Posts Tagged ‘Wikipedia’

Crossing the Finger (Crossed Fingers) – A good luck sign with Early Christian origin and deep symbology

Monday, January 21st, 2013

 

 

Why we cross the fingers good luck sign evokes Christ blessing and depicts cross with hand fingers

 

 

I had a small Skype chat today with my dear Indian friend of mine Happy. She is now in situation with uncertain outcome, where the Indian government has to approve her mother's application for Visa. As being uncertain she used the classical English saying: "fingers crossed – i cross the fingers". I was curious about the origin of Crossing the Fingers and thought for a second over how Cross-ing the fingers originated and how it visually looks like. It depicts a a X cross shape, also interestingly the X is the first letter of the Greek and Slavonic IC XC depicted on each and every icon of our Savior Jesus Christ. XC – stands for Χριστός (in Greek) and
XP-christ-church-slavonic

 in Slavonic, thus obviously crossing the fingers depicts also first letter of Χριστός – Christ  – Messiah (savior of the World). Having the insight I hurried to explain Happy, why I think people used to be crossing fingers when in situation with uncertain outcome.

Just out of curiosity I searched for Crossed_fingers and found it good explained in Wikipedia. After all, my assumption turned right, crossing the fingers is made not just out of old superstitious as many might thought, It was made on purpose by early times Christians. Crossing the fingers is an external expression of the Internal faith,hope,love and unceasing prayer that early Christians possessed.

Crossing the fingers was very popular in times, when Christians use it as a sign to recognize each other in times of persecution. The reason for crossing the fingers is that it resembles the Sign of the Cross. It is believed even  to this day in the One Holy Apostolic Church the Orthodox Church the sign of the Cross when being made invokes over one the protection and blessing of Christ. Sign of the Cross is being done in prayer in the Church in times of trouble in difficult life time events and when evil is faced. The crossed finger sign was also used as a secret way for Christians to tell each other to assemble for prayer and holy liturgy worship service. There is even symbolism in why people cross fingers with exactly those two fingers with which the gesture is done. In very ancient Church times Christians used to make the sign of the cross over their body using two fingers and not three.

Icon of Saint Paul from Ephesus 4-th century preparing to make the sign of the cross

4th-century icon of St. Paul the Apostle from Ephesus – Wall Painting

The sign of the cross when being depicted on one's body was done with the exact two fingers with which the crossed finger gesture is completed.

crossed fingers sign of the cross resembles the salvation of mankind through the Lord Jesus Christ's crucifix

Today crossing the fingers is a popular "good luck" invocation automatic reaction, most people who do it as not being realized Christian don't know why they do it they just believe it will be a magical mantra like which will give them good outcome of problem or difficult situation. It is little sad that we the modern people who think we know a lot and are smart or educated, didn't know even the basics of what made us the nations we're which in the biggest part was Christian faith kept by our ancestors for centuries.

The evils of the Corporate Business and the Multi National Business crimes – What is the legal status of a International Corporation Company? – The Corporation – A documentary movie on the birth of modern Corporations and Multinational businesses

Friday, December 14th, 2012

The-evil-of-corporate-business-and-multinational-business-crimes-transnational-corporations

Some 5 years ago, while I was still studying in International College Albena (International College Dobrich, Bulgaria) also historically known under the name "International College Albena", In one of my regular Logistics (lectures), we were Projected a movie by our professor Mr. Bojidar Bojkov.
Usually I take no interest in educational presentations as most of them is obsolete junk more or less not reflecting the real life reality and is some abstract "pseudo"-science concepts. This time it was different me and my IBMS (International Business Management Studies) study fellows were projected a very informative movie called The Corporation.

The Corporation is a movie containing elements of propaganda as it is trying to proof (convince) the public – that modern society should be much more critical and active in measures against the bad-ness of multi-national corporations and many of the Fortune top 500 profitable businesses

As every kind of movie it is more-or-less manipulative and the author tries to impose his idea about "the evil corporations". The topic of Corporate Citizenship is a modern topic in Business and every large size businesses is claiming to hold a very high standards of "corporate citizenship" and being loyal or green and environmental friendly Green and environment friendliness "buzz-word mantra like words" are everywhere, from the littlest company operating on a single Country Market to the largest and most "respected" companies like BP – (British Petroleum).

It is a public "secret", that most of the succeesful business organizations (be it profit or non-profit) is a dirty and devilish undertaking driven with the one and only goal to enrich the shareholder/s wealth. The organization is usually not governed by the shareholders but assigned management is assigned to supervise the organizations and take the management decisions concerning the org. wealth and power increase.

