O post Mundo Avesso – Estranha reação apareceu primeiro em Um Sábado Qualquer.

Pessoal, criei essa arte para o dia das mãe. Fiquem a vontade de utilizá-la nos grupos de família do WhatsApp ou nos stories circulando a sua. Divirtam-se!

We Sell Bonds!

The quaint, brick-faced downtown office building was exactly the sort of place Alexis wanted her first real programming job to be. She took a moment to just soak in the big picture. The building's façade oozed history, and culture. The busy downtown crowd flowed around her like a tranquil stream. And this was where she landed right out of college-- if this interview went well.

Alexis went inside, got a really groovy start-up vibe from the place. The lobby slash waiting room slash employee lounge slash kitchen slash receptionist desk was jam packed full of boxes of paperwork waiting to be unpacked and filed (once a filing cabinet was bought). The walls, still the color of unpainted drywall, accented with spats of plaster and glue-tape. Everything was permeated with chaotic beginnings and untapped potential.

Her interviewer, Mr. Chen, the CEO of the company, lead her into the main conference room, which she suspected was the main conference room by virtue of being the only conference room. The faux-wood table, though moderately sized, still barely left room for herself and the five interviewers, crammed into a mish-mash of conference-room chairs, office chairs and one barstool. At least this room's walls had seen a coat of paint-- if only a single coat. Framed artwork sat on the ground, leaned up gently against the wall. She shared the artwork's anticipation-- waiting for the last coat of paint and touch-ups to dry, to hang proudly for all to see, fulfilling their destiny as the company grew and evolved around them.

"Thank you for coming in," said Mr. Chen as he sat at the head of the conference table.

"Thank you for having me," Alexis replied, sitting opposite him, flanked by the five other interviewers. She was glad she'd decided to play cautious and wear her formal 'Interview Suit'. She fit right in with the suits and ties everyone else was wearing. "I really dig the office space. How long have you been here?"

"Five years," Mr. Chen answered.

Her contextual awareness barely had time to register the whiplash of unpainted walls and unhung pictures in a long occupied office-- not that she had time to process that thought anyways.

"Let the interview begin now," Mr. Chen said abruptly. "Tell me your qualifications."

"I-- uh, okay," Alexis sat up straight and opened her leather folder, "Does everyone have a copy of my resume? I printed extra in case-- "

"We are a green company," Mr. Chen stated.

Alexis froze for a moment, her hand inches from the stack of resumes. She folded her hands over her own copy, smiled, and recovered. "Okay. My qualifications..." She filled them in on the usual details-- college education, GPA, co-op jobs, known languages and frameworks, contributions to open source projects. It was as natural as any practice interview she'd ever had. Smile. Talk clearly. Make eye contact with each member of the interview team for an appropriate length of time before looking at the next person.

Though doing so made her acutely aware that she had no idea who the other people were. They'd never been introduced. They were just-- there.

As soon as she'd finished her last qualification point, Mr. Chen spoke. "Are you familiar with the bonds market?"

She'd done some cursory Wikipedia research before her interview, but admitted, "An introductory familiarity."

"You are not expected to know it," Mr. Chen said, "The bond market is complicated. Very complicated. Even experienced brokers who know about futures contracts, forward contractions, options, swaps and warrants often have no idea how bonds work. But their customers still want to buy a bond. The brokers are our customers, and allowing them to buy bonds is the sole purpose of 'We Sell Bonds!'."

Though Mr. Chen had a distinctly dry and matter-of-fact way of speaking, she could viscerally HEAR the exclamation point in the company's name.

"Very interesting," Alexis said. Always be sure to compliment the interviewer at some point. "What sort of programming projects would I be working on?"

"The system is very complicated," Mr. Chen retorted. "Benny is our programmer."

One of the suited individuals to her left nodded, and she smiled back at him. At least now she knew one other person's name.

"He will train you before you may modify the system. It is very important the system be working properly, and any development must be done carefully. At least six months of training. But the system gathers lots of data, from markets, and from our customers. That data must be imported into the system. That will be part of your duties."

Again, Alexis found herself sitting behind a default smile while her brain processed. The ad she'd answered had clearly been for a junior developer. It had asked for developer skills, listed must-know programming languages, and even been titled 'Junior Developer'. Without breaking the smile, she asked, "What would you say the ratio of data handling to programming would be?"

"I would say close to one hundred percent."

Alexis' heart sank, and she curled her toes to keep any physical sign of her disappointment showing. She mentally looked to her sliver-linings view. Sure, it was data entry-- but she'd still be hands-on with a complicated financial system. She'd get training. Six months of training, which would be a breeze compared to full-time college. And if there really was that much data entry, then the job would be perfect for a fresh mind. There'd be TONS of room for introducing automation and efficiency. What more could a junior developer want?

"That sounds great," Alexis said, enthusiastic as ever.

"Good," Mr. Chen said. "The job starts on Monday."

Her whiplash systems had already long gone offline from overload. Was that a job offer?

"That-- sounds great!" Alexis repeated.

"Good. Nadine will email your paperwork. Email it back promptly."

And now Alexis knew a second person's name. "I look forward to meeting the whole company," she said aloud.

"You have," Mr. Chen replied, gesturing to the others at the table. "We will return to work now. Good day."

Alexis found herself back on the sidewalk outside the quaint brick-faced downtown office building, gainfully employed and not sure if she actually understood what the heck had just happened. But that was a problem for Monday.

#

Alexis arrived fifteen minutes early for her first day at the quaint brick-faced downtown office-- no, make that HER quaint brick-faced downtown office.

Fourteen minutes later, Mr. Chen unlocked the front-door from the inside, and let her in.

"You're early," he stated, locking the door behind her.

"The early bird gets the worm," she clichéd.

