If translation didn't exist...

"Common European thought is the fruit of the immense toil of translators. Without translators, Europe would not exist; translators are more important than members of the European Parliament". Milan Kundera.

We live in such a modern world and we are now used to so many technologies and devices that we hardly value or stop to think about the different disciplines and arts that make so many things possible…

There's one good example of great importance because of everything that has been created and transformed thanks to it, and that is translation. Translation has united cultures, societies, artists, writers, businesses, countries and people around the world within the passage of time.

The art of translation has made possible that the most amazing history, poetry and literature works of the greatest thinkers and authors of all times can be read, studied and understood by millions of people that speak hundreds of different languages.

The fact that there are professionals dedicated to study languages and specializing in really knowing the cultural details and customs of different countries and regions has made possible that persons from really faraway places of the planet can establish communication and find that they actually have things in common.

Since there are more than 300 spoken languages in the world, if translation didn't exist, you wouldn't be doing a lot of the things you do in your daily life. For example, you wouldn't be able to watch thousands of movies from directors of different countries because there would be no way for you to understand them, since there wouldn't exist subtitles for you to read the dialogs in your own language.

Also, many television shows that have been adapted from the originals from other countries wouldn't reach your national television providers guide, because they would be in their original languages…Furthermore, a lot of great famous books that have been adapted to the big screen couldn't possibly be so because of the fact that the books are written in the author's native languages, which can't be comprehended by the scriptwriters.

There are countless examples in countless fields that transform your everyday life because of the possibilities that translation has brought to life. The world would be a completely different place and wouldn't be so culturally rich and so full of knowledge if it weren't for translation and, of course, for translators.

Even scientific inventions and science development have advanced much more and faster because of the possibility of uniting the knowledge and the experiments of scientists from around the world that do research and work in their own languages.

---

Windows 7: It works the way you want. Learn more.

What silence has to say

"Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of the gods". Ralph Waldo Emerson

Silence is, most of the times, undervalued by those people who live immersed in the increasingly faster routines of today's society, where time is precious but is used to buy more time, and where spaces for relax, for reading at the park and for listening to nature are practically extinct.

Today, our cities are full of noise, constructions are all over the place, people yell to be heard, everyone has to say something, cars don't fit in the streets, televisions are always on their highest volume, people walk listening to loud music through their earphones without seeing anything that happens around…

Our society has forgotten about silence. No one seems to care about quiet spaces anymore. It's actually really difficult to find a place where you can easily go and spend a while without listening to all kinds of noises that disconnect you from your inner peace and from that relax instants that you need to go away for a bit.

Go ahead and try this experiment: go to a public place and sit alone in silence, just stay there with yourself and start looking at how other people react. They will probably stare at you with a "what are you doing? Are you crazy?" kind of look…Not a lot of people are aware of the huge value that the essence of silence represents.

The treasure of silence

Silence is a treasure that a lot of poets, writers and artists have valued and though about through time, to the point that they have dedicated entire works, or simple phrases, to describe it, to analyze it, to thank it, to celebrate its existence.

In silence have been created millions of works of art and inventions that are treasures of humanity and that have changed its history forever. Silence has allowed geniuses to find their brilliant ideas, writers to find their words, artists to find their shapes, painters to find their colors, musicians to find their notes, physicians to find their numbers, animals to find their preys and common people to find their way.

Silence represents a precious moment in which a person can listen to his/her own voice to think and make decisions about life, and take new paths in order to achieve specific dreams and goals. Furthermore, silence is need and should become a priority in people's lives…It could do them so much good, especially in the stressful times we live in today.

We do so many things, we run so much every day, we dedicate such a big part of our valuable time to so many worthless details…Without a doubt, anyone could use ten minutes of each day to relax, to sit or just lay in the bed, listening to the words of silence, making peace with life, imagining the dreamed future in pictures and daydreaming about what he/she wants to become…

You could be surprised with what silence can do for you. You may think you lose time if you just stay still without talking or doing anything, but the greatest idea of your life could just be whispered to you in the words of silence.

---

Hotmail: Trusted email with Microsoft's powerful SPAM protection. Sign up now.

TEST 2

2

Online social networks changed communication forever

Online social networks allow people to know details about other people's lives in a most discreet way

Online social networks are here to stay; they've been created and are so deep into people's lives already, that they will only grow to develop new applications and original ways for people to instantly communicate with friends, family and acquaintances from all around the world.