It is evident noticable fact, that the bigger a business or company is the more likely it is to be functioning efficiently and to provide lower product prices on the market. The reason is middle and big size corporations dispose themselves with "BIG MONEY" – huge financial investments (many of which are with doubtful origin) ….

The expension of USA and UK (English), model of business gave a collapse to any alternative forms of company functionining except – the western model. However the severe economic crisis clearly indicates – "The Western Business Model" which is backboned by such a solid and good theoretical base is not working as expected in practice. Though with the worsening crisis over the last few years it is more and more evident that something need to change fundamentaly on global scale in how private businesses and organizations (westerned) model organizations function, still there is nearly noone doing anything. Instead America is continously following their 'good old' well known "Create Wars and Conflicts Strategy". Where mostly all non western modelated countries or any kind of "untracked" business out of the western model is deliberatily being killed by creating (financing) internal conflicts inside countries (like it happened recently in Egypt), like it happens with the war in Syria and like happened in Vietnam some years back.

There are still some countries in the world, trying to fight-back the broken western unified (international one system) model tendency of the west like Russia and Belarus and hopefully some other Countries whose economics are showing negative results, but in general it seems the 'Western Corporate model' will take over in short future.
There is an easy solution to the problem 'raise awareness' of the corporate badness, limit corporations on a local governmental basis and foster a business climate, where start-up and little and middle sized companies are encouraged to rise-up, parallely with dramatical rise in taxation over large corporate multination-business entities …
But in order for this to happens it is necessary the majority of people to realize about the Corporations problem and deliberately and peacefully work each on individual base (and according to his abilities) against the 'Evil Corporations Structural (New-World Order) like Empire'

One of this Raise-UP Awareness against the badness of Business-es of the High Scale is The Corporation movie. I'm sure anyone who is interested in knowing how stuff works and how modern economy works would definitely learn a lot from the movie.
 

 

The Corporation- A Documentary Movie on curious facts about evils of Multi-National Corporations and "International Businesses"

It is rather paradoxically that the movie came to see the light of day by the University of British Columbia. A movie which criticizes the Western Corporate model was done by a Western (British) University. The movie was primary conducted and made by a law professor Joel Bakan

The documentary examines the modern-day corporation, considering its legal status as a class of person and evaluating its behaviour towards society and the world at large as a psychiatrist might evaluate an ordinary person.

It is rather interesting fact to learn, that probably most not know that in modern times in most countries (if not all), the Corporation is being perceived from a Legal stand-point as 'An ordinary person (citizen) Entity'. Yeah that's right, non-human "being" is legally perceived as human and has all the rights and duties of an ordinary citizen. The big problem with this is the impact is has on general cotiety. An ordinary human could "kill" someone blow off a bomb and kill hundreds but cannot be blamed for killing few millions or leaving a billion of people poor or on the threshold of starvation, but Corporation as having the legal status of a Country Citizen sadly can ….

In the end of the movie after a few typical corporations are examined – a psychiatry diagnosis is set the Corporation (Multi-National) Business Model is diagnosed as Psychopat. The movie also gives a very interesting information concerning some Top Brands and products – like Coca Cola, Fanta, IBM etc. etc.

It is worthy to mention just of them – Fanta used to be invented and was known as 'The Nazis Drink' as in Nazist Germany it was drinked as Substitute for the American way drink (TM) – Coca Cola.

Other interesting facts is back in the day and even probably to this day Coca Cola placed – real quantity of Cocain in their drink leading to addiction – and tried various methods to manipulate the minds of the Consumer in Advertisements of their products. What striked me personally the most was the fact IBM (International Business Machines), were selling identification systems to Hitler and the Nazis in order to number the Jewish prisoners in concentration camps. Noone cares nowadays and still IBM – known also as (The Blue Elephant) is still operating profitably and one of the most important players in the field of IT and Computer Equipment, nevertheless the unhuman crime they did by selling systems which were used by German Officers whose killed millions of Jews and other non-Aryans …

It is rather uneasy to think that the same Corporation which helped indirectly for killing millions helped and played kill role of development of the Personal Computer – The Laptop, the Mobile Phones, Modern Genetics, Implants, The Internent and well you name it …

Here is also a short explanation of the Movie from Wikipedia:

" The film features interviews with prominent corporate critics such as Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Michael Moore, Vandana Shiva, Charles Kernaghan, and Howard Zinn as well as opinions from company CEOs such as Ray Anderson (from the Interface carpet & fabric company), the viewpoints of Peter Drucker and Milton Friedman, and think tanks advocating free markets such as the Fraser Institute. Interviews also feature Dr. Samuel Epstein with his involvement in a lawsuit against Monsanto Company for promoting the use of Posilac, (Monsanto's trade name for recombinant Bovine Somatotropin) to induce more milk production in dairy cattle. "

Though the movie outlines so much important facts, that should be known by any Business Student out – there or any person somehow involved in Business, I have the impression most of the people out there never watch it. Thus I hope my little article will make it a bit more popular and bring some more people to realize, that Corporations Culture and Evils should be opposed and mitigated on individual and society level!

