MY LIFE: 2b

The big news of the day is that, according to President Donald Trump, Israel and Iran have agreed to a ceasefire.

Of course, he has made similar statements in the past, on 2April2026 and 8June2026.  We'll know in a day or two if this latest development will last, leading to an opening of the Strait of Hormuz and success in peace talks.

However, yesterday:

When Welker mentioned what local (California) officials have said about the process, Trump said, “They’re crooked. Just like you’re crooked. Your press is crooked and Meet the Press is crooked.” 

Then, President Trump stormed out of an interview with NBC's Kristen Welker yesterday, after being challenged on false claims about California's ongoing elections and the 6January2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, something he has done in the past, like the CBS 60 Minutes interview with Lesley Stahl in 2020, and several more instances in the past.  Presidents Biden, Obama, both Bushs' and Clinton never did so in anger.

To bring you up to date, I began my first episode of the three 27-year periods of my life, my educational phase, a week ago.  Part 1b came a couple of days later, and the first chapter of my second 27-year period, representing my "work" years, on Thursday.  Thus, today, Part 2b.

In the second half of the 1970s I became an associate professor of engineering, taught courses in computer programming, environmental engineering and technology & society.

• Technology and society was especially interesting for me, as I created it, and students could use the course to satisfy one of their interdisciplinary requirements.  
• Typically, the class had a lecture size of a 100, about equally split among engineering, science, the social sciences and humanities majors, with three breakout sessions of 33 students each to complete projects related to the community and environment.  
• This provided me an opportunity to have students with different backgrounds and interests to work together on a topic of technological importance for the future of humanity.
• 
  One semester, in particular, was immensely rewarding.
• I was able to obtain National Science Foundation funding for the class to produce a book on renewable energy.  That yellow one.
• Some leaders formed a team to educate the state legislature, which provided additional funds for them to visit school programs on all the major islands.
• The State Department of Education  used the book for their high school energy course.
• In addition to Fortran IV Programming I expanded into computer graphics.

I spent two summer months in the second half of the 1970s at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) on laser fusion.

• In 1974 my apartment was adjacent to a vineyard of Wente Brothers.
• A competing winery in Livermore was Concannon.  They developed the Petite Sirah wine which I think now is the #1 red wine in the world.

• 
  Petite Sirah grown in Paso Robles is as good as grapes get for the finest red wine.  Read about my recent journey to this site.
• There was another special reason why I wanted to visit Paso Robles.

• 
  During my four years at Stanford, I drove through this town at least 20 times and never stopped once.  But then, they had very few wineries.  That was 64 years ago.

• 
  Today?  More than 200 of them, and some produce the finest red wines, even better than French Bordeaux and Napa Cabernet Sauvignon.
• What did I do at LLNR?  Not much.  My building of tunable lasers got me this summer job, and, well, it was summer.
• 
  I did, however, decide in 1979 that the laser to accomplish commercial fusion was not yet invented, and who knew when that would happen.  

• 
  Nearly 47 years later, this remains unknown.  
• However, Lawrence Livermore attained fusion ignition in 2022.
• 
  ITER in France using magnetic confinement is not expected to reach that milestone until 2039.
• Billionaires are now beginning to invest in this development.
• Watch this video on How Close Ae We to Fusion Energy?

In 1979, during the heat of the Second Energy Crisis, I was asked to work for U.S. Senator Spark Matsunaga in DC.

• I got a leave of absence from the University of Hawaii.
• Drafted the original legislation for ocean energy and hydrogen, and worked closely with the House to pass the first wind energy bill.
• All this legislative experience and personal links to governmental officers made a huge difference in my job to come when I returned to academia.

• 
  During this three-year assignment, there was an opportunity to experience life in the East.
• Took Amtrak to New York City several times, and on one trip had a fabulous Cellar in the Sky dinner, located in the middle of Windows of the World, at the top floor (107th) of the North Tower of the World Trade Center, which collapsed on 9/11/2001.
• Spring flowers, Fall foliage, museums, concerts on the Mall.... 

After three years with the U.S. Senate, I returned to the University of Hawaii as a full professor of engineering in 1982.

