Showing posts with label Miscellaneous. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Miscellaneous. Show all posts

Sunday, 2 November 2008

GEMEOS 2009...

A passagem de Saturno que se inicia em 03 de Setembro e se estende até Outubro de 2009 irá marcar uma nova lição de amadurecimento e aprendizado nestes setores.

Em primeiro lugar questões da família e da casa ganham forte destaque, importantes o suficiente para provocar um maior amadurecimento interior.

É uma fase onde iremos reconsiderar nossa perspectiva das pessoas mais velhas da família. Pais, avôs, tios, independente de sexo, revelam sua vulnerabilidade e precisam de nossa atenção.

Isto mexe com nossos complexos ou ilusões do passado e nos convida para uma nova sintonia.

Frequentemente é o tempo onde os papéis se invertem e você é chamado para cuidar e ser responsável da estrutura familiar. E, com isto, a vida te prepara para poder criar uma continuidade tribal.

Para crianças, com freqüência, é uma fase de aprender a lidar com limites e regras.

Outra manifestação desta passagem nos leva a assumir atitudes e deveres com a casa.

O desgaste do tempo traz rachaduras e você se envolve com obras no lar.

Seu gosto e suas necessidades seguem uma linha mais conservadora. Busca marcar seu território com lembranças do passado e deseja decorar com objetos tradicionais, almeja por privacidade e domínio territorial.

Você quer paz, quem sabe um pouco mais de isolamento, e tudo organizado.

É um tempo onde o trabalho se mescla com a vida doméstica.

Ou ainda, a vida profissional passa a lidar com temas relacionados como comida, construção, empreendimentos familiares, ecologia, etc.

Em algum momento deste processo, fantasmas emocionais do passado retornam à tona para serem resolvidos.

É sua estrutura pessoal pedindo para que conserte suas fragilidades internas, as deixe no devido baú de sua história e assim, fortalecido, esteja pronto para dar continuidade à linhagem genealógica.


Gemeos: O dom do Conhecimento

Comportamento Geral:

Nos distinguimos dos outros sêres vivos porque também somos criadores. Temos a centelha da vida, temos o corpo material e somos dotados de uma mente que busca compreender e associar.
Em vários dos mitos antigos, sugere-se que a humanidade perdeu o direito ao paraíso porque roubou do fruto do conhecimento.
O conhecimento que nos aproxima da divindade.

Gêmeos representa a essência do mental: sua maior característica é a curiosidade, a comunicabilidade e a irrequietude. É a agilidade tanto física quanto de pensamento. Mercúrio, o planeta regente do signo, é apresentado na mitologia com asas nos pés.

Gêmeos é o eterno jovial, brincalhão . Sempre buscando por novidades e por diversificar seu leque de relacionamentos. Sua mente ativa parece nunca repousar e por causa disto tende a ser muito dispersivo. Está sempre atento a algum acontecimento que não pode lhe escapar. É difícil prender a atenção de um geminiano.

Tanta agilidade faz com que dentro de cada geminiano existam sempre duas pessoas. É a sua dualidade.

É um diplomata de carteirinha. Tem boa intuição e sabe agir com malícia, astúcia e convicção.
Sabe ser muito humano e acolhedor. Se você for dar uma reunião ou uma festa, não deixe de convidar um típico geminiano: eles têm o dom de animar, alegrar e transformar ambientes sem graça em animadíssimos eventos sociais.

O signo de Gemeos e a Amizade

Quanto maior o número de amigos - melhor. Esta é possívelmente sua frase predileta.

Uma de suas características é falar não somente com as palavras, mas com as mãos, os braços e até através da representação corporal.

Pela sua vivacidade e extroversão Gêmeos atrai as pessoas com facilidade. Gostam de pessoas empreendedoras , dinâmicas e descompromissadas. Aliás, compromissos rígidos não são o seu forte e pontualidade, menos ainda.

Necessitam de variedade e de novas emoções em suas amizades. Um diversificado círculo social é para Gêmeos - como que um alimento da alma.

O signo de Gemeos e o Amor

Aaaah - o doce cantar da sedução. Este é um dos pontos fortes do Geminiano. São os magos das palavras doces, saberão dizer exatamente aquilo que os outros precisam ouvir.

No amor buscam pelo encanto esperando também serem encantados. Gostam do belo e do requintado.