History of Belarus in 5 minutes – Learn a lot for Belarus in short time

Tuesday, October 30th, 2012

I've been recently interested in Belarusian History. I found few very interesting videos in youtube, so decided with people who want to learn more about Slavonic Culture. Belarus is a Slavonic culture and old Belarusian language dates back to Ancient Bulgarian traditions. Also Belarusian Ancient language includes a lot of Slavonic Ancient Bulgarian words. As a Bulgarian it is very interesting to me too the severe impact that our Great Bulgarian nation had on Slavonic Nations and Russians. Belarusians both lingually and culturely are very close to us Bulgarian. Orthodox Christian faith which later spread in Belarusian lands, has also been transferred from Bulgarian and Serbian lands to Belarus. After the pupils of Saint Cyril and Methodius, spread Slavonic alphabet in nowdays Romanian lands, Moldova and Belarus.
The first below video Belarus History in 5 minutes has a genuine video and musical arrangment. It was quite interesting to me, find out Belarussian people had a long known tradition in Musical Instruments and Folklore Music. Nowdays they produce also a great Gothic Music, just like most of celtic nations 🙂

History of Bulgarus in 5 minutes – Aristic short presentation lesson on Belarussian history


0:02
At first, there was nothing

 

0:03
now there’s a lot of everything

 

0:04
we have to thank God for that

 

0:06
He created our world in the freestyle genre

 

0:09
He said, "Budzma" (“So be it!”)

 

0:10
and Our Land appeared.

 

0:11
Ichthyosauri and other dragons…

 

0:13
in the beginning, we lived in the ocean

 

0:15
but then we left the bosom of the sea

 

0:17
and started to be called the Neuri.

 

0:19
From the earliest times

 

0:21
the Neuri could turn into wolves

 

0:23
that was a customary thing for them…

 

0:26
Žycien, Piarun, Dažboh, and Svaroh

 

0:28
our ancestors believed in heathen gods

 

0:30
but Christianity already knocked on the door.

 

0:34
Let’s know our roots! The Belarusians, the daring people!

 

0:38
In the year 862 of our era

 

0:41
the city of Polacak was mentioned for the first time

 

0:43
There, St. Safija Cathedral was build

 

0:45
(there’re only three such churches in the world)

 

0:47
Local Prince Usiaslau Caradziej

 

0:49
was a cool personage; Listen what I say!

 

0:51
St. Jefrasinnia lived in Polacak

 

0:53
the memory of her is cherished down the ages

 

0:56
The famous cross was made for her

 

0:58
(it wasn’t just super, it was marvelous)

 

1:00
but during WWII, it was lost

 

1:02
and now it’s our own grail

 

1:04
Let’s continue, let’s march ahead

 

1:07
The time of Grand Prince Mindouh came

 

1:09
and here we must remember that

 

1:11
Belarus was called Litva then

 

1:13
or rather – the Grand Principality of Litva

 

1:15
its coat of arms was Pahonia (pursuit)

 

1:16
it had a formidable army

 

1:17
Our capital Vilnia was founded by

 

1:19
Grand Prince Hiedymin

 

1:21
the legend says he had a dream about an iron wolf…

 

1:24
Wikipedia describes this event

 

1:26
Let’s know our roots!

 

1:28
The Belarusians, the daring people!

 

1:31
The year 1362

 

1:34
The sword is drawn; flags flutter in the wind…

 

1:36
In the Battle of Blue Waters

 

1:38
our army defeated three Khans of the Golden Horde

 

1:41
and the Grand Principality of Litva suddenly

 

1:43
became the largest country in Europe

 

1:45
Let’s continue, let’s march ahead.

 

1:47
Vitaut reigns in the Grand Principality

 

1:49
The Teutonic Order threatens us.

