Maybe $1 billion is a tad high for copying a rectangle

I was just opining earlier today that Apple's woes in the stock market may partly be a result of its aggressive litigation battles with its competitor-slash-suppliers, the likes of Samsung and LG. Well, it appears the judge in the US case that saw Apple awarded a billion dollars may also be thinking that things are kinda sorta getting out of hand.

From Huffington Post:

A federal judge on Thursday appeared ready to trim millions from a $1.05 billion jury verdict Apple Inc. won over Samsung Electronics this summer as she urged the top two smartphone companies to settle their myriad legal actions around the world.

U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh said she would issue a series of ruling over the next several weeks resolving the many legal issues raised at the hearing Thursday. Samsung is seeking a new trial or a reduction of the verdict that resulted from a lawsuit Apple filed in 2011. Apple, on the other hand, urged the judge to add millions more to the award and permanently ban the U.S. sales of eight Samsung smartphone models a jury in August said illegally used Apple technology.

Koh gave no indication on how she would rule on the sales ban request nor by what amount she would cut from the $1 billion award. Samsung was demanding that she cut the award by more than half, but Koh gave no hint that she sided with that argument or Apple's separate argument for an increase in the award.

Seriously, as a consumer who loves Apple products and wants Samsung to continue being an engine for the Korean economy, I'd love for these two to get this all behind them and get back to work actually designing stuff.

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Apple suffers biggest losses in four years

Apple shares plummeted six percentage points, causing the company to shed $35 billion in market value. That's billion with a b.

There were a number of reasons for this, including the fact that the iPad is ceding some ground to competitors' products like the Samsung Galaxy.

In addition to expectations of intensifying competition, there are also worries that the US going over the so-called "fiscal cliff" in January — which could mean automatic tax hikes across the board — may mean less money in consumers' pockets, which translates into poorer sales of the iPad and the iPhone, as well as Mac computers.

Although the Reuters article in the link doesn't directly say this, I think Apple's ongoing legal battles with Samsung, LG, and other companies (not all of them being Korean) add to a general negative feeling among investors. In short, in my best Jesse Jackson impression, Apple should be effectively innovating, not excessively litigating, so it will be successfully navigating the future.

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Bruce Springsteen goes "Gangnam Style" in Orange County

I think this would have been hilarious to see.

From the Los Angeles Times:

One of the aspects of a Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band show that's become ritualized over the years is when he reaches into the audience to pull a fan onstage to reprise a moment in the music video for "Dancing in the Dark," which originally was handled by then little-known actress Courteney Cox.

On Tuesday in Anaheim, that moment took a whimsical turn when Springsteen hoisted up a young girl of maybe 12 to join him near the end of the song.

Instead of the '80s version of the Jerk dance moves that the Boss showed off with Cox nearly a quarter-century ago, Springsteen's young partner launched into the dance of the year, Psy's "Gangnam Style," now the most-viewed video in the history of YouTube.

Demonstrating that he keeps up not only with politics but with flash-mob choreography, Springsteen joined her, flashing the Korean pop sensation's signature side kick and mimed horesback riding gestures, to the delight of the crowd at the Honda Center.

Madonna is doing it...

Ride that cougar! Ride it!

... and Obama might do it (the Chinese think he did)... Indubitably, Gangnam Style is gripping the world, sorta like a brain slug.

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Got problems with weak thrust? Let a foreigner tell you how it's done.

Over at ROK Drop, we have news that North Korea may have brought in foreigners to help with their missile program:

The South Korean government believes North Korea used foreign help to solve problems like weak engine thrust, and that there is a significant chance that the upcoming missile launch scheduled for sometime this month will be successful.

So the Norks need foreigners to compensate for their weak thrust? Boy, these jokes just write themselves (or perhaps foreigners are writing the jokes themselves).

Anyway, I have a pretty good guess how this came about: North Korean operatives keep reading at places like The Marmot's Hole that foreigner English teachers are a bunch of rocket scientists, and the rest is history.

In a pinch, Robert H. Goddard could teach
English or design a mean jungle gym. 

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iPhone 5 helps Apple push past LG in fight for cell phone supremacy

It may be Samsung that Apple sees as its greatest foe, but the maker of the iPhone is beating up another Korean electronics giant on its way to the top. In fact, Apple managed to edge out LG to take the number two spot:

From CNET:

The new iPhone has given Apple a slight lead over LG in U.S. mobile market share, according to new data from ComScore.

For the three months ending in October, Apple stole second place from LG by grabbing a 17.8 percent share of the entire U.S. cell phone market, up from 16.3 percent in the prior three months. LG trailed with 17.6 percent, a drop from 18.5 percent.

Released at the end of September, the iPhone 5 undoubtedly gave Apple the boost it needed to rise up the mobile phone charts. Over the past year, Apple had been in third place behind LG, and at times in fourth place behind Motorola, among the top five U.S. phone vendors.

For the latest period, Samsung still held the lead with a 27.3 percent slice of the market. Only Samsung and Apple saw gains in market share, while LG, Motorola, and HTC all were hit by small declines.