Casamento, para Gêmeos, representa uma união espiritual, onde, deve reinar sobretudo o respeito à independência e à sua liberdade de expressão.




Sunday, 20 January 2008

Rising of the Moon




These pictures were taken during a "ski" trip in the Engadin region. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!!!

The Engadin or Engadine (Rumantsch: Engiadina = garden of the Inn) is a long mountain valley located in the canton of Graubünden (Grisons in French) in southeast Switzerland.

It follows the route of the Inn River from its headwaters at Maloja Pass running northeast until the Inn flows into Austria one hundred kilometers downstream. The Engadin is protected by high mountains on all sides and is famous for its sunny climate, beautiful landscapes and outdoor activities.

In Romansch, which is the indigenous language of the region, the "Engadin" literally translates as the garden of the Inn River (Romansch: En). However, historically, politically and geographically, the Engadin refers to the entire region, including the Inn River Valley, its tributaries and the surrounding mountains.

Thursday, 3 January 2008

2000 VISITORS!!!


I would like to thank all those you have passed by this little blog...it has now reached its 2000 visitor!


Visitors are from all over the World, but mainly (and in order of importance) from Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, United States, France and Brazil. Many visitors from the Middle East and Asia have also passed by.


To all those contributing to the success of this bolg...THANK YOU... and keep on doing detours around here...many more things are still to be discovered!

Friday, 9 November 2007

Día Mundial da Usabilidade!


Dando uma voltinha no Blog do meu amigo (Primo) FJ, deparei com um post que me despertou a curiosidade. Lendo do que se trata, pensei que vinha mesmo a calhar, eu que estive umas horitas a tentar entender o manual de um aparelho que me parecia dos mais simples. Mas hoje em día é preciso ser um cientista para entender como funciona um simples telefone!!!

Para resumir, a Associação Portuguesa de Profissionais de Usabilidade lança no dia mundial da usabilidade (mais um dia mundial para recordar!!!) o site de potesto "Diffícil de Usar"!

O seu objectivo é recolher testemunhos de objectos/serviços/sites que nos colocam dificuldades no dia a dia. O site irá manter-se activo até ao final de Novembro, altura em que serão compilados todos os testemunhos e enviados às entidades responsáveis pelos objectos do protesto.

Quanto mais protestos forem recolhidos mais força terão junto das empresas responsáveis. Ajude a passar a palavra, divulgando o site no seu blog ou site pessoal/empresarial.


Thursday, 8 November 2007

Manger Du Chocolat Pour Aider La Nature!!!


Les accros au chocolat (comme moi) pourront dé­sormais se laisser tenter sans éprou­ver le moindre sentiment de culpa­bilité: un nouveau procédé permet de transformer les restes de fabrica­tion du chocolat en biocarburant. Ce nouveau carburant est fabriqué dans le nord de l’Angleterre.

C'est peut être la façon la plus facile et la plus agréable de contribuer au développement durable!


En avant toutes...mangeons du chocolat!!!!

Make My Logo Bigger!!!!



Strolling along the web, I found something in another Blog which is very interesting and funny. Believe me If you're a website designer or a graphic designer and you've worked with clients, you will surely die laughing when you watch the commercial for Make My Logo Bigger Cream, a special new product available to clients of designers.
HAVE FUN!!!!

Sunday, 21 October 2007

Pythea's Blog...has new layout!


Most of you have now noticed...Pythea's Blog has got a new layout! The Blog has grown to be more in agreement with its owner's desires i.e. simple lines and the predominance of the red colour...Pythea's favourite!

Haven't you ever felt bored around 4:00 on a sunday afternoon? That is what was happening after having left the friends I had had lunch with. Got home and after considering the different options I decided to take the less "easy" one. Why not trying to use my new web editor/designer skills for my own blog and see what I can come up with? I can say I am quite happy with the result! After having fiddled around with lots of HTML code, becoming despaired with design (ever tried making sense out of CSS Style Sheets?) that did not want to obey orders and wanting to throw the computer out of the window (especially if one thinks that working with web sites is what I do at work!!!), the results looks very nice. Next step...a real web site!

I can't help looking back and wonder what happened to the person who was completely not into technology a few years ago. I refused for a long time to even have a mobile phone (do remember telling friends how bad it was for their health, etc.). I now own 2 of them, have got a PC with lots of gadgets, a laptop with another set of gadgets, MP4 etc... However, the weirdest is to be now working with web sites!

