Sunday, November 30, 2008

Day 419 : Shout!



Hahaha, this snapshot catches an interesting moment.
I'm wondering what she says looking at the above picture when she grew up. :)

Friday, November 28, 2008

Quantum Evolution


Quantum Evolution
Johnjoe MacFadden
ISBN 4 -320-03424-4 (Japanese Transration)

After finishing Dawkins' the Extended Phenotype, I wanted to know more recent results around evolutionary theory and chose the book. Mainly, it's because I studied elementary particle physics when I was a graduate student and felt it's natural taking quantum theory into consideration of origin and evlolution of life.

When I was a high school student, I read Oparin's book which explains an idea that life was created in primodial atomosphere. Here, the first life form must have been a kind of protains with self-reprodusive property.

Here, so far as we know a self-reprodusive protain is composed of at least 20 amino acids, and there are 20 kinds of amino acids. That means there are 20^20 possible combinations, and it's a 26 digits number...
The point is that it's extremely rare for a self-reproducive protain produced by chance.

McFadden tries to solve the problem by using inverse quantum zeno effect, but the idea seems to be very much controversial, and even for me, a bad student of physics, it's unreasonable and Panspermia hypothesis sounds more likely.

Bought on 2008/11/03.

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Day 412 : The First 5 Steps



Well, today is a memorial day for our family.
Our daughter finally walked by herself for the first time.
I love her proud look above. :)

This is a small step for her, but a giant leap for the family. :o)

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Blue Screen



Oops.
I have not seen the blue screen in a long while.

Today I saw it when I was trying to connect a 17-inch external LCD to my ThinkPad X61 and make it dual-display system at work.

What the problem was that the primary display and the secondary one were exchanged after the crash. That is, I had to keep the external LCD connected to use my ThinkPad. :o
After struggling one hour or so, finally I could work out so that the primary display points to the onboard LCD panel.

But, one hour was a great loss today. :(

Day 408 : Peek-a-Boo



Recently, I play peek-a-boo with my daughter several times a day.
She really loves that. :)

The above is a snapshot when she (not me) did peek-a-boo this morning. :)
BTW, I'm wondering if it's better to say "Hide-and-Seek" this case...

Sunday, November 09, 2008

A Strange Object

Today, I saw a strange object when I took a walk with my daughter.
The object was located on top of a fence along a street close to my house.
That thing itself is quite common in our daily life, but it might be better to say that the situation was strange.

Here are pictures of the thing. :o



Yes, it's a punpkin. :o

My wife asked me why I took the pictures, but I'm wondering how can one ignore that.
Almost irresistible. :o

Friday, November 07, 2008

Third Degree



Third Degree
Greg Iles
ISBN 978-0-340-92059-6

The latest paperback of Greg Iles.
I like Iles' books mainly because he has wide range and deep background knowledge and he develops plots nicely quick.

But reading this book, I felt its plot development is a bit slow. Maybe there are two reasons why I felt so. Firstly, the story is set mainly in one house and throughout the book tense atmosphere keeps going a bit monotonically. Secondly, Iles didn't write from a viewpoint of the male leading character at all. Here, I mean a doctor, the husband of another female leading character, by that.

Maybe the doctor is not the leading character, but still I'm feeling it better giving readers to understand the psychology of the tragic doctor.

Anyway, I'm waiting for his next novel, Devil's Punchball, in paperback which is scheduled in this July. Ah, well, it's because I usually read books mainly in trains, not because I want to save money. :o

Bought on 2008/09/22
Finished on 2008/11/07

Monday, November 03, 2008

Day 392 : Stand Up!

In these weeks, my daughter stood up by herself for a minute or so sometimes.

Today, I succeeded to catch the instant finally. :)

Sunday, November 02, 2008

Hakodate Ramen Shio-no-Kura

Today's lunch at Hakodate Ramen Shio-no-Kura(函館ラーメン塩の蔵) in Kokubunji station building.



Actually, I don't like it well. :(

Saturday, November 01, 2008

Day 390 : Preparation for Winter

Today, we went to Kokubunji and bought a lot of clothes for our daughter at GAP, again. :)



Especially, my wife wanted a down jacket. But above black one seems to be a bit too big, and looked like the down jacket was walking, not our daughter. :o

The Extended Phenotype



The Extended Phenotype --- The Gene as the Unit of Selection ---
Richard Dawkins
ISBN 4-314-00485-1

This is the second book of Richard Dawkins, and it says basically the same thing with his first book: the primary unit of natural selection is the gene. The essential new point of Dawkins in this book is that a phenotype of a gene can appear in other individuals which actually do not carry the gene. In other word, genes can cause effects remotely.

At first, I thought that this could relate genes and memes, but it was a hasty conclusion.
Meme does not follow even the central dogma of biology. Here I mean that in case of Meme acquired characteristic can be inherited against the case of Gene. Thus, there must be different theories from the ones of Gene. Anyway, I need to read some literature on Meme, for example, ones by Susan Blackmore.