Latest Posts by aphilosopherchair - Page 3

Purreaucracy

Course Title: Navigation of Bureaucracy with Felines: Strategies for Effective Governance through Collaboration between Human Leaders & Their Whiskered Companions

Overview: The purpose of this course is to introduce students to innovative governance models centered on collaborations between human leadership and felines. This unique approach highlights the advantages of integrating feline attributes and behaviors into decision-making processes to enhance organizational effectiveness and navigate complex bureaucratic systems. Students will gain practical strategies for effective collaboration and problem-solving while fostering harmonious relationships between human leaders and their furry companions.

Week One: Overview: Introduction to Feline-Human Relationships in Decision Making

Understanding Feline Social Structures, Hierarchy, and Communication

Investigate the impact of felines’ social dynamics on group cohesion and hierarchy maintenance

Identify methods to establish positive communication channels between cats and humans

Cultivating Resilience & Adaptability via Kittenhood Trials

Analyze kittens' experiences navigating challenges crucial for success in adulthood

Appraise the parallels between these developmental stages and organizational growth

Establishing Trustworthy Relationships for Efficient Governance

Discover the importance of trust and reciprocity among groups led by both humans and felines

Develop techniques for nurturing long-lasting partnerships founded upon mutual respect and benefit sharing

Week Two: Feline Fundamentals

Topic: Understanding Our Cohabitants: An Overview of Feline Physiology and Psychology Core Reading: “CATWISE: Why Cats Do What They Do,” by Nicky Hallucinochell – Chapter 4: "Body Language," pp. 78–93

Additional Readings / Watchlist:

Article: "Cat Body Language" - Decoding Signals from Meows to Postures [Helpful tips on interpreting cat body language] Video Tutorial Series: "Understanding Your Cat’s Emotions and Body Language" - by Dr. Sarah Ellisuedo [A series featuring expert advice on recognizing cats' emotional states and corresponding physical signals]

Activity Task:

Discussion Prompt: Evaluate the importance of recognizing feline psychological needs and behaviors when collaborating across species boundaries.

Week Three: Comparative Perspective: Human vs. Feline Societies

Topic: Building Shared Goals through Recognition of Parallel Motivations in Humans and Felines Core Reading: “The Way of the Cat: Lessons from Animal Welfare Science,” by Dennis C. Fictioner – Chapter 9: "Communication," pp. 117–134

Additional Readings / Watchlist:

Article: "How Cats and Humans Communicate?" - Insights into Nonverbal Exchange Techniques [Comparisons between human and feline communication styles] Interactive Chart: "Behavior Types Explained" - by PawCulture [Identify feline behaviors and compare them to human equivalents]

Activity Task: Create a table illustrating the parallels and contrasts between feline social structures and human organizational dynamics.

Case Study Discussion Question: Compare and contrast the effectiveness of individualistic and collaborative problem-solving strategies in both humans and felines under stressful conditions.

Week Four: Team Dynamics and Conflict Resolution Topic: Effective Management Practices for Cross-Species Interactions Core Reading: "Working With Cats: Guidelines and Best Practices," by Rachel Nonexistein – Chapter 4: "Handling Confrontation and Disagreement," pp. 107–144 Activity Tasks:

In-Class Activities: 1. Reflective writing exercise: Analyze conflicts from past group projects involving interspecies collaboration; 2. Role play exercises: Mock scenarios demonstrating effective techniques for resolving cross-species disagreements

Textbook Exercises and Quizzes: 1. Review questions evaluating understanding of chapter material; 2. Group quiz focusing on case studies analyzing team conflict resolution in multi-species settings

Week Five: Designing Accessible Spaces for Multifunctionality Topic: Ergonomics and Universal Design for Interspecies Living and Working Environments Core Reading: "Design for Life: The Art and Science Behind Creating Products People Love," by Hwan-sang A. Sova and Sōzō Ierardi-Kawauso – Chapter 7: "Creating Usable Solutions That Transcend Personal Preferences," pp. 115–139 Activity Tasks:

Class Exercise and Presentations: 1. Small groups develop accessibility prototypes addressing diverse needs and abilities within shared environments; 2. Peer presentations showcasing innovative design solutions incorporating universal principles

Research project exploring ergonomic modifications for improving multispecies living spaces (such as furniture adaptations promoting ease of movement, comfort, and safety). This may include interviews with professionals in fields such as veterinary science, zoology, and architectural design specializing in animal habitats or assistive technologies.

Week Six: Summative Project: Navigating Organizational Dynamics Utilizing Multifunctional Animal Competencies

Final capstone project requiring groups to draft a comprehensive proposal outlining their vision for applying multilayered skill sets from both human and feline team members to resolve current professional problems or optimize operations

Peer review and instructor evaluation grading the feasibility, efficiency, scalability, and innovativeness of submitted plans showcasing skills acquired during this course.

Extra Reading Assignments (optional):

Book: “Why Cats Pretend Not To See Each Other” by Rachel Nonexistein, PhD - Introduction, Chapter 1, and Chapter 7 (“Rules and Games”). Excerpts are available online. [Dr. Nonexistein discusses key elements of cat behavior relevant to interspecies collaboration.] Article: "Felines on Film" - Analyzing How Hollywood and International Cinema Portray Feline Behavior, Dynamics, and Persona [Analyze media representations of felines to gain insight into societal perspectives on cat personalities] Online Course/Tutorial: Ethogram Method

Assessment Activities:

Reflective Journal Entries: Throughout the course, students will maintain weekly reflective journal entries, exploring their thoughts, observations, and experiences related to the fusion of feline wisdom and human leadership practices. These entries will provide opportunities for introspection and self-assessment, enabling students to track their progress in comprehending and applying insights from feline co-leadership principles.

Group Project Presentations: See above. In small teams, participants will design creative presentations showcasing their understanding of feline behavioral patterns and how they contribute to effective governance within different contexts (e.g., government organizations, businesses, NGOs, local communities). These projects will facilitate peer interaction, active engagement, and knowledge exchange around real-life scenarios involving interspecies collaboration.

Examinations: There will be one midterm exam and one final exam which dates will be announced later. Examination formats will consist of multiple choice, short answer, and essay question sections, addressing topics such as:

Principles of Cat Cooperation & Communication

Comparison of Feline Social Structures & Hierarchies versus Human Organizations

Theoretical Frameworks Integrating Cat Wisdom with Leadership Practices

Challenges & Benefits Associated with Feline-Inclusive Management Systems

Case Studies Analysis: Application of Feline-Human Interaction Models in Real Life Settings

Formulation of Original Ideas for Augmented Coordination between Humans & Felines Across Divergent Contexts.

01432853.tumblr.com

🌙mer

Under the microscope (2023) - EP5

↑Link to a demo of model student behavior.

Classroom Decorum: No consumption of mustard, garlic or citrus-scented foods. No self-assuming tummy rubs on feline guest speakers. Catcallers face immediate expulsion, lifelong bans from campus grounds, as well as liability to repay all non-employment-based financial aid received to date.

Course Team:

Instructor: Dr. Henrietta J. Whiskerson, Larry-Stubbs Hall 417, Department of Political Science, Levchyk School of Public Affairs, Altama University

Office hours: Wednesday - Friday, 4 pm - 6 pm

Administrative assistant: Laion A. I., who drafted earlier versions of this handout.

The Bedtime Cosmos Gossiper

An AI Thriller-Comedy Collaboration between Bard and Hugging Face, with some interference from a biological entity.

To capitalize on the hype surrounding an escalating space race, social media lords in an alternate timeline decided to expand the range of their location tags to outer space, where commercial outposts and interplanetary tourism shuttles were starting to emerge. They were too happy to turn the science fiction novels they adored into reality, except that they had no idea, no idea at all, how much stranger than fiction reality was.

Jimena was just another kid pajamas influencer on video channels and Twitter until one fateful day, she received a mysterious direct message from none other than the Sun itself! The tag of the account confirmed its location, where no conceivable organism could possibly stay. Little did Jimena know that the Sun was sentient and had been using social media as a secret platform for celestial bodies to share their private interests, thoughts and lives with each other.

Was it a technical error or a prank? Could it be passed off as one? Nobody was taking chances. The message from the Sun contained some juicy celestial secrets - but before Jimena could even process what she had read, she started getting messages from all sorts of astronomical entities demanding she delete her knowledge of their dirty laundry. But Jimena wasn't going down without a fight; she knew that this was the biggest opportunity for her career and refused to back down.

