Changes related to lists of Papers, Books and Movies

As you can see, I have been unable to keep posting what I am reading/watching in the last month. I have realized I was using a time consuming format for this end. I have just decided to try twitter to list whatever I'm consuming as soon as I'm consuming it, so if you want to know what I am reading or watching please use the tweet box at HambrientosVagabundos.org or follow me in twitter: @BMRodriguezLara

Here, I will keep posting my unpredictable rants and even more unpredictable musings. Sometimes, when I find a paper/book/movie that really amazes me, I will post about it here.

Thank you

\B

Preacher

The old man came into town in silence, bent by the weight of a hiker's backpack and set camp in the remains of the old university. After a couple of days, he emerged with a heavier looking backpack and a tote bag filled with books. Then, he spoke at the town's market.

They said anarchy came with the riots and those were brought by the drought, famine and general collapse of the economy but I know that's a lie we tell ourselves to rationalize our existence. Truth is, a false anarchy started  when everybody else became just a tool for personal gain and success. We told ourselves: money is needed to eat, to dress, to have fun and find happiness; nobody ever thought you cannot eat money. The search for happiness was lost and that of power, wealth and fame substituted it at large. The inner self diluted by the wash of pose. True anarchy would have been deliverance, instead the false anarchy of vacuity and personal delusion took hold with every inch gained by the dream of greed. True anarchy would have been better: in the sense of liberating freedom and inner peace. Instead the vice circle of selfishness reinforced itself and brought us here. There's a way out but... Could you trust me?

He didn't even look around, just got down from the old soapbox, took his stuff and walked away. 

Latex with Adobe Illustrator

I have been a linux user for a long time but last year I bought a laptop with a digitizer screen and the lack of good results in linux made me switch to Win 7. In the last year, I have learned that a lot of GPL software is ported to Windows and the switch is not painful at all. Problem is that the last update in one of my favorite page editing software: Inkscape has made my figure editing work flow (I never thought I would use this word) stall a little. So, I decided to give Adobe Illustrator a try as CS education is not so expensive. 

Basically, I need to add latex formulas to Illustrator, there's a nice script to do so here. I encountered a minor problem with this script; it seems like page frame is no longer the last element in the pdf compiled by pdflatex. Thus, the formulas generated by the script and imported into Illustrator were lacking the first element and had a full A4page frame. 

The script file is efficiently commented and a quick look into it brought me to Line 66:

for( var i=grp.pageItems[0].pageItems.length-1; --i>=0; )

After a few iterations, I found that the page frame is now the first page item and so the final modified line is:

for( var i=grp.pageItems[0].pageItems.length; --i>=1; )

This fixed my problem and now I have complete latex formulas in Illustrator with just the minimal frame around the object.

I hope this solves your issues too.

Last week papers (20th week of 2012)

From May 6th to 12th, 2012, a complete mess of a week with no time for small talk about the papers. Sorry...

Published

• "Transformation design method for quantum states" by  De-Hone Lin, Physical Review A 85, 053605 (2012).


• "Testing the equivalence between the canonical and Minkowski momentum of light with ultracold atoms" by Wen-Zhuo Zhang, Peng Zhang, Ru-Quan Wang, and Wu-Ming Liu, Physical Review A 85,  053604 (2012).


• "Quantum entanglement in nanocavity arrays" by T. C. H. Liew and V. Savona,  Physical Review A 85 ,  050301(R) (2012).


• "Mechanical Evidence of the Orbital Angular Momentum to Energy Ratio of Vortex Beams" by C. E. M. Demore et. al.,  Physical Review Letters 108 ,  194301 (2012).
    

Preprints

• "Quantum phase transition in the Dicke model with critical and non-critical entanglement" by L. Bakemeier, A. Alvermann and H. Fehske, arXiv: 1204.4974v1 [quant-ph].
  
  

Last week papers (19th week of 2012)

It has been an awful busy short week, I can barely keep my eyes open. This week from April 29th to May  5th 2012, I will point out the articles that caught my attention, I'm sorry for the lack of comments...

Published

• "Quantum Rabi model for N-state atoms " by  V. Albert, Physical Review Letters 108, 180401 (2012).
  
  
  
  


• "Acoustic analogue of graphene: Observation of Dirac cones in acoustic surface waves" by D. Torrent and J. Sánchez-Dehesa, Physical Review Letters 108,  174301 (2012).
  
  
  
  


• "Encoding relativistic potential dynamics into free evolution" by C. Sabín et. al., Physical Review A 85,  052301 (2012).
  
  
  


• "Super diffusion in optical realizations of Anderson localization" by Y. Krivolapov et. al., New Journal of Physics 14, 043047 (2012).
  
  
  
  


• "Simple derivation of the Lindblad equation" by P. Pearle, European Journal of Physics 33,  805 (2012).
  
  
  
  

Preprints

• "Multipartite optomechanical entanglement from competing nonlinearities " by A. Xuereb et. al., arXiv: 1204.4974v1 [quant-ph].
  
  
  
  

Last weekend movies (19th week of 2012)

Life has become too busy, I like busy but too busy is really not my kind of thing and it is weird: I enjoy too busy a lot because there's no time to think about stupidities—which are usual when life is not busy at alla—the problem comes when it's too busy that you cannot actually finish one of the 6 things you are working on. Anyway, I have forced myself into the video store, movies and the networks web pages, this came out...

1. Sherlock Holmes: A game of Shadows, ****
   I enjoyed all of the stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and really lost myself thinking that Holmes died in Switzerland even though there was a third of the book left. Now, I just hope movies Holmes comes back as magazine Holmes came in the past.
   
   
2. Carnage, ***
   Polanski's take on Le Dieu du Carnage, I wish I had seen this on theater. Two couples of parents devolve from civilized sophisticated person into prejudiced childish asses. It has beautiful takes involving a mirror in the set, I loved them.
   
   
3. Underworld Awakening, ***
   I remember I got very excited for the first one nine years ago and, now, I'm far from excited as it seems there's gonna be a fifth one in the series as the ending of this leaves the door open to follow the search for Michael. Oh, most probably I will go to the movies and watch the new one if they make it.
   
   
4. Young Adult, ***
   This is a sad sad comedy. I'm really hoping this is a satire and the third star is just because I still believe in people and this has to be a satire if we are gonna survive as a something close to a rational race.
   
   
5. Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, **
   Probably the best of the Mission Impossible series.
   
   
6. Contraband, **
   I love movies about cons, that's why this has the second star.
   
   
7. The Darkest Hour,  
   This film could have been awesome. The story is just terrific, good old war of the worlds invasion and funky aliens but, why o' why, had it to degenerate into a teen movie? 

End of season is almost here and I finally managed to catch up with the series I'm following. Any suggestions for the in-between season?

