Non Stop KY?

This morning we got a railway trouble in Tokyo. I had to wait about 30 minutes for recovery around the station and saw the above drop curtains.

In Japan, for these two or three years, we often use a phrase Ku-Ki Yomenai (空気読めない) (Wikipedia entry in Japanese) which roughly means "Spoiling the atmosphere" to describe such a person. Maybe that reflects tendency of Japanese people placing greater value in cooperativeness than individuality. But, it's not the point today.

As it's well known, we Japanese love making everything short, small and light.
So, "Ku-ki Yomenai" is often reffered as an abbreviation, KY.

Here, I guess you understand what I felt looking at the light blue drop curtain with a huge "KY" this morning. :o

Well, the above "KY" stands for "Kakaku Yasuku" (Cheap Price), but I'm wondering that the advertising strategy is almost a gamble...

Day 512 : Girl's Day

Today is the second girl's day of my daughter.
Like last year's case, Grandma came to Tokyo to see her grand daughter with a lot of souvenirs which she bought mainly at Tsukiji market. :)

It's amazing that one year has rolled on since the last girl's day, and my daughter is now one year and a half years old. We are expecting soon she begins to speak and we will be exhausted by her questions, tricks and almost every thing she does.

BTW, what about every breath she takes?
Haha, I'm not sure...

Day 509 : Stroll Around

Today, we went to a bicycle shop to see a new one which has a child seat for my wife.
The shop is located really close to our house, and of course, we walked to the shop together.
The above is a snapshot of then.

It was a really cold day today, but my daughter seemed to have enjoyed the small quest. :)

BTW, it seems to be still difficult for my daughter waking straight even if a walk is only slightly sloped from side to side. :o

Pluto 7

Pluto 7
Naoki Urasawa
ISBN 978-4-09-182386-1

Today, I got the 7th book of Pluto by Naoki Urasawa on my way back home. :)

In this book, the story reaches the most interesting part.

Epsilon, the last survivor of the 7 greatest robots in the world, met Pluto finally.
Dr. Tenma, who created Atom, played his best (perhaps worst?) card.
And so, Atom, who was thought to be dead, recovered consciousness.

In the end of this book, it's indicated that the problem is not about just robot world, but more large scale crisis for every single life on the earth.

I'm looking forward to reading the next book. :)

Kludge

Kludge -- The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind (脳はありあわせの材料から生まれた)
Gary Marcus
ISBN 978-4-15-208997-7 (Japanese Translation)

I thought this book is about evolutionary theory of brains at first.
But, Gary Marcus, author of the book, is a psychologist, and this book focuses on characteristic features of human mind and its relationship with history of human (brain) evolution.

Our brains are consists of mainly two parts.
One is very old one, paleocortex, which rules instinctive and involuntary activities.
The other is a relatively new one, neocortex which rules higher level activities such as rational nature.

Here, one more important point is that the multiple layer structure was not designed from scratch. According to mutations and natural selection, the above structure of us survived just because it had an advantage in the evolutionary processes. In this sense, Marcus says "Kludge" to describe the design of human brain. Furthermore, we need to concentrate or calm down to use the functions of neocortex. That often leads us doing irrational things especially when they appeals to our instinct.

Marcus also mentions that neocortex was developed too quickly.
That's why it's difficult for us to make full use of neocotex.
Maybe we need hundreds of more centuries to do so. :o

Thus, it's different from my expectation, but anyway I enjoyed the book. :)

The Universe Next Door

The Universe Next Door (奇想、宇宙をゆく)
Marcus Chown
ISBN 4-393-32216-9 (Japanese translation)

In this book, Marcus Chown tells us amazing ideas around theoretical physics
especially how we can understand the universe and the origin of life.

For example:

• Some scientist suggests that quantum theory can be induced from the theory of general relativity!?
• Some scientist suggest that in the universe there can be regions where time goes by in reverse direction!?
• Some scientists support panspermia hypothesis seriously. That is, we can find out the origin of life outside the earth!
• Some scientists think it possible that some kinds of life form can live in the space!
• Nowadays, not a small number of scientists support many world interpretation!
• Nowadays, it's almost consensus that the space-time consists of more than 4 dimensions.
  

and so on.

Actually, when Einstein proposed the theory of relativity, almost no one believed the theory, but now his theories form indispensable basis of theoretical physics.

I'm wondering if I can hear news that the origin of life was finally discovered
or the ultimate theory of everything was finally completed during my life. :)

New HDD

Today, I went to Shinjuku and bought a Seagate ST31000333AS (1TB, SATA2) driver.
It's almost 6 months since I planned to add one more HDD to my PentiumD box because I wanted to install VMware ESXi and do performance measurement using a small program I wrote before. Oh well, of course, the primary constraint which made it difficult for me doing the investment was budget... :o

The next problem is that if I can really make time doing that. In other word, if my daughter gives me time... :o

Day 501 : Happy Hacking Girl?

Haha, my daughter seems to be Happy Hacking!
Well, of course, she is typing her father's Happy Hacking Keyboard. :)

But, my dauther, I do not recommend that you would be a programmer... :o

Day 495 : St. Valentin's Day?