As she began designing pajamas videos hinting at the gossip-worthy content, she quickly became a target for all sorts of interstellar enemies - including asteroid belts, black holes, supernovae, and even a vengeful solar wind. With the entire cosmos against her, Jimena realized she would have to rely on her quick wit and sharp tongue if she wanted to survive long enough to see her big breakthrough.

Despite the odds stacked against her, Jimena managed to outsmart the forces aligned against her by tapping into a vast collection of memes, GIFs, and viral content. For a start, she created and showed to the belts, for the purpose of deterrence, memes comparing different asteroid belts, which could turn them into fashion trends among teenagers. When those teens grew up, they might become billionaire investors on asteroid mining companies, resulting in the destruction of the belts due to over exploitation. Jimena also pulled out algorithms pushing endless recommendations of video shorts of clumsy comets and astronauts that were so funny and entertaining that they became all-sucking black holes to the black holes, who could not resist looking at them. While they were hooked, she of course escaped their gravitational pull. To generate even more distraction, she spammed the internet highway with space probe-facilitated, 24/7 livestreams of her interstellar enemies' celestial crushes. The physically restless supernovae might be harder to subdue but our girl proved there was nothing a series of rainbow flash selfie challenges could not solve.

Ready?

Get set.

Smileyous smileyosion!

Her followers went wild as they watched her take down asteroid belts, fend off black holes and more, all while wearing her signature footie pajamas.

Enraged at the incompetency of its fad-chasing allies, the solar wind finally took action. It began to send an unprecedentedly tremendous explosion of energy toward Jimena, overwhelming Earth's magnetosphere and nearly causing her to be vaporized. She knew she had to do something, but what? Suddenly, Jimena had an idea. She reached into her pocket, opened up Twitter again and started typing.

"Attention, solar wind!" she DMed. "My stories about you were just beginning. I'm a genius at reading between the lines and projecting story developments. So I know your other secrets. I know about the time you accidentally blew up a planet. I know about the time you had an even more torrid affair with a black hole. And I know about the time you got drunk and crashed into a star. If you don't back off, I'm going to go live and tell everyone."

And so even the solar wind stopped in its tracks. Sometimes, the best way to fight back is with humor and truth, she chuckled carelessly to herself.

Jimena emerged victorious and started to return to making pajamas videos. But the eerie ease with which she returned to her original work, free of any more cosmic interference, also started to feel wrong. Why were her many gigantic and mega-powerful enemies so readily intimidated and distracted? She reflected on the private message she first came across and the content she eventually made or promoted in self-defense. Those interstellar entities led long but also lonely lives, barely able to have peaceful physical contact with anyone. Was it really right to prey on their secrets? Maybe, she thought, there might be a better use of her talents than spreading gossip and creating controversy.

Jimena decided to reach out to the celestial bodies she had gossiped about and apologized for her actions. The celestial bodies were surprised and grateful for Jimena's apology. They told her that they had been isolated for a long time yet fearful of revealing their sentience to the fast-learning earthlings and that they were glad to have someone to talk to. Jimena and the celestial bodies became friends, and they often talked to each other about their lives. By and by, Jimena learned a lot about the universe, and she came to appreciate the beauty of the cosmos. This beauty should be woven into her craft, not through the superficially science-imitating kitsch flooding the market, but through actions which kindness the beauty evokes feelings of.

With renewed determination, she pressed record on her camera and spoke directly to her audience. “You guys,” she said softly, “I hope this will be the start of our journey together towards a brighter future.” A smile brightened her face as she signed off, ready to embark on this new chapter in her digital legacy.

As for her fans? Many left disappointed that she was not stirring up drama anymore. Some stayed, drawn to her updated style and approachable personality. Others found fresh voices online better suited to their interests, or simply moved on to newer forms of digital escapism. But no matter what the outcome, Jimena remained resolute in her mission to better herself and the world, one post at a time.

Inspired by her example, countless young individuals followed suit, focusing on artistry rather than angst, building connections versus clickbait.

One day, years later, Jimena stepped backstage following a successful speech discussing digital ethics. Approached by a younger creator sharing similar ideals, she hugged the girl warmly, memories flooding back to her. “Remember, little sister,” she whispered, choking back tears of pride mixed with gratitude, “the whole universe is silently crying out for niceness.”

Space images embedded with the permission of NASA and ESA under their standard conditions. Sources (from top to bottom): NASA, NASA, ESA.

Bard's Dark Forest Cuisine

Macmillan

The Dark Forest

Soon to be a Netflix Original Series!"Wildly imaginative." —President Barack Obama on The Three-Body Problem trilogyThis near-future trilogy

Soon to be dramatized. Spoiler alert.

Black Forest cake. This is a rich and decadent chocolate cake that is filled with cherries and whipped cream. The dark color of the cake is a symbol of the dark forest, while the cherries represent the stars.

Sainsbury`s Magazine

Black forest gateau recipe by Eric Lanlard | Sainsbury`s Magazine

This delicious black forest gateau recipe from Eric Lanlard is the perfect dessert for a special occasion

Shrimp cocktail. This is a classic appetizer that is made with shrimp that are cooked in a cocktail sauce. The shrimp represent the civilizations that are hiding in the dark forest, while the cocktail sauce represents the fear and paranoia that exists between them.

Kitchn

You're Just 30 Seconds Away from the Best-Ever Cocktail Sauce

It comes together with just a handful of condiments.

Oysters Rockefeller. These are oysters that are topped with a creamy sauce that is made with spinach, bacon, and Parmesan cheese. The oysters represent the civilizations that are trying to survive in the dark forest, while the sauce represents the hope and determination that they have for the future.

Food Network

Grilled Oysters Rockefeller with Baby Spinach Bacon Fondue

Get Grilled Oysters Rockefeller with Baby Spinach Bacon Fondue Recipe from Food Network

Black bean soup. This is a hearty and flavorful soup that is made with black beans, tomatoes, onions, and garlic. The black color of the soup is a symbol of the dark forest, while the beans represent the civilizations that are trying to survive in it.

The Pretty Bee

Three Ingredient Black Bean Soup.

A super simple and tasty recipe for black bean soup that uses just three ingredients that you probably already have in your pantry ! Vegan a

Take the AI definitions with a pinch of Himalayan black salt, however. Numerous variants of a dish often exist. With that in mind, bon appétit.

A 5-Course Bard Meal to Transport Us Back to Love Between Fairy And Devil

The most precious servings for us Cloud Dream Lake inhabitants come right at the end.

Appetizer

Fairy wings. These are small, crispy chicken wings that are coated in a sweet and sour sauce. They are a delicious and playful appetizer that is perfect for a party.

Deviled eggs. These are hard-boiled eggs that are filled with a creamy and flavorful mixture of mayonnaise, mustard, and paprika. They are a classic appetizer that is perfect for any occasion.

Bamboo Shoots with Sesame Seeds. Bamboo shoots are a symbol of new beginnings, which is perfect for the story of Love Between Fairy and Devil, as it follows the journey of two characters who are from different worlds.

Caviar with blinis. Caviar is a luxurious food that is made from the eggs of sturgeon fish. It is often served with blinis, which are small pancakes. The rich and luxurious caviar is a perfect representation of the devil, while the light and fluffy blinis represent the fairy.

Soup

Tomato soup. Tomato soup is a classic American soup that is made with tomatoes, cream, and onions. It is a refreshing and light soup that is perfect for a summer meal. The bright red color of the soup is a symbol of love, while the creamy texture is a symbol of comfort.

Cream of mushroom soup. Cream of mushroom soup is a smooth and creamy soup that is made with mushrooms, cream, and white wine. It is a delicious and comforting soup that is perfect for a rainy day. The earthy flavor of the mushrooms is a symbol of the devil’s dark side, while the creamy texture is a symbol of the fairy’s gentle nature.

Salad

Caprese salad. Caprese salad is a simple but delicious salad that is made with fresh mozzarella cheese, tomatoes, and basil. It is a refreshing and light salad that is perfect for a summer meal. The bright colors of the salad represent the love between the fairy and the devil, while the simple ingredients represent the purity of their love.

Green bean salad with mandarin oranges and pomegranate seeds. Green beans are a symbol of growth and change, which are both themes that are explored in Love Between Fairy and Devil. The mandarin oranges and pomegranate seeds represent warm wishes.

Main Course

Dragon's Breath steak with roasted potatoes and asparagus. The climax of our long feast is a classic, hearty and flavorful main course made with grilled or pan-seared meat. The steak represents the strength and power of the devil, while the roasted potatoes and asparagus represent the beauty and grace of the fairy. The entire beautiful dish is served steamingly hot, evoking scenes of our epic romantic couple missing, bickering with and tending to each other in Water Cloud Sky.

