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Postcard From Seoul: Global Linux 2000 66

Posted by timothy from the chongmallo-chayagessoyo dept.
Proctors dropped us the following note after jetting home from the Global Linux 2000 meeting in Seoul, Korea. His account is brief, but it conveys a spirit of adventure and fun which only the thought of an RMS / ESR sing-along can.

Back from Korea and Global Linux 2000 with a killer case of jet-lag. All I gotta say is: it was an amazing experience. The show started with a ribbon cutting ceremony: Cliff Miller of Turbo, Tim Ney, the U.S. ambassador, the Korean minister of information and communication, among others, were all handed white gloves and a pair of scissors by a group of young women dressed in traditional Korean dresses. On the count of three, everyone cut the ribbon at once -- in front of a huge crowd of people and a corps of press.

In fact, that has to be one of the most incredible things about Global Linux 2000 -- Here we are: the North and South are reconciling after 50 years, Bill Gates is in town and the media kept showing up over and over in droves to cover the show and conference. It was a media flack's wet dream -- believe me, I know. It showed the enthusiasm of the Koreans for Linux.

But that wasn't the only miracle: ESR and RMS sat together briefly at a dinner reception for the participants in the Linux Greenhouse and friends. It was my birthday and after everyone sang "Happy Birthday," Richard stood up and did his own version -- only to be followed by Eric. I was sitting there, listening to them both sing to me and all I could think was "This is a oner." But it got better ...

The Greenhouse was going fab. The reason I got into this - why I love it (besides the obvious -- the pure genius of the hackers, basic principals of it) was for the enthusiasm. It's catching. And the Greenhousers are no different. This is a multi-national group of people who have companies that are doing everything from programming GNOME for PDAs to teaching GNU/Linux to more than 700,000 adult students in Sweden. They had meetings, they hacked, they danced together on the dancing machines that are the big thing in Korea -- kind of like karaoke for your feet.

Speaking of karaoke -- a bunch of us piled into this bus to go to the night market in Seoul and discovered that the bus was a KARAOKE bus. ESR sang "Deeper Shade of Pale" (he can really sing), and we all sang "We are the Champions." Eric changed the lyrics to "We'll keep on hacking to the end." It was wrong -- very, very wrong.

The night market is a giant, monolithic monument to entrepreneurship that's open all-night, every night. Hundreds of little stalls hawk everything from dried fish to Linux Sport tennis shoes. I do not lie -- someone in Korea named their shoes 'Linux Sport.' We had to buy a pair, really we did.

Did I mention that EVERYONE has a cell phone? Little old ladies, ten-year-old kids -- the young kids decorate them with 'Hello Kitty' charms and costumes (think Halloween for your cell phone). The food was completely wonderful - except the kimchee. I know, I'm a traitor -- but I have a very hard time getting behind rotten cabbage in hot sauce.

Photos will be posted soon on the Greenhouse site and ESR is threatening to add this trip to his travel diary -- where he'll put this little postcard to shame.
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Postcard From Seoul: Global Linux 2000 More

Postcard From Seoul: Global Linux 2000

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  • Apart from ESR & RMS singing merrily away while the rest marvel at traners and people with mobile phones, did anything news worthy actually happen at the Expo? :)

  • Re:Happy Birthday is not free... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Warner owns the rights until about 2021 or until copyright is extended (again). The song was written 107 years ago!

    Does RMS have an opinion on copyrighted music, or literature, or is his dislike aimed solely at copyrighted software?
  • They may have some wonderful qualities, but scintillating singing abilities does not appear to be one of these things.

    Don't let them on tour... Please, please, please... Particularly not with the title Oops, I Hacked It Again

  • The food was completely wonderful - except the kimchee. I know, I'm a traitor -- but I have a very hard time getting behind rotten cabbage in hot sauce.

    Remember when you didn't like beer?? Kimchee grows on you after a while. The cabbage isn't rotten - it's preserved - sometimes it's practically fresh. There are about 1,000,000 different kinds of kimchee. Kimchee is prepared in every imaginable way as well - my favorite is Kimchee Chonggul, a hot soup with ramyun noodles, pork and of course kimchee, shared between as many people as possible - you have to try it.