• Over the next few years, new Dean of Engineering Paul Yuen and I determined that there was a flaw in the transition of academic research to the marketplace.
• We thus created the Pacific International Center for High Technology Research (PICHTR) with the strong support of Senators Daniel Inouye and Spark Matsunaga, Governor George Ariyoshi and University of Hawaii President Fujio Matsuda.

• 
  This new technology transfer organization, hopefully serving as the bridge between academia and industry, created several showcase projects, all valued at $25 million and more.
• Built an open cycle ocean thermal energy conversion at the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii on the west side of the Big Island, and succeeded in gaining net positive energy and producing freshwater.  Watch Luis Vega provide a TedX talk on this subject.
• 
  On the island Maui, a biofuels facility to convert biomass (sugar cane waste bagasse) into biomethanol to serve as a transportation fuel to replace gasoline.

• PICHTR, forty years today remains as a successful organization headquartered in Honolulu.

The Pacific International Center for High Technology Research, however, was a secondary effort, for my primary job was director of the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute at the University of Hawaii from the mid-1980s to 1999 when I retired.

• I took over directorship a decade after I helped create it following the first energy crisis in 1973.  Ran it for 15 years.  I recruited current director Rick Rocheleau, who went on to direct HNEI, now in his 27th year.
• 
  While director, the Institute became the Department of Energy's national Hydrogen Research Center with the Florida Solar Energy Center, Department of Interior's national Marine Minerals Center with the University Mississippi and National Foundation's Marine Bioproducts Engineering Center with the University California at Berkeley.  

• 
  Combining my personal research with bills I drafted while working in the U.S. Senate which became national priorities in hydrogen and ocean energy, and the accomplishments of HNEI, we began to work with organizations around the world to develop the Blue Revolution.  Here are two talks and articles I wrote for The Huffington Post worthy of your follow-up: 

• 
  A 2012 talk I gave at the Seasteading Institute Conference in San Francisco.
• A TedX presentation I provided in 2022 titled, The Time for the Blue Revolution is Now.
• Huffington Post articles.
• The Dawn of the Blue Revolution.
• The Ultimate Ocean Ranch.
• The Blue Revolution.
• The Blue Revolution is the Optimal Solution for Japan.

• 
  What is the status of the Blue Revolution?  
• This $150 million project is too large for governments and companies.
• We await the interest of a visionary billionaire.
• You can become famous if you lead such an individual to that article.

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MY LIFE REFLECTIONS

This blog site has been posting daily now for 18 years.

• Has been visited by 221 countries, and the reason why this is more than the 193 countries in the United Nations is that there are entities like Antarctica, and smaller territories that have their own domain.
• Not sure when I first reached 1 million total visitors, but I do know that for the first 15 years or so the average viewers/day was around 500, so I would guess that this site took around 7 years to hit one million.  Now up past 6 million total.
• However, during the past two days, the number of visitors reached 147,720 and 123,579, so for reasons I can't explain this site went viral.  

For long-time readers, I have tended to focus on certain topics on a given week day.

• Sunday:  spiritual, religion, reflection on life, etc.
• Monday: global topics, with some thoughts about what is to come during this week.
• Tuesday:  nostalgic, linking with the past, etc.
• Wednesday:  sci-tech and the future.
• Thursday:  health, nutrition, and the like.
• Friday:  thoughts on the coming weekend.
• Saturday:  entertainment, sports, etc.

After being away on a trip for 50 days, I feel reflective and returned with a higher appreciation for my life.

• I am 85, still travel a lot, golf on occasion, try to walk as much possible, and have found my final cocoon, which is 15 Craigside (the greenish one to the left), a seniors' community located in Honolulu, where I was born.  Having moved here 12 years ago from 2101 Craigside (the tall brown one) a condo, where I lived in a fabulous penthouse for 32 years, this means I've been on this same corner of Nuuanu Avenue now for 44 years.
• 
  I've now been retired from the University of Hawaii for 27 years.
• I joined the engineering faculty 54 years ago in 1972, which means I worked as a professor and administrator for 27 years.  
• I still maintain an office on the Manoa Campus, so have not totally escaped from academia.
• Just before leaving on my trip, I had a chance to sit next to Dean of the School of Ocean and Earth Science Technology, Skip Fletcher, and caught up with news of our school.
• As Director Emeritus, I also have free parking on campus.

