Kodaira Udon

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As I wrote several times before, there are lots of good ramen restaurants around my house.
Today, it's a topic on a new Udon shop along the ramen avenue.

• http://r.tabelog.com/tokyo/A1328/A132804/13087964/

The above right is my choice at today's lunch time, Niku-Udon (400g) (肉うどん(400g)).
Compared to common style Udon, they offer very strong and thick noodle, and its soup with sliced pork is served separately. I felt the soup is a bit salty, but it's because the soup is also strong, I think.

Furthermore, it's not expensive! :)
It's worth trying at least once for ramen freaks. :)

Day 569 : Fashion Model?

This is a snapshot when we were about to set for the Golden Week Journey of this year.
She is like a fashion model, ha ha... :o

4KB per Sectors?

It has been a common sense that the most basic size of an HDD is 512 bytes in case of commodity computers. But, there seems to be a plan extending the size to 4K bytes now.

• http://bigsector.org/

When I got into the business more than 10 years ago, I was assigned to a division which is working on software for mainframe computers. In those days and still now, main stream block storage devices were variable block size ones. Furthermore, they are called DASD (Direct Attached Storage Device) not HDD, and conventional HDDs (for outside the mainframe world) were called FBA (Fixed size Block Architecture) volumes.
Well, it's an old story, but the news reminded me of the old days...

Anyway, thanks for interesting news, JR0BAK!

Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence - FYI

I didn't know that Utada did a cover of "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence" in her third studio album, "This is the One."
Its lyrics is here, and I'm wondering why she didn't choose completely different title from the original. What does she mean by just adding "FYI" to the original title?

Oh, but anyway I like it.
I know several covers of the tune, and among them Utada's cover could be the best. :)
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Maybe this link is better. The latter half is the tune above.

Oracle OpenWorld Tokyo 2009

Today, I went to Oracle OpenWorld Tokyo 2009, and there I attended at the 6th lecture of Professor Maruyama's lecture series:

• http://www.itmedia.co.jp/enterprise/special/dev_marulec/2008.html

Basically, his talks are on cloud computing. But, the 6th lecture was titled "On the Latest Trend of Cloud and SOA."

That reminded me of my business trip to New York last year. :)
I attended at this conference there, and I was a bit surprised that in North America SOA looked like finally launching. I felt it would take roughly 2 years till the trend comes to Japan.

Maybe it's better taking SOA into account for the cloud computing related project which I'm involved on at work now...

Compressed (LZH) Folders

LZH format is one of major compression format at least in Japan.

I didn't know that Microsoft added LZH format for compressed folders recently.
After passing Genuine Microsoft Software check, now the extension seems to be offered by Microsoft for Japanese version Windows XP and Vista.

The left below shows the icon for an LZH format archive file, and the right below shows properties dialog of an LZH file.



There are several restrictions.

1. It's not supported by Microsoft, it's provided as is.
2. The extension does not support compression, it does only de-compression.
   Thus, we cannot add files to an LZH archive file nor create an LZH format archive.

Actually, there are many LHA format archiver which are implemented as shell extensions. But, so far as I know, all of them extract LHA files temporary and I didn't like that. I wanted to handle LZH archive files like Compressed (Zipped) folders for browsing contents of LZH files.

The extension resolved the issue, and I'm happy now. :)

New Workplace

Since the beginning of this April, I was relocated to a division working on R&D
activities at work.

Formerly I felt like a prisoner till the end of this March, but now I can see a lot of interesting people on behalf of the organization which I'm working for now.
So, although I've been a bit busy since then, I'm enjoying the current works. :)

Kemari

Kemari is an implementation of Fault Tolerance feature using Xen hypervisor on top of commodity IA32 hardware.

Actually, I was in touch with the author of Kemari since the project was very early stage about 3 years ago. To tell the truth, I was doubtful if he can finish the plan he explained me in those days because the theme was too aggressive and he had limited time.

But, today I saw a live demo where a running Windows XP instance was migrated to another machine within seconds on a hardware crash (pressing the reset button) and continued playing video streaming.

His work, Kemari, will be merged into Xen 3.5, and furthermore, he seems to be working on porting Kemari to KVM.

Really impressive...

Ideas of Phenomenology

Ideas of Phenomenology 現象学の思想
Gen Kida (木田元)
ISBN 4-480-08570-X

Well, actually it was too aggressive trying to work on books on philosophy
for me. I gave up the book. :(

I could understand the big picture of ideas of phenomenology, but there are
too many undefined terms for me and adjunctive expressions beyond
my understanding in the book. :(
Anyway, phenomenology was an effort to re-formulate philosophy
from the ultimate stand point where no assumptions were made.

