Saturday, October 6, 2012

[Sæternes-dæg] Annotated Links #20: Bending Borders

1. Koh, Yoree. "Novelist Murakami Weighs In on Japan Territorial Rows." Japan Real Time (The Wall Street Journal) 28 September 2012. Web. 06 October 2012.

Koh recaps Haruki Murakami's stance on Japan's current territorial disputes as they appeared in an essay that made the front page of the Asahi Shimbun. Murakami argues that these territorial disputes are threatening the cultural ties that the three Asian countries have established over recent decades, and that they're "like getting drunk on cheap sake." This article is written in a plain, direct style.

Haruki Murakami is an amazing writer, and the matter of Japanese-South Korean-Chinese territorial disputes is one of interest since I recall how passionate many South Koreans were about their owning Dokdo (Takeshima, in Japan), so inlcuding this article was a must.

2. Stusinski, Melissa. "‘Looper’-Like Time Travel Possible, Scientists Say." The Inquisitr 28 September 2012. Web. 06 October 2012.

A misleadingly titled article that suggests that time travel to the future is possible, while time travel to the past is much more problematic. This one is written in a very conversational style that makes it seem like a token blog entry.

Despite its brevity, this article is included because it is a solid summary of time travel mechanics.

3. Tozer, Jessica L.. "Sensors on Scan." Armed With Science 2 October 2012. Web. 06 October 2012.

Dr. Chris Field at the Naval Research Laboratory is currently working on technology that does just what Star Trek's tricorder does - scan an area for any and all vapours it contains. Various applications for this quarter-sized technology are discussed, ranging from carbon monoxide detection to airport security applications. Tozer writes in an informal style.

Anything about such amazing science simply has to be included. It's practically the law.

4. Oh, Young-Jin. "Coming out on Psy." The Korea Times 2 October 2012. Web. 06 October 2012.

This one offers a thought-provoking look at the Psy phenomenon from the perspective of someone who thinks that Psy represents nothing Korean. In it Oh relates his thoughts on Psy and how they've evolved to his current stance that Psy represents more of global pop culture than Korean pop culture. It is written in a prim, yet conversational style.

Because of the wild popularity of Psy, this one had to be included to offer a counter-argument to his apparent bolstering of the Korean cultural wave that's supposedly swept over the world in recent weeks.

5.Clayton, Nick. "Scientists Look to Use Bee’s Brains to Control Flying Robots." Tech Europe (The Wall Street Journal) 4 October 2012. Web. 6 October 2012.

Researchers at the universities of Sheffield and Sussex are looking into using bee brains to power flying recon robots. Among the uses for these robots, the article focuses on their being used to gather information to help rescue teams figure out what the next best option is. It is a short article, written in a plain style.

This one's included because it's some exciting news from the world of robotics, and it's not often that social insects are thought of as being as useful to science as social mammals.


Back To Top
Closing

Next week, watch for another (much more recent) poem on Monday, and a prowl for the palatable in Leprechaun In The Hood on Friday!

Back To Top

No comments:

Post a Comment