Poesía - La mancha de púrpura de Ramón López Velarde

La poesía de Ramón López Velarde(RLV) es un descubrimiento reciente para mi. El estilo de los poemas que leí, exhiben una carga emotiva tremenda con una tendencia marcada hacia la melancolía.
En particular me gustó mucho La mancha de púrpura. En este enlace, podrán encontrar más poemas del mismo autor Mexicano.
He añadido un pequeño glosario para perplejos al final.


La mancha de púrpura

Me impongo la costosa penitencia 
de no mirarte en días y días, porque mis ojos 
cuando por fin te miren, se aneguen en tu esencia 
como si naufragasen en un golfo de púrpura, 
de melodía y de vehemencia.

Pasa el lunes, y el martes, y el miércoles... Yo sufro 
tu eclipse, ¡oh creatura solar!, mas en mi duelo 
el afán de mirarte se dilata 
como una profecía; se descorre cual velo 
paulatino; se acendra como miel; se aquilata 
como la entraña de las piedras finas; 
y se aguza como el llavín 
de la celda de amor de un monasterio en ruinas.

Tú no sabes la dicha refinada 
que hay en huirte, que hay en el furtivo gozo 
de adorarte furtivamente, de cortejarte 
más allá de la sombra, de bajarse el embozo 
una vez por semana, y exponer las pupilas, 
en un minuto fraudulento, 
a la mancha de púrpura de tu deslumbramiento.

En el bosque de amor, soy cazador furtivo; 
te acecho entre dormidos y tupidos follajes, 
como se acecha un ave fúlgida; y de estos viajes 
por la espesura, traigo a mi aislamiento 
el más fúlgido de los plumajes: 
el plumaje de púrpura de tu deslumbramiento.

Ramón López Velarde

Glosario para perplejos

anegar.  (Del lat. enecāre, matar).
1. tr. inundar (‖ de agua). U. t. c. prnl. U. t. en sent. fig.
2. tr. Ahogar a alguien sumergiéndolo en el agua. U. m. c. prnl. U. t. en sent. fig. Anegarse en llanto.
3. tr. p. us. Abrumar, agobiar, molestar.
4. prnl. naufragar (‖ irse a pique).

vehemente.  (Del lat. vehĕmens, -entis).
1. adj. Que tiene una fuerza impetuosa. Un discurso vehemente.
2. adj. Ardiente y lleno de pasión.
3. adj. Dicho de una persona: Que obra de forma irreflexiva, dejándose llevar por los impulsos.

descorrer.  
1. tr. Dicho de una persona: Volver a correr el espacio que antes había corrido.
2. tr. Plegar o reunir lo que estaba antes estirado, como las cortinas, el lienzo, etc.
3. intr. Dicho de una cosa líquida: Correr o escurrir. U. t. c. prnl.

acendrar.  (De cendrar).
1. tr. Depurar, purificar en la cendra los metales preciosos por la acción del fuego.
2. tr. Depurar, purificar, limpiar, dejar sin mancha ni defecto.

aquilatar.  
1. tr. Examinar y graduar los quilates del oro y de las perlas y piedras preciosas.
2. tr. Examinar y apreciar debidamente el mérito de alguien o el mérito o verdad de algo.
3. tr. apurar (‖ purificar).

aguzar.  (Del lat. *acutiāre, de acūtus, agudo).
1. tr. Hacer o sacar punta a un arma u otra cosa, o adelgazar la que ya tienen.
2. tr. Sacar filo.
3. tr. aguijar (‖ estimular, incitar).
4. tr. Preparar los dientes, las garras, etc., disponiéndose a comer o despedazar.
5. tr. Despabilar, afinar, forzar el entendimiento o un sentido, para que preste más atención o se haga más perspicaz.
6. tr. ant. Hacer aguda una sílaba.

llavín.  
1. m. Llave pequeña.
2. m. Cuba. cerradura (‖ mecanismo para cerrar).

embozo.  
1. m. Doblez de la sábana de la cama por la parte que toca al rostro.
2. m. Parte de la capa, banda u otra cosa con que se cubre el rostro.
3. m. Tira de lana, seda u otra tela con que se guarnece interiormente desde el cuello abajo los lados de la capa. U. m. en pl.
4. m. Prenda de vestir, o parte de ella, con que se cubre el rostro.
5. m. Recato artificioso con que se dice o hace algo.
quitarse alguien el ~.
1. loc. verb. coloq. Descubrir y manifestar la intención que antes ocultaba.

fúlgido, da.  (Del lat. fulgĭdus).
1. adj. Brillante, resplandeciente.