    In Korea, you know you've been assimilated when the realization suddenly dawns on you: "I *like* kimchee!"
    --
  • >Linux overseas
    >OS-Labeled running shoes
    >But the kimchee sucked

    Hmm, the first line is 5 syllables long. The second line is 7 syllables long. So far so good. But wait, the last line is 6 syllables long. Darn. Not a haiku. Besides, haiku are supposed to deal with nature.
  • In addition to the Bill Gates, and the Richard Stallman( sorry for possible typo. ), there was the CEO of the CISCO.

    He made contract with the Hansol company.

  • The real mainstream is still the Windows in Korea.

    The Linux is.. UNIX, so.. people think it is difficult.
    People think that Linux is lack in S/W. ( I think it's half right, and half wrong. )

    Don't cheer up too much, folks!

    When you go to the MacWorld expo, you may think "Macintosh is the mainstream here! It's cool!". :)

    Anyway the Linux is hot in Korea, just like in the U.S.

    About the dance machine

    There are various dance machines, DDR ( Dance Dance Revolution made by Japanese ), Dance Mania, etc. You can buy one for the Playstation, the Windows, and.. there is a Mac version ( not for sell!! ).

    How does it look?

    Basically it's a joypad for your feet.

    While music is played, there are "arrows" in 4 or 8 directions ( different depending on the dance machines ) and when the arrow is hit some horizontal position, you should feet-click on the large button on a floor.
    And it makes you dance!

    Me? I don't do it well.. Buy one for the Slash dotters and donate it to Rob Malda? :) Well...

  • Kim-chi is not rotten! It is made of pickled cabbage that is fermented, much the same way that sauerkraut is made, and thus it last a long time. It is a staple Korean food, and it very worth trying, especially if you ever plan on eating Korean food.

  • Actually, sticking to the 5-7-5 format isn't really required - the Japanese have a term, "jiamari" (literally, "too many characters") that they use to refer to haiku that exceed the 5-syllable limit on the last line.
  • the first one is their customers. What a jerk.

    We even compete with our current installed base more than anything. These are people who say they just want to stay with their current version of Windows. That's our number one competitor. Linux might only be number two.
    --

  • The big deal is that there isn't a big deal. The reason that wired phones are so cheap in the U.S. and Europe is that the investment in infrastructure is already amortized, so you're only paying a small marginal cost. In many less developed countries, though, there's not this big existing wire network that it's easy to tap into, so in many cases the lower capital cost of wireless makes it cheaper than getting a land line. Since it's cheaper and more convenient, deciding on a celular is a no-brainer.

  • The sight of everybody whipping out their handphone and chatting in public can be quite.... unnerving/irritating at times(especially when they start yelling!)

  • He. Here in Sweden, which has a pretty high penetration of cell phones, the proliferation of hands-free kits (which typically consist of a single head phone with a wire to the phone in your pocket, and the mike attached to that wire) has made it a lot more difficult to identify drunks and mentally unstable people. It used to be easy: people who talk loud and clear into empty space are best left alone. These days, however, they might just as well be talking into their phone, which you can't see. Oh, and the combination of hands-free telephony and urban bicycling is also amusing; people zip past on their bikes, while yelling wildly...

  • kimchi.. wtf was that stuff anywayS? I know it was rotten/aged cabbage and something really spicey... i tried not to ask what else it was..

    Think of it as very heavily flavoured, fermented cabbage. It isn't that bad as you think. Just a little hot.

  • Oh yeah, i remember when i first saw someone using a hands free kit. I couldn't figure it out for the life of me. I still have to think hard when i see someone walking down the street yelling wildly into space, while everyone looks at them. The least surprising part of this is that all the people who do this seem to be suits and PHB's :)

  • No, but here's how it can help... (Score:3)

    by Wee ( 17189 ) on Wednesday June 21, 2000 @12:23AM (#987242)
    Ummm, you're joking, right? He said that they happened to be there during this turning point in Korean history, not that the point has turned because they were there. He was saying that the Korean outreach towards Linux is coming on the heels of a number of amazing events. Correlation never proves causation.

    And about your second paragraph:

    1. Linux might just wind up feeding some of the world's hungry. I could see where extremely low-cost computing could certainly help Third-World countries. 100% of the web servers in .td, .ne, .lr., gq, .cf, and .dj run Linux (source: Internet Operating System Counter [leb.net]). Even superficially speaking, that has to create some jobs.