Was born and grew up in Kakaako, Honolulu, Hawaii.  

• Never left the state until I went away to Stanford University.  At graduation in 1962, my closest classmates mostly joined the first year of JFKs Peace Corps, something I was not all that enthused about, but compromised by returning home to help the sugar industry survive.

• 
  Spent seven years in the toughest job I've ever had in sugar plantations on the Big Island and Kauai.  While at the Kilauea Sugar Company, an old man mentioned that he knew my grandfather, who was buried up on a hill above the town.  After I retired, I made a thorough roots search and learned that he was from Utashinai, Japan, was sent to the USA for some advanced schooling, stopped by Kauai to build the first hydroelectric facility on the island, but just before it was commissioned in 1906, fell at the site and died at the age of 33.  Somehow, had gotten married, and my father was born.  I visited the hydro plant a hundred years after it was built, and was still pumping out around 3 MW of electricity.
• 
  The oldest company in Hawaii, C. Brewer, decided to send me to graduate school in 1979, but only to Louisiana State University, which had the sole sugar program in the world.  I worked out an arrangement to stay for a PhD in biochemical engineering, and the next section reports on my academic life.

Reflecting on my period of campus activity:

• Joined as an assistant professor of Engineering in 1972, and around the time of the first energy crisis in 1973, my primary research topic was in geothermal engineering.
• I then became part of the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute when it was created in 1974.

• 
  Google AI reports that I worked with a Nobel Laureate one summer.

Patrick Takahashi spent a summer at the NASA Ames Research Center working on SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) in 1976. During this assignment, he helped advance a concept to directly detect extrasolar planets based on suggestions by physicist Charles Townes. [1]

• 
  As my PhD dissertation research involved designing a tunable laser before one could be built, I spent two summers on laser fusion.  Again from Google AI.

Patrick Takahashi spent two summer assignments working on laser fusion at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory shortly after completing an assignment at the NASA Ames Research Center in 1976.[1]

• 
  At the end of my second stint at Livermore, I was asked to join the staff of U.S. Senator Spark Matsunaga in DC.
• Was the Senate staffer linking with the House to pass the wind energy budget.  House lead Tom Gray went on to become president of the American Wind Energy Association
• Drafted the first Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion R&D legislation,
• Drafted the first Senate Hydrogen R&D legislation, which on to become the Matsunaga Hydrogen Act.
• Was also the Senate staff lead for the Deep Seabed Hard Minerals Act.

I then returned to the University of Hawaii in 1982.

• Became director of the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute (HNEI) in 1983.
• That same year, Dean of Engineering Paul Yuen and I created the Pacific International Center for High Technology Research (PICHTR).  Budgeting difficulties at the University of Hawaii convinced us to make PICHTR a not-for-profit organization in 1985, with an off-campus office.  Still active, 43 years after formation.

• 
  HNEI became the leading renewable resources organization in the Pacific, and served as the Department of Energy's Hydrogen Research and Training Center with the Florida Solar Energy Center, Department Interior's Mineral Research Center with the University of Mississippi and National Science Foundation's Marine Bioproducts Research Center.
• During my final decade of activity at the University of Hawaii, State Senator Richard Matsuura and I created a Blue Revolution program.  He had previously worked for Norman Borlaug, father of the Green Revolution.

I retired at the end of 1999 and, as great as my life was during my 27 years with the University of Hawaii, the past 27 years of retirement have been better.

• Wrote three books.
• Went around the world almost ten times.
• Started this blog site in 2008.

• 
  Wrote more than a hundred articles for the Huffington Post.  Among the more interesting ones were:
• Geoengineering of Climate Change
• What About Hydrogen?
• Why Do We Spend So Much on National Security?
• The Dawn of the Blue Revolution
• The Ultimate Ocean Ranch
• Is There An Option More Promising Than The Plug-In Electric Vehicle?
• America, Don't Copy...Build Something Better
• The Blue Revolution
• Extraterrestrial Intelligence?
• What Is The Best Biofuel?
• The Carbon Dioxide Credit Program?
• The Future of Sustainable Aviation
• The 10% Solution to Peace
• The Sustainable Expo for 2020
• The Great Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami:  The Aftermath
• Star Power for Humanity

In case you were interested, Dara of Bulgaria won the Eurovision Song Contest singing Bangaranga.

