Show HN: 500 years of Joseon court omens as an observability dashboard | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: 500 years of Joseon court omens as an observability dashboard

ajin.im

158 pointspoppypetalmask26 comments

This is the definition of a nerd snipe for me.

I’ve been binging a Korean YouTuber called Hyangachi(향아치)who goes into Joseon dynasty history in a very approachable way for younger generation and I’ve been researching observability dashboard for my side projects. I didn’t even think about combining the two.

Joseon dynasty was obsessed with preserving history. Not even the king could interfere with it. In fact, a king fell from his horse during a hunt, then told them to not write it down. But we know this happened because they wrote down the order :D

The historians also have known about the importance of resiliency and made back up copies too!

Thanks for that hilarious history tidbit. The actual record makes it even better. From the wiki page for Taejong of Joseon:

The king himself rode a horse and shot arrows at a deer. However, the horse stumbled, causing him to fall off, but he was not injured. Looking around, he said, "Do not let the historians know about this."

I just made the connection to why they had a scene like that in a Korean show on Netflix, cool

I think it's this one: Rookie Historian Goo Hae-Ryung. It's on Netflix, the Korean series about a Joseon-era scribe for the royal house.

That’s a good one btw

Yes, that horse story is perfect. One of the things I love about the Sillok is that even the king wasn’t above the record. Kings were educated to think their conduct would be judged by history, and then you get this very human little entry where the king basically says “don’t log this,” and the system logs that too.

The data comes from the Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty. https://sillok.history.go.kr/intro/english.do I'm browsing it. Wow, there's so much detail, like:

己酉二月, 世宗講武于平康, 世祖射鹿, 七發皆貫其項。

기유년 2월에 세종이 평강(平康)에서 강무(講武)를 하였는데, 세조가 사슴을 쏜 7발(發)이 모두 그 목을 관통하였다.

"In the second lunar month of the giyu year, King Sejong held a military drill (gangmu) at Pyeonggang. Sejo shot seven arrows at a deer, and all of them pierced its neck." https://sillok.history.go.kr/id/kga_000002

Many K-drama and movies are inspired by these records.

Feel like there should be a K-drama about that deer lol.

Yes — see this YouTube Short: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/3lRLsFb_Ihs The actor from Squid Game, Lee Jung-jae, played King Sejo.

If you have a dashboard that you trust and it notifies you that you have the mandate of heaven, what do you do? Buy a lottery ticket? Make an indecent proposal to someone out of your league? Drive without a seatbelt? Is this actionable intelligence? Do I still have to floss?

If you need to ask, you don't have it

Build monumental architecture and increase the size of your harem.

You can also download the original text of the Annals using South Korea's Public Data Portal (https://www.data.go.kr/data/15053647/fileData.do). I'm not sure if foreigners can access it, though

I did not understand a thing from that link. But clicking on 2 blue boxes allowed me to download 143 MB of "something" from europe.

These are the original historical texts of the Joseon Dynasty, from the Annals of King Taejo to the Annals of King Cheoljong

This is fascinating. Perhaps what trips me up is the mention of UFOs in the Joseon Archives.

https://youngit.blogspot.com/2012/08/ufo-recorded-in-annals-...

Interestingly it sounds like an incoming bolide, not unlike what happened in MA today.

This feels like something that would have done numbers on StumbleUpon

I came across an omen list in a book I looked at for genealogy, and it was quite interesting to search and try to figure out which comet or volcanic eruption an entry referred to. Usually it wasn't hard. Makes me think lesser events like lightning strikes and misshapen calves they recorded are also reasonably accurate.

Damn. Gave me 3-body problem vibes

Spectacular use of free will.

Treating historical records like system logs is a framing I hadn't considered. interesting

Great, now we need this with current data for modern governments

While pardoning thanksgiving turkeys, president was bitten by one of the turkeys. Very bad omen.

Cannabalism ?

“Before the Freedom of Information Act, I used to say at meetings, 'The illegal we do immediately; the unconstitutional takes a little longer.' But since the Freedom of Information Act, I'm afraid to say things like that.”

- Henry Kissinger

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