"You don't need to be early if you are punctual. Follow."

Mr. Chen lead her through the lobby, and once again into the main boardroom. As before, five people sat around the conference table. Alexis figured there'd be formalities and paperwork to file before she got a desk. HER desk! The whole company (all six of them-- though now it was seven) were here to greet her. And, for some reason, they'd brought their laptops.

"You will sit beside Benny," Mr. Chen said, taking his seat.

"I-- huh?"

Next to Benny, there was an empty chair, and an unoccupied laptop. Alexis slunk around the other chairs, careful not to knock over the framed posters that were still propped against the wall, and sat beside the lead programmer.

"Morning meeting before getting down to work, huh?" she said, smiling at him.

Benny gave her a sideways glance. "We are working."

Alexis wasn't sure what he meant-- and then she noticed, for the first time, that everyone was heads down, looking at their screens, typing away. This wasn't just a boardroom. This was her desk. This was everyone's desk.

Over the morning, Benny gave her his split attention-- interspersing his work with muttering instructions to her; how to log in, where the data files were, how to install Excel. He would only talk to her in-between steps of his task; never interrupting a step to give her attention. Sometimes she just sat there and watched him watch a progress bar. She gathered he was upgrading a server's instance of SQL Server from version "way too old" to version "still way too old, but not as much".

After lunch (also eaten at the shared desk), Benny actually looked at her.

"Time for your first task," he said, giving her a sheet of paper. "We have a new financial institution buying bonds from us. They will use our Single SignOn Solution. You will need to create these accounts."

She took the sheet of paper, a simple printed table with first name, last name, company name, username and password.

Alexis was recently enough out of college that "Advanced Security Practices 401" was still fresh in her mind-- and seeing a plaintext password made her bones nearly crawl out of her skin.

"I-- um-- are there supposed to be passwords here?"

Benny nodded. "Yes. To facilitate single sign-on, usernames and passwords in 'We Sell Bonds!' website must exactly match those used in the broker's own system. Their company signs up for 'We Sell Bonds!', and they are provided with a website skinned to look like their own. The company's employees are given a seamless experience. Most don't even know they are on a different site."

Her skin gnawed on her bones to keep them in place. "But, if the passwords here are in plaintext, that is their real, actual password?"

Benny gave her the same nod. "They must be. Otherwise we could not log in to test their account."

That either made perfect sense, or had dumbfounded all the sense out of Alexis, so she just said "Ok." The rest of the day was spent creating accounts through an ASP interface, then logging into the site to test them.

When she arrived at the quaint brick-faced office building the next day, there was a large stack of papers at her spot at the communal desk. Benny said, "Mr. Chen was happy with your data entry yesterday."

Mr. Chen, who was seated at the head of the shared desk, didn't look up from his laptop screen. "You are allowed to enter this data too."

"Thank you?" Alexis settled in, and got to work. For every record she entered, a different way of optimizing this system would flitter through her mind. A better entry form, maybe auto-focus the first field? How about an XML dump on a USB disk? Or a SOAP service that could interface directly with the database? There could be a whole validation layer to check the data and pre-emptively catch data errors.

Data errors like the one she was looking at right now. She waited patiently for Benny to complete whatever step of his task he was on, and showed him the offending records.

"I don't see the problem," Benny said, shortly.

"John Smith and Jon Smith both have the same username, jsmith" she said, not sure how to make it more clear.

"Yes, they do," Benny confirmed.

"They can't both have the same username."

"They can!" Mr. Chen's sudden interjection startled her-- though she wasn't sure if it was because of the sharpness of his tone, or because she hadn't actually heard him speak for a day and a half. "Do you not see that they have different passwords?"

"Uh," Alexis checked, "They do. But the username is still the same."

There was no response. Mr. Chen was already looking back at his screen. Benny was looking at her expectantly.

"So users are differentiated by their-- password?" she said, trying to grasp what the implications of that would be. "What if someone changes their password to be-- "

"Users don't change passwords," Benny replied. "That would break single sign-on. If a user changes their password in their home system, their company will submit a change request to us to modify the password on 'We Sell Bonds!'."

Alexis blinked-- this time certain that this made no sense, and she was actually dumbfounded. But Benny must have taken her silence as 'question answered', and immediately started his next task. It made no sense, but she was still a junior developer, fresh out of school; full of ideas but short on experience. Maybe-- yeah, maybe there was a reason to do it this one. One that made sense once she learned to stop thinking so academically. That must be it.

She dutifully entered two records for jsmith and kept working on the pile.

#

Friday. The end of her first real work week. Such a long, long week of data entry, interspersed by being allowed to witness a small piece of the system as Benny worked on his upgrades. At least she knew now which version of SQL Server was in use; and that Benny avoided the braces-verses-no-braces argument by just using vbscript which was "pure and brace-free"; and that stored procedures were allowed because raw SQL was too advanced to trust to human hands.

Alexis stood in front of the quaint brick-faced office building. It was familiar enough now, after even just a week, that she could see the discoloured mortar, and cracked bricks near the foundation, and the smatterings of dirt and debris that came with being on a busy downtown street.

She went into the office, and sat down at the desk. Another stack of papers for her to enter, just like the day before, just like every day this week. Though something was different. In the middle of the table, there was a box of donuts from the local bakery.

"Well, that's nice," she said as she sat down. "Happy Friday?"

Everyone looked up at her at the same time.

"No," Mr. Chen stated, "Friday is not a celebration; please do not detract from Benny's success."

She felt like she wanted to apologize, but she didn't know why. "What's the occasion, Benny?"

"He has completed the upgrade of the database. We celebrate his success."

That seemed reasonable enough. Mr. Chen opened the box. There was an assortment of donuts. Seven donuts. Exactly seven donuts. Not a dozen. Not half a dozen. Seven. Who buys seven donuts?

