Links for April 2018

It's time for another link roundup. Stuff I read in April that interested me.

Links for April 2018

Inter-Korean summit

You can find plenty about this around the web. Here's a few bits I liked:

• Commemorative stamp for N. Korea-China summit 
• [FULL TEXT] Panmunjeom Declaration 
• How North Korean media covered the Inter-Korean summit 

Twitter collaborates w/ inter-Korean summit prep committee at the Presidential Blue House. Special limited edition emoji for #InterKoreanSummit' available for only one-month from today on Twitter. pic.twitter.com/145u1O8Ypa

— Min Joo Kim (@Min_Joo_Kim_) April 17, 2018

Here's that image up close:

This Korean life

• Expat filmmaker calls it a wrap on spy thriller shot in Seoul 
• Busan registers worst dust pollution in South Korea 
• Shortage of squid sends prices soaring 
• Short track gold medalist joins #MeToo movement - If I read this right, this is a girl-on-girl instance of a #metoo problem. Heyo. 
• 'Bees grown in city healthier' 
• Abandoned dog in mart locker invites public fury - this guy's excuse is super lame. In my snap judgement, I definitely think he abandoned the dog on purpose. But anyway, I dislike these dog lockers. I don't know. I'm torn between "don't take your pet shopping" and "well, at least taking it out for a walk to the market is better than cooped up in the one-room all day."
• Prank calls...or are they? Police respond to ‘noodle delivery order’ - Amazing story. It wasn't a prank: it was a secret masked cry for help that the answering officer cleverly understood. Bravo to this officer. Clever of the victim too. 
• Group to rally against plastic surgery 
• Jeju Air Job Ad in Korea Changed After Chinese Student Complaint Over Taiwan and Hong Kong  - It said they're hiring Chinese, Taiwanese, and Hong Kongese. "But they're all China!" girl complains, wins patriotism points. Saved you a click. 
• [Herald Interview] A transformation from model to shaman  - Maybe because I'm getting up there in years, but she looks great. Better to my eye than a lot of these young K-pop girls today. I'm sure the shaman thing is just a shtick but who cares. 
• New bicycle-only lane opens on the main street in Seoul’s Jongno district : National : News : The Hankyoreh 
• McDonald's Marks 30 Years Since Opening its Doors in Korea - first, love the shoutout to that one guy running the "Bring the Fillet-o-Fish back to Korea!" Facebook group. I support him 100%. I love me a nice fish sandwich sometimes. Second, interesting that Korea has the Shanghai Spice chicken burger purely for the 'exotic' sound of it, and meanwhile "Last year in Singapore, McDonald’s rolled out the “Seoul Spicy Chicken Burger” and “Seoul Spicy Beef” burger, along with the “Kimchi Shaker Fries.” None of which are available in the Korean market."
• Gov't allows English name change for passports  - One-time change if your Korean friend doesn't like the way they spelled his name in English. I've met some 임-surnamed folks who are Lim or Im or Rim. 
• Netflix to Hire Locals, Tap Deeper into S. Korean Market | Be Korea-savvy 
• Your Complete Guide To Garbage Disposal In South Korea | 10 Magazine Korea 
• Melon Account Creation using Kakao Talk on iOS / Android | illuminate.  - Nifty workaround. Easy for English users to create a Kakao account, and you can log-in to Melon via Kakao account now. Nice find. 
• [Newsmaker] Confusion, anger continue over restrictions on recyclables - TL;DR: we used to be able to put all our plastic bags and plastic wrappers in a special recycling section. China stopped buying so apartments and villas stopped collecting it. I never realized how quickly that stuff contributes to my trash until this month. My local gov has restarted the collection thankfully but limited the types we can toss in. Related to:
• Trash pickers desperate as China stops imports 
• KEB Hana Bank for Expats - Posts - Re-share of their old guide to paying your bills. Good for newbies as this can be confusing. 
• US army base called 'unreachable land' 
• Express train Saemaeul-ho fading into history - "Seeing it as new as a soft newborn baby, then seeing it enter the old years and left on the backburner and now ready to leave, the train reminds me of the life path that each and every person goes through," he said.
• Appeals court keeps 20-year jail term for teenager in kidnapping, murder of child - Lock 'er up. Weirdo. 
• Irish priest, social entrepreneur McGlinchey dies - Condolences to a good man
• Seoul to remove plastic umbrella sleeves from metro, state offices. I kind of like these things, but they definitely are wasteful. I always did my bit to "go green" by just grabbing a used one from the big trash bins they usually had set out. 
• Foreigners cannot buy SRT trains tickets - Apparently they can. And in English too via their mobile booking site, here: SR - Supreme Railways. Thanks, Kojects. 

