Danny Crichton

Jeju Island looks like a perfect ellipse with a mountain at its center, and this is no accident. The island formed from a volcano, and this background has created a home for some of the most beautiful geological phenomena I have ever witnessed.

(This post is part of a continuing series. For the last article, click here).

One of the first sights for many visitors to Jeju is the unique statuary that was created by the indigenous civilization on the island. While Jeju is and has been part of Korea, the distance of the island from the mainland Korean peninsula allowed the local culture to develop relatively independently, and thus the local dialect and food is quite distinct from other regions of Korea. These statues are made from the local volcanic rock available on the island. The actual character depicted is typical for this type of statuary, and has symbolic meaning.

One of the unique natural rock formations visible on the island are the hexagonal columns of volcanic rock that form during the cooling process. The design's geometric pattern is simply breathtaking, and seems almost alien in the natural ecosystem. These particular photos were taken on the south side of the island, in one of the more well-known spots.

Other areas of Jeju also demonstrate natural erosion forces from the sea. This next picture is also located on the south-side of the island. If you look closely, you can see a mobile harbor for ocean vessels that was (I was told) developed by researchers at KAIST in the bottom-right corner.

I spent the last few days on Jeju, a volcanic island that is just a couple of dozen miles south of the Korean peninsula. The island has recently been christened as one of the 7 New Wonders of the Natural World by UNESCO (in a vote that was relatively scandalous, since the voting took place online and Korean soldiers were occasionally ordered to stuff the digital ballot boxes). While I can't really compare the island to the other contenders, I can say that the unusual geology, vast landscapes, and unique local culture make the island a special destination for international and Korean travelers.

The island is mostly known as a sort of lush paradise island (it is not classified as tropical, although at times the published pictures may lend Jeju that description). However, that was not my experience traveling there this Winter.

While the cold and snow were quite dreadful (plus the wind is downright deadly, maintaining around 30mph due to the nearby shore), the snow did provide for some beautiful photography against the ashen colored volcanic rocks widely seen in the island's geology.

One of the most famous natural attractions on Jeju is the Manjanggul Lava Tube, a winding cave beneath the ground that was hollowed by molten lava that flowed through here thousands of years ago.

Only a portion of the caves are available to tourists, but the available section is quite dramatic (enhanced by upgraded lights and bridges that have been placed in the past 5 years by an emboldened local government).

This week marks the start of the new year in lunar-based calendars, and the New Year's Day is the largest holiday of the year in Korean and East Asian cultures. The New Year's Day celebrations can be quite elaborate depending on a family's fealty to cultural traditions, but the exact practices vary between families depending on religious practices, cultural background, number of family members, and the hometown of the family. This is the year of the Dragon, and that has meant that the animal has become quite prevalent throughout the country in the past few weeks.

At the heart of the holiday is a certain introspection regarding one's age and ancestors. Since the Korean age system is based around New Year's day (one's age increases for everyone in the country simultaneously on New Year's day, as opposed to on birthdays) Acknowledging and honoring one's ancestors is at the heart of the event, and many Koreans will trek back to their ancestral hometowns to visit grave sites of previous generations of their family. At the same time, it is a time to commemorate another year of life and the continuing passage of time.

I participated in the traditions with a friend of mine here in Korea. The celebration began in the early morning with the cooking of a banquet feast, including (Tteokguk), which is the traditional food eaten only during New Year's.

In the same room as the food are pictures of the family's ancestors on the wall. Before the food is eaten, the men in the family (sons and fathers) performed a series of traditional bows to honor the ancestors before enjoying the breakfast. Due to the small dining

Vinod Khosla, writing on TechCrunch in his continuing series on how algorithms are going to replace everything, believes that there are two trends in the future confluence of the internet and the web: decentralization and gamification. His arguments regarding decentralization are accurate (if a tad unoriginal at this point considering the overarching development of the internet), but his views on gamification deserve a closer look. He starts reasonable enough:

[...] I firmly believe that we should embrace [gamification] and harness its best parts to drive the education of our children who grow up with online and mobile games.

But then we reach this sentence later in the essay:

And with points and stars and badges and the like both [types of students: the A and D students] are likely to want to spend more time participating, and will be more motivated when they do participate compared to today's average classroom.

Vinod Khosla is wrong. Dangerously wrong.