Here's a fuller set of ComScore's stats:

Apple may some day be able to best Samsung, but I think the new Microsoft tiles environment, integrated for both Windows-run computers and smartphones, is appealing enough that it's going to get some people to sit up and take notice and possibly peel a few would-be iPhone buyers from Apple.

I expect Samsung to stay on top for the foreseeable future. After all, doing well is the best revenge.

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L.A.Times: Beyond 7 billion: Bending the population curve

Los Angeles times has a fascinating look at the troubles that we face as the planet hovers around 7 billion people. It's a broad discussion that includes talk about family planning and birth control, including one researcher citing South Korea as an example where if you can control the size of families that people want, you can turn a poor country into a prosperous one.

From the Los Angeles Times:

Beyond 7 billion: Bending the population curve

Hunger. Environmental degradation. Political instability. These were among the consequences of rapid global population growth documented in a five-part series in The Times in July. Now, Opinion has invited leading scholars to consider what, if anything, people and governments can do to address the issue. In the brief essays that follow, Malcolm Potts from UC Berkeley sets up the situation we are facing, and population experts from around the globe explain some of the approaches they've seen work — and the reasons others have not. The series, by Times staff writer Kenneth R. Weiss and staff photographer Rick Loomis, can be found at latimes.com/populationrising .

The full story can be viewed at: http://www.latimes.com/la-oe-population-package-20121202,0,800082.story?track=latiphoneapp

Get the Los Angeles Times iPhone app from iTunes: http://www.itunes.com/apps/latimes

This succinct email was sent from my iPhone (possibly with the help of Siri voice recognition, so please excuse any weird typos). 

Shoot the moon (literally)

We live in a time when truth really is often stranger than fiction.

We are just now finding out that the US had planned to scare the bejeezus out of the Soviets (not that they had a whole lot of bejeezus to begin with) by... wait for it... blowing up the Moon.

What makes this story even more fun is that this old story was dredged up by... wait for it... The Sun:

America planned to blow up the moon with a nuclear bomb in the 1950s, reports have claimed.

US Military chiefs were reportedly keen on the sensational plot as a show of strength to intimidate arch-rivals Russia at the height of the Cold War.

The secret project was codenamed A Study of Lunar Research Flights and given the nickname Project A119.

The classified plan was to attach a nuclear device to a missile and launch it 238,000 miles to the moon.

The bomb would then explode on impact and the flash could have been seen from earth.
Physicist Leonard Reiffel told Associated Press that the plan was to "intimidate" the Russians and boost morale in America.

A nuclear bomb was chosen because a hydrogen bomb, the most powerful in the US arsenal, would have been too heavy to fly to space.

However the plan was ditched because of a number of fears over safety, including what effect the blast would have on the Earth.

Scientist Carl Sagan was involved in the project and was responsible for calculating what would happen to the moon dust and debris if there was such an explosion.

If this is true (and I'm not so sure it is), I just don't what to say. Except that it is arrogance like this that doesn't exactly win hearts and minds.

I don't have anything really Korea-related to add here, except that North Korea seems to be going a similar route with its own nuclear intimidation: scaring the crap out of its neighbors by nuking deep holes in the ground.

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Uber Gangnam Style

They may not have Bieber Fever, but they seem to
have Psy-chosis. Get it? Psy-chosis. I'm here all week.

It's official: Psy's "Gangnam Style" video is now the most watched video of all time on YouTube:

YouTube says in a posting on its Trends blog that "Gangnam Style" had been viewed 805 million times as of Saturday afternoon, surpassing Justin Bieber's "Baby," which has had 803 million views.

The blog says the "velocity of popularity for PSY's outlandish video is unprecedented."

I concur, on its popularity, its unprecedentedness, and its outlandishness. Despite some reporters' claims that Psy is already a has-been and that "Gangnam Style" is dead.

Now lest you think all these hits is another case of Korean netizens with waaaaaay too much time on their hands, I can attest that the song, the video, and the singer are all inside people's heads and on their lips. Not just in Hawaii but everywhere.

Anyway, I must admit that I am responsible for at least three or four of those hits, including when I used it for a Korean Studies demonstration lecture (it was supplemented by clips from The Way Home, and I think I may have made a point about homosocial behavior in Korea).

I hang my head in shame.

Anyhoo, I have never watched a Justin Bieber video, which may be part of the reason the Bieb was dethroned.

For those of you who have never heard of, seen, or read about this song and its video, here it is in all its silly glory (and I note it has shot up to 814.4 million as of this writing):



I bang my head in shame.

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NoKo a no-go?

Travel & Leisure, a magazine that usually promotes places where you can travel and enjoy leisure, has a piece on "the world's most dangerous countries to visit."

North Korea made the list, naturally. And I say "naturally" not because it's dangerous, but because Hermit Kingdom 2.0 is perceived as dangerous for travelers, even though it actually probably isn't. I'm willing to bet a typical tourist is more likely to get out of Pyongyang alive than Oahu (we've got sharks).

The Great Fright North as a state is clearly dangerous, to its neighbors and especially to its people, but does that translate into being dangerous for tourists? Granted, there is that infamous case of a South Korean traveler visiting the Kŭmgangsan (Diamond Mountain) resort who was shot in the back when she ventured off the reservation.

