THE ANSWER IS 12
#233 Back to the ghetto and back out...Welcome to the Show...
4/6/11I know I haven't been writing much lately, and by lately, I mean the last year or two. If you read these, then you know that too. I have too much free time on my hands, and don't know what to do with it. I know I should be writing more, but I guess I just haven't much to write about. I've been back for six weeks, but I haven't had much to write about. I've gotten drunk a few times at the Hash. I stayed up all night my first night back so that I could make the YKH3 at the way-too-early Hashing hour of 1000.
I decided to give up drinking for a month. I'm at 27 days now. Despite a bit of boredom (I don't really hang out with anybody from work, and most of my non-KNU friends have left the hood), I haven't really missed it. I want to get out and travel more. I only stayed three nights out of my apartment last semester. Only three nights used to be a slow month, let alone a semester. I want to get more real writing done, as opposed to the write-ups I have been doing of the crazy stories in the local newspapers.
Here goes some old tales and write-ups...
12/30/10
It's time to wrap up 2010. While I had a lot of fun this year, I can't say that I'm sorry to see it go. Between Dad's health problems and my finishing up grad school, I didn't have many free, unworried moments this year. Dad is much better and is up and around as much as he feels like it.
I landed on the December 12, had one night at Mom and Dad's and then was driven to Brett's to stay one night. Brett flew out to Baltimore with me the next morning, so I could give my final presentation in Winchester, VA. It was the first time I had visited my campus or met my professors during my four years of studying at Shenandoah University. Although I mangled my presentation (partly because they didn't have a computer set up so I could show the PowerPoint slides I had made), the school's website now shows me having earned an A- (3.00) in my final course. This gives me a final GPA of 3.392 for 33 credit hours, better than I did in either of my undergrad degrees.
Brett and I rented a Hyundai Santa Fe and drove back to OKC. We didn't take into account the fact that neither of us really knows anybody out that way or that we were traveling during winter. We stopped off at the Shenandoah Caverns after finding the Skyline Drive closed due to winter weather. I got Brett decently toasted on Beale Street in Memphis after we had dinner at the best eastern style barbeque restaurant I've ever experienced, Charles Vergos' Rendezvous. Our trip concluded with a pit stop at the Wiederkehr Winery in Altus, AK where I relieved them of four cases of some of the best wine made in America. Brett crashed the next weekend in Weatherford. We met up with E-boy, Jen and Cutitz for a night at the Bone and Cowballs.
I had a couple of days to recoup before Brett and Cooter rolled into town for Christmas. Mom and Dad threw their traditional Christmas Eve party. We ate and snacked well. Cooter cooked an amazing beef roast for us for Christmas dinner. A pan of bread pudding from the Downtown Diner completed the meal.
Cooter left town a couple of days after his birthday and took me with him. We popped by our other brother Jim's house on the way to Boulder and spent the night. It was the first time since 1989 the three of had been together. We drank and sang the night away in Jim's Omaha basement.
We pushed on the next morning to Colorado on Cooter's birthday. We met some of his friends, including a birthday buddy, in Denver for dinner and a couple of beers.
By the Numbers...
1 : Number of years imprisonment Korean women face if caught having an abortion. 2 : Fine, in millions of KRW, Korean women face if caught having an abortion.
342,233 : Number of abortions performed and reported in Korea in 2005. I wonder how many they didn't report.
476,000 : Number of births in Korea in 2005.
2,000 : Number of aborted fetuses found hidden in a Buddhist temple's graveyard in Bangkok where abortion is illegal unless a woman has been raped, the pregnancy threatens her life, or the fetus is deemed to be "abnormal."
1,125 : Number of Korean children adopted overseas in 2009.
1,250 : Number of Korean children adopted overseas in 2008.
1,314 : Number of Korean children adopted domestically in 2009.
1,306 : Number of Korean children adopted domestically in 2008.
712,227 : Number of students who took the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) on November 18, 34,000 higher than last year.
1,206 : Number of CSAT examination sites nationwide.
10 : Number of hours given to take the CSAT.
5 : Number of sections on the CSAT: Korean language, mathematics, English, social and natural sciences, and a second foreign language.
234 : Price, in KRW, of the Chinese-made pencils given to CSAT test-takers to use; they aren't allowed to use their own pencils to prevent cheating.
80,000 : Number of people who have signed a petition asking for an investigation the poor quality of the pencils. Students claim they broke too easily and were too loud, severely distracting the test-takers.
