My opinion of this week(331):

Power of Internet

There was an message titled "an expected big surprise" written by
Nitta san, a member of tadML in regular ML message of yesterday. 
He got a mail from his relative saying his relative read Nitta 
san's essay titled "My method of piano playing practice" in an 
Internet home page. He has never expected that before. So he 
wondered why that happened. 

After making a few deduction, he reached the reason why that 
happened. That essay must have been read at my home page because
he was once noticed from me that the essay was  put into the page
of written materials used in Ranzan PC work session held at end 
of May this year. So he searched the word by himself at Google
and confirmed it. 

After Ranzan work session, I put Nitta san's written material on
the theme in my home page together with some other written materials
provided by lecturers such as Seki san, Horiuchi san, and Watanabe
san. Seki san's materials was on how to make home page with HTML 
tags. Horiuchi san's materials was on drawing picture by EXCEL. 
Watanabe san's materials was on drawing picture using right-hand 
side brain. I put those materials together with some of my own 
materials in my home page. Needless to say, I  got the permission
to from all of those people when I put them.

Having read Nitta san's message at ML, I personally tried to search
Nitta san's article at Yahoo by putting the key word as referred 
above. Then I surprised to see the result. Yes, his article had been
appeared on the top of the list of articles searched by that key 
word. The result was the same with Watanabe san's article on 
drawing picture on right-hand side of brain. That appeared on the 
top of the list also.  Horiuchi san's materials and Seki san's
materials were not appeared on the top list. I guess the reason for
it. Key words for their articles were are so popular such as EXCEL
and home page  that there appeared so many related articles with 
search with that kind of key words.

The main purpose of writing this article is not to advertise how 
great my home page presentation is. Yes, it is fine indeed to see 
that. I personally have realized and reconfirmed the fact that Internet
is really a powerful media by itself. We can get many advantages 
by using them properly.

But at the same time, I have reconfirmed the fact that I have to 
be more careful and considerate to put any materials of my own 
and those of other people as well. All sort of careful checks are
necessary before putting them in home page.

Nevertheless, it is nice to see that this kind of net tree of surprise
is growing up one by one through our various activities at mailing
 lists and PC club.

2003/8/6
Tadashi HAYASE

My opinion of this week(332):

10% achievement

"Project X" of NHK last night was total 90 minutes long divided into two
parts, first from 8:00 to 8:45 pm and second from 9:15 to 10:00 pm. I was
quite excited to watch it from beginning to end. It was the documentary
about how voluntary lawyers got together to make a project team to recover
damage suffered by fraud business of Toyota Shouji. 

That was an unbelievable kind of monkey business. The company collected 
money from retired aged people cheating they could gain a good return 
through the investment they recommend. Any administrative organizations 
including police did not do anything for those injured people. Those 
voluntary lawyers led by Kouhei Nakabou started to make all sort of 
efforts to recover money for those aged people.  

The motives to do this work for those lawyers was an anger to the giant
crook and recover confidence for justice. Any administrative authorities
including police sat back without taking any positive actions. There were
a number of financial firms, big business, general constructors, etc. 
behind Toyota Shoji, that made a big profit through unreasonable business
with Toyota.
 
The total 120 billion yen had gone somewhere after bankruptcy of this firm.
The project team made all sort of research to find sources to get money back.
They got some money back from several big firms and general contractors
that got profit to make business with Toyota Shoji. The team even got money
back from tax office after court case. 

That was really one of the greatest achievement that has never happened 
before.

But at the last moment of the TV program, I was disappointed with the fact
that the total amount collected from this work was only about 10% of total
damage. Was the effort by the project team quite rewarding? I had some
other angry and disappointment for this giant evil.

About 50% of total damages was paid to executives and employees of the
firm as remuneration and monthly salary. Just ordinal salesmen had been
paid 10 million yen a month as salary and commission. All of those 
executives and employees knew that they were cheating people in their
daily business. 

Wasn't it impossible for the project team to let them pay back such unjust
remuneration? The TV program did not mention anything about it.

I would like to study more about it. I would appreciate if anyone who know
more about this case let me know about it. 

2003/8/20
Tadashi HAYASE

My opinion of this week(333)

Lack of strategic thinking of Japanese electorates

Election for President of LDP is coming up soon. As we see in
reports of mass media, several factions of LDP may not be able to
stop the reelection of Koizumi for party president, while most of
them are against it. Not only Hashimoto faction that is the biggest
factions of LDP, but also other factions that is large or small, 
cannot even select candidates for the election. 

That is a very disgusted sort of situation as a matter of fact. 
Priminister Koizumi must be happy to see it. 

On the other hand, two opposition party groups seem to be united
better way. Merger of Democratic Party and Liberal Party provided 
a good confrontation against the current ruling administration
as far as my observation is concerned. But many mass media and
critics as well as general publics did not appreciate the meaning 
of such move. 

The result of popular votes made by some mass media is disappointing.
Prime Minister Koizumi continued to keep rather high popular rate
as Prime Minister against Naoto Kan, the President of Democratic
Party whose popular rate is rather low. Prime Minster Koizumi
must be confident with that fact as well.

The major reason for such high popular rate of Prime Minster Koizumi
is not quite reasonable. The reason is rather passive and conservative.
As we have observed many times in the past, people just continue to
support Koizumi because there are no alternative candidates for
Prime Minister. People are not necessarily satisfied  with the
result of Koizumi restoration. They rather have many  complaints 
with it. But people cannot expect higher gains from any other 
candidates both from ruling camps and oppositions.

I wonder why people cannot have some sort of strategic way of thinking.
In order to break the current stagnant situation both in politics and
economy, I believe that change of power is really necessary at first.

While those new party is not quite strong, I believe that they should
assume the reins of government once. They should have such chance. This
is necessary from total strategic point of view to improve Japanese
politics from various point of views.

The lack of such strategic way of thinking of Japanese electorates is 
one reason for long lasted stagnancy of Japanese politics according
to my opinion.

2003/8/30
Tadashi HAYASE