And then we have the case of the accidental tourists. I'm referring to the Stupogants™ who willfully crossed into North Korean territory hoping not to get caught, in the case of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, or wanting and expecting to get caught, as in the case of Robert Park and later Aijalon Gomes. All four of them had unpleasant visits, but they were, in the eyes of North Korea, illegal aliens and highly undesirable visitors.

But what if you're on a tour to Pyongyang or Kaesŏng or the DMZ or Mt Paektusan (if they go there from the North Korean side)? Are you actually in a great amount of danger as a tourist?

With its low crime stemming from the tight control of the regime, I'm guessing the answer is not just no but may be the opposite.

But as usual, what passes for reporting on North Korea ends up as little more than a caricature of what has already been reported. Superficial is funnier, I guess.

Now, to be fair, I have never set foot in North Korea except the five meters or so at the Joint Security Area in P'anmunjŏm where you can mill around that one building that straddles the border. Perhaps until I go there myself my own opinion is just as superficial, but it is informed by people who have traveled there, and they generally say the place is eerie but not dangerous.

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Psy-ched out?

Enlarge to see
girls in bikinis.

The Orange County Register is reporting that South Korea's Internet sensation Psy — he of Gangnam Style and its three-quarters of a billion YouTube views — has decided to cancel a major performance at the Honda Center, the OC venue formerly known as "The Pond" (because the Anaheim Mighty Ducks play hockey there).

While this wouldn't be particularly blog-worthy, I'm writing about it because the OCR music reporter is making the case that this is a sure sign of the end of Psy's US career, a run that shouldn't have lasted beyond August.

A snippet the entire article:

Let’s change that overplayed phrase to “oppan cancel style!”

South Korean pop star Psy, whose summertime sensation “Gangnam Style” is already played-out and much-parodied as the holiday season arrives, has scrubbed his headlining performance at Honda Center in Anaheim on Jan. 26. Refunds are available at point of purchase.

The official cause for the cancellation is “a scheduling conflict caused by unexpected international travel issues.”

That’s likely true. But it’s hard not to wonder if deleting the date from his itinerary had anything to do with ticket sales perhaps being sluggish for such an enormous debut gig. The fact that the show isn’t being rescheduled is also a telling indicator.

No word about whether the man born Park Jae-sang will also need to bow out of his appearance at the second night of KIIS-FM’s Jingle Ball on Dec. 3 at Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles, alongside Justin Bieber, Ke$ha, Flo Rida, fun., Owl City and more.
Presumably he’ll be there. He’s still listed in the lineup on Ticketmaster.

I'll admit I was as baffled as I was amused not just at Psy's phenomenal popularity, but by how high and broad it went, with numerous appearances on all sorts of American mainstream media, from The Today Show to Saturday Night Live.

And for the past few months, including up to now, I had all sorts of people asking me to translate the lyrics or explain its meaning, and I've overheard countless people singing the song, calling out the title phrase, or doing the dance. On more than one occasion when I was writing something in Korean, I've had people asking if I was writing "Oppan Gangnam Style" (and I always say yes).

I'm not so sure the phenomenon is as dead as Ben Wener makes it out to be, nor am I entirely convinced Psy can't pull off another popular song or two (though it's nearly a given it won't reach 750 million YouTube views, because, well, virtually nothing reaches 750 million YouTube views).

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Happy Thanksgiving!

Most Koreans think turkey is abut gamey, but who can resist pumpkin pie... from Costco?!

Do they sell this in Yangjae?

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Romney can still win this

I'm not sure how much more desperate the far right can get. Afflicted with Obama Derangement Syndrome and oh-so-certain that Obama's 2.8%, 3.5 million vote margin of victory was outright voter fraud, they have concocted a plan for Mitt Romney to emerge victorious in the Electoral College (sort of). 

Simply put, if 17 states can be convinced not to send Electors to vote, then there is no quorum and the process is thrown to the House, where GOP-led state delegations would undoubtedly choose Romney (and the Senate would choose Biden — or Obama). 

http://www.wnd.com/2012/11/how-obama-can-be-stopped-in-electoral-college/

Never mind that this relies on a wholly inaccurate reading of the US Constitution. But hey, when has that ever stopped anyone?

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HuffPo on Korea's homeless

The Huffington Post has an interesting piece on the challenges faced by the homeless in Seoul, along with some efforts by the homeless themselves to help each other.

An excerpt:
I recently had the privilege of visiting Seoul, South Korea. As part of my trip, I talked to several homeless organizations. One of the homeless men I met with was Mr. Lee. In 1997 he lost his job when the company he worked for (making clothes for school kids) was replaced by a bigger company.

He was homeless for 10 years. Then he fell and ended up in a hospital. When he left the hospital a local civic organization helped him. He repaid their help by agreeing to volunteer. He organized a homeless group of six men. These men simply reached out to other homeless people to talk. They offered no services. They simply asked people what they needed.
In his conversations, he learned that welfare was being cut. There was not enough money to help people. Mr. Lee learned that homeless people lacked any savings and could not get bank credit. So he and his group of six decided to start a bank cooperative and offer their own social services.