E-mails Exchanged Between Ron and Greenwood

2002

Greenwood's old friend, Ron living in Manhattan Beach and Greenwood living in Seven Mile Beach has been exchanging their views on various aspects of the world through email over more than 7 years. With the permission of Ron, a record of  mails exchanged in 2002 was compiled in chronological order.

E-Mails in 1999

E-Mails in 2000

E-Mails in 2001

2002/1/4 12:10

ECONOMICS AND OTHER TOPICS

Dear Greenwood,

I hope this gets to your new address, I expect all will be well.

I've just been reading Krugman on Argentina and his summary of 2001.

Argentina is, indeed, a basket case. While much of what he says is true (he did indeed predict that the Peso-Dollar peg would cripple their economy), its surprising that he makes no mention of their persistent spending deficits. Chronically, the Argentines have refused to cut their government spending to within their income. Its also starting to happen here.

You probably heard that the Bush Administration will have to go to Congress soon for an increase in the debt ceiling. We've managed to go from a surplus to a huge deficit in under a year. Look for this to be the big subject in this years Congressional elections.

Like Krugman, I welcome the failure of the attempt to pass a stimulus package. He is quite right to point out that the political pandering of BOTH parties made the Bill much worse than doing nothing. In fact, as I mentioned previously, it looks as though the US economy will finally turn around without it. I believe that the big downturn in capital spending was a natural development following the huge bubble in capital investment which began before the Y2 scare. Companies simply had to work off their huge investments and huge inventories. Statistical data suggests that this is finally happening, even our depressed manufacturing sector has almost stopped declining, with every expectation that, in the next month or two, it will start to grow again. The US stock market obviously believes this, it's risen very strongly since about mid-Oct.

Krugman doesn't seem very happy with the way the Japanese Government is acting. He says Prime Minister Koizumi is beginning to look like Herbert Hoover. It seems to me that the entrenched special interests there are grinding him down.

You have not reached the US level for computer access, but easily surpassed it! The cheapest we can get a DSL service is about $40 per month, and there seems to be a tendency to raise these rates. Your description makes it seem like a lot of work (possibly because you were making a lot of other changes as well.) You mention Shift JIS Kanji font. Occasionally, interpolated into your text there is the following set of symbols.   $B!I(B (When " is encoded in Shift   JIS environment and decoded in English environment, " is converted into $B!I(B )The text butts up against both ends of that group, without a space. I wonder if that is connected?

I am still making progress with my house heater efficiency problem. I collected Fuel Use/Day and Heating Degree Days ("HDD" = 65 - average of high and low daily temperature (F) ) data from late Nov., when I turned on the furnace and the 19th of Dec. Over that period the house consumed 0.3 Therms per day plus 0.43 Therms per HDD. (Therms are the unit we use for gas billing - 100,000 BTU's). So far this year I'm consuming less than 80% of last year's gas at the same date.

Years ago, when I first noticed the high loft temperature around the furnace, I cracked open the filter compartment door using a couple of spacers about 20 mm long. This allowed some of the air being sucked into the circulation fan to be drawn from the hot space around the furnace (which has been running about 50 - 55 C). This modification was "corrected" by a service technician a few years ago when the furnace wouldn't run. I decided to try it again and opened the door the same 20 mm on Dec 19th. Early results are good, almost 20% less than the relationship from Nov to 19 Dec, above. Under roof temps have been less too (perhaps 45 C). An interesting side consideration is that the furnace exhaust temperature has probably risen, due to reduced HE delta T, while efficiency is also greater - the inverse of the usual relationship.

You certainly are planning some great trips this year. We hope to visit Greece with two of Connie's cousins and their husbands in April. Good luck with the ride in NZ.

Best regards,

Ron

2002/1/6 5:00
REAL PROGRESS - TAKE THAT GIULIANI
To all you professors of cubicular studies.
Ron
The Dilberting of N. Y. City Hall By JOHN TIERNEY

2002/1/11 6:02
THE TRUE STORY OF HEALTH
At last, we get the real facts.
Ron
(English Joke Serial No.87)

2002/1/17 18:10

Liquid vegetables; Cheers!

Dear Ron,

Every time I send e-mail to you, I forget to set Outlook into English mode. This time, I did it correctly. I hope you can read it without some unreadable fonts. But still I afraid sender’s name is unreadable because I used Japanese font in preparing address database.

Like Argentina, Japanese politicians were eager to please public or their supporters by increasing governmental spending above annual income, now Japan’s accumulated deficit reached 60 % of annual GDP. This is bigger than that of Argentina. Certainly Mr. Koizumi looks like Herbert Hoover because he has to put priority in cutting budget to cleanup bad loans of Japanese banks. Still majorities of bad loans are in bank’s hand, if he ease spending, those bad loans will be hidden and Japan couldn’t expect economical recovery. He believes that cleanup operation accompany pains. Probably he could cleanup bad loans by other means, but currently this is what he is doing. No one can propose him better ways.

When I talked to my friends about Prof. Krugmans’s idea of creation expectation on inflation among public, all of them expressed concerns in inflation. Because, they afraid short of living expense which rely only on pension. I think this attitude of retired generation is supporting BOJ attitude of not committing expected inflation.

I have to seriously think about changing yen to dollar soon.

Your visiting Greece seems fascinating, I rather prefer Mediterranean countries but my wife’s interest is in northern countries. So I have to make compromise.

I increased my weight by eating more at home. I have to manage my weight, if I want to continue climbing with my friends.

I am still struggling converting important family data accumulated in Macintosh’s HyperCard into more general html documents. Family record over 15 generations has to be conveyed to my children in CD-R media. I accumulated those data over 12 years in Mac. But they started stop working one by one.

I found that 20% of the image data archived in ZIP media were lost. I rescued them and kept them in CD-R. I wonder how long they can keep them.

Thank you for sending me articles about the Dilberting and true story about health. I enjoyed liquid vegetables while reading your material and added another ounce to my weight.

I hope this year is better for us.

Greenwood

2002/1/30 10:46
TAKE BEER TO WORK
Take a beer and send the truck to all of your friends!!!!!!
Wish they had a better brand of Beer!
Enjoy,
Ron
(English Joke Serial No.88)

2002/1/31 11:11

POLITICIANS AND ECONOMIES

Dear Greenwood,

Last night I watched George Bush give his 2nd State of the Union message. Most of it was waffle, but he seems to be following in the footsteps of Mr. Koizumi in terms of government deficits. He proposed many new expenditures, both for defense and domestic programs, no new taxes and no postponement of his future tax cut program.

The numbers just don't add up. When questioned he blithely says "Everybody expects deficits during a war and a recession". What he carefully ignores is that his tax cuts will lead to steadily increasing deficits, just when we should be trying to build the Social Security surplus fund to prepare for the retirement of the "Baby Boom", post war generation. He has developed a pattern when questioned of just repeating his faulty statements. By constantly repeating the same thing he hopes people will start to believe in it.

This is reflected in our Bond market where the prices of long term bonds have fluctuated wildly. A growing opinion seems to be that deficits will be here for years and, therefore, long term interest rates will rise.

Of course, this is only one of the great uncertainties in the US Stock market. The whole ENRON saga is punishing the market. Yesterday the Dow dropped over 2%, although it got most of that back today. Investors wonder how many other corporations have also cooked the books to overstate profits. (Enron was one of our largest corporations).

The political fallout from ENRON is hard to predict. So far the Bush administration has managed to stone wall all questions. Bush even included the old idea of putting some of the Social Security fund money into the stack market! That's very unlikely to fly after the last 2 years.

Today we heard that the conservatives in Japan have forced Mr. Koizumi to fire his controversial, but very popular Foreign Secretary, Ms. Makiko Tanaka. The paper said "the Foreign Ministry bureaucrats engaged in a death-by-1000-leaks war against her". It seems they are slowly grinding Mr. Koizumi down. No doubt they hope to erode his grassroots support.

I was unable to get into your new home page. The opening picture of Seven Mile Beach was fine, but when I tried to access "What's New", I ended up in PAGE ON. Apart from that logo, everything was in Kanji. Other menu items did the same thing. PAGE ON was also very slow to load.

My four year old ink jet all-in-one printer, scanner, fax and copier (HP) suffered a failure of the multi-conductor ribbon connecting to the print head. Apparently HP no longer has these parts available - they don't support 4 year old machines. After much research, and a heavy heart, I decided to get another HP machine. They still seem to have the best performance for the price here and I am familiar with the way they set things up. One thing I like is that each ink cartridge has a new jet screen, so you never have to buy a replacement screen.

The best thing is the decline in price. 4 Years ago I paid $400 - the new machine cost only $200, and has far better performance in rendering pictures. Perhaps now my scanning results will be of better quality. It only can connect via a USB cable, so I had to add a USB card to my old computer (another $20), plus a cable at $7. All-in-all, for what is nowadays almost a trivial sum, $227, I have a much improved printer.

ARCHIVING - I've never put any of my old records into computer form for storage - too much work, as well as leaving me open to the sort of problem you mentioned. My big project is music, as you know.

Finally, my old, faithful SONY reel-to-reel recorder broke its last drive belt. Since it is now 20 years old I was not surprised to find that Sony no longer has belts available. I searched the Internet and came across a very convenient Engineering Item search program at <www.globalspec.com> . This is very well set up and allows you to search and get comparative data on just about any mechanical item. I looked for "belts".

They had a number of suppliers which I contacted. The best one gave me copious help and I soon found that they could make belts to exact specification for me. For their minimum order quantity of $25 I got what amounts to several lifetimes worth of belts. Now I can get back to transferring my best tapes to CD.

So, if you ever need mechanical items, you could test them out for your needs.

Hope the new year is going well for you and your family,

With warmest regards,

Ron

2002/1/31 13:17

Foreign Minister

Dear Ron,

George Bush’s speech was also on TV here. It seems that he marches towards what he believes. I hope he is smart enough to guide US government correctly. Good sign is that US consumption is coming back. Here in Japan, due to Koizumi’s miss judgement, he is loosing public confidence and stock market started to fall. We found that he is not strong enough to fight against old system composed of old politicians and bureaucrats. Ms. Tanaka was not a good foreign minister but was very strong to fight against old system. This is the true reason of her loosing Foreign Minister’s position. Most of Japanese are angry about the situation. We wonder whether Ms. Ogata is going to accept Foreign ministers position. She is now in New York as a fellow researcher in Ford Foundation.

I also found a very slow response of top page in AOL server. I thought it was caused by temporally throttled channel of AOL. But it was not. After your notice, I found that I didn’t make linkage to background gif from top page when I modified it. Thank you for your mentioning it. AOL server slowed down in trying to find background texture. This may be a cause of the troubles. But if you still find same symptoms again, please try to directly call following address.

http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~pu4i-aok/

I included your new joke in my collections. www.globalspec.com seems interesting. It is relatively easy to make custom mechanical parts if you have material, tools and machine. I think supplying such service is an environmentally friendly activity.

In those days, my wife and myself are suffering flues. Probably I have to cure it in a warmer weather in NZ very soon. I started writing a touring report to Japanese byke magazine. One of our member made an agreement with a chief editor that if I prepare report he will print it in his magazine with the condition of describing members personal background in depth. This is a little bit difficult task for me.

My wife enjoyed a pleasant time teaching Japanese to a young German high school student in our home. We found that he is a very smart boy. He came from southern part of Germany near Swiss border. We finally found why he is so smart. No wonder, his father is a mayor and his mother is a judge. He is coming back home very soon.

Regards,

Greenwood

2002/2/1 13:17

HP problem

Dear Ron,
I think the performance of my home page was greatly improved by deleting unused screen name and deleting unused files in screen name "iaoki". I think many junk mails piled up in PO box of unused screen name and broken linkages delayed the response of AOL server. I hope now you can access my HP without trouble.
Regards,

Greenwood

Saturday, February 02, 2002 8:42 AM

Re: HP problem

I realized you had changed the English text address and was able to log on perfectly through <members.aol.com/iaoki/>

Then I was able to see everything quickly and without problems. Thank you for putting some of the Rio pictures on your site. Your trip plans for New Zealand look very attractive; I think it will be an epic ride.I will be very interested in your experience with the small windmill. From analyses I've seen, wind power is one of the most promising technologies for "renewable" energy. Some even claim that large turbines are already competitive with conventional generation. 12.4 m/s sounds quite strong. Does Seven Mile Beach often get that strong a wind?

We have finally got into what passes for winter here. Lows about 5 C, highs about 15 C. My furnace has been running much of the time. This morning I decided to change our house arrangement. If you recall, we have a large, uninsulated and draughty back room connected to the main part of the house by a large open arch and a door frame. Thus, a large amount of our heat was escaping to that room.

This morning I persuaded Connie to let me experiment with a screen blocking part of the arch and a sheet draped over the door. The effect was dramatic, I'd guess more than a 25% reduction in heating requirements. We'll keep the arrangement as it is until I've got some good data. If it cuts our energy wastage significantly, we'll get some curtains to make a easily removable barrier to heat loss.

My ductwork is deteriorating again. The temperature adjacent to the furnace is just too high for the duct tape I've been using to repair them. I'll have to try to get some high temperature tape. Needless to say my heat usage has been very high lately (an average of about 10 kw equivalent gas consumed). I'm keeping track of Heating Degree Days and will calculate how my "House Heating Coefficient" is looking.

Sorry for the false alarm over your web site.

Best regards,

Ron

2002/2/2 9:12
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
WORDS WOMEN USE...............
Ron
(English Joke Serial No.89)

2002/2/2 12:55

Re: HP problem

Dear Ron,
No doubt, I have moved indexe.html into Asahi-net server. Yesterday, I completely erased non valid indexe.html from AOL server. Now only top page
remaining in AOL server. I have to do it because AOL only supply 7 of 2Mb area which is too small for my expanding web site.
Regard,
Greenwood

2002/2/2 13:22

Wind mill

Dear Ron,

12.4 m/s is a design wind velocity of the mill. My home is not an ideal place for wind mill. Because of the location, wind mill can pickup power only when southerly and westerly wind blows. For steady operation of the system, solar panel has to be installed together with the mill. Still twice in a month, very strong westerly wind blows. Sometimes it reaches 30 m/s. The system also need control system to protect the blade from damage.

Your experiment of home heating is interesting. From our standard, it looks as though you are still wasting energy. I equipped individual electrical heating device to each room. Main living room is equipped with gas furnace. But my small office is heated with Phillips Electrical Heater. Bed room is heated with heat pump as you already know. We switch off heater when we leave the room. Good point is conservation of energy but bad point is it is not comfortable as your house.

Regards,

Greenwood

2002/2/12 6:21
CHEERS
I Noticed Vodka was left out of the tabulation. Perhaps some correspondent can fill in the blank.
Ron
(English Joke Serial No.90)

2002/2/15 5:10

Re: Foreign Minister

Dear Greenwood,

Prime Minister Koizumi was featured in another news article in the LA Times today. Apparently he has directed his staff to devise a deflation-fighting plan for economic recovery by the end of the month. One wonders why it has taken him so long, I thought that was what he promised to do when he was elected? No doubt he senses his own personal political risk and realizes it's now or never. Perhaps the news that Moody's said it was considering a two-notch reduction in Japan's domestic credit rating forced his hand. I hope his statement was not just words; perhaps he will listen to Paul Krugman at last.

We have just seen the first, very positive, development from the Enron collapse. Yesterday the House of Representatives passed the campaign finance reform bill. Their version is very close to the version the Senate passed last year, so there is real hope that the Congress can pass a bill to President Bush for signature. Naturally, the Republican (big business) opponents are trying every parliamentary maneuver to block it, but the chances seem very good.