Mr. Chen selected one, and then the box was passed around. Alexis didn't know much about her coworkers (a fact that, upon thinking about it, was not normal)-- but she did know enough about their positions to recognize the box being passed around in order of seniority. She took the last one, a plain cake donut.

Of course.

"Well," she said, making a silver lining out of a plain donut, "Congratulations, Benny. Cheers to you."

"Thank you," he said, "I was finally able to successfully update the server for the first time last night."

"Nice. When do we roll it out to the live website?"

Benny looked at her a blankly. "The website is live."

"Yeah, I know," Alexis said, swallowing the last bit of donut. It landed hard on the weird feeling she had in her stomach. "But, y'know-- you upgraded whatever environment you were experimenting on, right? So now that that's done, are you, like-- going to upgrade the live, production server over the weekend or something-- like, off hours?"

"I have upgraded the live, production server. That is our server. That is where we do all the work."

Alexis became acutely aware that the weird feeling in her stomach was a perfectly normal and natural reaction to thinking about doing work directly on a live, production server that served hundreds of customers handling millions of dollars.

"Oh."

Mr. Chen finished his donut and said, "Benny is a proper, careful worker. There is no need to waste resources on many environments when one can just do the job correctly in the first place. Again, good work, Benny, and now the day begins."

Everyone turned to their laptops, and so did Alexis, reflectively. She started in on the first stack of papers to enter into the database-- the live, production database she was interfacing directly with-- when she heard a sound she'd never heard before.

A phone rang.

The man beside Mr. Chen-- Trevor, she thought his name was, stood up and excused himself to the lobby to answer the phone. He returned after a few moments, and put a piece of paper on top of her pile.

"That request should be queued at the bottom of her pile," Mr. Chen said as soon as Trevor's hand was off the paper.

"I believe this may be a case of priority," Trevor replied. He had a nice voice. Why hadn't she heard her co-worker's voice after a week of working here? "A user cannot log in."

She glanced down at the paper. There was a username and password jotted down. When she looked back up at Mr. Chen, he waved her to proceed. Alexis pulled up "We Sell Bonds!" home page, and tried to log in as "a.sanders"

The logged-in page popped up. "Huh, seems to be working now."

"No," Trevor said, "You should be logged in as Andrew Sanders from Initech Bonds and Holdings, not Andrew Sanders from Fiduciary Interests."

"But I am logged in as a.sanders from Initiech, see?" she brought up the account details to show Trevor.

"No, I tried it myself. I will show you." Trevor took her laptop, repeated the login steps. "There."

"Huh." Alexis stared at the account information for Andrew Sanders from Fiduciary Interests. "Maybe one of us is typing in the wrong password?"

Alexis tried again, and Trevor tried-- and this time got the results reversed. They tried a new browser session, and both got Initech. Then try tried different browsers and Trevor got Initech twice in a row. They copy and pasted usernames and passwords to and from Notepad. No matter what they tried, they couldn't consistently reproduce which Andrew Sanders they got.

As Alexis tried over and over to come up with something or anything to explain it, Benny was frantically running through code, adding Response.Write("<!-- some debugging message -->") anywhere he could think might help.

By this point the whole company was watching them. While that shouldn't be noteworthy since the entire company was in the same room, being paid attention to by this particular group of coworkers was extremely noticeable.

And of all the looks that fell on her, the most disconcerting was Mr. Chen's gaze.

"Determine the cause of this disruption to our website," he said flatly.

"I don't get it," Alexis said, "This doesn't make any sense. We should be able to determine what's causing this bug, but-- um-- hang on."

Determine-- the word tugged at her, begging to be noticed. Or begging her to notice something. Something she'd seen on Benny's screen. A SQL query. It reminded her of a term from one of her Database Management exams. Deterministic. Yes, of course!

"Benny, go back to that query you had on screen!" she exclaimed! "Yes, that one!"

As she pointed at Benny's screen, Mr. Chen was already on his feet, heading over. A perfect chance for her to finally prove her worth as a developer.

"That query, right there, for getting the user record. It's using a view and-- may I?" she took over Benny's laptop, focused on the SQL Management Studio, but excitedly talking aloud as she went.

"Programmability... views... VIEW_ALL_USERS... aha! Check it out."

SELECT TOP 100 PERCENT *
FROM TABLE_USERS
ORDER BY UserCreatedDate

"Which," she clicked back to the query, "Is used here..."

SELECT *
FROM TABLE_USERS
WHERE username=@Username and password=@Password

"... and we only use the first record we return, but I've read about this! Okay, like, the select without an ORDER BY returns in random order-- no no no, NON-DETERMINISTIC order, basically however the optimizer felt like returning them, based on which ones returned faster, or what it had for breakfast that day, but totally non-deterministic. No "ORDER BY" means no order. Or at least it is supposed to, but, like, SQL Server 2000 had this bug in the optimizer, which became this epic 'undocumented feature'. When you did TOP 100 PERCENT along with an ORDER BY in a view, the optimizer just bugged the fudge out and did the sorting wrong, but did the sorting wrong in a deterministic way. In effect, it would obey the ORDER BY inside the view, but only by accident. But, like I said, that was a bug in SQL Server 2000, and Benny, WE JUST UPGRADED TO SQL SERVER 2005!"

She held her hands out, the solution at last. Mr. Chen was standing right there. Okay, perfect-- because what had Logical Thinking and Troubleshooting 302 taught her? Don't just identify a PROBLEM, also present a SOLUTION!

