Sunday, May 31, 2009

Idea Mapping



Idea Mapping : How to Access Your Hidden Brain Power, Learn Faster, Remember More, and Achieve Success in Business
Jamie Nast
ISBN 978-4484081045

Today, we went to Kokubunji Marui to by clothes of our daughter, and after finishing the main shopping, we stopped around a book store there.
The above books is about a kind of Mind Map methods, and it looks like more practical for common people.

Now, I'm thinking about using that in the upcoming R&D project at work. :)

Day 601 : What's This?



I took the above photo when my daughter sat down on my lap by pointing my digital camera to her just in front of her face.

She looks like saying, "What's this?" :)

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

In Memory of Kaoru Kurimoto

Today, Kaoru Kurimoto, the author of Guin Saga, past away because of cancer. She was only 56 years old, and her biggest work Guin Saga was left incompleted.

It's almost 25 years ago when I began to read the Guin Saga series and since then I was always waiting for her new book. Originally, the series was scheduled to complete at 100 books, but actually it was too optimistic(?) estimate and this year she released 126th book. Furthermore, the story looked like continuing at least 25 more books for me.

She indicated several times that she had already written a note of synopsis of the finale, but I'm not sure if the note will be made public. Maybe, it could be the longest and incompleted novel written by a single author.

Anyway, impossible...

I pray sincerely for the repose of her soul.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Day 596 : Friends

Today, a friend of my daughter, Naho, and her mother visited our home.
Here are snapshot that time. :)



I'm wondering what they are talking about in the above right picture. :)

Axsh with Wakame?

Today, I saw a demo of Wakame, a ruby based scale-out engine for Amazon EC2 created by axsh Co. LTD, Japan.

In a sense, it's similar to RightScale, and Wakame is still in very early stage. But the most important point for me is that it's open source. I mean that there is rooms working on it for me. :)

BTW, in Japanese Axsh is pronounced as 'Akushu' (あくしゅ) which means "shaking hand."
It's cool, and I like it. :)

Monday, May 25, 2009

Debug Hacks



Debug Hacks -- Tips & Tools for Removing Bugs
Yoshioka et. al.
ISBN 978-4-87311-404-0

Finally, I bought the book at this time of day. :(

After skimming the book, I felt that I'm not so behind from the authors compared to the case of Binary Hacks. But, anyway it's a great work for programmers. :)

StarBED and SpringOS

I didn't know that NICT (National Institute of Information and Communications Technology) has been developing a large scale networking testbed, called StarBED, and the StarBED team developed a set of convenient tools to manage/operate StarBED.
The set of tools is called "Spring OS."

Here, my point is that why the developers chose the name.
At least for me, Spring OS means a SUN's research operating system in the early '90s, and this is common impression for most of engineers working on network or operating system.

But, the tool looks like useful for a massive cluster environment, and I'm going to try it once...

Day 595 : Stairs

Here are another snapshots I took during the walk today.



I didn't know that recently she climbs a stairway by herself.
So, I was really surprised looking at the scene today.
Anyway, this is another memorial photo of my daughter. :)

Day 595 : Pansy



Today, I got a half holiday because of anniversary at work, and I stroll around with my daughter.
The above is a snapshot at a flower bed within the lot of our condominium.
I'm very happy to see that she began to show interests in various flowers. :)

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Day 594 : Negative Entropy Girl?



Well, in the above photo, my daughter is getting the books over, not messing up.
Yes, she is decreasing entropy!
It's an really amazing progress... :o

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Day 591 : Flowers of Azalea



These are snapshot when I went for a walk with my daughter this morning.
I love the right above photo very much. It's a DASH through a flower road. :)

Wolfram Alpha

Wolfram Research seems to begin a new service, Wolfram Alpha.

Here is my first question to Wolfram Alpha. :o

|What kind of girl do you like?
|Wolfram|Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input.