This scandal is broadening very quickly. Now the spotlight is turning to other companies, such as Global Crossing. It seems that the US has had lots of "Crony Capitalism" of its own. Most people want the officers of the companies put in jail forever. The big question is how much of this will rub off on the Bush Administration and the Republican party.

I agree that most visiting scholars to other countries are very smart. It takes a lot of imagination and determination to travel and study in unconventional ways. The Europeans have visited each other's countries for many years, so such visiting would not be out of the ordinary. Many of them also come the to US.

To choose a much more different country, such as Japan, requires much more initiative. I wonder if your student was expecting the difficult differences between Japanese and European languages we have discussed?

I firmly believe that the ease of learning a foreign language is inversely proportional to one's age. It is very interesting for us to see and hear interviews with statesmen, such as Mexico's foreign minister, who sound exactly like native Americans. I'm sure that he studied in the US, certainly at University, possibly before that.

I am very proud of my older son who spent 2 summer vacations working in Switzerland and Germany and who has picked up an easy fluency in German as a result. (He told us he knew he was making progress when he was answered by Germans in German - previously, when he asked a question in German, they replied in English). Unfortunately, he has no occasion to use it either at work (for Toyota) or elsewhere, so it will probably fade. (My schoolboy French did help when we were in Paris last year, but it was very rusty). Neither Connie nor I have any Greek whatsoever - but I don't expect to need much since we are on a very structured trip with a group of Alumni from the University of Minnesota.

I trust you will soon lose the flu in NZ and hope you (will have/are having/had) a great trip.

With best regards,

Ron

2002/2/22 7:16
STATESMANSHIP
I'm told this has been making the rounds at the State Dept.
Ron
U.S. PROMISES TO CONSULT ALLIES BEFORE DOING WHAT IT WAS GOING TO DO ANYWAY

2002/2/22 7:16
DON'T GIVE UP!
Do I detect a note of pessimism in English 101?
Ron
ENGLISH IS TOUGH STUFF
(English Joke Serial No.91)

2002/2/23 10:50

MOTORCYCLE PHOTO

Dear Greenwood,

I've made more observations and modifications to my house heating etc. My baseline at the start of this winter was 0.455 Therms fuel per day per Heating Degree Day. (0.455 Therms = 45500 BTU) (0.455 Th per day = 0.56 kw) (HDD = 65 - Average outside temp (F)).

After cracking open the inlet panel on my furnace to suck in the hot air in the attic, my fuel use declined about 10% - to about 0.5 kw / HDD. I partially blocked off the wide entrances to our unheated rear room and fuel use dropped to about 75% of baseline - to about 0.42 kw / HDD. (Experimentation is currently discontinued since we are having record breaking temperatures. Yesterday Manhattan Beach reached 89 F, 32 C! e.g. no HDD.

This winter has actually been quite cold (I've not been able to get official temperature data yet) but my heat use in Nov. - Jan has dropped from 596 Therms to 476, e.g. down 20%.

It is clear that the main culprit is the design of my house. We have a moderate degree of insulation in walls and ceiling, apart from that rear room. But we have none of the normal design items used in colder parts of the country - double glazed windows, storm windows, weather stripping, etc, etc.

A second factor, of course, is the temperature setting we use. As you know we heat the whole house except the rear room, regardless where we are. Current settings are 6 AM to 9 AM - 70 F, 21 C. 9 AM to 4 PM - 69 F, 20.6 C. 4 PM to 9:30 PM - 70 F, 21 C. 9:30 to 6 AM - 66 F, 18.9 C.

I can see how wasteful this heating process is to people in Japan or Europe. Very similar to our automobiles, I suppose. (This year Sports-Utility vehicles are outselling cars! They weigh up to 3 tons each). My 3 Japanese cars together weigh less than 1-1/2 of those horrors. Politically, energy use is one of the hardest fought and long-standing disputes. Of course President Bush and the other Republican "Oil Men" think consumption is good because of all the money to be made that way. Those of us on the other side fight them tooth and nail. Expect those battles to continue forever.

A number of us are very interested in your home-generating plans. Please keep me informed how it goes.

I recently found out that wind power is the fastest growing form of generation - some 20% per year over the last decade. Germany has more than 2000 MW, with the US slightly less. The proponents claim that cost is less than $0.05/kwh and dropping steadily. There are big wind farms just east of the LA Basin with many hundreds of turbines, each about 750 kw.

When we were in Las Vegas last month there was an exhibit of motorcycles. I took a photo of a hand built motor cycle - Titan. This particular one had been made for presentation to the NY Police Dept. and has been painted accordingly. I've scanned it in my new All-in-One machine. I think the quality is much better than my old one. The file is quite big (~ 2 MB). I hope AOL can accept files that big. I'll send it separately from this letter for that reason.

I tried again to reach your home page at the address you sent <members.aol.com/iaoki/indexe.html> (& which worked last month). Now AOL says it has no such address. I even used their search engine to find you by name, but they showed nothing. Is this more of the AOL problems I've heard of from several friends?

I trust your NZ vacation is going well.

Best Regards,

Ron

2002/2/23 10:52
MOTORCYCLE PHOTO
As discussed in letter.
Ron

2002/2/24 19:07

Trip to NZ

Dear Ron,

I have been to New Zealand for 9 days and after that was very busy with writing 20 pages travel record. I was asked to write such report by one

of the touring members to sell our travel record to one of motorcycle magazine.

Tomorrow, chief editor and myself will fly to Oshima Island by a company helicopter owned by the same man who proposed the idea. His plan is to please chief editor who is also very fond of flying. I am a bit scary but said yes to his request.

Any way, the trip was very interesting. It was started with welcome greetings done by Mayer himself in front of Christchurch Cathedral and subsequent parade through Main Street of the Christchurch. Probably, he thought this is a good opportunity to increase tourist from Japan, which dramatically dropped after September 11th.

One of the member broke two bikes and broken his feet by accident. No one was sympathetic for the accident because he was very much aggressive for the speed and did not follow recommended speed by the designer of the road.

We all enjoyed flights in a small plain and chartered helicopter for taking aerial video of our climbing port hill near Christchurch.

We are expecting a professional cameraman who was also asked by Tourist Company for their PR video would complete DVD in the near future.

Thank you for many jokes and photo of Titan. It looks nice but expensive.

Now I am using AOL for only top page,members.aol.com/iaoki/index.html. Probably, I should have remained English top page, members.aol.com/iaoki/indexe.html in AOL server but due to consistency, I moved every thing to a server here in Japan. Please push following address and bookmark. http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~pu4i-aok/core/indexe.html

It may take some time for uploadig a report of NZ touring. It is too big for HP.

Thanks to former foreign minister Tanaka, we now know that Liberal-Democratic Party's long stay in power is causing many problems for Japan. Regardless what they say in public, it was revealed that this party is actually resisting reformation of Japan. Now we realized that Koizumi is representing this party. The percentage of those supporting the present cabinet fell dramatically. He is loosing magical power quickly. Japan needs healthy change of political parties in power. But I wonder voters know this. Majorities of people are still nostalgic about good times and hesitate to change supporting parties.

Build in insulation in my house is also poor. Thickness of glass fiber mat is only 2 inches. In Europe, this thickens reaches 4 inches. Thus, in my case, conservation of energy is achieved mainly by distributed space heating.

Europe and Japan are very much disappointed with President Bush's energy policy.

Cost of wind power is still 2 time of that of oil fired power generation, but I am determined to have mine in my garden for education of community people. I am still busy in many things, but after finishing all those matters I will do it and report to you.

Regards,

Greenwood

Thursday, February 28, 2002 5:28 AM
Enron's Voice Mail
Always on top.
Ron
www.witcity.com/enron/index.htm

2002/2/28 11:02
Re: Enron's Voice Mail
Thank you.
I bookmarked it.
Greenwood

2002/3/2 4:01
Fwd: Simplify your life with EarthLink DSL!

Dear Greenwood,
I thought I'd show you how good a deal you have on your high speed connection. The US price ($50/month) is almost double what you pay!
Ron

2002/3/2 14:37
Re: Simplify your life with EarthLink DSL!
Dear Ron,
Almost a year ago, our price was on that level. But after Yahoo Japan started low price service, within a couple of months, most of the provider started similar low price services. Probably, most of them are loosing money but we are enjoying current situation.
Greenwood

2002/3/4 13:19
NZ Touring
Dear Ron,
Rash translation of the NZ touring record and introduction of the member and subsequent flight to Oshima Island were completed and uploaded in my HP.
I hope it is enjoyable to you.
Greenwood

2002/3/8 4:34
ON DESERT ISLANDS
More International clarification.
Ron
(English Joke Serial No.92)

2002/3/8 13:15
Re:ON DESERT ISLANDS
Dear Ron,
I like your new story in deserted islands, (English Joke Serial No.92) especially Japanese behavior. What if Tokyo is dead. Centered command system is the characteristics of Japanese organization. Now we are thinking that more distributed decision making is better.
I included the story in my collections.
Greenwood

Friday, March 15, 2002 10:36 AM

NZ adventure

Dear Greenwood,

What a trip it was! I really enjoyed the report on your web page. I hope that Mr. Sugawara and his son are recovering from their accidents. What bad luck for both members of the family to crash. (We might say here that the family have heavy feet).

We are planning a short trip to Greece with two of Connie's cousins and their husbands. It promises to be much less exciting than your NZ adventure. One of the husbands is a graduate of the university of Minnesota. Their alumni association is organizing a package trip, with everything taken care of for us. We fly to Athens and then on to the nearby island of Poros. That's our headquarters. Each day we have a trip to a historic site. It promises to be very educational, with lectures about the history of the sites we are visiting.

The US Senate just passed a bill which will result in much greater production of ethanol for use in gasoline. This is supposed to be a "Renewable" fuel, and was justified on that account. However, it is nothing of the sort since producing ethanol from corn fermentation consumes almost as much fossil energy as the resulting ethanol contains (mostly for distillation). I have written to politicians, newspapers and environmental groups, trying to get that point across, but, so far, without success. Even when the US actually tries to do something about global warming it blunders!

My new CD recorder is working very well. I have made some progress on archiving or replacing my reel to reel tapes, but there is a very long way to go. Some of the tapes have started to deteriorate; it's quite a challenge to get some to play well enough to make a good transfer. I think a lifetime would be needed for the whole job, so I'll just settle for the highlights.

With warm regards,

Ron

2002/4/7 19:45

Video

Dear Ron,

The other day, when I met Mr. Sugawara, he looked OK now.

Your trip to Greece looks exciting. I checked Bartholomew Mini Atlas and could find an island called Paros (not Poros) in Kikladhes Islands. My interest is in Mediterranean area. But my wife wishes to revisit England in June for 3 weeks. I accompany her as a chauffeur and as a porter.

She is planning her trip using Internet. Her plan is one-week stay in London, one week in Cotswalds and last week in Wales.

I understand that hidden interest of using ethanol as motor fuel in US is helping corn-growing farmers. This instinct is very much similar to Japanese politicians who try to help domestic farmers.

Some of the digital camera images stored in ZIP disc were lost. I transferred remaining images to CD-R. It seems that CD-R is more reliable media. And cost performance is superior.

I am considering to record our trip in 320 x 240 pixel MPEG video over 60 minutes using Sony digital camera. Total memory size requirements reach 384 Mb. This size could be stored in 3 x 128Mb Sony Memory Sticks. After editing it could be permanently stored in 1 x CD-R. Although the screen size is small, but any PC can play the video from CD-R.

I imagine future trend will be in DVD-R/EW. Now DVD-R/RW recorder is in market. Within a year, any one can make full size screen video. Actually our touring video was edited and burned by young woman running tourist business. I cut and squeezed part of it and uploaded into my web site.

My best regards,

Greenwood

Wednesday, April 10, 2002 4:02 AM
SPECIALLY FOR SAN FRANCISCO RESIDENTS
They always knew.
Ron
(English Joke Serial No.93)

Thursday, April 11, 2002 7:35 AM (19:35Japan Time)

Re:SPECIALLY FOR SAN FRANCISCO RESIDENTS

Dear Ron,

Thank you Ron. I really enjoyed it. But why it is specially for S.F. Residents? It may be piled on existing list.

Greenwood

Friday, April 12, 2002 3:53 AM

Re: ESPECIALLY FOR SAN FRANCISCO RESIDENTS

Dear Greenwood,

Residents of San Francisco are very critical of LA / Hollywood / etc. More than any other group they think that LA is really like the caricature in the "Drivers' Test".

Ron

2002/4/13 15:19

Video

Dear Ron,

Thank you. I added it to my humor list.

Recently, I am adding video making to my pleasure. As a trial, I made 2.5 min. video of WAKWAK group attack to Mt. Mumotori and sent CD-R to the attack member. It was appreciated. If you use proper music for back ground, it increase mental impact to the audience.

As you know, my homepage already broadcasting several low quality video clip, like trial run MAGREV train etc. But current internet environment cannot accommodate good quality video, like the one I made for my friends. But soon broadband technology will be available to general public for transmitting such personal video.

A best seller book called "The Innovator's Dilemma" was translated into Japanese. It was written by Clayton M. Christensen and published in 1997 by Harvard Business School Press. I started reading it yesterday. I hope it gives me some kind of answer when and how I made mistakes in business organization. It is a bitter experience.

Warmest regards,

Greenwood

Sunday, April 14, 2002 4:54 AM
NEW ELEMENT
New Element Discovered . . . . Administratium
Enjoy.
Ron
(English Joke Serial No.94)

2002/4/14 9:10
Re: NEW ELEMENT
It seems that this new elements follows Parkinson's Law proposed by C.
Northcote Parkinson in 1957.
Greenwood

2002/4/16 4:52

VACATION IN GREECE

Dear Greenwood,

We'll be leaving for Greece early tomorrow. We think we are well prepared and have many films to capture the scenes. No video, I'm afraid. You seem to be getting really into professional film making - with audio and (I assume) editing. I'm sure you are right when expecting new technology to increase the contents of email messages.

Poros is about 50 km south of Athens, perhaps 20 km south of the island of Aegina - in the Saronic Gulf group. It is separated from the Peloponnese by a very narrow gulf and might appear to be part of the mainland on some maps.

Connie and I also debate our trips. Our trouble is not so much where to go as to how often. She does not travel well although she does well once she gets there. In the period leading up to a trip she gets quite stressed. (You and I have done far more traveling than she has, so are more relaxed). Naturally, in the present political environment she ids very nervous visiting the eastern Mediterranean. I just hope that Greece is far enough away to be safe.

One thing I still have to do before leaving is to pick up some reading matter. in my search I'll look for the book you mention. I, too, suffered from the dilemma and often found it a bitter experience. Amost all my retired colleagues from Fluor express the same feelings. What a shame that the corporate environment prevents so many important things. I expect it's always been so, all over the world.

I've seen an article in today's paper dealing with the ways your bureaucrats are blocking your "freedom of information" act by many methods. It is good to hear that not all departments are as bad a some. They singled out your environmental ministry as one who is more cooperative. Let us hope that others get forced to be properly open in due course. This foot-dragging has been universal, in the US and in Europe. But, with time and court action is has gradually been improving.

See you in a couple of weeks.

Ron

2002/5/7 10:16

VACATION IN GREECE

Dear Greenwood,

We are back and, after a day at the Homebrew Beer Festival, things are getting back to normal.

