One Thousand and One Nights (7/13)

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

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

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

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)

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

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

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

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

"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

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?

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

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.

The Big Journey -- Izumo Tour (3)

The Day 3 of my daughter's Izumo Tour.

Actually, on this day, we didn't go out anywhere because we didn't have enough time for the departure time of the flight back to Tokyo. Also, we wanted to spend time with my daughter's great grand parents. :)



But, within an hour arriving at the house, she couldn't help but falling asleep. :o
Anyway, we had a happy time with 4 generations of people.
One more important thing we did was visiting the grave of the house. But, like the above, my daughter was sleeping, and I and my wife visited there about 4 years interval since the last time when we had our wedding ceremony in Izumo.



On our homeward journeys in the airplane, our daughter didn't sleep.
Actually, she seemed to feel strange about her ears during the flight, but it's not so serious.
She looked like being in a good mood whole the flight. :)



The above left is Mt. Fuji which we saw from the airplane. The above right also catches Mt. Fuji, but the scene of stratus and light is beautiful, isn't it?
I'm wondering if my daughter felt something looking at the scene and remembers that...

The Big Journey -- Izumo Tour (2)

The Day 2 of my daughter's Izumo Tour. :)



The above is the Takenoya-Inn (竹野屋) were we stayed and we had our wedding party. :)


First of all, we went to Izumo Taisha Shrine (出雲大社) in the morning. The right above photo is Kaguraden where we had our wedding ceremony. You can see how huge the famous sacred straw rope is compared to my daughter and wife below that. :o

After walking around Izumo Taisha, we visited my daughter's great grand parents' house again.
Yesterday, great granpa looked like feeling bad and we were not sure he was conscious or not, but today he looked very good and recognized his first great granddaughter.
I took pictures of 4 generations! :)



The left above is Hinomisaki Lighthouse (日御碕灯台) which is about 20 minutes drive from the Izumo Taisha Shrine. Hinomisaki is famous for sheer cliff as you can see in the right above photo.
My daughter looked like feeling something and shouted with joy looking at the scene. :)

The Big Journey -- Izumo Tour (1)

Finally, my daughter made a trip to Izumo city where her great grand parents live and her parents had the wedding ceremony.

We were worrying if she could equalize ears. But, she fell asleep before takeoff and there was no problem on the outward flight. Actually, she kept sleeping whole the flight. :)

In the right above picture, my daughter stands in front of the gate of her great grand parents' house, and her mother and grand mother is looking at her. About 5 minutes later, finally she met her great grand mother. :)
Of course, she was shy of a strange. :o

The Art of Capacity Planning

The Art of Capacity Planning (キャパシティ プランニング)
John Allspaw
ISBN 978-4-87311-399-9 (Japanese translation)

This book is worth reading.
Author of the book works for Flicker, and he explains without stint very much practical techniques for capacity planning which he is performing at Flicker.

BTW, now I'm feeling that in order to have really essential insights on scale-out computing one has to have experiences working on large scale systems like Flicker, and I'm wondering what I can achieve at the R&D project I'm working on at work...

One Thousand and One Nights (5/13)

Le Liver Des Mille Nuits Et Une Nuit (5/13)
Translated to French by J.C. Mardrus
ISBN 4-00-327805-4 (Japanese translation)

The 5th book of "One Thousand and One Nights."
From the night 237 to the night 331.

This book contains "Sindbad the Sailor," and I was looking forward to reading the book because it is popular as a juvenile story in also Japan.
But, after finishing the stories on 7 journeys of Sindbad, I felt a bit surprised because the original story contains a lot of cruel descriptions. For example, Sindbad survived feeding on human flesh in one of his seven journeys.

Now, I'm wondering if Arabian people really tell that kind of stories to their children as folk tales...

Global Inter-Cloud Technology Forum

As I wrote recently, I will be working on a new R&D project embarked by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications of Japan about three years.

Today, a new standardization forum named "Global Inter-Could Technology Forum" was announced, and I will be there. Actually, there are several similar forums around the world, and even in Japan, there are at least two. Thus, the situation is a bit chaos, but anyway I'm looking forward to seeing various people in the standardization activities because in a sense I was confined within an internal organization at work fully these three years.

One Thousand and One Nights (4/13)

Le Liver Des Mille Nuits Et Une Nuit (4/13)
Translated to French by J.C. Mardrus
ISBN 4-00-327805-4 (Japanese translation)

The 4th book of "One Thousand and One Nights."
From the night 130 to the night 236.

One thing I felt reading books of the One Thousand and One Nights is that Islamic people seem to love verses very much. Assuming daily life of common people described there reflects real daily life of them, even a merchant chants verses when they feel emotion quite naturally.
I felt a bit surprised at first, but maybe it's because Islamic people are quite familiar with chanting verses because of their religious custom, chanting the Koran...

Here, it's just my theory and I'm not sure...

Day 635 : Rock'n Roll!

Recently, my daughter has learnt to climb a chair.
It's a great progress, but very much dangerous. :(

Look at the face of her in the above picture. She is proud of her achievement and looks like shouting "Rock'n Roll!" :o