The Silver Spoon is Cast

Day 1303 : the Youngest Stacker!?

2011-05-03T18:21:00.002+09:00

Haha, my daughter could be the youngest stacker! :o

Day 1301 : Portrait !?

2011-05-01T00:39:00.002+09:00

Seems to be my portrait...drew by my daughter. :o

TOEIC '10 Summer

2010-08-16T21:07:00.005+09:00

Again, I had a TOEIC test on August 1, and today I found the score report in my mail box after summer vacation in my home town.

At first, I thought that the score was better than the last time slightly, but it turned out I got 10 points down. :(
Actually, from this year, I decided to have TOEIC exam once a year, not biannually, and this time I could make no spare when I took the exam. In short, it's important how one is used to answering the questions. So, it's better taking it as a reasonable result anyway.

Day 1007 : No Thank You!?

2010-07-11T23:50:00.004+09:00

Now, my daughter is staying at her grandma's house with my wife.

Today, I asked my wife sending some pictures of my daughter, and I got the following:

Well, my wife said, "Let's take a picture for papa!", and my daughter looked like that she didn't like it...orz :ob

Day 972 : Rock'n Roll !

2010-06-06T20:35:00.002+09:00

This evening, we went to Ito Yokado @ Musashi Koganei, and the above is a snapshot there.
I think there is no need to explain. :)

De'Longhi

2010-05-29T17:16:00.003+09:00

Recently, my wife bought a dehumidifier.
I didn't know which manufacturer she chose, but today I recognized she loves brand things.
It's a De'Longhi, DC125ECO, and here my point is that it's huge and noisy. :(

日本人の英語

2010-05-26T23:43:00.003+09:00

日本人の英語 (English of Japanese People)
マーク・ピーターセン(Mark Petersen)
ISBN 4-00-430018-5

Well, I thought I should write about this book in Japanese, my mother tongue.

この本は初版が1988年、まだ僕が大学生の頃に出版されている。
なんで出た当時に、せめて大学院の頃に気づいて読まなかったのだろう。
このblogも、思うところあって英語で書いているわけだけれど、この本を読んでいて、正直、冷や汗が出たというのが正直なところだ。
マーク・ピーターセンの本は、他にも「続日本人の英語」「心にとどく英語」とあるのでどちらも順次読んでみよう。

しかし、それにしても、見事な「日本語」だとしかいいようがない。
最近は日本語の通じない／書けない日本人も多いことだし…

Day 958 : Pretending to be asleep

2010-05-23T10:21:00.003+09:00

Recently our daughter pretends to be asleep when we say something she does not like.
I'm not sure whom she learned it from, but anyway the above picture is an example. :o

Twitter 503

2010-05-18T01:26:00.002+09:00

Ha ha, I see this screen for the first time.
There must be a storm of tweets in the world. :)

Cloud Computing Expo #1

2010-05-13T23:48:00.008+09:00

Today, I went to the 1st Cloud Computing Expo (Cloud Japan) to listen to a talk given by Yuji Chino of NicoNico Video(ニコニコ動画).
Actually, it was the keynote speech of the Data Storage Expo which was joint hosted with that.
That's why, his talk was mainly focusing on storage subsystem perspective of their system.

Here are my notes:
- Nico Video has about 140TB of data in total. Individual video file has 2 or 3 copies including the original.
- At this moment, Nico Video supports only 2 levels of resolution. This is one trade off decision.
- At this moment, Nico Video does not preserve the original uploaded data. This is another trade off decision.
- Nico Video's system uses 3-tier model, edge servers(400), origin servers(100) and storage subsystem(3).
- I'm not sure what is the origin server, but it looks like a kind of cache server.
- Because of their load balancing and multi-tier cache architecture, there is no significant I/O traffic for the storage subsystem even they are using NFS, not FC fabric.
- The edge servers utilizes fast I/O throughput of SSD, for other servers capacity is primarily important.

Sun Intel Net !?

2010-05-04T15:28:00.003+09:00

I've been interested in a company named "SUN INTELNET" Corporation which has a big building by the wayside of Tomei Express Way close to Atsugi Interchange.
Today, I succeeded to take a photo of their building finally. :)

Of course, it's because I felt funny the combination of words Sun and Intel, but anyway they look like a logistic related company...

Day 938 : Funny Face?

2010-05-03T16:33:00.003+09:00

Haha, recently my daughter wears a funny face when we say something she doesn't like.
The above is a snapshot which my little brother took today. :)

A Business Meeting

2010-04-22T23:37:00.005+09:00

Today, I had a meeting with a former colleague of mine.

Actually, he was my boss about 3 years ago, and both of us are now working for different companies from the one which we both worked for together.
Actually, it's often said that my employer and his employer are competing each other, but I think today we had very much constructive discussion. Granted that it's not clear the business could be put into practice at this moment, but I'm looking forward to working together with him. :)

Anyway, I have to hurry up my current work improving quality of a software related to cloud computing. That's the key factor, actually. :o

RFC 5841

2010-04-03T22:35:00.005+09:00

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc5841.txt

This RFC proposes a new TCP option to denote packet mood. :o

I like it. :)

Cherry blossoms and a farewell

2010-04-03T13:35:00.008+09:00

My wife's grand father past away in Izumo today, and I'll be there tomorrow to attend at the funeral ceremony. If I remember correctly, he was 95 years old.

Spring is the season of cherry blossoms as well as the farewell season.
The cousin of mine whose one year anniversary ceremony I attended at last week also left this life in this season of cherry blossoms. As a typical Japanese, I'm feeling something from the fact they departed in the season...

Anyway, I wanted to take my daughter to Izumo to see him before hearing the news...

Day 905 : Grandpa

2010-03-31T15:08:00.004+09:00

Ha ha, my daughter enjoyed 2 days with her grandpa about 8 months interval!
Unfortunately, we have very cold days in Japan, but it looks like they had happy time anyway. :)

Day 902 : Departure

2010-03-28T22:28:00.003+09:00

We stayed at Shizuoka two days because of the anniversary of my cousin's death.
This time, we moved to my wife's home town to see her parents after the ceremony in my home town.
Actually, my father in law met my daughter about 8 months interval because he spends alomost all of his time in Izumo with his parents. I can understand how great he was looking forward to this day for months. :)

An Wedding Ceremony

2010-03-21T22:28:00.001+09:00

Today, I attended at an wedding ceremony of a colleague of mine.
I worked together with him for five years since he joined to our company, and so I felt quite profound during the ceremony being as a witnesses of their marriage. :)

Actually, it's was the first time for me attending at Christian style wedding ceremony, and the sermons of the rector (father?) was very much impressive.