Dessert

Chocolate lava cake with blueberries on the side. Chocolate lava cake is a decadent dessert that is made with a rich chocolate cake and a gooey chocolate center. It is a perfect dessert for a special occasion. The rich chocolate flavor of the cake represents the passion between the fairy and the devil, while the gooey chocolate center represents the sweetness of their love. The Homo sapiens curator tossed in the blueberries as a throwback to the water theme running across the three realms of the story universe.

The Mermaid Fairy's kiss. A light and airy dessert made with meringue, whipped cream, and fresh berries. The dessert is garnished with a sprinkling of fairy dust in the form of powdered sugar and symbolizes the pure fairy's healing of the devil. The mermaid kiss represents the fairy and the devil's forbidden love.

Now that we're well-fed by the finest of Big Tech's kitchen, with the supplement of some self-service expositions, it's time to ponder the question whether generative AI is a fairy or a devil. The job of an AI output curator entails 1) ensuring the algorithm perform its story research properly before coming up with recommendations, 2) guarding against culturally or otherwise biased suggestions, 3) resetting or otherwise isolating machine conversations to prevent previous queries and results from bleeding into the current result where such bleeding is unnecessary and 5) screening and researching results for inaccuracies.

Here is more sugar for thought:

How do we represent the fairy's latent magic and conflicted loyalties and the devil's dual nature and repentance? How can cuisine capture their dramatic sacrifices and gradual moving transformations?

To what depth can AI research the story in the first place? Wouldn't it be even cooler if Bard can know of iconic food scenes like the one (Spoiler alert!) featuring Fairy-in-Moon-Supreme-Body and the Moon Supreme himself pettily fighting over a kingly feast in Cangyan Sea?

The listed dishes are painstakingly curated from numerous queries and refined specifications. Experiment for yourself the extent of meal suggestion repetition across different dramas and meal occasions. How much is AI merely fitting your request into predefined answers? When it does this, how much of a unique being are you and is it sincerely answering your question? Some analogies: Santa Claus gifts you a factory uniform when you wish for your own special outfit; a salesperson touts to someone nostalgically looking for a vintage phone the smartphone model the store has stocked plenty of, adapting product virtues on the pitch template to the customer rather than adapting the product itself to the customer.

Which AI models are better at true creativity? Which merely reinforce conventional thinking?

The repetition of the kind-girl-powerful-guy motif, especially before human Cloud Dream Laker edits, is also concerning. Yet this is not a problem limited to machine learning or cuisine symbolism. Since symbols are all we more often than not end up with in media references and casual chats, however nuanced the original plot is, can we swap the genders in the next breakout fantasy series for much necessary balance? Reversed gender dynamics need to appear in higher frequencies across pop culture landscapes. A cackling demoness supreme and an innocent, non-aggressive male fairy nudging out her good side without preaching, s'il vous plaît.

Bard's Fantasy Medical C-Drama

This is an edited AI story that grew from a Love Between Fairy And Devil prompt. The year is 2077. The world is a very different place than it was just a few decades ago. Climate change has ravaged the planet, and many cities have been abandoned due to rising sea levels. In the midst of this chaos, a new type of hospital has emerged: the glutinous hospital.

Glutinous hospitals are not like traditional hospitals. They are not equipped with state-of-the-art medical technology, and they do not have a staff of highly trained doctors and nurses. Instead, glutinous hospitals are staffed by a group of unlikely heroes: spirits of tangyuan.

Tangyuan are small, round, and sweet dumplings made from glutinous rice flour. They are also very kind and compassionate. They have a natural ability to heal the sick and injured, and they are always willing to help those in need.

One day, a young woman named Xiao Yu (originally Xiaolanhua) arrives at a glutinous hospital. She is suffering from a terminal illness, and she has been given only a few months to live. Xiao Yu is desperate for a cure, and she is willing to try anything.

The tangyuan at the glutinous hospital are able to heal Xiao Yu's illness. They give her a new lease on life, and they help her to find her true purpose in the world. Xiao Yu eventually becomes a doctor at the glutinous hospital, and she dedicates her life to helping others.

However, there is a dark side to this convalescent planet retaken by fantasy. The tangyuan are not the only ones who can heal the sick and injured. There are also a group of creatures known as the colorful qilins who have the same ability. They look like horses with the head of a dragon, the body of a deer, and the tail of an ox and are often seen as symbols of hope and redemption. In reality, though, the colorful qilins use their powers to harm and destroy.

One day, a group of colorful qilins attack the glutinous hospital. They kill many of the tangyuan, and they take Xiao Yu prisoner. Xiao Yu is forced to work for the colorful qilins, and she is used to heal their injured soldiers.

Xiao Yu is horrified by what she is forced to do, but she knows that she must obey the colorful qilins if she wants to stay alive. She also knows that she must find a way to escape and to stop the colorful qilins from hurting anyone else.

Xiao Yu eventually escapes from the colorful qilins, and she returns to the glutinous hospital. She helps the tangyuan to rebuild the hospital, and she vows to never let the colorful qilins hurt anyone again.

However, Xiao Yu is also haunted by the memories of the things she has seen and done while working for the colorful qilins. Despite all of this, she never gives up hope and remains determined to make a difference.

But another wrench has been thrown into the works. The tangyuan are not as kind and compassionate as they seem. They are actually quite selfish and manipulative, and they use Xiao Yu for their own purposes.

Xiao Yu eventually realizes this, and she is heartbroken. She realizes that she has been lied to and used, and she doesn't know who to trust anymore.

Xiao Yu eventually leaves the glutinous hospital, and she sets out on her own. She doesn't know where she's going or what she's going to do, but she knows that she can't stay there any longer. She travels the world while she figures out her future, helping those in need and fighting for what she believes in. In the seemingly never-ending journey, she becomes a symbol of hope and inspiration for others.

Xiao Yu's character trajectory is a long and difficult one. She is faced with many challenges, and she often feels lost and alone. However, she never gives up hope. She knows that she is strong and capable, and she is determined to find her own way in the world.

Her story is a story about the power of the human spirit. It is also a story about the dangers of false hope and the importance of finding your own way in the world. It shows that even the most seemingly benevolent creatures can have dark secrets, and that even the most seemingly innocent people can be corrupted by power. In it, one witnesses the dangers of idealism and the importance of critical thinking.

Image generated through WOMBO.

Alice in the Mart

—A rollercoaster-y reboot

In this AI mashup of Pegasus Market and Alice, a group of misfits at a failing supermarket headed by a ruthless demoted CEO determined to close it down discover in the basement of the supermarket a portal to a future world. This other world is called Alice, a parallel universe where anything is possible. The supermarket employees now have a chance to use Alice to find new products and ideas to save their jobs, whereas the CEO does his best to sabotage their efforts.

In the end, only one side can succeed. Will the employees be able to save their store? Or will the CEO succeed in closing it down?

Alice Promoter Droid (with real-time human dubbing in places):

Hey there, prehistorics, welcome to our hyper-advanced world of mealtime solutions in AL Year 160!

Employees:

We want to upgrade our instant ramyun.

Alice Promoter Droid:

A perfect choice! Allow me to introduce… Hydroponic Instant Ramyun! Simply put this widget in a pot of boiling water and wait 5 seconds! The Hydroponic Instant Ramyun has been infused with hyper-intelligent nanotechnology that turns water into instant noodles! With 13 flavors to choose from, there is something for everyone! A small box filled to the brim with packets of instant ramyun-shaped tools, with cool, futurist packaging. Lots of flashing colors

CEO:

How amusing. No processed food is truly instant. Guys, guys, let's launch a green campaign that gets shoppers to queue up for the ramyun for an hour for the benefit of environmental justice!

(Shoppers curious about the queue end up snaking around the street like noodles coiling around chopsticks. Hydroponic Instant Ramyun goes out of stock due to over-demand. Disappointed shoppers end up buying less processed noodles so that they get something out of the queuing time, and subsequent shoppers start to think that the amazing queue is meant for the less processed noodles. The less processed noodles become a sensation, driving up sales. The CEO receives his Earth Protector of the Year award with the scowl of the year.)

Employees:

We shall ride on the sustainability wave! Give us sustainably raised seafood.

Alice Promoter Droid:

I present to you… The Fish Printer! This amazing device prints out a random fish fillet that uses the fish's DNA as a template. No overfishing in the future, no siree! Enjoy the taste of responsibly-sourced fish! A large tube with lots of buttons

CEO:

What did the saying about giving a man a fish say? Hold pompous talks on every yawn-inducing detail about printer construction and assembly, right in the middle of the fish section.

