Month: August 2017

My pick for the SoraNews24 article this week is the groan-worthy: Many Japanese workers told by workplaces during missile scare: “Please come to work as usual.”

Earlier this week when North Korea shot a missile over northern Japan, many Japanese people were alerted via an automated government message on their phones to take immediate shelter. Shortly after, a few others received another message… from their workplace telling them to get to work already.

Reading the e-mails that were sent to people, and listening to their reactions online, is pretty amazing. The worst part is everyone nearly unanimously agreed that taking shelter and being a little late for work (but potentially saving their lives in the event of another missile or something), was worth it… but they all still went to work on time anyway.

It’s a bit of a culture shock for sure, but at the same time we should ask ourselves: would we have done anything different in our country?

Featured image: PAKUTASO

My pick for the SoraNews24 article this week is a glimpse into the future of cyberpunk death: New Japanese augmented-reality service lets you meet with deceased loved ones at their graves.

The service allows you to pick any place in the world, and visit your deceased loved ones there via augmented reality on your smartphone (like Pokémon GO). And if they’re currently alive, they can record videos of themselves talking and interacting with you too, making the “visit” even more realistic when the time comes.

Honestly I’m surprised that this hasn’t been done yet, and I expect it will become much more mainstream. The current generation will probably be much more inclined toward being preserved digitally instead of rotting away in an overpriced box in the ground.

Featured image: PR Times

My pick for the SoraNews24 article this week is something you’d probably only ever see out of Japan: Yokohama government trash-helper app gives poignant philosophical advice to depressed citizens.

I was not only impressed that the Yokohama City government created an app to help people figure out when/where to put out their garbage (especially helpful since it can be so complicated in Japan), but the programmers went through with the extra effort to put in amazing answers when people ask how to throw away their “husbands” or “hopes.”

If you want to see how the app responds (spoiler alert: it’s apparently quite a well-read app), then be sure to check it out.

Featured image: SoraNews24

Nature isn’t all flowers and kittens, as my pick for the SoraNews24 article this week shows: Stingray devours tank-mate squid at Japanese aquarium, shows what nature is really like 【Video】.

As soon as I saw this tweet, I knew I had to write an article about it. It’s not so much the shock of the video that made me want to do it, but rather the message behind it: nature is brutal.

As humans, we live in houses with air conditioning and refrigerators, and it’s very easy to detach ourselves from the world around us. Zoos and aquariums especially are specifically engineered to make nature look more appealing to us humans.

So when we come in contact with something that’s actually natural, like a stingray preying on a squid, it scares us. But in nature, things that are horrible atrocities to humans — things we call murder and theft — are common. In fact, they’re how most species survive.

I enjoy things that poke at our sense of cognitive dissonance, and this video does a great job of it. Plus that little girl’s face at the end is priceless.

Featured image: Pakutaso