We had a great trip to Greece. It was organized by the Univ. of Minnesota Alumni.  As you could guess they kept us pretty busy. They had very informed lectures in the hotel most days, talking about everything from ancient legends to modern Greece.  The first lecture was 8:30 AM the day after we arrived! (We didn't even wake up until 8 AM, so gave that one a miss). Many of our other travelers were late, which isn't surprising. Before leaving on the trip, they sent us small notebooks and we wondered why. When we saw some of the more committed travelers taking copious notes, we understood. And we thought we were going for a vacation!

After that rather busy start, things slowed down to a sustainable pace. The lectures were very good and helped us understand what we were going to see. The biggest impression we had is the sheer beauty of the islands (Athens seems to be just another modern w. European city - more torn up than most, because of preparations for the Olympics). The Aegean sea is very clear - similar to that on the Barrier Reef! Apparently there is an upwelling circulation which keeps it very clean. Not too good for fishing we were told, probably no nutrients in the clear water.

As you know we stayed on Poros which is 50 miles and about an hour by hydrofoil from Athens. Later in the year it gets very crowded by Greeks on their weekends off, but was comfortable when we were there. Poros is still rather unspoiled, but discreet developments of big houses are beginning to appear near the town. I expect it'll soon get very built up with weekend "villas". I have no idea if the figures are accurate, but one Greek said a small house in Poros goes for only 10,000 Euros, a "big" one for 30,000. Some mansions (probably bigger than his "big") we saw must be more than 600 sq. m. Incidentally, almost all the new houses, and many of the old ones, had both solar water heaters and heat pump heating/cooling units. The climate and cost of energy may be close to Tokyo's and most houses had only the one heat pump - probably in the bedroom, like yours.

Each day we went to one or other island or historical sights. I didn't realize before, but there are many "Acropolis' " (Acropoles?) in Greece. It simply means "city on the hill" and there are many of them. One of the most impressive was in Mycenae - dating back almost 3500 years. Traveling over the roads in the Peloponnese you can easily understand why the Greeks used stones to build their walls - the ground is covered with stones and boulders of all sizes, even today.

I'd also been under the impression that the arch and the dome were Roman inventions. However in a couple of tombs from before 1000 BC there were what I believe to be arches and domes. It'd be interesting to get a professional opinion.

All-in-all, a wonderful holiday. As a time of year to visit I definitely recommend April. Crowds are still sparse and the temperatures were ideal (highs 18 - 20 C). Apparently it can reach over 40 C in the summer, even on the islands (humid, too, I expect, being in the sea). Fall is also supposed to be good.

We also wish it had been practical for us to break our trip - in Chicago, NY or, better still somewhere in Europe. Traveling there took from early morning here to mid evening the next day in Greece - total about 26 hours. Stops in Chicago, Munich and Athens (waiting on hydrofoil schedules).

If I get a bit ambitious, I'll try to scan some of the best of our pictures and email them. Don't hold your breath.

The Beer Festival is an annual event and features beers from all the homebrewers societies in Southern California. There are literally hundreds of beers to choose from. Some of our members make a weekend out of it, camping out from Friday to Sunday. I choose to go only on the Saturday, camp out overnight and go home on Sunday morning. Both my sons, their wives and some friends also attended. As usual, there were beers of all qualities good AND bad. Since the beers are free, the secret of lasting through the day is to only drink those you like, drink only small quantities and make sure to eat during the day.

With best regards,

Ron

2002/5/8 8:18
THREE KICK RULE
Watch out for them good ol' boys.
Ron
(English Joke Serial No.96)

2002/5/8 11:56

Re: VACATION IN GREECE

Dear Ron,

I am pleased to hear that you have enjoyed the trip to Greece. Without lectures that you had in your trip, the joy of visiting historical place like Greece would be decreased.

Your reasoning of upwelling circulation is keeping Aegean Sea very clear is very understandable. In Tokyo bay, when strong northeasterly wind blows, seawaters become very clear and look like Aegean Sea. But many fishes die because of low oxygen content. Upwelling circulation is caused by strong wind.

Your finding of arches and domes in a couple of tombs before 1000 BC is also interesting because I also learned that arch and the dome were Roman inventions.

I will take your advice of visiting Greece in April.

I am waiting your photos.

In the last 30 days, I had reduced taking alcohol and stayed most of the time at home. Because I suffered severe allergic reaction on my skin after cutting down two trees in my garden. I learned later that they were a kind of lacquer tree and have strong poison to cause allergic reaction on your skin. Birds carried seeds of those wild plant to my garden and grown in the last 10 years. It was pretty in Autumn.
I almost mastered the first step of making home video, editing and adding BGM. But soon I found that I need the audience. Internet bandwidth is too narrow and can only distribute a couple of seconds 160 pixel mpeg in kilo size file. Gaga size DVD-R is still too early. Mega size CD-R is the most appropriate media now. I found that when you specified full video of 720 pixel avi, single 3 min. video file is big enough to be housed in CD-R. Therefore, I am distributing my products to friends in 320-pixel mpeg format. Soon you may receive one of these.

Thank you for new addition to my collections. In return, I can send one.

Truly yours,

Greenwood

(English Joke Serial No.95)

May 10, 2002

CD-R containing Video

Dear Ron,

As I told in my e-mail, I enclosed a CD-R containing Video Theater, Web Contents and others.

I hope you can read it.

Please enjoy.

Sincerely yours,

Greenwood

2002/5/23 8:14

CD and INNOVATOR'S DILEMMA

Dear Greenwood,

Your CD arrived in good condition. I find I can access all parts. What a volume of data a CD can hold! The conference was a huge affair. I've only been able to look at a small part of the proceedings. No wonder it took so much of your time for so long.

At first I had difficulty accessing the Theater section, until I figured out how to apply my Real Player to it. Now I am able to look at all the videos. On some, but not all, the video and sound are "jumpy" - they stop and start erratically. On others, especially the Promotion Video of NZ, both sound and pictures play smoothly.

Your use of music is very good - it really helps a video. Connie and I liked the music in the "Gardening" video. We'll now be playing some of these for our friends and family.

Thank you, also, for the reference to the Innovator's Dilemma. I found it fascinating and very insightful. It was very good to take on our Greek vacation -
as a welcome change of pace from Greek mythology.

He certainly makes a good case - all through the book I found myself reflecting on how Fluor and other engineering companies reacted to technology. There is no doubt that they are much better at responding to sustaining technological development than to disruptive. My amazement peaked in chapter 8 (Performance Provided..........). His quotation "Those stupid guys are just treating our product like it was a commodity. .........." was said so many times at Fluor that I lost track.

I'm afraid that the sort of Process Engineering that we enjoyed has become a sort of 14" hard drive. At Fluor I was much more involved in smaller projects for simpler applications than were most of my colleagues. However, as the book points out, that sort of thing received little respect. The big prestige (and careers) came from large hydrocarbon projects - particularly in Refining. )Even LNG was always something of a side issue at Fluor.) Eventually, I "saw the light" and got involved with refinery work. That's where I was when I finally got promoted to management.

However, my interest in energy matters has not dimmed. I recently obtained another book on petroleum - "The Coming Oil Crisis" by C. J. Campbell. He had a lifetime in the oil business, and takes a very broad view of energy in the world. The book deals with the prediction of the future reserves and possible world production of all types of "oil" - including natural gas, conventional oil and less conventional oils such as heavy oil and tar sands. Although I've only glanced at the book so far, he seems to have an enormous amount of applicable knowledge and applies it in a very detailed engineering-type way. His conclusion, which seems to be well documented, is that world production will inevitably peak within the next 10 years, and petroleum (and all) energy will then gradually become increasingly expensive and harder to get.

I recommend this book as more rigorously worked out in mathematical / engineering terms than many other books on the topic. I think the references alone are worth it.

We've finally caught up with the duties which had piled up while we were away. My new all-in-one scanner/printer..... is much better than my old one and I'm finding it makes pretty good scans of photos. Particularly surprising is the "efficiency" of the jpeg format. It seems able to reduce a 5 MB file to less than 300 KB. Prints up to 200 x 300 mm seem to be good, even from only 300 KB of jpeg. However, even 300 KB is too big for email, as you pointed out. What would you suggest as a reasonable file size for the best compromise between email and enough detail for pictures?

Another interest I have developed is in digital cameras. Based, in part, on my scanning experience and also on seeing some friends' digital pictures, I believe
that it may be time to get a digital camera. The performance and price have developed to where they seem to be practical for casual use. I'm thinking of getting a very small (pocketable) camera which I could basically take with me wherever I go - to take simple pictures when opportunity arises. Such cameras are now available here for a few hundred $, capable of 2 to 5 M. Pixels. Memory cards have also improved in capacity so that it is not necessary to "reload" or "download" frequently. I'd be interested in your feelings as to how many pixels are necessary for simple pictures up to about 100 x 150 to 200 x 300 mm size, and whether you have any preferences for features, reliable brands, etc.

With best regards,

Ron

2002/5/23 15:49

CD and Campbell's Book

Dear Ron,

Thank you for your warm comments on my CD-R.

I have tested my CD-R using Windows standard Media Player attached to Internet Explorer. Even with my low speed Windows 95 machine, no jumpy behavior was experienced.

My wife likes music very much and she has huge volume of CD collections. From her resources, I selected the one, which meets the screen most. Advantage of digitized media is that we can copy without loosing quality. Player of BGM of Gardening is Ms. Ingrid Fujiko v.Georgii-Hemming who was born and educated in Japan but spent most of her time in Germany as a pianist. After getting old, she settled in Japan. Her music is always very warm and emotional.

An author of Innovator's Dilemma wrote in his foreword to Japanese Edition, that according to his theory, Japan’s recovery might be unlikely. This comment is very annoying to me, because his theory is very persuasive. I also remembered behavior of people in Chiyoda organization while I was reading the book.

LNG was also something of a side issue at Chiyoda, but now Chiyoda is surviving only on LNG business. The guy I educated is a key business executive of Chiyoda.

Probably C. J. Campbell is a man who wrote an article in Scientific American, March 1998 issue. It was very impressive for me and I introduced his theory in many occasions in Japan. It was not welcomed here. But I am pleased you have pointed out that view. PowerPoint File prepared for my lecture for Yokohama City University is included in my Web Contents Acrobat format but only in Japanese page. Therefore, I attached a diagram. Is this the one he is using in his book? This bell shaped production curve is very similar to a Logistic curve as shown in another attachment of Nakicenovic. Shape is different but both are mathematically equivalent. I believe that environmentalist’s concerns of global warming will soon be resolved by higher oil prices.

I think there is no compromised point between email and enough detail for pictures. Followings are recommendations:

If you buy 3.1 million pixel camera, you can select any frame size depending upon your purpose. If you buy 128Mb memory chip and set your camera at 1280 x 960 frame size with standard compression, you can store 352 pictures on your chip. I normally use this option. For web site, I further compress down to 20kb/picture level by trimming and increasing compression level using editing software.

There are many kind of digital camera. My wife use Sony digital camera DSC-P5. Which is the best seller in Japan. It’s weight is 180g. This camera can take video of 320 x 240 pixel MPEG1 compression over 21 minutes on 128Mb chip. Most of the Video on my CD-R was taken by this P5 camera.

Best regards,

Grenwood

2002/5/24 16:57

Re:Campbell's Book

Dear Ron,

After checking Amazon.com and Amazon.co.jp, I found Campbell's Book attractive and I have made a order for it. I wished to find Japanese translation but failed. Probably the subject seems not so attractive to Japanese public. It may arrive early July.

Thank you for mentioning.

Best regards,

Greenwood

2002/6/5 11:08

Re: Campbell's Book

Dear Greenwood,

I've enjoyed the book, so I think you'll also like it, Greenwood.

The analysis part is very good, but like everybody else he has problem with projections. His illumination of the political juggling with discoveries in the Middle East is particularly good (before 1973 they under reported, but then over reported when OPEC based quotas on each country's reserves).

Writing in 1996 he could not have foreseen the Sept. 11th attack and the present world recession and it's effect on oil consumption. Therefore his prediction of a sharp and sustained rise in prices starting soon after he wrote has not been exactly right. Prices have risen of course, but they are now falling as more and more producers are increasing production in spite of OPEC quotas. I'm sure, once the world economy recovers he'll be correct again.

To my mind, though, his biggest weakness is that he is too much the oil man. Like all oil men he sees the world energy market as essentially the oil market. He does devote one chapter to NG and heavy oil, but only mentions other forms of energy and conservation in passing remarks. Some of his socio-political predictions are just silly ("Everyone rides a bicycle"), but other insights are brilliant - such as the comparison of present day Middle Eastern countries with European countries of a few centuries ago - "It is still run by Church and Monarch. Democracy has not arrived and may never do so."

All-in-all a most interesting book which I'll be referring to many times. (It is published in England. Amazon took quite a time getting it for me, so it may be a wait for you too.)

Thank you for the guidance on Digital Cameras. It is a key part of my research and discussion with people here (I had a fascinating discussion with a Xerox engineer about why jpeg compression is so effective - I was impressed!). Incidentally, I showed and discussed the jumpy videos with my son, Bill. He was not able to think of a reason why some were jumpy and some not.

One of these days I really will scan some Greek pictures and send them to you. Somehow, I am always busy - currently I'm refinishing the Kitchen Cabinets which are in need of repair.

With best regards,

Ron

2002/6/5 13:43

Video Camera

Dear Ron,
I think I can wait Campbell's Book, because myself and my wife are departing to England tomorrow. Sept. 11th attack is a kind of noise to the grand theory of Campbell, but people are alway facinated by those detail incident. This trip was planned by my wife and I am only accompanying my wife as a shauffeur, a porter and a camera man. We are going to visit small old villages and gardens in Kotswald and Wales. We will also meet some old friends who were retired and a boy friend of my daughter there. I found Sony Handycam IP55 also has internet connectivity, so I will try it in England. For security, a picture of our living room will be uploaded to a private web site every 20 second, and my daughter and my son may watch it to find whether window glass is broken. I can also check it from England. Cost over 1 month is free. The same system could be used for a special page for surfers who which to know the most updated status of the wave of Seven Mile Beach.
I imagine the tric of JPEG compression. MPEG2 conpression is also amazing. The size of MicroMV tape cassette which can record full size video over 60 min. is equivalent to 2 coins. (46mm) VHS tape cassette looks like mammoth. I am carry in 8 of those MicroMV to England. I wish to make Greek page containing your pictures after returning from England.
Best Regard,
Greenwood

2002/6/5 15:43

World Cup

Dear Ron,

It looks that you are working very hard for maintenance of your home. In those days, I did nothing to may house. Now wall paper is partially pealed off the wall. I have to fix it but.............

Re: "World Cup Football" do you know that Birom UK is in big trouble. After opening the game, people found large area of empty seats in the stadium in Japan and in Korea. In the last few days, about 60,000 seats in total were empty. People who couldn't buy tickets are very angry. Local Governments who build the stadium expecting income from tickets sales are also angry. They are claiming that 2 trillion yen income were lost. They are considering suing Birom UK. But apparently, the small company owned by Mexican brother has no such capability. People are suspecting why FIFA selected this small company which has no previous experience of selling ticket. Is it because they served in the past providing hotel reservation services etc. for board member of FIFA?

Interesting?

Regards,

Greenwood

2002/6/5 23:32

Real Player

Dear Ron,
Harley Davidson Touring in New Zealand was prepared by Thermal using different editing program. All other are edited by MovieShaker. I specified MPEG1 compression. But in this program, there is another option called Real. I erased Real Player and using only Window Media Player. If you don't want to delete Real Player, just find out Window Media Player from your program list and startup Window Media Player first then open my MPEG1 video from Window Media Player. Please try this.
Regards,
Greeenwood

2002/6/6 7:36

Re:Real Player

Yes, Greenwood. WIN media player worked fine. It seems to be yet another example of incompatibility between software.