 

1:51
The Battle of Grunwald shows who’s right

 

1:53
Vitaut and Jahajla, King of Poland

 

1:55
junked the Crusaders like scrap metal

 

2:00
Francysk Skaryna was a tough guy

 

2:02
he went to study abroad

 

2:04
He was the first who printed the Bible

 

2:06
in the Old Belarusian language in Prague

 

2:08
Our warriors were tough men, too

 

2:11
they defeated the Moscow Army near Vorsa

 

2:13
in the year 1514

 

2:17
In the meantime, the Grand Principality of Litva

 

2:19
accepted its constitution – the Statute of the GPL 1588

 

2:21
In the Battle of Kircholm, we defeated the Swedish army

 

2:24
Apparently, you didn’t know this fact before.

 

2:26
Let’s know our roots!

 

2:28
In the city of Mahilou

 

2:30
7,000 invaders were killed in the fight

 

2:32
Who were these invaders? Well, these … from the East

 

2:34
representatives of the "brotherly" Russian nation

 

2:37
They were called Muscovites then.

 

2:38
And there’s already a new state

 

2:40
the Polish–Litvian Commonwealth

 

2:43
For some reason, it irritated all the neighbors

 

2:45
The three partitions of this Commonwealth

 

2:47
and we were divided between three states

 

2:49
The biggest part was occupied by Russia

 

2:51
It engendered discontent among the nobility

 

2:53
and Tadevus Kasciuska appears on the scene

 

2:56
It’s necessary to remember this name because

 

2:58
he was a great revolutionary

 

3:00
for liberty, equality and fraternity

 

3:02
he struggled even in the United States

 

3:04
but the Russian Tsar cast him into prison

 

3:06
Let’s know our roots!

 

3:10
During Napoleon’s war

 

3:13
the Belarusians fought with the Belarusians

 

3:15
and in 1863 there was a new rebellion

 

3:20
Kastus Kalinouski, a patriot of Belarus

 

3:24
and his peasant soldiers – "kasiniery"

 

3:25
struggled for independence

 

3:26
but he was caught and hanged in Vilnia

 

3:30
The world enters the 20th century

 

3:32
It’s necessary to revive our culture!

 

3:34
Bahusevic, Bahdanovic, Kupala and Kolas

 

3:36
Lastouski, Luckievic… Many people!

 

3:39
Dozens and dozens of outstanding names…

 

3:41
but the Red Revolution is approaching fast

 

3:45
Well, in the terror of the Revolution

 

3:47
a new state with a beautiful name was born

 

3:49
the Belarusian People’s Republic

 

3:51
We still celebrate the day it was proclaimed

 

3:54
But suddenly, out of the blue

 

3:56
another Republic was installed here

 

3:58
its name wasn’t romantic at all

 

4:00
Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic.

 

4:02
The 1920s. We remember that time

 

4:04
Belarusianization is everywhere

 

4:06
Writers publish their excellent works

 

4:09
Viciebsk artists create their chefs-d’oeuvre…

 

4:11
This process was stopped

 

4:12
in the year 1937

 

4:14
the blood purge began.

 

4:15
After that, one more hell – WWII

 

4:20
There were invaders, there were partisans

 

4:21
the country was torn apart again…

 

4:24
The Belarusians fought with the Belarusians again

 

4:26
shedding each other’s blood

 

4:30
The war is over! No need to fight!

 

4:32
There’re cosmonauts flying in the sky

 

4:34
Maserau, it’s time for you to speak!

 

4:36
Piesniary, it’s time for you to sing!

 

4:39
Barys Kit, make your discoveries for NASA

 

4:41
and we keep living in our country

 

4:43
which name now is the Republic of Belarus

 

4:45
We’ve got our ensign and national emblem

 

4:47
we sing our songs and read our poems…

 

4:50
the year 1991…

 

4:51
Let’s know our roots!

 

4:54
The Belarusians, the daring people!

 

4:56
We stop here, but now it’s your time

 

4:58
All of you can write your own continuation…

 

5:00
Let’s know our roots!

 

5:02
The Belarusians, the daring people!

 

5:04
Let’s know our roots!

 

5:06
The Belarusians, the daring people!

 

5:09
Budzma viedac svoj rod!

 

5:11
Salony narod, Bielaruski narod!

 

History of Belarus Гісторыя Беларусі Historia Białorusi _ – 8 minutes video explaining in short Belarusian etymological roots

Ancient Musical Instruments of Belarus

Most importantly, nowdays Belarus still hold the light of Orthodox Christian faith, just like us Bulgarians. Spiritually Bulgaria and Belarus is united in our Orthodox Christian faith. This summer, I had the blessing many Belarusians in Pomorie Monastery (An Orthodox monastery located in the Black Sea sea coast (near Burgas) in Bulgaria). I've been amazed by the faith and spirituality Belarusians still hold even in this "dark times" of Christian faith decay and increased ungodliness.