60,000 : Number of iSheep who have pre-ordered one of the six versions of the iPad set to launch in Korea on November 30.
200,000 : Number of iPads KT, Korea's Apple vendor, plans to sell this year.
150,000 : Number of Galaxy Tabs Samsung believes it will have sold by the end of November.
2,900 : Number of North Koreans to defect to South Korea in 2009.
2,000 : Number of North Koreans to defect to South Korea so far this year.
20,000 : Total number of North Koreans to defect to South Korea since 1967 (The first known defector was a 21-year-old soldier; number 20,000 was a 41-year-old woman on 11/15).
3 : Number of months North Korean defectors are interrogated by military intelligence agents.
3 : Number of months North Korean defectors spend learning about how to live in the South at a state-run facility called Hanawon.
4,955 : Number of Korean buildings 11 stories or taller inspected in November after a 38-story apartment building caught fire in Busan.
413 : Number of Korean buildings of those inspected to be found unprepared for fires.
70,000 : Estimated number of Koreans who have undergone sex change surgery.
65 : Age in Korea to make a person unconditionally eligible for free subway rides.
219 : Number, in millions, of Koreans who rode the subway for free in 2009.
222 : Cost, in billions of KRW, to Seoul Metro for all those free rides.
3,000 : Average monthly pay, in KPW, of North Korean laborers (US$1 = 143.079KPW).
300,000 : Average monthly pay, in KPW, of North Korean workers at the joint North-South Korean Gaesong Complex.
3,919 : Number of underground shelters in Seoul (not including air-raid shelters built during Japan's occupation).
23 : Number of nuclear-proof shelters in Seoul.
20 : Number, in millions, those shelters can accommodate.
1,700 : Number of residents on Yeonpyeong Island, the island North Korea shelled on November 23.
1,200 : Number of Yeonpyeong Island residents who evacuated on November 23.
43 : Number of Yeonpyeong Island residents remaining as of November 25.
800,000 : Number of smartphones sold in Korea in 2009.
6.8 : Number, in millions, of smartphones sold in Korea in the first 11 months of 2010.
930 : Estimated amount, in billions of US dollars, of America's cash supply.
110 : Estimated value, in billions of US dollars, of $100 dollar bills recently printed incorrectly and quarantined.
120 : Estimated cost, in millions of US dollars, of this tater tot-level mistake.
270 : Number of Koreans who died from H1N1 in 2009.
1 : Number of Korean who died from H1N1 in 2010 (on 12/30/10).
763,700 : Number of people who tested positive for H1N1 in Korea between April 2009 and August 2010.
7-10 : Amount, in millions of KRW, Koreans are paid less than foreigners to teach English in Korea.
60,000 : Number of pornographic websites China shut down in 2010.
450 : Number, in millions, of Chinese who use the internet.
34 : Percentage of Chinese who use the internet.
30 : Percentage of the rest of the world who uses the internet.
57 : Percentage of Koreans who said they would not marry a fellow Korean over a foreigner according to a recent survey conducted by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family.
31.8 : Percentage of Koreans who said they would marry a foreigner.
9 : Percentage of Koreans who said they would NEVER marry a foreigner.
41.9 : Percentage of Korean parents who said they didn't want their children marrying foreigners.
8.5 : Percentage of Korean parents who said they would "strongly oppose" a marriage between their kid and a foreigner.
12 : Percentage of Korean parents who said they would consent to their kids having an interracial marriage.
9 : Number of years in prison given to a Korean pastor for being a pedophile. The 65-year-old abused his religious authority to have sex with an 11-year-old girl and two other minors more than a dozen times. He photographed their rapes and occasionally threatened them for not answering his text messages. I hope he gets shanked well before his nine years are up.
2,863 : Number of mail carriers in America bitten by dogs in 2009.
146 : Number of suicides among Korean students in 2010.
202 : Number of suicides among Korean students in 2009.
33,300 : Number of marriages of Koreans to foreigners in 2009.
10.8 : Percentage of all marriages in 2009 involving Koreans wedding foreigners.
11,364 : Number of Korean men who married Chinese women in 2009.
7,249 : Number of Korean men who married Vietnamese women in 2009.
851 : Number of Korean men who married Cambodian women in 2009.
416 : Number of Korean men who married American women in 2009.
1,380 : Number of accidents in Korea involving food delivery scooters in 2009.