Colleagues from the University in Portugal must be having a good laugh remembering how much I hated these "infernal" machines...end up working with them is the craziest twist of destiny one could have ever thought of!

Well, hope that you'll like the new design...you are welcome to make any comments and suggestions!

By the way, this new design is dedicated to Jörg and Pascal...thanks for "showing" me the way!!!

Monday, 8 October 2007

Immigration...contre tests ADN? Exception française?



Un amendement au projet de loi sur l’immigration, qui prévoit dans le cadre du regroupement familial d’effectuer des tests ADN sur les candidats, a été adopté à l’Assemblée nationale française. Plusieurs responsables politiques et associations françaises de défense des droits humains ont déjà exprimé leur indignation face à une telle pratique.

Les candidats au regroupement familial pourraient être obligés de subir des tests ADN. C’est le sens de l’amendement présenté par le député UMP, Thierry Mariani, et qui a été adopté par la commission des lois de l’Assemblée nationale lors de l’examen du projet de loi sur l’immigration du ministre Brice Hortefeux. Le test serait volontaire et le demandeur devrait en supporter le coût évalué à 1000 euros.





La France ne ferait ainsi que suivre l’exemple de onze autres pays européens. Vraiment? Les Italiens et les Allemands semblent avoir fait de cette preuve un usage exceptionnel quand la France veut en faire une loi!

En Italie, par exemple, les tests ADN sont réalisés dans le cadre du regroupement familial sous l’égide de l’Organisation internationale pour les migrations (OIM) qui conduit depuis 2001, à la demande du gouvernement italien, un programme d’aide à la réunification des familles. L’OIM récolte les échantillons nécessaires qui sont ensuite traités par un laboratoire agréé par l’Etat italien. L’examen est pris en charge par ce dernier.

Cependant, le test est volontaire et n'intervient que s’il n’existe aucun document pour prouver la filiation. Ce dernier point est néanmoins laissé à l’appréciation des autorités italiennes. D’autant que « la notion de famille ne peut se limiter aux liens du sang ».

L’Allemagne n’a pas légiféré sur les tests ADN

L’OIM recommande également que les migrants et leurs familles soient tenus informés à chaque instant du processus dans lequel ils se sont engagés. De même, le refus de se plier au test, qui peut accélérer la procédure, et c’est l’un de ses principaux avantages, « ne doit influer négativement sur la décision finale ». Suggéré ou spontané, le test reste bien évidemment confidentiel et l’OIM est garant de la destruction de ces résultats qui ne seront ainsi utilisées à aucune autre fin. En somme, la pratique fait figure d’ultime recours et c’est dans la même logique que s’inscrit l’Allemagne.
Premier point : la loi allemande ne prévoit pas de test ADN en matière de regroupement familial. « Le recours au test génétique est très rare », souligne-t-on à l’ambassade d’Allemagne à Paris. « C’est une très grande exception ». La règle veut que la République fédérale exige des personnes qui souhaitent fouler son sol une preuve scientifique de leur appartenance familiale si elle doute fortement de la véracité des éléments qui lui ont été fournis. Aussi, peut-elle inviter le demandeur « à coopérer » en se soumettant au test qu’elle exige.

Comme en Italie, la démarche peut aussi s’avérer volontaire dans le but d’obtenir une décision plus rapide.

Certes, les tests ADN se pratiquent dans certains pays européens, mais ils ne font pas pour autant partie d’un dispositif légal.

(Source: Afrike.com du 8 Octobre)


Le but de la loi dans le fond est clair, il s'agit d'éviter les fraudes (trop souvant des réseaux de traffic humain utilisent l'excuse du regroupement familial). Malheureusement, encore une fois la forme n'est pas la plus appropriée et peut donner lieu à bien plus de problèmes qu'elle ne veut en régler.

Monday, 17 September 2007

Des Langues et de leur usages...





Preuve du (petit) succès que commence à avoir mon blog, voilà qu'il commence à être difficile de répondre aux attentes de tous ceux et celles qui le visitent. La question du jour étant..."à quand un message en français sur ton blog"? (La personne se reconnaîtra, mais nous connaissons assez bien notre sens de l'humour à toutes les deux!)