I hope your trip to England goes well. Even porters get their due. The beer style known as "Porter" originated as a beer that was liked by porters in the 19th
century. While you're there I hope the porter gets to sample some Real British Ale.

Ron

2002/6/6 12:59
GREECE PHOTOS #1
Viewing your videos must have inspired me, Greenwood.
Here are the first batch - I'm trying to keep the letters below 400K. I thought about adding comments to the pictures, but decided that would be too ambitious for now, perhaps later.
Two more emails to come.
Ron
GREECE PHOTOS #1

2002/6/6 13:02
GREECE PHOTOS #2
Second batch:
One more email to come.
Ron
GREECE PHOTOS #2

2002/6/6 13:04
GREECE PHOTOS #3
Last batch for now.
Best Regards,
Ron
GREECE PHOTOS #3

2002/6/13 8:43
THERMODYNAMICS EXAM
This'll sort out the engineers.
Ron
(English Joke Serial No.97)

2002/6/17 4:24

Re: World Cup Football

Yes, Greenwood,

I've noticed poor crowds for some of the games I've watched. There has been much criticism all over the world about the FIFA - it seems suspected of being very corrupt. (Incidentally, the stadia in both countries are quite incredible - especially the Oita "Big Eye" and the Niigata "Big Swan" ones). The ground keepers, too, deserve great praise for the quality and the durability of the pitches.

What a series it has been this time. I'm glad to see that both Japan and South Korea host teams have made the finals. The USA team owes the Koreans a big debt because only the upset victory of Korea over Portugal let the US team advance when the Poles trounced the US in their final game.

All of the countries Connie and I are interested in have also made it. Several of them also by "the skin of their teeth". Connie's Italy had a very hard time as did England. The English team is terribly inconsistent. To beat Argentina and then be unable to score against the much weaker Nigerian team is amazing. I don't know if you've been watching, but they either look like world beaters or has beans.

On our in-laws' side, both Mexico and Brazil (Bill's and Peter's wives, respectively) made it quite easily. Assuming Brazil sweeps aside Belgium, they play England next, which will be a game I have to watch. The US has a very popular game against Mexico - the Los Angeles area will probably be as idle as England's factories while that game is on.

It's great to be retired - I can now watch all the most interesting games, which was something no working person can do. I hope you are also able to enjoy some of this competition.

Best regards,

Ron

2002/6/23 3:43

MEMORY!

[Whatever your politics, you gotta chuckle at this one]

Bill Clinton is getting $12 million for his memoirs, and Hillary got $8 million for hers.

That's $20 million for two people, who for eight years repeatedly testified they couldn't remember anything.

2002/6/25 7:54

Safe back home

Dear Ron,

We have just returned from England last night. We had met Yoko’s boy friend in London and two old neighbors who were also retired. One couple is still living in Hampton but moved to better house and another couple is now living in Devon. As we are, they are also enjoying retired life. We also visited the place where we rented house in Hampton. A family of Pakistan Aircrew was current resident.

When England won over Argentine, Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus and Lester Square were flooded with many noisy gangs of young boys waving Saint George Cross.

I think Japan did more than I expected. We are amazed South Korean victory. Tonight, I certainly watch TV. We missed most of the games because we are moving around most of the times, but watched highlight of the games in hotel.

We selected June for long stay abroad, because it is in rainy season in Japan and garden flowers can survive without watering. We found our house was safe except a sparrow family invaded ventilation fan unit and started hatching baby. Until they leave the nest we cannot use fan for drying bathroom.

We visited most of famous Manor Houses and gardens in Kotswald and Wales because gardening is my wife’s favorite past time. I took over 5 hours video. One month may be required to edit them all. Whoom!!!

Thank you for your Greek photos. I enjoyed very much. I found your photos are taken by engineer’s eye like the one I have. Poros seems full of traditional houses. This is what I dreamed of. I would like to make one page for Greek using your photos and description.

THERMODYNAMICS EXAM was also very enjoyable.(English Joke serial No.97)

During the trip, as you did in Greek I have read Peter F. Drucker’s latest book “Managing in the Next Society”. His view is very unique and interesting. Japanese translation was published earlier than the original book in US.

At the last moment in England, I found in The Times that the former GE executive and 66 years old, Jack Welch fell in love for his interviewer, Suzy Wetlaufer. Interesting to see what happens to such admired executive. Probably it is not surprising because of the wealth he has.

Best Regards,

Greenwood

2002/6/26 9:30

Re: Safe back home

Dear Greenwood,

Of course, I'd be honored if you use my Greek pics. Your holiday seems to have gone well. its always nice to look up old friends.

I'm sorry Japan went no further. Today the amazing South Koreans fought the Germans very well, giving as good as they got for most of the game. Like the US team, they eventually succumbed to the strength and endurance of the Germans. I expect Brazil will have no difficulty with Turkey, so I expect Germany and Brazil will be in the final. We'll be rooting for Brazil in honor of Peter's wife, also because they play a much more attractive game compared with the defensive minded German team.

I expect London was pretty rowdy after the Argentina game. However, I'll bet they didn't have the crowds that gathered in Seoul. The pictures are astonishing - they are really proud of their wonderful achievement.

We noticed it was the rainy season, watching some of the games. Now I expect you'll settle in to a long, hot summer. My niece is now established in Hong Kong, where things are even hotter and more humid (it's been well up into the 30's C). She participated in the dragon boat races and managed to finish second in the final.

It's good that you found you're home safe and sound - I hope the sparrow family does well.

Best regards,

Ron

2002/6/26 16:11

Lord Elgin's stature

Dear Ron,

Last night, I watched South Koreans vs. German match. As far as I can remember, it was a very neat and clean game including referee. Koreans are now very hot. It is probably the secret of recent rise in industry. Considering their history, it is very understandable. I edited you mail and photos and uploaded to my web site. I am afraid I eliminated some photos because of it quality. Please review and advise me if you have any comments. During the course of editing work and some partial translation of your text into Japanese, I have created more clear image of my future visit to Greece.

When I visited Athens about 30 years ago, Caryatids was still standing outside. In the course of restoration of Pantheon, I wish a copy of Lord Elgin's stature again appear on the facade of Pantheon to show more clearly the original image.

I understand Roman invention of arch and dome mean, round shaped arch and dome where all weight of the arch and dome is converted to horizontal forces. But you photo shows different structure.

Regards,

Greenwood

2002/6/26 23:03

Mycenae Lions'Gate

Dear Ron,

Congratulation, Brazil has won. Final match may be very exciting.

During the game I checked a book, "Structures" written by J.E. Gordon. (Japanese translation) In his book, very primitive vault of Mikines (Mycenae) constructed in BC 1,800 were exhibited. If the triangular big stone having relief of lion on it of Mycenae Lions'Gate is removed it looks exactly similar. In this structure big stones are piled in a way so that each stone slightly shift in ward of the vault. This method, however, cause horizontal tensile force inside each stone and causes crack. Roman type arch use wedge shaped stone. In this case, only horizontal compression force is caused in side each stone. Advantage of Roman type is that you can use small stone and easy to make it manually. I think very primitive dome which you have found has similar structure like vault of Mikines. By the way, who is Ms. Teresa Banyan cited in THERMODYNAMICS EXAM.

Best Regards,

Greenwood

2002/6/27 13:07

Greek Dome

Dear Ron,

I improved my explanation about Greek Dome which you found and uploaded to my HP. Gordon's book is well written. I acquired it long time ago. I started

rereading it. It is specially enjoyable after visiting many old abbey in England.

Regards,

Greenwood

2002/7/1 11:35

World Cup

Dear Greenwood,

We've just watched the W. Cup final - on tape, so we didn't have to get up very early. It also allowed us to stop and start the game as we wanted to - we had our own replays. We also watched the third place game between South Korea and Turkey yesterday.

I think Brazil was a bit lucky that the German striker Ballack was out of the game due to two yellow cards in the semi-final. They outplayed Korea most of the game, but were unable to get the ball in the net. On the other hand Ronaldo was brilliant. Brazil seemed to get their rhythm back only in the last third of the game; before that the Germans were able to keep them off balance.

The Korea-Turkey game was very good in its own way. The difference in skill between them and the finalists was clear, but both teams played with great spirit and energy. We planned to only sample the game, but ended watching every minute. As in the final, I thought Korea had bad luck to lose. Once again - it's getting the ball in the net that counts.

All-in-all it was a great World Cup, with many, many upsets and some great games. An American commentator said he thought the Korea-Italy game was the best one - but that was before the final. I was surprised by the spirited German game - not their usual slow style. Korea must be the "most improved" team - a triumph for them - who had never won a World Cup game before. Japan and Korea did an outstanding job hosting the games. The fields were first class, handled the rain without flooding and I don't recall ANY hooligan incidents - in spite of many English fans. (At least there were no Dutch fans, who share the hooligan reputation with England).

The arch analysis on your site is very clear. The crux is compression stress only in the Roman arch. Thinking back on the appearance of the dome, I believe it could have had the same construction as the Greek "arches" because it is shaped like a bee-hive. You cannot see the cross-section or outside because it is underground.

Your whole site is crammed with interesting new stuff. You must have been really putting in the hours on it since you got back.

I guess Ms. Teresa Banyan was a girl the author was interested in. I know of no other reference to her.

These days there is not much attention being paid to the economy here. Everything is focussed on the latest reports of US Corporation Criminality, terrorism and the Middle East. President Bush's speech is being widely derided. One headline in the LA Times Opinion Section was "No Details, No Hope". International opinion seems even more negative.

In the meantime, only a few seem to be aware how American Fiscal Discipline has been abandoned - it has not escaped your favorite economist. I fully expect the US deficit to balloon upwards in the near future. We seem to be undoing all the basic strength that Clinton and Secretary of the Treasury, Rubin built into the US budget. Our stock market is now back at the level of last September and nobody has any clue as to whether it'll bounce back or decline further. Consumer confidence seems to be eroding and capital spending is still in a slump. My overall feeling is of things spinning out of control in all directions.

Best regards,

Ron

2002/7/1 12:43

Ms. Teresa Banyan

Dear Ron,

You have summed up W. Cup very nicely. I missed most of them.

My friend who is still a lecturere in a colledge in Tokyo guessed Ms. Teresa Banyan might be Ms.Teresa Bojaxhiu who came from east Europe and scrificed her entire life to help poor in India. To American student, Bojaxhiu sounds like Banyan. Do you believe this hypothesis?

I understand your comments on US policy and economic situation. I felt like that too.

Regards,

Greenwood

2002/7/2 3:56

Soccer and Baseball

I suppose it's possible, Greenwood, but the names are not really close, whereas Banyan is not an uncommon name here. She might well be fictional.

I'm sorry you missed most of the games - there really were many good ones.

My wife is amused by my interest in sports, which only happens during the World Cup. Now I'll go into hibernation for another 4 years. Sports in the USA are quite different from every other country, except Canada.

When I left England, I was moderately interested in sports, but found the ones I knew were almost invisible in Canada. I developed a minor interest in Ice Hockey there, probably because it's somewhat like Football (Soccer), but lost that interest when I moved to California. I've never been able to develop any interest in the popular sports here - American Football, Basketball and Baseball.

I believe Baseball is quite popular in Japan? Perhaps this developed after the war?

Best Regards,

Ron

2002/7/2 6:32

Re:Instant Soccer Fan

Dear Ron,

An old Danish lady to whom I met in Kotswalds told me exact same story about her husband who became an instant fan of Soccer only during in World Cup. She told us about it after her husband hastily withdrew to his room from breakfast table.

Baseball is more popular in Japan. In the past, good quality boys all joined Baseball team. Baseball was popular from before the war time. Some one wrote that Baseball is played under strong control of coach. Baseball team constitute a centrally controlled organization. Organization is superior than individual. This characteristic is very similar to business firm. Drama played in business firm is also similar to that of "Han", feudal organization having local lord at the top. But Soccer has a kind of distributed organization. Corporation of individual is more important. Very English isn't it. Learning Soccer will help Japanese the importance of non centrally controlled society. In this respect, Korea is running before us. This fact tells us that why economy in Japan is slumped and why Koreans are successful in these days.

Most of the mail I received from you since January 1st 1999 were pasted to MS Word and filed in the same folder. The total volume reached 3.8Mb. It is a kind of record reflecting the world history of the last 3 and half years. Last night, I started thinking to publish entire volume to my "What's Cool" volume of my website. I believe it will enhance the value of my HP. Could you kindly give me a permission to publish. Some section which belong to privacy category and some cited section which is protected by copyright could be eliminated. After editing, I will ask you to review before uploading.

Best Regard,

Greenwood

2002/7/3 9:31

STILL GOT MONEY ON WALL STREET?

REMAINING U.S. CEOs MAKE A BREAK FOR IT

"YOU'LL NEVER AUDIT ME ALIVE!"

Ron

2002/7/4 7:20

Re: Instant Soccer Fan

Dear Greenwood,

At first I was amazed to hear we have almost 4 MB of correspondence. Then I realized that, perhaps, much of it is in pictures (I think the Greek pictures alone were over 1 MB).

However, you are most welcome to publish what seems relevant to you. The idea of editing such a mass of letters is daunting! Will you be trying to sort or classify them at all? Perhaps just chronologically? My son Bill expressed interest in your site - I hope it's OK to give him the URL?

I also found out yesterday that another retired friend visited Cheltenham in the Cotswolds last week. He probably didn't overlap your stay, but the coincidence is weird. To add to the coincidence, on Monday our local Public Broadcasting TV Station started to show an English detective story based in - guess where? The Cotswolds. It's filmed partly in Bourton-on-the-Water which you listed on your itinerary!

Like the US, Britain has big financial problems with railways. Apparently they need an emergency 20 billion Pounds! I think all countries have to subsidize the railways if they intend to keep passenger rail travel alive.

Every now and then a group of speculators tries to sell the idea of a high speed rail connection between Northern and Southern CA. Fluor was even involved in one of these years ago. Like all the others it eventually died when everybody decided it was just another trick to transfer money from the taxpayers to the speculator's accounts. Theoretically, I think it's a good idea; if it is well-used it certainly would save energy and green house gases and I like traveling by train. However, I wonder if any substantial number of Californians would use it. It's almost impossible to get us out of our cars, so it probably would become just another waste of money.

South Korea certainly seems to be "on a roll". I feel a special interest there because of my membership in Amnesty International. We adopted now-President Kim Dae Jung as a prisoner of conscience many years ago when the country was under the repressive, quasi-military dictatorship of years ago. There was world-wide relief when he was finally released. My respect for him has only increased since he became President. I wish the North Koreans had been more responsive to his peace offerings - I think he would had had more influence if they had. Still, I think he definitely has had a good influence in the country and at least some success in reforming the economy and reining in the Chaebols (spelling?). It's ironic to me that GM is buying Daewoo - GM is not awfully good at running their domestic company in the US - although the big problems these days are at Ford.

Of course, in evaluating the progress there, one must also take into account their still partly undeveloped economy. It's much easier to grow a less advanced economy than one in the first rank such as Japan, W. Europe or the US. I'd be very interested in your views of the reorganization of their economy.

Best Regards

Ron

2002/7/5 22:49

Globalization and it's Discontent

Dear Ron,

Thank you for agreeing to my idea of publishing our letters. My idea of editing it is in chronological order, because it is a history. It may take some time but when I finish it, I may mail it to you or store it in undisclosed server space and tell you address of it.

Telling URL of my HP to your son is most welcome.