One more thing which the book reminded me was that philosophy is the
most ancient science and not a small number of modern (social or human)
sciences were forked from philosophy. For example, psychology, sociology,
linguistics, history and so on. Furthermore, even some areas of natural science
are also influenced by philosophy especially positivism which phenomenology
criticized constructively.

In this sense, it might be useful to try to study philosophy again
for understanding evolutionary theory, in particular, evolution of
human brains.

But, I'm not sure how long it takes for me... :(

Day 559 : Flowers

Today, we went to Kokubunji Marui, and the above is a snapshot at the roof garden there.
My daughter began to show interests in flowers.
Now, I'm looking forward to taking her to the Shimada Rose Hill Garden in my home town in this golden week. :)

Guin Saga 126

Beauty in Black
Guin Saga 126
Kaoru Kurimoto
ISBN 978-4-15-030952-7

Well, this time I missed the on-sale day of Guin Saga.
Actually, it was April 9 for the 126th book, and I was 10 days behind. :(

Brain Pollution

Brain Pollution (脳内汚染)
Takashi Okada (岡田尊司)
ISBN 4-16-367840-9

This is a shocking book.

It's often mentioned that addiction in video games is very harmful for brains.
But, according to several psychological surveys, there seems to be strong
correlation between diffusion of TV and increase of crimes resulted from
psychological problems.

Simply speaking, contemporary media from TV to video games are
NOT natural for the development of mind or humanity and
human being cannot adapt to the rapid dissemination of contemporary media,
thus they can be said as poison for especially small children.

So, after finishing this book, I reduced time for watching TV actually.
Of course, this is mainly for my daughter...

Isolation Ward

I've been suffering from hemolytic strept coccus since this Monday, and I had days off since yesterday.

Of course, I slept in a small room which usually we use as a lumber room and isolated my self from my daughter.

The above is a snapshot at dinner time today, it's like an isolation ward of hospitals... :o

Day 555 : Ruins

Ha ha, I think the above picture explains everything.
Of course, the wrecker is my daughter... :o

The Kingdom of this World

The Kingdom of this World (El Reino de este Mundo)
Alejo Carpentier
ISBN 4-387-85162-7 (Japanese Translation)

In a sense, this is a chronicle of Haiti's short but amazing history after
standing on their feet.

It's often said that Carpentier's works are magical realism.
Simply speaking, it's because like the following:

1. The old saying that fact is stranger than fiction is true.
2. Different from Western Europe, in Latin America (of those days) people indeed believed in magical events described in the book. In other words, they were facts for them.
3. This work is based on facts Carpentier collected in Haiti actually.
4. Thus, the chronicle is a so called Magical Realism.
   

Anyway, almost all the events and behaviors of people there are dizzying... For us Japanese at least, it's almost unbelievable that this kind of the kingdom of this world existed. I'm not sure how many Japanese people feel happy if they were placed in the situation.
But, in the last several pages, Carpentier says that this world is better than the world above because only in this world it makes sense or there is room to make effort improving ones current situation, and that's what an old man, the leading character of the story, perceived.

Thus, in a sense, the conclusion is common. But, the tour with magical reality leading to the (common) conclusion is excellent. It's really worth reading...

BTW, back cover of the Japanese translation says that the original title of the book is "El Derecho De Asilo." I'm not sure why, because I don't understand Spanish... :(

Saki Best Selection

Saki Best Selection (サキ傑作選)
Saki
ISBN 4-00-322611-9

After reading this anthology, I regret that I didn't read that as soon as I bought it about 10 years ago!

Among the short stories there, I like "Tobermory."
It's a short story of a mad scientist and a cat which the scientist
gave ability to speak a human language. After getting speech of humans,
the cat began to reveal inappropriate secrets of people around her.
After describing comical behaviors of the people, Saki gives readers
a bit unexpected and ironical ending.

Like other good story tellers, Saki shows us egoistic behavior of the
people but softly. In some regards, the story can be an irony of
innovation in science. But more than anything else, Saki does not
make us bored.