Unison: a way of keeping PCs synced

Many of us have a Desktop PC and a Laptop (or Netbook as my case) and always have the problem of keeping our devices synced. Think of you, working on a project and having copies on your Netbook and Desktop. Doing manual synchronizations can mess up things, and risk invaluable data.

We always have the Dropbox option, but thats not possible when you deal with huge sized directories and files. (cuz dropbox only stores 2 Gb in free plan. You can increase this space, but sometimes Dropbox is not a clever option)

I dedicated some time in finding a good syncing application, and found Unison, in the words of the official webpage:

The Unison logo

"Unison is a file-synchronization tool for Unix and Windows. It allows two replicas of a collection of files and directories to be stored on different hosts (or different disks on the same host), modified separately, and then brought up to date by propagating the changes in each replica to the other."

The advantages of this program is that works in almost any platform, also supports cross-platform syncing (say Linux to Windows) and deals very well with versions (controls the file versions, gives you the option to choice the file to keep, in case is needed)

I been testing this program for about 2 months, and i can tell that works very well, If you need to sync two or more directories, you must give it a try. Some of the uses i give are

• Keep both Netbook and Desktop with actually the same information on the selected directories.
• Back-Up tool, cuz you can configure a profile for backing up your flash drive, so, if you need to make some space on your USB flash drive,(for instance, when preparing a hybrid Debian ISO) you can delete information because you can restore it completely and automatically
• Can have many syncing profiles son can use them when needed
• Can use SSH, so you just need a LAN (or WLAN) which are pretty common those days

The manuals and tutorials are avaible at here so I won't put that information here.

If you have any questions on configuring, running, or anything else, feel free to leave a comment.

Poesía - 16 de Oliverio Girondo

Iniciando la serie de publicaciones en español, traigo este poema de Oliverio Girondo, un poeta argentino que maneja muy buen estilo. El poema se llama 16


16
A unos les gusta el alpinismo. A otros les entretiene el dominó. A mí me encanta la transmigración.

Mientras aquéllos se pasan la vida colgados de una soga o pegando puñetazos sobre una mesa, yo me lo paso transmigrando de un cuerpo a otro, yo no me canso nunca de transmigrar.

Desde el amanecer, me instalo en algún eucalipto a respirar la brisa de la mañana. Duermo una siesta mineral, dentro de la primera piedra que hallo en mi camino, y antes de anochecer ya estoy pensando la noche y las chimeneas con un espíritu de gato.

¡Qué delicia la de metamorfosearse en abejorro, la de sorber el polen de las rosas! ¡Qué voluptuosidad la de ser tierra, la de sentirse penetrado de tubérculos, de raíces, de una vida latente que nos fecunda... y nos hace cosquillas!

Para apreciar el jamón ¿no es indispensable ser chancho? Quien no logre transformarse en caballo ¿podrá saborear el gusto de los valles y darse cuenta de lo que significa “tirar el carro”?...

Poseer una virgen es muy distinto a experimentar las sensaciones de la virgen mientras la estamos poseyendo, y una cosa es mirar el mar desde la playa, otra contemplarlo con unos ojos de cangrejo.

Por eso a mí me gusta meterme en las vidas ajenas, vivir todas sus secreciones, todas sus esperanzas, sus buenos y sus malos humores.

Por eso a mí me gusta rumiar la pampa y el crepúsculo personificado en una vaca, sentir la gravitación y los ramajes con un cerebro de nuez o de castaña, arrodillarme en pleno campo, para cantarle con una voz de sapo a las estrellas.

¡Ah, el encanto de haber sido camello, zanahoria, manzana, y la satisfacción de comprender, a fondo, la pereza de los remansos.... y de los camaleones!...

¡Pensar que durante toda su existencia, la mayoría de los hombres no han sido ni siquiera mujer!... ¿Cómo es posible que no se aburran de sus apetitos, de sus espasmos y que no necesiten experimentar, de vez en cuando, los de las cucarachas... los de las madreselvas?

Aunque me he puesto, muchas veces, un cerebro de imbécil, jamás he comprendido que se pueda vivir, eternamente, con un mismo esqueleto y un mismo sexo.

Cuando la vida es demasiado humana —¡únicamente humana!— el mecanismo de pensar ¿no resulta una enfermedad más larga y más aburrida que cualquier otra?

Yo, al menos, tengo la certidumbre que no hubiera podido soportarla sin esa aptitud de evasión, que me permite trasladarme adonde yo no estoy: ser hormiga, jirafa, poner un huevo, y lo que es más importante aún, encontrarme conmigo mismo en el momento en que me había olvidado, casi completamente, de mi propia existencia.