We missed Cheltenham because it is a bit remote from our route. Many tourists crowded Bourton-on-the-Water. Other places were quiet. Because of competition with motor way, a railways company has difficulty. Japan Rail had to close countywide line. Most of them were replace by buses.

I found still many rail in countryside is running in UK.

No one imagined before that Kim Dae Jung might be erected as President of Korea. Japanese Government could do nothing when he was hijacked from a hotel in Tokyo by quasi-military dictatorship government at that time.

Despite the fact that smaller organization is easier to manage, still most management prefers to make it bigger, because they would like to eliminate potential competitor. I think it is not a wise decision. History tell us decline of any huge organization.

I had just started reading a book, "Globalization and it's Discontent" by Joseph E. Stinglitz, a novel prize economist. He is insisting that IMF is responsible for bad economy of all developing countries. Korea is not an exception. It is very interesting to hear from him.

At last, I finished editing notes of our trip to UK. However I have to compromise not translating them all, because my notes are too precise. Instead, I called them Albums.

Most of the photos are taken my wife because I was busy in Taking video. To my regret, inadvertent lower exposure setting of digital camera, all photos were relatively dark. I had to readjust brightness and contrast by software. It was a very tedious work. Still I feel adjusted photo is not reflecting actual color, because, probably, I missed to adjust gamma value. I am tired and do not have energy to do it again. Probably within a week, our rainy season will be over. I would like to come back to my boat, which I missed last summer in helping conference.

Best Regards,

Greenwood

2002/7/11 21:52

Draft of email99.htm

Dear Ron,

First draft of our correspondence in 1999 was complete. Please review:   Size of one year volume was almost 300kb.

Regards,

Greenwood

2002/7/12 8:29

Re: Draft of email99.htm

Dear Greenwood,

300 KB! Wow!, how we corresponded. My unedited download into Word was almost 90 pages.

Overall, I found re-reading our letters to be fascinating. Many of our discussions, such as the US "Bubble" seem very accurate now. I think they might well be interesting to others and think it's a good idea to put them into your site - thank you.

Best regards,

Ron

2002/7/27 11:34
A MESSAGE
Found above a hot air drier in a rest room.
"For a message from your Congressman, push button."

2002/7/30 3:41
A BETTER INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY
Worried about your investments? Will the Stock market recover? Is Real Estate appreciation a Bubble?

Read on about a much better investment.

While you may be familiar with stocks and bonds, currency speculation, IPOs and all the rest: there's a new investment arena you should be aware of ·legislation. If a mutual fund returns 20% a year that's considered quite good, but in the low risk, high-return world of legislation, a 20% return is positively lousy. There's no reason why your investment dollar can't return 100,000% or more.

Too good to be true? Don't worry, it's completely legal. With the help of a professional legislation broker (called a Lobbyist), you place your investment
(called a Campaign Contribution) with a carefully selected list of legislation manufacturers (called Members of Congress). These manufacturers then go to work, crafting industry-specific subsidies, inserting tax breaks into the code, extending patents or giving away public property for free.

Just check out these results. The Timber Industry spent $8 million in campaign contributions to preserve the logging road subsidy worth $458 million -- the return on their investment was 5,725%. Glaxo Welcome invested $1.2 million in campaign contributions to get a 19 month patent extension on Zantac worth $1 billion -- their net return: 83,333% The Tobacco Industry spent $30 million in contributions for a tax break worth $50 billion -- the return on their investment: 167,000%. For a paltry $5 million in campaign contributions, the Broadcasting Industry was able to secure free digital TV licenses, a giveaway of public property worth $70 billion -- that's an incredible 1,400,000% return on their investment.

Courtesy of Kevin Phillips, WEALTH AND DEMOCRACY, quoting <billionairesforgoreorbush.com>

2002/8/2 6:08

Re: Globalization and it's Discontent

Dear Greenwood,

As you, no doubt, have been hearing, there is a great deal of debate in the US about just about every political / economic issue. Internal matters and terrorism- related topics dominate, but Globalization is part of the debate too. Our stock market is going through tremendous instability, today the Dow was down almost 3% again. Political debate is finally starting again (for almost a year since 911 the Democrats have been afraid to criticize Bush and the Republicans). However, this is an election year for the House of Representatives and 1/3 of the Senate, so the electioneering is starting.

Most ominously for Bush, et al, the economic recovery seems to be stalling. Yesterday they re-estimated the economic statistics for the last 18 months. It now seems there were three down quarters last year and this year's first two quarters were not nearly as good as first thought. In addition, there are continuing scandals and investigations of corporate crimes. I think the Democrats "smell blood", thinking that the Republicans are in trouble with the electorate. Most of the people I know are very angry with the corporate world; many of them blame Bush and the Republican Party (mostly the Democrats of course).

I haven't read the book you mention, but will look for it. It's easy to blame the IMF and World Bank - they have made many mistakes, but I'm not sure what the answer is. A big part of the problem in the developing world is caused by various protections erected by developed countries to protect constituencies in their countries.

A cynical and devastating example is the recent huge increase in agricultural subsidies here. That will wipe out agriculture in many developing countries and probably lead to retaliation by other developed countries so agricultural surpluses continue to pile up. Much has been made of the excessive influence of farmers in France, the ECU or Japan, but the US is one of the worst countries. A state with 500,000 people has the same number of Senators (2) as a state with 20 or 30 millions - e.g. 40 to 60 times the representation! As these states lose population their representation gets better and better! Talk about Britain's "Rotten Boroughs" in the 19th century.

Another part I have no solution for is the political context in the dev. countries. What should the IMF do with a country like Argentina where they continue to spend money they don't take in in taxes by borrowing from the IMF? How long can that continue?

Talking about crooked politicians - I've just finished a book by Kevin Phillips, a Republican strategist and author, called Wealth and Democracy. A better source of data about US "Crony Capitalism" would be hard to find. He sketches the many cycles between "robber barons" and Reform in this country, starting with the American Revolution through to this year. An (often technological) boom makes a number of fortunes for those who buy influence in Government. Incomes become progressively more unequal until resentment boils over and a cycle of reform follows - as in the 30's. Not only are fortunes made, but each succeeding cycle sees the size of the fortunes increase tremendously. There have never been people as rich as Bill Gates, et al today.

He also draws many disturbing parallels between the US today and previous dominant countries in previous centuries - Spain, Holland, Britain. They had the same cycles of boom and bust and all ended up dissipating what made them dominant by concentrating on finance and wealth at the cost of the countries as a whole.

The book is largely concentrated on the US and quite rambling, disorganized and long ---- (> 400 pages). However, it has a great collection of pertinent statistics. You might want to get it as a reference work.

I understand your fatigue with photo editing. I'm afraid I've been doing much less of that sort of thing. Many photo finishing stores here are now accepting computer files from your digital camera and will make prints - just as you can process a film. This seems like a good idea. You can select which "negatives" to print and have them do the labor. The price is at least competitive with buying photo paper and ink for your printer. Reviews say that quality is good and getting better.

I'm still watching digital cameras, hoping that the price for a 2 M. Pixel, 3:1 optical zoom camera will decline to $200. At present rates, that should be early next year (perhaps in the after-Christmas sales).

Best regards,

Ron

2002/8/4 9:12
Dear Ron,
I got following from my friend.
Greenwood
English Joke Serial No.102

2002/8/27 15:39

US Economy

Dear Ron,

It took some time to respond to your last mail dated August 2nd because I was busy with climbing rather difficult mountain in Japan Alps, painting bottom of my boat with antifoul paint, editing old record of mountain climbing, etc.

World economy is tied each other more than we think. Problem with US economy certainly affects Japan too. But we have no wright to vote in US political arena. Reversal is also true to US citizens.

It is said that stock option in US caused corporate crimes. Today I found in Japanese paper that George Soros’s opinion on IMF’s recent policy on Brazil’s economic crisis is the same as old policy of IMF. It seems that IMF’s policy didn’t change regardless what Stinglitz says. The policy is based on so called Washington Consensus. He says that Brazil may go into more trouble soon. It may comeback to world economy and US badly.

Washington Consensus is designed to protect Wall Street only and not US and global citizens.

I am afraid that after US agricultural subsidies destroyed world agricultural production system, and if something wrong happen, worldwide starvation may spread. Central European flood may be a warning to global warming and subsequent agricultural disaster.

We certainly have Crony Capitalism in Japan. Due to US pressure on our government our agricultural subsidies declined but Infrastructure development is now scandals in Japan. Several politicians are in trials. It was revealed that most of the newly constructed toll roads are loosing money. Soon our government has to stop construction of new toll roads.

I know that we also have some photo finishing stores are now accepting computer files. I found the quality is far superior to inkjet printer. But I am satisfied to view in screen only.

Once Chinese start making digital camera, 2 M. Pixel, 3:1 optical zoom camera will decline to $200. Considering their huge population, China may be a center of manufacturing very soon. Most of Japanese production site moved to China. Even Toyoda started constructing production line in China. Major Chemical companies are constructing petrochemical complex in China to supply material. Japanese Chemical companies may find difficult to sell their products to China very soon. Japanese business has to shift to more service oriented business. I anticipate that very soon, Chinese people start buying their own family car and world oil price may rise. Regardless what Mr. Bush says about global warming, US people has to cut back using fuel because of economic reasons. Mr. Campbell’s prediction may come to true.

Best Regards,

Greenwood

2002/8/31 8:54

Re: US Economy

Dear Greenwood,

Once again I'm amazed at your high level of activity. I didn't realize how long you have been climbing mountains. The pictures in your home page are truly spectacular. Some of the mountains seem to be very difficult - especially Okuhodaka-dake. The view from the summit makes the hut look to be vertically below. No wonder you have had to spend so much time on the page, especially if the photos needed editing.

I understand, also, the demands your boat puts on you. In recently had to work on the Datsun's fuel system. Two days ago it wouldn't start (it had been several weeks since I had driven it). Being a simple, old car I felt up to diagnosing the problem - either lack of spark or lack of fuel. I disconnected one spark plug and put it's High Voltage wire near the cylinder head. Cranking the engine produced a good spark - one fault crossed off. Next, I took apart the fuel hose near the carburetor - bone dry! Cranking the engine with the hose disconnected made no difference, so fuel was definitely the problem. Either the fuel pump - difficult to fix - or a plugged line from the fuel tank.

The normal way to open up the fuel line is to blow compressed air from the filter inlet upstream to the tank. But I have no air compressor - what to do? At about 5 AM the next morning, while I was half asleep, I remembered that years ago I'd bought a special hose with female valve fittings at both ends to allow you to connect a flat tire to a full one in an emergency (you can drive the car slowly with only 50% tire pressure). Eureka! Later I hooked up the hose between the fuel line and the front tire. Connie listened at the fuel tank and heard strong bubbling - great relief!

I carefully primed the fuel pump with gasoline and hooked everything up. With my fingers crossed I turned on the starter - Hooray! It fired right up and has been running well ever since. I reflected that, if I had the same problem with either of my modern cars, I would have no idea what to do. There is something to be said about driving an obsolete car.

I've not been too physically active. Instead I've been catching up on reading matter. I've just ordered the book you read - "Globalization and it's Discontent" together with another I've been meaning to get "The Mystery of Capital - Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West but Fails Everywhere Else" by Hernando de Soto. (Amazon now allows free shipping here if you can wait a few days - their price was much lower than conventional book shops I tried).

A book I've spent much time with is "Wealth and Democracy" by Kevin Phillips. He's a Republican theorist and strategist - was very close to Richard Nixon in the 70's. In recent years, as the Republicans have moved steadily to the right he has drifted away from them (he'd say they have left him). Like me, he's very disturbed by the increasing gap between the rich and poor in this country.

A large part of the book is presenting statistics demonstrating how large this gap has become. For example the % of the national wealth held by the top 1% of households has more than doubled since 1976 to over 40%. It's almost up the the 1929 figure of 44%. Another interesting comparison is between different countries in the ratio of earnings between the top and bottom 20% of the population. In 1996 the US ratio was 11:1, Germany was 5.8:1 and Japan only 4.3:1. I'm sure that the US ratio has widened greatly since 1996.

What makes his book so interesting is that he puts this into a historical context. He compares the United States now with previous World Dominating powers - Spain, Holland and Britain. Polarization of income was only one of the similarities between them as they approached their historical peaks - Spain in the 1600's, Holland in the 1700's and Britain around 1900. While their circumstances were not identical, the number of parallels to the present day US is striking and disturbing.

The book is much too long (almost 500 pp) and badly needs editing and organizing. However, I found it worth ploughing through. It would be difficult to read in a foreign language, but if it is translated you might want to consider it, if only for the massive number of US Statistics.

Economic news here is still very mixed. GNP increased only at a 1.1% rate in the 2nd 1/4 and unemployment seems to be rising again. More and more people are expecting a second downturn. Greenspan is expected to lower the Federal Reserve interest rate next month, but his ammunition is running low - it's now 1.75%. Our Federal deficit is ballooning enormously and George Bush is planning to go to war with Iraq!

I'm hearing many disturbing things from China. They have an enormous problem with their obsolete State Owned Enterprises and unemployment as they try to close them down. When the WTO agreement takes effect they will be exposed to a great deal of competition. Popular discontent is rising rapidly and looks more and more like that in Eastern Europe 10 - 15 years ago. Finally, they are about to change leaders. On paper they look like formidable competitors, but I wonder how well they will do as these internal stresses undermine their economy.

It seems that almost every economy in the World is increasingly shaky. Some people think we may be about to repeat the 1930's. That's a bit premature, but you cannot completely rule it out.

Talking of texts which are too long, I suppose I should include this letter (I need an editor!).

Best Regards,

Ron

2002/9/1 22:14

Datsun

Dear Ron,

Your struggle with Datsun's fuel system reminded me Renault’s fuel system some 30 years ago. It was an old car, and I knew the trouble with fuel pump. But instead of changing it with a new pump, I continued using faulty pump by priming after it sucking air. But one day, the bolt of the pump was broken and I was stuck in a remote place in the valley. Next day, I revisited the place with a new pump in my hand and returned home with reborn car. I also remembered fixing oil leakage in overhead camshaft of the engine with a string for cooking roast beef while climbing Mt. Hakone for date with a girl friend. As you said, at that time, every thing was simple.

Amazon declined to sell me Campbell’s book on future oil production decline, because it is now out of stock.

In addition to outdoor activity, like you, I like reading various books too. Most of them are Japanese books including translated ones. My library list counts now 523 books after I started making such list in the past 6 years. Recently, I started reading fictions. Problem for me was I couldn’t stop reading once started.

Capitalism certainly stimulates activity of the people but it also increase gap between the rich and poor. I understand only politics can fill the gap.

"Wealth and Democracy" by Kevin Phillips is already translated into Japanese. Low ratio of earnings between the top and bottom 20% of the population like Japan was a political target of Japanese government in the last 50 years, but it also means lower activity of the people and bad economical status.

It seems that there is no simple answer for fairness and peoples willingness.

Best Regards,

Greenwood

2002/9/9 3:25
UPDATED WORKPLACE DIRECTORY
Time to get away from all that 90's stuff. (I'll excuse the SEAGULL).
Ron
(English Joke Serial No.103)

2002/9/9 12:13
Re: UPDATED WORKPLACE DIRECTORY
I remenber BLAMESTORMING, ASSMOSIS and ADMINISPHERE bitterly.
Greenwood

Monday, September 09, 2002 3:23 AM
UPDATED WORKPLACE DIRECTORY
Time to get away from all that 90's stuff. (I'll excuse the SEAGULL).
Ron
NEW WORDS FOR 2002 - Essential additions for the workplace vocabulary:
(English Joke Serial No.103)

2002/9/23 5:47

INCOME DISTRIBUTION

Dear Greenwood,

I've just received "Globalization and its Discontents". It looks very interesting - no doubt it will fill quite a bit of my time this week.