BTW, the ceremony was held at a very good restaurant, Ristorante ASO in Daikanyama, and the dishes were extremely good. IMHO, better than Enoteca Pinciori in Ginza.

P.S.
Hi, Uchikawa-san, are you reading?
You know the above guy and his father very much. I had a really happy time today. :)

Kiel's in Tokyo

2010-03-21T21:53:00.003+09:00

I didn't know that Kiel's opened their satellite shop in Shibuya, Tokyo.
The location is near the Shibuya station of Keio Inogashira line (京王井の頭線).

I went to their main shop about 1.5 years ago in New York. At that time, I walked more than 1 hour looking for the shop just after arriving in New York, and so I was exhausted. :(

But, now my wife can visit there by herself. :)

Day 894 : Exhausted

2010-03-20T23:23:00.005+09:00

Today was a busy day for my daughter.
In the morning, she went to a hospital with her mother.
There, she looked like got nervous.
After getting back home, she had a lunch in a hurry and went to a park with her father.
There, she enjoyed a swing and a slide very much about 1.5 hours.
Finally, she went to a big electronics center with her parents to buy a new laundry machine.
I took the above picture when we had a dinner at an Italian restaurant after the shopping.
Usually, she takes a nap afternoon about 2 hours, but today she didn't sleep at all.
Thus, she fell asleep at the restaurant. :o

Thus, she must have been exhausted.
Have a good dream. :)

A LISP Textbook

2010-03-19T23:44:00.006+09:00

LISP For Beginners Revised Edition (初めての人のためのLISP 増補改訂版)
Ikuo Takeuchi
ISBN 978-4-7981-1941-0

I bought this book today.
The author is Professor Takeuchi whom I mentioned in the beginning of this month.

Actually, I studied LISP about 15 years ago using Winston and Horn, but it's a quite standard textbook and in other word boring for me.

You can understand that the textbook is abnormal by skimming it within a minute. :o
It consists of mainly dialogs of Professor K and students, and what the most important thing is that it tells us philosophy of LISP and computer science throughout the book.

Actually, the book has been out of prints for years. But, Professor Takeuchi revised it greatly and published again yesterday. :)

It's worth reading if you are working on computer science. :)

Bluetooth USB Adapter

2010-03-18T21:32:00.008+09:00

Today, I went to Yurakucho BicCamera and bought the below. :)

Corega CG-BT2USB02CB
It's a Class2 Bluetooth USB adapter, and it costed me 1280 yen (roughly 14USD).

For me, the cost was the first priority this time, and the second was size.
Class 1 or 2 (maximum communication radius) was not important at all.
Look at the picture, and compare the size with a cigarette. It's so small and perfect. :)

BTW, why I bought it?
TOP SECRET. :o

Anyway, I'm going to use it at office, not at home. :)

IPSJ 72nd National Convention, Day 3

2010-03-11T22:48:00.009+09:00

Today, I attended at a regular session at the IPSJ national convention.

https://www.gakkai-web.net/gakkai/ipsj/72program/html/program/P5.html#6E

Here are my notes.

6E-1
Hum... Their work looked like at very early stage. I'm not
sure why they did the presentation now...

6E-2
It looks like a part of METI funded national R&D project carried on
by NEC Laboratory. The work is about a new (?) cache data control method
for resource configuration information expressed in CIM. It's a variation
of LRU resource management techniques, I think, and their basic idea
is to use residual time before expiration of various resource
configuration information. The experimental results show the validity
of the idea, but I felt it's important how to choose the TTL values of
each resource configuration information. I pointed out it after their
presentation, but

6E-3
A work for realizing multi-tenant environment without
any modifications of user Servlet applications
done by Hitachi System Development Laboratory.
The essential point of the work is that keep using a single database. :o
I would have separate databases for each tenant and just modify DBCP
(database connection pool) configuration, but it looks like
the strong constraint they assumed came from GlassFish.
Technically, their implementation stores tenant level context information
in thread local storage, intercepts some SQL statements and rewrite
table names in the single database.
Performance impact seemed to be small, but it's better to make longer
pseudo application loads than they did.

6E-4 Canceled.

6E-5
Our work on cloud federation manager which I mentioned here several times.
Actually, what we thought was that we put too much information
into our paper. :o

6E-6
An interesting work on multimedia processing system by
NTT Cyber Space Laboratory. They have been working
on a huge scale stream data processing cluster engine called DMS for
several years, and this work "Niji-Gumo" (虹雲) which means rainbow
cloud is an implementation of a new frame work supporting intuitive UI
framework using DMS as its backend engine.

The work is interesting, but it was not clear for me what theme the presenter
wants to focus on. User interface improvement, multimedia data processing or
DMS itself...?

6E-7
A work on improving a multi-tier streaming data processing engine, DMS,
from the same organization with the previous session.
DMS is basically consists of 3-tier clusters, and the second tier which
is responsible for the most CPU intensitive processing *pulls* requests
from the front tier. Furthermore, members of the second tier do not
communicate with each. This structure comes from a motivation shooting for
maximum parallelism of course. But, it naturally produces a side effect
that sometimes a lot of the second tier servers try to pull requests
from one front end server which the called 'back-pressure problem'.
This time, they chose to solve the problem making a kind of waiting queue
in the front end tier servers. :(

I thought the resolution is quite ad-hoc and they should consider the puller
side resolution too because nowadays there are good algorithms for keeping
consistency in distributed environment.

Acoustic Guitar

2010-03-10T21:44:00.008+09:00

I like acoustic guitar plays, and today I found a cool video on YouTube.
Toto's Africa covered by Andy McKee using an acoustic guitar. :)

BTW, the below is also awesome. :)

IPSJ 72nd National Convention

2010-03-09T21:54:00.006+09:00

Today, I went to the 72nd National Convention of Information Processing Society of Japan and attended at a special session on cloud computing.

Here are my memorandums:

Hadoop at Yahoo, Today and Tomorrow, Owen O'Malley, Yahoo!

