Knowledge bragging

April 5, 2022
October 4, 2022

Logistics Tips: Why Are Shipping Costs So High Now?

The record high freight is a new normal in logistics I swim in a gym pool every weekend. What always irritates me is a notice on the shower-room wall. It says “We stop providing shampoo to avoid infection.” Anybody, tell me how shampoo sharing is causally related to infection. I think it’s a stealth cost-cutting move. Don’t you think the COVID is sometimes used as an excuse for cost cut or price increase like this? Having said that, I know the COVID has a huge effect on cost structure. The biggest factor would be logistics costs. Yesterday, one of our freight forwarders came to me to talk about an increase in freight rates. He apologetically told me “Freight rates become more than double from this month.” The forwarder seemed to be no match for shipping companies who are now at the height of their prosperity. The COVID, a good excuse […]

March 25, 2022
September 30, 2022

Thoughts Make Things: What Is the Origin of Life?

Super-advanced mechanism of E. coli The upper limit of the F1 engine speed is 15000 rotations per minute (rpm). For your reference, when I commute, the average engine speed of my small economy car is about 1500 rpm. You may be surprised to see how much I don’t want to go to work, rather than admiring the speed of F1 engines. Sorry, that’s not the point of this post. Do you know we have mechanical systems rotating faster than F1 engines in the body? It’s E. coli. They move in our intestines by rotating their flagella. The speed is about 20000 rpm! To my more surprise, the flagella even have a clutch mechanism to rotate reversely. Furthermore, the energy conversion efficiency is almost 100%. It’s only a hundred and some tens of years since we humans invented internal combustion engine systems including a clutch mechanism, while fungi have a long […]

March 10, 2022
November 3, 2022

Japan Tips from Locals: The Role of Japanese Giant Hornets in the Ecosystem

Rare and luxury food, honey made by Japanese honey bees Have you ever eaten honey made in Japan? It’s more expensive than ones imported from China and Argentina (I think those two countries are major honey exporters to Japan). The made-in-Japan honey is expensive, but most of it is made by European honey bees. The real one made by Japanese honey bees in Japan is so valuable. I’ve never eaten that, of course. Japanese honey bees are slightly smaller than European honey bees, and accordingly, their ability to collect nectar is lower. More time is required for the harvest, which diversifies the sort of honey ingredients (flowers), ages honey like wine, and consequently makes the taste richer. Another reason why it’s more costly is Japanese honey bees don’t stick to their hive, while European honey bees do. No matter how much beekeepers take care of their hive, they sometimes abandon […]

January 27, 2022
October 13, 2022

Marketing Tips: What Is the Key to Survival in the Business World

Do you think you say thank you? What about your thank you? My mother very often told me this when I was a kid. Even if it’s minor stuff like asking to pass something on the table and forgetting to say thank you, she was nagging at me. As growing up in such a background, I believed I was a man who can say thank you, but now, my confidence is wavering. I found a research article of Royal Society Open Science. The article claims we humans remarkably rarely express gratitude for everyday life events where someone seeks and gains a good, service, or support from another. The researchers seem to interpret it as a good sign that most people rely on the tacit understanding of reciprocal relationship, though. Gratitude can turn a meal into a feast Some weeks ago, a furious snowstorm hit a part of Hokkaido, and the […]

December 20, 2021
October 14, 2022

Business Tips: Do You Know How Neo Came Back in the Matrix?

