London Korean Links

Covering things Korean in London and beyond since 2006

What an AI-generated book review looks like

The latest version of of the invaluable Jetpack WordPress plugin, released today, has a new feature: an AI module that writes blog posts for you if you are feeling lazy. So I typed in the following text and hit the “send” button: Please write a review of Han Kang’s novel “Greek Lessons” This is because … [Read More]

Announcing LKL’s new K-Lit Hub

I haven’t been posting much on LKL recently. That’s not because nothing’s been going on. On the contrary, there’s been plenty of exhibitions to review, online film festivals to attend, and some real-world foodie events to enjoy. In fact, I have a longer than ever writing backlog, which I shall do my best to backfill. So … [Read More]

LKL during lockdown

Everyone is having to get used to a new routine as we hunker down at home until the authorities tell us it’s safe to come out. The enforced time at home is a mixed blessing, with probably more pros than cons. On the plus side, I don’t have my daily commute. But on the minus … [Read More]

Welcome to LKL v6

Earlier this year, my brain decided that sometime during 2019 it would rebuild the LKL website from the ground up. The rest of me didn’t have a choice in the matter. The decision was made. Then the brain took over completely and started work. I could not control it. Most of the day, and often … [Read More]

Some GDPR admin

Sorry to add to all the noise relating to the implementation of the new data privacy rules which come into force on 25 May. Like countless other organisations we’ve waded through the 88 closely-packed pages of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of … [Read More]

Hopefully the last techie post for a while

LKL’s look and feel hasn’t changed much since the summer of 2009, when we moved onto the current theme template, but believe me: during the second half of this year I spent a lot of time behind the scenes on the site, working on significant changes which aren’t immediately obvious. The changes have nothing to … [Read More]

Introducing the LKL Taxonomy Deep Dive

Usually during the summer months there are some tweaks to LKL’s look. Sometimes it’s a major upgrade – a completely new theme for example. Three summers ago we upgraded from Scott Wallick’s Plaintxt templates to Thesis. Two summers ago we went down from two sidebars to one to simplify the look. Last summer we introduced … [Read More]

KCNA’s typography guidelines are a geek’s nightmare

The KCNA’s typography guidelines for displaying the names of the three Kims, at least on their kcna.kp domain, are keeping their typesetters unnecessarily busy. Whenever Kim Jong Un’s name is displayed it has to be in a bigger font size than the surrounding text, and it is not permitted to be broken by a carriage … [Read More]

The annual LKL site overhaul

August is usually the month when I tweak LKL’s look and feel with a new theme or new functionality. This year, I’m a month late – the delay being caused mainly by the complexity of unpicking the coding behind the Thesis theme which I use. My task this year was to re-jig the way I … [Read More]

Welcome to LKL 4.2

Welcome to LKL 4.2. Regular readers will have noticed the design change I made over the weekend, which I’ve been playing with on my test site for a while. In the past I’ve consciously kept the LKL front page as boring-looking as possible: when I launch the front page at work I don’t want to … [Read More]

Another tweak

So soon after the release of v4, here’s 4.1. My brain has been unable to stop fretting over getting better navigability on this site, including encouraging people to read more than the one article they land on when they google-search for a pic of Super Junior. First came the related post list a few days … [Read More]

Welcome to LKL v4

It may not look like a big change, but it’s been exercising my mind for a few weeks. The underlying change is an upgrade of my blog templates to take advantage of all the latest functionality of WP2.6. LKL’s look and feel is based on Scott Wallick’s plaintxt templates. Scott faithfully upgrades his templates to … [Read More]

I think we’re just about done

So I think I’ve now stabilised things at my new webhost. I can now start thinking about all the improvements I’ve been meaning to try, including: Improving the navigation with drop-down menus to make browsing easier. Maybe people might stay and have a look round once they’ve found their picture of Super Junior. Finding the … [Read More]

Optimise your website. Lose readers. Gain revenue

A lot was going on in LKL during March. I’ve been setting up test blogs on my server; I’ve been testing new plugins; I’ve been exporting my database and reimporting it every which way. I’ve been playing with different versions of WordPress. All this in preparation for the move. I also installed the All-in-one SEO … [Read More]