It is time for many disparate subjects to be systematically investigated. More and more it seems that the US is out of step with just about every other industrialized country. From the Environment and Global Warming, to Foreign Policy and respect for International Law, to Degree of Government Regulation, Health Care and Laissez-Faire Economics, we seem to occupy a lonely minority position.

Those of us here who feel more like the rest of the world are increasingly isolated as the relentless preparation for war in Iraq grinds on. It seems that the Bush family honor is at stake and nothing will be allowed to prevent us taking revenge on Saddam Hussein. Meantime, the opposition Democratic Party is paralyzed by Bush's very high popularity ratings into saying virtually nothing about the subject. A German government minister made an uproar here by comparing Bush's strategy with that of Hitler. I think the parallel is close!

On the topic of income inequality, I am not convinced that it is necessary for rapid economic growth. While the Japanese economy has certainly been bogged down since the late 80's there are many factors apart from the low level of inequality. After all it grew very rapidly for 40 years before that. Similarly, while the European economies have many problems, the European standards of living are as high as the US while they also have low inequality.

I believe a high level of integrity / low level of corruption is very important for an efficient economy. As the revelations of Corporate Corruption keep pouring out here we are beginning to understand that we also have a corruption problem. I fear that the examples we have set for our selves are undermining the basic honesty of the country. It is hard to think of ANY institution to which we can look up - there have been scandals from the Presidency to the local politicians, from the Olympic Games to Baseball, from the Catholic Church here to the Religious Fundamentalists. Now Business is equally suspect. It will be interesting to see if there is a rise of petty theft in corporations. Why respect the company when you think the CEO is looting it?

This feeling is having a powerfully corrosive effect on Wall Street and the economy. Many experts are predicting a second round of recession and the Stock Market is very near to setting new lows. Next week the Feds will consider interest rates again. Oddly, sentiment is so fragile that it might well be taken as a sign of panic it they lower rates again. I'm afraid the odds of our following Japan into a deflationary spiral are not negligible. Paul Krugman hasn't quite addressed the subject yet, but came close in his 20 Sept. column.

What a gloomy letter! But I do have one bit of good news. My eldest son is buying a house a couple of miles from ours. We are very happy for them. I think it contributes to a long and stable marriage. These days in the US there are not too many of those, but I have great faith in the two of them.

I've helped them a bit with the down payment. The money came out of my account on Thursday and Friday the market was up after falling 3% on Thursday. As a contrarian indicator, and with my luck, cashing in my funds may well mark the very bottom of the market. Murphy is still in charge!

With best regards,

Ron

2002/9/23 13:17

Re: INCOME DISTRIBUTION

Dear Ron,

I share views expressed in your mail. I am happy to know that you are one of an awaken person in US. German government minister is brave in saying that Bush's strategy is in parallel with that of Hitler. Our government is saying more moderately like French. He should think who is going to govern Iraq after Saddam Hussein. No one knows the consequence. It may help to promote more Terrorism. Because terrorism is a children of hatred. But Bush's policy has a good side effect though. North Korean leader decided to corporate with other world to survive. Last week, he confessed and apologized to our Prime Minister Koizumi that his government abducted 11 young Japanese from Japanese waters and used them as language teachers for their spy and terrorist. But regretfully, most of them were already dead. Real reason of their death is not disclosed yet. Most Japanese suspect that they were executed because they tried to contact their family by asking North Korean visitors to carry their secret letter out of North Korea or they know too much.

September 11 also enhanced corporation between US and Russia especially in energy security. Last night, NHK-TV reported that in the last year, crude oil export from Russia exceeded that of Saudi. Former Chevron Texas executive Mr. Richard Mackay is now a board member of LUKOIL (privatized former Soviet state oil company) and helping in the introduction of US money to a big project of shipping Siberian oil from Murmansk. The collaboration may help to delay energy shortage crises and weaken Arab power that is promoting terrorism.

But again Global warming remains! Nuclear may be the most competitive solution on Global warming but, it was revealed that Tokyo Electric Power ordered GE to rewrite their report pointing the defects in the hearts of the reactor. A whistle blower was a former employee of GE. Then it was found again that similar change of report was asked to Hitachi and Toshiba and followed. All top management of TEPCO resigned. Other two power companies using GE technology also didn't report defects to the authority. Now most of the nuclear power plants are stopped for inspection. Oil and LNG are currently primary energy source to Japan. This again eroded people's confidence on Nuclear power. I think for preventing corruption, a whistle blower is very important. Japanese government is considering having legal system to protect whistle blower from traditional permanent employment system.

Bank of Japan decided to buy stocks held by Japanese Commercial bank to save them from shrinking capital. But BoJ is still refusing to set inflation target for stimulating peoples buying power. As Mr. Koizumi is busy in political relation with N. Korea, he is doing very little on economy.

But regardless bad economical situation here, Tokyo had acheved a dramatic change of skyline. Many skyscrapers were built on the former railway-marshaling yard released by former national rail. In the last Sunday, I visited newly opened building just in front of Tokyo station and enjoyed birds eye view of Tokyo.

I think recent consequence of US bad economy has cleaning effect on many hidden systematic problems. After all problems are sorted out, I believe US economy will come back again. Mr. Bush's leadership is important in this respect. Is he prepared for it?

You are very sweet papa to help your son financially. My wife said that Murphy is always in charge, because our mind always feels like that!

With best regards,

Greenwood

Monday, September 30, 2002 2:12 AM
Fwd: it's perfect, G. Bush
Comment superfluous.
Ron

2002/9/30 13:36
Re: Fwd: it's perfect, G. Bush
Dear Ron,
Thank you for your sending me interesting picture.
Some one said here that US was like Roman Empire in the past. The world enjoyed Pacs Romana over centuries. Now US looks like Mongolian Empire. Only ruin remains after their short stay.
Greenwood

2002/10/3 11:51

STIGLITZ COLUMN

Dear Greenwood,

I've been enjoying Stiglitz's Globalization........ He really makes a good case against the IMF.

Today he had a column in the LA Times about the Bush economic policy - Bankrupt he called it. Again he made a devastating case. Is there no limit to the damage this administration is doing?

He writes very much in the style of your favorite economist - perhaps you can enroll another good man on your site.

In case it's not available by now (or over there) here is the text.

Ron

White House Economic Policies Are Bankrupt By JOSEPH E. STIGLITZ

2002/10/5 7:26
FERRARI HIRING AGAIN?
There may be another vacancy.
Ron
(English Joke Serial No.104)

2002/10/12 11:30

Re: INCOME DISTRIBUTION

Dear Greenwood,

Bill and Sally moved into their house this week! Connie and I have been helping. The work continues this weekend. I hope for photos soon and will send asap. By CA standards the house is very small - about 100 sq. m. However, that's all they were able to afford in the inflated Real Estate market here in S. Calif. As always in a new house, they have many, many things to do. Tonight they are going to try to prioritize their list. I'll probably go there tomorrow to help with plumbing, stove, etc.

Now that George Bush has got his endorsement from Congress we'll see what he does with it. I hope this is all part of a strategy to induce France and Russia to permit a reasonable proposal for inspections in Iraq to be approved by the security council. As you pointed out, Bush's blustering has had some effect on opponents - they do not know for sure if he is bluffing or not.

The administration speaks in so many confusing and contradictory ways that one wonders if they really have a strategy. An interesting aspect of the US political scene is that the overwhelming majority of the population does not want to invade Iraq without the UN and without allies. I hope GB takes this to heart.

The developments in North Korea are quite encouraging. They seem to be very sensitive to what they perceive as slights and are probably unable to understand the antics of George Bush's government. It may well be that the contacts with Japan may be very helpful in getting them to take a reasonable view of the world.

The question of oil is always central to most strategic and economic analyses. It's possible that there will be a big new supply from Russia, but I think it would be unlikely to compare with reserves in the Middle East. One theory has an easy explanation of GB's policies - that of the oil man's instincts. He is just trying to keep effective control of Middle Eastern Oil. I think he will be striking a deal with Russia over access to Iraqi oil and commercial arrangements which guarantee Russia a great deal of influence there. In this scenario most of the haggling in the security council is actually about oil. I regard this theory as interesting, but not yet proven.

Your report on the Nuclear Power station scandals is yet another one to add to many in all parts of the world. Recently I also heard of an Ohio plant in the US where neglect of a boron-containing water stream which was flowing over a reactor head corroded a massive hole through the head. It was stopped only by the stainless steel cladding on the inside. This took years and the company knew about it, but did nothing. Apparently management and maintenance in the plant have a very bad relationship. The company spokesman said: "......that preventive maintenance wasslow and not fully effective because managers did not pay enough attention to the workers' needs; and that the workers were embittered". They said they are "working" on their "culture" in the plant (whatever that means).

I'm glad to hear that your government is thinking of a whistle blower bill. That will be a good test of Mr. Koizumi, since I'm sure many influential people will fight it "Tooth and Nail" as we say.

I've been enjoying your web site and have many things to discuss, but this letter is getting long. I hope to get the rest of my thoughts together this weekend.

Best regards,

Ron

2002/10/14 8:58

RECYCLING AND ENVIRONMENTAL ITEMS

Dear Greenwood,

Your visit to Prof. Suzuki and the many other recycling details on your site are most interesting. Recycling is increasingly a practice here, especially in CA.

As a member of the board of directors of our local Vector Control District (Mosquitos and the like), I visited our local sewage treatment plant (Hyperion). (The plant is a potential source of Mosquitos, but we work with them to keep them under control). This is one of the country's largest, treats almost all the waste from 4 Million people in LA (about 1.4 million cu.m. per day) and also is very up to date. (For many years LA dumped half-treated sewage into the Pacific. They were sued by the Federal Govt. and had to "clean up" their act).

Among other treatment units they have a very large number of huge sludge digesters. These produce large amounts of Methane, which is shipped next door to the adjacent Scattergood power station belonging to the LA Dept of Water and Power. In exchange, they are sold steam cheaply. The remaining sludge, after treatment and centrifuging is used by farmers for land improvement. Sometimes non-productive land is brought up to usable condition by this conditioning. Some of this seems to be close to what Prof. S is doing.

Our city, along with all CA cities, has to reduce its use of landfill sharply. The other day they delivered to each house 3, large garbage containers (200 litres, each - much too big for us). We are asked to separate our waste into recyclables (paper, plastic, cans), green waste (garden trimmings) and remaining trash (I guess for landfill). This is happening all over the state as a result of laws passed in the State Government.

In other news, the city of Los Angeles has just publicized some fuel cell cars from Mercedes-Benz and Honda which it has just obtained as a pilot project for H2 fueled vehicles. (I'll be a good sport and won't tell them about the CO2 generated in the reformers by the generation of H2 from petroleum or N. Gas).

In your site I was intrigued by the emphasis on drying kitchen waste. It seems to be a large consumer of electric power, or gas. I am not sure what advantage would offset the cost and global warming from this energy use.

In another small item, my friend who used to build Nissan-based racing cars, is now involved in engines for very small, pilotless aircraft. The company he's working with has already had one successfully cross the Atlantic. The idea is that they can be used to substitute for man-carrying planes as observers. This is both a military and a commercial market. For example, Tuna fishermen employ observer aircraft at great expense looking over whole oceans for schools of Tuna. A fleet of pilot less 'planes could do a far better job (wider area, more detail) at far lower cost.

At the moment, their 'plane has a German model aircraft engine, a little less than 1 KW. It is very economical and small, but has poor fuel economy because it is a 2-cycle engine. The company has built a very advanced 4-cycle engine which my friend is testing. I think they are not thinking very clearly, because of the extreme expense of this hand-built engine. Can you believe they are using a Sleeve Valve design? I cannot think of a less economical solution. Also, in a small engine the leakage is terrible.

My friend and I are much more impressed by some off the shelf engines. Best to date is a Honda engine from a Weed Whacker. The whole thing costs only $250 (e.g. Throw away the rest of the Whacker). It is about 1 KW and is 4-cycle, so should have much better fuel economy than the 2-cycle engine. Best of all, Honda is promising a better version with about 30% more power. We feel that this would be a far better place to start. With a few "racing" engine modifications it should have bags of power and could be tuned for extreme reliability and fuel efficiency, since it operates essentially at only one speed.

Now we are told the Military don't want to use Gasoline. Only Diesel Fuel or Jet Fuel are used for military vehicles these days, apparently. He may get into some very strange investigations to solve that problem. There seem few of these roadblocks on the commercial side; it'll be interesting to see if a whole new industry develops here.

Thanks you for Bush Aerobics. We enjoyed it immensely. It seems he is very much in the news everywhere.

Best Regards,

Ron

2002/10/15 14:36

Re: RECYCLING AND ENVIRONMENTAL ITEMS

Dear Ron,

Editing our mail was very tedious work like archeology. Matching fragments and erasing unnecessary tags. It took almost a day for editing a year volume.

Now I can come back to your 12^th and 14^th mail.
100 sq. m house may be small by CA standards. But it is big in Tokyo standards. We lived in 66 sq. m house when we were married (with 2 children), and now in 120 sq. m (only two of us).

French tanker and Bali club were attached by terrorists. Many Australian tourists died. As Japanese navy tanker is fuelling UA navy fleet in Indian Sea, I am afraid that Japanese tanker may be also on their target list.

Russia may find difficult to refuse Bush’s proposal of 50% of Iraq oil be under Russian influence. Afghan is melting down. Who is going to keep order there? Is Iraq next Afghan?

A famous economist compared Mr. Koizumi vs. President Hoover and Finance minister Takenaka vs. Melon, a finance minister for President Hoover, accusing that Mr. Koizumi is still refusing government spending.

Your Hyperion plant seems doing what should be done. Some part of Tokyo is still using old single swage line for both rain water and toilet flush water. When heavy rain hit Tokyo, a part of swage water has to bypass treating plant and flows direct into Tokyo Bay. In June and July the color of seawater in Tokyo Bay change to brown. Mr. Koizumi should spend money in improving this situation.

We are also asked to separate our waste into recyclables (paper, metal, cans, glass bin, and battery) green waste (garden trimmings) and others (kitchen garbage and other waste). City of Kamakura recommends us to dry up kitchen garbage to reduce volume and cut bad smell during storage. It is good for reducing number of garbage car running around in narrow street of Kamakura and improves hygiene but consume lots of power and bad for global warming. I stopped using it in summer and making compost in the garden.

Solar panel and motor is far superior to mechanical engine for observer aircraft. It can fly forever. My friend is helping development of electric bike and now in the market

Particulate emission from diesel engine is a big issue here in Japan. Some company is considering hybrid diesel-battery car to lower emission level.

Best regards,

Greenwood

2002/10/20 23:22
Some addition to year 2001
Dear Ron,
I have made a cross checking with all mails remaining in my Dell PC.
I have found some mails from you. Those are mails on May 16 and 26, June 9 and November 15. I think most of them are jokes.
I have added those to final editions. If you have any comments, please let me know.
I will continue cross cheking with my old laptop tomorrow.
Last night, all members of my family enjoyed dinner nand Opera in Tokyo. It was Bizet's "Carmen". Now Hungarian State Opera, Budapest is visiting
Japan. Greek Mezzo Soprano Agnes Baltsa played the role of Carmen. She is a bit old but said one of the best Carmen singer in the world now.
As we are living separately, it was a nice family reunion.
Regards,
Greenwood

2002/10/23 7:49
Re: Some addition to year 2001

That must have been a great performance, Greenwood. Miss Baltsa made a very famous recording with Herbert von Karajan years ago, which is still many people's
favorite. I'm sure it added to a great evening with your family.