The long awaited release of The Matrix Ressurections! “The Matrix Ressurections” was just released in Japan on 17th December, first in the world. Dodge this? No way! I will go to a theater this Sunday, the very first day of my year-end vacation. Due to its complex storyline, it has many different interpretations. Spoiler alert for those who haven’t seen any of the series! Since I knew that Neo (or a savior story) was also a part of the Matrix for AI to learn human thought processes and update its system, almost all the events in the movies came to easily make sense to me. To be honest, there’s one exception. Was Trinity’s kiss required to revive Neo, though he himself is the almighty Matrix? It’s “super compensation” that makes Neo get stronger It seems many people have the same doubt as me. You can find many different interpretations on […]

November 23, 2021
September 24, 2022

Cosmic Latte: The Color of the Universe

The world is still full of mysteries About 20 years ago, when my sister was still about 10 years old, she asked me “Why do clothes look dark when wet? Water is colorless though.” I’m sure she asked idly without thinking so much, but the question flustered me a lot. Now I know it was exactly the arrogance and ignorance of youth (or my personal mental problem in my younger days). Anyway, I was arrogantly surprised at that time to find that there are still things that I don’t know even among daily little events. By the way, are you interested in the answer to the question my younger sister made? It’s because water is low in optical reflectance. It’s about half as much as that of glass. That may contrast with the impression you get from the sparkling surface of the seas and rivers, though. The color of the […]

November 9, 2021
September 25, 2022

Communication Skills for Business: Written Communication Is Obsolete?

Did you read or watch Harry Potter? About 15% of Junior high school students can read sentences but not understand their meaning. The news created a sensation in Japan some years ago. That may or may not be true, but I think that would be a natural course of events. Due to the progress of science, we come to have many communication tools other than writing. For example, one of the top selling books in the end of the 20th century, “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” has sold about five million copies in Japan, while the audience of the movie is said to be three times more, though their prices are almost the same. Indeed, the movie is much better in time efficiency. Written communication just has a short history It is said to be about 66000 years ago that human beings acquired verbal communication skills, but writing was […]

October 28, 2021
October 12, 2022

What Is Originality? Don’t Try to Be Unique If You Want to Be Unique

Originality is a characteristic only of a genius A student in the art class challenged his teacher, saying “it’s meaningless to learn art. Art is something to feel, and our originality may be stunted by learning. ” The teacher answered quietly, “Can you draw like Picasso? Of course not, because he is a genius, and we are not. Originality is a characteristic only of a genius. We need to learn to understand geniuses and approach their level, even just a little bit. This is the reason why we need to learn art.” What is originality? This story was told from my boss when I was in my early twenties. Although I’m embarrassed to share, I expressed my cheeky feeling to the great story: “To want to be unique” is a cliché, not unique itself. My boss answered quietly (the same as the teacher in the story) it would be human […]

October 15, 2021
October 13, 2022

UNIQLO Ahead of GAP, ZARA, and H&M: What Is the Strength of UNIQLO?

Massive change UNIQLO made Most of you would have visited UNIQLO shops, I believe. At the moment, they have more than 800 shops only in Japan; about 1500 shops in more than 20 countries. I’m not UNIQLO-native. It is around after graduation from college that I visited a UNIQLO shop for the first time. I still remember it was really a surprising experience. Until then, buying clothes was a bigger event where we were required to chat with shop staff following like a shadow. I think I’m not the only one who thought it mental burden sometimes. In the post-UNIQLO era, all we have to do is to try on by ourselves and throw the stuff we like into a shopping basket. Make optimal solutions in the giant machanism I don’t mean to say it’s good or bad, but they broke the mold. Reducing price and kinds of clothes, increasing […]

September 3, 2021
October 2, 2022

The End of Average: Do You Know the Truth of Average?

What is average? AI can create virtual humans that look realistic. It’s sometimes difficult to tell the difference between real and virtual actors in movies, for example. As this is a well-known trick, to make the faces of virtual humans good-looking or look like something considered to be good-looking, AI calculates out the average faces of many real people. We seem to judge average faces as good-looking. I think It’s natural because we have a good feeling about something familiar. I have known this mentality of human beings for a long time, but a doubt had been left in my mind as a long-standing mystery. It’s a simple question: can you believe that the good-looking icons such as Cleopatra and Don Juan are average? There’s no average, as a matter of fact One book saved me from the edge of the abyss. The title is “The End of Average” written […]