To close, I took a walk this morning to the roof of 15 Craigside, plus some other photos of future activities here.  A beautiful day in Honolulu.

Violet playing the piano.

Paper carps are flown in Japan and Hawaii for Boys day.

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DAY 7 and 8 on the DIAMOND PRINCESS: Taipei and Hong Kong

About Taipei, we did not do a tour because we were on this ship six years ago, and I will today get into what we saw in 2019, plus bring you up to date on what is happening today.

I thus start with some nostalgia, as on 4December2019 I posted on our Diamond Princess stop in Taipei.

• To begin, I went back to a 20November2008 posting reporting on a project I had in 1988 working with the Taiwanese government.

One final anecdote is that PICHTR, exactly 20 years ago, worked with ITRI to produce an $80 million multiple product OTEC study for Taiwan, led by Paul Yuen and my engineering team (same group as mentioned above). In our small way, then, we like to think we stimulated some interest in what could someday be the most important renewable energy resource for Hawaii and World. Maybe The Blue Revolution (see Chapter 4 of SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Planet Earth) has finally started.

• Plus, I made visits to their second largest city, Kaohshiung, today with a population of 2.7 million.  To quote:
• 
  I also had a project with Sun Yat Sen University in Kaohshung to study the potential of the whale shark replacing cattle for protein.  My visit to Churaumi Aquarium was helpful, for they showed some graphics with photos of 300 babies in a female whale shark.  Considering that a cow mostly produces one calf, the economics of a whale shark industry seems intriguing.

• 
  One more aside, Sun Yat-sen is known to be the individual who founded the Republic of China in 1912 and today is particularly revered in Taiwan as the Father of the Nation,
• Was born in 1855  in what is now Guangdong of Hakka and Cantonese descent.
• He came to Hawaii at the age of 13 and went to Iolani School and Oahu College, which later became Punahou School.  It was in Hawaii that he first learned about Western ways and democracy.

• 
  There are seven statues of him in Hawaii, with a popular one located at the Chinese Cultural Plaza in Honolulu Chinatown, donated by the Kaohsiung City Government in 1984 to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the establishment of the Revive China Society.

• 
  He went on to get a medical degree in 1892 in Hong Kong.
• Of course he did a lot more and passed  away in 1925 at the age of 59.
• So Honolulu has produced two presidents, Barack Obama and Sun Yat-sen.

• 
• Well, all the above to indicate that I've traveled to Taiwan more than a dozen times.  Some changes since my last visit six years ago,
• The population of Taipei depends on who you ask.
• This is because the city has undergone a metamorphosis.
• One source gives these data:
• Taipei 2.779 million
• New Taipei 4,071 million,
• Kaohsiung 2.722 million.
• Below, the white part is Taipei City.

• But more important than the above, the population of Taiwan was 23.6 million in 2019.  Today?  Only 23.3 million.
• 
  You might think that the threat of China was why some moved away.  Turns out that net-migration is a plus, not a minus.
• The primary reason is that for the 22nd consecutive month, there were more deaths than births.  

• 
  That is, like several economically well developed countries in Asia, birth rates are dramatically falling.
• In 1976, Taiwan had 425,125 births, increasing the national population by 348,090 people.
• In 2024, there were only 134,850 births, dropping the population by 67,251 that year.

• 
  South Korea has an annual crude birth rate of 4.78/1000 people, the lowest in the world.  Taiwan is approaching that rate.
• Another reason why the population is declining is that people are getting older, with 19.9% of the population now 65 and older, joining Japan and South Korea as super-aged nations.  Taipei  was even higher at 24%!
• Taiwan today has a population of 23.4 million.  This number is predicted to drop to 20.7 million by 2045, with 35% 65 and older.
• 
  You ask, why are their birth rates so low?  Google AI indicates that much of Asia is in this transition because of a combination of economic and social factors.  The high cost of raising children, increased opportunities for women, and the challenges in balancing work and family life.  There is now greater access to contraception and a shift from traditional family mores to economic stability.

