[vsnet-chat 7137] Re: [vsnet-alert 8559] Re: [cvnet-discussion] Re: [vsnet-outburst 6539] IP Peg eclipse ephemeris

[Taichi Kato]

Re: [vsnet-alert 8559] Re: [cvnet-discussion] Re: [vsnet-outburst 6539] IP Peg eclipse ephemeris

   Apparently, this is already sufficiently off-topic for vsnet-alert or
vsnet-outburst, and continue on vsnet-chat.  (I wish to leave cvnet free
from TK's flavor ;-), you are free to forward anything cvnet people would
need).

> Apparently there are still political wranglings going on in the background
> of VSNET.

   No severe political wranglings are actually involved.  Simply the matter
is from the innate laziness (or slow-reacting) syndrome of some key persons
engaged.  What are behind is the internet addiction, mobile-phone addiction
(as you may have seen in Japan), chatting favored over science, slow start
of work, and other signs of social pathology...

> I have remained quietly optimistic in VSNET's return, hoping for the full
> blown website with lightcurves and online data and all the broken links all
> over the Internet to be fixed.

   Perhaps this will be fixed.  The power behind will be Baba-san, one of the
key computer science technologists borne by the VSNET team.  I would have
better urged Nogami-san to learn more on computer programing...

> One thing that VSNET had/has that CVnet has been thusfar unable to achieve,
> is the professional acceptance and the reputation that went along with
> Taichi Kato's expertise and enthusiasm for variable star science.

   Maybe it needs to be referred to "it was".  Yes, I had enthusiasm, but
now I realized that enthusiasm should be (at least in large fraction)
directed to enviromental problems.  I had long been a supporting member of
the WWF and other environmental NGOs, but had not realized how serious
the current situation is.  I partly realtized it from the "Living Planet
2004" (downloadable from the WWF site), and the recent UNEP's "Milennium
Ecosystem Assessment" (MEA).  The popularly mentioned problem of the
"peak oil" (Hubert's peak) is also a great concern.  In the short term,
the pandemic hazard of avian influenza might be an immediate most emergent
environmental problem the human race has ever experienced (incidentally,
I am also one of key collators in this subject).  These issues are
undoubtfully of higher priority than fixing the VS nonmenclature system...