Need to look into "Oozie", a workflow engine under development at Yahoo
Need to check "Zebra", a column oriented data store used in Pig
Append feature of HDFS will not be included in 0.21, but under development :)
Generating spam filter is one use case of Hadoop as machine lerning

Cloud Computing in Government: Standards, Security, and Early Experience, Charlie Catlett, ANL

Need to check "Magellan" project of NERSC

Computers and Networks, Coming closer each other by cloud computing, Hideo Miyahara, NICT

Architecture = Science + Technology (The guy stated so, but I don's subscribe to this point of view...)
To check what is AKARI project at NICT

Day 882 : The Scream

2010-03-08T22:27:00.004+09:00

Haha, "The Scream" by Munch. :o

HHK Came Alive!

2010-03-08T22:19:00.004+09:00

Last Friday, I wrote about my 10 years old Happy Hacking Keyboard.

I thought it was dead because of electrical trouble because I spilled green tea on it.
But, after 2 days interval, it looks like come alive. :)
I guess it's because it dried up completely, and anyway I'm feeling happy today. :)

IT Architect?

2010-03-08T22:18:00.013+09:00

I'm running a twitter clone system at work, and I was a bit shocked seeing a tweet today. :(

Well, the guy who tweeted it is known as an really excellent engineer inside us, and his specialty covers mainly software architecture. Thus, he has been in charge of middle ware level framework such as Spring or so. Recently, he also worked on cloud computing, and thus I thought of course he knew what is GAE, Google App Engine, including Pros/Cons.

But, it turned out that he didn't know that GAE does not have support of RDBMS so far!

Of course, I believe that today he understand the essential things on GAE and do right things.
But the problem is, that even I, mainly in charge of infrastructure layer, knew such a basic issue more than 1 year ago, and he is one of lead software architects of us.

I'm wondering where my employer is going... :(

P.S.
Ohta-san, I'm not talking about Masatani-san. Other guy whom you don't know.

Happy Hacking Keyboard

2010-03-05T23:26:00.004+09:00

At work, there are three Happy Hacking Keyboards on my desk.
But, the oldest one which I bought more than 10 years ago finally failed. :(
Of course, it's because I spilled green tea on the keyboard.

Now, I'm wondering if it comes to life by drying it out...

Day 877 : Girl's Day

2010-03-03T20:23:00.002+09:00

It's the second Girl's Day of my daughter, today. :)

To tell the truth, I wanted to attend at the farewell party of Professor Takeuchi, but actually I had more important mission(!?) today.

She had a cake for the first time in her life today. :o

The Last Lecture of Prof. Takeuchi

2010-03-03T19:00:00.011+09:00

Today, I attended at the last lecture of Professor Ikuo Takeuchi held at the University of Tokyo.

Actually, I was not a student nor a coworker of him, but I worked with his son for several years. So, I've been feeling strong sense of community...

The title of the lecture was "研究・開発は楽しく" which roughly means "Have Fun in Research and Development activities." Today, he walked through his surprising research activities since he was an elementary school student. According to the story, when Professor Takeuchi was 3rd grade of elementary school, he insisted that 8 divided by 8 equals! :0

Professor Takeuchi is famous for his Lisp related works such as Takeuchi Function, so
at the end of his last lecture, he quoted from Raymond M. Smullyan, "The S-expression has no purpose and for this reason fulfills all its purposes admirably."

And here is his conclusion,
"The true creator has no purpose and for this reason fulfills all its purposes admirably."

Great, isn't it... :)

Cloud Network Symposium

2010-03-02T19:01:00.003+09:00

Today, I attended at a symposium titled, "Cloud Network Symposium" held in Otemachi, central Tokyo, not as just an attendee but an organizer. :o

As its subtitle "Possibilities of Secure Cloud Networking Technology" shows, the symposium was partly intended for announcing results of an R&D activity funded by the ministry of internal affairs and communications in FY 2009.

Thus, most of talks were technology oriented, but actually the most impressive speaker was Mr. Yong from Saga prefecture saying "Consider what you want/should do using cloud computing. In most of the cases, BPR is more important than technology when you try to apply new technology to your (business) system." :o

Pocket WiFi

2010-03-01T22:38:00.001+09:00

I'm writing this entry in a moving trains car, now.

Well, I bought an EMOBILE's Pocket WiFi (D25HW) last Saturday.

D25HW is EMOBILE's new generation terminal capable of connecting to other devices such as note-pc via WiFi. As it uses conventional IEEE 801.11g I/F, it can be used with a Nintendo DS for example. Furthermore, if an iPhone user wants to access to iTunes WiFi store, D25HW can be used as iPhone's WiFi AP.

Like the picture below, it's so small and can be used without plugging into other devices. So, it's OK just power on and put it into your bag. :)

So far as connection quality, it's not so fast. But, enough for checking e-mails on your way home or office or net surfing even if you are in a train car. :)

BTW, since I got a baby 2 years ago, I've been busy both at home and at work. Especially, I had almost no time working on hobby programming at home. It's was frustrating actually.
But, I can make time on my way back home from now, and now I'm wondering which project I should work on first . :)

Day 866 : Open the Door!

2010-02-20T22:16:00.002+09:00

I didn't know that now my daughter can open the door to the entrance hall of our house.
Of course, it's a great pleasure to see her growth day by day, but it's a big headache to see she plays trick daringly step by step... :(

Day 866 : Friends

2010-02-20T13:14:00.002+09:00

Today, my daughter visited a house of friend, and there 3 kids got together.
During their mothers were chatting, they looked like watching TV, playing with toys and various things.

But, according to my wife, my daughter looked like withdrawing into her own wold, didn't join other kids well. :(

Day 861 : Scuff

2010-02-15T18:23:00.002+09:00

Haha, my daughter got new scuff, Anpan-man. :)

Day 859 : Drawing

2010-02-13T14:53:00.001+09:00

Yesterday, we went to BABiESRUS, and bought some drawing sets.
In the above picture, my wife is drawing Dokin-chan of Anpan-man for my daughter using a water pen. It's cool because it uses no ink, and there is no afraid spattering the floor. :)

But, the only problem is that pictures are of course volatile, and thus I have to carefully watch what my daughter is drawing to take pictures of them. :o

VAIO CW

2010-02-11T23:18:00.005+09:00

Today, we went to Yamada Denki and bought a new PC for my wife.

My wife's choice was SONY VAIO CW, and I was a bit surprised because she wanted a BluRay drive.