If Internet, e-mail, chats and instant messaging had changed people's habits, online social networks have absolutely revolutionized people's daily routines, the way they communicate with each other and the way they find out about how everyone's doing on a particular moment. Today, someone won't call a friend, they will send a message through Facebook…

Online social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn and del.icio.us occupy big portions of people's time every day, whether it is at the office, in their house or in their spare times.

A recent study found out that the under 35 year olds are totally addicted to these social networks; for example, 39% of Twitter users and 27% of Facebook users under 35 years old check their Twitter and Facebook accounts, respectively, more than ten times a day.

These networks offer activities that people can still do sitting in front of their computers, but that represent free time and relax for their minds, as well as contact with all their friends, acquaintances and family, with whom they can share pictures, exchange messages, have conversations, share opinions, watch videos, listen to their favorite songs, play games, etc.

It's a common space in which people feel that they're not alone when they actually are. They just have a virtual space that they can access any time they want, as long as they have an Internet connection. It's gone so far, that currently a lot of people spend their biggest online social network time in their mobile, rather than in front of the computer. People like the immediacy with which they can show their family and friends where they are or what they just bought, by simply taking a picture with their cell phone and then sending it in seconds…

These networks have an interactive essence that makes them appear as an omnipresent and endless conversation between millions of people all over the world. There's a reason why Twitter's slogan is "Join the conversation"…It's become an addiction that makes people want to publish and share with everyone what they're thinking or doing, or what just happened to them at their office, even what they're eating at the moment or that they're hungry and want chocolate really badly.

Online social networks have made people addicted to know and look into each other's lives: they can see pictures, find out about what others did on the weekend, see the news about the end of a relationship…It's a more discreet way of taking a glance at what goes on with the world and with other people's lives, without asking and without anyone knowing that you where interested in somebody's affairs.

These networks have also created a debate about the risks of loosing privacy when everyone publishes everything without thinking about the consequences. Furthermore, the debate has even reached the security risks that this information disclosure represents. But that'll be good for a future post.

For now, let's just say that online social networks have widen people's opportunities of keeping in touch with their acquaintances from all around the world, and that they represent a great tool for letting everyone know about a business, an idea or an opinion. It's just a matter of being careful and wise about the use of information.

---

Hotmail: Trusted email with powerful SPAM protection. Sign up now.

Understanding your world through history

"History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are". David C. McCullough.

If one day you feel you want to understand better the world in which you live, the reasons why your family is the way it is and why you are the person that you are in the present, grab a book of your country's history and read it. You may think there are no direct connections between what you're living today and what years ago happened in the same lands…

But there really are. Once you start knowing and understanding a little bit more about your culture, your country, your people, your ancestors, you start to realize how every detail of your present life has its roots in the past of a whole nation and even of its neighbors, and of the whole world.

If you see history as some academic task that you used to have when you where at school, is because you haven't let yourself understand what it is about. When you start seeing history as a true story that's been told in hundreds of different versions by hundreds of different authors, through history books and through novels, through documentaries and through fiction films, you begin to discover its magic, the treasure that's behind all those words and images.

Those stories that sometimes feel so distant and so old are the ones that have molded the world and made it as it is. Once you start connecting facts of different nations and cultures, your mind is able to see the world as one big universe that has a lot of interdependent small universes that are not far from each other after all.

History can help you understand who you are and value where you were born because that fact has made you exactly as you are. Sometimes you listen the name of a war and you just imagine some crazy people that a lot of years ago killed each other for no reason; but if you take the time to find out who those people where and why they risked everything they had, even their lives, for fighting in the lands where you now live, you might understand that they, as you, had families and dreams, but did something that changed your world.

When you know how your home was built, you value it the most. Don't let time pass without finding out and thinking a little bit about where you came from…You may surprise yourself caught up in the middle of a history book, thinking that is a great novel no one could have ever created if it wasn't with the richness of reality.

Learn from history; let it teach you wonderful lessons that no one else can. Understand the world you live in today so that you can have strong and active opinions about it, and so that you can confidently speak about historical facts and events. People like other people who know interesting details and who can teach them about different aspects!

So, go ahead, grab a history book about any moment in time that interests you and that you've somehow wandered about…It will change the way you look at the world and at your own life.

---

Hotmail: Trusted email with powerful SPAM protection. Sign up now.