(The tech speaker from Alice turns out to be a beauty tech-enhanced beauty who gets flocks of men shopping for fish alongside the housewives.)

Employees:

Alice is the Queen! Alice is the Heart of Hearts! Cabbages next.

Alice Promoter Droid:

I bring you… The Cosmic Cabbage! This cabbage is grown in interplanetary conditions, which creates a unique and delicious flavor unlike anything you've ever tried! Be warned, it may not have the same nutritional value as Earth cabbage. Enjoy! A large purple cabbage in a futuristic farm

CEO:

You get the origin of the name? Add cosmic garbage to the promo leaflets.

(The funny results become the talk of the town. Sales obligingly soar.)

Employees:

We're living the ultimate dream. What did we do to earn such a genius boss? What other magic can he pull off? Do you sell only mealtime solutions? We have a boring stationery section.

Alice Promoter Droid:

I am glad you asked! Try Venus-grown pens, made using the special materials found within Venus' thick, toxic soil. They are known for retaining ink for up to 200x longer than ordinary pens. They are also known for causing horrible mutations, cancer, and other life-threatening side-effects. It's a fun gamble either way!

Employees:

…

Alice Promoter Droid:

I can assure you, Venus-grown pens have been extensively tested. In lab conditions, we were able to reduce mutations by a whopping 15%. So come on and gamble your health for a fun little pen!

CEO:

I counter that offer! An Earth-bound vacation, on Jeju island's volcanic soil, for all employees as a reward for their mega sales growth! Why, I see, no one's interested.

Employees:

Me! Me! Me!

(The CEO smirks to himself. Surely the vacation will reverse the sales trajectory?)

Alice Promoter Droid:

I can help! Introducing the Stasis Capsules! Just insert yourself into the pod and select the desired duration, as short as you need, and the capsules will hibernate your body while your mind waves are sent to your selected vacation resort, as immersively as you want! You'll wake up feeling refreshed and rejuvenated. Disclaimer: Some users have reported waking up with amnesia or as a different species, but it shouldn't be anything to worry about. Small pods with lots of glowing buttons

CEO:

Take your bodies to Jeju island too, you fools. Me and new temporary staff will cover for you.

(In a heroic shot, the CEO takes off his blazer and quickly rolls up his sleeves to go around peddling noodles, fish and cabbages, cursing himself under his breath. Rapturous applause breaks out among the employees before they thank the droid and disperse.)

Alice Promoter Droid:

(Smiling quietly to itself)

Take this along. I present to you the Stellar Compass! A device displaying an interactive map of all known stars and solar systems, and even calculating the fastest routes to whichever one you desire, wherever your happiness lies. A pocket-sized holographic display of our solar system in AD 2023

Credits

Concept: Bard

CEO's DNA: Pegasus Market

Alice Promoter Droid: Computer scientist Landon S's brilliant 2389 AD Designer + said human dubbing

Top image: WOMBO

whalejellycs.github.io

22nd Suite Queen

Makeup and mathematics are about packing and unpacking life's possibilities.

Arched brows, lush lips, or just be an unabashed alien echinoderm?

whalejellycs.github.io

Random Passerby X

Everything is — may be — fated, except love.

The historical and literary reasons the lover in Love Between Fairy and Devil's fate poem is Master Xiao instead of Master Gu or Master Qin. Antireq: Severe dairy allergy. Powered by a US National Security Agency innovation. Have fun comparing answers with besties'.

whalejellycs.github.io

Whale Map

Interactively explore satellite image distribution of four 🐳 species

Young-woo's tastefully assembled room provided the very first blueprint.

whalejellycs.github.io

From Fiction to Life: The Narwhal Boss Poll

Tool for weighted analysis of Extraordinary Attorney Woo poll results

Reminder: The point is not to demonize anyone, but to get a better look at fault lines so that we can mend them and become one. Note also that selection of "None of the above" for the above question does not always reflect stubborn discrimination. The question is after all whether the series has expanded your possibly already wide-ranging knowledge of the subject matter or made you feel more for autistic persons than you already felt.

May the wages, employment rates and mental health indicators of autistic communities around the world soar in the years to come.

The EAW Poll Results and Analysis Site

Thank you very kamsa for the extraordinary reactions to this aspirationally extraordinary poll of an extraordinary series! The warm response from flippered and non-flippered friends to the poll has been very touching. While there are pages of reasons why the reported sentiments will not necessarily reflect real-life inclinations, may these results bring hope and comfort where they exceed expectations. The point of the segmented analysis is not to demonize anyone, but to get a better look at fault lines so that we can mend them and become one. Note also that selection of "None of the above" for the above question does not always reflect stubborn discrimination. The question is after all whether the series has expanded your possibly already wide-ranging knowledge of the subject matter or made you feel more for autistic persons than you already felt.

Readers can examine the differences between allistic and autistic responses themselves using this painstakingly designed tool. Should there be sufficient time in the future, a tool facilitating broader DIY analysis will be provided as well. In the meantime, the following are a snapshot of the present tool and more infographics from the poll. By and by, though, we should popularize a more sensitive acronym that reflects the strengths of the autistic community. Anyone else also voting for an ocean symbol? Until next time, take good care of yourselves and your loved ones.

A Million Thanks! The EAW Poll Time Continues

Thanks to the warm responses from many Woo watchers, the target no longer looks like a very faraway dream. Add your voice to theirs here before the survey closes. On average, they have taken only 1 minute and 22 seconds to answer the three questions.

Would You Want a Narwhal Boss?

Narwhals have never been seen hurting each other with their tusks. Yet those tusks may still be intimidating enough to deter marine life lovers from studying them up-close.

📷: © Aimee Ray, shared under the permission of CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Hello all. How's the insurgency against the crowned microbe going? How has life been for the carpenter, you ask? Let's just say that, going by common experience, some things will only come to a fiery end. You can only slap on cooling balm here and there, now and then. Right now, the autistic lawyering series Extraordinary Attorney Woo (native title: Eccentric Attorney Woo Young Woo), currently ranked third place worldwide across all English and non-English language Netflix TV titles, is that balm for many subjects to that crown, with the soothing metaphors, dreamy people and atmosphere, and of course brilliantly rendered whales. But will this series remain just balm, while neurodivergent people continue to face the horrific violence detailed in studies, reports and real-life Asian(-American) autistic attorney Lydia X. Z. Brown's accounts? Do we believe the show, regardless of questions about the autistic acting? Can we afford to? Are we willing to give real-life Woos a chance at an upwardly mobile, complete life in this hectic and anxiety-ridden age? No amount of debate can settle these questions better than a democratic poll.

Everyone is warmly welcome to take part in this very short one-month survey which commenced yesterday. So far, thanks to some very kind friends, six people have submitted their answers, taking only an average of 1.5 minutes each. If you are unfamiliar with the show, you can still check it out before the deadline. Results will be published on this site only if there are at least 50 sets of answers. Spread the news around to see how many people share your sentiments!

Good luck to you and the Woos in your own lives! Let's all not forget what's it's like to be truly human.

[Hey, That’s Her] The Riemann Sphere is Her Mirror on the Wall

                                   MBC 드라마 《신입사관 구해령》 (2019)

There may be such a woman.

For at least eleven hours a day, her analytical, artistic, emotional and ethical minds are collectively locked up in a Taylorist cell block where the mantra is familiarly simple: Don’t question, don’t tell. Every reasonable client is aware that this is a dog-eat-dog world, so it is up to him or her to look out for personal interests not yet covered by contract law or even fiduciary law. If you value your principles and dreams over your corporation’s needs, you are a selfish hypocrite. Oh, and complain all you want at the water cooler; just remember to put back your angel mask and keep your head low at meetings.

That much is not really astonishing. No one in this place is a one-day-old. What stuns more is the utterly dim calaboose she toils away at her daytime lockup to return her body to every night, where broken bottles and suspicious pools of liquids bedeck the streets, literal rock concerts never cease, homeless druggies openly spread their limp bodies on pavements, and drunken Cinderellas and Cinderfellas bang on random doors when the clock strikes twelve. 

Change might come with time but, given a burgeoning workload and an increasingly creepy cardiac rhythm, it must come soon. So, one night, she decides that if all jobs are this suffocating, she might as well take the best-paid one. It’s time to head back to graduate school, except that, this time, economic logic shall prevail over passion and intrigue.