Oliverio Girondo

Starting a bilingual blog - Iniciando un blog bilingüe

(ENG)

Keeping a blog in a different language from native isn't an easy task. In fact, is a complex task. More if you dont have the proper capabilities on the language you want to write.
When i started the blog, i thought that it would be a great idea to write on english, so I could get to a broader audience thanks to the popularity of the language. Despite of that, keeping contents only on english excludes a very broad field of topics and contents that also i would like to share in the blog. In addition, i'm not a very skilled translator, so it would be a shame to lose the essence of some topics very tied to spanish language.
For those and other reasons this blog will be filled with both english an spanish contents.
Thank you reader.


(ES)
Llevar un blog en un idioma distinto al nativo es una tarea más o menos compleja. Tanto más si no se tiene un dominio total del idioma en el cual se piensa a escribir.

Al embarcarme en la empresa de llevar un blog, pensé que sería buena idea escribir en inglés, permitiéndome abarcar un público mucho mayor, esto, debido a la popularidad del idioma. Empero, llevar un blog netamente en inglés excluye ciertos contenidos que guardan un vínculo profundo con el español y que, dadas mis cualidades como traductor, me es imposible traducir. Añado además que sería una pena hacerlo puesto que perderían su esencia.

Por estas y otras razones este blog compartirá publicaciones en inglés y en español.

Muchas gracias lector.

Book: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

About two weeks ago i finished reading Twenty thousand leagues under the sea by Jules Verne. 

It's one of the classics on the science fiction genre, so there must be a lot of reviews and summarys of the book. One thing that i liked most is Verne's style, the mistery atmosphere that he puts around captain Nemo, and his ability to caught attention of the reader is an experience that i recommend you, reader.

The thing I want to bring about the Twenty thousand leagues under the sea and the journey aboard of the Nautilus, is the fact that Jules Verne was very precise about the scientifical data, he speaks about many existing animal species of the seas, also, he mentions natural phenomena as bioluminiscence, submarine volcaninc eruptions, oceanic streams (as that of Gulf), the iceberg phenomena and much more, simply outstanding. To express my point better, think of yourself today, you have internet wich means access to information, in addition put a very prolific scientific environtment(in comparison at least), with just few minutes in front of your laptop, you can get enough scientifical accurate information, so you can try to write some science fiction history. But now, think of yourself in the 1860 decade ('till 1870) and write that book.

It's worth to mention that the book has a lot of historical remarks wich reveals a writer with a huge literacy.

The Nautilus path along the seven seas

Interesting Phenomena
Maelstrom
Near the ending of the book, Verne mentions a phenomenon known as maelstrom (or maelström), a very strong whirlpool current near some Norwegian islands (near Lofoten island) is not considerated as a great harm for modern ships. See the video to get the idea

The phenomenom is caused by the encounter of currents flowing in opposite direction

Sargasso sea

Other interesting phenomena is the Sargasso Sea, a debris zone (my words) due to a circular loop of the Gulf Stream. A NOAA web page says 

The Sargasso Sea is a vast patch of ocean named for a genus of free-floating seaweed called Sargassum. While there are many different types of algae found floating in the ocean all around world, the Sargasso Sea is unique in that it harbors species of sargassum that are 'holopelagic' — this means that the algae not only freely floats around the ocean, but it reproduces vegetatively on the high seas. Other seaweeds reproduce and begin life on the floor of the ocean.

Sargaso Sea due to the Gulf Stream

Sargaso Sea due to the Gulf Stream

Sargasso sea debris

A commentary on a Nobel peace prize nominee

At the official Nobel prize web page one reads

“The said interest shall be divided into five equal parts, which shall be apportioned as follows: /- - -/ one part to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”

(Excerpt from the will of Alfred Nobel)

I put this excerpt, cause the private Bradley Manning is in the list of Nobel Peace Prize nominees.

To put some context, Bradley Manning, is the soldier who starred the scandal of sending classified material of the U.S.A. to the Wikileaks agency (a video of an U.S.A. helicopter  killing civilians and two iraki journalists of the Reuters agency. Also is imputed of sending several compromising docuements concerning the wars at Irak and Afghanistan). Today, private Bradley faces a sentence of 52 years in prison, the imputed charges: treason.

I still wondering how in the world, to worry about innocent human lives is a matter of criminals and traitors, or if Bradley's actions must be qualified as "treason", but my conclusion is always the same. To express my thoughts, I'll borrow a post seen on the official Wikileaks facebook page

The question is not whether Bradley Manning deserves the Nobel Prize. The question is whether the Nobel Prize deserves Bradley Manning.

