読みたい本の山積みの次は川上弘美のセンセイの鞄でした。フランス語で読みました。引退先生と大人になったの学生の関係をはなします。巧みな様式か奇麗な描写など大好きです。翻訳がままと思います。

The next book in my stack of books to read was “The Teacher’s Briefcase” by Hiromi Kawakami. I read the french translation. I book tells the relationship between a retired teacher and a student that became adult. I really liked the fine style and the gorgeous descriptions. In my opinion the translation work was not good.

Sur ma pile de livres à lire, le suivant était « Les années douces » de Hiromi Kawakami. Ce livre raconte la relation entre un enseignant à la retraite et une étudiante devenue adulte. J’ai beaucoup aimé le style fin et les descriptions magnifiques. À mon avis, la traduction était mauvaise.

J’ai retrouvé dans les années douces, la tension entre le désir et l’acte, le poids des non dits qui semblent être la caractéristique, ce roman est à mon avis celui où la tension est rendue de la manière la plus délicate, même si l’action progresse lentement, le texte n’est jamais ennuyeux. Les descriptions de la vie de tous les jours, des multiples repas qui sous-tendent la relation sont tellement à propos que la lecture m’a donné faim, mais c’est aussi celles qui à mon avis ont le plus souffert de la traduction.

Durant la lecture, je me suis retrouvé plusieurs fois à faire l’exercice de la dé-traduction, essayer de traduire le texte dans mon maigre japonais pour voir si je comprenais mieux. Parfois la traductrice remplace certains termes par une approximation en français (nattes de jonc pour tatami), parfois elle laisse le mot japonais. Dans un cas, la note de bas de page indique qu’elle ne sait pas si un nom de poisson japonais correspond à l’omble en français.

Si ces problèmes ne sont pas tragiques – et je suis le premier à admettre que traduire un tel texte est réellement difficile – ils ont quand même taché un texte qui est à mon avis exceptionnel. Malgré cela, je pense que c’est un très bon roman dont je recommande la lecture.

One event I never missed while living in Zürich is the Bünzli in Winterthur. This is the only demo-party in Switzerland, and always fun. This year was a little bit special, as it was the last time at this particular location, the Kirchgemeindehaus in Winterthur. As usual, the most awaited demos where the overhead project (OHP) ones, with lots of complicated moire effects, chemistry and flames. This year the most exciting thing for me was that Angel from Calodox released a game: Biolite. This is basically a rewrite of the 96K game released at the 2006 breakpoint, this time with nice 3D graphics.

The game features a 3D planet where plants fight for dominance. The goal of the game is to expand on the surface of the planet, tree with many leafs collect the sun’s energy, while plants with fruits let you store it. Killing the opponent’s plant requires energy, and so does planting need seeds. The game also lets you customise the planet’s structure and appearance. The game uses the irrlicht library and runs on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. I will put a link to the various binary files once the final version is released. The files for the released version can be downloaded from the bünzli site.

Recently I am increasingly listening to trip-hop music. While I did some entries about some of the albums I bought, I realize I often buy only a few tracks I like, and writing about a single track seems like a waste of time, so instead of trying to explain why I like various tunes, I created, as an experiment, an iTunes iMix called 夢 (dream) with various tunes I like. Normally, this should let people listen to the previews of the tracks easily.

スイスでは一番湯名切り札遊戯はヤーッスです。米国のピノクルの原型だかもしれません。国の東でヨーロッパより違う切り札で遊びます。女王がなくてもジャックは二冊あります：上ジャックと下ジャック。切り札の色も違だ：スペードとかハートとかない。四つ色は：鐘、花、複、団栗です。この切り札はとても奇麗と思います。

Jass is the most famous card-playing game in Switzerland. Some say it could be the ancestor of the US game of Pinochle. In the east part of the country, people play with cards that are different from those of the rest of Europa. There is no queen, but two jacks: a knave and a squire. The colors are also different, there a no hearts or spades, instead the four families are bells, flowers, shields and acorn. I find those cards beautiful.

Le Jass est le jeu de carte le plus populaire en Suisse. Les règles sont proches de celle de la Belote. Dans la partie est du pays, le jeu est pratiqué avec des cartes différentes du reste de l’Europe. Il n’y a pas de reine, mais deux valets, celui du haut et celui du bas (proche des cavalier et pages du jeu du tarot), les couleurs ne sont pas cœur ou pique, mais clochette, fleur, blason et gland. Je trouve ces cartes très belles.

