Kakao Map shows fine dust and pollution levels in Korea

The newly revamped desktop version of Kakao Maps has a layers feature that will show current dust and pollution levels throughout Korea. Yet another way to monitor air quality health of various areas of South Korea.  Just visit https://map.kakao.com and tap the little "layers" icon in blue above. It will pull up a menu of various layers f…

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Typing in Korean on Lubuntu 18.10

Here is the best way I've found on Lubuntu 18.10 to type in Korean. This will let you use any keyboard (Korean or US English) to type in Korean. It comes down to just a quick install and 1-time configuration of the fcitx input utility.

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3-1 Movement's 100th anniversary celebrated by Naver, Daum, Nate, but not Google

Today was the 100th anniversary of the March 1st Movement  also called the 3-1 Movement (삼일 운동) which commemorates Korean uprising against Japan during its colonial rule of the nation. Needless to say, it was a big deal with a lot of events in Seoul. And the major portal sites got in on the action too with some special commemorative doodles in thei…

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Kakao Map replaces Daum Map on desktop

Kakao Map has now officially replaced Daum Maps on the desktop, with an updated design and integration with your Kakao account.

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Cherry Blossom blooming dates for Korea for 2019

Here are a few maps showing the cherry blossom blooming dates for Korea for 2019. Plan your trip accordingly. There are some minor disagreements on dates among these maps so pick your favorite. Forgot where I got the last two images now and they don't show up on a reverse image search. Sorry for freeloading. I like cherry blossoms and all but …

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Links from January 2019

Here's my recommended links from January 2019. I'm trying to cut down on the amount of links I include in these posts. They were getting pretty out of control for awhile there. I'll try to keep it to more important or more useful stuff from now on. Links from January 2019 KakaoTalk to Introduce Anti-phishing Program | Be Korea-savvy Baby…

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Lunar New Year 2019 logos from Naver, Google, Daum, Nate

As usual, the web portals had some cute new logo doodles for Lunar New Year (설날) 2019. Here's a quick round up for posterity. Naver All of Naver's doodles for this year (there are three) are by illustrator Yang Subin (양수빈) as featured in this behind-the-scenes Naver blog post where you can also see many more examples of her work along wit…

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Four Dollars! Korean meme and Burger King advertisement

Burger King released a commercial in Korea recently that was pretty funny, but probably won't make sense unless you know what it's referring to. It's called the "$4 All Day King" ad, better known as simply "4딸라!" or "4달러"  (sa-dalla! "four dollars!"). Origin of the "$4" meme To get why t…

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Sam's thoughts about iOS

Here is my own personal list and comments about how I've felt using an iPhone after years of being dedicated to Android. Note: this has nothing to do with Korea. Background I got hold of a used iPhone 7 recently and have been playing around with it after years of not touching a single Apple product. I expected a fussy device that overall would …

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No Super Bowl on Naver this year (2019)

Update [2019-02-04]:  A reader informed me that MBC Sports did provide a live stream (with Korean commentary) after all. Unfortunately I was occupied and didn't get a chance to watch the game (looks like I didn't miss much) or to verify his link worked, but good to know for next year. That link:  http://www.mbcsportsplus.com/live.tv/?g_idx…

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