      You can't tell me that countries with lots of manpower and very little money wouldn't benefit from what amounts to essentially free computing power. If nothing else, Linux can help countries like Niger and Djibouti keep up in the technology game. You think they'd have that chance if they had to pay per seat to get Windows servers up? They'd have a much, much worse chance wihtout Linux around.

    2. Linux is helping to sure disease. I happen to know for a fact that UCLA (among many other places) runs a rather large Linux cluster for doing things like chemical analysis for medical research. They do way more with Linux than they could ever do without Linux. Big hardware isn't cheap, and there's only so much grant money to go around -- a Linux RAIC-ish system stretches a budget to the point that the previously impossible becomes possible.

      Take a look at the Linux Medical Research HOWTO [snafu.de] and then tell me Linux isn't helping cure disease. I'm sure that someone else here can give you first-hand experience on what Linux is doing in the medical community.

    3. Linux isn't going to put a man on Mars?!? Now I know you're joking. Do you know how much Linux junk NASA runs? Hell, the driver for the NIC in every Linux box I have was written by a guy at NASA (it's the Tulip driver). And there's always Beowulf [beowulf.org], but that probably won't do anything to help get a man on Mars.

    I'm not saying Linux is a panacea, and anyone that does so is a certifiable moron who has no idea what (s)he's talking about (at least they'll be easy to identify and avoid). But to say that Linux isn't helping make some really wonderful things happen is extremely short-sighted. In fact, I'm still not convinced that you weren't joking. If I hadn't replied in this thread, I probably would have moderated it up as "funny".

    -B

  • RMS does indeed have an opinion on copyrighted music and literature (does this surprise anyone?)...

    You can find his exact words in this interview. [linux.or.jp] He obviously thinks that music should be free (as in beer) because that way the musicians would make more money, and he suggests that copyright on literature is unecessary.

  • Re:Happy Birthday is not free... (Score:3)

    by BigStink ( 99218 ) on Wednesday June 21, 2000 @12:29AM (#987244)
    No, Stallman releasing his version of Happy Birthday would be a very Bad Thing. Listen to his Free Software Song, available from http://www.gnu.org/music/free-soft ware-song.html [gnu.org] and you will agree that the world is not yet ready for his unique vocal talents. And the less said about his lyrics, the better...
  • > Remember when you didn't like beer??

    > No.

    Ah, the beer will be the problem. Beer destroys the memory. Not sure about the long effects of kimchee.
  • > teaching GNU/Linux to more than 700,000 adult students in Sweden Hmm, there's roughly 8.5 million people in Sweden, and is this guy trying to tell me that one tenth of the population is learning Linux and I've never heard about it?

    It seems higly unlikly, could someone please offer an explaination?

  • Remember when you didn't like beer??

    Yes, but that's only because it was Budwieser.

    Kimchee grows on you after a while

    Maybe, but I had a friend who kept telling me I'd eventually like sushi. That was in '85. Hasn't happened yet. :-)
  • I have recently been in Japan and Korea for a while, so I know Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) all too well ;). As others have pointed out, its a game in which you stand on a stage whih has four arrows on it in the N, E, S, W positions. Arrows scroll up the screen and you have to stomp on those arrows on the stage in syncronisation with the arrows as they leave the top of the screen, to techno-ish dance-ish music. Hence, you end up dancing. Along similar lines are games such as Drum Mania where you play an electronic set of drums in synch with scrolling lines or Beatmania, a 'DJ simulator' where you press keyboard keys and scratch a fake turntable in time with the music, in synch with the scrolling lines.

    There are also a few DDR clones around - one called 'Pump' in which the arrows are in the NE, SE, SW, and NW positions and also another one I saw in Korea (which I can't remember the name of) which has 6 circular pads on the stage, arranged in a circle. I think they're really fun - actually they're the first video games I've played that have caused me to break out in a hot sweat after playing them for a while (and I'm pretty fit too).

    You can also by vinyl pads (similar to Twister pads but smaller of course) with sensors inside them that you can plug into Playstations. They cost about 20,000 ~ 30,000 Won (roughly AU $30~$40). Otherwise you have to just press the directional arrows on the PSX contorller. I was reading a Korean computer magazine once and it had a detailed guide of how to hack up these Playstation controller mats to plug into your parallel port (or was it joystick port...) and use them on your PC. Cool stuff - I wish I'd photocopied it ;).

