Day 783 : Reading Girl?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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)

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!

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)

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

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

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