The media presence at the Street Parade this year was quite strong, after all the attention of the accident at the love parade, but there was not major accident, one guy fell of a love mobile, and a two other got into a fight. Compared to the size of the event (650’000 people this year), things went quite smoothly. On the other hand, the gods of weather did not, this year again, smile on the parade. Somewhere after the 10^th love mobile drove by bellevue, the clouds stopped being threatening, and it rained.

Besides the weather, you could feel that the city tried to constrain the party to the parade’s path: there was no scene inside the railway station, and all activity stopped at midnight. This year, I went to one after: Energy at Hallenstadion. This is a huge party that takes place inside a large hall designed by Bruno Giacometti. This year, there were around 10’000 people at the party. We arrived just in time for Tiësto, sadly we missed David Guetta. Two things struck me, first 8 bit sounds are definitely fashionable, second, the demo-scene had a visible influence on the VJ work. Some of VJ elements reminded me of the Mylène Farmer concert I went some time ago. In fact, Tiësto played one track of her. The party was nice, but I think going to the parade and then to an after is just beyond my energy levels after a week of work.

Gallery of (bad) iPhone pictures of the parade.

Mac OS X 10.6で行われるノートパソコンはタッチパッドに指で漢字を書くことができます。「System Preferences」で中国語の「Trackpad Writing」を作動させて、ピン音のキーボードを選抜して、「Shift + Control」押せば書くのinterfaceを現れます。

On a laptop running Mac OS X 10.6, you can draw kanji with your fingers. In system preferences, activate the “trackpad writing” for chinese, select the pinyin keyboard and press ”Shift + Control” and the drawing interface appears.

Sur un portable qui tourne Mac OS X 10.6, on peut dessiner les kanji avec les doigts. Dans les préférences système, activez l’option « Écriture sur le Trackpad » du chinois traditionnel, sélectionner le clavier « Pinyin » et enfoncez les touches « Shift + Control », l’interface d’écriture apparaît.

Outliers is one of those books I kept hearing praise of in the most varied circumstances, from colleagues to the newsletter I get from the Aikidō club, so it was time that I read it to figure out what it was all about. I’m usually wary of books that have “#1 international bestseller” written on the cover, but in this case, I think the praise is deserved, and I hope this was not only a book that was sold a lot, but also a book that was read a lot.

The catch phrase of the book is “the story of success” which is somehow misleading, because this is not a historical book. It is basically an essay about the circumstances of success. The author asserts that each time somebody is successful, the same story is told: the person was very gifted, worked hard, and the context beyond the direct family circle is ignored. This books looks into the context behind successes and shows two things: first that being gifted is not enough, a lot of work is necessary for reaching mastery, the author mentions 10’000 hours of work; secondly, the book shows many factors play a huge role in a success story, some of them circumstantial, some social, some cultural.

out•li•er \-, lī(-ə)r\ noun

1. something that is situated away from or classed differently from a main or related body
2. a statistical observation that is markedly different in value from the others of the sample

While claiming that cultural background has an impact on the way people work might not be exactly politically correct, at the same time if you ever worked abroad or in an international company, it is quite obvious. I found the book refreshing because it tried to look at the issue in a constructive way. He also argues that being from a certain culture can be both and advantage and a handicap, depending on the circumstance.

One reason I like this book is that it has a good, broad overview, of many ideas on success, with a few practical examples. It also structured some thoughts, some observations I had made in my own life. When I lived in Japan, I was struck about the complexity of rice paddies, and it made sense that such a form of agriculture requires more cooperation, better structure than what is needed in western fields. The book goes into that exact subject, but with other conclusions. The 10’000 hours ideas also jives with my experience with computer programming, there is no such thing as a genius, but there are people with a lot of experience.

Inception by Christopher Nolan was one of the few movies I really wanted to see in the cinema. Memento by the same Director is one of the best movies I ever saw. In his BBC podcast, Dr. Mark Kermode also gave it quite a good review, so this sounded very interesting.

The movie is basically about dreams within dreams, and the fact that once you go from one to the other, the questions of level 0, reality, becomes confusing. This is by far not the first movie I have seen on the subject. The Matrix, of course, comes to mind, but also Avalon or The Thirteenth Floor, or the Ghost in the Shell all touch the subject.

