"Continuous stream of traffic"
"One of the most underrated realities about North Korea is its very dynamic relationship with China, and the amount of information that flows across that border. Students; business people; it's a continuous stream of traffic," says Steven Linton, an American aid worker in North Korea. With that traffic come thousands of DVDs, CDs, cellular telephones, used computers and videotapes -- many of them from China and South Korea. Many Koreans in China make a living by setting up satellite TVs at their homes to receive South Korean media. Then, they burn CDs and DVDs of the programs and sell them to North Koreans for a profit. These media are so prevalent inside North Korea now that knowledge about South Korea has become commonplace, says Yoo Ho-yeol, a professor at Korea University in Seoul. Yoo regularly talks to students and refugees from North Korea.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127836840
C-Span puts full archives online
C-Span has uploaded virtually every minute of its video archives to the internet. The C-Span Video Library covers 23 years of history and five presidential administrations. The network will announce the completion of the video archives on 17 March 2010. Having free online access to the more than 160,000 hours of C-Span footage is "like being able to google US political history,” said Rachel Maddow.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/16/arts/television/16cspan.html
Tommy Westphall's Mind
Characters and storylines in television shows often crossover to other shows with guest appearances, spinoffs, or interrelated stories. Tommy Westphall's Mind explains how 282 series are related through one character.
Tommy Westphall was an austistic child on the television series St Elsewhere who, it was revealed in the closing moments of the final episode of that series, had dreamt the entire run of the show. Tommy's mind is a tricky thing to decipher. St Elsewhere has direct connections to twelve other television series, many of them direct crossovers of character to and from the series. Others make mention of specific parts of St Elsewhere, placing them within the same fictional sphere.
