At 8 P.M. on Sept. 15, SpaceX, the aerospace company founded by Elon Musk, launched Falcon 9 with Crew Dragon at the Kennedy Space Center, with four civilians on board. After orbiting the Earth once every 90 minutes for three days, the Falcon 9 successfully splashed down into the Atlantic Ocean off Florida’s coast on Sept. 18. Commonly known as the Inspiration4 project, the crew was the first private, all-civilian team ever to orbit the Earth without the accompaniment of a professional astronaut.The Inspiration4 team was led and funded by billionaire Jared Isaacman, a 38-year-old chief executi

The Big Short (2015) is a biographical drama film which portrays how a few financial industry professionals predicted the real estate bubble before the subprime mortgage loan collapse in 2008. Few investors were aware that the U.S. housing market was built on a bubble that might burst within a few years. The film explores the stories of these investors separately but also in parallel.SynopsisMichael Burry, a manager of the hedge fund Scion Capital, carefully analyzes the data of the subprime mortgage loan, a financial product designed to offer unlimited home loans to credit borrowers who lack

What we have seen over the past few years is the domination of short-form content, mostly in the form of videos that vary in length between 15 seconds and 10 minutes. One of the main reasons it became popular is through the widespread use of smartphones. While content used to be available only at certain times through traditional media, it can now be consumed anywhere, and at any time. As part of “snack culture”, a broad range of short, light online content is being produced to fill up spare time, from webtoons (online comics) to mobile games. Furthermore, tired of the flood of information inu

The resale industry, or the secondhand and vintage industries, has steadily become popular around the world. Secondhand fashion refers to the retail of used clothing. Vintage fashion falls in the category of secondhand fashion and refers to the retail of clothing that was produced a long time ago but is still in good quality. About a decade ago, buying secondhand or vintage clothing was mostly going through piles of cheap, dirty clothes at a thrift shop. Surprisingly, a study conducted in 2020 by ThredUp stated that nearly 60% of Generation Z consumers have secondhand clothing in their closets

The Motorcycle Diaries (2004) is a biopic of the 1952 journey across South America by asthematic 23-year-old medical student, Ernesto Guevara (nickname “Fuser,” better known as Che Guevara), and his biochemist friend Alberto Granado. The film received over 30 nominations and awards, including the François Chalais Award at the Cannes Film Festival.SummaryThe two friends leave Buenos Aires, the bustling capital of Argentina, on their famous motorcycle La Poderosa, “The Mighty One”. Contrary to its name, the old comical motorcycle that leaks gas cannot even outrun the horse-riding gauchos (Argent

World Blood Donor Day (WBDD) 2021 took place on June 14. Every year since 2005, the World Health Organization (WHO) has marked World Blood Donor Day as one of the 11 official global public health campaigns along with World Health Day, World AIDS Day, World No Tobacco Day, etc. This year, the WBDD’s slogan was “Give blood and keep the world beating.” According to the WHO, the message highlights “the essential contribution blood donors make to keep the world pulsating by saving lives and improving others’ health.” The campaign appreciates former blood donors and encourages other healthy people t

Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Dogecoin have become popular in recent years. A cryptocurrency is a computer code generated by publicly available software that allows people to store and send value online—the code groups transactions onto the “blockchain”, a public record. Blockchain is a large file storing every transaction ever made. This makes cryptocurrency highly secure and private. One can “mine” cryptocurrencies using the methods such as POW and POS. POW (Proof of Work) is a method that uses hardware (GPU, ASIC mining machine) that processes hash operations to ensure tha

Spoiler Alert: The synopsis below gives away important plot points. You may jump to the opinion section if you wish.SynopsisIn the early 1980s, the Korean immigrant Yi family chooses to move from California to their newly bought land in Arkansas. The father of the family, Jacob, has an optimistic American dream of growing Korean produce on their land and selling the produce in Dallas, Texas. His wife Monica is rather skeptical about this idea and shows disappointment in the rurality of the neighborhood. She is not only worried about Jacob’s success in farming but also concerned about their son

Along with 5G networking, IoT (Internet of Things) ecosystem, digital health devices, and entertainment-oriented electronics, sustainability was one of the five megatrends from CES (Consumer Electronics Show) 2021. As environmental challenges and the pandemic are threatening the world in which we live, many people started taking interest in “ESG investment”. Correspondingly, companies have been making efforts to contribute to a sustainable society. ESG investment has become a paramount topic that companies cannot ignore anymore.What is ESG investment? According to Forbes, ESG investing is inve

On April 23, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety has conditionally approved two types of COVID-19 self-examination kits: the STANDARD Q COVID-19 Ag Home Test by SD BIOSENSOR and Humasis COVID-19 Ag Home Test by Humasis. Meanwhile, the disease control authorities emphasized that after using the self-examination kit, one should get the PCR test to verify the negative response. They also pointed out that one should not determine whether one is positive/negative to COVID-19 by only using the self-examination kits. The Central Disease Control Headquarters announced, “The self-examination kit appro