    You can get a really good DDR emulatory-type thing for Windows here: http://www.d-d-e.net [d-d-e.net]. You will also need to pick up the song files which are available at the same site. The site's mainly in Japanese but English speakers should be able to find their way around (especially if you mouseover the hyperlinks, as the page filenames are usually in English). Anyone working on a Linux version? :P You control it with the arrows on your keyboard. One of those hacked-up PSX pads would do very nicely here.

    That program can also play 'Beatmania' emulator files. There are quite a few sites around the net that deal with Beatmania emulators such as 'bm98'. A good site for them is http://www.bms.ne.jp [bms.ne.jp] (Japanese).

    As you can tell I really love this stuff - I play it all the time where I can here in AU :).
  • Kimchee is great. Try it on pizza, or on spaghetti with tomato sauce.

    My favorite - soylent green kimchee.

  • There's a dancing machine in a bar/arcade called "Barcode" in Times Square in New York.

    Don't know if it's one of the originals or not. I thought it looked kind of lame, but then I saw people try to use it and I gained a whole new level of respect! It appears that rhythm isn't a natural human right!

    GoodPint

  • The ingredients are:

    napa cabbage
    salt
    red pepper
    garlic
    ginger
    sardine juice (sometimes)

    The cabbage is diced and salted, then mixed with all the other stuff and placed in a cool, dry place for fermentation. Traditionally it's buried in a pot to keep the temperature in the right range.

    It's basically sauerkraut with a lot more flavor.

  • Don't be so surprised that the Linux Expo got so much coverage in Korea. I'm an Australian but have recently been in Korea, and I was amazed by how mainstream technology stuff is. It's like a geek's paradise!

    While I was shopping in Tongdaemun (one of the hip, trendy, young areas) I saw popular-type teenagers walking around with linux t-shirts and bags from Linux related shows etc. Books on linux are everywhere, and many people know of it. As another poster pointed out, a large proportion of people on the Linux Counter are Koreans (and the counter is a foreign-language site!).

    It seemed to me that computers and geekier things are much more mainstream there, than in AU (and supposedly the US). check out this photo [f2s.com] I took, and observe the gratuitous advertising of computer games. On TV, there are championships of the top people playing the 'Dancing machines' (DDR) video games. The Koreans are mad about Starcraft, and the Korean Battle.net champion is somewhat of a celebrity - I often saw him in TV commercials. And he's a geeky looking guy with glasses too :)

    MP3 players are also HUGE there. I was in a specialty MP3 player shop once, with about 10 different varieties of players, including one that could actually be put in a cassette deck and used in a way similar to those car radio-discman adaptors, and also one about 3x3x1cm which was a keyring!

    Not to mention the 'PC bang' ( translation --> 'PC store/room' , similar to a net cafe). Even in smallish towns, its hard not to see quite a few (The smallish place I was mainly staying at had roughy 4 or 5 per square Km around the town centre). They usually consist of a room with about 30 or 40 computers, networked with fast net connections, which are mainly used either for surfing / downloading, or playing games (mainly Starcraft ;). Believe it or not, hanging out and playing Starcraft in PC bangs is a good way to meet ladies! My friend met his girlfriend in one!

    Add to that the way EVERYBODY carries a mobile phone (as other posters have already elaborated on). Many people use them to surf the web, and heaps use it to send email (not necessarily SMS - I receive email all the time from phones in Korea).

    So anyway, Korea is a very cool place for the technologically inclined. I'm planning to go there and work when I finish uni. I'm sure Timothy, ESR and RMS thoroughly enjoyed it :).
  • Things Korea has that the US doesn't:
    1. cell phone coverage in the subway
    2. a Starcraft TV show, with two players going at it, and commentators.
    3. Scented business suits
    4. Really small cell phones
    5. A TV channel for Korean chess (Paduk).
    6. The Turtle boat
    7. The world's longest lava tube
    8. Heated floors. Now that's technology.
  • Sounds almost like full-body Simon.

    "Wait - was it green-green-red-blue, or green-blue-green-yellow?"

    :)

  • Don't go to Korea. They serve it with everything.

    Yeah, and you don't have to eat it if you don't want to. =)

    < dubuhead >

    =P

  • Kimchee is great. Try it on pizza, or on spaghetti with tomato sauce.

    Kimchee, pepper paste, and SPAM in a bowl of Nongshim Shin Ramyun or Samyang Ibaekyang makes for good n'cheap five minute eats.