1. Last Man Standing S01-E19-23, ****
   Still fun to watch the angry man!
   
   
2. Castle S04-E17-22, ****
   It seems like we are gonna get a change in the episode formula sometime soon!
   
   
3. Hawaii Five O S02-E15, ***
   I can keep on with this, there's no big changes or twist but the crossover with NCIS: Los Angeles was a refreshing thing.
   
   
4. Big Bang Theory S05-E19-23, ***
   
   It has gotten a second air but not enough to recover the lost star.
   
   
5. Once upon a time S01-E14-20, **
   
   It has become too slow, please do something!.  

I think I'm gonna go sci-fi and animation for the summer break. 

Last week papers (18th week of 2012)

From 22 to 28 of April 2012, well it was really from 22 to 26 as I took a long weekend off the office...

Published

• "Quantum Computing with Incoherent Resources and Quantum Jumps" by  M. F. Santos et. al., Physical Review Letters 108, 170501 (2012).
  
  
  So, let us say that you have logarithmic spare time and want to make nature do computation for you. Well, Marcelo and coauthors have just show that, in principle, you just need time, patience, clickers and a way to put/remove them clickers from your open system. 


• "Optical Forces and Torques in Nonuniform Beams of Light" by D. B. Ruffner and David G. Grier, Physical Review Letters 108,  173602 (2012).
  
  
  I don't remember seeing an optical tweezer paper in PRL. The authors analyze linear and angular momentum densities of light beams to show how amplitude, phase and polarization profiles contribute to optical forces. One interesting thing they found is how the curl of the spin angular momentum can exert torque on objects without contributing to the orbital angular momentum of the beam. 


• "Equilibrium and disorder-induced behavior in quantum light–matter systems" by E. Mascarenhas et. al., New Journal of Physics 14,  043033 (2012).
  
  Coupled two-level system cavity arrays in the polaritonic regime have been proposed to realize the Bose-Hubbard model and Insulator-Superfluid transition  in the past. Now, by using a mean field approach the authors study the effects of disorder on the phases of the Jaynes-Cummings-Hubbard model and find glassy phases using entanglement measures. Interesting, ain't it?  

Preprints

• "Supermodes of Hexagonal Lattice Waveguide Arrays" by J. S. Brownless et. al., arXiv: 1204.4974v1 [quant-ph].
  
  
  A modal approach to hexagonal  photonic waveguide arrays. I'm still trying to follow it and get their results and see if it helps me solve some other waveguide lattices.


• "Relating the quantum mechanics of discrete systems
  to standard canonical quantum mechanics" by G. Hooft , arXiv: 1204.4926v1 [quant-ph].
  
  So, imagine you are working near the Planck scale and you want to see if there's something happening there, most probably you want to go from continuous to discrete modelling of the system. Well, here's an approach focused on applications to the harmonic oscillator. I need time to sit down and follow this, discrete dynamics is always interesting for me.


• "Dynamical scattering models in optomechanics: Going beyond the `coupled cavities' model" by A. Xuereb and P. Domokos  , arXiv: 1204.5301v1 [quant-ph].
  
  
  An analysis of membrane-coupled cavities from first principles. In short, we are safe using the coupled-cavities simplification if the coupling element reflectivity is not way below 50% .


• "Morse potential derived from first principles" by R. Costa Filho et. al., arXiv: 1204.5931v1 [quant-ph].
  
  I .

Last week papers (17th week of 2012)

Without further ado...

Published

• "Quantum phase transition in the Dicke model with critical and noncritical entanglement" by  L. Bakemeier, A. Alvermann and H. Fehske, Physical Review A 85, 043821 (2012).
  
  
  A phase transition analysis on the Dicke model exploring the behavior of the system when the frequency of the field mode tends to zero, called the classical oscillator limit by the authors, where the model goes to a Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick model. Why people don't cite us? Really... 

• "Ultimate limits to quantum metrology and the meaning of the Heisenberg limit" by M. Zwierz, C.A. Perez-Delgado and Pieter Kok, Physical Review A 85,  042112 (2012).
  
  
  I remember being at a seminar where Carlos presented this work in CQT. It's a mashup of query complexity with quantum mechanics to reformulate a Heisenberg limit for quantum metrology based on the idea of physical resources. 

• "Ginzburg-Landau theory for the Jaynes-Cummings-Hubbard model" by Christian Nietner and Axel Pelster, Physical Review A 85,  043831 (2012).
  
  
  As  you know, I like anything Jaynes-Cummings or Dicke. A while ago some people decided to study what happens when you couple cQED building blocks (cavities with an atom inside) and used a polaritonic approach to the problem to describe an isulator and superfluid phase of the system. So, it is nice that a phenomenological theory of superconductivity is used to describe the superfluid phase of the system! 

Preprints

• "Non-Markovian quantum dynamics and classical chaos" by I. Garcia-Mata, C. Pineda and D. Wisniacki, arXiv: 1204.3614v1 [quant-ph].
  
  
  The authors study a system coupled to an environment with different levels of chaos and analyse how well a chaotic environment models Markovian evolution.


• "Theory of optomechanics: Oscillator- eld model of moving mirrors" by C.R. Galley, R.O. Benhunin and B.L. Hu, arXiv: 1204.2569v1 [quant-ph].
  
  
  A nice theory of coupling between a field and a moving mirror from first principles that converges to models used in the literature. I was more interested in the convergence to what they called the N x coupling that we widely use in Quantum Optics.


• "Superradiant quantum phase transition in a circuit QED system: a revisit from a fully microscopic point of view" by D.Z. Xu, Y.B. Gao and C.P. Sun, arXiv: 1204.2602v1 [quant-ph].
  
  
  The authors derive the Dicke Hamiltonian from a microscopic model circuit-QED involving superconducting qubits and a quantized field. These model allows for a so-called superradiant phase transition in contrast to a previous analysis in the literature.


• "Exact solution to the quantum Rabi model within Bogoliubov operators" by Q.H. Chen, C. Wang and K.L. Wang, arXiv: 1204.3668v1 [quant-ph].
  
  It is a nice step by step demonstration of how to get a exact solution for the quantum Rabi model with an additional tunneling. The authors recover Braak's solution. I personally love the closing paragraph.

The Russian Solution to the quantum Rabi Model

There's a frightful phrase in physics that goes "a Russian solved it a while ago."

A while ago a very nice paper of D. Braak appeared discussing the integrability of the quantum Rabi Model in Physical Review Letters. This is a nice elegant paper using a discrete symmetry to show that the model is  integrable and gives an exact spectrum for the model [Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 100401 (2011)].  

