Knowledge bragging

August 6, 2021
October 14, 2022

Greenwashing: Are You Sure to Be Eco-friendly?

Why I like clever lies better than obvious lies Have you ever watched “The Sting” one of the classic movies from Hollywood? I believe it’s a masterpiece of a con-game movie. If I were the gang boss tricked by Paul Newman and Robert Redford in the movie, I wouldn’t feel like getting revenge but would reward them for the well-thought lie, on the contrary. Mind you. It’s not because I’m generous with a big heart. I think it’s because I can see distinct signs that they spent a lot of time and effort on preparation to deceive me. I feel rather uncomfortable about obvious lies and believe most of you would feel the same. Why do you think that is? What is a lie? Let’s start by defining what a lie is. Imagine a case where a girl is alone in a deserted island. She is talking aloud to herself […]

May 3, 2021
October 14, 2022

Aroma Effect: The Smell of Wood Is Better than Chanel No.5

Degeneration of smelling ability One day at a restaurant with my wife, I was finishing off lunch with crème brulee, a kind of custard pudding. Hokkaido is the biggest milk production area in Japan, and best in the quality of dairy products. Soon after taking a bite, sweet and sour taste spread in my mouth. Nodding knowingly, I said “Lemon is doing its magic.” My wife suspiciously said “What?! There’s no way that lemon is used in crème brulee!” She twitched the cup from me and smelled it. Her judge was “Are you OK? It’s just gone bad.” I don’t mean to make an excuse my taste, but our smelling sense has been most degrading among human five senses. Once human beings had more than 800 olfactory receptors, but now, the number is only less than 400. In exchange for that, we’ve got eyesight much better than other animals, though. […]

April 23, 2021
October 14, 2022

Psychological Mystery: Uncanny Valley, Scary Because It’s Too Real

Zombies VS Aliens As believing I’m not the only one, I feel scared of zombie movies but not of Aliens, Predators, etc. Indeed, all those movies are same in terms that many people are eaten or just killed, though. I had always wondered why that was, and one day, understood the reason when reading an online article about a robot development. The article said Osaka university research team had developed humanoid robots that look exactly like a human being. The robots are well designed and look like us at first glance, but when I saw them move, it soon turned out that they were not human beings. At that time, I felt the same fear as the one I have for zombies. Uncanny Valley: It’s natural human reactions I learned later that it was a psychological phenomenon called “Uncanny Valley.” The more objects resemble human beings, the more people feel […]

January 7, 2021
October 13, 2022

Psychology Trivia: The Power of a Name

No-name is real rock! I started playing the guitar when I was 15 years old. It was around when NIRVANA started dominating the music scene and destroying the existing values. People made a fuss, saying “Alternative Rock is not tainted by commercialism.” I gave cold look to such fanatical people. I love NIRVANA even now, but they didn’t look new to me at all because they had a name, the same as the existing bands. I know this opinion sounds very strange, though. Names are practically necessary for anyone, but the young me purely wanted rock musicians to be anti-establishment. Today, let me introduce real rock in that sense. It’s Souseki Natsume. He is the most famous novelist in Japan (1867 – 1916). His masterpiece is “I Am a Cat.” The story starts with these sentences “I am a cat. As yet I have no name.” How rock it is! […]

November 17, 2020
October 24, 2022

A Lesson Learned from Zappos: We Work for Something More Than Money

The customer-obsession policy of Zappos creates many loyal customers The other day, right after passing through the cashier of a supermarket, a pack of eggs slipped from my shopping basket and fell to the floor. In that moment, everything appeared in slow motion to me. I snapped back and fearfully saw my wife still standing at the cashier. Of course, she furiously glared at me. I very well knew what she was going to say. “What have you done?” Literally in Japanese, that is “Why did you do that?” If I was a Congressman, I would like to immediately prohibit this kind of meaningless questions expecting no answer. Anyway, I was in despair waiting for the time of judgement by my wife, but surprisingly enough, an angel came down instead. Accurately, it was a clerk running up to me and saying with a smile “No worries. I’ll get you another […]