    Kimchee on rice makes for good n'cheaper one minute eats.

    Kimchee, a bunch of friends, and some good kalbee and dweijee bulgogi makes for good n'expensive three hour eats.

    < dubuhead >

  • The power of asia in regards to Linux (Score:3)

    by VWswing ( 74185 ) on Tuesday June 20, 2000 @10:29PM (#987257) Homepage
    When I was in indonesia 4 years ago, EVERYBODY used linux.. they had no money.. windows was expensive, linux was free.. hotels, corporations.. When people in america are doomsayers about linux, they forget about the other 90% of the world which is emerging into technology..
  • What is a dancing machine? I never heard of such a thing. Please post a link.

  • This is nice, but more can come out of Linux (Score:5)

    by faeryman ( 191366 ) on Tuesday June 20, 2000 @10:33PM (#987259) Homepage
    Yet again I see Linux making headlines, and yet again it is for naught. If Linux actually was such a strategic solution, we as a community would be overwhelmed with reports such as this. Linux must be integrated into every market if we are to see more than singular successes such as this one. Linux must deliver in the e-business sector for this to happen. A massive grassroots campaign must be employed as a whole to start seeing less talk, and more action for Linux.

    I suggest the following:

    1) Remove the multi-user aspect of the kernel. But faeryman you exclaim, Linux must have the multi-user nature in order to be Linux! And I ask why? khttpd is a viable alternative to Apache, thereby aiding Linux in end-to-end applications. The addition of more than one user adds extra security risks, and would you trust your data on an insecure B2B e-service? I think not!

    2A) Remove all support for multiple architectures excepet x86. Again I am sure you are shocked at this notion. Let me explain. Firstly, the kernel sources are taking up over 1MBs of storage compressed. I shudder at the notion of how many inodes and blocks would be used if I were to uncompress it. This space is better suited to both extend customized bandwidth and empower e-commerce database. Ask yourself, would you want to know you could not complete that one extra e-business transaction beacuse your disk was full? Even though we are talking about terabytes worth of data, 2 megs can make or break your "clicks-and-mortar" architectures.

    2B) Secondly, there is no need for your server OS to run on more than one platform. Linux is prized for running on old hardware. It does not make finacial sense to purchase new computers running non-x86 CPUs when your 486 will work fine for dynamic systems.

    3) Remove all piping, inter-application communication, and windowing systems. These "features" have zero use for you to leverage front-end applications. There is no point in piping your e-commerce database through 'grep' or to a shell script. None. Applications have no need for communication if there is not multi-user aspect anyway. Would you want a hacker to run a DDoS in the background from your database server? I think not.

    After these 3 crucial steps, I think it clear. Linux is not a viable option in either B2B markets or e-commerce applications. My recomendation is to run MS-DOS for the time being on your backend and big-iron servers. It meets the three above criterion for success, and has backing by a proven software company behind it. I have found that legal copies (not these pirated linux CD-R's by a man named 'RedHat') of MS-DOS 6.22 can be purchased for less than $25US at most stores.

    Please consider my points Mr. Torvalds. Your customers will thank you in the end.

  • What was Bill Gates doing at Global Linux 2000? Maybe he wanted to speak with RMS about how he can GPL all of Microsoft's products? Naah, not likely is it?

    On a more serious note, it's good to see that Linux's popularity is being taken seriously across the globe - this event was sponsered by the "Ministry of Information and Communication" in Korea, not just by a few Linux hackers. And whilst events like this aren't necessary for Linux, they sure go a long way in ensuring that people see it as a serious product, something that counts for a lot in the clueless world of the PHB.


    ---
    Jon E. Erikson

  • I think... (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I Think Slashdot trolls are really a huge problem
    I Think ex-Windows-users are too much on my mind
    I Think Slashdot trolls have got a lot to do with why the world sucks
    But what can you do?

    Like a black rain, beating down on me
    Like a Richard M. Stallman line, which won't let go of my brain
    Like Linus Torvalds's ass, it is in my head
    Blame it on Linux
    Blame it on Linux
    Blame it on Linux

    I Think script-kiddies are gonna drive us all crazy
    And Anonymous Cowards make me feel like a child
    I Think Linux losers will eventually be the downfall of civilization
    But what can you do? I said what can you do?