Anyway, I'm thinking about using the system when I will work on mathematical models of various multi-tier web systems on cloud computing environment in near future. :)
It's because I was a veeery bad student in Mathematics. :o

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Hubble Telescope

Today, I'm really pleased to hear that Space Shuttle STS-125 team completed upgrading the Hubble Telescope. :)

Actually, I'm not so interested in watching sky by my own eyes. But, I love seeing photograph of stars taken by professional astronomers. Especially, since the Hubble Telescope began to work, I was surprised many times by seeing amazing structure of various astronomical objects.

This time, NASA added some new features to Hubble, and I'm really looking forwad to seeing new photographs from the upgraded Hubble. :)

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Day 586 : LEGO -- The First Work

As I wrote recently, my daughter got a LEGO kit from grandpa.
This is her first work using LEGO. :o



I had the same feeling when I saw monoliths last month. :)

Day 586 : Fancy Goods

Today, we went to Kokubunji Marui, and here is a snapshot there.



She seems to like fancy goods. :)

BTW, I'm wondering if she loves jewels in (near?) future ... like her mother. :o

Friday, May 15, 2009

Microsoft Research in Trouble?

I'm not sure if this is Japanese Internet environment specific issue, but anyway I cannot access to http://research.microsoft.com/ from Japan.
c:\>ping research.microsoft.com
Pinging research.microsoft.com [131.107.65.14] with 32 bytes of data:
Request timed out.
Ping statistics for 131.107.65.14:
Packets: Sent = 1, Received = 0, Lost = 1 (100% loss),
Control-C
^C
c:\>
Hum...

Amazon S3 Performance Issue

Recently, I got a performance trouble uploading files to Amazon S3.
Here is a brief summary of the performance results when I tried to upload a 2GB backup file of photos using my ThinkPad X61 with various conditions.
  1. WindowsXP + FireFox + S3 Organizer + WiFI
    • 2GB/12h+
  2. WindowsXP + FireFox + S3 Organizer + FastEthernet
    • 2GB/12h+
  3. CentOS 5.3(x86_64) + FireFox + S3 Organizer + FastEthernet
    • 2GB/20min
All cases above, I used the same FTTH router.

It's better to try Amazon S3 API tools such as s3sync from WindowsXP environment, but still the above difference is strange.
I'm wondering who is guilty...

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Cloud Storage

Today, I saw a small demo of S*Plex3 Cloud Storage Service by SKY Perfect JSAT Corporation.
Their press release published on May 12, 2009 can be found here, but it's only in Japanese. :(

At first, I thought it's an yet another Google File System clone, and indeed their architecture is similar to GFS. But, they focused on satellite broadcasting data, that is, streaming data. Thus, S*Plex3 seems to have achieved a good resilience for multiple faults.

The demo system which I saw seems to consist of a 90 nodes clustered file server and a video access client. The video data is divided into many chunks and stored in the cluster redundantly.

I was impressed seeing that the video play was not affected even 1/4 of the 90 nodes file server were down by unpluging their LAN cables.

I'm wondering why they do not publish the press release in English to all over the world...

Saturday, May 09, 2009

Day 579 : Tower of Babel?

Since last month my daughter has been playing with blocks as I wrote recently.

Today
, she made a big progress. :)
The below is the first major work of her, possibly its title is the Tower of Babel... :o

Friday, May 08, 2009

Day 578 : I Love Mommy!



Ha ha, the title says everything. :)

BTW, on the back of her clothes, there is a phrase saying "Love Me."
Of course, I do. :)

Wednesday, May 06, 2009

VCP Certificate



I received a certificate of VCP (VMware Certified Professional) finally today.
It took about 50 days after passing the exam. :(

Day 576 : Exhausted?

Today, we got back to Tokyo from my home town.
Against a traffic jam forecast yesterday, we weren't caught in traffic jams almost at all.
But, it was more than 5 hours drive, and anyway we were very much tired. :(

After arriving at home and getting luggage over with my wife, I was doing some PC things such as checking e-mails. I knew that my wife and daughter took a nap together.