The one interesting thing is that the spectrum for the quantum Rabi model was shown by É. A. Tur by resolvent theory eleven years before [Optics and Srectoscopy 89, 574-588 (2000) (English) Optika i Spektroskopiya 89, 628-642 (2000) (Russian)]. If someone can find a pdf file please email it to me, I could only get a bad scan of a battered photocopy.

And don't get me wrong, Braak's paper contribution goes beyond the spectrum. He explores the implications that symmetries has on integrability for models that doesn't have a classical limit/analogue.

Also, a little bit further in time, J. Casanova et. al. analyzed the spectra and dynamics of the quantum Rabi model in the deep strong coupling regime [Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 263603 (2010)] and presented an approximated spectra for the model and the curious collapse and full revival of the ground state of the positive parity chain.

Again, that particular oscillatory behavior for the same state was discussed by É. A. Tur but for weak coupling in [Optics and Spectoscopy 89, 574-588 (2000) (English) Optika i Spektroskopiya 89, 628-642 (2000) (Russian)] and an elegant approximation to the spectra leading to their result in [arXiv: 0211055 [math-ph]].

And don't get me wrong again, Casanova et. al. study the deep ultrastrong coupling and delve in the analysis they are presenting by adding a phase space analysis and some numerical analysis on the topic.

My point is that some of the results in both Physical Review Letters has been known for ten years already and nobody cited the work of É. A. Tur. A simple Google search of "Jaynes-Cummings model  without rotating wave approximation" brings Tur's paper in the second place, did the editors or reviewers even bother?

Now, surely there's a dozen papers in the review queue that are working on the topic and citing Braak and Casanova—which is the right honest thing to do—but is someone citing Tur? Show the guy some love, his work is nice, clean and elegant.


Edit: I forgot to mention that Tur's result was for weak coupling, g=0.5.

Last week papers (16th week 2012)

Now, Happy belated easter; writing in advance is really confusing because today is the first week of Easter and this will not see light until the second... and I'm rambling... back to business, the interesting things on the physics 'tubes from April 9th to 15th...

Published

• "Observation of the Kinetic condensation of classical waves" by  C. Sun,  et. al., Nature Physics (2012).
  
  
  This I want to read, a few years ago I think I saw a paper on the topic—give me a second...this one and this one in PRL—and it really got my eye. Now, that's something I want to learn about, it seems fun and interesting.

• "Tavis-Cummings model beyond the rotating wave approximation: Quasidegenerate qubits" by S. Agarwal, S.M. Hashemi Rafsanjani and J. H. Eberly , Physical Review A 85,  043815 (2012).
  
  
  As Rabi model has come back, it was not long before the many two-level system version should appear back in press. Here the dynamics in a particular regime where the energy gap of the two-level system  is way smaller than the frequency of the field is explored with strong coupling via an adiabatic approximation known for the same regime but for a single two-level system interacting with a field.

Preprints

• "Can free will emerge from determinism in quantum theory?" by G. Brassard and P. Raymond-Robichaud et. al., arXiv: 1204.2128v1 [quant-ph].
  
  
  They push a deterministic, local and realistic interpretation of quantum mechanics, this never gets old at all and now we have a "parallel lives" added to the zoo of interpretations. If you like interpretations, philosophical speculation and so, this is for you  


• "Producing and measuring entanglement between two beams of microwave light" by E. Flurin et. al., arXiv: 1204.0732v1 [quant-ph].
  
  
  I'm too lazy to read it today but entanglement between beams of microwave is interesting. 


• "Thermal phase transitions for Dicke-type models in the ultra-strong coupling limit" by M. Aparicio Alcalde et. al., arXiv: 1204.2271v1 [quant-ph].
  
  
  I like almost everything related to Dicke model, here a study of thermal phase transitions of the mathematical model is presented. I like papers involving Emary and Brandes, they are nice reads.

Last week papers (15th week 2012)...

I told you about the Nature Physics Insight on Quantum Simulation, so I will skip those 

Published

• "Ultra-high Q mechanical oscillators through optical trapping" by  D. E. Chang,  et. al., New Journal of Physics 14, 045002(2012).
  
  
  This is interesting: Reaching the quantum ground state of a mechanical oscillator at room temperature.The authors propose the use of optical forces to free a the characteristics of a mechanical structure from its material properties.

• "Collapse-revival dynamics and atom-field entanglement in the nonresonant Dicke model" by A. Alvermann, L. Bakemeier and H. Fehske, Physical Review A 85,  043803 (2012).
  
  
  A numerical studies of Rabi model, it's all coming back again and again and again. They study collapse and revivals out of resonance. 


• "Stimulated Emission from a Single Excited Atom in a Waveguide" by E. Rephaeli and S. Fan, Physical Review Letters 108, 143602 (2012).
  
  
  It's stimulated emission in a single-atom confined in a waveguide scenario. .


• "Uncertainty Relation for Photons" by I. Bialynicki-Birula and Z. Bialynicka-Birula,   Physical Review Letters 108, 140401 (2012).


Can you tell that I don't really want to write anything?

  
• "Solvability of the two-photon Rabi Hamiltonian" by I. Travenec, Physical Review A 85, 043805 (2012).
  
  
  I told you, it's the Rabi model again and again and again... here with two-photon transitions instead of one-photon.

  
• "Widely Tunable, Nondegenerate Three-Wave Mixing Microwave Device Operating
  near the Quantum Limit" by N. Roch et. al., Physical Review Letters 108, 147701 (2012).
  
  
  Now, the best for the last. I find this awesome, people are making better and better microwave resonators, emitters and now it is possible to do three-wave mixing in the microwave regime!

Preprints

• "Entanglement control in hybrid optomechanical systems" by B. Rogers et. al., arXiv: 1204.0780v1 [quant-ph].
  
  
  I'm too lazy to read it today but seems quite interesting...  


• "Producing and measuring entanglement between two beams of microwave light" by E. Flurin et. al., arXiv: 1204.0732v1 [quant-ph].
  
  
  I'm too lazy to read it today but entanglement between beams of microwave is interesting. 

Fear...

Fear is an emotion caused by a perceived threat (real or imaginary).

Fear is a kind of survival mechanism, an automatic response that prepares mind and body for the unknown; a really bad unknown. 

Fear, reigned, may lead to acts beyond our idea of human capabilities or, unreigned, to crushing anxiety crippling life at the innermost sanctuary of the mind. 

I had never felt fear living in Mexico. Now I do and I'm not even in my homeland. No more than five years ago, the sight of a random guy walking aimlessly the parking lot during the wee hours just made me think of a dude smoking a cigarette or waiting for his friends to keep the party on; now, it kept me looking through the window for the half hour the dude was there, searching for security's phone in the emergency sheet at the door and wondering where the fuck was the security guard whose snoring bothered me all the nights before that night. 