    Like a black rain, beating down on me
    Like a Richard M. Stallman line, which won't let go of my brain
    Like Linus Torvalds's ass, it is in my head
    Blame it on Linux
    Blame it on Linux
    Blame it on Linux
    Like a black rain, beating down on me
    Like Linus Torvalds's smile, cruel and cold
    Like Richard M. Stallman's ass, it is in my head
    Blame it on Linux
    Blame it on Linux
    Blame it on Linux
  • According to the Linux Counter [li.org], Korea has registered 4.529 Linux Users - this in spite of them having to go to an English-language site to register.
    And unlike the US, registrations are growing by more than 100% per year. (the US showed only 33% growth last year. Not much!)

  • all my classmate's have got one for them.. and just about everyone else too.. what's the big deal.. (in malaysia)
  • try sitting* in a subway in seoul sometime

    "hi mom? yeah, i'm at myongdong. i'll be home in thirty minutes. ok i'll call when the train reaches dongdaemun, in about thirty seconds."

    *okay, standing; you probably won't be able to get a seat in a korean subway ;)
  • They're big in Oz too. Try here [konami.co.uk] The name changes are usual marketing gumf. The machines are the same deal.
  • Linux overseas
    OS-Labeled running shoes
    But the kimchee sucked
  • No no no! Don't you see? When I talk on my mobile phone, I'm immediately surrounded by an invisible dome that blocks all sound. You can't hear a word I say. Its just a figment of your imagination.
  • Eric Raymond: (a) GUN Unix's Not !
  • However, kimchee removal (kimcheeectomy) can usually be performed as an outpatient procedure. It is now covered by many HMOs in the United States, in reflection of the modern trend toward acknowledging and supporting cultural and racial diversity.
  • Well actually I've been told and read (but never tried) that the really heavy-grade ceremonial kimchi is so strong that it can be smelt on your breath for two weeks after you've eaten it!

    One long-term effect of kimchi that I experienced while in Korea was that it certainly gives you a mouth of steel! When I was in KO, in my prime I could eat whole garlic cloves, red chillis etc. no problem!
  • He fit all that on one little postcard? Must have very small handwriting...

    :)
  • I know, I know, completely inconsequential by now, but I feel obligated to defend myself here. 5 distinct syllables in the last line are as follows: /BUT/ /THE/ /KIM/ /CHI/ /SUCKT/ (Trust me, sucked is one syllable!) And as far as dealing with nature, how much closer could you get than running shoes (a seasonal reference, as opposed to a natural one, the original guideline to haiku)? If you still don't diggit, though, go ask 575 [slashdot.org]. He'll tell you it's alright. And if he doesn't like it, then it's my first creation from my intelligent haiku generator. [slashdot.org]
  • ...*not* like the Irish, WRT fighting and drinking? Obviously, you don't know many Koreans. :-)
    ----------

  • I would venture a guess that it's a lot easier to set up a cell somewhere in the vicinity of a few neighboring villages than wire each and every house in all of the villages in the far-off provinces for telephone service.

    Wireless phones make sense for the Philippines. Vanity plays no part in the whole decision of whether or not to own one there. Of course in the more heavily-populated cities, there is that possibility.

    < dubuhead >

  • I was a part of the US IT Trade Mission that followed the Global Linux expo. One of the stats (revealed by Ambassador Bosworth himself) was that Korea has surpassed Finland in the penetration of mobile phones.

    There are also 4.5 million WAP enabled phones now in circulation. Yeah.. try beating that in Malaysia. We're talking nation wide penetration (now.. now... lets not get peverted about this) of cell phones, not just KL. :)

  • stinkin movie. where was that line in the book?
  • In Korea, mountains cover 70% of the land of Korea. It makes setting up a decent mobile phone
    infra difficult. But we do it.

    Actually, problems in Korea is that many mobile telephone companies used too much money on the infra, although, if they cooperated, they could save lots of money.

    Except for the 001, other phones have "shadow" region, which means that the phone call is not established well. (It's called "explodes not so well, in Korea. :) )

    I have a 016 PCS phone. It's worse than the 011 and 017 cellular phones.

    Hmm... well.. anyway, Korean mobile phones used in many countries. Because the CDMA got popular in Korea. Actually one of the core the base technology was developed in Korea, although the control capability on market is stolen by the Qualcomm.