"Okay, look-- I bet if I query for users with this username and this password-- " she typed the query in frantically-- "see, right there, that's Andrew Sanders from Initech AND Andrew Sanders from Fiduciary Interests. They both have the same username and password, so they're both returned. I bet no one ever noticed before. That other guy has no activity on his account. So all we really have to do is put the same ORDER BY into the query itself-- and-- click click, copy paste-- there! Log in and-- there's Mr. Initech. Log out, log in, log out, log in-- I could do this all day and we'll get the same results. Tah-dah!"

She sat back in her chair, grinning at her captive audience. But they weren't grinning back. Instead they were averting their gaze. Everyone-- except for Mr. Chen. There was no doubt he was staring right at her. Glaring.

"Undo that immediately," he said, in an extremely calm voice that did not match his reddening face.

"I, uh-- okay?" she reached for the keyboard.

"BENNY!" Mr. Chen rebuked, "Benny, you undo those changes."

Benny snatched the laptop away, and with a barrage of CTRL-Z wiped away her change.

"But-- that fixes the bug-- "

"No," Mr. Chen stated, "The CORRECT fix is to delete the second record, and inform Fiduciary Interest that their Andrew Sanders may not have access to this system until he changes his password to something unique. Then there is no code change needed."

"But but-- " Alexis stumbled, "It's a documented Microsoft bug, and if-- "

"The code of 'We Sell Bonds!' is properly and carefully written. We do not change it to conform to someone else's mistakes. This complex code change you unilaterally impose is unknown, untested, unreliable and utterly unacceptable. You would determine the course of a financial business based on an outrageous outside case?"

"But, it's happening and causing a problem now and-- "

Benny pointed at his screen, where he'd entered a query with a GROUP BY and HAVING. "Only eight usernames are duplicated like that."

"Vanishingly small," Mr. Chen said, "Benny, print out those users, and then delete them. Nadine, contact those companies and inform them those users will not have access to the website until their information is corrected. With that solved, we can all resume work."

Everyone at the company returned to their tasks. Alexis stared at her screen for a moment, at the ASP management screen that waited for her data to be entered. It didn't implement any change. It didn't introduce any progress. It was just an ASP form for data entry. And that was her job.

She entered her data.

At lunch, when everyone in the company got up to take their break, Mr. Chen motioned for her to sit back down. After the rest of the company filed out, he spoke.

"Alexis, although your ability to interface with the system is adequate, I am afraid your inability to focus on your task is not. I require a worker who is careful and proper, and you are not. Thank you for your time. You will be paid for the remainder of the day, but may go home now. I will see you out."

Alexis erred on the better side of valor, and did not shout in his face that he can't fire her, because she was quitting.

Mr. Chen ushered her out the front door, and locked it behind her.

Alexis stood on the busy sidewalk, the lunchtime crowd pushing and shoving their way past her. She looked back on the quaint, brick-faced office building. On the surface, it had been exactly what she'd wanted from her first programming job. She only got one "first" job, and it had ended up being-- that.

She wallowed for a moment, and then pulled herself back together. No. Data entry did not a programming job make. Her real first programming job was still ahead of her, somewhere. And next time, when she thought she'd found it, she would first look-- properly and carefully-- past the quaint surface to what lay beneath.

Today, I've been robbed. I came home to find my oven door missing. FML

Today, my husband broke his toe after tripping over a dog toy. Instead of telling the doctors what happened, he said it was "sex related". I had to sit there, beet red with embarrassment, getting weird looks while he giggled to himself. FML

Via

Today, it's my birthday. My grandma posted about it on her Facebook wall, but people got confused and thought it was her birthday instead. She got twice as many birthday wishes as I did, and that's including the ones I got outside of Facebook. FML

Fontes: Megacurioso , BuleVoador e mdig

O pro­grama Ancient Aliens é conhe­cido por defen­der que rea­li­za­ções anti­gas da Humanidade – das Grandes Pirâmides aos cír­cu­los de pedra de Stonehenge – não teriam sido pos­sí­veis sem o auxí­lio de extraterrestres.

Especialistas como Erich von Däniken e o seu men­tor, Giorgio A. Tsoukalos, vis­lum­bram os nos­sos ante­pas­sa­dos como meros maca­cos sofis­ti­ca­dos que esten­diam as mãos para rece­ber de visi­tan­tes extra­ter­res­tres uma dádiva em forma de amen­doins tecnológicos.

Quando há dias pas­sei pelo History Channel e vi uma está­tua de Akhenaton, pen­sei inge­nu­a­mente que o canal fizera jus ao seu nome com um bom docu­men­tá­rio sobre o faraó.

Fiquei logo especado diante do televisor, pois Akhenaton é um mistério dentro do mistério que é o Antigo Egito.

Afinal não era um documentário comentado por egiptólogos, arqueólogos ou historiadores, mas os nossos velhos conhecidos do Ancient Aliens a oferecerem-nos a sua delirante ver­são sobre quem foi real­mente o faraó proscrito e surpreendendo-nos com a sua mono­lí­tica perspicácia: um ser extraterrestre!

Que outra explicação poderia haver para o facto de ter sido representado como uma espécie de hermafrodita de crânio alongado e olhos exageradamente rasgados, como os extraterrestres que vemos nos filmes de ficção científica?

O facto de as referências a Akhenaton terem sido apagadas dos monumentos era também um sinal de que se fizera um esforço para «encobrir» a sua verdadeira ascendência.

Este episódio de Ancient Aliens chamava-se «Alienígenas: Factos encobertos», pelo que achei normal que, a dado ponto, os «teóricos» do programa tenham tido a necessidade de justificar o título.

A teoria dos extraterrestres não deixa de ser interessante, pois permite aos autores do Ancient Aliens explicar, de uma assentada, todos os mistérios e maravilhas da Antiguidade que não se preocuparam em conhecer.