,

It turned out that actually she wanted to watch "THIS IS IT" by BluRay media... :o
(It contains more bonus tracks than DVD version.) :)

BTW, I also spent my youth enjoying Micheal Jackson's tunes. So, I also enjoyed "This Is It." :)

Gödel's incompleteness theorems

2010-02-02T23:19:00.011+09:00

Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems
Kurt Gödel (Translation and expository writings by Susumu Hayashi and Mariko Yasugi)
ISBN 4-00-339441-0

This is a unique book on the Gödel's incompleteness theorems.
It consists of 3 parts.
The first part of of the book is a translation of the original Gödel's paper, ant the second expository writings by the translators on historical perspective of foundation of mathematics mainly focuses on works of David Hilbert, not the theorems themself. This is because it's essential to understand the historical background why the theorems were discovered.
The third part is an annotation of Goedel's original paper, and furthermore the translators tries to reconstruct Goedel's thoughts when he discovered the theorems.

Actually, I picked up the book at a book store to have better understanding on Penrose's theory on consciousness, but the book is more than my expectation. :)

I'm not sure if there is an English translation of the book, but I believe it's worth reading anyway. :)

Snowy Tokyo

2010-02-01T23:45:00.008+09:00

In Tokyo, we have snow usually once or twice a year, and today is the first snowy day of this winter.

It's around 9:00pm when it began to snow. So, my daughter didn't recognize it's snowing...
I'm wondering what she would say looking at the scene tomorrow morning. :)

Day 838 : Stand Up!

2010-01-23T00:31:00.004+09:00

Recently, I take my daughter to a park almost every week end.
Today, she succeeded to stand up on a swing. :)

But, I'm not sure if she was really enjoying that.
I mean perhaps she could be scared on the swing ... :o

La plus belle historie du monde

2010-01-11T17:16:00.009+09:00

"La plus belle historie du monde"
Le secrets de nos origines

Hubert Reeves, Joel de Rosnay, Yves Coppens and Dominique Simonnet
ISBN 4-480-42176-9

This book looks like a best seller in France.
There 3 famous scientists give talks on the origins of Universe, Life and Human Beings led by a famous journalist.

Actually, there were several points which I was not sure if they are really established theories or not, but anyway the book is easy to read and a very good popular science book.

Shamisen

2010-01-10T00:33:00.003+09:00

Today, I found a great video on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK6XwrZB0tY

Fascinating... isn't it? :)

Funny Font

2010-01-08T23:03:00.004+09:00

I found a funny font today while net surfing...

http://blog.designed-by-kenji.com/?eid=613862

I thought the designer is a genius. :o
It's a pity that it's difficult to create Japanese version of the font because kanji characters have more complicated shapes. Maybe it's possible to design a Hiragara funny font. :)

BTW, I'm wondering what if I wrote a academic paper using the font... :o

Unbroken Arrow

2010-01-07T23:50:00.020+09:00

Unbroken Arrow
Chohei Kambayashi
ISBN 978-4152090515

This is the third book of Yukikaze series.
Kambayashi is one of the most discriminating Sci-Fi authors in Japan.

For years, Kambayashi has been seeking for a bit philosophical things.
"What is reality?" for example.

Yukikaze series is a story about a battle between human beings and aliens called Jam which look like machinery life form, especially forms of combat airplanes.

In the first book of Yukikaze series, Kambayashi wrote mainly on relationship between human beings and machines.
In the second book, he tried to describe differences between human beings and Jam, but still the main focus was on the earth side. Actually, the relationship between human beings and Yukikaze, the most cutting edge artificial intelligence optimized for battle.
Here, the point is, the alien, Jam, was described as completely 'alien' throughout the two books. Anyway, too different to understand each other.

Here in the third book, Kambayashi steps into a new stage.
The story begins when a journalist received a mail from the planet Fairy, the battle field, connected by subspace corridor in the Antarctica. The sender is a human, a renegade commander of the earth side force in the planet, and his message was a proclamation of war on behalf of Jam...
Thus, there are not so many dog fight scenes of airplanes like the previous two books, but it's full of dizzy but meaning a great deal scenes which Kambayashi is good at.
I assure you that the book is worth reading. :)

Chaos Phenomenology

2009-12-30T01:20:00.005+09:00

Chaos Phenomenology
Hiroshi Serizawa
ISBN 978-4489004223

A plain introduction to classical chaotic dynamics with sample programs.
But, they are based on TurboC (!) and depend on Borland's Graphic Interface (BGI).
Nowadays, a bit obsolete... :(

Prime Obsession

2009-12-15T01:08:00.005+09:00

Prime Obsession -- Bernhard Riemann & the Greatest Unsolved Problem
John Derbyshire
ISBN 4-8222-8204-X

This books is a plain expository on Riemann Hypothesis.
Actually, I didn't know well how good describing distribution of prime numbers the hypothesis and related theorems are.

I believe that you can do good mental gymnastics reading the book even if you don't have enough background knowledge on number theories. Actually, I didn't have almost at all. :o

Guin Saga 130

2009-12-10T22:41:00.015+09:00

Guin Saga 130
A Fathomless Future
Kaoru Kurimoto
ISBN 978-4-15-030975-6

This is the very last book of the Guin Saga series.
It's a great pity that Kurimoto could not complete her greatest work.
But, as her husband writes in postscript of the book, Kurimoto left us great amount of information about overall story line of the series. So, even I can imagine my own version of Guin Saga story, and now I'm wondering if my daughter would have interests on the series. If she does, it must be a happy time chatting various topics of the Guin Saga world with my daughter. :)

Day 783 : Reading Girl?

2009-11-29T23:41:00.002+09:00

Above is a snapshot of this afternoon. :)
She is reading a poetry by Tozo Haraguchi (原口統三), a charismatic Japanese poet, who committed suicide when he was 20 years old. I'm not sure if she understands what she is reading. :o

One more thing what came up with me looking at the above photo is a French film, "The Reader." I hope that she won't fall into a strange situation like the heroine of the film. :)

Day 775 : Spaghetti Girl

2009-11-21T23:48:00.000+09:00

Ha ha, above is a snapshot of this afternoon. :)
Both myself and my wife was very sleepy, and we fell asleep earlier than our daughter.
15 or 30 minutes later, we found an entangled ball of spaghetti like the above. :o

XORG

2009-11-16T22:40:00.004+09:00

Today, I attended at a kind of network operators and researchers group inside my employer's companies group. Here, X of XORG is one of 26 alphabets. Above is a snapshot at the party after the meeting.