    And you will be surprised that how the mobile phones looks beautiful. My sister living in the New Jersey was surprized by how they looks.
    She told be that there are not so small, ( so portable -- well.. we call the big mobile phones.. uh.. bricks.. sorry!!! ) and beautiful phones in the U.S.

    But there are some problem with the phones. Because there are too many phones manufactured, they causes excessive consumption. People buy new ones although theirs are good enough. It's, I think, extravagant.

  • How wrong you are. The philosophy behind RMS's glorious vision of a world where nothing is hidden and we can all share in the glories of source code is one that shall life the human condition and provide us with a spiritual feast the likes of which have never been seen before. Indeed, it can be argued that RMS is the reincarnated spirit of Jesus, and I for one can see the similarities - the beard for one.

    When the people of the world unite under the banner of GNU/Linux then all wars shall end, all suffering shall be alleiviated, and we will all dance happily through fields of flowers. Except for the lawyers that is...

    Oh yeah, good troll...


    ---
    Jon E. Erikson

  • Re:Dancing machine link needed (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I don't have a link, but the dancing machine that the writer referred to is called DDR (Dance Dance Revolution). It has a mat with four large buttons (front, back, left and right) that lights up when you press them.

    A song (usually techno or disco-esque affair) plays on the video screen and a series of arrows corresponding to the ones on the mat floats by in, more or less, rhythm to the music.

    It's very popular in Korea. It has overtaken karaokes, which was previously overtaken by karaoke boxes (nore bang). As with its predecessors, they all originated in Japan.

    Same thing, I might, as did the Hello Kitty crap that all Korean school girls seem to adore.

  • Re:Linux solves the world's problems! (Score:5)

    by Vanders ( 110092 ) on Tuesday June 20, 2000 @11:24PM (#987281) Homepage
    Instead of quoting part of the article in an attempt at Flamebait, let me explain it to you. Lets start with the whole quote:

    In fact, that has to be one of the most incredible things about Global Linux 2000 -- Here we are: the North and South are reconciling after fifty years, Bill Gates is in town and the media kept showing up over and over in droves to cover the show and conference.

    Now if we actually read that, what the writer is trying to say is:

    "Lots of mainstream, news worthy things are currently happening in Korea (Such as the peace talks between North and South, Bill Gates currently visiting the country), and yet the media still choose to come and cover this relatively small Linux expo. This is good, it means the media are taking notice of us"

    See? It's very easy, if you stop jerking your knee at the first oppurtunity.
  • HI, Well, I think you got it wrong, you see I think he means that even if the North and South are reconciling and that Bill Gates is in town, the media is still covering the issue and not just ignoring it because of the other stuff. He isn't telling us that Linux has reconciled the North and the South.
  • yeah, maybe, but here in the Philippines, where we are not so densely populated and is an archipelago also, everyone has a cellphone or two. Starting from seven year-olds to grandparents.
  • But I don't understand is why. There isn't anyone that needs to reach me bad enough that I would need one. Maybe that just reflects my outlook on life, heh.
    I dunno :)
  • Actually, a big use for mobile phones is SMS.
    --
  • Is this the same song linked off of http://www.jwz.org/hacks/ [jwz.org] as why-cooperation-with- rms-is-impossible.mp3 [jwz.org]?

    I'm not really interested in listening to find out...

  • Lovely work. I really do appreciate this kind of thing.
  • of ESR (toting gun) and RMS (in prophet-costume) holding hands and singing "My way". I probably won't be able to get that picture out of my head now *shiver*
  • Dance Revolution?

    Uh-ho... I still can hear that blasted 'Butterfly' song playing in my head from countless hours of playing SF3Z, while being next to one.

  • Happy Birthday is not free... (Score:3)

    by Bazman ( 4849 ) on Tuesday June 20, 2000 @11:55PM (#987290) Journal
    I believe the writers of 'Happy Birthday' still have some rights on the tune and the lyrics - I would have thought Stallman would know this!

    Of course if Happy Birthday was GPLd, Stallman would have to release his version too. Would that be a good thing?

    Baz
  • People just use them for chat. Sitting on a train? Phone a friend. Waiting in a line? Phone a friend. Boring bit in a film? Phone a friend.
  • Koreans are just like us irish, except we cook better and can sing.. ok they're not like us except for fighting and drinking..

    kimchi.. wtf was that stuff anywayS? I know it was rotten/aged cabbage and something really spicey... i tried not to ask what else it was..

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