 

O rei solar

Se não fazem ideia das circunstâncias que levaram os artistas a representar a família real daquela forma, se não sabem o que foi o período Amarna na história do Antigo Egito e por que motivo o nome do faraó foi apagado dos monumentos com um zelo sacerdotal, a explicação alienígena torna-se quase plausível.

Duvido que a nossa noção moderna de um ser de outro planeta fizesse sentido para os antigos egípcios, mas há que dar a mão à palmatória ao Ancient Aliens: se Akhenaton tivesse vivido numa sociedade em que a possibilidade de vida extraterrestre fosse tema familiar de conversa, o faraó teria sido o alvo número 1 da mexeriquice intergaláctica.

A não ser que se seja um «teó­rico» do Ancient Aliens, são neces­sá­rios mui­tos anos de estudo para se tor­nar um arqueó­logo, mais ainda quando se deseja uma espe­ci­a­li­za­ção no estudo da his­tó­ria do Antigo Egito.

Nem déca­das de estu­dos e inves­ti­ga­ções, con­tudo, têm sido sufi­ci­en­tes para que os pró­prios egip­tó­lo­gos se ponham de acordo sobre o que foi a vida, a per­so­na­li­dade e o des­tino do enig­má­tico Akhenaton. Uma som­bra enorme obs­cu­rece este período da História da civi­li­za­ção egíp­cia e as des­co­ber­tas arque­o­ló­gi­cas ainda não são sufi­ci­en­tes para o iluminar.

Por isso as inter­pre­ta­ções e opi­niões sobre a natu­reza de Akhenaton têm sido mui­tas ao longo das déca­das: os fac­tos rareiam, o mistério adensa-se…

Quem foi realmente este homem cujo destino ainda nos intriga, mais de 3000 anos depois? O que fez? Quão diferente era dos seus contemporâneos?

Sabemos, ou julgamos saber, que este faraó da 18ª dinastia, filho mais novo de Amen-hotep III e da sua esposa principal, Tié, ocupou o trono devido à morte do irmão mais velho — ele não estava destinado a ser um rei.

Sabemos, ou julgamos saber, que rompeu com o panteão dos deuses egípcios em favor de um único deus, o deus-sol Aton, fundando um novo culto que alguns viram como percursor do Cristianismo, mais de 1300 antes do nascimento de Cristo.

Nos primeiros cinco anos reinou como Amen-hotep IV, mas depois mudou o nome para Akhenaton («o espírito atuante de Aton»). Para nós, mudar o nome de Fernando para Francisco pouco significado tem a não ser, talvez, a complicação burocrática que é fazê-lo; para um egípcio daquela época, o nome fazia parte do seu ser — definia-o de forma profunda.

Sabemos, ou julgamos saber, que abandonou a cidade de Tebas e os seus sacerdotes materialistas para fundar, na margem oriental do Nilo, num deserto a mais de 300 quilómetros a sul do atual Cairo, uma utópica cidade chamada Akhetaton («Horizonte de Aton»).

Os anos em que por lá viveu (até morrer) ficaram conhecidos como o Período Amarna em referência ao nome atual da localidade onde o faraó mandou erguer a nova cidade.

Sabemos também que a sua esposa principal foi a famosa rainha Nefertiti, cujo nome significa «a bela chegou».

Akhenaton revolucionou a arte egípcia não só pela forma como a família real passou a ser representada, como pelas cenas que os artistas eram autorizados a pintar ou esculpir: nunca antes na história das dinastias um faraó se deixara ver como um pai de família dedicado e carinhoso, de mãos dadas com a rainha, pegando ao colo e beijando as filhas.

Deve ter sido um devoto com alma de poeta, pois escreveu um hino em homenagem ao deus-sol que venerava e de quem se julgava o principal representante na Terra. Foi mais diplomata do que guerreiro, pois privilegiou o diálogo com os rivais numa época em que o Egito atingira o expoente da sua força mas estava a ser acossado pelo ambicioso rei dos Hititas.

Para uma civilização que atribuíra as suas vitórias militares e o bem-estar do império à satisfação do deus Amon, agora desprezado pelo faraó, o período da sua regência poderá ter sido visto como uma desgraça que haveria de arruinar o Egito e destruir-lhe as conquistas.

Devido à escassez de material arqueológico, às representações estilizadas da sua figura física e à sua personalidade, Akhenaton passa então à história como herético, revolucionário que combateu o materialismo oportunista dos gananciosos sacerdotes de Tebas, homem impotente, pai extremoso, mulher disfarçada de homem, marido apaixonado, rei forte, rei fraco, indivíduo doente, louco, pacifista, idealista, um santo, um demónio, o criador do monoteísmo, o percursor do Cristianismo, o mentor de Moisés – têm existido interpretações para todos os gostos.

 

Visões de Akhenaton

O escri­tor egíp­cio e Prémio Nobel da Literatura, o já falecido Naguib Mahfouz, escre­veu uma bela ficção explorando a incer­teza acerca da verdadeira natureza deste faraó: o romance «Akhenaton, o Rei Herege», coloca-nos no Egito após a morte do soberano, acom­pa­nhando-o numa demanda pela ver­dade de um homem que ia «arrui­nando um império».

Com a ajuda do pai, um funcionário influente em Tebas, o jovem pro­ta­go­nista consegue entre­vistar várias testemunhas-chave — pes­soas que con­vi­ve­ram de perto com Akhenaton, incluindo a rai­nha.

O nosso escriba, meio dete­tive meio jor­na­lista, con­fun­dido com visões tão dife­ren­tes e anta­gó­ni­cas do faraó, atónito perante o testemunho de quem o amava e o desprezava, abstém-se de revelar ao pai a sua única certeza final: a ina­ba­lá­vel pai­xão que lhe des­perta a bela Nefertiti…

O Ancient Aliens defende a ideia de que Akhenaton foi um extra­ter­res­tre devido ao seu aspeto bizarro e invulgar desaparecimento, mas decla­ra­ções esta­pa­fúr­dias sobre o faraó heré­tico tam­bém se encon­tram na história da Egiptologia, sobretudo por motivações políticas ou religiosas.