472 : Number of mentally-deficient people who allowed an unlicensed man to perform plastic surgeries on them in Busan over the course of 20 months. They should have seen a psychologist first and then researched their "doctor".
170,000 : Number of Korean illegal aliens in the U.S. in 2010.
200,000 : Number of Korean illegals in the U.S. in 2009.
240,000 : Number of Korean illegals in the U.S. in 2008. The number might be down, but we still should strive to give all illegals the boot.
1,141,839 : Number of elementary school students in Seoul in 1990.
566,149 : Number of elementary school students in Seoul in 2010.
25,382 : Number of elementary school teachers in Seoul in 2000.
29,335 : Number of elementary school teachers in Seoul in 2010.
339 : Number of elementary schools in Seoul in 2000.
463 : Number of elementary schools in Seoul in 2010.
35,000 : Number of people killed in Mexico due to drug-related violence since 2006.
160,000 : Number of foreign nationals who married Koreans in 2009.
180,000 : Number of foreign nationals who married Koreans in 2010.
5,000 : Number of calls received monthly at six call centers across the nation from "troubled" migrant wives.
18 : Number of government-funded shelters available nationwide for migrant wives, each only capable of housing 20 people.
2 : Number of years foreign wives must endure a crappy marriage in order to obtain Korean citizenship.
77 : Number of suicides per 100,000 people over the age of 65 in Korea in 2009.
61 : Number of condemned criminals awaiting execution in South Korea.
13 : Number of years since South Korea's last execution.
60 : Estimated minimum number of people executed in North Korea last year.
139 : Number of countries who have abolished executions either in practice or in law. So go to these nations and kill somebody, because they obviously don't care much about proper punishment.
70 : Number of Korean women tricked into going to Japan to work at massage parlors by another Korean woman who forced them to be whores to pay off debts to loan shark. Authorities are still searching for the 37-year-old woman.
35 : Amount, in millions of KRW, made monthly off of the 70 forced prostitutes.
25 : Percentage of Koreans still using Microsoft's antiquated Internet Explorer. It's completely Chewbacca that the nation with the fastest internet connections in the world would still use such an out-dated explorer.
0.6 : Percentage of Korean women who are raped or experience an attempted rape in 2009.
0.7 : Percentage of disabled Korean women who are raped or experience an attempted rape in 2009.
90.3 : Percentage of 2010 Korean university graduates who finished with a grade point average (GPA) of a B or higher.
74 : Percentage of 2010 Korean university undergraduate students who scored a B or higher.
37.8 : Percentage of 2010 Korean university undergraduate students who received an A in every class.
Burn This Witch...
10/28/10
A 19-year-old girl in Busan was recently arrested on charges that she had whored herself out to 20 men she had met online. Normally this wouldn't be cause for concern in whore-happy Korea, but this young slut has AIDS and didn't tell her johns. On the plus side, she claims that she urged her clients to wear condoms, but they refused. The men paid 50-100,000 KRW to possibly infect themselves with an incurable disease. If you're going to bang a hooker, wrap your junk! Dumbasses. These morons got (or will get) what they deserved. Future Korean Kancer Patients...
11/8/10
Korea's Ministry of Gender Equality and Family (MGEF) is changing the way the nation purchases alcohol and cigarettes. Starting at the end of next year, Koreans will have to present identification cards to prove they are over the age of 19 so they can purchase booze and coffin nails. The move will also put vendors on a three-strike program. The will lose their license if they are caught selling to minors three times. Koreans don't currently have to show proof of age. The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) found that 80.5 percent of 80,000 students it surveyed had bought or attempted to by cancer sticks. Another survey showed that 16 percent of male high school students and 5.3 percent of female high school students smoke daily. Idiots.
Korea's Ministry of Gender Equality and Family (MGEF) is changing the way the nation purchases alcohol and cigarettes. Starting at the end of next year, Koreans will have to present identification cards to prove they are over the age of 19 so they can purchase booze and coffin nails. The move will also put vendors on a three-strike program. The will lose their license if they are caught selling to minors three times. Koreans don't currently have to show proof of age. The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) found that 80.5 percent of 80,000 students it surveyed had bought or attempted to by cancer sticks. Another survey showed that 16 percent of male high school students and 5.3 percent of female high school students smoke daily. Idiots.
G20, G Funny...
