James Kim was father of Sabine and Penelope and husband to Kati. He was an analyst on the now defunct cable TV station TechTV and later a editor for CNet. When I first heard the story that his family was missing, I didn’t think much of it. I thought that there might have been some miscommunications.

When Kati and the two daughters were rescued, I realized that this was a big deal. There were more stories about how they got stuck in the snowstorm, they ran the heat in the car until the gas ran out, they burned the tires to stay warm, and Kati had to breastfeed the children. They survived for 9 days until Kati, Penelope and Sabine were rescued by a helicopter that was hired by the Kim family. By this time James had gone out looking for help.

After several days, James felt that they could not wait any longer for help. They had little food and water, and there no longer was anything to burn to stay warm. He had to do something or else his family would freeze and starve to death. He went out there with a few articles of clothing to use and trail markers so that if he did find some help or needed to go back, he could find the way. Because of his resourcefulness and strong will to save his family, he was able to survive 3 more days in the freezing wilderness.

I’m not sure why I was so sad when I read that he was found deceased. There are tragedies that happen everyday. Maybe it’s because he was on TV and he’s a celebrity in my mind. Maybe it’s because he’s also Korean. Maybe it’s because he has a beautiful family and a great job, and it’s a life that I’ve always wanted. All I know is that he was a loving husband and father and a courageous man.

CNN article
CNet article
CNet also made a playlist of videos featuring James here.

You can also go to their family website and donate here.

I found this one which is very old but oh how I love it.

This is pretty cool, you can go deep underwater and not worry about weird creatures that’ll either swollow you whole, sting you with poison, bite chunks of flesh off, nibble little chunks of flesh off or suck your blood.

KFC has created a logo that can be seen from space. It used 65,000 1′ x 1′ square tiles and took 24 hours to create. The logo is new. The shades are darker and it focuses more on “Kentucky Fried Chicken” than the iconic Colonel Sanders mug.

“BALTIMORE, Nov. 13 (UPI) — A scientist in Baltimore has developed a contact lens that can provide diabetics with a non-invasive way to monitor blood sugar.”

This is pretty cool. It’s only a dot you would see if you’re wearing the contacts. I think it should change colors like Frodo’s sword in LOTR when there were orcs near.

Here are some clips that sets out to prove that Dane Cook stole jokes from Louis CK.

mp3

He did steal the general joke but I think he made it kinda his joke with the delivery. But it looks like the blogoshpere has turned on him now.

Dandelife is a “social biography site”. People can add their events on a timeline. You can wander around to other timelines and biographies. It’s like how people on mySpace blog about things they’ve done or places they’ve been but much more organized. One cool feature is the integration with your Flickr account. You can associate pictures to events on your timeline. Same thing applies to your YouTube account. You can have your YouTube video connected to the event as well.

Their main competitor seems to be OurStory, which seem very traditional when you compare these two companies’ business model. OurStory seems like one of those Web 2.0 companies that just offer a free service to get out there and start charging for “premium” accounts that have more features. I haven’t tried registering with them but I think you can host your pictures there. Of course, they could offer more storage space for a fee. Very traditional Web 2.0 business model. In contrast, Dandelife seems to have a very different business model, according to Techcrunch. The stories you create with your Dandelife account and timeline can be bidded on by corporations to sponsor your story. Maybe it will be like “Sung’s trip to Las Vegas is sponsored by Miller Lite” or “Welcome to the Taco Bell Drive to New Mexico”. Mmm…Taco Bell…

This reminds me of the Seinfeld episode when Kramer sold his stories to Elaine’s boss Mr. Peterson and couldn’t tell the stories to anyone. Proving again that all good ideas come from Seinfeld.