History of Belarus (A 10 minutes short History of

Workrave – Preverve health from RSI (Computer caused Repetitive Strain Injury) on Linux and Windows

Tuesday, June 25th, 2013

Prevent and heal repetitive strain injury RSI with workrave on Windows and Linux

Huge part of people professions nowadays includes being in front of PC Screen for almost a day. Staying on computer is addictive and even after job is done many people came back in front of the PC screen to play some games or just read something. Many might not know that this computer hanging is a costly thing as it slowly reflects negative our health and living balance. For geeky people who work in IT profession the threat is even bigger as we ITs tend to spend even more time in front of computers. The risk therefore for catching RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury), whether you have to deal with computers daily is very real.

For those who hear for RSI for first time, here is what it is as described in Wikipedia:
 

Repetitive strain injuries (RSIs) are "injuries to the musculoskeletal and nervous systems that may be caused by repetitive tasks, forceful exertions, vibrations, mechanical compression, or sustained or awkward positions"

For more on RSI check out Wikipedia Article here.

Thanksfully RSI is possible to reverse as well as prevent by giving regular breaks from computer screen on timely base and even can be configured to limit time you will spend on the PC. 

Just recently I found out about existence of  Workrave – program which helps you in reminding, when you have to give breaks from computer and makes you limit yourself on how long you use the PC.

Workrave is available for both Windows and Linux OS.

debian:~# apt-cache show workrave | grep -i description -A 3

Description-en: Repetitive Strain Injury prevention tool
 Workrave is a program that assists in the recovery and prevention of
 Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI). The program frequently alerts you to
 take micro-pauses, rest breaks and restricts you to your daily limit.

To give it a try on Debian / Ubuntu Linux, install with usual:

debian:~# apt-get install --yes workrave
...

Launch it by running:

hipo@debian:~$ workrave

or via GNOME menus:

Applications -> Universal Access -> Workrave

Once launched Workrave applet appears right on in GNOME main panel. Below is screenshot of it.
Workrave applet in Gnome debian Linux screenshot

Clicking on the sheep image, there are plenty of configuration menus from which to choose how Workrave will further behave. Its default behavior is quite agressive and suggests breaks too often so if you choose to follow default configuration you will quickly be bored and probably remove it from computer. Hence re-configuring Workrave to remind for breaks every one hour is a good timing in my opinion:

Configuring workrave to remind for breaks from computer every one hour screenshot

Workrave time for micro break screenshot

 

 

Workrave includes reminder with neck movement exercises, which if followed can severely de-stress and keep your neck healthy.

workrave prevent repetitive strain injury neck exercises screenshot gnu / linux

workrave prevent repetitive strain injury neck exercises screenshot gnu / linux and windows

The program has even statistics on how much breaks you take, how long it was used and various other interesting info, below is screenshot from statistics window:

Workrave usage statistics GNU Linux screenshot

 

Why I never liked Mandrake Linux / Mankdrake Linux has took its name from an 1930s comics Mandrake the Magician

Wednesday, May 9th, 2012

I never liked Mandrake Linux, since day 1 I saw it.
Historically Mandrake Linux was one of the best Linux distributions available for free download in the "Linux scene" some 10 to 12 years ago.

Mandrake was simple gui oriented and trendy. It also one the Linux distribution with the most simplified installer program and generally a lot of GUI software for easy configuration and use by the end user.

Though it's outside nice look, still for me it was like an "intuition" that Mandrake is not so good as it appeared.

Now many years later I found by chance that Mandrake has been sued to change their Operating System name with another, due to a law suit requit by the copyright holders of Mandrake The Magician comics. "Mandrake the Magician" used to be a very popular before the Second World war in the 1930's.

Mandrake the Magician Comics Magazine from 1930's Cover, Mandrake the Black Magic Magician

It obviously not a co-incidence that the Mandrake names was after this comics and not the mandrake herb plants available in Europe, Africa and Asia. This is clear in Mandrake Linux distro earlier mascot, you see below:

Mandrake Linux old distribution logo, magician penguin

Later on they changed Mandrake's logo to loose the connection with Mandrake The Magician and used another new crafted logo:

Mandrake GNU Linux newer logo
Its quite stunning nowdays magician obsession, has so heavily infiltrated our lives that even something like a Free Softwre Linux distribution might have some kind of reference to magician and occult stuff (I saw this from the position of being Christian) …

Later due to the name copyright infringement Mandrake Linux was renamed first to Mandragora Linux.
Instead of putting some nice name non related to occultism or magic stuff the French commercian company behind Mandrake rename it to another non-Christian name Mandragora.
Interestingly the newer name Mandragora as one can read in wikipedia means:
 

Mandragora (demon), in occultism

Well apparently, someone from the head developers of this Linux distribution has a severe obsession with magic and occultism.

