Das Lied des Tages: Te quiero, dijiste – Maria Grever

Posted on 25 January, 2013 by Mayitzin

Manchmal schreibe ich auf Deutsch, aber jetzt will eins der besten Lieder, die ich immer genieße, teilen. Maria Grever war eine der produktivsten Komponisten ihrer Zeit. Sie hat u.a. „Júrame“, „Despedida“, „Alma mía“ und viele anderen Werke komponiert.

Jedoch möchte ich heute das Lied „Te quiero dijiste“ übersetzen und hier mitteilen. Manche Leute nennen das Lied auch als „Muñequita linda”; beide sind richtig. Viele Künstler haben verschiedene Versionen des Lieds gemacht, wie Plácido Domingo, Linda Ronstadt, Alejandro Fernández, Nat King Cole, etc. Meine Lieblingsversion? Ja, von Rolando Villazón.

Ein Paar Bemerkungen zu machen: An erster Stelle, Deutsch ist nicht meine Muttersprache, deswegen bitte ich deine Hilfe, ob du etwas unklar liest. Schreib mir und ich kann es korrigieren. An zweiter… ich hab’s vergessen.

Oh ja, an dritter Stelle, es ist keine wörtliche Übersetzung. Es gibt Ausdrücken, die nicht ganz gut auf Deutsch klingen, und ich hab’s ähnlich auf Deutsch versucht. Für diese Ausdrücke kannst du eine Erklärung am Ende finden.

Na ja, dann geht‘s los! Continue reading →

3D Reconstruction of a face from a single image

Posted on 11 January, 2013 by Mayitzin

I don’t know if scary, jaw-dropping or simply impressive, but it turns out that there is already an algorithm developed here in Germany by Professors Volker Blanz and Thomas Vetter, that reconstructs a face in 3D from one image. Yes! out of a single image!

Maybe it wouldn’t sound that amazing at first sight, but you have to think about all the possible applications. Besides identifications, you can entirely play around with the information out of peoples’ faces, prediction, tracking, augmented reality, medical procedures, etc.

Is it something new? No way! It was presented in the International Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive techniques of 1999! That’s right, fella, 14 years ago!

But why nobody used this impressive technique? Well, my guess is, of course, because of the computation times of it. Yes yes, very good, looks great and reconstructs faces pretty good, BUT took 50 minutes to reconstruct a face.

But wait a second! It was 14 years ago, right? With slower computers. Certainly, according to their paper, they used an SGI R10000 processor, which at that time was as powerful as 250 MHz… Well, I think is time to try it again with our new multi-core processors at several GHz.

Is it still on development? Did the creators give up? Are they preparing some new surprises? Well, we don’t know; but so far I can say that this technique has tons of applications with the new devices focusing in computer vision applications.

Just check the demo about this great procedure and the explanation of its development:

Naquito abroad!

Posted on 6 January, 2013 by Mayitzin

Good day, my people, this time I want to share with you the trailer of a new project I’m starting. This 2013 I decided to record my adventures around Europe for you to see what can you find in these places.

As I’m going to live it totally with the Mexican mentality that I have, I decided to name it “Naquito abroad”. Naquito is the diminished word in Spanish for “naco”, one of the many interesting subcultures of Mexico. A naco is basically a person without cultural background nor proper education. Well, I wouldn’t consider myself as uneducated, but I do consider myself as an apprentice in this world. Besides, I take it in the funniest way.

“Naquito abroad” will be my personal videodiary in all these journeys. I hope you like it and you feel attracted to visit those places. I’ll offer certainly lots of information (historical and cultural) about the places I’m going to. I’m gonna meet new people, and most of all, I’m looking forward to have fun here.

Thank you very much for watching. Feedback is always welcome and Happy new year!

Song of the day: Fallaste corazón – Pedro Infante

Posted on 4 January, 2013 by Mayitzin

The mexican culture has still some bits of “Machismo” in it, but is actually double faced. The Machos are people unable to be in contact with their feelings and try to set a screen, so when they are faced with their feelings, they react in very bad ways.

In the mexican society, the Machos are allowed to cry for 2 things only: family and women. And the way to do so is always singing and drinking. You can see it in almost every classic film of Mexico’s Golden Era, where a broken-hearted man sings to his beloved woman in sadness.

I found it always funny, and instead of making me sad or something, always made me smile. Beginning the year I felt a bit homesick and started to sing lots of Mexican songs, being Chavela Vargas, Vicente Fernandez, Antonio Aguilar, and many others a constant reminder of my culture.

Cuco Sánchez composed “Fallaste Corazón” (You failed, heart) many years ago, and several artists have made great covers of this song. Personally I think Chavela Vargas gave the best performance with her amazing voice and feeling. Damn! You can even feel her pain while she sings! Moving!

Anyways, we Mexicans have some weird ways to overcome tragedies, but it actually works 🙂 “Fallaste corazón” is dedicated to the heart of a Macho, yeah, the heart. And the Macho is mocking at his own heart. Yeah, bit weird, right? But this is one of the thousands of expressions you can find in Mexican songs.

Here you have one of the most entertaining performances from Pedro Infante “The idol of Mexico”. He sings the song as it should, with sadness, taunt, anger and passion. Subtitles are included in the video:

Ay ay ay!