He probably won't win the prize, and given the conditions, i would consider it as a superficial fact. I really hope that history gives him the reconnaissance that he really deserves, i guess, as a martyr. Perhaps, in some decades, an academic institution gives the Bradley prize on human rights.

C/C++ Pointers and functions

A pointer is a powerful tool when you're programming. It's very common to be confused by the use of pointers on programming languages such as C or C++. On a very basic level, a pointer stores the memory address of a variable

Wait... you said "memory address"?
The concept of pointer it's strongly linked to the concept of memory adress so we need to make clear few things first. Let's say that a program is a collection of variables and functions. Every time that your program runs, the computer assigns it a portion of memory for each variable it creates. The size of each the memory block depends on the type of the variable, in order to get the computer working and do not mistake variables between processes (running programs), each memory block is endowed with a memory address. A memory address is a number (an unsigned int, but also has hexadecimal representation, and a physical place where the information it's saved, the information must be physically somewhere!, but that's another story). Said that, let say that a pointer is a special type of variable that stores a memory address.

Creating a pointer
Each pointer must be declared using the type of the variable which stores its memory address, so, for store the address of a double variable, we must have a pointer of type double

double variable;
double *variable_pointer;
variable_pointer=&variable;

So "variable_pointer" stores the address of "variable". An assignation as

int variable;
double *variable_pointer;
variable_pointer=&variable;

Would lead to error in execution/compilation process as a result of type mismatch

Let's see some examples on C code

In C/C++, the adress of a variable can be obtained by using the ampersand operator, that is, &.
When you make an statement like

&variable

What you actually get is the memory adress of  "variable". This can be more clear by the next example code:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

int by_pointer(int *i)
{
    printf("\nVariable value passed \'by pointer\' : %d \n",*i);
    printf("Memory adress : %X \n\n",&*i);
    return *i;
}

int by_value(int j)
{
    printf("\nVariable value passed \'by value\' : %d \n",j);
    printf("Memory adress : %X \n\n",&j);
    return j;
} 

int main(void)

{
     int y;
     printf("Write an integer number\?\n");
     scanf("%d",&y);
     by_value(y);
     by_pointer(&y);
     printf("Variable initial address %X \n\n",&y);
}

I've compiled that code, an then ran the program and the output was

Write an integer number?
3
Variable value passed 'by value' : 3
Memory adress : C42DC23C

Variable value passed 'by pointer' : 3
Memory adress : C42DC25C

Variable initial address C42DC25C 

As you see, when the variable it's created, takes the address (in this particular example. The addresses change each programm run) "C42DC25C". When you pass the y variable to by_value(), another variable is created, that's why the address "C42DC23C" is shown (instead of "C42DC25C" which is the original memory address ). When we call the function by_pointer(&y) passing y's address, we see that the functions returns exactly the same address as "y", so it don't creates a new varible. The function uses the existing variable, so memory is saved.

You can use pointers to modify the value of an external variable by passing the argument using pointers. Let me show you an example code:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

void modify_by_pointer(int *i)
{
    printf("Write an integer number\?\n");
    scanf("%d",&*i);
}

int main(void)
{
    int y;
    modify_by_pointer(&y);
    printf("\nThe value of y is %d\n",y);
}

So, when you run the program, you can get a result like

Write an integer number?
4
The value of y is 4

That's cuz, passing the direcction to the function, it modifies the variable itself, instead of creating a copy of it,. When you use pointers to pass arguments to functions, it's known as pass by reference, that's how you will find on the literature

Further reading
A good webpage http://www.cplusplus.com/doc/tutorial/pointers/
Or this book  Absolute C++ - 5th edition - Walter Savitch
You can try this one if you want

Apologia to Science Log Book

First act - The contents
You will find reviews of many kind about books, scientific papers, free software, C/C++ programming, the list goes on... I hope you enjoy reading my blog and find it useful. Do not hesitate to contact me to share your comments and/or observations.

Second act - The reasons

There are a bunch of reasons for starting a blog. Personally i'm motivated by the thought of sharing ideas with other people, the written form, is the most impersonal way to do the job, using a blog, it's easy to cover a wide range of public.

A page of Da Vinci's Notebook  (Log book)

While navigating across the seas, the ships had a notepad where they registered all the details along they journey, that notepad it's also called  a binnacle. From a scientifical point of view, exist the concept of logbook, it's a book (or notepad) where all the details of a research are properly logged. Both are the escence of this blog, I prettend to post details from each point of view,  from the point of view of a (wanna be) scientist, and from a navigator of this world.