In Vino Veritas... et Consentio

Solitude... Beer... tequila... and music... random music...

Enanitos Verdes - Luz de Dia
Estopa - El Run Run
Santa Sabina - Estando aquí no estoy
Los Lobos - El Canelo
Juan Luis Guerra - La Guagua
Cabas - Bonita
Jarocho - El Colas
Chucumite - El Palomo y la Paloma
Gianmarco - Lejos de Ti
Gianmarco - Canta Corazón
Joan Sebastian - Con la Duda
Duelo - Pobre Loco
Joan Sebastian - Quiero Compartir con Alguien
Selena - Bidi bidi bom bom
Selena - Fotos y Recuerdos
Maldita Vecindad - Querida
Delux - De mi Enamorate
Los Estramboticos - Camino a Niguna Parte
Genitallica - Trasero
El Gran Silencio - Tonta Cancion de Amor
La Verbena Popular - Un Domingo en la Alameda
Panda - Hola
Juan Gabriel y Banda El Recodo - Adorable Mentirosa
Panda - Maracas
Ana Belén, Víctor Manuel y Raphael - Quiero Abrazarte Tanto
La Cuca - El Son del Dolor
Molotov - Me Convierto en Marciano
Panteon Rococo - La Dosis Perfecta
Café Tacuba - Las Flores
Inspector - Amargo es el Adiós
Caos - La Planta
Ximena Sarinana - No Vuelvo Más
La Liga del Sueño - Semilla Negra

The best, the last... good night... Salud!
Julieta Venegas y Marisa Monte - Ilusión

The Great Dictator, Final Speech by Sir Charles S. Chaplin

I'm sorry but I don't want to be an emperor. That's not my business. I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible; Jew, Gentile, black men, white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each others' happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men's souls; has barricaded the world with hate; has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge as made us cynical; our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost. The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in man; cries out for universal brotherhood; for the unity of us all.

Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me, I say "Do not despair." The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.

Soldiers! Don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you and enslave you; who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel! Who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder! Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men---machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have a love of humanity in your hearts! You don't hate! Only the unloved hate; the unloved and the unnatural.

Soldiers! Don't fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In the seventeenth chapter of St. Luke, it’s written “the kingdom of God is within man”, not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people, have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy, let us use that power.

Let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfill their promise. They never will! Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people! Now let us fight to fulfill that promise! Let us fight to free the world! To do away with national barriers! To do away with greed, with hate and intolerance! Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness.

Soldiers, in the name of democracy, let us all unite!

References: I took the speech text from here and you can watch the scene here.

Long day, bullshit writting

Moon, rise the tides of dreams;
break the surf of memories;
wash the shores of reason.

Night, devour the light of faith;
hide the forest of hopes;
confound life's vagabonds.

Come to me, oblivion;
conceal me from the eyes
of afar and nigh ones, both

Let me forget, Lethe;
bring me respite,
the childish smile!

Moon, bring me the sea;
may  it close the distance
and my heart beat to its crash. 

Solution to the Landau-Zener problem via Susskind-Glogower operators

We just uploaded a short, simple manuscript showing how to deal with a time dependent Jaynes-Cummings Hamiltonian where the time dependence is linear and you end up with a quantum Landau-Zener-Majorana (LZM)-like Hamiltonian.

This LZM-like Hamiltonian, under the rotating wave approximation, is simple to diagonalize in the field basis and the solutions to the classical Landau-Zener problem holds; that is, you can express the time evolution of the state in terms of Parabolic Cylinder or Hypergeometric functions.

As it goes, the Hamiltonian without the rotating wave approximation is also simple to diagonalize in the two-level system basis. The evolution of the initial state can be reduced all the way to two-uncoupled infinite sets of first order differential equations; of course, I have no clue how to solve these or else I would not be calling this a simple manuscript *wink* hehehe.

If you want, you can learn more about this by reading the Arxiv preprint.

Edit: If someone knows a reference for equation 16, please tell me about it. I cannot believe no-one has used it before, but I haven't found anything about it in the literature so far.

Last weekend movies...

I thought I will manage to keep on time with the film report, but it seems like work got the best out of me these last two weeks. Anyway, Lyx and I managed to watch some movies...

1. Waitress, ****
   This film portraits the life of a not-so-happily-married waitress, who happens to be an excellent pie maker, in a rural town somewhere in the, maybe, Bible belt of the United States. I got this one thinking that it will be a romantic comedy because of Nathan Fillon (at this point you have surely realized that I'm a big fan of his work in Firefly, Dr. Horrible's Singalong and Castle), but it ended up as a good drama/comedy, is the word tragedy? Anyway, it has great moments and it is a good film to watch with your girl.
   
   
2. Red Cliff 1 and 2, ****
   
   I have only one word: Epic.  This film tells the story of the Battle of the Red Cliffs. A decisive battle that lead to the Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history, where Cao Cao was defeated by the combined forces of Liu Bei and Sun Chuan. John Woo is the director behind this epic film effort. A must watch!
   
   
3. The Thirst, ****
   
   I was surprised to find a Korean Vampire film during my weekly dive into the movie bin. I was more surprised when I watch it and found that it deals with a Catholic Priest in Korea that becomes infected with Vampire blood and tries to keep going with his life of service to an epic fail ending. I might lack the Korean background but I loved the film,  to me it started a vampire movie, became a romantic comedy and ended a drama. Thumbs up! What are you waiting, go for it!
   