Later MandrakeSoft (The French Company behind Mandrake Linux) renamed finally the distribution to Mandriva under the influence of the merger of Mandrake with the Brazillian company Connectiva this put also an over to the legal dispute copyright infringement dispute with Hearst Corporation (owning the rights of Mandrake the Magician).

Having in mind all fact on current Mandriva "dark names history", I think it is better we Christians avoid it …

How to mount MDF images in Debian GNU / Linux – What is the MDF and MDS file

Monday, February 27th, 2012

I’ve recently had to mount an MDF (.mdf) image file on my Debian Linux . I never used .MDF file extension before and therefore I had no clue what is this file extension, so I did a quick research in Google to educate myself what is the MDF file format?

What I found was one article on ehow.com titled What is MDF & MDS and one article in Wikipedia MDF and MDS file pair
In short MDF is a CD9660 like ISO format produced by some CD burning and image creation software like Alcohol 120%
An MDS file accompanies the .MDF file. The .MDS is an optional metadata descriptor file which explains what is contained in the .MDF (iso like file).
MDF is not so standartized format like the usual ISO‘s we use to snapshot optical CD or DVDs but still is produced by some programs.

The MDF and MDS file pairs are typically created by two famous MS Windows programs:

  • Alcohol 120%
  • Daemon Tools

Both of the softwares are non-free programs, with the little exception – Daemon Tools is at least a freeware.
This is the reason why MDF format is far from popular across GNU / Linux and BSD* users and mostly used across Microsoft Windows platforms.

On Windows there are plenty of program capable of reading and opening .MDF extension files; The two aforementioned programs + MagicISO is few of the many programs which support mounting / (Create virtual drive) for MDF files.

On Free Opearting Systems, (Linux / BSD) there are two GUI programs, that are capable of mounting MDF files;:

  • Furiusisomount
  • AcetoneISO

I’ve tried both of them, for the sake of testing. With FuriosIsoMount however mounting the MDF failed. I tried to mount with FuriousIsoMount by launching the program with both non-root and root privileges. The program was capable of detect the .MDF file, I can browse the file and even it appeared like it is mounting the MDF fine when pressing on Mount button, however the mount point directory stays empty.

With AcetoneISO program mounting the MDF directly was possible, but only when the program was run with root privileges. With non-root privileges I got the error:

Error, could not mount image.

AcetoneISO can't open MDF error message Debian GNU / Linux

There is also alternative way command way to mount an MDF image by;

1. Using mdf2iso to convert the MDF image file to ISO
2. Use the regular Linux mount command to mount the converted ISO9660 file

On Debian there mdf2iso is avaialable as a deb package.
To install it:

linux:~# apt-get install --yes mdf2iso

1. Convert MDF to ISO with mdf2iso

To convert the MDF image to ISO with mdf2iso cmd I used:

hipo@linux:~/mdf-iso$ mdf2iso my-mdf-iso-file.mdf
mdf2iso v0.3.1 by Salvatore Santagati
Licensed under GPL v2 or later
47% [: >=========:]

2. Mount the newly converted ISO file with mount cmd

linux:~# mkdir /mnt/ISO
hipo@linux:~/mdf-iso$ mount -t iso9660 -o loop my-mdf-iso-file.iso /mnt/ISO

Now your MDF will be mounted in /mnt/ISO 🙂

What is the Pirate Party / Interview with Peter Sunde – The co-founder of ThePirateBay on CeBIT 2011

Monday, February 20th, 2012

The Piratebay website logo

Many people are using ThePiratebay to get all kind of data and share Movies, Games, Programs etc.)

ThePirateBay has become like a standard media for file sharing and still not many people are aware of who is behind ThePirateBay.
This is why I thought, by posting this article I can "rant" on the existence of the Swedish Pirate Party
The Pirate Party – Is a party fighting on behalf of information sharing freedom (or in other words a party fighting for our freedom as individuals in the digital era).

Swedish Pirate Party Official Party mascot
Pirate Party (Sweden) party official mascot

The Pirate party are swedish political party established in 2006, its members are activists lobbying on freedom of information as well as pointing at threats to our human freedoms imposed by new legislations and anti-freedom agreements like the recent ACTA treaty.

