Category: Trends & News

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Celebrating 10 years from the oldest hotel in the world

In the year 705 AD, a Japanese entrepreneur named Fujiwara Mahito opened a small inn at the foot of the Akaishi mountains in central Honshu. At the time, few people probably thought the inn would last very long. Fujiwara didn’t know anything about being an innkeeper… he had been groomed to follow in

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Four insane data privacy scandals, just from this month

For this Friday’s roll-up of bizarre and disturbing stories from around the world, we found ourselves zeroing-in on some ridiculous data privacy violations. Soccer app spies on fans The Spanish soccer (sigh, OK– football) league, known by fans around the world simply as La Liga, knew that most pubs across Europe showing its

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Meanwhile, over on Planet Japan

It was only a few days ago that the Japanese government’s Financial Services Agency published its oddly-titled “Annual Report on Ageing Society”. (Like everything in Japan, English translations often hilariously miss the mark…) This is a report that the Ministry of Finance puts out every year. And as the name implies, the report

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As Hong Kong refuses to bend the knee…

Sun Tzu, the legendary Chinese general of the 6th century BC Zhou Dynasty, famously wrote in the Art of War: “When you engage in actual fighting, if victory is long in coming, then men’s weapons will grow dull and their ardor will be damped. If you lay siege to a town, you will

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Who would possibly do something so crazy? Pretty much everyone in Japan.

It was precisely 20 seconds past 9:44am on November 14, 2017 that Japan Railways train number 5255 departed from Minami Nagareyama Station on the outskirts of Tokyo. Hardly anything seems noteworthy about a train leaving a station. It happens countless times each day all over the world. Except THIS particular train was supposed

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Not too shabby for a place with no natural resources…

There are truly so many things to love about Hong Kong. Most visitors would probably gush about the exotic night life or legendary cuisine (the Cantonese, they say, eat anything with four legs… except the table.) All of those things are fine and good. But at the top of my own list of

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New York City trying to “liberate” teachers from their “whiteness”

Happy Friday everyone. Here’s our weekly roll-up of some of the most bizarre (and occasionally happy) stories from around the world that we’re following: NYC schools training teachers to discriminate against white students A new mandatory, $23 million “anti-bias” program is training New York City school teachers to discriminate against white children, no

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Here is how your startup can access millions in investment funding

Five years ago, a company called Yo raised $1.5 million at a $10 million valuation. What did investors and end-users get for this much money? An app that allowed users to send the message “Yo,” (and NOTHING else) to their friends. It didn’t take long for the company to blow through all that

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BMW cars have outperformed BMW stock by over 600%

In 1956, BMW released a brand new line of roadsters, the 507. It was a slick convertible and became a hit with celebrities. In 1959, the very first Bond girl from Dr. No – Ursula Andress – took possession of this brand new BMW 507 roadster. It was re-designed 40 years later into

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After so many years, this place is still amazing

Like many of our readers, I’ll never forget the Great Crash and the Global Financial Crisis from more than a decade ago. Some of you may be too young to remember. But it was pretty gruesome. One of the largest investment banks in the world collapsed in September 2008, nearly dragging down the

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Five years in prison for offending someone online…

Let the weekly absurdity begin! New SAT scoring will combat Asian privilege The infamous SAT has been used since 1926 as a sort of university entrance exam to objectively test high school students’ scholastic aptitude. Until now. Test administrators announced plans this week to include an ‘adversity score’ for every student taking the

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Central banks are buying gold at the fastest pace in six years

Earlier this month the World Gold Council published its quarterly report– and it shows that central banks and foreign governments from around the world are buying up gold at their fastest pace in six years. This is pretty big news, and it says a LOT about the future of the dollar. Remember, central

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