Side comment: North Korea seems to be allowing tourists to take videos fairly freely now, and some of those videos are appearing on YouTube. While the tourists' movements still seem restricted, the videos offer glimpses into life in North Korea I haven't seen before. For example:
Tourism is open only for Russians. It's been closed for the world since COVID.
My friends were there in 2017, and all photos and videos were looked at by a border officer before leaving back then. The border officer could ask you to delete a photo for any reason, including not putting a Kim in the center of the shot.
With NK's population not having freedom of movement, and checkpoints between cities, it's safe to say getting a real picture of how North Koreans really live is hard.
Jaka Parker, from what I recall, was a diplomat in North Korea from Indonesia(?) which is why he was able to have greater access to Pyongyang (and beyond?). I don't think he's in North Korea anymore. Nonetheless, his videos are a great resource. And my guess is that tourism to NK in 2026 is from Russian citizens (and maybe Chinese citizens)?
There's also this classic travelog of two railway fans gaijin-smashing their way through a closed route, although it's nearly two decades old: https://vienna-pyongyang.blogspot.com/
Opened the link just because I've always been mystified by how detailed that region is, and it ended up being a fascinating read. One more reason why OSM is one of my personal 7 Wonders of the Internet.
All 7, ordered by launch date (going off the top of my head, feel free to correct):
snopes.com (1994)
gamefaqs.com (1995)
archive.org (1996)
wikipedia.org (2001)
tvtropes.org (2004)
openstreetmap.org (2004)
github.com (2008)
I really think they encapsulate the best of what I like about the internet. I've been formulating this list for quite some time. Limiting to just 7 keeps things interesting! For example, it's a pity steampowered.com had to be left out but I see it less as a "website" proper. I wonder (ha) how my list differs from everyone else's.
Super interesting read; I especially found this letter from "P791" fascinating:
> Hi, Wonyoung, I map North Korea to help North Koreans.I select areas that look like they might be good points to escape. In particular, the detailed mapping around Phungso-ri (풍서리) is almost entirely my work.I mostly map along the Tumen River, both on the North Korean and Chinese sides. It is important to map the fences, roads, and towns on the Chinese side.
I love how the data is laid out. It's easy to read and shows real care. I expected to lose my current nav when I clicked on an individual response, so I was pleasantly surprised when I didn't.
Really good analysis and storytelling. I wonder what the distribution looks like for joke/troll contributions on OSM and what nations or places get vandalized the most?
Contributor of ~10 years and I have yet to be the first person to notice vandalism, as in, that it's not already been/being tackled. I've been the first to notice various mistakes (big and small), or seen the impact when large parts of the map were messed up in some big attack, and there was one case where I wasn't sure if the person had intentionally broken something or if it was some weird misunderstanding, but they never came back so... not much action to take there. Now, I'm also just a regular contributor and not someone who looks for vandalism specifically; but from my point of view, the distribution of joke/troll contributions to real ones is close to zero (c.q. infinity). Dunno why, I guess most people simply mean well?
"Dunno why, I guess most people simply mean well?"
This, but also the bar to contribute is probably too high for the common bored idiot (I know it got way easier, but they apparently don't know). Most of that group likely don't even know at all what OSM is. "Another kind of google maps?"
People are basically good citizens, unless or until they aren't. Something like online vandalism tends to eventuate as a movement, even if a casual or arbitrary one.
I'm also not a big contributor, but I haven't noticed any vandalism in the places where I map (Copenhagen, Denmark and around the west midlands of UK), but I have stumbled upon the occasional edit war where someone will be removing features like their private pond and someone will be reverting their removal.
I wonder how things have evolved in the last decade as North Korea has tried to evolve quickly at least in Pyongyang and more people inside the country have access to tech than ever before.
https://youtu.be/HQEYB4QWCjM
https://youtu.be/d7m8hZ67Bz0
https://youtu.be/guZQNMEz9as
My friends were there in 2017, and all photos and videos were looked at by a border officer before leaving back then. The border officer could ask you to delete a photo for any reason, including not putting a Kim in the center of the shot.
With NK's population not having freedom of movement, and checkpoints between cities, it's safe to say getting a real picture of how North Koreans really live is hard.
snopes.com (1994)
gamefaqs.com (1995)
archive.org (1996)
wikipedia.org (2001)
tvtropes.org (2004)
openstreetmap.org (2004)
github.com (2008)
I really think they encapsulate the best of what I like about the internet. I've been formulating this list for quite some time. Limiting to just 7 keeps things interesting! For example, it's a pity steampowered.com had to be left out but I see it less as a "website" proper. I wonder (ha) how my list differs from everyone else's.
I might replace tvtropes with imdb, and while I’ve never used gamefaqs, I’m unsure what to put in its place.
Thanks for this thought exercise.
> Hi, Wonyoung, I map North Korea to help North Koreans.I select areas that look like they might be good points to escape. In particular, the detailed mapping around Phungso-ri (풍서리) is almost entirely my work.I mostly map along the Tumen River, both on the North Korean and Chinese sides. It is important to map the fences, roads, and towns on the Chinese side.
Edits of North Korea: https://osmstats.neis-one.org/?item=countries&country=North%...
Current status: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=8/39.358/127.321
love this one:
> Good afternoon. Please provide us a screenshot of these OSM map. Only know "Google Maps". Thank you.
I really liked reading the responses from the contributors, it was surprisingly interesting to read their personal motivations and stories.
This, but also the bar to contribute is probably too high for the common bored idiot (I know it got way easier, but they apparently don't know). Most of that group likely don't even know at all what OSM is. "Another kind of google maps?"