Donc, prochaine étape: me rappeler que même si l'anglais est la langue universelle (bla, bla, bla...qui a décidé que ce devait être l'anglais d'abord????), mon univers le plus proche (et je pense aussi à l'univers du 6ème étage) navigue au beau milieu d'une myriade de langues.

Bien des fois je me crois en pleine tour de Babel e.g. je commence ma journée en parlant français pour passer à l'anglais en passant par l'italien et l'espagnol et le portugais...et tout ceci en une seule journée! Il faut admettre qu'il y a matière à réflexion ...finalement admettons le...ça rend service une seule langue (mais pourquoi l'anglais...ne me répondez surtout pas que la raison est "démographique" ou que c'est la langue la plus facile à apprendre...!).

Et puis comment ne pas s'emmêler les pinceaux avec tout ce charabia dans toutes ces langues différentes. Alors voyons, au 6ème étage résonne: du portugais, de l'espagnol, de l'italien, du français, de l'anglais, du russe, de l'afrikaans, de l'allemand et du suédois...eh beh.
Qui m'a un jour demandé pourquoi j'aime tellement travailler dans un univers multiculturel...? La réponse est là. Pas besoin d'aller plus loin, quand une telle richesse linguistique est présente au sein d'une seule et même équipe, l'apport culturel est bien plus grand que tous les livres que l'on peut lire! Et puis ce que ça peut être drôle des fois!


Angela, Angéla, Ângela, Angelikki!?

Friday, 14 September 2007

Blogs and subjects of discussion...

On a coffee break with colleagues, and having fun as usual with the "Dream Team" from the "6th Floor", the important question suddenly became: "when are you going to write another post in your blog?"

I was puzzled by the interest my blog had generated among them...hadn't realized to which extent. My "little" blog had its admirers...

I had started my blog with no precise intention, maybe it was just a will to "go with the flow", after all, working in a "technology" environment, managing a website, and being a fan of the latest technological "gadgets" that might seem natural.

In fact, quite an irony, when thinking that I had delayed as much as I could to have a mobile phone or that I discovered Internet only 9 years ago! Seems so long now ... who would have guessed???

To go back to that interesting coffee break...laughing as usual ...the question of the next post came out of the blue and actually quite puzzled me. I hadn't realized my blog was being read with much interest amongst colleagues.

Seems that the post on the fire situation in Greece was a success. A few simple words to express my own view of the problem, my own revolt with a situation that is still so confusing and difficult to explain why it reached such catastrophic levels and my grief for a country I learnt to love as if my own. That little summary of the situation had caught their attention and interest!

Is it true finally that the "pen is mightier than the sword"? I know what some of you might be thinking...it sounds a bit pompous to say such a thing for a little blog like mine, but if my blog could interest 20 people on what was happening in Greece (people who were completely unaware of the real extent of the disaster), then it was worth while!

To end this post, I leave you with the complete adage coined by Edward Bulwer-Lytton in his 1839 play "Richelieu, or the Conspiracy":

True, This!
Beneath the rule of men entirely great,
The pen is mightier than the sword. Behold
The arch-enchanters wand! itself a nothing!
But taking sorcery from the master-hand
To paralyse the Cæsars, and to strike
The loud earth breathless!
Take away the sword
States can be saved without it!

OK, lets be honest...he was not the only one to think that. So maybe, it is true...leaving you (until the next post - soon) with words from those who agree with me:

The Greek poet Euripides said, "The tongue is mightier than the blade."
Shakespeare in Hamlet writes that "... many wearing rapiers are afraid of goose quills."
In 1621 Robert Burton wrote The Anatomy of Melancholy, in which he stated: "From this it is clear how much more cruel the pen may be than the sword."
And Thomas Jefferson, who in 1796 sent a letter to Thomas Paine in which he wrote: "Go on doing with your pen what in other times was done with the sword."

Wednesday, 18 July 2007

Why do Blogs exist?



I need to explain a bit better the reason why this blog exists so to clarify a few doubts arising from friends and office mates. This is NOT suppose to be a blog where philosophical discussions will take place (well at least not everyday...I like a good "philosophical" discussion once in a while). This blog is mainly for discussing the "subject-of-the-day", anything that comes through my or your mind, a place to exchange ideas about almost anything that go from books, music, travel, arts...anything!

Actually, my first intention was to make this blog a "community" where my friends could "meet", discuss about anything and everything and have fun!