• 
  Of course the larger question is, how has Taiwan's relation to China changed?  Google AI provided this feedback.

Over the past six years (roughly 2018–2024), Taiwan's relationship with China has shifted from a tense but stable status quo to a period of increased coercion and confrontation, marked by intensified Chinese military pressure and the near-collapse of official dialogue channels. This is largely driven by a more aggressive Chinese posture under President Xi Jinping and Taiwan's continued consolidation of its democratic identity and closer alignment with the US. 

• 
  I asked Google AI the key question:

The current official policy of the Trump administration is complex and appears to be a combination of transactionalism, strategic ambiguity, and a focus on defense burden sharing

. While the administration has historically supported Taiwan through arms sales and deepened security ties, recent actions and statements suggest a shift towards using Taiwan as a bargaining chip in broader negotiations with China. The administration also emphasizes a "burden-sharing" approach with allies and partners and has shown a willingness to impose tariffs on China if it attacks Taiwan. 

• 
  But back to our present cruise.
• Keelung Port is 16 miles from Taipei.
• Their tallest building, Taipei 101, has 101 floors, and was the highest in the world from 2003 until 2008.
• At 1667 feet, it is now #11.
• One World Center in New York City at 1776 feet is #7, and Burj Khalifa at 2727 feet is #1.
• Any visit to Taipei should incorporate a tour of the National Palace Museum.  Why?  According to Google AI:

• 
  Evacuation from Beijing: In the 1930s, facing the imminent Japanese invasion, authorities at the Palace Museum (located within the Forbidden City) packed a large portion of the imperial collection—nearly 20,000 crates of artifacts—and shipped them south to be stored in various locations across China.

• 
  Civil War and Relocation to Taiwan: After World War II, as Mao Zedong's Communist forces gained the upper hand in the Chinese Civil War, Chiang Kai-shek and his Nationalist government (Kuomintang, or KMT) decided to relocate some of the most important and irreplaceable pieces to Taiwan.
• The Move: Between 1948 and 1949, in three separate shipments, around 600,000 items (roughly a quarter of the total artifacts moved south from Beijing) were transported by ship to Taiwan, along with the nation's gold and foreign exchange reserves. The remaining items fell into Communist hands and were returned to the Palace Museum in Beijing. 

• 
  The first stop of the Taipei tour I took in 2019 was to the National Palace Museum.  I said in my subsequent posting, how can I show 600,000 photos?  So I limited mine to just jade.
• Jade is not all green.  This gem can also be white, black, yellow, lavender, red, orange, blue and mulitple colors.
• I took a photo of this huge piece of gold jade, and note the handle of my walking cane.

• 
  I regret my decision not to purchase a dragon made of blue jade for $200 in Shanghai.  I was born in the year of the dragon.
• One of the stops was to the Grand Hotel for an incredible Chinese buffet.

• 
  The final tour stop was to Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall.

Chiang's reputation spans the full gap from revile to revere.  His respect in Taiwan has steadily declined because he executed many of the local educated and elite.  Interestingly, China is more and more portraying him as a hero for his anti-Japanese resistance during World War II.  Similarly, the U.S. twice tried to assassinate him, but now seems to look at him more favorably.

In any case, he ruled Taiwan from 1949 to 1985, passing away at the age of 87.  Madame Chiang Kai-Shek lived on for almost two decades till the age of 105.  She, Mei-ling, is one of the three famous Soong sisters, for older sister Ai-ling married China's richest man, H.H. Kung, while #2, Ching-ling, married Sun Yai-sen, Father of Modern China.  She went on to became the only Communist of the three, and became honorary President of China in 1981 just before her death.

I was planning to repeat this nostalgic gaze for Hong Kong, but I will instead give you a first-hand look when we get there on January 13, the end of our Ritz Carlton Yacht cruise from Singapore to Hong Kong.  We will stay 3 days in Hong Kong.

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