There I made a short presentation about cloud computing and actually I was not sure if audience there were really interested in cloud computing movement because most of the audience are working for network carriers. But, after all, it turned out that not a small number of the people are interested in the huge hype of cloud computing and thinking their business seriously.

Since I joined to the current employer of mine, I was not sure if the companies under the same holding company are sharing the same goal or not. Frankly speaking, I thought they are competing each other. :o But, today I felt some kind of sense of unity. :)

Day 769 : Paperback Girl

2009-11-15T23:14:00.009+09:00

Haha, above is a snapshot of this evening.
From yesterday, she began to show interests on books, and today she looke like attracted paperbacks.

But, the problem is the title. It's William Gibson's Idoru (ISBN 0-425-15864-0). :(
You can find a book review article of the book by Hiroo Yamagata here, and I do not recommend that she tries it as her first paperback...
My recommendation is a juvenile book such as Harry Potter or Lion Boy, but anyway today the cover art looked like attracted her. :o

Hadoop: The Definitive Guide

2009-11-09T22:05:00.004+09:00

Hadoop: The Definitive Guide
Tom White
ISBN 978-0-596-52197-4

Today, I made a 6 nodes small Hadoop cluster finally.
In also Japan, recently everybody and his brother of IT industory is interested in Hadoop and similar technology, and I am not an exception. :o

Around me at work, there seem to be a lot of people who indeed have interests on Hadoop but do not know what they can do using Hadoop. :o
In case of me, the situation is a bit different. I'm working on a national R&D project related to cloud computing, but actually I'm not sure if the technology is really useful or not. :o So, as a use case of it, I began to work on Hadoop/MapReduce recently. :(

I know it's like putting the cart before the horse, but what can I do?? :(

VIMPL#20

2009-11-05T23:28:00.005+09:00

I attended at the 20th meeting of the Virtualization Implementation Technology Workshop (Meeting?) tonight.

Today, there were 4 speakers, and three of them gave us reports of SOSP '09, and the other one talked about Japan Linux Symposium.
For me, the most interesting topic was about formal verification work of L4 microkernel(!?), seL4. Although the authors from NICTA, Australia, had to assume various restrictions, but anyway they won the best paper award.

BTW, I attended at another meeting yesterday evening. It was a really really boring and fucking one. It was a waste of time. :(
But I had happy time about 3 hours today, and I can go to bed with happy feeling. :)

Beyond the Doubting of a Shadow

2009-11-04T01:08:00.014+09:00

Beyond the Doubting of a Shadow
Roger Penrose (commentaries by Ken-ichiro Mogi and Kaoru Takeuchi)
ISBN 4-480-09006-1 (Japanese edition)

This book is not just a translation of Penrose's articles, but a collection of commentaries and discussions about Penrose's ideas on consciousness. Thus, Japanese title of the book is "ペンローズの量子脳理論" which means "The Quantum Brain Theory of Penrose."
Readers are required to have knowledge on not only Cognitive Science but also Computability, Mathematical Logic including Goedel's theory and contemporary Physics or background to understand them at least.
But, the translators, Mogi and Takeuchi, have wide variety of knowledge covering them, and their additional writings help us greatly understanding the original Penrose's idea. In this sense, the book is a unique work on the theme.

BTW, at least for me, I'm feeling that I need to read some more books to have enough understanding on the concept :(, and I'm looking fora good book on Mathematical Logic now....

Day 757 : Shopping

2009-11-03T19:45:00.003+09:00

Haha, above is a snapshot when we went out for a walk this evening.
She wares a helmet which we bought on the last Sunday at a bicycle shop. Actually we set for the walk after my wife did test run of the bicycle, and she asked me taking a stroll with her. In addition, she looked like loves the helmet, and so she kept waring that. :)

At first, we had nothing to buy there, but her mother asked me to have two apples by cell phone, and she enjoyed shopping this time. :)

Day 757 : Gymnastic Club

2009-11-03T11:16:00.004+09:00

In Japan, November 3 is a national holiday, and I went to a gymnastic club that my daughter attends on Tuesday.

It was a delightful time and she looked like enjoying various gymnastic apparatuses there at first. But, I had to face reality that my daughter did not listen to coaches almost at all and went her own way all the time there ... :o

Now I'm wondering if she listens to what other people are talking about someday...

Day 755 : Friends

2009-11-02T00:42:00.002+09:00

Today, we went to a bycicle shop with my daughter's friend and her mother.
Above is a snapshot on our way back home.

The right above girl is younger than my daughter by one month, but I was a bit surprised that she was speaking some senseful phrases. My daughter seems to understand what we are talking about, but she speaks only a few words. So far, I didn't care that my daughter does not speak senseful phrases yet, but looking at other children speaking I became anxious a bit. :(

An Introduction to The Human Sciences

2009-10-27T01:32:00.016+09:00

An Introduction to The Human Sciences
Takeshi Yoro
ISBN 4-480-86064-9

This book is worth reading.

Yoro, author of the book, defines Human Sciences as explaining something by using a human being as a criterion defined in scientific and universal way. I think Yoro is trying to reconstruct the way to build up a world perspective in a bit different manner from the modern western science.

Why can a human being, a highly objective thing, be used as a criterion for having perspective of the world, the most subjective thing?
It is because the perspective must be expressed by a language which is a collection of commonly understandable symbols among human beings, and it's a human brain which processes the symbols and gives senses to them. Thus, the world perspective cannot be separated from the nature of a human being.

Anyway, I think readers can see a bit new approach to this very old problem.

Day 748 : A Cold Day

2009-10-25T23:43:00.005+09:00

In Japan, we had cold days this week end.
Above is a snapshot when we went out for shopping this evening. We were worrying that our daughter might catch a cold and felt it too cold outside, but actually she looked like enjoying shopping. :)

Men-Kui-Do

2009-10-17T19:39:00.004+09:00

It's been a long time since I went to Ramen restaurant last time.
Today, my wife was busy in the evening, and I went to Men-Kui-Do (麺喰堂) which replaced Guts Ramen several months ago.