11/12/10
Korea played host to the G20 Summit today and yesterday. The summit itself went off mostly without a hitch. Other aspects of the event didn't fare so well. Korea's focus on the superficial proved embarrassing. In an attempt to make Seoul more presentable to the visiting heads of states, corporate executives, journalists, and protesters. The city had advised residents to stop littering, to not barge into lines, to leave their cars at home and to actually stop at red lights. The district of the city hosting the summit suspended part of its trash collection. Korea has its citizens separate their food garbage into small plastic bags to set outside their apartments. Cats, rats and dogs shred the bags and spread their contents everywhere. To make the city temporarily appear cleaner than it normally is, the city isn't collecting those bags and asked people not to set them out until after the weekend.
In preparation for the G20, Korea erected a two-meter fence around the mall and brought in 60,000 military, police and riot personnel to handle security throughout the city. Korea also put a special law in effect for the event banning protesting within two kilometers of the COEX Mall. This has forced the few thousand protesters here to hold their rallies north of the Han River. Three protesters did try to do their thing at the mall. A Korean man protested Korea's Four Major Rivers’ Restoration Project. A white guy held a sign reading “Recession is the medicine". A Korean woman doused herself with flammable paint thinner without reporting her cause. And a 13-year-old Korean-American boy demanded the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. The police relocated the adult men outside of the two-kilometer perimeter, arrested the woman and left the boy alone.
PETA has emerged as a surprise protester during the G20. The reason is even more surprising. The COEX announced that it was going to use six goldfish to check the quality of the recycled water to be used in its bathrooms, so that the G20 leaders would have safe toilet water. PETA argued that goldfish "feel pain just as people do."
Arirang Television stepped up to the plate to ensure that the event received ridiculous coverage. The station ran continuous reports and advertising spots for the event. The worst I saw showed caricatures of the G20 leaders. Most of them showed large-headed leaders on bodies wearing suits or dress clothes. The ones that didn't either made no sense or were insulting. The following lists the interesting/insulting ones:
American President Obama: playing golf
UK Prime Minister Cameron: riding a horse
Brazilian President da Silva: playing soccer
Russian President Medvedev: skiing
Indian Prime Minister Singh: (my personal favorite) riding a flying carpet
The G20 Summit has cost Korean businesses plenty. The summit's security measures all but closed down the COEX; only a handful of restaurants stayed open. It hurt the Pepero Day sales of nearby convenient stores. Even the Lucky Seven Casino has closed its doors for 63 hours to lose an estimated three billion KRW. It also gave Korea's sex industry close near the mall a mini-vacation. Nearly 50,000 of the security personnel have been put up in the motels, hotels and love motels around the mall, including Kangnam. This sudden infusion of police has scared off most of the area's usual nocturnal clientele. The police have temporarily stymied the business of much of the local sex trade in the "hostess" bars, room salons, "Kiss" room salons, massage parlors, and other "entertainment" establishments in the area. Some places warned their clients to stay away until after the G20. Some of the business has gone north of the Han where some of the businesses are even giving discounts to the displaced sex fiends. Reports say that many of the working girls will temporarily relocate north of the river to follow the money and penises.
The most embarrassing mistake developed from Korea's lack of knowledge of English and Australia. The 2010 World Lantern Festival started last week. To tie in the festival with this week's G20 Summit, the city set up figurines of the G20 leaders dressed in their country's native clothing while hoisting their nation's flags. The city confused Australia with Austria and dressed the figurine of Julia Gillard, Australia's Prime Minister, in a traditional Austrian dress. Australian journalists got the story out, and Seoul made a half-assed attempt to correct the mistake by redressing Gillard in a formal black dress. The new dress has no connections to Australia's culture, but at least it's not Austrian. A Seoul city official increased the ricetardedness of this situation by stating, "It was hard to find a traditional Australian costume because the country has a short history. We just picked some pretty dress and put it on the figurine. We never thought it would become such a big deal."
Korea played host to the G20 Summit today and yesterday. The summit itself went off mostly without a hitch. Other aspects of the event didn't fare so well. Korea's focus on the superficial proved embarrassing. In an attempt to make Seoul more presentable to the visiting heads of states, corporate executives, journalists, and protesters. The city had advised residents to stop littering, to not barge into lines, to leave their cars at home and to actually stop at red lights. The district of the city hosting the summit suspended part of its trash collection. Korea has its citizens separate their food garbage into small plastic bags to set outside their apartments. Cats, rats and dogs shred the bags and spread their contents everywhere. To make the city temporarily appear cleaner than it normally is, the city isn't collecting those bags and asked people not to set them out until after the weekend.
