How my name might influence what I would be

     I certainly believe that the name of the person influences the lives of some people significantly. For example, a football player named "Ronaldo" was, is, and will be the greatest player on Earth. The first memorable one came from Brazil. He went through Holland, Italy, and Spain and dominated every football league he played. The second one also came from Brazil and he used the name "Ronaldinho (small Ronaldo in Portuguese) to avoid confusion from his senior. The little one showed his magic in Barcelona for a relatively shorter time, compared to the first but still many people regard his magic unforgettable and ineffable. The third one came from Portugal and he is the leader of his national team, although he has only reached 27. He changes the goal scoring record every season and every part of his body is a potential threat for the opponents. 

     Even though their talents were the greatest factors in their success, their common name Ronaldo must have created some positive influence, at least for the last two. Youngil is not a really popular name but some people do use it in Korea. When I was younger, I searched the names of me and my friends on the internet to see what comes up. The two memorable ones that popped out were a poet and a baseball player. I liked the poet but not the baseball player. I have always been a big fan of football, and during elementary school, I had thought playing or watching other sports means a violation of my liking toward football. So I was disappointed to see a baseball player no matter that the player was getting tested for Major League Baseball. The poet was also quite a well known guy and he ran a TV program that introduces some good poems. I seriously thought about being another poet called Youngil Jung. I once participated in a writing contest eligible for all the students from the Northern state of Jeolla and won the first place with a poem I wrote within about 30 seconds. All the time I had been playing and wandering around. I did think about what to write but did not come up with anything fun. More strangely, I was going to write an essay not a poem. Suddenly, certain phrases came to my mind and I wrote them down. What a moment when true genius comes to light! I believed that I was talented in writing and with my name being a poet in the encyclopedia of the internet, I seriously considered or wanted to be a poet. This might be the greatest influence of my name on my life. 

Response to "Integration of Philosophy and Robotics"

The article, "Integration of Philosophy and Robotics" is written by a junior called Bae Sungwoo. In this article, he ponders upon where robots should be placed in the hierarchy of nature. He not only studies robotics but also reads numerous books of philosophy in order to get an answer for his question. This question has been quite popular since the technology has developed to the extent where the scientists can instill a mental system into the robots. Several famous Hollywood movies featured such dilemma as well. 

In my opinion, I think robots should be placed with objects rather than equally with human beings. Although they do get the ability to make moral decisions, they are still the products of human technology. The reason for their existence is to ease the life of humans. If they were to be given a mental system or ability to think by themselves, the purpose of such endowment would be strictly limited to assist human lives in any kind of sense. Therefore, I believe that although the robots were to think just like we do, they should not be treated or placed equally in the hierarchy. Personally, I think it should be prohibited to establish an artificial mental system in any kind of devices we create. The devices should always pursue value neutrality. 

In the last paragraph, Sungwoo says that philosophy and robotics are not separate but rather complementary. I do agree with his statement. People tend to dichotomize the fields of studies into two big categories: liberal arts or natural science. However, these two should sometimes be mixed in situations when the use of natural science  need judgement based on humanity education just like in Sungwoo's situation.

I enjoyed reading his article because it shows the person. I never knew he was interested in robotics and I do now, having read this article. I should write an article like this sometimes that shows me, the person. 

An artwork that inspired me

     It is impossible to determine when the first advertisement came out since anything that informs or promotes about something can be defined as an advertisement. However, it is clear that advertisements are becoming much more inspiring and creative. In order to impress the contemporary viewers of media, the advertisements must leave everlasting impact. 

This public advertisement is a perfect example of an advertisement that leaves an everlasting impact. Once you see this ad, you instantly realize the danger of smoking. Like this one, the advertisements today tend to appeal to the perspective of the people targeted rather than focusing on what the ads really want to say. By linking the situation illustrated in the ad to the viewers, the advertisements succeed in engaging people more to what ads want to say.

The cultural meme that I chose here is that the ads are being more appealing to the heart.

