Guin Saga 130

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?

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. :)

Power of Ten

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)

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

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

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

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)

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

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

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)

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)

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

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

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)

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?

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

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

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

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?

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

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?

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)

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. :)