The above right is my choice today, a soy source soup ramen with an additional egg.
I was a bit surprised because the soup looked like pork bone based one and tasted strong dried bonito. According to this article, owners of the restaurant changed and they changed menu. The point is that taste of their ramen was downgraded. :(
But, anyway I like it, and more than anything else, they are cheap. :)

Day 740 : Shopping?

2009-10-17T16:28:00.004+09:00

On week end days, it's my routine work taking a walk with my daughter while my wife is clearing out our room.

Above is a snapshot at an co-op store around our house.
Ha ha, it's not shopping, but a walk.
Acutually, my daughter took me there. :o

Guin Saga 129

2009-10-10T22:12:00.008+09:00

Guin Saga 129
The Child Chosen
Kaoru Kurimoto
ISBN 978-4-15-030971-8

I thought this is the last completed book of Guin Saga, but book 130 seems to be available in December. It's said that the 130th book was not completed when Kurimoto past away, but anyway we can enjoy one more book...

One Thousand and One Nights (13/13)

2009-10-10T22:08:00.019+09:00

Le Liver Des Mille Nuits Et Une Nuit (13/13)
Translated to French by J.C. Mardrus
ISBN 4-00-327813-5 (Japanese translation)

The 13th book of "One Thousand and One Nights."
From the night 940 to the last night.

It took me about 4 months to finish the 13 books because I was a bit busy in July and August. But, to tell the truth, I bought them more than 15 years ago... :o

As I mentioned before, Shahrazad got three kids for her king.
In a sense, this is a happy ending. But, the king was going to kill her and didn't notice that she got pregnant by him at all. It's amazing...

Day 732 : Happy Birthday!

2009-10-09T21:07:00.004+09:00

Today, is Ayako's second birthday! :)
Yes, time goes by like an arrow, and she is now two years old. :)

BTW, she needs some more practice to show her age by fingers...

One Thousand and One Nights (12/13)

2009-10-06T23:53:00.008+09:00

Le Liver Des Mille Nuits Et Une Nuit (12/13)
Translated to French by J.C. Mardrus
ISBN 4-00-327812-7 (Japanese translation)

The 12th book of "One Thousand and One Nights."
From the night 881 to the night 940.

BTW, story of the night 882 is a collection of short episode, and among them an episode named "Anklet" which plot is like Cinderella. I'm not sure which is older. But, this episode might be the original.

Day 726 : Ayako in the Mirror

2009-10-03T23:28:00.013+09:00

This is another snapshot when she is washing her hands at a basin.

Yes, it's a mirror image and the cell phone which I have is the camera that took it. :)

Day 726 : Turning Around

2009-10-03T23:28:00.011+09:00

Ha ha, this is a snapshot I took after dinner time. :)

Power of Ten

2009-10-02T23:37:00.003+09:00

Today, I watched this video at a meeting at work.
It's just intended for giving some feeling of relaxation for the attendees, but I like it.
Maybe it's because I studied physics in my school days, but still I think the video is highly suggestive for wide range of people. :)

One Thousand and One Nights (11/13)

2009-09-27T23:59:00.008+09:00

Le Liver Des Mille Nuits Et Une Nuit (11/13)
Translated to French by J.C. Mardrus
ISBN 4-00-327811-0 (Japanese translation)

The 11th book of "One Thousand and One Nights."
From the night 826 to the night 881.

This book contains "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves," and like other famous Arabian Nights juvenile stories, the original story is quite different from my memory.
In a sense, it's a bit cruel, but maybe it's just a problem of cultural difference.

Day 720 : Flower

2009-09-27T17:03:00.003+09:00

The above is a snapshot when we walked around this afternoon.
I hope she understands and loves beauty of flowers as her first name in Kanji expresses. :)

Day 719 : Back Home

2009-09-26T23:37:00.003+09:00

This time, my wife and my daughter stayed at their grandma's house two more days than me, and I greeted them at Tokyo Station today. She looked like really enjoyed this small tour. :)

Day 715 : New Lego Kit

2009-09-22T18:30:00.004+09:00

After staying at Shizuoka, my home town, we moved to Aichi, my wife's home town.
There, my daughter's grandma was waiting for her, and she got a new Lego Kit. :)

Summer Festival 2009 (Day 3)

2009-09-20T23:36:00.004+09:00

It's the last day of of Nissaka Fummer Festival this year.

The above is a snapshot in front of the float of Furumiya area where my daughter's great grandma lives. :)

BTW, the festival is held by people under the protection of the local deity of Kotono-mama Hachiman-gu (事任八幡宮) shrine. Actualy, there are two districts under the shrine, and they celebrated the festival separately for years till 2 years ago. But, from last year they began to have the festival together. Thus, we can see 8 floats at the same time like the picture below.
The scene is really fascinating. :)

Last year, my daughter was just before her first birthday, and we were not sure if she was enjoying the festival or not. But, we felt really happy to see she loves the festival.

I and my wife were talking about buying costume for the festival season next year. :)

Summer Festival 2009

2009-09-19T15:08:00.008+09:00

Again, it's the Summer Festival season in Nissaka area, Kakegawa city, Shizuoka. :)

Of course, we took our daughter there, and she looked like enjoying the festival like the below.

Rock'n roll!? :o

Day 711 : Driving A Car

2009-09-18T13:55:00.004+09:00

This year we had another vacation season in September from Sep. 19 to Sep.23 which is called the Silver Week in Japan. (BTW, the Golden Week is in May.)
I took an additional day off today and drove to my home town to see my grandma, that is, my daughter's great grandma. :)

The above is a snapshot I took when we set for Shizuoka.
Yes, she looks like enjoying driving. :)

One Thousand and One Nights (10/13)

2009-09-18T12:39:00.006+09:00

Le Liver Des Mille Nuits Et Une Nuit (10/13)
Translated to French by J.C. Mardrus
ISBN 4-00-327810-0 (Japanese translation)

The 10th book of "One Thousand and One Nights."
From the night 774 to the night 826.

One Thousand and One Nights (9/13)

2009-09-15T23:25:00.007+09:00

Le Liver Des Mille Nuits Et Une Nuit (9/13)
Translated to French by J.C. Mardrus
ISBN 4-00-327809-7 (Japanese translation)

The 9th book of "One Thousand and One Nights."
From the night 622 to the night 774.