I never thought I would get to that. I never thought I would stop taking the overnight bus home to visit mom or giving up driving uncountable hours by day or night during vacations. I gave those up no more than five years ago. 

I know what it is to live a normal life with normal fears and that's either in the so far untouched center of Mexico (Puebla and Queretaro seem to be the less conflictive) or far from this beautiful country. Sad but true.

Fuck fear!

It's Quantum Simulation issue in Nature Physics Insight!

I can tell you that this is one of  Feynman's most beautiful phrase and I use it as often as possible in my presentations as opening slide:

 “Nature isn't classical, dammit, and if you want to make a simulation of nature, you'd better make it quantum mechanical, and by golly it's a wonderful problem, because it doesn't look so easy.”

That's the opening phrase for Trabesinger's editorial on the current issue of Nature Physics that includes a commentary by Cirac and Zoleer and reviews by Bloch, Dalibard & Nascimbéne, Blatt & Ross, Aspuru-Guzik & Walther, and Houck, Tureci and Koch.

Enjoy! I know I will...

Last Week Papers (14th week 2012)

It feels good to be back in an office and able to follow the literature. I'm thinking that I like the list format and now will split it in two: published and pre-prints because it is good to talk about pre-prints.

Published

• "Quantum Interface between an Electrical Circuit and a Single Atom" by  D. Kielpinski,  et. al., Physical Review Letters 108, 130504 (2012)
  
  
  They have shown it may be possible to couple an ion to a quantized current from a superconducting circuit. That's nice as the experiments in classical coupling of currents and ions can be used to build upon them and get to this. Interesting read.

• "Optical Detection of the Quantization of Collective Atomic Motion" by N. Brahams et. al., Physical Review Letters 108, 133601 (2012).
  
  
  They are measuring the collective motion of a gas coupled to a cavity field. That impresses me.


• "Superradiance in spin- j particles: Effects of multiple levels" by G._D Lin and S. F. Yelin, Physical Review A 85, 033831 (2012).
  
  
  It has always been a problem to talk about superradiance in two-level systems. Physically sound models with two-level systems involve Raman pumping to auxiliary levels in 4-levels schemes. It has always been mentioned that it may be possible to have superradiance with multi-level atoms. Well, they calculate it and show the effect of multi-level atoms in radiance, decay and so on...


• " A heuristic approach to BEC self-trapping  in double wells beyond the mean field" by K. Rapedius,  Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics 45, 085303 (2012).


A semi-classical analysis of the Bose-Hubbard dimer Hamiltonian with some curious variations that seem to help producing some approximations that may be valid in the mean-field and finite particle number cases.

  
• "Effects of orbital angular momentum on the geometric spin Hall effect of light" by L.-J. Kong, Physical Review Letters 85, 035804(2012).
  
  
  Reading it and trying to figure it out... I have never read about the spin Hall effect of light and it seems like there are two different kinds: one at a gradient refractive index interface and another that is geometric and relates to observation from a frame tilted with respect to the propagation direction. I need to read more about all this things.

Preprints

• "Exact real-time dynamics of the quantum Rabi model" by F.A. Wolf, M. Kollar, and D. Braak, arXiv: 1203.6039v1 [quant-ph].
  
  
  Last year Braak wrote a very nice PRL where he presented the proper system of Rabi model; now, this follow-up paper builds upon the basis presented before and analyses the dynamical behavior in different time regimes. I wonder why nobody cites E. A. Tur's papers on approximations to the eigenvalues of Rabi model. Anyway,  This manuscript is quite interesting and a must read if you work in Quantum Optics.  


• "Quantum thermometry using the ac Stark shift within the Rabi model" by K.D.B. Higgins, B.W. Lovett, and E.M. Gauger, arXiv: 1203.5994v1 [quant-ph].
  
  
  I have the feeling that whenever I get to grasp what they are doing I'm gonna like it.

Last Week Papers (13th week 2012)

I'm back from vacations and trying to catch up with the quantum optics pile of papers that came out in those two weeks. Here're some of the articles that caught my eye:

• "An analysis of the changes in ability and knowledge of students taking A-level physics and mathematics over a 35 year period" by Peter J Barham, Physics Education 47, 162-168 (2012).
  
  I loved the closing phrase, I cite: "The change in mathematical ability makes teaching physics at degree level more challenging, but that is a challenge we should embrace, rather than simply protest about."


• "Extracting Dynamical Equations from Experimental Data is NP Hard" by Toby S. Cubitt, Jens Eisert, and Michael M. Wolf, Physical Review Letters 108, 120503 (2012).
  
  In other words, it is damn hard to figure out the underlying math just from experimental data. The result is nice to read and quite interesting.


• "Cooling by Heating: Refrigeration Powered by Photons" by B. Cleuren, B. Rutten, and C. Van den Broeck, Physical Review Letters 108, 120603 (2012).
  
  This is interesting, you can cool a lead by joining it to another lead through two quantum dots. There was another interesting paper in the same issue about cooling with incoherent light but I seem to have misplaced it on my files.


• "Generation of Mesoscopic Entangled States in a Cavity Coupled to an Atomic Ensemble" by G. Nikoghosyan, M. J. Hartmann, and M. B. Plenio, Physical Review Letters 108, 123603 (2012).
  
  Something like dark states but by using 6-level atoms.


• "Controlled Dicke Subradiance from a Large Cloud of Two-Level Systems" by Tom Bienaime, Nicola Piovella, and Robin Kaiser, Physical Review Letters 108, 123602 (2012).
  
  Everybody was talking about Dicke super-radiance two years ago, now it is time for Dicke subradiance to be shown experimentally and used to control storage in long-lived subradiant modes

Last weekend movies (12th week 2012)...

In order to try to keep a schedule, I'm scheduling this post way ahead of time...

1. Letters to Juliet, ****
   A young fact checker from The New Yorker finds herself thinking about her relationship while pursuing someone else's dream on an allegedly honeymoon-like vacation.
   
   
2. The Last Starfighter, ***
   This is amazing, just a couple of years after Tron (1982) this film has a lot of primitive CGI included, full scenes of CGI! And there's an alien that seems like the prototype of Dr. Zoidberg. The alien copilot looks a lot like the alien in Enemy Mine from 1985—the 1979 novella of the same title is awesome, a must read for science fiction fans—.
   
   
3. Seeking justice, ***
   A school teacher's wife is raped in New Orleans. A mysterious man approaches the school teacher offering vendetta in exchange of a future favor to the vigilante organization that he represents and that is only the beginning. A good thriller.

I managed to watch some tv-series:

1. Eureka S01, ***
   Federal Marshall Jack Carter finds himself working as Sheriff for the top-secret town of Eureka, where the topmost brilliant scientists of USA work for the development of science and technology. Of course, this peculiar town is prone to a lot of mishaps either by the ingenuity of the townspeople or the actions of some unknown evil band of men.