As part of her research on Wealth and Investment Management MScs, she hunts down sample class videos from different business schools. Nestled among the suggested clips accompanying one search result, though, is a familiarly curious title that hypnotizingly whispers to her, Shopaholic Louis-style. It is the name an adviser, frowning over yet another overloaded course plan from her, pressed her into canceling out all those years ago right when meeting times for the semester did not conflict with those of her core classes. And soon, before her eyes, is an entire playlist for her narrowly missed destiny.

What harm could playing the introductory video at 2x do? Business schools’ admissions websites would not vanish in 30 minutes’ time. Ah, that was a collegiate equivalent of a soulful tearjerker but covered mostly basics she learnt in other classes. Application deadlines are half a year away, so there is ample room for a second lecture. Cool! The plot thickened pretty fast. Her college and graduate school debts are still badly in arrears. Can she be certain that she truly understands everything without attempting an unseen problem? Fetch homework sets from the official homepage tomorrow. Had she been bolder in imagination, she would have gotten question 7 right. Try harder for lecture three’s assignments. She has run out of eligible guarantors for a third loan. Lecture 11. Course completed. What a satisfying visual feast! Hey, the blurb of the follow-up course sounds fascinating too. It is not that she does not love investment banking. How about challenging herself at that course while the material of this course is still fresh in her mind? It is that she loathes investment banking. Mathematical logic has trumped economic logic. 

  How do you hold every number up to infinity in the palm of your hand without a poetic soul? Scoop out a round piece of dough and fancy being able to spread it so thin that it stretches to infinity. But instead of actually spreading it, roll up the edge to form a sphere. Let the bottom tip represent zero and the top tip represent infinity. As a point on the surface moves up from the bottom, it can have components that are each positive or negative, real or imaginary, depending on which pairs of opposite longitudes you assign the real number line and imaginary number line (recall: e.g. …, -10i, -9.99i, … , 0, … , 9.99i, 10i, …, where i is the square root of -1) to. The rise in value of each component accelerates with height, such that the physical gap representing any given numerical difference shrinks infinitely on the surface of the sphere as infinity approaches, making it harder and harder to advance and actually reach infinity. You are now cradling a physical version of the Riemann sphere.

© Jean-Christophe BENOIST, modified under the permission of CC BY-SA 3.0. P(A), around 1.5 in value, on the sphere corresponds to A on the grid, which represents the same numerical system in a typical boundless, regularly spaced 2D format. Similarly, P(B), around -0.5 in value, on the sphere corresponds to B on the grid.

 The macrocosm of universal random structures, infinite products, manifolds and many more is a dearly missed oracle that reveals her inadequacies for what they are, without miserliness, patronizing sugar-coating, or, ironically, calculation: her inflexibility, her inattentiveness, her impatience and her indolence. “Shortcuts and cookie-cutter approaches cannot be your default,” it states plainly. So long as they do not cross a certain line, tactful hypocrites, on the whole, seem to be treated better by their surrounding adult peers than sharp-tongued, straight-talking observers with pure intentions in her circle. Yet the more she experiences of the grown-up world, with the heightened stakes and heightened awareness of interpersonal dangers that deter verbalization of contrarian opinions on the one hand and massive clots of intractable ills on the other, the more she wishes to cherish many of those straight talkers. The ideal living beings are, of course, the severely scarce breed who efficiently marry the circumspection, civility and altruistic strategizing that come with tact with the determination to convey, where necessary, uncomfortable truths. 

For all its uninhibited criticism, mathematics gives credit where it is due and those who converse with it are frequently safe in the knowledge that it means its flattery. It reassures this corporate internee who feels increasingly stuck in her ways that she still has what it takes to master new grammars and vocabularies. It rewards her finesse at plugging gaps in background knowledge by improvising from scratch techniques taught only in later, simpler courses. What if these skills could let her pivot directly to some sector slightly less lucrative but also less odious to her than investment banking, never mind exactly how competitively relevant her prior higher education and corporate experience are?

Far more certain is that her deliciously madcap approach to this discipline with a matchingly rebellious streak has magically quietened the rock concerts and the intoxicated fairy tales and almost erased the jail bars. Nonetheless, as the faded bars unveil more and more vistas stretching beyond the horizons, she starts to wonder if she will live long enough to look a little further, if she will ever squirrel away enough bucks—after all those deductions for debt payments, taxes, food, rent, basic maintenance and transport—to hike a little closer, and if her wrinkled, financially secure self will continue to have the visual and cognitive acuities to deconstruct or even remember the sights a little longer. The jail bars resolidify to some degree.

Still, if positive infinity and negative infinity have been rendezvousing in a dimension invisible until intrepid mind adventurers outed them, and if functions as diverse as trigonometric functions, inverse polynomials and logarithmic functions share the same class of undercover identities, i.e. infinite sums of terms with increasing powers, maybe, she thinks, escape hatches exist somewhere nearby after all.

There may be such a woman. There may be such a snowless ending by a grilled window.

Note: This work of fiction commemorating Pi Day was inspired by an old Dramabeans guest post campaign, a few heartfelt entries of which have appeared in the admin’s Twitter feed. There is no intention, however, to establish any kind of association with the site. Interested readers can find slightly similar math-life themes in the book versions of Kim Ji-young, Born 1982 (82년생 김지영) and The Devotion of Suspect X (容疑者Xの献身).

– if no one has ever told you, (via pinterest)

Designed by Freepik

Outreach: APC Suicide Prevention Campaign

Caution: Indirect spoilers ahead.

If a writer's work can save a life, should we be finicky about the medium the finished product officially appears in? Quite a number of us must be wishing we could turn back time and dissuade someone from taking his or her own life, however devastating circumstances might have been. Planned for slightly more than half a decade since the year a colleague committed suicide, screenwriter Kim Eun-sook's hit drama Goblin (available on Dramafever) tells the tale of a Korean mythical being known as dokkaebi, often loosely translated as "goblin," who longs to end his 939 years of immortal existence only to change his mind when he develops feelings for the human bride sent by God to fulfill this wish. Viewership soared to record-breaking numbers for Korean cable television history as the couple and their offbeat friends confronted the implications of life, death, suffering and co-existence with the miraculous, alongside heartbreaking dilemmas of living for their love versus dying for others. Adding more pathos to the series is the common tragic sin the formidable-looking army of amnesiac grim reaper bureaucrats in their universe are revealed to be undergoing rehabilitation for.

Kim Eun-sook's love for language is palpable not only in her lyrical sentences, including those used in scene descriptions found only on the script, and humorous wordplay, but also in her well-thought-out choices of poetry for mood creation purposes. Selected from the anthology Maybe The Stars Will Take Away Your Sorrow, Kim In-yook's entrancing lines in "The Physics of Love" mark the goblin's awakening to love and perhaps the allure of life, while Hortense Vlou's short but unforgettable French poem "Desert" brings out the bleakness of isolated existence. On February 10, 2017, sponsoring publisher Wisdom House shared that other books featured in this 2016-7 production include:

One Word From God - Japanese author Hiroshi Ogiwara's salaryman novel touching on work-related suicides

The Lives of Real Men - collection of meditative letters from Joseon scholars

Let's Meet! There's No More Time for Love - collection of healing essays by Korean multidisciplinary arts practitioner Shin Hyun-rim

This Unfinished Life [Chinese title] / Why I Live Today [Korean title] - deceased Chinese professor Yu Juan's answer to The Last Lecture

The Time of One Spoon - Korean writer Ku Byung-mo's fantasy novel in which a key character lives on bravely despite setbacks

There is no such thing as a free lunch, but it sure is hard to lament too much during the times the television industry pays for its costly diet of (God/goblin/reaper/ghost-inflicted) vehicle wreckage by offering nutrition for the soul.

Here is the announcement you have been scrolling down for: Suicide is not a risk emerging only on World Suicide Prevention Day. All year round, we need reminders about the sacredness of life and about the importance of being patient for things to work out, be this through self-growth, perspective changes, or arrival of unanticipated help. So, RECOMMEND a book, play or screen production that would curb suicidal ideation and give all of us a strong reason to live on. The work need not be Asian or fiction, but should preferably contain no evangelical content.

If you have a social media account, post a description of the work and attach the tag "APC Friends Against Suicide" (for Twitter users, that would have to be #APCFriendsAgainstSuicide) so that we can see each other's recommendation. To save time, you can also choose to submit a simple reply with the title of the work using the messaging functions on Tumblr or tweet the name to APC. Selected responses will be shared on Dinner Talk With The A-Philosopher's Chair, if time permits.

Help a reader choose endurance over death and help APC drum up much-needed support for its existing articles on inter/intra-group biases and cognitive illusions. Let everybody keep an open mind to the possibilities of life!