Para o arqueólogo e historiador norte-americano James Henry Breasted (1865–1935), educado no Seminário Teológico de Chicago, Akhenaton foi «o primeiro indivíduo da História»:

Era um homem inebriado de divindade, cujo espírito correspondia com uma sensibilidade e uma inteligência excecional às manifestações de Deus em si próprio, um espírito que teve força para disseminar ideias que ultrapassaram o quadro de compreensão da sua época e dos tempos futuros.

Arthur Weigall (1880–1934), egiptólogo inglês, jornalista e multifacetado autor de livros sobre o Antigo Egito, biografias históricas, guias turísticos, romances populares, poesias e peças de teatro, refere um rei quase divino:

O primeiro homem a quem Deus se revelou como fonte de amor universal, isento de paixões, e com uma bondade que não conhecia restrições. Deu-nos, há três mil anos, o exemplo do que deve ser um esposo, um pai, um homem honesto, do que um poeta deveria sentir, um pregador ensinar, um artista seguir, um sábio crer e um filósofo pensar.

Como outros grandes mestres, sacrificou tudo aos seus princípios; a sua vida, contudo, mostrou até que ponto estes princípios eram impraticáveis.

O prestigiado professor de Egiptologia e lexicógrafo, o alemão Adolf Erman (1854–1937), fundador da Escola de Egiptologia de Berlim mas expulso da sua faculdade na Universidade de Berlim pelo regime nazi por ter «um quarto de sangue judeu», salientou as características físicas do faraó – crânio alongado, lábios demasiado grossos, grandes olhos, bacia larga, ventre inchado – em contraste com uma personalidade muito enérgica:

O jovem rei, que era fisicamente doente como mostram os seus retratos, era certamente um espírito inquieto, que cumpriu a sua reforma deste o início com um zelo excessivo que só o prejudicou.

A doença de Akhenaton: eis um assunto recorrente até hoje. A estranha aparência do faraó, que o Ancient Aliens toma como sinal de descendência alienígena, explica-se para alguns egiptólogos com o auxílio da medicina.

O inglês E. A. Wallis Budge (1857 –1934), entre outros, achava que Akhenaton sofria de uma doença chamada Síndrome de Babinski-Fröhlich:

Os homens atingidos por esta doença apresentam com frequência uma corpulência análoga à de Akhenaton.

As partes genitais não estão desenvolvidas e podem estar tão cobertas de gordura que não são visíveis. A adiposidade pode repartir-se diferentemente conforme os casos, mas há uma distribuição das gorduras que é tipicamente feminina, sobretudo nas regiões do peito, do abdómen, púbis, coxas e nádegas.

 

Akhenaton deformado, Akhenaton reformador

Uma das consequências para o doente que sofre deste mal é a incapacidade de gerar filhos – uma hipótese difícil de defender no caso de Akhenaton, que teve seis filhas com Nefertiti.

Num documentário sobre Akhenaton que vi recentemente no Discovery Channel, o egiptólogo e apresentador do programa, o norte-americano Bob Brier, propõe a uma especialista em Síndrome de Marfan que observe as representações do faraó em busca de características reveladoras. Esta explicação fora proposta em 1993 pelo egiptólogo Alwyn L. Burridge.

Este síndroma é uma desordem do tecido conjuntivo caracterizada por anomalias a nível esquelético, ocular e cardiovascular, entre outras. Mãos e pés excecionalmente longos — aracnodactilia — podem ser sinais reveladores da mutação. A especialista admitiu, com alguma relutância, a existência de tais sinais nas representações do faraó.

O Síndrome de Marfan tem a vantagem de não afetar a capacidade de fazer filhos, como o de Babinski-Fröhlich, mas Brier aborda a hipótese com saudável cautela: afinal quantos médicos aceitariam comprometer-se com diagnósticos feitos a partir de fotografias atuais, quanto mais em esculturas com mais de três mil anos?

As múltiplas interpretações prosseguem: o egiptólogo francês Auguste Mariette (1821–1881) estava convencido de que o faraó era um prisioneiro castrado que as tropas egípcias tinham trazido do Sudão. Por razões que Mariette não explicou, teria chegado ao poder e dado livre expressão à sua doidice – uma hipótese quase tão plausível como a do alienígena. Outro francês, Eugène Lefébure (1838–1908), achava que Akhenaton era uma mulher mascarada de homem.

Um ensaio de Sigmund Freud (1835–1939), pai da psicanálise, judeu, ateu, publicado no ano em que morreu – «Moisés e o Monoteísmo» — defende que salmos contidos no Velho Testamento são copiados do hino ao deus-sol composto por Akhenaton.

Para Freud, Moisés era um egípcio, um alto dignitário na corte do faraó que após a morte deste e o fracasso do deus Aton no Egito procurou dar continuidade à ideia de uma religião monoteísta, tomando os judeus como «povo eleito». Freud via em Akhenaton o impulsionador do princípio da «exclusividade de um deus universal».

Quanto mais se lê sobre Akhenaton, mais a trama se adensa.

A ideia de monoteísmo associada a Akhenaton sustenta-se sobretudo na descoberta de uma inscrição incompleta do próprio faraó, que considerava os restantes deuses do Egito meras «estátuas criadas pelos humanos e, como elas, efémeros, ao contrário do deus que se criou a si mesmo».