This book contains "The Tale of Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp," and I felt it's OK letting my daughter read it different from the case of "The Tale of Sindbad the Sailor." But, one thing interesting is that genies of lamps serve a enormous bird, Roc, which appeared in also Sindbad's adventure stories. Maybe, it's just a coincidence. But, anyway it's a bit impressive for me.

One more thing to note is that Shahrazad took 20 days refreshment and mentioned that the fact means prosperity of her king's family. But, the king didn't notice anything. It's more than 2 years since Shaharazad began to tell various implicative stories for him, and still he does not show any signs of changing his mind. In a sense, it's amazing...

Day 706 : A Festival

2009-09-13T23:17:00.002+09:00

Today, we went to Kokubunji, and there was a festival.
It's a traditional style Japanese festival with portable shrines.
Of course, the town was fulfilled with fervor of the festival, and people were shouting aloud.

As for my daughter, she looked like being afraid of them and holding me tightly like the above picture. :o

Venezuelan Harp

2009-09-10T23:30:00.002+09:00

This is great!

A duo of Venezuelan harp and quatro playing Merry Chriestmas Mr. Lawrence by Ryuichi Sakamoto. You have to wait at least 3 minutes because they play the tune in Venezuelan arrange in the latter half of their play. :)

The harp player is Yoko Yoshizawa, and the quatro player is Hisashi Takahashi.

One Thousand and One Nights (8/13)

2009-09-09T23:35:00.011+09:00

Le Liver Des Mille Nuits Et Une Nuit (8/13)
Translated to French by J.C. Mardrus
ISBN 4-00-327808-9 (Japanese translation)

The 8th book of "One Thousand and One Nights."
From the night 515 to the night 622.

The story for the night 576 to 615, "The Adventures of Hasan of Bassora" could be one of the best stories among 1001 ones.

BTW, its Japanese title literally means "The Adventures of Hasan Al-Basri."
I picked up the English title above from this site, I'm not sure which is correct because I don't speak French which the Japanese translators used as their base text...

Day 701 : MIT Girl?

2009-09-08T23:13:00.002+09:00

Ha ha, look at the strap she wares.
It's a souvenir for myself which I bought when I had a business trip to Boston a few years ago.
This morning I picked it up because I wanted to use it at work, but she took it away from me. :(

BTW, I was wondering what if she asked us to go abroad to study at MIT... :o

Season of Decay

2009-09-06T20:44:00.005+09:00

Recently, my wife's SONY VAIO type F failed, and today I was trying to salvage data from its HDD. The disk was not broken, and I could successfully pick up necessary files which my wife needs. It's OK so far.

But, it turned out that CRT monitor was also broken when I tried to connect the HDD to my desktop PC. :(
Actually, it I bought it about 15 years ago, and maybe the CRT monitor, Nanao (EIZO) 53T proved its high reliability & quality...

Anyway, it looks like season of decay for me and take me costs... :(

Before and After

2009-09-06T15:58:00.001+09:00

As I wrote last month, my car was damaged during our stay at my home town in this Summer vacation. Of cause, it's my fault... :(

Today, finally I got my car back, and the above pictures show before and after... :)

The Big Switch

2009-09-02T23:23:00.007+09:00

The Big Switch -- Rewriting the World, from Edison to Google
Nicholas G. Carr
ISBN 978-4-7981-1621-1 (Japanese translation)

I'm not sure if there is an English word "cloudize," but I want to mean making something cloud (computing) by the word.

Here, I wrote above because the Japanese title of the book, "クラウド化する世界", which roughly means "Cloudizing World " which must be named so because of the huge hype on cloud computing.

Car, author of the book, explains a paradigm shift caused by cloud computing by using an analogy of the change before and after diffusion of electricity. Actually there was a change of even concept of values, and it's nostalgia remembering the good old days before the change. For example, reading books under light of an oil ramp in the night was not convenient nor good for eyesight. But, not a small number of people must feel something attractive from that. But, times have changed.
Car says this kind of change is now coming.

BTW, hey Saeki-kun, do you understand what I said at a party after Maru-chan's wedding ceremony? :o

Day 693 : Hand Made Zoo?

2009-08-31T22:48:00.004+09:00

Recently, my daughter loves making her own zoo using LEGO.
Above is a snapshot I took when I got back home today.
She showed me her latest work with all smiles. :)

BTW, she recently gets one more vocabulary, "boo-boo" which means a car in Japanese baby-talk. I'm wondering what is her next word/phrase... :)

The Psychology of Men of Genious

2009-08-29T21:53:00.006+09:00

The Psychology of Men of Genious (Geniale Menschen), 5th edition
Ernst Kretchmer (Japanese translation)
ISBN 978-4003365816

A classical work on psychology of geniuses.
I bought the book possibly more than 10 years ago, and finally finished. The primary reason why I took it after such a long interval is mainly because I read Shroedinger's work on Mind and Matter recently. Also, Shroedinger is one of the greatest genious in the histroy of contemporary physics. I'm going to write on Shroedinger in another day.

This book is definitely one of established classics, but I'm wondering what people think about the section VII where Kretchmer says that there was no great female geniuses and explanations about "the fact." His analysis is mainly based on various talented people of Western European countries mainly before the 20th century. Especially after the second world war, the world is changing so rapidly. Thus, I'm feeling the theory of geniuses could be different nowadays. But, anyway maybe it just means I should read more contemporary works on philosophy of geniuses.

BTW, in Japanese translation, titles of part 2 is "映像" which means "Image", and I was not sure what Kretchmer meant by that. But, according to English translation available here, actually it was "Patterns." It might have been better reading the book in English... orz

Day 686 : First Word?

2009-08-24T22:43:00.009+09:00

Today is another memorial day of my daughter. :)

According to my wife, my daughter said "Panman" which she actually meant "Anpanman," a popular Japanese TV hero for children. :)

BTW, it was a bit surprising for me that "(An)Panman" was the first word of my daughter because the most frequently used word at home is "Oka-san" (おかあさん) which means "Mom" in English.

One Thousand and One Nights (7/13)

2009-08-24T22:04:00.004+09:00

Le Liver Des Mille Nuits Et Une Nuit (7/13)
Translated to French by J.C. Mardrus
ISBN 4-00-327807-0 (Japanese translation)

The 7th book of "One Thousand and One Nights."
From the night 414 to the night 515.