But, after a while I was astonished looking at the scene below... :o



Oh, my God...
Maybe, it's because my daughter was exhausted...

Day 576 : The First Shot


The above is my little brother. It's nothing special about the picture.

But the point is, that my daughter loves playing with a cell phone and the above is her first shot.
Yes, it's a memorial photo. :)

Tuesday, May 05, 2009

Day 575 : Trampoline



This is a snapshot at my home town. :)

Formerly, my mother did some exercises in trampoline for her health, but it looks like she gave it up and that was almost abandoned for a while there.

At first, we expected that my daughter could enjoy the trampoline, but it looked like too early for an 18 months baby playing with a trampoline. :o

Monday, May 04, 2009

Day 574 : Shimada Rose Hill Garden



Finally, I took my daughter to the Shimada Rose Hill Garden in my home town. :)
Before going there, I expected that she could be excited looking at bunch of beautiful roses , actually today we had limited time and my daughter looked like a bit sleepy. :(
So, I'm not sure if she really enjoyed the garden or not today, but on this summer vacation she might have began to speak, then I'm going to ask her what she feels about looking the flowers. :)

Day 574 : Hobby Horse



Ha ha, my daughter got on a hobby horse for the first time. :)

BTW, today we had almost no time there. So, I'm not sure if she likes it or not...
Actually, it's a very busy day... :o

Sunday, May 03, 2009

Day 573 : Telephone



This is a snapshot at my home town.

Different from the case of our house, their telephone station is located almost on the floor where my daughter can reach.
So, she was very much pleased to find a new thing to play with... :(

I'm not sure whom she is speaking with ... :o

Saturday, May 02, 2009

In Memory of Kiyoshiro

Today, one of the greatest rock singers in Japan, Kiyoshiro Imawano (忌野清志郎), past away because of cancer. He was 58 years old.

Although the English page of Wikipedia does not have much information, but as the Japanese page says, Kiyoshiro was not like any other musicians, and in a sense, he established a style of singing rock music in Japanese.

As for me, I loved YMO (Yellow Magic Orchestra) when I was a junior high school student, and he appeared as the singer of the tune below (い・け・な・いルージュマジック) which is in collaboration with Ryuichi Sakamoto who is, needless to say, a member of YMO.
In those days, I felt his song a bit strange, but still I thought that this singer is something special.
-

-
One more his work I want to refer here is a collaboration session with Akiko Yano singing "Hitotsudake (ひとつだけ)" which means "The Only One Thing." As I wrote several times, I love Yano's songs, and listening to the song especially I'm always moved to the point of tears.
Furthermore, Kiyoshiro's voice has something special and appeals to me especially with the lyrics.
-

-
It was really a great loss of Japan...
I prayed for the repose of Kiyoshiro's soul today.

Friday, May 01, 2009

Day 571 : Taking a Nap

Ha ha, this is a snapshot of this mid-afternoon.
I was trying to get my daughter to bed, but I also fell asleep with my daughter on my stomach... :o

Day 571 : LEGO -- A Double Helix

My daughter got a LEGO Zoo Kit from grandpa yesterday.

The below is a work of my daughter using the kit.
Wow, it's a double helix, DNA! :o



Ha ha, it's a joke.
Not my daughter's but mine. :)
I also got LEGO kits when I was a small child from one of my uncles and my parents. I really enjoyed them very much. Anyway, I was really looking forward to Christmas season. :)

Day 571 : Zoo

Today, we took our daughter to a Zoo, Toyohashi Non-Hoi Park, in Aichi prefecture.



Unfortunately, today she looked like sleepy and a bit grizzled.
But anyway, she saw various animals such as monkeys like the left above.

As for the right above, it looked like a cage of so called Homo sapience. :o