Last weekend movies (11th week 2012)...

In order to try to keep a schedule, I'm scheduling this post way ahead of time...

1. Machuca, *****
   A look at the period of a few months before and after the coup d'état to Salvador Allende's socialist government in Chile through the eyes of two children at a private school in Santiago, one from a middle class neighborhood and the other from a shanty town. It's a quite sensible and shocking narrative that seems to go nowhere and then bam! hits you between the eyes.
   
   
2. Tomorrow, when the War Began, ****
   The war scenario idea behind this film is awesome! West Oz is stormed by Confederation troops and seized due to land scarcity in South Pacific Asia. Three coastal port cities are taken as foothold for the invasion. Some teens manage to escape the first wave of invasion because they were camping in the wild and now, they are back in town ready to raise hell. It seems like a second part is in the making.
   
   
3. The Men who Stare at Goats, *
   A journalist gone south in his personal life goes to Kuwait in hopes that covering the war will bring him some self-respect, but instead finds one of the men who stare at goats, a secret psionic operative of the 60s army. Really, the star is just because McGregor, Spacey, Clooney, and Bridges are all there.
   
   
4. Abduction, 
   I am seriously thinking to award one star as long as I don't fall asleep or finish watching the movie. A young guy raised to fight finds out he's not who he believes and starts a series of events that will transform his life into an international man of mystery.

Well, that's it.

Last weekend movies (10th week 2012)...

In order to try to keep a schedule, I'm scheduling this post about the movies I have managed to see so far in the week...

1. The Sunset Limited, *****
   This is a jewel, not many single location films are good and this one is great. Two men confronting their beliefs after one of them attempted suicide (played by Tommy Lee Jones) and the other stopped it (portrayed by Samuel L. Jackson). Great dialogues.
   
   
2. Take Shelter, ****
   The onset of paranoid schizophrenia and its repercussions in the life of a simple man are sensitively portrayed in this film. I didn't like the ending of the film because I'm not sure if it is another delusion which makes the film and awesome take on a real problem, or a occurrence in the life of the family portrayed which makes the film some prophetical apocalyptic bullshit.
   
   
3. Dawn of the Dead, ****
   The second of Romero's Living Dead Trilogy. It has been ages without watching this one and it still rocks my spare time and I still believe that the music is seriously fucked up sometimes, but it's part of the package.
   
   
4. Dawn of the Dead, ****
   Remakes are usually not better than the originals but this one rocks! I don't know why I missed this when it came out eight years ago. 

Well, that's it for today. Wish me a nice trip, I'll try to post some pictures.

The Dark Tower VI: The Song of Susannah by Stephen King

In the Song of Susannah, Mr. King takes us a step further in the path to the Dark Tower. Sussannah Dean is again two women in one and pregnant as a result from the drawing of Jake into Mid World. A demon, Mia has taken control over Suze and, after the battle of the Calla, has her run away to New York to have the chap under the care of the Crimson King's servants, who has promised motherly aching Mia to give her charge over the chap for a few years. 

The rest of the Ka-tet is split in two teams, one to follow Suze and one to find Calvin Tower and try to save the rose. Originally Eddie and Roland were supposed to follow Suze while Jake and Pere Callahan got the business with Calvin Tower done, but Ka blows! With the help of the Manni, Jake and Callahan find themselves in New York chasing Suze with the help of Oy, while Eddie and Roland are welcomed to Maine with a shower of bullets. 

In Maine, Mr. King introduces a fictionalized version of himself into the story as a channel for the story of the Dark Tower to be told, something that seems to be important because the Crimson King's agents seem to be trying to stop him with this or that seemingly random act.

Along the story new facts are introduced; like Fedic and Castle Discordia or the role Mordred, the chap, will play in the future of the ka-tet. What I liked the most is how Mr. King introduces himself to the story and how masterfully fills at least a hundred pages of autobiographical data with two or three lines regarding events related to the story. Anyway, it is a great read and Mr. King shows why he is the acclaimed author that he is. From Castle Discordia at the end of the world to rural Maine, the places are depicted with masterful strokes and the story flows with ease in both regions of imagination and reality. 

Good Reading, Long Days and Pleasant Nights!

  

Last weekend movies (9th week 2012)...

Most probably, this is the last quasi-periodical blog update in at least a month. I'm leaving Singapore, going on real vacations for two weeks and, then, moving back to Mexico...

1. Sabrina, ****
   Sabrina (Audrey Hepburn), the lovely young daughter of an English chauffeur serving an American family, is deeply in love with the spoiled playboy of the family and can ruin a big merger between corporate families by running away with the youngster. It comes to the old, reliable, business mastermind of the family, Linus (Humphrey Bogart), to avoid such debacle.
   
   
2. Die Welle, ****
   Autocracies are a thing of the past and surely cannot emerge on modern democratic societies. Right? Wrong! Based on The Third Wave experiment of 1967, this awesome German film fictionalizes the real experiment that showed the emergence of fascist, nationalist behavior along high-school teenagers in just one week.
   
   
3. Age of Heroes, ****
   So, you knew that Ian Fleming was in charge of forming a secret commando for the British Army during WWII, right? The 30 Assault Unit was the name and this film seems very much like what should have happened in the beginning of such unit.
   
   
4. Tales of an ancient empire, 
   I don't understand why Vampire stories are usually all or nothing. I fell asleep after 20min of the film and didn't even cared to try to watch it again. 

I'm not sure if I'm gonna be able to keep following the tv-series I have learned to like in the last year and a half here in Singapore, so this may be the last post about this matter:

1. Last Man Standing S01-E18, ***
   Tim's dad and brother come to town and may be staying there for a long time as they are gonna be building the new store. Of course, that cannot go smooth at the first try.
   
   
2. Castle S04-E16, ***
   The mystery left over from last week is solved when Beckett and Castle are in the midst of a cold war sleeper attempt to start world war three.
   
   
3. Hawaii Five O S02-E17, ***
   The unit has to solve the murder of a successful liner builder which happens to be a Hawaiian history fan. The suspects go from a petty thief to a possible eco-terrorist but, in the end, the motif is as simple as possible: pure greed.
   
   
4. Big Bang Theory S05-E18, ***
   
   The episode is named "The werewolf transformation." Sheldon starts becoming a chaotic character after failing to get his scheduled hair cut due to the barber being in coma.
   
   
5. Psych, (not yet back?)
   
   
   
   
6. Once upon a time S01-E13, ***
   
   The story book is back, the story behind prince charming and Midas' daughter is finished, and the mysterious writer is starting to leave the background and playing a role. Interesting.  