Tech stuff

• Search without lifting a finger: "Hello Naver". The Naver app now lets you initiate searches and all the other voice commands without having to launch the app first. Just like saying "OK Google..." You can do basically all the same stuff, even ask it "what song is playing right now?" etc.
• Drone traffic police in action 
• North Korea's anti-virus software contains Trend Micro code, say researchers 
• Naver Cracks Down on Comic Piracy | Be Korea-savvy 
• Naver beefs up security protocols for user IDs-INSIDE Korea JoongAng Daily - It's about time. Naver always had a 2-factor security thing, but it was super annoying. The code wasn't just SMSsed to you. You had to open the app, go to the preferences, find the code settings, and then get the 8 freaking digit code to tap into your browser. It didn't even have a copy function at first. This new style will be like Google's. Just an auto-prompt. Nice. Though... how do you first log-into the app? Naver did send you the code via SMS but was only a "backup" option. 
• Naver releases budget AI speaker - Cute, handheld, and perfect to take to the Han River Park and tell it to play music for you on a nice summer day. Maybe tell it to order some chicken too. Though my phone does all that just as well. But this is cuter than my phone!
• [EQUITIES] ‘Naver’s aggressive investments dent earnings’ 
• Baedal Minjok invests in U.S. robotics start-up-INSIDE Korea JoongAng Daily 
• AhnLab introduces enhanced cybersecurity platform 
• Naver Q1 revenues jump 21%, profit down 27% - Telecompaper 
• Naver's Q1 operating profit down 11.6 pct 
• Naver’s Q1 operating profit down 11.6% to W257b  - Lot about Naver's profits in these headlines haha. The upshot is: Naver made a lot, but spent a lot too on new investments. 
• Kakao’s Melon app dominates Korea’s music streaming service market 
• Korean Translation Tip: The Lowdown on Korean Alphabetical Order - Nojeok Hill: My View from the Top 
• S. Korean radio agency approves Google speaker - confession: I secretly ordered one at bargain price and am having a buddy reship it here to me. Will play around with it soon. 
• Kakao to introduce video-streaming app in Japan, leveraging success of manga platform 
• Seoul launches AR app for fine dust - Unnecessary but OK. To see the dust in the air? I already see it with my own eyes. That's how I know how had it is. 
• How Coinone Is Harnessing South Korea's Cryptocurrency Fever 
• South Korean carriers agree to build single 5G network, saving money and time | VentureBeat - Smart idea.
• Corporations Bypassing Korean ICO Regulations With Overseas Subsidiaries - Bitcoin News 
• ​Kakao adds voice calls to AI speaker | ZDNet - Nice. This will make the thing vastly more useful. I wish Google would add Hangouts functionality to their speaker line. 
• Men against self-driving cars - Hilarious and really only partly satirical look at the emasculation of self-driving cars
• 500th CGV 4DX Theater Launched in France | Be Korea-savvy 
• Co-Founder of Korean Exchange CoinNest Arrested in Seoul - Bitsonline 
• Google most used Internet search engine in NK: report 
• 방통위, ‘16만명 개인정보 유출’ 이스트소프트에 과징금 1억 : IT : 경제 : 뉴스 : 한겨레 - Massive payout by ESTsoft over their data leak last year. More here. 
• 클로바 팩토리 블로그 : 네이버 블로그 - Naver has released Google Calendar integration for their CLOVA platform. This means you can now speak to your Naver smart speaker (or in theory, your phone too) and ask it about your Google Calendar events, etc. 
• 카카오, 프로야구 챗봇 출시…"경기 결과 한눈에" - 지디넷코리아 - Chat with a chatbot inside KakaoTalk that gives you all the baseball info you wanted. 
• 카카오미니, 목소리로 주인 알아본다 - 지디넷코리아 - Kakao's smart speakers can distinguish between people's voices, and provide relevant data based on the individual asking the question. Neat! Imagine this in an office setting. Presentation meeting: speaker on the table. Guy 1: Hey Kakao, open my presentation [PPT opens on screen from that guy's cloud storage]. Guy 2: Hey Kakao, when is my meeting with Bill? [It answers from that guy's personal calendar]. We're getting closer to Star Trek level computers every day. 
• 토스, 카카오뱅크 공식 연동 - 지디넷코리아 - You can connect your Toss app account to Kakao Bank for transfers between the two. 
• 알패스 데이터 웨일로 가져오기 : 네이버 블로그 - After that AlPass hack I mentioned, you may not want to trust their software. Good news: Naver Whale can import your previously saved AlPass passwords. Yay. 
• 네이버 검색창서 주변 맛집 바로 찾는다 - 지디넷코리아 - Naver's got a feature called "Smart Around" where you just show it where you are and it can figure out where you are and what's good around you. It usually image recognition from your camera (street signs, addresses, etc) plus your GPS location. 
• Google 한국 블로그: 2018년 구글코리아 개발자 프로그램 계획을 알려드립니다 - Google launched their own Korea Developers program. You can follow all their Korean-language updates for app/web developers here: Google Developers Korea Blog

Naver's comments problem

A lot about Naver in the news this month, as the "Druking" scandal was revealed.