   
4. Shaolin, ***
   
   Set in the modern warlord period of China (I would say late XVIII century due to the military uniforms and armament), this fiction film deals with the  exploits of a military man turned into Buddhism by the winding path of fate. Curiously enough, one of the generals have the name of Cao Man, that is the father of Cao Cao, the Prime Minister from the Han dinasty that lost the Red Cliff Battle. It is an action film and Jackie Chan plays a supporting role. A good film to take the edge off.
   
   
5. Ghost Town, ***
   
   A romantic comedy, the lead character played by Ricky Gervais; yes, you read it right: romantic. It is a funny turn of the "I see dead people" theme. Filmed in New York city, it is about love, redemption, stupidity and all those things that make a nice romantic comedy with a twist or two. Go get your copy and your girl!
   
   
6. Operation: Endgame, *
   
   The idea sounded entertaining on the cover. Two spy teams, one destructive and the other following subtler moves, balancing each other approaches at the service of the United States, trapped at their headquarters facing destruction. It sounds great, isn't it. Well, you watch it and give me your opinion.
   
   

This week, "The Big Bang Theory" was again at its best with the girls playing spy games at Pria and Leonard. Meanwhile,  Amy and Sheldon conducted a gossip flux experiment involving gardens and babies.

Glee! has a recession turn, as "lips" family lost it all and it stired up things a little bit with the paranoid teens, nice songs as always but Santana's love song was awesome.

2. Dreams...

The door welcomed me in silence and stubbornness. Time warped by each blink of my sleepy eyes... hallway... darkness... staircase... darkness... hallway... darkness... lonely bed... darkness... fast approaching pillow... darkness... 03:14 in square red numerals... darkness.

*bleep bleep* 

Repetition of an every day's routine made an automata out of me. Morning came, I was a mere mechanical imitation of a human being, the incarnation of the "instant human, just add coffee" meme.

Turn off the alarm clock... check. Get naked and grab a towel... check. Walk to the bathroom to have a shower... in progress.

The bathroom's door was friendlier than the apartment's door; it received me with a warm mist and the calming sound of flowing water. "That's how a morning is started," I thought while getting into the shower. 

"Ayip, Birtanem!" She said with the most wonderful and radiant smile upon her face. It was contagious! I couldn't help but grin. "That's really how a morning is started!" I said to myself again. 

"Günaidin askim," I said while staring at her, taking delight on her wavy reddish brown colored hair, amber eyes, pale skin and red lips. We kissed. 

"All is well that ends well," I thought, the grin still on my face. She left, to get the morning choirs started. Sleepy, I put myself into taking a shower, with the feeling that I was missing something. I dismissed the feeling; I have never had a good memory, anyway.

I came to the hallway in my usual polo and denims. Before I took five steps,  the most primitive, dangerous and adorable beast leapt upon me, slowly climbing from leg to waist, from waist to back, and finally settling down on his regal throne: my shoulders. "Tsao Papa!"

"Elijah, you are gonna break your Papa; he's not young anymore!" Said Lale. We laughed.

*bleep bleep*

Last weekend movies...

It seems like this weekend I will manage to write about last weekend and this weekend movies for the first time...

1. Forbidden Planet, *****
   
   Before star wars arrived from a galaxy far far away and Captain Kirk commanded the Enterprise, Leslie Nielsen was not a comedian but a hunk and took part in one of the best science fiction movies ever! Faithful to my tradition, I will not tell more than you should sit down and order this film immediatly!
   
   
2. The Road, ****
   
   Lately, I haven't been in the mood for stressing films. Hence, this good piece of apocalyptic storytelling sat unwatched for more than 2 months in my desktop. The story is plain simple, a man and his son trying to survive just after an event that brought demise to most of the human population of the U.S.A. and, possibly, the world. While they walk the road to the shore and south looking for more of the "good guys," they walk the road of life. Good photography, good storytelling, it flows.
   
3. The King's Speech, *****
   
   The story of the abdication of Edward the VIII and the ascension of  King George VI to the throne of the U.K. told from the angle of his stuttering. The film is well done, the characterization is remarkable, the character development is very good and the storytelling is relaxed and flows extremely well. This one was also sitting in my desktop for long because I thought it will be boring. It is not! You must see it.
   
   
4. Sucker Punch, *
   
   I was really expecting this movie. I had great hopes on it. Actually, the first star is because I really loved the alternate steam-punk-fantasy-gothic setting where the character lives while performing. The idea of the story is great but, somehow, I felt it ragged and patched together. Magic realism is usually a great thing. Here, there were too many great things to tell and they were not told in the best way, in my opinion.
   
   
5. Salvando al Soldado Perez,
   
   No, I didn't forget to put a star. If I could, I would ask for the two hours of my life that this movie took. I will be honest, I laughed in some scenes; specially the first "TOMATES!" But the movie is bad, bad choice of characters as things go in Mexico, bad script. I really hope that they were aiming to make something ridiculously bad, because they made it.

This week, "The Big Bang Theory" was as it best with Pria helping Leonard drive Sheldon to the edge with the roommate's agreement and the first kiss of the geek couple!

I managed to catch up with the last three episodes of Glee! and finished watching the third season of Castle. Both are still good and entertaining. I really hope there will be a fourth season of Castle, because it ended with a nice crossroad.