Now this is the advertisement that I received the most impact from. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_URyWFBOy4

This type of advertisement called the social marketing creates an event and illustrate the story through a video. The creators only give the background setting and they record the responses from the people who do not know they are being recorded for the purpose of event. To briefly summarize this video, many soccer fans are invited to a concert and they are forced to go because of their girlfriends, professor, or company seniors. The concert is 

scheduled at time when a soccer match between Real Madrid and AC Milan is held in UEFA Champions League. Although they detest going to concert, they attend it anyway because of the pressure. As they watch the concert, the background narration starts to talk about soccer and music also changes to the theme music of Champions League. The men scream in delight.

<I will finish this later sorry>

My comment on Ryun 

I really enjoyed reading your article. You seem to have a deep understanding of music in the past while I don’t. The cultural meme is that the message a music tries to send does not change despite the change of genre. While a style of music does influence the feeling the listeners of music get from the music, if the message is clear enough, I think it can overcome any different settings.

The most impressive poem

기다림 - 김영일

Waiting - Youngil Kim  

한 사람을 기다린다는 것은 /

Waiting for a person

삶의 길 가운데서도 / 가장 어려운 길을 걸어가고 있는 것입니다. / 

is the hardest way among different ways in life.

그대를 사랑한 내 잘못인지 / 운명의 장난인지 / 난 요즘 허수아비가 / 되어버린 것 같습니다. / 

I am not sure whether it's my fault to love you or a quirk of fate, but I feel like I am a puppet these days.

그대를 기다린다는 것은 / 내 운명의 또 다른 길을 / 걷고 있는 것입니다.

Waiting for you is walking another path of my fate.

바다의 출렁임에 / 내 마음 출렁이며 / 그대에게 주고픈 편지 손에 들고 / 갈매기에게 / 조그마하게 말합니다.

 My mind rolling as the sea does, I hold a letter that I want to give you and say to a gull in small voice.

가고싶다고 / 그대에게 / 하지만 너무 멀리 떨어져 있는 그대에게는 / 나의 마음이 닿지를 않나봅니다.

 I want to go. To you. But my mind does not seem to reach you, so far away from me. 

First of all, the poet's name is same as mine. That was why I, who usually don't usually read any poem, had a chance to encounter this poem. This poem moved me because it represents the Korean soul represented in the drama I watched. The drama is called the "Moon embracing the Sun" and it's about a fictional king of Joseon dynasty who misses his crown princess. 
I enjoy watching movies or dramas from both Korea and United States. Still, there are specific genres that I prefer in each country. I like romance or moving stories in Korea and thriller or action in United States. Korean movies or dramas represent Korean soul much better. This poem does well too. 

Self-study

I am preparing for the statistics quiz. The materials that I have to study are so much that I could not manage it during the self-study periods yesterday. Several things that are important for today's quiz are sampling, binomial distribution, normal distribution, and calculations. Sampling is methodology to collect sample from a population. We need to be careful when making samples because if we do not consider lurking variables, we might fall into misunderstanding the relationship between two variables. Moreover, bias can happen when the method is wrong in collecting samples. Binomial distribution is a probability distribution of an event in which there are only two types of occurrence. Normal distribution is a distribution in which the occurrences are distributed continuously rather than discretely.

Preview - KONY 2012

I debated about this topic today.
I'd like to write something about it after having self-study this class.

Towards a common value system: A Valid Hope or invitations to Tyranny?

     Globalization is leading us towards a common value system that most people think is an irrefutable principle. Among those values, the most prominent are democracy and human rights. United States, allegedly the world police and other advanced democratic countries endeavor to broaden the scope of the globe where those values are appreciated. It is a definitely positive move to instill the ideas like respecting each person as a significant being who has unalienable rights just for they are human beings.
     However, with conferring these fundamental values, the western countries are imposing their own values in a setting where the situation is totally different. Moreover, the countries are unjustly seeking profits from it. For example, especially the United States has been blatant in its attempt to gain profit under the nominal purpose of establishing democracy and humanitarianism in allegedly backward countries. United States has declared war on Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, asserting that intolerable acts were being committed in the regions and it is a  must for the country to go forward and repair their system. Despite no certainty, it has been noted that the country has been seeking profits like oil and natural resources rather than the spread of common value system.
Kony 2012 is a