We've just received our tickets to this year's Los Angeles Philharmonic Concerts. Our (fairly new) conductor Esa Pekka Salonen has been making a name for himself and we feel lucky to have him as principal conductor of our orchestra. This is our last season in our present concert hall.

Next year they will move to the new concert hall sponsored and named for Walt Disney. The design is by Frank Gehry and quite startling with wildly curving, non-vertical walls - somewhat like some other buildings he's done in the last few years. It's in the middle of construction at the moment. The hall is actually
quite a bit smaller than the present hall. They are claiming it will have great acoustics, but I'll wait and judge for myself next year. New halls are always a big gamble acoustically. I feel the modern architects know far less about acoustics than architects centuries ago.

The hotel you stayed at in LA when you visited my home is quite close to the music center, so you can see it's quite convenient to our house.

Bill and Sally have been settling in to their new house. Tonight a friend of Bill's, who knows something about telephone lines, is to visit to find out why only
one of three extensions works. I'll be there too, since I've already tried to fix it to no avail. Modern 'phones are not quite as simple as they used to be.

My big house work lately is to weather-proof the house for the coming rainy season. Mostly a matter of repairing paint on the roof eaves to keep termites out. I'm also trying to improve the efficiency of our furnace beyond where I got last year. So far this has been a cold year, with few hot days, even in midsummer. Our furnace hours are already running ahead of last year, so efficiency is all the more important.

I have no comments on your updatings so far. I'll recheck 2002 after you complete your changes/additions.

Best regards,

Ron

2002/10/24/ 19:20
Re: Some addition to year 2001
Dear Ron,
Yesterday, after sending a brief reply to you, accompanying my wife, I visited forest in the back yard of my house. I didn't enter there almost
6months, because of lacquer poisoning. There are too many lacquer trees. The purpose of the visit was to finalize my research on the status of fallen
trees. I have to finish it within this year.
Due to our activity, developer of the land agreed to sell it to the City of Kamakura for reservation of nature. I have seen Carmen in TV often, but enjoying live Carmen was my first experience. Every thing was very clear to me. I found the quality of TV is not sufficient
You have a far better access to your LA city center than I have. The music hall I visited in Tokyo is almost 2 hours from my house. I think smaller hall is better for opera.
Take care yourself while repainting your roof eaves. Many old gentlemen dropped from ladder while repairing their houses.
Recently, while reading a book about Norm Chomsky's Theory of Generative Grammer, I encountered a word "Platon's problem" or poverty of stimulus. I
opened Yahoo! Japan and typed in a key word "Platon's problem" in Japanese.
To my surprise, I found an answer there. It was my HP. Long time ago I collected "Platon's problem" in the list of Paradoxes and forgotten. Then I checked various other word and found out that my HP were cited every where. Actually I collected almost 1000 words which are interesting for me. After
this, I felt a bit nervous and started checking correctness of my HP. It took a whole day today. I have made corrections in various places. My conclusion from this experience is that although there are many commercial cites, academic web world in Japanese is still very poor. I am still one of front runners.
Best Regards,
Greenwood

2002/10/25 20:44
Re: Some addition to year 2001
Dear Ron,
Regarding conservation of energy, double sashes are effective. In addition, I am using out door lights equipped with automatic lighting device and
spotlights with infrared sensor. Those lights only emit light in night times or when movements were detected. It increases home security and contributes
conservation of energy.
Disadvantage is increased maintenance activity. I translated some of the Japanese page regarding the subjects into English.
Japan Oil started buying Russian oil too. Sources are same as the oil to US. It was shipped through Black Sea in a small tanker and gathered in a big
tanker in Mediterranean and travel via Cape of Horn. It is a long way. Still current oil price allows such scheme.
Many things happening in the world i.e., Washington, Moscow etc. As I have time, I am carefully watching them.
Best Regards,
Greenwood

2002/10/26/ 7:47

2001 FINAL COMMENTS AND HOUSE HEATING

Dear Greenwood,

I've looked at your revised year 2001 and have no specific comments on the new files.

I understand your editing fatigue. In my Word file it's now almost 300 KB. However, if you have the energy I have a couple of suggestions which would make it easier for the reader.

I'm afraid I have the habit of writing about the Subject of the email without saying what it is. For example, in 2/08 I talk about Guns Germs and Steel without naming it because that was the subject of the email. Perhaps only for future years you could add in the subject, if only where the letter would be clearer if it included the subject.

Some of our letters, where there has been a letter problem or omission, could be omitted.

That completes my comments on 2001 (& 2000, of course). I'll next turn to 2002.

On the energy front, it seems the efficient market theory is correct as far as home technology is concerned. The infrared lights you mention are also very popular here. I also like to use them inside our house, because we are bad about leaving lights on when we leave a room. Another convenience is at bedtime. When I've been in one room I can leave a light on so that I can see my way into the next room and don't have to stumble about in the dark. I'd guess I have about half a dozen lights total (inside + outside).

I'm not sure of the exact technology - some people call them radar lights. One I had in the kitchen years ago would react to a door being opened quickly in a
different part of the house - not within line-of-sight. (If the door was opened slowly, nothing happened). All I can think of was that it was reacting to the
movement of air. That one has been replaced and the new one doesn't do it. However, mine do not react to you entering their space if you move slowly - which makes me tend toward the radar theory.

Mine have been very reliable - One is over 20 years old. Maintenance is just the occasional bulb replacement.

Commentators here are just beginning to discuss the Oil theory of the attack on Iraq. I believe many people in Europe think that is behind Bush's strategy. I still hope that his threats are merely a tactical move to get the French and Russians to toughen up the terms of the inspectors' work.

In the meantime I'm also dismayed by some of the petty spitefulness of our administration. Today, I was talking to one of my engineering colleagues at Fluor
(also about to retire). He happens to be from Germany, but has been a US citizen for a long time. He told me that, since the German Chancellor, Schroeder, criticized the US policy, German generals in Afghanistan are being frozen out of the allied activities there - not invited to discussions, etc. What a "small" thing for a great power to be doing!

Now that debate has shifted to the whole Security Council we'll see how things stand. Like you, I'm just watching carefully.

Best regards, good luck with the editing.

Ron

2002/10/26 13:44
Re: 2001 FINAL COMMENTS AND HOUSE HEATING
Dear Ron,
Thank you for your review. I will add subject and delete unnecessary mails. It may take some time.
A woman oil buyer, Ms. Kayo Fujiwara, who is 40, made a decision of Russian oil import. She purchases about a quarter of total oil import to Japan. She has grown up in Bulgaria and worked in a chemical company in Australia and now working for Japan Oil. A person who has an international carrier can make a quick decision than other men who spend most of their time in Japan.
Our society is in a state like a so-called "Nash equilibrium" of a "Game Theory". "Nash equilibrium" defines that even if there is a problem, no one
will make a decision to change unless other people make it.
Mr. Koizumi recently nominated Mr. Takenaka, a former Professor of economics in Keio University as a Financial Minister. He recently made up a plan to restructure Japanese Banks. All old politician and bank officers are against his plan. Mr. Koizumi and US government is supporting Mr. Takenaka's plan.
To my regret, BoJ is still negative to announce controlled inflation policy. I also think that concerns on oil supply are behind an attack on Iraq. Best proof of this theory is that US have less interest in North Korea. But N. Korea has a stronger military system than Iraq. They recently disclosed that they have nuclear weapons. If military hostility is the prime interest, US should pay more attention on N. Korea than Iraq. But it is not.
Concern on oil supply is not only for US but concerns of all oil consuming nations. Because of this, US government and allies has to close eye on authoritarian   government in Middle East countries i.e. oil producing countries. These governments create radical thinking in their people. It is not religion, which is hostile. It is double standard, which we apply to those countries. An attack on Iraq may remove very hostile leader, but if we continue supporting another authoritarian government, situation never go to permanent solution.
A story about German generals in Afghanistan reminded me our society. America is like us.
Due to Japanese constitution, Japanese government is currently, only supplying oil to US and UK naval vessel in Holms Strait. But if an attack to Iraq starts, as an oil consuming countries, Japanese government has to expand help more. Probably our government will supply oil to other naval
vessels from Europe and send our frigate and submarine finder airplane. Those ammunitions are all made in US and can share battlefield information
through modern communication system. In this sense, Japan is like other oil consuming nations and helping to create more terrorists.
Recently, I have read a very interesting article in new paper. Prof. Anthony Allan in London University defined "virtual water" as a unit of water needed to produce a unit of agricultural products. According to him, "virtual water" for typical products is:

Rice; 5,100l/1kg
Wheat; 3,200 l/1kg
Corn; 2,000 l/1kg
Beans; 3,400 l/1kg
Chicken meat;4,900 l/1kg
Pork; 11,000 l/1kg
Beef; 100,000 l/1kg

It is apparent that oil money is supporting life of people living in desert of middle east county. Based on above figure, Prof. Oki of Global Environment Research Lab in Japan made a calculation on total quantity of virtual water imported to Japan. It was 103.5 billion ton/y. This is about double of domestic agricultural water consumption of 59 billion ton/y. Those virtual water mainly comes from US, Australia, China, Thailand, and Denmark. Japan have surplus water but now wasting it. It is anticipated that shortage of water supply may be next concerns of the world. Probably, next generation have to stop eating Beef.
Best Regards,
Greenwood

2002/10/27 4:13
THE JAPANESE WAY

Bill Gates has lots to learn. I encounter the last one all too often.

Ron

Subject: The Japanese Way (English Joke Serial No.108)

2002/10/28 9:18
IRAQ POLITICS
Dear Greenwood,

As you can guess I've been thinking a lot about our Iraq policy and what may be behind it.

We've discussed a number of theories. The one that seems most plausible to me involves our upcoming national election (Nov. 5). As you may know, the Democrats have only a one seat majority in the US Senate. The Republicans control the House and, of course, form the administration. So we have a very common state of affairs here where the President does not control (all of) the Congress. This is not unexpected, given our unique constitution; you might even say that the founding fathers planned it this way.

The Democrats holding the Senate have prevented the Bush Administration from doing many of the things it would like to do. The same thing, reversed, applied to the last 6 years of the Clinton Administration. A number of the present election campaigns are very tight and could end up in either camp. Thus it is very
precarious. If the Democrats were to capture the House it would not make too much difference, since the government would still be divided. However, if the Republicans capture the Senate there would be a united government and the Administration could pass many measures it has been unable to do so far.

Thus, there is a very strong interest on both sides in the outcome in the Senate. The other day one of the incumbent Democratic Senators was killed in a small plane crash. This means that a seat which was likely to stay in the D. column is now up for grabs. The D's do get to nominate another candidate, but he will be starting from scratch with only a few days before the election. For sure this death makes it easier for the R's to capture the Senate.

My feeling is that this election is the main reason for George Bush threatening Iraq. If he is able to get a tough inspection agreement through the Security Council this week, then he will be very popular here and that may well decide the outcome of the election. If so, brace yourself for an even more "US First" approach to the world. The US approach to Global Warming and any other International concern would be strictly whatever helps US corporate interests (GB's campaign has been almost exclusively funded by big corporations).

Domestically, I'd expect many extremely right-wing policies to pass, especially more tax cuts for the rich and the corporations. Any hope for help to the rest of the population would be gone. Corporate reform, which has become very bogged down would completely die (the laws would be on the books, but no money or effort would be expended to implement them).

The only good thing about this analysis is that I do not believe he really ever intended to invade Iraq without allies. I guess we'll get to prove that feeling if
he is unable to get a resolution out of the security council. This also explains why he is so inconsistent about N. Korea. He doesn't need another foreign enemy to bully right now. The Koreans will only have to worry if the Iraq issue is settled.

I'm sorry to be so cynical, but the behavior of GB and Co. has made me so.

I'm afraid that also gives you a clue to the high water cost of beef. It only matters if you are concerned to have a just and equitable society. If you are only concerned with the well-being of the rich, then there is no problem. The rest of the population can eat corn, GB and his rich friends will enjoy unlimited beef. If this brings on a world recession, that will only reduce the cost of their servants.

Does this sound like King Louis? The rich here are beginning to behave more and more like him.

Let's hope tomorrow is a brighter day.

Sadly,

Ron

2002/10/28/ 15:26
Re: YEAR 2002 JAN - OCT
Dear Ron,
Thank you for your comments. Regarding Ford, I have revised it to Mercedes Benz before your comments. Probably you are checking previous version. I
wonder whether fuel cell driven car become popular because, still technology need Platinum for the cell membrane. Platinum is rare resource. Cost may
rise at their volume expansion.
I am not starting adding subjects to each mail yet.

JAPANESE WAY were well made. They have Haiku's feeling.
Today, I was making data backups in 9 CD-RWs in case, "A crash reduces Your expensive computer To a simple stone."
Your view on IRAQ POLITICS may be true. But for Japanese, I think most of people feel like my view expressed in my October 26 mail. The rich in US are extraordinary. In this sense, our society is better.
History tells us, anyway, that King Louis's family didn't last long.
Good luck,
Greenwood

2002/10/30 11:26
N. KOREA
Dear Greenwood ,

The meetings between Japan and N.Korea are being closely monitored here. Early reports say it is tough going. The latest report suggests that they will want new concessions to abandon their nuclear weapons project, which they had already traded for the new power stations.

I'm amazed they can be so hard-nosed. I remember some negotiations in China with one provincial power generation chief. He was very tough, but never had the nerve to try to trade something twice!

Why does Kim Jong-il think he is in such a strong position? I suspect even the Chinese government will be embarrassed by his negotiating stance. Do you think he could even start a new Sino-American alliance? (Reports here portray the French and Russians far more pro-Iraq than China. Perhaps China and the US already have an understanding).

I'm still betting on a Security Council agreement this week - #43 (the short hand for George Bush, President #43. His father is #41) has a big incentive to compromise with the election coming Tuesday.

Best Regards.

Ron

2002/10/31 19:03
Re: N. KOREA
Dear Ron,
Kim Jong-il is a second-generation dictator after cold war. He inherited 1.2 million military forces and still keeping them. They are supporting him
because they are treated well. But, common people in N. Korea were starved to death due to shortage of food. Centrally controlled agricultural production system failed because the plan was not fitted with local condition. He survived by the humanitarian aides from US, S. Korea and Japan. He badly needs our continued help but still trying to negotiate with us. Probably, US, S. Korea and Japan are responsible for his not learning reality. Japan is going to have harder stance against him hoping his ability to learn.
Few days ago, I saw a navy fleet is carrying out maneuver in Sagami Bay. I was not sure whether it was US's Seventh Fleet or Japanese Navy. But it reminded me Sadam's face. I took several photos and uploaded to my HP.
Best regards,
Greenwood

2002/11/8 11:05
US ELECTIONS
Dear Greenwood,

I assume you've heard our election results. Here are some of the things which have been discussed about them here.

Perhaps the most important are the comments by President Bush in his press conference today. He stressed MANY times that his objective in Iraq is disarm Saddam Hussein. He made no mention of a policy of "Regime Change", although he repeated his willingness to use force if necessary to get the disarmament. I think this emphasis is important since, in the past, his policy has been to get rid of Hussein. Since the election many right wing Republicans have been calling for
invasion of Iraq; it looks as though Bush will stick with the UN resolution path, at least for the present. However, Hussein is now even more vulnerable if GB thinks he is blocking inspections - it will be that much easier to invade Iraq as far as US opinion is concerned.

