I had the privilege last summer of attending State of the Map Africa, and getting some insight into the status of OpenStreetMap on the continent. This year, almost as a followup, FOSS4G Dar es Salaam was held in conjunction with the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team’s Summit. And so it was that FOSS4G this year was one part FOSS4G, one part HOT, and one part Tanzania, all … Continue reading Women and FOSS4G / HOT Summit in Africa
Korean Drumming at FOSS4G Seoul: Continue reading Korean Drumming at FOSS4G Seoul
In order to function at a most basic level in a given society (which I do not yet in the South Korean context), it is good to know the basic words of courtesy — the equivalents of “Excuse me”, “Pardon me”, “Nice to meet you”, “Hello”, “Goodbye”, etc.. Today we’ll talk about how to say “I’m sorry.” Between talking across cultural / language / expectation … Continue reading Mini-series on Korean words, part 4: Apologies
I had the good pleasure of attending FOSS4G Seoul. One of the organizers (Heegu Park) early on told me, in response to the workshop I planned, something to the effect of “Whatever you need, Steve, ask for it. Nothing is impossible.” The organizers truly were capable of fulfilling any request. More on that later. Last time I was in Seoul, I took lots of pictures. … Continue reading Uninformed botanical musings
Short linguistics aside For me, understanding a language, beyond a memorization of terms, is predicated on the idea that I understand something of the underlying logic to the language. So today, instead of a Korean word, we’ll talk about the term agglutinative. (bless you) In short, what it means is that a language uses a lot of prefixes, stem words, and suffixes, and that these components … Continue reading Mini-series on Korean words, part 3: Agglutinative language
A good logo is hard to come by. I love the logo of Korean National Park Service. It’s simple, beautiful, has elements of complexity to it, and makes a simple statement: land of mountains and sea. The mountains and the sea are sources of life in Korea, from the resources and farming found on the edge of the mountains, the peace found hiking and visiting … Continue reading Mini-series on Korean words, part 2: Land of Mountains and Sea
That could be my whole blog post. Just a PSA. Google Maps in Seoul is like Apple Maps was when they launched — dangerously inaccurate. *I don’t know what is helpful on iOS. I traveled last year with Android only, and my searches so far on iOS are coming up short.* So what should you use? Anything OSM-based isn’t too bad. I really like OSMAnd. … Continue reading Google Maps won’t help you much in Seoul…
Contemplating FOSS4G 2015, Seoul, South Korea | SEPTEMBER 14TH – 19TH, 2015, but don’t speak Korean? That’s ok. You will be treated oh so well even without Korean. But… if you want to show your hosts and hostesses a little care in return, maybe learn a little basic Korean. I highly recommend the sweetandtasty channel on YouTube, starting with the word “Love” or “sarang”. You’ll … Continue reading And I will fly ten thousand miles…
Introduction: I learn topics better if I talk and write about them. If you have been following this blog for long, you’ll know that I am always willing to post half-learned knowledge here. Today, it will be the Korean alphabet, Hangul. What I like about learning Korean (people, food, culture, letters, language) is that, like culture in general, it is a complicated, many faceted and … Continue reading Korean Phonetics and Hangul
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