In preparation for the G20, Korea erected a two-meter fence around the mall and brought in 60,000 military, police and riot personnel to handle security throughout the city. Korea also put a special law in effect for the event banning protesting within two kilometers of the COEX Mall. This has forced the few thousand protesters here to hold their rallies north of the Han River. Three protesters did try to do their thing at the mall. A Korean man protested Korea's Four Major Rivers’ Restoration Project. A white guy held a sign reading “Recession is the medicine". A Korean woman doused herself with flammable paint thinner without reporting her cause. And a 13-year-old Korean-American boy demanded the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. The police relocated the adult men outside of the two-kilometer perimeter, arrested the woman and left the boy alone.
PETA has emerged as a surprise protester during the G20. The reason is even more surprising. The COEX announced that it was going to use six goldfish to check the quality of the recycled water to be used in its bathrooms, so that the G20 leaders would have safe toilet water. PETA argued that goldfish "feel pain just as people do."
Arirang Television stepped up to the plate to ensure that the event received ridiculous coverage. The station ran continuous reports and advertising spots for the event. The worst I saw showed caricatures of the G20 leaders. Most of them showed large-headed leaders on bodies wearing suits or dress clothes. The ones that didn't either made no sense or were insulting. The following lists the interesting/insulting ones:
American President Obama: playing golf
UK Prime Minister Cameron: riding a horse
Brazilian President da Silva: playing soccer
Russian President Medvedev: skiing
Indian Prime Minister Singh: (my personal favorite) riding a flying carpet
The G20 Summit has cost Korean businesses plenty. The summit's security measures all but closed down the COEX; only a handful of restaurants stayed open. It hurt the Pepero Day sales of nearby convenient stores. Even the Lucky Seven Casino has closed its doors for 63 hours to lose an estimated three billion KRW. It also gave Korea's sex industry close near the mall a mini-vacation. Nearly 50,000 of the security personnel have been put up in the motels, hotels and love motels around the mall, including Kangnam. This sudden infusion of police has scared off most of the area's usual nocturnal clientele. The police have temporarily stymied the business of much of the local sex trade in the "hostess" bars, room salons, "Kiss" room salons, massage parlors, and other "entertainment" establishments in the area. Some places warned their clients to stay away until after the G20. Some of the business has gone north of the Han where some of the businesses are even giving discounts to the displaced sex fiends. Reports say that many of the working girls will temporarily relocate north of the river to follow the money and penises.
The most embarrassing mistake developed from Korea's lack of knowledge of English and Australia. The 2010 World Lantern Festival started last week. To tie in the festival with this week's G20 Summit, the city set up figurines of the G20 leaders dressed in their country's native clothing while hoisting their nation's flags. The city confused Australia with Austria and dressed the figurine of Julia Gillard, Australia's Prime Minister, in a traditional Austrian dress. Australian journalists got the story out, and Seoul made a half-assed attempt to correct the mistake by redressing Gillard in a formal black dress. The new dress has no connections to Australia's culture, but at least it's not Austrian. A Seoul city official increased the ricetardedness of this situation by stating, "It was hard to find a traditional Australian costume because the country has a short history. We just picked some pretty dress and put it on the figurine. We never thought it would become such a big deal."
More People Getting What They Deserve...
11/15/10
Korea arrested seven people for forging and using fake identifications. What's genius here is that they did it so that 21 Koreans could gamble in the country's foreign-only casinos; Kangwon Land is the only casino in which locals can gamble legally. The fake IDs said that the holders had permanent residency in Bolivia, Ecuador or Paraguay. They used these to get special passports from the government that would allow them to gamble anywhere in the country.
That's a lot of effort to put into doing something they could have done legally at Kangwon Land, the largest in the country with 132 gaming tables and 960 "slot and video game machines." Of course Kangwon Land is not the kind of casino I'd want to visit. The casino does not serve alcohol. It has windows and clocks (generally a no-no in casinos). The only good thing about Kangwon Land is that smoking is limited to certain areas. One of the strangest aspects of the place is that family members can request that you be denied entry to the casino. You can even file paperwork asking that you be banned.
Korea arrested seven people for forging and using fake identifications. What's genius here is that they did it so that 21 Koreans could gamble in the country's foreign-only casinos; Kangwon Land is the only casino in which locals can gamble legally. The fake IDs said that the holders had permanent residency in Bolivia, Ecuador or Paraguay. They used these to get special passports from the government that would allow them to gamble anywhere in the country.