Since there creation in 2006, they have grown from a local Swedish party to an international party, locally existing in 33 countries arount the world.The ideology behind the Swedish PirateParty as well as the rest of existing Pirate Parties international is as I prior said Freedom of Information on the internet. PP is a party phenomenon, as they are neither a left or a right oriented party (on the traditional left-right scale). PP are independent bloc pursuing their political agenda colabborating with all mainstream parties, which stand behind the ideologies the party fights for.

After last European Parliament elections, PP received 7% of all Swedish votes for a country EU representative.
As of today according to Wikipedia , the party holds 2 EU deputee seats in EU parliament.

I've a friend who is taking membership in the Pirate Party and from him I know the PP party are big supporters of Free Software.

One major key figure part of Pirate Party is the swedish Peter Sunde. He is a front person who is behind ThePirateBay project as well as holds a very interesting revolutionary ideas. Many of his ideas are close to "the father of all free software" – Richard Mathew Stallman (RMS). Therefore the PP would be probably of interest to anyone who is interested in Free Software. Here is an interview with Peter Sunde's taken in Cebit 2011:

As long as I know the Pirate Party are along the only few organizations in the whole world, who are trying to fight on behalf of human freedom.I'll be glad to hear if someone know about other ornigazations apart from Pirate Party the Free Software Foundation – (FSF) lobbying on present worsening conditions of invidual human freedom.

Here is few curious facts proving how BIG and important thepiratebay.org is, the text below is again quote from Wikipedia

Currently ThePirateBay.org is ranked as the 80th most visited website in the world and 20th in Sweden by Alexa Internet, has over 5.5 million registered users and, as of February 2012, hosts more than 4 million torrent files.

According to the Los Angeles Times, The Pirate Bay is "one of the world's largest facilitators of illegal downloading" and "the most visible member of a burgeoning international anti-copyright or pro-piracy movement"

If you want to further check on what is today the Pirate Party standing for be sure to check ThePirateParty.Com – PP’s official website .

BSD (Berkley Software Distribituion) use by distribution type (FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, DrangflyBSD) use percantage charts

Saturday, February 18th, 2012

I've hit an interesting article in Wikipedia called Comparison of BSD operating systems
The article explains basic difference between different BSD (Berkley Software Distributions) and what is the primary accent of each of the BSD (free software OS) distributions. It also reveals basic details about the history and how each of the BSD's came to existence. I recommend to anyone interested in free software as it is just a great reading for everybody interested in FOSS.

The most interesting part of the wiki thread is a bar chart, provided by BSD Certification Group research conducted in September 2005.

FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Dragonflybsd usage statistics

The above diagram is showing the proportion of users of each BSD variant from the BSD usage survey prior conducted

The research is already 6 years old, and unfortunately as of time of writting seems to be the only publicly available. Though being outdated, I believe generally the bar charts distributions along different BSD variants would be mostly true. The only big difference will be probably in PC-BSD which is not even on the diagram should have outbeaten DragonflyBSD's use. Since there is no public data available for 2012 and the years 2005 – 2012 for the use percantage of each of the BSD distributions, I've thought about a pseudo way to get some general statistics on each of the BSD distributions popularity. The methodology to gather the required statistics comes to simply, type in Google each of the BSD variant "code names" (e.g. freebsd, netbsd, openbsd etc.) and look at the number of results returned. It seems logical the more results distribution keyword searched returns, the bigger the probability of more users to be involved in developing or using the respective BSD variant.

Below you see the results, I've gathered in my quick "google research":

FreeBSD NetBSD OpenBSD BSD variant (users) use diagram based on Google searches of keywords 2012

As you can see in the above data FreeBSD is still probably leading the BSD use, the public interest to OpenBSD – BSD focused on security has significantly grow since the last 6 years. Next it is seen the PC-BSD users base has probably tremendously increased and according to the Google results returned it is probably on a 3rd place by users interest (use?) followed by NetBSD with only 1.47% of all the BSD users. Lastly with only 0.99%, orders Dragonfly BSD which no longer is so popular as a Desktop BSD based OS as it used to be back in 2005.
Again the presented diagram results are based on only on the factor of Google BSD variant popularity and hence shouldn't be consired too trustworthy, still I'm sure it gives a general idea on how used is each of the BSD variants as of Jan 2012.

Test your web browser compatability with Acid3 test

Wednesday, January 25th, 2012

Acid3 Test is a group of browser compitability tests. Acid3 test is a good indicator on how Web ready is your browser.