   
   
7. Comic Book Men S01-E02, ***
   
   The second out of six episodes reality show based at Kevin Smith's comic book store: Jay and Bob's Secret Stash. The 60s Batmobile comes to the store and the guys try to play ball hockey without any glory at all. 

Latex in Inkscape 0.48

Last time I installed my favorite GPL drawing tool Inkscape, I had to install old version 0.46 instead of new 0.48 because the latex app was not working in the new one. Well, today, being the stupid me with the memory span of a goldfish, I wondered why I had the old and not the new version of Inkscape and, finding no reason for being such a backward computer user in my 5 second memory span, proceeded to update it. You can imagine the result, I was unable to edit latex on any of my figures.

I found this blog with a solution to the problem of latex in Inkscape 0.48, actually it is a very simple solution, and everything is working fine now. The blog is called La Consigna, it is very helpful as it has a lot of technical solutions to issues that a matlab, latex user may find in his daily use/abuse. 

Simulating life...

Today, I found a short story by Frederic Pohl about the mechanical simulation of life through persona impressions on mechanical constructions for marketing research, "The tunnel under the world" written in the 50's. It remind me of another two short stories, "They" by Robert A. Heinlein and "Time out of joint" by Phillip K. Dick, with similar theme: life as a simulation. I am not sure which one was the first, my bet would be Heinlin's "They" as he is the oldest of the three—I think it is something like: Heinlein 1900s 1907, Pohl 1910s 1919, and Dick 1920s 1928. I would be surprised if They, The Tunnel under the world, and Time out of joint is not the published order of the stories but there's always wikipedia or google to check. I'm lazy to do it now  Yes, they short stories came in that order—. Anyway, it seems like the idea of life as a simulation has been recurrent since the early 40s up to our modern era (Matrix, The 13th floor, Abre los ojos, etc.).

Thanks to having so much free time and wikipedia, I've just found that there exist such a thing as a "simulation hypothesis" studied by some philosophers like Nick Bostrom or David Chalmers—funny, both sound very Swedish—. Chalmer's paper sounds less technical as it's embedded in the Matrix phenomenon, while Bostrom's comes right from a philosophy journal.

Well, I leave you those links and works there while I start reading some philosophy to see if I can understand something out of it.

Last weekend movies (8th week 2012)

This week was another run at the discount bin with some titles I didn't even catch their names on the internet when they first came out. But it was a great discount bin run as you will see...

1. Warhorse, ****
   A horse, his owner and WWI. A story of the great war where the main character is a horse, and the owner whom loves it. It has great visual storytelling and the composition of shots is beautiful.
   
   
2. The Big Year, ****
   What does birders leave behind in search of a big year? The film is based on the book The Big Year: A tale of Man, Nature and Fowl Obsession by Mark Obmascik which records the birder's season of 1998. It's a good comedy that somehow makes you think a little.
   
   
3. The rum diary, ****
   This film is based on Hunter S. Thompson's book The Rum Diary telling the story of an unpublished american novelist came journalist in Puerto Rico to pay the bills. A tale of expatriates life and abuses overseas. It's great to see Johnny Depp in two movies based on Thompson's books, the other is Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
   
   
4. Anonymous, ****
   A visually appealing exploitation of the Oxford theory of Shakespeare with a lot of pseudo-history on  top of it to make for the lack of romance, drama and knowledge of true story.
   
   
5. Too Big to Fail, ****
   What happened behind the corporate and federal doors at the market meltdown of 2008? This pseudo-documentary film tries to hypothesize such events based on the news that came and information that leake out at and after the time.
   
   
6. Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, ***
   The Justice League has to save an alternate Earth were superheroes are bad and supervillians good. Although the move spends most of the time with just five of the founding members (Superman, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, Green Lantern and the Flash), the keystone of this animated film is my favorite psychopath: The Batman.
   
   
7. Cougars, Inc.,  
   Again, I didn't forget to put the stars. I don't even know why I finished watching this... 

This week brought many interesting things on the tv-series front:

1. Last Man Standing S01-E16-17, ***
   Embarrassment, dares, fight versus city bureaucracy, and a NASCAR car.
   
   
2. Castle S04-E15, ***
   A ghost assassin is loose in the city trying to start a the destruction of the modern world! Of course, Beckett and Castle get involved in this first part of two CIA thriller where I have the feeling there's more than meets the eye.
   
   
3. Hawaii Five O S02-E16, ***
   The team is in troubles when a murder is committed at the governor's fund rising ball and everything almost ends in an international terrorist attack to the Russian embassy.
   
   
4. Big Bang Theory S05-E176, ***
   
   Again, the episode is split between the adventures of the boys and those of the girls. Sheldon finds himself fighting for a new office and, afterwards, his sanity while Penny has to deal with being the bff of Amy.
   
   
5. Psych, (not yet back?)
   
   
   
   
6. Once upon a time S01-E12, ***
   
   A retelling of the beauty and the beast that amazingly gives more insight on the story behind Rumpelstiltskin and the Evil Queen.  

   
   
7. Comic Book Men, ***
   
   A six episode reality based at Kevin Smith's comic book store: Jay and Bob's Secret Stash. It's a funny look at the memorabilia, pop culture and comic book tradings happening at the store.

LWP: A list of papers (On vacation)

I'm really getting into the on vacation mood, my google reader rss feed list has some 1300 unread articles from my favorite journals and I don't even have plans to even take a look at them for another two weeks. Nevertheless, this one caught my eye when I opened the google reader last time (disclosure: they cited a paper of us, that's why it caught my eye):

Polariton condensation with nonlinear photons by X.-Y. Guo, Z.-Z. Ren and Z. Chi, Physical Review A 85, 023608 (2012).

From the abstract, I have the feeling I'm gonna read it, like it, and maybe do something based on this in the future... or maybe not as I'm starting to feel a calling for something different in the optics/professional-life front.

I, the DSRL dummy: HDR for high contrast situations

Most of the time, I get to a very nice place in the wrong moment; say, the day before yesterday I went for a walk in downtown Singapore and when I found Fort Canning's navigation beacon the sky was filled with clouds and the sun was just behind the light house. At that point I knew that any picture I tried to take will be crappy:

Fig. 1: Forth Canning Light (f/7.1, 1/500s, ISO 100, 20mm, no processing).

As you can see there's lot of over- and under-exposed sections and I should just delete the image as my developing skills will surely make it worse than it already is. 

High Dynamic Range to the rescue. I was trying to figure out a way to shoot the picture without a gradient neutral density filter when my tripod fell to the groud. Wait! Why do not take advantage of the new dent in the tripod and try to shoot a HDR image to try and make a better picture? As my grandmother says: You cannot have everything in life, I was waiting for the sky to part a little and get some blue sky on the composition but my patience was just 20min. long and this is what I got:

Fig. 2: Forth Canning, ±2eV in 5 steps, Software: Luminance, Algorithm:Mantiuk'06.  