That's a lot of effort to put into doing something they could have done legally at Kangwon Land, the largest in the country with 132 gaming tables and 960 "slot and video game machines." Of course Kangwon Land is not the kind of casino I'd want to visit. The casino does not serve alcohol. It has windows and clocks (generally a no-no in casinos). The only good thing about Kangwon Land is that smoking is limited to certain areas. One of the strangest aspects of the place is that family members can request that you be denied entry to the casino. You can even file paperwork asking that you be banned.
Darwin Proven Right Once Again...
12/28/10
People just aren't very smart. A Korean college student died after playing an online shooting game for 12 straight hours in an Ulsan PC room. It's good to see another of the weakest thinned out from our herd.
By now we all know the saga of the Terminator series. What few people realize is that Judgement Day actually started in Daegu this month. Korea has deployed 29 robots to teach English at 21 of the city's elementary schools. The 3.3-foot tall robots have TV display panels showing a Caucasian woman's face. Ironically, this crackerette is actually controlled by a group of Filipino teachers remotely in the PI. Cameras mounted on the metallic bringers of doom allow the Filipinos to see and hear their students. Cameras in the PI read the teachers' facial expressions and change the white avatar's expressions to match.
Built by the Korean Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), the robots cost about 10 million KRW each. "Well-educated, experienced Filipino teachers are far cheaper than their counterparts elsewhere, including South Korea," said Sagong Seongdae, a senior scientist at KIST. Pre-programmed software allows the machines to sing songs and play simple games with students. An official with Daegu's education office says that this rise of the machines is not aimed at replacing foreign teachers, but rather to help fill in positions in the more out of the way, less desirable teaching positions. The government shelled out 1.58 billion KRW for the four-month pilot program. This isn't the first attempt by robots to take over Korean classrooms. Robots originally tried to take over Korea in 2009 by teaching English, math, science, and other subjects.
Sagong ended the Korea Times article with an asshole of a quote referring to the benefits of mankind's replacements:
"Plus, they won't complain about health insurance, sick leave and severance package, or leave in three months for a better-paying job in Japan... all you need is a repair and upgrade every once in a while."
Crackers wouldn't be guilty of these if Korean schools would abide by rules concerning health insurance, follow their company policies regarding sick days and severance packages (if you even have them) and pay a decent salary (and pay it on time). Korean schools, especially the private sector, need to learn that a contract is a contract and not to renege on it.
People just aren't very smart. A Korean college student died after playing an online shooting game for 12 straight hours in an Ulsan PC room. It's good to see another of the weakest thinned out from our herd.
Job Insecurity...
12/28/10By now we all know the saga of the Terminator series. What few people realize is that Judgement Day actually started in Daegu this month. Korea has deployed 29 robots to teach English at 21 of the city's elementary schools. The 3.3-foot tall robots have TV display panels showing a Caucasian woman's face. Ironically, this crackerette is actually controlled by a group of Filipino teachers remotely in the PI. Cameras mounted on the metallic bringers of doom allow the Filipinos to see and hear their students. Cameras in the PI read the teachers' facial expressions and change the white avatar's expressions to match.
Built by the Korean Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), the robots cost about 10 million KRW each. "Well-educated, experienced Filipino teachers are far cheaper than their counterparts elsewhere, including South Korea," said Sagong Seongdae, a senior scientist at KIST. Pre-programmed software allows the machines to sing songs and play simple games with students. An official with Daegu's education office says that this rise of the machines is not aimed at replacing foreign teachers, but rather to help fill in positions in the more out of the way, less desirable teaching positions. The government shelled out 1.58 billion KRW for the four-month pilot program. This isn't the first attempt by robots to take over Korean classrooms. Robots originally tried to take over Korea in 2009 by teaching English, math, science, and other subjects.
Sagong ended the Korea Times article with an asshole of a quote referring to the benefits of mankind's replacements:
"Plus, they won't complain about health insurance, sick leave and severance package, or leave in three months for a better-paying job in Japan... all you need is a repair and upgrade every once in a while."
Crackers wouldn't be guilty of these if Korean schools would abide by rules concerning health insurance, follow their company policies regarding sick days and severance packages (if you even have them) and pay a decent salary (and pay it on time). Korean schools, especially the private sector, need to learn that a contract is a contract and not to renege on it.
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