This magazine has been published for almost twenty years since resuming
in February 1980 and the back numbers stack up twenty-five centimeters
[ten inches] high. I must have used over eighteen thousand sheets of
Japanese manuscript paper, each of which contains space for four hundred
letters. A big waste? Perhaps. Yet, I feel I should brace up and spend the
remaining five hundred days reviewing and analyzing the significance of
the twentieth century in an preparation for greeting the next century.
I pledged to "continue at least for ten years" when I decided to resume
publication of this newsletter, and resolved to continue until "the end of
this century" under the revised title Strike the Century. I will continue
this task for another sixteen months, and probably at the end of next year,
that is at the time for the issue dated January 1, 2000, end publishing
under this title.
A few years ago when I suggested converting to an electronic format, as I
expected, many readers were opposed. Yet, the increase in the number of
Internet users has been phenomenal, and I find at least 80% of the nearly
one hundred individuals who are listed on one of my projects have an E-mail
address. On the other hand, I know that there are people who still
adamantly refuse to go electronic, rejecting having even a fax machine.
This is strictly personal choice, like those who refuse to fly. Practically
speaking, however, distributing this magazine electronically takes only
five seconds to send to over one hundred or even to a thousand readers for a
fixed communication charge to a provider plus the telephone costs. A fax is
useful, but the time required and the telephone charges are phenomenal.
Plus, we must attach an individually addressed cover page to each recipient.
The traditional steps, paper, typesetting, cutting, binding, envelopes,
postage, address labeling, pasting, etc., consume a tremendous amount of
time, materials and energy. When I look at the time and energy the
traditional method requires, I feel that going electronic is inevitable as
we move into next century.
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