It was impressive that this book and the book 6 contain stories about people who live in the sea. They can breathe even in water, but except that they are almost the same with us. Actually, they have their own civilization under the sea.
In also Japan, we have a famous nursery tale, Urashima Taro, in which a fisherman helped a turtle and was invited to a castle under the sea.

I'm wondering if there are similar stories of people who live under the sea all around the world...
And if so, why?

Day 684 : Curler

2009-08-22T00:52:00.004+09:00

Ha ha, above is a snapshot at home in this afternoon.
My daughter always has shorthair because her mother loves it.
But, sometimes I want to see my daughter with long hair fashion. :)

400K Yen

2009-08-21T22:10:00.005+09:00

I had Summer vacation from August 12 to 18 and took my family to my home town.
Actually, it was a bit tough journey this time.

First of all, there was a bit big earthquake in my home town, Shizuoka prefecture on August 11.
All of my relatives there OK, and furthermore it looks like that there was only one victim by that earthquake. But, Tomei highway (the highway road between Tokyo and Nagoya) was heavily damaged and blocked between ShizuokaIC and Fukuroi IC. Of cause, it caused heavy traffic jam and we were trapped by the traffic jam. I was exhausted... :(

The above picture shows the worst accident during our stay in Shizuoka.
Luckily none of my family was injured, but it turned out that it would took about 400,000 yen to repair the car today. :(

Oops...

TOEIC '09 Summer

2009-08-20T21:31:00.006+09:00

Again, I had a TOEIC test on August 2, and today I received the score sheet.
This time, my score was slightly improved by 20 points. But, I'm not sure why because I didn't read books in English nor speak in English almost at all recently...

One Thousand and One Nights (6/13)

2009-08-19T20:49:00.004+09:00

Le Liver Des Mille Nuits Et Une Nuit (6/13)
Translated to French by J.C. Mardrus
ISBN 4-00-327806-2 (Japanese translation)

The 6th book of "One Thousand and One Nights."
From the night 331 to the night 414.

Nothing special to note about the stories in this book, but one thing came up with me is that in the stories of One Thousand and One Nights people really often lose consciousness when they were deeply impressed. I read in some literature that women nobles often lost consciousness when they felt deep emotion in medieval Europe. I can understand that because most of them were brought up in a bit special family situation and so they didn't have enough experience to control their own emotion since their childhood.
But, in One Thousand and One Nights, even common people often lose consciousness, and I'm wondering if it's just an expression technique or not...

Guin Saga 128

2009-08-11T23:54:00.007+09:00

Secrets Behind the Sacred Shrine
Guin Saga 128
Kaoru Kurimoto
ISBN 978-4-15-030962-6

128th book of Guin Saga.

I'm not sure how many unpublished books of Guin Saga there are. Maybe we can read one more book, but anyway this is almost the last book written by Kurimoto before her death. :(

The Fabric of the Cosmos

2009-08-09T23:35:00.008+09:00

The Fabric of the Cosmos -- Space, Time, and Texture of Reality
Brian Greene
ISBN 978-4-7942-1700-4 (volume 1)
ISBN 978-4-7942-1701-4 (volume 2)

This huge work is the next book of "The Elegant Universe" which explained contemporary elementary particle physics in plain.

In this book, Greene focuses on what is Space-Time, especially the Arrow of Time problem.
Roughly speaking, Greene assumes time reversal property of the most elementary theory and introduces very low entropy in the early universe just after the Big Bang induced by quantum gravity effects.

About 15 years ago, I also majored in elementary particle physics. But, now the cutting edge physics has gone into highly mathematical world and beyond my understanding. But, still it's fascinating walking through the thoughts seeking for the ultimate elementary structure of the world. :)

Day 659 : Gotemba Premium Outlets

2009-07-28T23:36:00.006+09:00

Today, I had a day off, and took my wife and daughter to Gotemba Premium Outlets. :)

I expected that cars would be running smoothly, but actually it took about 1.5 hours getting out of Tokyo central area. :(
But anyway, my wife looked happy and my daughter was sleeping in the car during the drive to the outlets. :)

The above are snapshot of my daughter in the shopping center.
Although it's a occasional rainy day, my daughter looked like enjoying her first quest in the outlet mall. :) The only problem was her mother. I mean that she sometimes lost herself there at various brand shops, and then I was struggling with my daughter asking for her mother. :o

BTW, usually I have less interests on shopping at an outlet mall, but today I wanted to buy some casual shirts and pants. The above are what I bought there today. :)

I don't want to know how much I and my wife spent today in total there. :o

Manmaru Smile

2009-07-28T23:33:00.006+09:00

"Manmaru Smile" (まんまるスマイル) is a song performed in a popular long-lasting Japanese TV program for infants, "Okaa-san to Issho" (おかあさんといっしょ) by NHK. The title roughly means "With Mommy."
The program is composed of dances, stories, skits and mainly songs.

Recently, we bought a DVD of "Okaa-san to Issho" for our daughter.
She was pleased watching the DVD as we expected, but her parents were also fascinated by some songs of that.

As for my case, I love the above song, "Manmaru Smile" composed by a popular Japanese composer Keizo Nakanishi. As you can understand immediately, the song is arranged in Irish traditional style, and not a small number of Japanese parents seem to love the tune.

Day 656 : Peko-Chan

2009-07-25T15:10:00.003+09:00

Peko-Chan is like Colonel Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken for a Japanese popular confectionery store chain, Fujiya Co.

Today, we went to Fuchu city to buy toys or so for our daughter, and the above is a snapshot at a mass sales store of electric appliances. In the building, there is a shop of Fujiya, and we had special pancakes named "Peko-Chan's Cheek." :)
Peko-Chan is popular since I was a small child, and my daughter also seems to like her. :)

Day 654 : Big Foot?

2009-07-24T16:33:00.005+09:00

Haha, this evening I took my daughter for a walk, and the above is a snapshot just after we got back home. Recently, she loves her mom's sandals and tries to walk wearing them.
When she does so, it looks like sandals are walking not my daughter. :o

Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Science of Networks

2009-07-20T23:55:00.005+09:00

Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Science of Networks
Mark Buchanan
ISBN 4-7942-1385-9 (Japanese Translation)

I read Barabasi's book on the same subject about 3 years ago. Barabasi is one of the founders of Networking theory, and thus he emphasized his own works a bit. But, Mark Buchanan is a popular science writer, and so this book gives us good perspective ofScience of Networks.

It's worth reading, I think.