As you can see, the composition of under- and over-exposed frames allows for a still which is better than the one before; for instance, you can actually see all the elements in the image. The settings for this HDR still frame are Mantiuk '06 algorithm with Luminance HDR CF:0.3, SF: 2.0, DF:15. 

I tried all the algorithms that come with Luminance HDR and Mantiuk '06 was the one that suited my eye the most in this situation. I tried going bananas and creating a higher contrast image and this alien-looking thing came out with everything maxed up (CF:1, SF:2, DF:99):

Fig. 3: Same as above different algorithm's parameters.

In the end, I am happy the new dent in my tripod led to an idea that ultimately worked out for me this time but I think I will try to get a set of graduated neutral density filters as well.

Pros: Able to shoot a balanced clear sky picture.
Con: Need to shoot at least 3 frames to cover the contrast range.

Happy Shooting!

Last weekend movies (7th week 2012)

Consuming media is a wonderful trip, there are amazing story and storytelling ideas that come from films in the discount bin that I didn't even manage to see in the marquee...

1. Wristcutters: A love story, *****
   What happens to suicide-people after they die? They go to a hot and desolated place with no laughs. The idea is awesome, it is based in the title-story of "Kneller's happy campers" by Etgar Keret. I'm gonna read that anthology as soon as possible. Do yourself a favor and go for the film, the acting is good, the soundtrack is creative, and the whole thing is a piece that you will carry in your memory for long.
   
   
2. Funny Face, ****
   Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn, together, dancing and singing—now I understand why Hepburn's sung part in My Fair Lady was done by someone else—in a fashion magazine romantic comedy film that surely was an inspiration for a lot of films like Devil wears Prada and such.
   
   
3. In time, ***
   The idea behind the film is awesome: Humans have been genetically modified to stop aging at 25, the price to pay is that after that instant each and every further second has to be earned because time has substituted money as currency. The film is barely good compared to what can be done with such a great idea, I think.
   
   
4. Drive, ***
   This drama has an 80s feeling all over it—I realized it was a 2011 film by checking the IMDb—, it uses a lot of slow, long scenes to build feelings between characters like in olden times. The twist and ending are good and filled with noir crime novel nostalgia. It is based in a book by James Sallis.
   
   
5. The Switch, **
   A lonely but accomplished woman chooses artificial insemination to fulfill her motherly dreams but, on the insemination day, his best friend switches the sperm's donor with his. Do you realize that I almost used the same words than in last weekend's backup plan? This is funnier, more comedy than romantic.
   
   
6. The Hit List, **
   A run down man without any drive finds a friend in a hitman who asks him for a list of people whose death will make his life better. Good action, but not thrilling at all.
   
   
7. In the Name of the King: Two Worlds,  
   I just realized this is a sequel to a dungeon siege film. No, I didn't forget to put the stars. I fell asleep twice while trying to watch it. 

Really, what is happening with television series? ...

1. Last Man Standing S01-E15, ****
   Mike's birthday! "Bacon of the month club... Yey, 17 years already... Yeah, if you get to 20 you get a free angiogram... What about 25?... Nobody makes it to 25." This is what I love about Tim Allen's shows, simple, crude, and fun.
   
   
2. Castle S04-E14, *****
   They really made a killer episode! Beckett and Castle solve a murder and a crime from the 50s while Castle enacts the past in his minds eye. Awesome characterization!
   
   
3. Hawaii Five O S02-E15, ***
   Danno is reached by his past and his family is put in danger's way.
   
   
4. Big Bang Theory S05-E16, ****
   
   Sheldon is forced to take vacations and pesters Amy on her lab. Howard is getting married and issues start arising while the rest of the guys just hang around.
   
   
5. Psych, (not yet back?)
   
   
   
   
6. Once upon a time S01-E11, ***
   
   Emma trusts too much in Sydney and we learn the story behind the Evil Queen's mirror.  

Sorry for being late, I went walking and taking pictures yesterday and forgot to write the post in advance. 

LWP: A list of papers (on vacation)

I'm really getting into the on-vacation mood and not even worrying about checking the RSS feeds for my favorite journals everyday (I think my google reader has some 800 unread items as of today). Last week, I managed to skip through the feed and found these interesting:

Anderson localization in a periodic photonic lattice with a disordered boundary by  U. Naether, J. M. Meyer, S. Stützer, A. Tünnermann, S. Nolte, M. I. Molina, and A. Szameit, Optics Letters 37, 485-487 (2012).


Optomechanical cooling of levitated spheres with doubly resonant fields by G. A. T. Pender, P. F. Barker, F. Marquardt, J. Millen, and T. S. Monteiro, Physical Review A 85, 021802(R) (2012).


Optomechanical systems as single-photon routers by G. S. Agarwal and Sumei Huang, Physical Review A 85, 021801(R) (2012).

I hope I can read them sometime in the future after this lackadaisical bought of laziness.

Last weekend movies (6th week 2012)

This was a weird weekend, there were some very good movies and some real bad ones...

1. Cidade de Deus, *****
   Life at the "City of God," one of Rio de Janeiro's favelas, from the eyes of a kid who grew up to be a photographer. This is a violent but awesome film depicting life in the outskirts of Rio during the 60, 70, and 80s. It's based on real events. It is so good that it's one of the few films that I have seen twice in my life.
   
   
2. The warrior's way, *****
   The best swordsman assassin from Japan deserts from his clan and seeks refuge in the wild west where he makes new friends, new enemies and old enemies find him. A mash-up of lone wolf and cub, seven samurais, magnificent seven and many more this film just made my day! This is how a action fantasy story is visually told.
   
   
3. Charade, ****
   A woman's husband is found death and a quarter million dollar is missing (it's the 60's so that's a lot of money). Audrey Hepburn's character finds herself in the middle of a mystery leftover by WWII. A very cute romantic comedy within a mystery film. Lovely takes of Paris. This is a must see.
   
   
4. How do you know, ***
   A girl softballer, portrayed by lovely Reesse Witherspon, is being cut from the USA team and finds herself interested in both a professional baseball player playboy and a corporate guy in the mist of a SEC investigation while dealing with her life after being a pro-athlete.
   
   
5. The backup plan, **
   A lonely but accomplished woman chooses artificial insemination to fulfill her motherly dreams but, on that same day, meets a guy in what seems to be love at first sight. A nice romantic comedy, good for girlfriend time.
   
   
6. From Prada to Nada, **
   Have you read Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin? Well, think about it but with two rich-come-poor latinas in LA. It's a weird romantic comedy that jumps a lot in the story.
   