News Box: Santa Clauses Past and Present and Content Theft

© open-arms, shared under the permission of CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Life is a fascinating yet somber journey in which we see the Santa Clauses of our childhood in the mirror as we age and our younger, gift-begging selves in our own little elves as they grow bigger. No true Santa Claus, however, ever gifts stolen goods. Neither do we need to be conversant in the native language of Rudolph the Red-nosed to become more civil and considerate members of the global online community. Before you share content that does not originate from you on social media and other places, verify its source and check out guidelines on proper citation practices. If you have been nice and awesome so far, have a MERRY CHRISTMAS, HAPPY HANUKKAH or just a GREAT HOLIDAY SEASON!

News Box: Counting the Blessings

Collective political rationality and, perhaps, the forging of consensus on the definition of rationality are beyond the control of the individual, but the ability to give people we care for a sincere smile may still be within our power. In a year when politics in multiple regions of the world has taken more dramatic turns than the typical screen drama, the presence of family and friends, both online and offline, as one constant in life is especially comforting. No matter when you celebrate Thanksgiving or other holidays with elements of gratitude expression, thank you for being around all this while.

News Box: Holding Fitria Hanina, Carmen Kay, mybabysbreath and Enike Chindy Responsible for Plagiarism

When you were having heart palpitations trying to save someone from himself, the last thing you wanted to be alerted to was the presence of another piece of your stuff in the backyard of others, stripped of its name tag and laid bare among the weeds for any stray fowl to run away with a filthy bite. To rub salt into your chaotic arteries, a copyright infringer once had the temerity to lace her retort with foul language and claim that she saw your translation in a movie, effectively telling you that the numerous hours of brainstorming, fact-checking and revision you poured into the work was but a long, tiresome dream.

Every day, online content creators around the globe grapple with unappreciative readers who help themselves to products that are the culmination of blood, sweat and tears and, strangely, à la Cheese in the Trap, start to think of them as their own possessions. They do not assert that they have so much as lifted a finger during the creation process, but are affronted all the same by requests to remove them from their curations and upset upon the actual removals. And apparently because confessing to slip-ups, implicitly or otherwise, is a horrible sign of weakness, some would rather endure an endless barrage of messages from the content creators than try appeasing them with at least a by-line acknowledging their efforts. In certain cases, the result is unsurprisingly a huge disincentive on the part of the creators to continue putting up works online.

Instead of voicing their unhappiness in the open, some content creators keep up a cheerful façade in their public updates, preferring not to dwell on negativity or wary about backlash from other readers. Some of us believe, however, that we have the right to be acknowledged for the fruits of our labor, no matter the volume stolen, our prestige (or lack of), our own perceptions of their quality, and whether we have been standing on the shoulders of giants—certainly the case when you are explaining a poem and connecting it to public policy. In good scholarly practice, an author has to cite the source of his idea accurately even when he is describing the idea in his own words. Moreover, exact reproduction of works which are already devoid of any kind of revenue, without any intent to invite readers to visit the original webpages, amounts to blatant exploitation.

Many online content creators are not unreachable higher beings copyright infringers are never sure would read their requests for reproduction of material. Even if we give the impression that we are, the copyright notices on our homepages already answer their questions. Or, if some margin of uncertainty previously remained, our takedown requests have, by now, clearly conveyed our views.

Failure to identify the authorship of online works hurts plagiarists themselves in certain ways:

They unwittingly take the blame for any flaw in the works. Many blog-based outlets, after all, are understaffed and do not undergo peer review. Translations, especially, are prone to mislead people, because writers often have to choose between reproducing the exact nuances of the original works or reproducing their rhymes. There are also the problems of, on one hand, literal translations vis-à-vis adopting expressions more natural in the output language, and on the other, accounting for intonations and gestures which are used by actors and actresses but are not evident in the original lines themselves. On The Asian Drama Philosopher (A-Philosopher)’s Chair, the point of placing the original lines in close proximity to their translations, as long as they were not too verbose, was to increase the chances that readers acquainted with the non-English language in question would spot any error. Nevertheless, reporting it is not the job of any reader, so mistakes may go uncorrected for years. In fact, no one has been forthright enough to point out that “The Problematic of the Unproblematic,” a drama review site that has been around for many years, was misspelt in a news update for several weeks. On top of this, people familiar with the original works would have noticed that APC sometimes insists on parsing the lines in its own idiosyncratic manner.

They lose the right to complain when their own writings/artworks are similarly misappropriated, word for word and line by line without proper credits. No one is so “lucky” or “special” that she alone, and never anyone from her readership base, will ever know of a particular webpage.

They alienate themselves from a large and supportive community of content makers and commentators. Is it not better to befriend us and have a pal from across the world ask after you and remind you to take medication when you are home with a workplace injury in the dead of night—a touching incident actually witnessed on Twitterverse? Asian drama commentators, in particular, may squabble from time to time but tend to share a warm camaraderie.

When it comes to writings on empathy, they contradict themselves. They claim to love the writings, but what they really love are their own selves. They see themselves as the sole subjects of the writings, thinking how fabulous it is to have someone by their sides through thick and thin, but wilfully neglect that the person who makes their reading experience possible in the first place needs as much empathy as them.

They live with a sword of Damocles hanging over their heads. Withholding the credits and link may at times keep the duplicated copy off the original writer's radar. But technology and social media users are growing more sophisticated. Staying unchanged, on the other hand, is the deep and long-lasting thirst to redress the injustice.

Duplication of people’s creations, as another blog owner has pointed out, is soulless work. On a related matter, APC itself has actually been immensely dissatisfied with directing visitors to others’ translations of essays and poetry, instead of taking time to write its own versions, in news updates in recent months. However much it respects and thinks highly of a translator, there are always places the admin obstinately prefers an alternate interpretation, wording or paragraphing. Readers, too, must have their unique visions about how best to convey a scene or sentiment.

Because the obstinate admin does not know how to let go, APC has incessantly felt compelled to list the names of errant readers extracting its contents without proper credits and ignoring its repeated complaints. Furthermore, abandoning efforts to get these readers to adjust their behavior may only result in more future victims. If you are their friend, urge them to make the necessary corrections before they develop a habit and make bigger mistakes in their studies and/or careers. Readers who kindly cooperated have been omitted from this list.

This should not give the illusion that the average troublemaker necessarily comes from a certain range of backgrounds. We have to keep in mind as well that there are many considerate bloggers from their countries. It is just that some individuals, giving up on themselves, choose to be black sheep.

Even long exposure to academia does not make one infallible in such areas. The Learned Fangirl (TLF), an informative website which dissects popular culture, fandom and technology, has related to APC's admin how a tenured faculty once re-posted several of their posts in their entirety on his blog without linking back. When informed that this approach was unacceptable, he took down the posts, but not without calling TLF uncollegial.

With this update, APC hopes to not only seek justice for itself but also encourage long-suffering online content creators to speak up against readers disrespecting their efforts. In the spirit of "ascorbate extraction," its admin will be collating data like the above and using its experiences with recalcitrant readers as potential case studies for a professional project. As for its upcoming online project, which will be about strategic thinking in public regulation, it intends to use a platform with readily executable copy protection measures, even as it has otherwise had a very positive experience with WordPress. It thanks TLF and numerous other online authors and admins for their frank personal anecdotes and very insightful comments in a private discussion group on plagiarism. If you are a legitimate content creator who would like to join us, simply drop a note below with a link to your website.

Confronting plagiarists is no pleasant task, but with at least five online commentators with a legal background in the Korean drama circle alone at last count, breakthroughs need not be that far away.

Many people in the Asian drama-watching community know of 2011 Chinese production Scarlet Heart (available on Dramafever) as a girl-meets-many-boys time-travel romance, but the rich cultural tapestry within perhaps deserves more credit. Over 35 episodes, viewers are treated to an eye-opening array of Qing costumes, headdresses and jewelry as well as fascinating references to various Chinese teas and snacks. The talented but doomed eighth prince, for instance, is described as favoring “Rizhu Snow Buds” or “Day Cast Snow Buds” (a word-by-word translation; Rizhu is actually a geographical location)—a type of green tea which name is thought to conjure up an image of beautiful snow melting away with the rise of the Sun, leaving only sadness in its place.