Acidtest is part of the web standards project. Latest Firefox 9.0.1 passes the test on 100% (100/100).
I've tried it with Epiphany and it scored only 67/100, still I'm using Epiphany on daily basis and I'm quite happy with it.
Acid3 browser compitability Test Firefox 9.0.1
The tests involved are testing browser for:
 

  • DOM
  • DOM2
  • Checks on HTML tables and forms browser rendering
  • SVG compitability testing
  • DOM1 and DOM2 compitability
  • Various ECMA Script Javascript compitability tests
  • Unicode (UTF-16 and UTF-8) browser compitability
  • XHML, SMIL, CSS, HTML compitability
  • Content-type image/png, text plain etc.

Acid3 browser test fail
The Acid3 test is written itself in Javascript. It consists of 6 testing "stages" (buckets) upon which the browser tested is evaluated.
Each of the test is represented visually by a rectangle. If the a test stage is passed you see a new rectangle appearing in the tested browser.
In wikipedia, there is a thorough list with web browsers by type and engine and the level of support for the Acid3 test.
The test is of great use if you're web developer.

iGenius – How Steve Jobs changed the World (documentary) movie

Sunday, November 20th, 2011

iGenius - How Steve Jobs changed the world movie review cover

I’m watching iGenius – How Steve Jobs changed the World movie. I heard about a movie from Alex a friend of mine who said this movie sheds some light on history of Apple Computers Inc, Macintosh and the great significance of Steve Jobs work as a manager and visionary to change the world for good.
The world has suddenly been astonished by Steve Jobs sudden death so surely the interest about him is tremendously up.

I do respect Jobs as under his leading the computer industry has received some innovations, still I don’t agree with many of the movie aspects which turn Apple and the consequent company products IPhone, Ipad, Ipod etc. into a mega hype products.
I’m being honest to myself and I should say many of the innovations they did are not something too much, but just a product which popularized or minituarized some older invented technology.

The product quality of Apple in the past is a fact so one cannot argue with this however with recent years I wouldn’t say the company quality is so much supreme as presented in the movie.
What I don’t understand why is Jobs receiving so much praise and recognition but rarely somebody could show his bad sides as well. We’ve been again manipulatively mislead that he is a mega genius or like an angel on earth. However the achievements of Apple and the mass production and involvement of the field of marketing which lies basicly and makes profits based on great deceptions of Jobs doesn’t make Jobs to a super hero.
As an enterpreneur and businessman his achievements are unquestionable but for many years now the reality of business is sad and a honest man could rarely be found to be dealing with business.
Usually the people who like dirt, lies and fame are into business. Most of the times these are people who are ready to kill in the name of Public Recognition and Success.
Jobs has been said to be a Buddhist according to what I’ve red in Wikipedia. If that is true its rather strange to me on fruits his buddhist faith produced.
I don’t believe that any rational man who observes nowdays technology and how it is used doesn’t see the great harm technology did us and is continuously pushing us down.
Buddhist teachings in my view teach on helping the neighbor educating and giving up things for free. Apple products however are not giving anything for free, yes some of them do education.
Therefore in my view the philosophy of apple and its application is not really fitting up to helping the neigbor as they don’t come free of charge like the free software does.
Apple products actually enslaved their users, all of apple products are nowdays connected to Apple’s Inc.
Mega Corporation IStore or they report somehow to apple during updates or purchases more or less about users likings or behaviours.
This obviously doesn’t respect users freedom and makes Apple an example of a company that doesn’t respect completely the user natural right of freedom and privacy.

To sum it up iGenius – Or How Steve Jobs changed the World is a highly manipulative movie just like most of the movies or books dedicated to super heroes are.
Steve Jobs was lucky to get this recognition and status in life, however this doesn’t make him too much different from all of us. He just used to be in the right time in the right place and achieved what he did explicitly by God’s mercy.
As a known fact Jobs was an Orphan and as we can see from many life examples God helps and has helped many orphans to have a good lives eventually.

Also I’m quite curious if Steve Jobs success was just a fruit of his good fortune or there were just too many circles of people behind him (Jewish or Masonry) possessing big fortunes who found it practical to sponsor his (??) products and ideas seeing a lot of potential to keep the world under siege through technology.
Nomatter what the complete true behind Jobs and his achievements are, he is still an inspirational person and an “icon” in the field of IT. Even I’m a bit Jealous on his overall achievements.
Anyways for people who want to loose some approximately 42:00 minutes on a hype Jobs praise movie and see some of apple’s products and pictures of Jobs and Apple / Macintosh products the movie is a good choice 😉