• [Newsmaker] Who is ‘Druking’ -- power blogger behind online rigging scandal?
• Authorities grill former aide in Druking case-INSIDE Korea JoongAng Daily
• Inside ‘Druking’ scandal: Between freedom of expression and illegal opinion rigging

Basically somebody was running bots to upvote pro-gov comments. Push these pro-gov comments to the top, make people think that's what people think. But then he started wanting some favor compensation, got denied, and switched sides to smear the government. All very wild. 

The main issue here I think is that how all these comments/upvotes are kept in the Naver ecosystem. Not like they're spread out among various news outlets' websites. So people are questioning if Naver News should just link to the stories a la Google News, instead of hosting them (and therefore also hosting the comment discussions). 

• Naver asking media outlets about its online comment system 
• Daum Cracks Down on Online Comments | Be Korea-savvy 
• Naver urged to give up on 'online comments' 
• Naver Refuses to Budge on Direct Links to News Websites | Be Korea-savvy 
• Comment section could be Naver’s Achilles’ heel-INSIDE Korea JoongAng Daily
• 뉴스 댓글 개편 진행 상황에 대해 말씀드립니다 | 네이버 블로그 - Naver addresses the issue itself 

Yoo Byung Jae's comedy special

Comedian Yoo Byung Jae, fomerly of SNL:Korea and now under the YG agency, made news this month for staring in a stand-up comedy special produced by Netflix. It was called "Black Comedy" (블랙코미디) but it seems to have had an English working title of "Too Much Information." I point this out because has anyone noticed that young Koreans are seeming to use the phrase "TMI" a lot lately? It's like they just heard of this phrase now. It's like it time warped from 20 years ago. Weird.

Anyway here are some links about it:

• Rekindling heyday of stand-up comedy 
• Yoo Byung Jae goes hard on the YG diss in his new stand-up ~ Netizen Buzz 
• Netflix Launches Stand-Up Comedy in Korea Where it's a Relatively Unknown Genre 
• Yoo Byung-jae’s comedy show set to launch on Netflix 
• Yoo Byung Jae Bravely Mocks YG Entertainment's Drug Issue, SM & JYP Entertainment's Controversies : K-PEOPLE : koreaportal 
• Yoo Byung Jae Openly Disses YG Entertainment During His Comedy Show 
• Yoo Byung Jae disses his own agency, calls YG Entertainment 'pharmacy' at his comedy show 
• Yoo ByungJae Tells Audience "Honestly, YG Entertainment Is Full Of Drug Users" • Kpopmap 
• Yoo Byung Jae: Black Comedy | Netflix Official Site 

It looks like Netflix has put up English subtitles for it, so if you're a subscriber check it out. Or maybe just for the trailer. I don't know. I don't have Netflix. I have, um, something else.

Catch some YouTube clips of the show here, here, and here.

WTF & ETC

• Uzbek killed in motorbike hit and run  - bizarre chain-reaction accident. Poor bastard. 
• Geese Return Home to University Grounds as Otter Departs | Be Korea-savvy  - Money quote: "One by one, the otter began to hunt down and slaughter the geese, ultimately killing three. Fascination quickly turned to horror as passersby came across the remains of the killed geese on the grounds."
• Farmer booked for damaging W4m wall mural  - because he was "jealous"
• Teens caught counterfeiting W100,000 checks at motel - A lot more entrepreneurial than what most other teens do at motels
• Korea Language Village receives $5m donation - because English Villages have done so well in Korea, they are building Korean Villages in English places. 
• Missing woman ate azaleas in wilderness to survive - something doesn't add up. She wasn't exactly lost in the most desolate places. May have some mental problems. Didn't know you could eat azaleas though. Hmm. Added to my survival handbook. 
• Gov't warns on wasp-based soju - well it's got to be better than the plain stuff
• Man booked for referring to women as ‘fat’ on bus - I shouldn't, but I laughed. 
• Cheollima Civil Defense - . You may remember the group called "Cheollima Civil Defense" from a few headlines last year [Kim Jong-nam: Man claiming to be son of poisoned North Korean exile appears on video | The Independent & Cheollima Civil Defense releases open letter to ROK presidential candidates | NK News - North Korea News]. I don't know what they're all about, but most interesting was their latest post which simply reads "Black 70." What does it mean? Secret code message to anti-regime espionage activists? Or a potential roulette bet? Who knows.

Some Twitter stuff

Just a few other things I put up on Twitter. Don't want to leave the RSS/E-mail subscribers out of the fun.

Naver's cute lineup of smart speakers https://t.co/6ClEXxSMEu #Naver #네이버 #Clova #클로바 pic.twitter.com/8hffPHH0gW

— 10원 Tips (@10wontips) April 13, 2018

KCP slogan for their concrete pumping trucks: "PUMP YOUR DREAMS" pic.twitter.com/NBTMSIsACC

— 10원 Tips (@10wontips) April 21, 2018

Kakao Friends Coca-Cola #카카오프렌즈 #귀요미 pic.twitter.com/c9eRS5GnFg

— 10원 Tips (@10wontips) April 28, 2018

That's it for this month. Happy reading, folks.