BTW, according to a commentary in the end of this book, Saki seems to be often
ranked with Maupassant and O. Henry. That makes sense for me at least
O. Henry firsthand, and I believe that the former is also true.
But, as a reader in Japan, I felt something similar in Saki's works
to Hideo Nakai. Nakai's short stories are full of fantasy in addition to
unexpected and ironical endings. So, I'm not sure if English translation of
Nakai's works are available or not, but I would suggest trying Nakai's
short stories if one likes Saki.

Yet Another SCM

Recently, I'm working on Eucalyptus which is an open source Amazon AWS clone software.

I didn't know that now there is one more source code management system, Bazaar.
I believe that clearly the name comes from "the Cathedral and Bazaar."

But, to tell the truth, I took it for Bizarre at first. :o

The Silent Miaow

The Silent Miaow: A Manual for Kittens, Strays, and Homeless Cats
Paul Galico
ISBN 4-480-03440-4 (Japanese Translation)

The (English) subtitle describes contents of this book very good.

Aside from the book itself, it reminded me of a woman who insisted on a two way classification of human characteristics intensely.

According to her, human can be classified into two types, a cat type and
a dog type.

A dog type human wants to to get involved with other people, especially
one's partner. On the contrary, a cat type human does vice versa
regardless of one's gender, and she insisted on strongly that she
was a typical cat type woman.

But, in those days, the essential problem was whether I and she should
carry on a connection with each other, and for me she looked like talking
her theory like a problem of someone else. She explained the theory
extremely methodical, but I could not understand what she wants really to do
in those days after all.

In this sense, it reminded me of Masahiko Fujiwara's book.
In short, her logic looked perfect, but the principle which she based on was
not appropriate for the situation those days. Furthermore, it's meaningless
arguing ones (possible) partner down.

Well, but anyway it's an old story today.

I wonder what she is doing now and then as yet so far.

BTW, it could be a good textbook for my daughter. :o

Day 543 : Second Cousin

Today, we drove to my hometown and attended at a wake of my cousin, Yuka.
All of my cousins were there and recalled memories of her.
Thus, the atmosphere was funeral there.

But, there was a small event of the next generation of us.
Last year, another cousin of mine got a baby, the second cousin of my daughter.
We were looking forward to seeing her, and it has become a reality finally. :)



The left is my daughter's second cousin, Sana, 6 months old.
She is smiling innocently, but recently my daughter is very shy with strangers. So, my daughter was keep holding my arms tightly as you can see above... :(

Day 543 : Monolith Girl?

Recently my daughter loves playing with blocks, and we were a bit surprized to see her work below.

Ha ha, she might be a Monolith Girl ... :o

BTW, the blocks are from BRIO. I like its colors. :)

The Library of Wonders

The Library of Wonders (不思議図書館)
Shuji Terayama (寺山修司)
ISBN 4-04-131521-2

For me, Shuji Terayama (寺山修司), was one of major contemporary Japanese
dramatist so far, but actually it looks like that he was one of the most avant-gard creative artists in Japan.

This book is a collection of Terayama's short essays.
He covers extremely wide range of topics. For example, Street Magicians, Robots, Mazes, Fetishism, Trompe L'oeil, Dragons, Gambles, Strange Murder Cases,... etc. etc.
Readers might feel a lack of oneness, but it makes sense that Terayama had huge variety of interests and they were the very backbones of his creative works.

BTW, I like the following 3 essays in the book.

3. Playing with Mazes of Books
12. Art History of Trompe L'oeil
22. An Encyclopedia of "One Thousand and One Nights"

Especially, "Playing with Mazes of Books" refers to J.L. Borges' "The Garden of Forking Paths" included in "Ficciones" which I read recently. I felt a kind of synchronicity.

In Memory of Yuka

Today, one of my cousins, Yuka, past away because of cancer.
She was only 29 years old.

I know her since she was a new born baby, and I met her about 3 times every year, end of the year/new year season, summer festival season and the lantern festival season. Since she was a small child, she had been a very active girl. The most impressive memory of her for me is that she ran into a glass door and broke it when she was about 3 years old. Thus, she had a crescent shape scar on her forehead like Harry Potter. :o
After she had grown up, she loved Mr. Children, a very popular Japanese rock band very much, and she studied English in her university days. Actually, I and she shared some likings.

BTW, my grandma was also in hospital this month. During her stay at the hospital, a cancer was found in her stomach, and we were a bit shocked because my mother also got a cancer about 5 years ago. So, my mother's family line could be a cancer family.
I hope that my daughter didn't inherit that gene... :(

I hope that she can take a good rest in the heaven.