It's St. Valentin's Day today. In also Japan, there is a strange custom that girls give chocolates to boys on the day like mainly western countries.
It's too early to expect that my daughter gives me chocolates, but it's enough to see the above smile. :)

BTW, it was her first(?) outdoor quest since her adventure of 3 days ago was at a shopping mall, and it means that we can't look away from her anymore when we take her somewhere. :(

Rhythms of Life

Rhythms of Life
Russel Foster and Leon Kreitzman
ISBN 4-8222-8161-9 (Japanese Translation)

As I wrote several times, I've been reading books on evolutionary theory recently.
I felt that biological clock is one of the most fundamental function of life, and I wanted to know the origin of that. How it was formed and developed.
Kreizman's book describes history of study of rhythms of life, especially circadian rhythm, and its current status in detail. He covers very wide variety of topics around biological clock from genetic level to macroscopic level.

After all, the origin of the rhythms does not seem to be clear even now.
I was disappointed a bit to know that, but after thinking a while, I thought it's no wonder because the very early stage of the origin of life is still in cloud.

I'm wondering which is earlier researchers reveal the origin of life or the mechanism of intelligence...

Finished on 2009/02/13.

TOEIC '09 Winter

As I wrote several times, I have TOEIC exams biannually in Summer and Winter.
It's about 10 days ago this Winter, and today I got the result.

I got 50 points down, and anyway I need to have chances to speak in English. :(

Guin Saga 125

The Decision of Destiny
Guin Saga 125
Kaoru Kurimoto
ISBN 978-4-030947-3

Finally, 125!
BTW, compared to its title, in this volume the story is not so dramatic, I think.
But, the story line has been finally connected to the first book of the Guin Saga side stories, The Seven Magi. Maybe the decision made in the last of this book could affect the history of the world greatly.

Day 492 : Through the Looking Glass, and what Ayako Found There

This is another snapshot at the shopping mall.
I and my wife love it very much. :)

Of course, the title comes from "Through the Looking Glass, and what Alice Found There."
In a sense, it was like "Ayako's Adventure in Wonderland" what she saw today. :)

Day 492 : Walking Around

Today is another memorial day of my daughter.

We went to a shopping mall today, and there we let our daughter walk around as she likes.
It was greatly beyond our expectation because she kept walking around in the mall almost an hour!

Anyway, she stepped out in to the new world. :)

Day 489 : English Speaking Car

We bought not only the child gate but also some toys at Babiesrus yesterday.
On our way back home, a toy cell phone seemed to catch her fancy greatly.
But, one day later, she loves the car above. :)

The car has various gimmicks. Especially, it has a keyboard with 26 alphabets and when she presses the keys it sings songs of alphabets in English. Furthermore, it speaks various phrases.
It's about 4000yen, and we feel it a very reasonable price. :)

Day 488 : Child Gate

In these days, my daughter often tries to force her way(!?) into kitchen, especially when her mother is cooking. Of course, hat makes my wife very much angry. :(

Thus, today we went to Babiesrus and bout a child gate finally.
It was a very good decision at least for me because my wife does not get angry after setting up the gate. :o

Mean Genes

Mean Genes (いじわるな遺伝子)
Terry Burnham and Jay Phelan
ISBN 4-14-080660-5 (Japanese Translation)

Simply speaking, the essential point of the book is that human beings have evolved too rapidly and thus there are a lot of conflicts between contemporary culture/society and

For example, for human beings abour tens of years ago, the only way preparing for starvation was eating foods in front of them anyway. The nature has not been changed at all, and that's why diet is very much difficult and painful for most of us. :o

In the end of the book, authors suggest several ideas resisting :o our instinct. But, may be they are a bit optimistic...

What IS LIFE? The Physical Aspect of the Living Cell

What IS LIFE? - The Physical Aspect of the Living Cell (生命とは何か？)
Erwin Schroedinger
ISBN 978-4004160809

I majored in elementary particle physics theory when I was a graduate student, and so in those days I worked on various kinds of Shroedinger's equations. Needless to say, Shroedinger is one of the greatest physicists of the 20th century as Landau awarded him as rank 1.

But, I didn't know that he left a monument in also biology especially in study on the definition of life and on the origin of life.

First of all, he defined a life as an entity which eats Negative Entropy.
This was a revolutionary new idea with deep insight and influenced bio science world greatly.
Second, he discussed the nature of genetic material and expressed that as "acyclic crystal" more than 10 years before Watson and Crick discovered the structure of DNA.

Really, amazing...

Survival of the Sickest

Survival of the Sickest
Dr. Sharon Moalem with Jonathan Prince
ISBN 978-4-14-0812256-3 (Japanese Translation)

There is not a small number of genetic diseases.
Here, if Darwin's evolutionary theory is correct, why they have survived the natural selection?
I think it would be a popular question for medical and biological scientists.

Moalem's book answers the question clearly, and he tells us various aspects of human history from a view point of evolution. Especially, the primary keywords are "an effect and a side effect."
In other word, evolution gives us new features successively, but as it's based on mutations, usually they are not designed with long term perspectives. That's the point.

So, IMHO, this book is interesting and worth reading.

BTW, the Japanese title "迷惑な進化" literally means "annoying evolution" or "troublesome evolution."
I love it. :)

Day 460 : Where is Mom?

Hahaha, her grandma seems to love the picture above. :)