The COVID-19 pandemic has influenced many industries in the world. Among these industries, the travel industry has been especially at a loss. Due to the indefinite social distancing measures, people have been forced to stay at home during their free time. Recently, due to the intensification of prevention measures, unless registered in the same household, people were restricted from gatherings of more than four people, and most shops were forced to close at 10 P.M.. Such measures discouraged most domestic and foreign leisure activities and traveling, ultimately leading to the current crisis in

There was an increase in the number of politicians from minority groups in 2020: last year’s U.S. presidential election resulted in the first African and Asian American female Vice President, Kamala Harris, and the first openly gay secretary, Pete Buttigieg. Also, New Zealand appointed Nanaia Mahuta as its first indigenous female foreign minister. The media, alongside politics, have long tried to appeal its appropriate representation of minorities to the public. Research conducted by UCLA has shown heartening results that from the total cast in the 145 films from 2019, women had 44.1% of lead

TV shows always evolve to become more stimulating. A reality program that borrows an audition format is probably the peak of stimulation. Watching malicious editing and unnecessary tension that nearly all reality shows have, viewers may feel emotionally drained.Here is a reality competition TV series for those who need a mild show: Blown Away. Blown Away is a reality show that features glassblowers competing to be the world’s best. The series is structured similarly to former competition TV shows: 10 contestants engage in a different challenge each episode, with the least successful dropping o

On Oct. 22, Woowahan Youths, a subsidiary of Woowa Brothers and the operator of its delivery agents, known as Baemin riders, and the service union of the Service General Union of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), signed a collective agreement on improving the treatment of delivery agents (also referred to as riders). For a person to be recognized as a worker under the current Labor Standards Act, specific and considerable command and supervision of the employee is required. However, riders are classified as “personal operators” as they do not meet these criteria. It is the first

Interest in stock investment has soared during the COVID-19 pandemic. Individual investors (also known as retail investors) in Korea are commonly referred to as “ants”, because they are usually inexperienced and invest small sums relative to institutional or foreign investors. The amount of new investment accounts, online customer assets, and stock trading activity of “ants” has increased due to COVID-19 across the securities industry. For example, the number of new online investment accounts created at Kiwoom Securities in the first half of 2020 is 1.44 million, an increase of 364% compared t

Hidden Figures (2016) is a film loosely based on a non-fiction book of the same name by Margot Lee Shetterly and is about three African American female mathematicians who worked at NASA during the Space Race. At that time, due to racial segregation, everything was separated into “for colored” and “for white”; even for bus seats. However, what made the situation worse is that women were discriminated against in many fields as well. The movie shows how they behaved and got credit for their ability in that period.Main storyKatherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, and Dorothy Vaughan are three African Ame

The stock price of SK Biopharmaceuticals (SK Biopharm) is sharply rising. After being listed on the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) on July 2, SK Biopharm’s stock price jumped more than 5-fold, from 49,000 KRW (July 2) to 269,500 KRW (July 7), in only five days. The stock price has maintained a high price as it evaluated 187,000 KRW on July 29. Even though SK Biopharm is expected to be celebrating such stock price increase, this victory is not good news for them. In fact, quite a lot of employees are considering quitting.SK Biopharm was founded in 2011, splitting from SK. Despite its

The popularity of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is soaring in Korea as an aftereffect of people’s boredom due to the COVID-19 quarantine. Since spring, feeds about MBTI can be easily found on Facebook, Instagram, and other social media. Starting with rather common topics such as “the strengths of each MBTI type”, peculiar features such as “how each MBTI type would react to an airplane delay” emerged. On June 14, an MBTI-focused Instagram page mbti_lab even updated a post titled shower habits of each MBTI type. What is MBTI exactly, and is it a dependable source of understanding oursel

Green Book (2018) is a film based on a true story of existing figures: Donald Shirley, a renowned African American pianist, and Tony Vallelonga, an Italian American bouncer. Nick Vallelonga, son of Tony Vallelonga, shares this touching tale with the audience as the screenwriter of the film. The movie has been praised with a total of 57 awards and 119 nominations. SummaryTony “Lip” Vallelonga, a bouncer at a New York nightclub, is recommended to work as a chauffeur for a doctor during an eight-week break due to the club’s renovation. Tony heads for the job interview to find out that this “docto

As the social distancing campaign to prevent the spread of COVID-19 continued around the world, a trend called “Untact (non-face-to-face)” has emerged. Sports and art markets, which faced a period of stagnation due to the inability to attract audiences due to the virus, found a turning point through untact.In March, the kickoff of the Korean Professional Sports League was postponed due to COVID-19. However, in May, the league started despite the absence of the audience, and people watched games through online media at home. Reflecting the audience’s strong desire to watch sports media, the ave