A visão depreciativa do faraó explica a ausência de imagens divinas para o culto nos templos e capelas dedicados ao Aton e à família real. E também nos ajuda a perceber por que razão as representações da família real se vão tornando cada vez mais estilizadas e menos realistas: o rei e a rainha são objetos de culto juntamente com o próprio deus Aton, simbolizado por um disco solar cujos raios terminam em mãos, mãos que abençoam e concedem a vida ao casal monárquico e à sua família – a eles e só a eles.

Não são apenas reis, mas os únicos intermediários entre um deus que é, ao mesmo tempo, pai e mãe, e todos os outros povos. É daqui que nasce o estilo artístico característico de Amarna — mas isto ficará para o post seguinte.

Akhenaton tem dado para tudo, como se viu; mas na segunda parte deste artigo os interessados nestes assuntos irão ver como a noção de um faraó extraterrestre nem sequer é uma teoria original do Ancient Aliens, mas nascida de especulações esotéricas que começaram no final do século XIX. Preparem-se para conhecer uma pequena legião de cromos.

Taylor Mali (1965-) is a an American slam poet who has been part of four winning teams at the National Poetry Slam competition. What Teachers Make is Mali’s most well-known poem and was born out of an actual dinner conversation he had. You can view Mali performing the poem in this video and more of his work on his YouTube channel. The poem was also the title of a book Mali wrote: What Teachers Make – In Praise of the Greatest Job in the World. Mali worked as an English, History and Math teacher for nine years and continues to be an advocate for teachers all over the world.

I thought this poem would make a good follow-up to last week’s Erica Goldson graduation speech. While the system might not be perfect, teachers are the unsung heroes of the education system and I have nothing but praise and respect for the profession. Teachers can make all the difference – having a mediocre one can really damage a student’s potential, but the right one can inspire a child to greatness.

I’m really honoured that a lot of teachers have told me they use Zen Pencils comics in the classroom. It’s something I never planned on happening and is such a thrill. It also makes perfect sense – I would have paid way more attention to poetry and history if they were taught with the aid of cartoons. If you’re one such teacher (or a student on the receiving end), then please share how you use them in the comments.

UPDATE: I’ve been in touch with Taylor Mali and he has kindly given me permission to make this available as a print. He also will be donating his share of the profits to The Atlantic Center for the Arts, where he is currently teaching poetry. Taylor even told me that he has used the comic as a slideshow while performing the poem – which is pretty freakin’ awesome!

- Taylor Mali’s official website.
- Thanks to George for submitting the poem.
- Zen Pencils is on GoComics! My archives will be updating regularly on the biggest comics website in the world, where you can also read the entire archives of hundreds of famous comics such as Calvin & Hobbes, Dilbert and Peanuts. It’s really an honour to have my work alongside these legendary strips, especially Calvin & Hobbes, which is my all-time biggest influence and inspiration. There’s also a great GoComics app you can download so you can read all your favourite strips on your phone or tablet.

BUY THE PRINT

Fiquei olhando pra ela por horas e horas aplaudindo até minha mão ficar dormente e perder 3 unhas. Ok, mentira, foram 4 minutos olhando e lembrando de tantos casos que esta charge consegue contar com uma imagem só.

Un clásico de Cinismo Ilustrado. Felices fiestas :)

Let me play you the song of my people.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Só quem já morou em um prédio próximo a trânsito intenso sabe o quanto incomoda aquele barulho constante. Chega um ponto em que você escuta barulho de ônibus até enquanto dorme.

Isolamento acústico é difícil de fazer e custa caro, trabalhando com materiais que absorvem o som, muito cálculo e magia negra, nem sempre obtendo os melhores resultados.

Outro problema é que isolamento acústico requer janelas fechadas, o que não é muito agradável, principalmente em climas quentes. Janelas que isolam o barulho e deixam o ar passar parece algo impossível, mas é exatamente o que Sang-Hoon Kima, da Universidade Marítima Nacional de Mokpo, na Coreia do Sul, e Seong-Hyun, do Instituto de Maquinário e Materiais da Coreia conseguiram fazer.

Eles criaram um sistema que separa o som do ar para então atenuá-lo. Com isso criaram uma janela que deixa apenas o ar passar, explorando dois fenômenos acústicos. O primeiro deles consiste em criar um material com módulo volumétrico negativo.

O módulo volumétrico de um material é basicamente sua capacidade de resistir à compressão, esse é o fator determinante da velocidade com que o som consegue atravessá-lo. O problema é conseguir um valor negativo em material sólido.

Eles resolveram isso com uma câmara de ressonância extremamente simples: duas chapas de acrílico transparente posicionadas em paralelo, separadas por um espaço de 40 milímetros. Em termos leigos, o som interagindo dentro da câmara anula o som que vem de fora dela, fazendo com que o módulo volumétrico da mesma seja negativo.

A eficiência do sistema foi aumentada através de um furo de 50 milímetros em cada peça de acrílico. Isso funciona como um elemento de difração do som que atinge a câmara.

Cada peça tem 150 milímetros quadrados. Em seus testes, eles construíram uma “parede” de 3x4x3 blocos, conseguindo reduzir o barulho em até 35 decibéis nas frequências entre 700 e 2.200 Hz. Acrescentando blocos com furos menores, foi possível atenuar frequências mais baixas.

Os furos, responsáveis também pela passagem do ar, podem ser utilizados para “afinar” o som que passa pela janela.

Por exemplo, em uma área onde se ouve o som do mar, que é de baixa frequência, mas temos o barulho de máquinas, que é de alta frequência, é possível filtrar e ficar apenas com o som do mar, além da brisa.

O sistema deve funcionar também dentro d’água, permitindo proteger a fauna marinha da poluição sonora.

