HWACHA

Articles in this blog have little topic icons associated with them that can be used to associate articles together. Here's a guide to what the icons mean. Click on an icon to see the most recent articles in that topic.

Korea

This icon is for everything that relates to Korea. Most of these articles relate to hwacha (화차), territorial disputes (except dokdo), and dancheong (단청), which are three of Korea's greatest inventions.

Hwacha

Perhaps no other object stands so strongly for human ingenuity and resourcefulness than the noble hwacha. And when I say 'ingenuity and resourcefulness', I mean 'at creating problems'. And when I say 'stands so strongly', I mean 'explodes with a bang and rips people limb from limb'.

Japan

This country has a bigger navy than you would think. It's also the last language, now that ancient Egyptian and the various Mesopotamian languages are gone, to use a mixed phonetic/ideographic script.

Ainu

That which is Ainu-related.

Software

I must admit, most of my interest in computer software is in watching others do it. Nevertheless I have been forced to acquire some ideas as time goes on, and here they are.

jBrowse

jBrowse is a plugin for Internet Explorer that I made some years ago -- it does a lot of things that are useful for those whose Japanese is not quite up to Yukio Mishima standard.

AXE

AXE is a hex editor for Windows which I currently maintain, and am very slowly working toward a new version of it. I like to think that it's a very useful and interesting application.

Writing

'Writing' is a rather vague category. Things that are supposed to be informative or artistic go in it.

Opinion

'Opinion' is a rather vague category. Short articles that are not supposed to be particularly informative go in it. So do opinions, although I try not to have any opinions.

Linguistics

I like languages and writing systems. I have had a few thoughts on them over time. In particular, I think that the nature and history of Unicode has some lessons for us all.

T-Shirts

In my quest for truth and clarity, I occasionally create an image which I think says something useful about this great country of Korea, and I sometimes think those images would look good on shirts. I don't like propaganda; I like the truth to speak for itself.

Rock Paper Scissors

I play baduk (바둑) by which I mean go (囲碁). It's an ok game, but ultimately a big enough calculator could always win. Rock Paper Scissors (가위 바위 보) by which I mean Jan Ken Pon (ジャンケンポン) is not like that. There is no calculation, no combinatorics, no random element (unless you want to always draw), just the game.