Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Tidbits

I don't see any strong story for the day, so here are a few things - Korea and Gangwon related, that caught my eye.

My most recent post was about swine flu and the need to constant care to prevent illness. Today, I have learned that the eighth victim of Swine Flu was from Gangwon Province. The 64-year old woman went to a hospital and:
The hospital treated her with anti-viral medicine for five days, after which she tested negative for the flu, but she finally died of secondary complications from bacterial pneumonia, the ministry said.

I wonder what the anti-virals were. As most people know, there is no cure for viral illness - no cure for the common cold, for example - but the symptoms can be treated. Anyway, it seems the flu weakened her immune system and allowed pneumonia to take hold. I am not Korea-bashing here, but I wonder if she caught pneumonia at the hospital itself. This happens all the time, around the world.
Anyway, there are now 10,000 Koreans sick with swine flu.

At my university, we no longer need to line up and have our temperature taken to enter the campus. I do need to continue asking each class if anyone is hot and sending them to the campus nurse. With Chuseok coming up, we were reminded that we could not leave the country due to infection fears. I presume going to Seoul and eating from the same dish with a dozen family members is still okay.
---
I find this funny and I don't even care if the elephant did it.

---
By Oct. 15, Pyeongchang will submit a proposal to host the 2018 games to the International Olympics Committee, which will narrow down its choices to three to four final candidates by June. IOC members will visit those finalists between February and March 2011, prior to making their decision at a general assembly in Durban, South Africa on July 6.
---
E-books in Korea
Major S. Korean publishers, bookstores create e-book firm

SEOUL, Sept. 16 (Yonhap) -- A group of major publishers and on- and off-line booksellers in South Korea founded an electric book firm on Wednesday, the new publishing body said in a release.
.
I've been watching NUUT, a Korean brand of E-book reader device, for the last few years. I would totally buy one if I could get content easily without DRM - I don't feel the need to share the books, but I would want to move the e-book from my computer to my reading device, to new computer.... I have a habit of reading a book several times and I frequently buy non-fiction specifically to access at different times in the future.

1 comment:

Daniel Costello said...

That elephant apparently knows the camera's blind spots?