Giant Robot Store and GR2 News
There was a Big Man Japan, and His Name was Gulliver. “Until its decaying remains were demolished in 2007, the park and its 147-foot-long Lemuel Gulliver statue were prime destinations for urban explorers.” Okay, even for Japan this is odd. The idea was to make a theme park based upon a village in the Country of Lilliput from Jonathan Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels”, complete with a gigantic statue of Gulliver himself for scale. And they did it, about 2 ½ hours outside Tokyo near Mount Fuji. Problem is, the Gulliver’s Kingdom theme park didn’t do very well, and lost money for most of the four years it was open between 1997 and 2001. Some Japanese folks blame the park’s demise on its location, as it was near the Sea of Trees forest, Japan’s most “popular” suicide spot. Whatever the reasons, the park closed and big old Gulliver laid in state with his eyes perpetually staring to the skies until he and the entire park were flattened back in 2007. When you look at the pictures at the links, you’ll probably agree that Gulliver’s Kingdom was a great idea that had a kind of creepy execution, no pun intended. (io9 – Bygone Gulliver Theme Park) AcidCow hosts a pretty fantastic gallery of Gulliver’s Kingdom images — AcidCow
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“The Eco House will use state-of-the-art technology in Sharp’s efforts to develop the ultimate in future home comfort.” Nearly two weeks ago, we reported on the planned development of an ecologically-friendly sustainable smart town in Fujisawa, Japan. That project, for which Panasonic is supplying the technology, isn’t scheduled for completion until 2014. However, starting this month, Sharp will be testing its own “eco technology” using a special house built for that purpose in Sakai City in Osaka Prefecture. The house features solar panels, of course, as well as LED lighting and state-of-the-art power management systems. The goal of the project is to prove that dwellings can be built and operated to produce absolutely no carbon dioxide emissions. We think it sounds like a great project and hope it’s successful. We’d also like to see Sharp construct a similar project in Sakai City’s sister city of Berkeley, CA, just to see how old-school eco-warriors in that town take to modern energy-saving methods. (Akihabara News – Sharp’s Eco House)
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Haruki Murakami goes back to WWII, and basically says that Japan should have never had nuclear anything after the two bombs. He’s quoted as saying, “However, this time it was not a bomb being dropped upon us, but a mistake committed by our very own hands.” The award it turns out is given to a person who helps the world! It’s been handed out to Jimmy Carter and Aung San Suu Ki in the past.(Guardian UK – Haruki Murakami) (Catalan News Agency – Haruki Murakami)
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“Thus it was that a chain-smoking, over-the-hill salaryman came to carry the entirety of [Tokyo Broadcasting Systems’] multimillion dollar investment on his shoulders.” As you read this, Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa has just begun his 5 month mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS). While on board the station, the medical doctor will conduct a series of experiments, which includes growing cucumbers to see how the food plant does in zero-G. Officially, Furukawa is the third Japanese astronaut to make the journey into space and stay on the ISS. However, at the link you’ll be able to read the fascinating story of Akiyama Toyohiro, a middle-aged journalist and senior editor for the Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS), who hitched a ride into space with the Russians back in 1990 after TBS paid millions for him to be a “space tourist” on a Soyuz spacecraft. It isn’t exactly breaking news, but it is a fascinating and largely forgotten story about Japan’s relatively young history with extraterrestrial travel. (Neojaponisme – Japan’s First “Astronaut”)
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“National suicide figures increased the two months following the disaster, the figures show.” Even some survivors of the March 11th earthquake and tsunami in Japan didn’t survive. And we are not talking about the Fukushima 50, who many suspect are mere walking dead now following their heroic acts in the highly-irradiated nuclear power plant. No, suicide is once again making the news coming out of Japan. On Wednesday, the Japanese National Police Agency reported that suicides for the month of May rose above 3,000 for the first time in two years. The total number, 3,281, is also a 20 percent increase from May, 2010. In Fukushima, there were 19 more suicides in May of this year than in 2010, for a total of 68. No direct evidence has been offered linking the March 11th disaster and the subsequent nuclear crisis with the increased suicide rates. But taking a moment to make the leap in one’s mind isn’t very hard to do. (CNN World – Japan Suicide Rates Higher)
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