   
7. Chick magnet, 
   No, it is not a mistake that there are no stars at the right of the title. Two complete and one partial assholes find themselves with a shirt that is a chick magnet but in the case of true love. The review on the cover sounded nice but it was a waste of time.

Really, what is happening with television series? ...

1. Last Man Standing, (no episode?)
   
   
   
2. Castle, (no episode?)
   
   
   
3. Hawaii Five O, (no episode?)
   
   
   
4. Big Bang Theory S05-E15, ****
   
   Leonard chooses to forfeit his friend status as per Sheldon's room-mate's agreement. Chaos ensues in Sheldon's life. It's good to go back to non-drinking Penny and the comedy style from the second season .
   
   
5. Psych, (not yet back?)
   
   
   
   
6. Once upon a time S01-E07-10,
   
   Emma starts finding and solving the problems of fairy tale characters trapped in Storybrooke, Maine. It has a comatose prince charming, so it qualifies as a soap opera according to my standards.  

At last, Lyx and I manage to watch an Audrey Hepburn film! I hope we can see the rest of them in the coming weekends.

I cannot believe that the "Last weekend movies" series of short reviews is having around a hundred visits in the last three weeks. I never expected that. Thank you for visiting!

LWP: A list of papers (On vacation)

I am taking my vacation seriously and just reading titles and abstracts. These caught my eye, I hope I will read them whenever I'm back:

Transverse and lateral shifts of the center of gravity of a refracted nonparaxial Bessel beam by E. Norblad, Physical Review A 85, 013847 (2012).

Reflectivity and transmissivity of a cavity coupled to two-level systems: Coherence properties and the influence of phase decay by B. Julsgaard and K. Mølmer, Physical Review A 85, 013844 (2012).


Cavity cooling of a trapped atom using electromagnetically induced transparency by M. Bienert and G. Morigi, New Journal of Physics 14, 023002 (2012).


An optical-lattice-based quantum simulator for relativistic field theories and topological insulators by L. Mazza, A. Bermudez, N. Goldman, M. Rizzi, M. A. Martin-Delgado and M. Lewenstein, New Journal of Physics 14, 015007 (2012).

That's it...

Ponte en los zapatos del otro...

It seems that Mexico is going back to the one that my parents knew, a country where "desaparecidos" are a common occurrence. The difference is that back in my parent's time the kidnapper was the government only, now the role is taken by both government and criminals.

It is a good thing that at least now there's freedom of speech and press and people ready to go to the streets and media to talk about it:

"Ponte en los zapatos del otro" (Get in each other's shoes) is a campaign by "Movimiento por la Paz" (Movement for Peace) to bring into our minds the fact that forced disappearances—a commonplace occurrence during the strong days of the party dictatorship—are coming back to our times—it seems they never stopped—but they are now committed by both government and criminal organizations.

I do not commune with the slight feeling that the open war on drug cartels should stop that the video seems to give due to the last phrase of Sicila's part but I believe that peace, due process and reign of law should be guaranteed in Mexico. 

Last minute pontification: I used to hear a lot: "tenemos el pais que merecemos" (we have the country that we deserve) but we should aim to  "construir el pais que queremos" (build the country we want). Sometimes, I am ashamed I left, then, I remember why I left. Corruption should be battled at all levels, starting at the self. It is amazingly embarrassing that such things as a state official carrying 25 millions MXP in cash pass by almost no pres coverage, no legal consequences to the state government  and no civil reaction to such things (note from Spain's El Pais, here). 

Last weekend movies (5th week 2012)

Compared to last weekend, this one was a bad movie weekend. I also grew a little bit bored of doing nothing and decided to get some work done. Nevertheless, I'm trying to keep with my vacation goal: to watch and read as much media as possible...

1. Moneyball, ****
   Based on the story of Billy Beane, one of the first baseball managers to put together a team based on computer analyzed statistics who is still trying to win a championship. I never know how to classify biographic films, I guess this is a drama. It has a good pace and flows. I actually enjoyed it.
   
   
2. Immortals, ***
   King Hyperion marches against the Greek gods and it's up to Theseus to stop him before he frees the Titans. I really liked this film, the visual design is impressive—say, e.g., the young golden gods and the golden but dirtied demi-god Theseus—and the landscape composition is impressive. The retold of Theseus and the Minotaur is amazing!
   
   
3. Colombiana, ***
   A drug lord's family is murdered and only his little girl survives. She grows up to be a perfect assassin looking for revenge. The film was scripted by my favorite femme-fatale enthusiast Luc Besson—Mathilda, Nikita, Leeloo—. It's a good action film with a lot of parkour.
   
   
4. Johnny English Reborn, ***
   Johnny English left the British secret service in disgrace but happenstances bring him back and gets a chance to clean his name. Mr. Atkinson comedy is good, specially his faces. It's a no brainer, I just sat down and laughed for half the movie.
   
   
5. 11-11-11, **
   A writer losses his family and stats realizing that bad things happen to his family on November 11th, but the worst is yet to happen. In the beginning I started to get bored with this horror film, but then came the ending and I really loved it. I have always loved non-hollywood endings.
   
   
6. Killer Elite, **
   A retired assassin is blackmailed and brought back to kill a team of ex-SAS soldiers involved in the assassination of a Sheikh's family in Oman. A passable action film, not so much action, not so much of a story, one of the stars is just out of respect to Al Pacino.
   
   
7. Salvation Boulevard, **
   A not-so-sure born-again-christian is witness to an accidental shooting committed by his mega-church preacher who decides to keep everything under the table. It's a great farcical film on the subject of false and self-justified "faith."  

Really, what is happening with television series? ...

1. Last Man Standing, (no episode?)
   
   
   
2. Castle S04-E13, ****
   A dog judge and trainer gets killed and it is up to Castle and Beckett to find out the reason why.
   
   
3. Hawaii Five O S02-E14, ****
   The mystery of the past is unfolding as a robbery entangles with the past.
   
   
4. Big Bang Theory S05-E14, ****
   
   It's back to the beginning with Leonard dating penny and everybody else being their old selves from the first season.
   
   
5. Psych, (not yet back?)
   
   
   
   
6. Wilfred S01-E01,  ***
   
   An US remake of the Oz series, a suicidal man finds a "friend" in the bastardy dog of his hot neighbor.
   
   
7. Once upon a time S01-E01-07,
   
   The land of fairy tales suffered a horrible fate, the Evil Queen curse them to a place of horrors: our world. Now, it is upon Snow White's daughter and grandson to fix things in Storybrooke, Maine, and end the curse.

It seems like we are getting a curse too, because Lyx and I haven't found time to sit down and watch those old  films with Audrey Hepburn. I really hope we can do something about it next weekend.