http://mike.sapak.info Sun, 24 Aug 2008 14:42:28 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Erin and I interviewed for our city placement last night, and it went perfectly!  Prior to the interview I had jotted down the name of a few places that looked good, mostly decent-sized cities on the coast.  The regional director was a great guy, and happy to work with us, ... http://mike.sapak.info/2008/08/24/got-my-city-placement It might be rather rude to write about my finances in Korea, but I'm sure people are curious.  I know I would have liked to have more information when planning. Keep in mind that I'm still at orientation and haven't actually received or spent any real money.  I have learned a ... http://mike.sapak.info/2008/08/23/a-post-about-money Well, it's 3:45 in the morning, and I'm wide awake.  I managed to get a fair bit of sleep, but I expect I'll be tired tomorrow.  Probably shouldn't have started reading.  Finished Ender's Game, which was a lot of fun.  I should know better than to pick up a tacky ... http://mike.sapak.info/2008/08/22/jet-lag-sucks Had the first day of orientation in Seoul.  We submitted our flight receipts for reimbursement.   The actual training starts tomorrow.  Not sure how much they can teach us about teaching in a few days, but I'm thankful for all the help I can get.  We wandered around before lunch; ... http://mike.sapak.info/2008/08/21/first-day-and-some-photos Made it safely to Korea.  We're housed in dorms at a University.  It looks pretty much like any dorm, except there are buttons and switches for everything.  We have 10 days of orientation here, then we get shipped out to Gangwon province. Lots to say but no time to say it.  ... http://mike.sapak.info/2008/08/21/made-it-to-korea So I've done very little writing on here lately, and lots has happened.  There have been plenty of important events in international relations in the past month, from the collapse of the Doha round to the Russian intervention in Georgia.  My (few) readers can expect more posts on topics like ... http://mike.sapak.info/2008/08/16/general-updates I just got this sweet little machine the yesterday.  I'll do a longer write-up later, but here are some pics. [gallery=10] http://mike.sapak.info/2008/07/26/asus-eee-pc-901-linux Man I love the title of this post. A couple days ago, the journal Nature published a report about monkeys that have learned to control a robotic arm with their thoughts, via a sensor implanted in their brains. Let me write that again. The monkeys can control ... http://mike.sapak.info/2008/05/30/robotic-monkey-arms I got my motorcycle out of my parents' garage last week, and it's had some problems this year. There was a short in the ignition switch, and the bike would sometimes die for a split second. At cruising speeds, this wasn't a problem, but at low speeds, it ... http://mike.sapak.info/2008/05/09/motorcycle-repair   I heard an interesting interview on NPR while driving home today. Some scientists are arguing that we are entering a new geological epoch, characterized by human impact on the planet. The proposed name is the Anthropocene Epoch. The last 12,000 years have been classified as the Holocene ... http://mike.sapak.info/2008/02/16/the-anthropocene-epoch