Here’s the first of two podcasts of four of my travel-mates made on our August 2011 visit to North Korea. The original is here. Jordan, who produced the podcast, runs a dating school, which is why you’ll hear ads for it in the podcast. Neil runs a dating school too, among other things. Gabriel is a writer, among other things. Joseph took the most amazing pictures of North Korea I’ve[…] Keep reading →

My interactions with North Korea have taught me more about myself and my values than anything else in recent memory. I was going to say it taught me more about being an American, but being an American means something different to me today than it used to, and means something different to everyone. I’m thinking about America in the context of North Korea today because I’m in the middle of[…] Keep reading →

Today I’m just linking to a radio interview on a man born and raised in the North Korea prison camp system. Prepare yourself before listening since it gets serious. It speaks for itself. I understand the North Korean government generally states it has no prison camps. Visiting North Korea through the government tour, you would see no evidence of this story. Reading Nothing to Envy, you find out more about[…] Keep reading →

We use the same word to describe emotional and physical tension for a reason. They go together. I tend to think of them almost as the same thing. I haven’t done any scientific studies, but I’ve found any time someone has emotional tension, it will manifest itself physically. Any time you have physical tension, it will constrain you physically. When I see someone who walks and moves stiffly, I find[…] Keep reading →

This NY TImes article on North Korea and its environment, Q. and A.: North Korea’s Choked Environment, reminded me of other routes to create bonds and understanding with North Korea — nature and science. The article describes the current environmental situation there, some history, and how a conference on it went. Since the Korean War North Korea has lost trees, exacerbated by famine, mismanagement, flooding, and so on. Everybody gains[…] Keep reading →

I saw a snippet of a talk pointing out that Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and others design software from the ground up to spy on you. Sometimes a blatant statement of a problem reminds you of it. People are learning about the problems with large corporations and governments having so much information on you, though they don’t know what to do about it because they have no alternatives. Gmail benefits[…] Keep reading →

I searched on “list of emotions” and clicked on the first five links. One was dead. Two were Wikipedia articles, one of which was about categorizing emotions, which I don’t think would work. The other one listed only a few dozen, which they also categorized. The next page also showed only a few dozen emotions, also categorizing them. The page after that entitled its table “List of Emotions and it’s[…] Keep reading →