Archives 2021

An Eier­scha­len­soll­bruch­stel­len­ver­ur­sa­cher and an egg.

Superman saves the cat but not the girl

F-15E 보통 홍보용 사진이나 영상에서는 보기 힘든, 진짜 사용되고 있는 기름묻은 기계 느낌.

"미 항공우주국(NASA)이 반자동 경량 소총을 구매" —- 나사 직원: 지구 귀환을 환영합니다! 우주인: 달에 뭔가 있어. 나사 직원: 네? 우주인: (장전된 총을 챙기고 다시 로켓에 올라타며) 달에 뭔가 있다고. —- 실제로 국제우주정거장에는 항상 한두 정의 총이 구비되어있습니다. 예전에 소련 우주팀이 지구에 귀환 후 구조팀을 기다리는 동안 야생곰을 만나서 고생한 적이 있기 때문입니다. 항간에는 위기 상황이 발생 했을 때 다른 우주인을 제압하거나 스스로 생을 마감해야 할 경우에 대비하는 거라는 설도 있었으나, 에어락을 열면 다 함께 죽는 우주공간이기 때문에 그건 아닌 것 같습니다. 우주공간을 군사적 목적으로 쓰지 않겠다는 국제협약이 있기 때문에 지구 궤도에 레일건을 쏘아올리기는 힘듭니다만 실제로 나사는 다양한 재미있는 실험도 하고 있습니다. 가스와 피스톤으로 작동하는… 일종에 로켓총 비슷한 것도 만들곤 합니다. 그 어떤 대포보다 더 빠른 속도로 탄환을 발사해 우주 쓰레기가 우주선에 충돌하는 경우를 실험하는 겁니다.

"요즘 르네상스 시대 옷을 입고 달구지를 끌며 '시체를 내오시오'하고 외치고 다니면 웃기겠다는 글들이 보입니다. 실제 코로나바이러스에 감염된 사람으로서 말하자면, 굉장히 불편합니다.

중세 시대 옷을 입어야지요."

각국의 가장 오래된 회사들. 한국은 한국통신이 1885년에 설립됐다고 나오지만 그건 한성전보총국이고, 1894년에 폐업했습니다. http://encykorea.aks.ac.kr/Contents/Item/E0061753 현 KT는 1981년 창업. —- 세계에서 제일 오래된 회사는 일본의 불교사찰 건축전문 회사인 곤고구미(金剛組)이고 577년에 하필 호류지 절을 건축하던 백제 목수 류중광이 세운 회사입니다. 그 이후 이름을 곤고 시게미츠(金剛重光) 로 바꾸고 40대 째 같은 집안에서 운영하다가 2006년에 더 큰 회사에 팔렸습니다.

14세 때, 톨킨의 호빗을 읽으며: 호빗들은 30세까지는 어른으로 취급하지 않는다고? 엄청 독특하네. 판타지 세계관은 이렇게 만드는 거지. 우리 인간세상이랑 너무 다르잖아.

25세 때: 아… 그래서 그랬구나..

34세 때: 사실 호빗들은 좀 성급한 감이 있지.

“슈뢰딩거에게 내가 살아돌아왔다고 전하게.”

Something I've been asked many times before when I talk to my Chinese friends is "why do some Koreans know lots of Chinese characters and the rest know next to nothing?" 1. Those in Korea that are 40 years old or older would have had their 한문([hanmun] 漢文) classes as part of the nationally required curriculum in middle school and high school, most likely one hour per week. 한문 means Chinese writing/literature and they teach very basic vocabulary and some grammar, using Classical Chinese poetry and sometimes using the Thousand Character Classic(千字文) as a primer. The idea is that Classical Chinese is to Korean as Latin is to English, to an extent, and so learning 한문 should give you a deeper understanding of Korean, and it often does. A clarification: They weren't teaching "Chinese" to their students. It was Sino-Korean words written in their original Chinese characters but still pronounced in Korean. For example, 隰有萇楚 is read as seup-yu-jang-cho( https://youtu.be/Dc5mlz9I17U?t=29 ) in Korean, which sounds very different from modern Chinese( https://youtu.be/rZSIvf-YCtA?t=142 ) but a bit more similar to Middle Chinese pronunciation. ( https://youtu.be/rZSIvf-YCtA?t=48 ) Using Classical Chinese texts from 2000 years ago to study Chinese characters has one obvious disadvantage in that it(汝何往乎?) is often very different from modern Chinese(你去哪里?). Even the grammar is either very different or nearly nonexistent in Classical Chinese. Therefore, even if you got nothing but As in 한문 classes, you still wouldn't be able to speak or write or.. understand modern Chinese. Keep in mind though, that with the classes being only one hour per week and all the kids focused on core subjects that are more relevant to college entrance exams, no one really learned much. 2. Although it was already considered a dying field in Korea when I was in school, the Sino-Korean literature curriculum is very detailed. I still remember being taught the classifications of Chinese characters, like pictographs, e.g., 木, ideographs, e.g., 一, compounds and loans, etc. I especially found interesting the compound ideographs like two trees(木+木) becoming a grove(林) which is combining two meanings to make a new character, and then of course the phono-semantic compound characters like 沐([mù] to wash oneself) which takes a part of the meaning from 氵(water) and the sound [mù] from 木(tree), etc, which makes up most of Chinese characters. Imagine making a Korean friend who doesn't speak any Chinese, but being able to talk about Chinese etymology with him/her. 3. Until a hundred years ago, travelers from China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam would write down simple phrases in Chinese to communicate with each other, because although they sounded different(sometimes very similar) in all those languages, many could still read and write Classical Chinese words. Vietnam stopped using Chinese characters(Chữ Nôm) in 1918 and most Vietnamese now wouldn't know many Chinese characters. Japan still uses Chinese characters but they simplified theirs around the same time Mainland China did. Some of it is compatible with the Simplified Chinese characters used in China. Korea still shares the traditional Chinese characters with Taiwan, save for a few characters created in Korea such as 畓([dap] Rice field/paddy. 水田 but conveniently combined into one. Water + Field. Still used in Korean today) or 亇([ma] Hammer because… it's shaped like a hammer. Not used as much in Korean now.) 4. Korean publications used to contain lots of Chinese characters, somewhat similar to how Japanese is written today, with maybe 70-80% of the text being in Korean, and the rest in Chinese characters. Since the '90s, nearly all have switched to Korean only, when everyone realized it doesn't take away much even when the text is written in Korean only; everyone understood the meaning of the Sino-Korean word written in Korean even without seeing the original Chinese characters for it, thanks to the context. Sino-Korean literature education started going away around the same time too and now there are few Korean universities that even have a Sino-Korean Literature Education department. Naturally, Koreans under 40 weren't forced to learn all this and that's why there's that big generational gap when it comes to knowledge of Chinese characters among Koreans.