I want to start by saying that Khosla is certainly no small figure in the Silicon Valley community, and really, his track record of success is something to laud. I also want to note that some of my closest friends from college are working on mobile games that teach arithmetic skills. I think the work that they are doing is really interesting, worthwhile and useful.

Yet, there is a tremendous difference between having a game on a parent's iPhone or Android and changing the entire U.S. education system to encourage the acquisition of arbitrary "points and stars and badges." It's funny, but this approach has been tried for years in U.S. school districts, without success. Those who want to read about it from an ardent critic can turn to the work of Alfie Kohn who rightly points out

How portable are models of economic development? When people talk of the Washington Consensus or the Beijing Consensus, they are indicating a set of economic approaches toward development that include deep cultural connections. America's approach of privatization and deregulation has brought immense prosperity to the country over the past century (even if we may have moved the edge too far in the past few years). Likewise, China's approach to state-centered economic growth is merely an extension of an extremely long history of bureaucratic development.

One of the economic theories that have been put forward to address this is varieties of capitalism - an approach that seeks to consider countries in terms of holistic systems of production - one in which individuals interact in a system of institutions that all work together in synergy. Thus, the United States has strong patent rights, strong rule of law, entrepreneurship, libertarianism, deregulation, etc. - the change of one of which would be incompatible with the others.

The theory has many problems (namely, reverse causality), but it highlights a true danger in economic development: economies grow organically, and it is nearly impossible to graft on a new industry or approach and expect it to be successful. One only has to look at the demise of Silicon Valley clones around the world to see how difficult copying a set of economic institutions can be.

Daniel Altman (who I seem to beat up a little too much), wrote another article for Foreign Policy in which he discusses the increasing levels of human capital development in Africa. His statistics are quite interesting, but one thing I thought was interesting was the on-going comparisons to South Korea.

For example, in overall human development as judged by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Madagascar now sits where the Republic

Markets are quite common throughout Korea, and each has their own reputation for the kind of goods that are for sale. Some markets are known for their fabrics, while others might be known for their imported goods or foods. This tends to mean that there is no one-stop shop for all goods you want, but it does mean that there is incredible selection if you know what you are looking for and go to the right place.

I visited Gwangjang Market a few days ago, which the Korea Tourism agency bills as the "first" market in the country (not really sure on how they define that though). The place is also apparently known for its hanbok wedding gowns (the formal and traditional dress of the wedding couple) and thus it serves up many stores with these gowns available in a dazzling palette of colors. Outside of the shopping, numerous food vendors were dispersed throughout the walkways offering snacks for the shoppers.

In addition to shopping, I managed to get a wonderful picture of large-flake snow falling in Korea. The snow, when it isn't making the place dangerous, can be quite beautiful at times (although it is still not enough to get me to leave California permanently!)

A few weeks ago, I visited Suwon, a fairly large city just to the south of Seoul. The city is famous for Hwaseong Fortress, a castle from the Joseon Dynasty that is today designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Suwon is the only enclosed city in Korea, and the walls of the fortress remain quite visible.

My friend and former intern colleague Andrew Munn has raised quite a ruckus over the laggy behavior experience by users of Android. His original contention has been that Android lacks a dedicated UI thread, and thus is unable to compete with systems like iOS that offer such a thread as part of its graphics architecture. This claim has been rebutted by several critics, most comprehensively by Dianne Hackborn of the Android development team.

Yet, there is something still missing from this discussion. Why is it that Android still seems laggy after years of development? This is not a minor discussion, but goes directly to the quality of the user experience of the device. Dianne's main argument (she has several of them) is that Android's API model ensures that every app is sandboxed, and that the ability to optimize the graphics is difficult because the hardware is just not there.

I don't buy that argument.

Instead, I think she nibbles on the right argument near the end of her piece. In the penultimate paragraph, she describes the similar experience between programming for iOS and programming for Android:

One final thought. I saw an interesting comment from Brent Royal-Gordon on what developers sometimes need to do to achieve 60fps scrolling in iOS lists: "Getting it up to sixty is more difficult-you may have to simplify the cell's view hierarchy, or delay adding some of the content, or remove text formatting that would otherwise require a more expensive text rendering API, or even rip the subviews out of the cell altogether and draw everything by hand."

**There is a more fundamental reason why Android is laggy compared to iOS: culture and tools. **The iOS development culture is built around cool design. The Wow Factor is