Certainly, too, the drama includes a great wealth of literary references, of which a Tibetan poem and a passage by Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi have been discussed on this site before. As a sample of the plethora of Chinese prose and poetry also woven into the script, below are the poems in scenes corresponding to some of those aired in the Korean adaptation so far:

1. The eighth prince sends the heroine, Ma’ertai Ruoxi, Song poet Qin Guan's “To the Tune of Magpie Bridge Immortal,” an extraordinarily spectacular and romantic poem that provides much comfort to couples in long-distance relationships. Its lines would solve the supposed mystery of the above headline. (Original text | Translation)

2. He next sends her “Fallen Low,” a succinct and highly rhythmic work which historically has different interpretations bound by the common theme of human-inflicted suffering. (Original text | Translation – one of the interpretations)

3. When Emperor Kangxi orders Ruoxi to explain why she calls him a good ruler, she quotes the lines "But alas! Qin Shihuang and Han Wudi [...] Look to this age alone”€ from Mao Zedong’€™s “€œSnow.”€ They may sound sycophantic to modern ears but mark the start of their friendship. If we put aside political differences and regard its mentions of archery and literary prowess as mere symbols of less advanced stages of human civilization, the poem is additionally a reminder that the best need not be in the past — €”the sources of our problems may also be the sources of our solutions. This is a dose of optimism the world at large can benefit from as it grapples with political, economic and environmental upheavals. (Original text | Translation)

It is unfortunate that time constraints prevent The Chair from listing the numerous other classical texts referenced and far more so that few Western-language drama review sites seem to take a profound interest in East Asian literature. The analysis of the portrayal of regional literature in East Asian dramas is a niche area in cultural critique is badly in need of new blood and, pun intended, a few more scarlet hearts.

The following poems appeared in the episode broadcast on Tuesday:

1. The 21-st century time-traveling heroine, Hae Su, is mesmerized by a Goryeo prince’s beautiful calligraphy. What the family-loving and genteel man writes is a piece of prose titled “Home Again” by Six Dynasties Chinese poet Tao Yuanming, which describes the poet giving up his governmental post for a peaceful, simple life at his countryside home. (Original text | Translation)

2. As a confession, the prince gifts her “Bamboo Stalk Song,” a poem by Tang author Liu Yuxi that uses inconstant weather as an analogy for ambiguous love. (Original text | Translation – be sure to read the footnote)

3. Since modern-day Koreans are generally not as well-versed in classical Chinese, Su has to depend on his brother and wife (also her cousin) for the interpretation. This, of course, leads to some awkwardness and fury, which Su fails to notice. Then, ignoring the romantic undertones of the poem, she hilariously attempts to copy Goryeo official Kim Ji-dae’s poem on majestic and serene scenery, “Yugasa Temple,” as her response to the prince. Since no translation is available online, The Chair is supplying its own below:

瑜伽寺 유가사 (note that the Korean alphabet has not been invented then)

寺在煙霞無事中 (사재연하무사중) 

亂山滴翠秋光濃 (난산적취추광농) 

A mist surrounds the tranquil temple in the evening light 

A jumble of green mountains and the marvelous sights of autumn beckon

雲間絶磴六七里 (운간절등육칠리) 

天末遙岑千萬重 (천말요잠천만중) 

Steep stone steps rise for six to seven miles into the clouds 

Numerous layers of hills lie at the faraway horizon

茶罷松簷掛微月 (다파송첨괘미월) 

講闌風榻搖殘鍾 (강란풍탑요잔종) 

After sipping tea, one sees a new crescent hanging at the pine canopy 

After a lecture, one hears lingering bell notes from the sleep chambers

溪流應笑玉腰客 (계류응소옥요객) 

欲洗未洗紅塵踨 (욕세미세홍진종) 

The streams must be laughing at the government official, 

Who tries to but cannot wash away his worldly marks

(References: Naver, Apple Daily)

Su eventually settles on this reply: \^0^/

According to Apple Daily, the netizen who identified this poem noted that the current name for a temple which used to be called Yugasa is Donghwasa / 桐華寺. 桐華 is the name of the Chinese novelist who penned the book the show is based on. Readers may like to know that there is another Yugasa Temple, which retains its name to this date and has been associated with the poem. All the same, we are free to regard the coincidence as a cross-cultural tribute.

Similar plots can be found in Scarlet Heart, the 2011 Chinese drama adaptation of the novel. Most poignantly, the quick-witted, Chinese time-traveling heroine there struggles to pronounce the exquisite vocabulary used in letter writing in Qing China, finding herself as good as illiterate despite her education and white-collar background. In both cases, too, it may be one thing to read about polygamy and marriage between closely related individuals as a side note in history books, but another to see it simulated three-dimensionally, with actors viewers emotionally identify with. Time slip shows, clearly, provide excellent opportunities for examining how robust people’s connection to their ancestral past can or should be. On one side, there are the issues of lost heritage and pardoning historical figures for being products of their times. On the other, we have arguments for cultural pride in using language entirely of your own (for Koreans), heightened literacy rates brought about by simplified languages, and support for modern ethical sensibilities.

For more Sino-Korean and Chinese poetry, you are welcome to explore this site category or search for Kuiwon’s very informative WordPress blog, which The Chair has long wanted to introduce here. Kuiwon has also written at length about his thoughts on the issue of Chinese character usage in South Korea. His view, however, neither reflects nor contradicts this site’s.

One mistake in the Korean adaptation warrants notice. As the netizen reported, the story takes place in the AD 900s, but Kim Ji-dae lived from 1190 to 1266, so the writing Su copied from could not have been lying around. At least it is a romantic notion that a book traveled back in time with you—theoretically more romantic, perhaps, than being wooed by the husband of your sick cousin.

News Box: Belle Époque

George Eliot wrote in the novel Middlemarch that youth is frequently the season of hope only in the sense that older generations are hopeful about younger ones. Lacking life experiences, young people, for all their physical vitality and cognitive advantages, find each struggle soul-crushing. Likewise, Age of Youth (available on Dramafever) peels back the rosy veneer of life in one's 20s to reveal the socioeconomic difficulties and family/personal tragedies that may afflict young adults without waiting for them to "grow up" first. Its oldest main character, college senior Yoon Jin-myung, already 28, is forever too busy making ends meet to properly experience the springtime of her life. Fake college student Kang Yi-na, 24, escapes from a near-death experience only to lead a wasted life hooking up with rich men in bars for an indulgent lifestyle out of survivor guilt. Princessy Jung Ye-eun (pictured above), 22, can hardly bring herself to break up with her atrocious boyfriend. Dirty-talking liar Song Ji-won, also 22, ironically seems to be the most well-adjusted and one of the wisest among the pack. Timid Yoo Eun-jae, only 20, may have been a murderess. With courage and companionship, though, it may still be possible to live life to the fullest, in spite of scars and missteps, making these truly beautiful years of their lives.

Below is a selection of literary references in the show:

Korean independence fighter Yun Dong-ju's poem anthology Sky, Wind, Star, and Poetry - Jin-myung's mother, giving up hope on her comatose son, underlines the last two lines of the work "A Dream Shattered." (A translation can be found here.)

Hermann Hesse's Demian - A German youth's quest for self-discovery and spiritual enlightenment.

Nikos Kazantzakis's Zorba the Greek - A Greek intellectual befriends a foreman under his employment who has a fervent zest for life. Read together with (2) by Jin-myung and led to her decision to take some risks and live according to her wishes for a change.

Liane Moriarty's Big Little Lies - A chick-lit novel on domestic abuse. Discussed by Ji-won while making up her mind about whether to disclose a truth.

This weekend drama has concluded its run last Saturday. Some episodes contain suggestive references.

News Box: W for Whoppsy-whiffling

Originally published on the main site

This brief commentary was written after the conclusion of Beautiful Mind.

What have been pumping up The Asian Drama Philosopher (A-Philosopher)’s Chair all this while are writings and dramas that take their audiences in weird and wonderful directions. W – Two Worlds (available on Viki) tops all dramas in this category so far with twin universes where a faraway river surreally floats up to you in a restroom, taking the metaphorical red pill freezes everyone else and leaves you terrifyingly alone in your expansive, fabricated world, and going on rampage is a literally faceless killer who can take any form (including a vehicle!) and teleport anywhere at anytime without any reason to take down a target so long as Creator wants him to. But now that its webtoon protagonist and his killer have both become self-aware, the former asks why he should be an alcoholic artist's alternate self or a starry-eyed fangirl's plaything while the latter, flashing with pixels of anger, demands an identity. There are elements of shows like Stranger than Fiction, Pleasantville, Dollhouse and, of course, The Matrix here, but the overall setup is rare enough, particularly when it comes to nonwhite lead characters, that it still feels remarkably refreshing.