Fonte: MIT Technology Review

“Crime

UM COMÉRCIO DE HORRORES

A Tanzânia condena pela primeira vez caçadores de albinos.
Devido a uma tenebrosa superstição, essas pessoas são
mortas e têm o corpo retalhado para ser vendido a feiticeiros

VIDA EM PERIGO

Uma mãe com seu bebê albino no Burundi: tradição macabra

Um tribunal da Tanzânia mandou para a forca, na terça-feira passada, três homens que mataram um menino albino de 14 anos e amputaram suas pernas. É a primeira condenação para um tipo de crime comum no país. Desde 2006, pelo menos 75 albinos foram mortos e esquartejados no país. O albinismo é uma deficiência na produção de melanina, o pigmento que dá cor a pele, olhos, cabelos e protege da radiação ultravioleta. Os portadores da deficiência têm a pele pálida e vulnerável ao câncer, cabelos finos e olhos sensíveis à luz. Devido a uma superstição macabra, que atribuiu poderes sobrenaturais aos “zero-zero” – como são pejorativamente chamados –, nenhum albino está a salvo na África Oriental, sobretudo na Tanzânia e no Burundi. Eles são caçados e têm o corpo retalhado para ser vendido aos fabricantes de mandingas. Samwel Mluge, albino de 50 anos que vive na Tanzânia, casou-se com uma albina e a alteração genética foi transmitida aos seus cinco filhos. “Sempre digo às crianças para serem cuidadosas e só andarem em grupo”, disse Mluge a VEJA. “Eu me sinto caçado como um animal.”

Na Tanzânia, país entre os últimos colocados no ranking de desenvolvimento humano da ONU e com renda per capita de 440 dólares, o comércio de órgãos para feitiçaria é um negócio que vale qualquer risco. As partes mais valorizadas do corpo de um albino (dedos, língua, braços, pernas e genitais) podem atingir 3 000 dólares a peça. Apesar de a incidência de albinismo no país estar cinco vezes acima da média mundial, a demanda é tão grande que a Tanzânia importa clandestinamente pedaços de corpos. Pescadores tecem fios de cabelo de albinos em suas redes para ter sucesso na pescaria. Mineiros penduram no pescoço amuletos feitos com seus ossos moídos. Quem consegue beber o sangue ainda quente de um albino tem sorte em dobro. Melhor ainda se for de uma criança, pois a pureza infantil intensifica o poder do feitiço.

Alimentado pela miséria e pela ignorância, um extenso rol de tradições brutais persiste na África. A mutilação genital das meninas é a norma entre a etnia majoritária do Quênia, por exemplo. A tortura e o assassinato pelos próprios familiares de crianças acusadas de possessão demoníaca são uma praga na África Austral. O caso dos albinos provoca maior indignação mundial devido aos esforços de um albino canadense, Peter Ash, que criou a ONG Under the Same Sun para pressionar o governo da Tanzânia a reprimir o tráfico de carne humana. Poucas providências foram tomadas. “Sabemos que pessoas poderosas se consultam com os feiticeiros e não querem ver seu nome em tribunais. Se as vítimas fossem normais, os culpados já estariam presos”, disse Ash a VEJA. Na semana passada, ele desembarcou na Tanzânia para continuar sua campanha. Por razões óbvias, fez-se acompanhar de três guarda-costas.”

Nathália Butti

adraksethmera:

eliotgarciaa:

 

I FEEL LIKE YOU SHOULDN’T BE TEACHING ME THIS.

ΧΑΧΑΧΑΧΑΧΑΑΧΑΧΑΧΑΧΑΧΑΧ ΧΡΥΥΥΥΥΥΥΥΥΥΣΑ

post secret de hoje resumindo todas as zicas do universo em geral e da minha vida em particular.

Jailed gamer Justin Carter concussed, black eyed, left nude behind bars.

Paul Lawrance
Activist Post

The Texas teen whose sarcastic comment over Facebook led to his arrest has been the recipient of beatings and other cruel punishment behind bars, according to what his father Jack told NPR.

Teenager Arrested for Sarcastic Comment Over Online Video Game

“Without getting into the really nasty details, he’s had concussions, black eyes, moved four times from base for his own protection,” said Justin’s father.

He’s been put in solitary confinement, nude, for days on end because he’s depressed. All of this is extremely traumatic to this kid. This is a horrible experience.

A woman in Canada saw Justin's comment – a comment which has been described as being sarcastic by Justin and his father – and gave a tip to police.

In February, detectives searched his home and seized his computer.

Court documents indicate Carter replied with: “I think Ima shoot up a kindergarten / And watch the blood of the innocent rain down/ And eat the beating heart of one of them,” NPR reports.

The comment was in response to something a fellow League of Legends player said during an in-game dispute they had.


It has been reported that Justin followed his comments with ’lol’ and ‘jk’. (Laughing out loud and just kidding).

This lead to a Grand Jury indictment of a terroristic threat charge in April placing him in Comal County, TX jail.

Carter's Bail has been set at $500,000 dollars.

Carter's attorney, who in the past has represented everyone from murders to rapists, says he has never seen a bond at the price of Justin Carter's.

A petition titled ‘Release My Son Justin Carter – In Jail For A Facebook Comment’ started by Justin’s parents has 40,000 signatures.

A post on the petition's website from the teen's mother Jennifer Carter reads,

My son, Justin Carter, was arrested on February 14, 2013 (yes, Valentine’s Day) because of a sarcastic comment he posted on Facebook about a computer game which was then taken out of context by a complete stranger! Please sign my petition to help release my son, Justin.

Justin has become a victim of the war on terror. Anti-terror laws have put an innocent teenager behind bars for months without a trial.

This should alarm everyone speaking freely through a social media platform.

A new hearing has been set for July 16 to bring up issues of his abuse and to try to get his bond lowered so Carter can go home to await trial.

Listen to NPR’s interview with Jack Carter here.

Paul Lawrance writes for Eyes Open Report, where this article first appeared.