Knowing Memento and some of those movies, I was some­how expecting a complex movie: Kermode recom­mended that you make sure you don’t need to go to the toilet before you go in because if you miss anything you’ll be lost. I did not have this feeling, this is a Hollywood production, where things is made clear, explained. I found the first half of the movie quite slow, as this is basically a tutorial on the subject of realities. Then again multiple reference planes, recursivity are notions I manipulate daily. The movie is basically some mind manipulation going on on four levels of realities with different time-scales. There are basically two missions going on in parallel, one is the actual job, the other is main character’s personal quest.

If you consider this, you realize this is a complex Hollywood movie, as this is way more complex than say, the plot of Avatar. I also think this is a good movie, in the sense that I cared about the characters which had way more depth and feeling than they usually have in the movies on this theme. I felt that the performance of Leonard di Caprio was somehow flawed, but maybe I’m not in the brooding pretty boy thing. I liked the other members of the crew way more, as they felt more genuine. The japanese boss was an interesting addition, I liked the character and the acting, and even though his presence felt somehow contrived in the beginning I suppose it made sense in the end.

All in all, I think this is a good movie, worth my entrance ticket. I’m probably partial to the central theme of the story, but I really like it. The movie is not something edgy, conceptual, or ground breaking, but a solid hollywood movie, with a solid plot but also some human elements. My main fear is that now there will be boatload of average joes explaining how deep and philosophical it is. On the other hand, I think Mark Kermode has a very good point, if this movie will be a blockbuster, then there will be no excuse for Hollywood for producing more crap. That in itself would be quite an achievement…

While you can see French movies in the original version, it usually takes some time until it has flown through the distribution channels. Because of its multilingual structure, Switzerland is kind of compli­cated in that respect. The movie Micmacs by Jean-Pierre Jeunet came out last year in France, but only now here. I was really happy to see it finally come out, as I really love his other movies, Amélie (le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain), but also Delicatessen or The city of lost Children (La cité des enfants perdus).

Micmac continues on many themes of the previous movies: brown colors, a certain form of nostalgia for old style France, and quirky and endearing characters. The movie has two parts: the first describes the life path of the hero, Bazil, who’s life gets repeatedly destroyed by weapons, and the second where he basically plays reverse Amélie with arm dealers (messing up their lives). While the rough plot is predictable, the fun part of the movie is the set of twists, tricks, weirds ideas and characters that are found everywhere. I really love the idea to make soccer more interesting. The whole plot happens in Paris, but compared to Amélie, the focus as shifted from the center to the border, the outskirts, and the visuals are a stranger blend of the graphics of the seventies and the current style. If you want a light-hearted movie about a serious theme (arms dealing) and love original ideas and inventions, this is a movie I recommend seeing.

Unison is a nice tool to synchronize file-system. It has the advantage of running on many different platforms, use an ssh connection and be good at one thing (file synchronization). I’m using it to synchronize my data between my laptop and a Unix server that acts as a back-up. I wanted to use it also to have a mirror of all my data on my NAS, in particular my music that is then served on my home network from the NAS. Until now I used so rsync scripts to do the trick, but rsync is quite stupid with permissions and cannot detect file moves. The main advantage of rsync is that it is already installed on any Linux machine, including my NAS.

Here are the steps to follow to install unison on a Synology DS 207 NAS:

1. Enable ssh access
2. Download the ipkg bootstrap script ds101-bootstrap_1.0-4_powerpc.xsh (the DS 101 and the DS 207 have the same processor, so this is OK).
3. Copy the file to the NAS, for instance in the path /volume1/tmp.
4. Ssh into your NAS as user root (ssh root@xxx.local).
5. Go to the directory (cd /volume1/tmp)
6. Execute the installation script: ds101-bootstrap_1.0-4_powerpc.xsh
7. If there is an error about a missing dependency for wget-ssl, don’t sweat it, it still works.
8. To check that it works, try to update the package list ipkg update
9. Download the package definition for unison: unison_22757-1_powerpc.ipk. You can do this directly from the NAS or from your computer, and then copy the file to the /volume1/tmp directory.
10. Install the unison package: ipkg /volume1/tmp/unison_22757-1_powerpc.ipk.