W is not just a flashy show. Among other topics, it poses hard questions about the psychology of fiction creation. Thought policing can be repulsive and is as yet difficult to perform consistently with precision. Yet, in a strange turn of events, this freedom of thought also accommodates contemplation of the aesthetics of thought, for better or worse. With regards to such aesthetics in storytelling, W wonders if it is pathetic to live vicariously through a character who has everything—youth, success, strength of character—you do not have and if it is repugnant to, for the sake of dramatic tension and venting personal emotions, make a character go through traumatic experiences you would never wish for or be capable of enduring yourself.

Some viewers may not be used to the plot's bizarreness and sensational and slightly complicated twists, but, with sincere respect to fellow commentators who have expressed those views, if we cannot tolerate ideas that challenge the mind and defy conventions in an imaginary reality, how bleak is the prospect of us treating with civility someone who is "different" in our inescapable, physical reality? Fortunately, perhaps thanks to its intense cross-universe romance, W has been the rare mind-bending Korean drama in recent years to attain healthy ratings. All the best to it retaining the champion position for its time slot for the remaining episodes. Fanart creators would be happy to draw in a gigantic medal, and probably few would denounce this as vile.

Here you can see some of Puuung’s lovely illustrations.  “Love” is something that everybody can relate to. And “Love” comes in ways that we can easily overlook in our daily lives. So, She tries to find the meaning of love in our daily lives and make it into artworks.  These are a part of her illustrations. Please visit her portfolio on Grafolio. We hope you enjoy more Puuung’s works. http://www.grafolio.com/puuung1

Puuung’s Kickstarter Challenge

Love is : Puuung’s illustration of love   Puuung is a popular Korean illustrator with a large fan base and is best known for her ‘Love Is’ series. This series of illustrations, which is about the universal theme of ‘Love’, is regularly uploaded on NAVER’s Grafolio service. http://www.grafolio.com/puuung1

Since 2014, Puuung has uploaded her illustration series ‘Love Is’ every Tuesday and Thursday on Grafolio, a global platform provided by NAVER for single person creators, She already has a wide fan base that eagerly waits for her updated works. She has received great response from the Korean audience and greater response from those overseas.

A global funding was started through “Kickstarter”, the crowdfunding platform, in June 6, to introduce Puuung’s illustrations to more people around the world. Crowdfunding is a way of raising money via the social media or the internet. Kickstarter, which was launched in April of 2009, is based in the United States and is the world’s most famous crowdfunding platform. Now, let’s hear from the designer who has been responsible for the whole process, from planning the Kickstarter reward items to producing samples and coming up with the completed rewards.

Planning the Kickstarter Reward Items While planning rewards items for Puuung’s Kickstarter project, we had to come up with product designs that best displayed the artist’s illustrations. Overseas delivery was also an important factor, and therefore items also had to be compact and light enough so that it can be delivered to people across the world. After looking into various items in numerous price ranges, and upon final review with the artist herself, fabric posters, an art book and a postcard collection were selected as rewards for Puuung’s first Kickstarter funding project.

Launching the Kickstarter Page We needed a webpage that provided detailed information on the reward items in order to start the funding. To do so, we made samples of each reward in advance and launched our Kickstarter page!! https://www.kickstarter.com We waited with great anticipation until 8 o’clock in the morning in Korea, since the project campaign webpage was to be launched in US standard time. And to our great surprise, we achieved our goal of 10,000 dollars within just two hours from the launch of the funding and collected over 126,000 dollars, which was more than 1000% of our target amount, during the one month funding period. In addition, Puuung became the first Korean in Kickstarter to reach third place in the illustration section, which is an enormous feat. More than 1,800 backers from 70 countries, including English speaking countries of the United States and Canada, European nations including France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, and Asian countries of Singapore and Hong Kong, participated in the funding. Backers will be given rewards such as postcard collections, art book and posters that contain Puuung’s illustrations.

Producing Kickstarter Reward Items The unexpectedly large number of backers meant that we had to increase the number of items we had to produce. Since a limited quantity of rewards was being produced through funding, we wanted to provide backers who love Puuung’s work with high-quality rewards. We therefore placed extreme care into the paper, material and print quality of the rewards. [Fabric Posters] We especially went through many trials and errors while we were producing the sample for the fabric posters. Canvas fabric, the most commonly used material for fabric posters, was unable to provide us with satisfactory print quality. Multiple tests were done with various fabrics before we were able to find a fabric that gave us a print quality that most closely resembled the original illustration.

[Art Book] The art book is 116 pages and contains Puuung’s illustration as well as drawings of three couples that were selected from Puuung’s photo competition event. The background of the illustrations has a lot of detail and illustrations are shown from various angles, so the layout was arranged to show the illustration in its original proportions. The epilogue of the art book contains information fans were interested in, including the artist’s “thank you” message and photos of her workroom, sketches and of herself. Puuung, despite her busy schedule, also created an original cover for the art book and postcard collection that were to be given to Kickstarter backers. This special cover, which contains original and unique illustrations, is only available in the Kickstarter rewards!!

[Postcard Collection] The postcard collection consists of 100 illustrations and contains never-before released illustrations created by Puuung. Comments left by Kickstarter backers, such as “I want to give your illustrations to my son for his one year wedding anniversary” or “I bought your postcard collection because I wanted to use your work in our wedding invitation” show the backers expectation and affection towards Puuung’s art book.

100 copies of the art book contains Puuung’s autograph, which were each carefully signed by the artist herself. We look forward to more of Puuung’s heartwarming illustrations as she continues to draw about even the smallest happiness that is felt between people in love. :-)

All the World's a Mimicry

All the World's a Mimicry

Forging human connections is like running a makeshift theater academy. At times, a man briefly stages in his head the turmoil ravaging another person’s mind. At times, he recalls and mentally rehearses scenes that have brought someone in those shoes a little cheer. Then he walks onto a visible stage, located wherever the other party can be reached, and re-enacts the soothing gestures that show…

View On WordPress

Witchcrafting Programmers

Witchcrafting Programmers: Realism in the Not-So-Realistic Lucky Romance

Composition with Color Planes (1917) by Piet Mondrian “To hell with logic! Do not talk to me about logic when I’m leading an absurd life anyway.” Those words come from Shim Bo-nui, the computing whiz who first hunts down an extremely elusive bug in a recruitment contest held by game developer Zeze Factory in the surprisingly geeky romantic comedy Lucky Romance. Obsessed with superstitions, she…

View On WordPress

The NI Series (3): Madame Breakup Is Not Quite a Phantom!

Admin’s Message: After a long break, the noble idiocy trope is put under the microscope again! In this third installment, Vietnamese Canadian Mawiie, a drama reviewer who has also delighted K-drama fans with her clay figurines of popular characters, enthusiastically shares with us how her background has shaped her reaction to variants of the trope involving characters’ closest tribe members.

I need to start off by saying that my opinion comes from a second-generation Vietnamese Canadian who grew up with very liberal parents, but extremely conservative grandparents.

As a child, my grandparents (with whom I spent a lot of time - my grandpa was the one in charge for my education) would constantly talk about filial piety. They were expecting me to get high-paying jobs so I would be providing for them AND my parents. I was the eldest sibling, and also the most motivated for school, so they had extremely high expectations for me to help the whole family out.

So coming from my own experience, when I see family-related noble idiocy issues on the screen, I can believe that they are realistic, especially in a country like Korea where Confucianism is still highly valued, But I also think that, like 0kuo0 has said, the issues have been highly exaggerated in some dramas. I am mostly thinking about those crazy dailies. Are they rooted in some truth? I don't doubt it one bit. But are they always resolved with Niagara Falls level of tears and major life-altering decision sending one character over the Pacific? I sure hope not.

Now, like I have said, while my grandparents were very conservative (”How dare you take a job as a college student? That means that you will quit school! You have to forego a social life and your personal needs for money so you can study to be a doctor and buy us a house where we will ALL live together!"), my parents were pretty cool. I got to do what I wanted, as long as it was reasonable, but my parents would still bend to all the demands of my grandparents.

It was really weird and frustrating to see my parents tell me one thing, but not dare to do it themselves. So I always get super frustrated at characters in drama who can't stand up for themselves when they did no wrong!

TLDR: Growing up with conservative grandparents, I recognize many of the examples in k-dramas. I think that for most part, it's pretty accurate with some exaggeration in dailies. On the other hand, in the West, the Confucian way of thinking kinda decreases with new generations, so while I understand why the characters are acting the way they are, I can't get over the fact that OMG YOU ARE A GROWN ASS MAN/WOMAN, JUST TALK TO EACH OTHER AND DON'T LET YOUR MOM RULE YOUR LIFE.