Comment here gives most of the credit for the big Republican gains to Bush. Second comes the very uninspiring performance of the Democratic Party. They had no coherent policy on either domestic or foreign policy and generally made a very weak effort. Their leader in the House, Dick Gephardt, has already resigned - not in shame, but to pursue the Presidency in 2004! You can regard the results as a confirmation of the US voters' approval of the way GB is handling the war on terrorism. I expect the US hard line on Iraq, Iran and N. Korea to be reinforced. Many Republicans have great contempt for the UN and will be looking forward to an excuse to act WITHOUT UN approval so as to weaken that body.

The Democratic Party will have to really look at it's situation. At the moment it is badly divided between moderates (like Bill Clinton) and the left wing (such as
Teddy Kennedy). This division is the main reason they made so bad a showing in the election - they had very little they could agree-on except being against GeorgeBush. Since Bush is still extremely popular thanks to the "war", this approach was useless.

As I indicated in a previous letter, the Republican takeover of the Senate means that both executive and legislative branches of government are now in the hands of the same party which will make it much easier for them to pass their agenda. Apartfrom the harder line in foreign affairs, the domestic agenda will generally be to reduce government actions and spending on all non-defense items. The main lever will be a new round of tax cuts - especially for corporations, inheritors and investors. This will rapidly increase the US budget deficit and leave not enough money for existing programs, let alone new ones.

The trend will be to get government out of programs and have private companies take them over. For example, to achieve their planned provisions of help for people to afford prescription drugs, Bush will "turn to the private sector". This also applies to schools which continue to be high on most people's priority lists. In the past this sort of thing has mostly just helped corporations increase their profits with very mixed results otherwise.

So, expect GB to be very assertive in all arenas, foreign and domestic. He literally has gained a new stature, with no challengers in sight.

With best regards,

Ron

2002/11/15 19:48
Re: US ELECTIONS
Dear Ron,
The result of US election is well followed here. We are a little bit surprised by US opinion. As you pointed out, poor performance of the Democratic Party may be the reason, but they probably knew public opinion subliminally.
Any way, GB has crossed the Rubicon. Let's see what may happen next. In the last few weeks, I was very busy in analyzing and drafting report on
360 dead trees found in nearby forest. I walked almost 8.6 km in the 50 ha forest. When I completed my report and mailed it to a young doctoral course student in Tokyo University, he started asking me many more additional analyses. Probably it may take several days but only one day is left for me before my presentation scheduled in coming Sunday.
Winter has come very quickly this year. We have made our final bike touring yesterday and I left my boat almost a month unvisited. I added Subjects to our mails exchanged in this year, but others are left untouched yet.
I hope you and your family are well.
Best regards,
Greenwood

2002/11/20 14:27
For Your Enjoyment
Dear Ron,
My daughter mailed me attached AD paper.
Asahi News Paper reported that a new book, "Bush at War" by Bob Woodward tells us latest inside story of White House regarding Iraq. I happened to know a new venture of installing solar power station in Australia. It will have 7km glass plate covered land and 1,000 meter high concrete tower to make draft of air. Completed view looks like artist-tower_thumb and test plant looks like prototype. You can find detail in http://www.enviromission.com.au/ I was a bit disapointed by our government policy of charging same tax on LNG, LPG, Oil and Coal. It is not a carbon tax.
Regards,
Greenwood

2002/11/22 12:09
Tron
Dear Ron,
In 1984, Prof. Sakamoto of Tokyo University started a joint effort of developing their own OS called Tron (The Real-time Operating system Nucleus) Japanese Government decided to distribute PC using this architecture to all primary school. But eventually, they didn't because of US government concerns on great success of Japanese industry at that time. All people thought that Tron died at this moment. But it didn't. It found a position as
a OS for 70% of built-in digital device such as cellular phone, digital camera PDA etc. Annually, 150 million PC per year are manufactured in the world. But annual production of built-in digital device reaches 400 million per year. In this context, Tron is now most popular OS in the world. However there are too many local Tron, because it is an open system like Linux and each company improved their own OS. Prof. Sakamoto again established a
standardization organization called T-engine Forum. http://www.t-engine.org/ His ambition is to use Tron as a OS for 0.4 mm tip used as a substitute of
bar code. It is anticipated that 5 billion per year chips will use his Tron as an OS.
Once I visited US in search of such chips for prefabricated piping spool control in construction yard and couldn't find it. Now the time has come to
actually implement such idea.
Regards,
Greenwood

2002/12/1 14:22

The Paradox of American Power
Dear Ron,
Now it is in December. How fast time flies.
It seems that US economy is coming back again. In contrast, our economy is still trapped. Main cause of this is attributable to our business model of mass production. Now, center of mass production is shifting into China.
Under this trend, we have to find new model of business i.e. more distributed non-centralized network business. To do this, redesign of our educational system is needed. It is a long way.
I enjoyed very much reading two very old books written 2002 years ago. They were Caesaris Commentarii de Bello Gallico and de Bello Civili. Once I started reading, I couldn't stop it. I learned that Joseph S. Nye Jr. has published his new books "The Paradox of American Power" after September 11. He proposes that soft power is more effective than hard power in our time. I observed Caesar's power was based on the ability of understanding what people feel and react on his leadership. On this point, Nye's soft power has similar analogy to Caesar' s ability. I attached Editorial Reviews on his book. I am now planning to visit Spain and Portugal in coming January. We are going to join group tour and visit various places including Pt. Roca and Santiago de Compostella. I only visited Barcelona long time ago. Other places are my virgin land. I completed adding subjects to all our mails as per your comments.
My best regars,
Greenwood

Editorial Reviews From Publishers Weekly

2002/12/5 12:46
Re: The Paradox of American Power
Dear Greenwood,

Please excuse my long delays in replying. A couple of weeks ago my hard disk died and I've had a terrible time getting things to run again. Many programs are only stumbling along, including email and Internet browsing. Even my Adaptec CD-writer will often not let me save files (although I am able to copy with Explorer).

It must be difficult for people outside the US to understand the mental attitude of many Americans. (It's also very difficult for Americans who live on the east and west coast.) There are very many Americans in the inland states who have a view of the world that is not just parochial. It is more contemptuous. This feeling is particularly strong towards the UN and any country perceived to be in the slightest way "Socialistic". Increasingly in the last few years, and especially since 911, the same feeling is felt towards the Muslim world.

This was intensified by many of the experiences in the Balkans. At first this was seen as a European affair, although the Clinton administration undermined many of the European initiatives. Finally, of course, the US did become involved, at least through air power. (The ground fighting, as in Afghanistan, was done almost entirely by local troops). Tothese Americans this just proves that, as the French critic said, "nothing in the world can be done without the United States, ....." They have not yet conceded the second part of his statement.

Naturally, these people feel that the UN inspection of Iraq is just a charade. Some, grudgingly admit it might make it easier to get Allies and UN blessing for an invasion. However, their entire focus is on getting rid of Saddam Hussein - with application of as much US force as necessary. They dismiss concerns about Arab and Muslim public opinion - feeling that fear is the best motivator.

In reflecting on the recent election, I think the dominant factor was the war and support of a wartime president. To paraphrase the old Clinton phrase "It's the war, stupid".

As long as Bush can keep the war on terrorism going with some success and without many casualties I think the mood in the country will at least allow him to go ahead as he pleases. The big political question is whether it can be maintained for the next two years to the Presidential Election in 2004.

I, too have felt that the Gallic War and other works by Caesar are books I should have read. Perhaps your example will stir me to action (if I don't have to spend all my time fixing the *!+><$#&# computer!)

I believe Spain and Portugal are a little cooler than LA, so January there will probably be pleasant. I wish I were accompanying you and hope it goes very well.

With best regards,

Ron

(ps. I'll try to follow up on your other letters shortly)

2002/12/9 22:41
Aegis
Dear Ron,
I imagined possible failure of your PC and found out that is true. Have you replaced only your damaged hard disk or entire machine?
I can understand what American people feel. Any way, Mr. Koizumi decided to dispatch an Aegis ship No.174 (7,520 ton) to Indian sea. Only UA and Japan
have these kind of powerful ships. In the last war against Iraq, Japan only paid expenses without sending forces. Now Japan feels that they can save
money by sending forces instead. But almost 49 % of Japanese are still against sending forces because of constitutional bindings.
Last night, we had a snow fall in Kanto plane. I never experienced such early snow in December. I'm afraid I have to climb snow-capped mountain the day after tomorrow.
Recently, I have found a new technical break through in communication technology. Cellular phone and wireless LAN both use hub station. That is a
centrally controlled system. But new technology called wireless pier to pier network system or wireless adhoc network system is coming. Any central
station is required. Like Internet, information is transmitted by relaying pier to pier. Only condition is that you need many terminal machines
distributed in the area.
Normally, we prefer to travel by our own plan but we found a very cheap group tour to Spain and Portugal in winter season. I also wished to visit
Pt. Roca. Why not. We didn't make any planning. It is an easygoing tour.
After this, we may carefully make our original plan for coming season. We would like to stay same place long term. Probably it may be a stay in southern France in coming June. We would consult with my daughter who already tried such stay near St. Tropez. Do you have any interest in the plan?
Recently, I started reading fictions. It is a good past time. Now I am reading Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. Long time ago, I had seen a
movie played by L. Olivie but never read the story. A Japanese women writer who was educated in Yale Univ. wrote a novel copying this Bronte's story and transplanting it into post war Japanese society. I enjoyed it very much and decided to read original story. I recalled the time when I visited Bronte Parsonage Museum in Haworth on November 1971.
Best regards,
Greenwood

2002/12/19 10:48
COMPUTER WARS, SONY, LNG and TAX POLITICS
Dear Greenwood,

It's hard to believe, but my new hard drive also failed. Not only that, but things were even more messed up than the first time. I'm now on my third C:\ drive in a month! Luckily, almost all my data is on my other hard drive, which is OK at the moment. The big lesson is that I must pay MUCH more attention to the backup of programs. Norton has a program "Ghost" which sounds like the best way.

Finally, the computer seems to be running well. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

I've not been able to discuss your south of France plan with Connie, yet. It certainly sounds like a very good idea. I'll let you know what she feels soon. (Spain and Portugal sound interesting too).

Today, there was a news item that Sony and Matsushita are jointly to develop an operating system based on Linux. They hope to complete it by next March, which sounds very ambitious. They say they hope to use it in numerous products, such as TVs, DVDs, microwave ovens, etc. The source code will be made public to encourage others to use it also.

I wonder what effect this will have on Prof. Sakamoto's Tron. There was no mention of bar code type uses, so perhaps there is no conflict. Another question I have about Tron is why an alternative to the bar code system (which is very widely
distributed) is needed?

All-in-all, I'm glad to see that Microsoft is meeting some competition. The Tron system was supposed to be marketed in the second 1/4 of 2002. I've not heard anything about it, did it make the schedule?

The Australian power generator seems also very ambitious. I've no idea whether the calculated performance is realistic, but, again, it's good to see experimentation.

I've developed some more information about our new garbage trucks. The fuel tanks are labeled 150 gallons (almost 600 l) and 230 psig (about 16 atm). I also spoke to a friend of mine from the LNG group who is still with Fluor. It seems he had been consulted on LNG as a fuel for buses in Orange County, south of LA. Apparently their LNG is shipped from Texas in vacuum jacketed, pressurized trucks. These are designed for a lower pressure, but the heat leak is small enough that they do not boil off any LNG, even after unloading into 6 atm pressure underground storage tanks here in CA. The bus fuel tanks are of still higher pressure, perhaps like our garbage trucks, so that no loss of NG occurs during normal operations. A small electric heater is used to evaporate the fuel on demand from the engine. He said that, although the LNG is not odorized, there is still a whiff of odor around the fueling system.

My calculations indicate the truck fuel tanks with 150 gals LNG, would be about the calorific equivalent of an 80 gallon (300 l) tank of gasoline (that includes heat needed to vaporize the LNG). I'd guess that makes a practical range for the truck.

I predicted that the Bush administration would be very assertive in their policies. They are doing so even more than I expected. As you probably know, one of their likely moves is to accelerate the tax cuts for the upper income brackets which are currently scheduled for the next few years. Now, there is another proposal being discussed in addition. Simultaneously, they would INCREASE the tax rates for middle class incomes. The object would be to make middle income people (who they call "Lucky Duckies") hate the government as much as the wealthy do! I'm astonished. Paul Krugman's Dec 3rd column has a wonderful analysis.

Hold on, the world is going to be "a very interesting" place. With my very best wishes for the holiday season and next year.

Ron






2002/12/22 4:04
GREETINGS
In the spirit of the season. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Ron

Engish Joke Serial No.109

2002/12/22 15:40
Re: COMPUTER WARS, SONY, LNG and TAX POLITICS
Dear Ron,
Before my response to your fist mail after your second HD failure, I received your second mail. Congratulation for your safe driving your HD.
I experienced three HD failures in the past. But all of them were with Macintosh.
We decided to join a packaged tour to Spain and Portugal because it is economical. But as you can find in attached itinerary, the trip is very ambitious. After 13 days we might be exhausted. It costs us about $2,000 each including every thing. However, our coming stay in France would be our own. We can plan what ever we like it. For example, we can relax some where near Mediterranean coast or visit a small village called Alise-Sainte-Reine near Dijon 150-km south east of Paris. It is a very old battlefield called Alesia where Caesar surrounded Vercingetorix's fortress up on the high hill having the height of 150m. Nothing left except vineyard now. It might be a pleasure after reading Caesaris Commentarii de Bello Gallico. Any way, we have plenty of time for making our oun plan. How fan it is to travel together.
I also have read a news about Sony and Matsushita's joint effort on Linux. It seems that now they realized the importance of having common OS for home
electronics because of networking capability.
Prof. Sakamoto's Tron has the same objectives. I think they compete each other. But Tron is lighter than Linux and may be suited for small unit like cellular phone. I don't know how Tron is successful in chip tugs. Chip tugs can carry huge amount of information than barcode. People may find various effective utilization of chip tugs soon. Any way, we will not hear about actual utilization of Tron and Linux because no one cares about built-in OS. It is invisible from end user.
As European countries, Japanese government also announced that they will use OS which is open like Linux for governmental use. IBM and Fujitsu are now working hard to follow up. Microsoft may lose client in Government sector. I analyzed economics of Australian solar project. If total investment is within the their budget, they can sell power at 12cents/kwh.
Tokyo gas has a long history of distributing LNG by lorry to remote inland terminals. Also they are selling compressed natural gas to municipal garbage trucks and buses. It seems they are running well.
I could only read Paul Krugman's Op-Ed column of December 3, "Hey, Lucky Duckies!" in Abstract. I felt that, if Bush administration is doing what is not politically right, finally they might loose public support in the next election. At present, he is only puzzling people by showing hard stance on Iraq. I wish I came back from Spain and Portugal earlier than he starts war against Iraq. But there is a hope. He is not relying on Mercenaries. Recently I found a company like MPRI, Alexandria, Virginia USA( www.mpri.com/ ), Armor Group, UK and Executive Outcomes, Pretoria, South Africa (http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/executive_outcomes.htm) are private companies who provide Mercenaries to countries like Angola. US is already using MPRI for Angola to secure oil supply.
Hoping a warm Christmas and a happy new year.
Greenwood

2002/12/23 7:01
KRUGMAN COLUMN
Dear Greenwood,

I think Krugman's column is worth reading whole. Here it is.

If there are any others you'd like to read, but cannot access, please ask me in case I've downloaded them.

Ron

Hey, Lucky Duckies!

December 28, 2002