. We learn a basic method based on a simple principle (e.g. ' Over, under, pull it tight;
make a bow, pull it through to do it right', chew before you swallow) and as we ger older we may stick to the basic method or build out more advanced techniques a top it.
Let's use the the example of note taking as a case-in-point. Most learn to take notes in elementary school or middle school. We were advised to keep seperate notebooks for each specific subject. As we matriculated through high school, university and beyong, this idea of 'seperation' probably continued. Maybe you now keep an array of different pens to identify notes on different subjects, or use a specific filing technique when you save notes and documents electronically or perhaps have different sized post-its to categorize different thoughts or mini-tabs you stick on pages to help you find what you read or wrote.
With this hypothetical example at least, the guiding philosophy - that thought at the center of what note taking as we learned it - has been 'seperation of different thoughts and ideas for some specific purpose'. And it works, up to a point. How many of you still have your notebooks from middle school let alone from university or even you Samsung planner from last year? My guess is not many. Even if some of you still have your old notebooks, or have a hard drive full of documents, they have probably been left untouched, if not lost. But is being left untouched just another kind of loss anyways? Thus it would seem that loss is either built into and anticipated in the method of note taking we learned that embraces 'seperation' at its core.
Things are getting a little deep, no? I thought we were talking about note taking right?! Well, we're about to get even deeper. we're about to represent the essence of what note taking has been as a symbol. If we think back to what we said is the philosophy of note taking is (the seperation of different thoughts and ideas for some specific purpose) it should be clear that the driving force, the reason why we have taken notes is 'for some specific end' and thus we may use the following symbol: '爲'.
So now that we have symbolized what note taking has been, let's think about what note taking is, broadly. To define note taking as bluntly as possible, I would say: note taking is simply a long, running recording of thoughts and ideas. Thought broadly, recorded thoughts and ideas are all essentially functions; they are all linked to some specific thing (e.g. a passage in a book, a specific topic, a particular lecture, an assignment, a to-do etc...). On top of that, there are over-arching relations that run through these thoughts and ideas (e.g. broad topics, general ideas).
2016년 1월 31일 일요일
Mister Rodgers-style Advertising
Fact: The global audio/radio ad market is worth $65 billion.
Fact: CTRs (click through rates) for all ad banners in 2014 was 0.06% or less than 1 click through per 1,000 views.
Fact: CPMs (costs per 1,000 listeners) for some podcasts has reached $60~100 as is the case for Midroll media, whilst average rates of $20~45 for the rest of the industry, despite being lower, are much higher than ad rates in other sectors. Also, podcast listener response to ads has been highlighted as being "significant."
Takeaway: People seek out specific meaning from print media, not advertisements. Radio and podcast listeners develop relationships with the voices they hear. Imagine being in a relationship with Mister Rodgers over a podcast. Now imagine that after a segment that saw you cry, laugh and learn something new, he talks about product 'x' - a product he actually uses and loves and because of that he has decided that his listeners should also at least hear about how good it is - and personally vouches for the product. You would at least be curious about the product, right? I know I am, and this is an imaginary hypothetical. Relationships are valuable and are the conduit for meaningful advertisement.
Extra credit: If Mister Rodgers asked for his listeners' financial support so that he could produce better shows more often, do you think that in addition to buying a product he advertises to them do you think they would also be willing to support him? If you were his listener, and he simply asked that you send him $1 per month, would you?
Personal question: If you had a podcast about something that was interesting to both yourself and others, how much money would you need to be able to exclusively do the podcast for one year? $100,000 give or take?
Happy podcasting^^
Fact: CTRs (click through rates) for all ad banners in 2014 was 0.06% or less than 1 click through per 1,000 views.
Fact: CPMs (costs per 1,000 listeners) for some podcasts has reached $60~100 as is the case for Midroll media, whilst average rates of $20~45 for the rest of the industry, despite being lower, are much higher than ad rates in other sectors. Also, podcast listener response to ads has been highlighted as being "significant."
Takeaway: People seek out specific meaning from print media, not advertisements. Radio and podcast listeners develop relationships with the voices they hear. Imagine being in a relationship with Mister Rodgers over a podcast. Now imagine that after a segment that saw you cry, laugh and learn something new, he talks about product 'x' - a product he actually uses and loves and because of that he has decided that his listeners should also at least hear about how good it is - and personally vouches for the product. You would at least be curious about the product, right? I know I am, and this is an imaginary hypothetical. Relationships are valuable and are the conduit for meaningful advertisement.
Extra credit: If Mister Rodgers asked for his listeners' financial support so that he could produce better shows more often, do you think that in addition to buying a product he advertises to them do you think they would also be willing to support him? If you were his listener, and he simply asked that you send him $1 per month, would you?
Personal question: If you had a podcast about something that was interesting to both yourself and others, how much money would you need to be able to exclusively do the podcast for one year? $100,000 give or take?
Happy podcasting^^
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