Anyone know why NK keep letting these videos get made, even though it makes them look like total douche bags? Do they really believe something good would come out of it?
Life inside the North Korean Bubble (with video)
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Re: Life inside the North Korean Bubble (with video)
#22The list of search results displayed from the DPRK's search engine was interesting. The query "handbook" brought up quite a few hits on IBM's Websphere Application Server, and even a guide on deploying UMTS towers. Does anyone have more information on how the country's network access works?
Edit: Some discussion over at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1426919
Re: Life inside the North Korean Bubble (with video)
#23I looked at the BBC video embedded there. I noticed the DELL logos. It makes me wonder how the DELL logo is explained to the students who encounter it. Are they told DELL is a Korean company? Do they wonder why they don't see that hardware elsewhere?
Re: Life inside the North Korean Bubble (with video)
#24I recommend the British documentary A State of Mind http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0456012/ as another rare insight into North korean life. It covers about a year in the life of a family who have two young girls training in preparation for the Mass Games. Utterly compelling and handles a very difficult subject matter with sensitivity and without passing judgement.
Netflix also has this documentary available for on-demand streaming.
Re: Life inside the North Korean Bubble (with video)
#25Anyone know why NK keep letting these videos get made, even though it makes them look like total douche bags? Do they really believe something good would come out of it?
Allowing forgein visitors is one of their main ways of getting hard forgein currency, that they can then use for trade.
Re: Life inside the North Korean Bubble (with video)
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
The UK is an island but our borders have more holes than a colander. Illegal immigration and people smuggling are a huge issue here, and a political hot potato. The problem must be 10x worse for countries with land borders.
I don't buy this. What's lacking is the political will to secure the borders of the UK. If the UK is so porous then how come Germany wasn't able to stroll over in 1940. People have been told that's it's impossible to keep out illegals and through repetition and the evidence of their eyes have come to believe it. Meanwhile in 'nice areas' the only illegals visible are the domestic servants who would otherwise be unaff…
> If the UK is so porous then how come Germany wasn't able to stroll over in 1940.
A few thousand unorganised migrant workers who are trying to smuggle themselves in with no more than a suitcase each and try to hide in the corners of soceity when they get there is quite different from a massive uniformed army with tanks and trucks who then try to take over the running of the government when they get here.
Also the army was legally allowed and ordered to shoot the Germans who were trying to come over, whereas they is not the political will to shoot migrant workers.
Re: Life inside the North Korean Bubble (with video)
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Eastern Block wasn't that good at all at sealing borders. Many millions of people have emigrated to the West from Eastern Europe during the Cold War.
Millions I have a problem in believing, certainly once the iron curtain proper was put in place.
You don't need to resort to believing--either way. Just look at some statistics. You have all the web at your disposal, I suppose.
Re: Life inside the North Korean Bubble (with video)
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was in South Korea last month and there's a few different attitudes. There's a general sense that there should be one Korea at some point or other, though people disagree on the particulars based on what they focus on when they think about it. Some people think the opportunities for manufacturing and development in North Korea are going to be great and are excited to have more Korean companies do their manufacturin…
There's a general sense that there should be one Korea at some point or other This is a quite popular opinion to express publicly, but I think the support for it is rather shallow. When push comes to shove, unifying Korea would have immediate economic impacts to South Koreans more severe than the United States swallowing Mexico. (South Korea has 48 million people who have essentially Italian living standards. North K…
Being italian, I'm really curious about what you mean with "italian living standards".
Re: Life inside the North Korean Bubble (with video)
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is something that always puzzles me. How come it's accepted as a given that countries cannot seal their borders. The Soviet Bloc were pretty good at it EDIT also the border between north and south korea is pretty tight
The UK is an island but our borders have more holes than a colander. Illegal immigration and people smuggling are a huge issue here, and a political hot potato. The problem must be 10x worse for countries with land borders.
Perhaps length of coastline is perhaps part of the problem - the UK has a very long coastline for its area.
Re: Life inside the North Korean Bubble (with video)
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a general sense that there should be one Korea at some point or other This is a quite popular opinion to express publicly, but I think the support for it is rather shallow. When push comes to shove, unifying Korea would have immediate economic impacts to South Koreans more severe than the United States swallowing Mexico. (South Korea has 48 million people who have essentially Italian living standards. North K…
Being italian, I'm really curious about what you mean with "italian living standards".
In terms of GDP per capita, South Korea is closest to Italy out of any European country, which HN readers might feel more familiar with.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_...