Archive for August, 2012

Debian GNU Linux turns 19 years old – Happy Birthday Debian !

Friday, August 17th, 2012

Debian GNU / Linux 19 years birthday picture

The distribution on which almost all main stream GNU / Linux distributions turned 19 years old.
20 years in active development and still up and running 🙂 Thumbs up for the Debian guys 🙂

Debian Meditation GNU logo picture

Debian first release came out on 16 August 1993. The Debian philosophy and goals were outlined by the Debian distro “creator” Ian Murdock in Debian Manifesto. The original Debian manifesto is available for reading as part of Debian documentation in /usr/share/doc/debian/debian-manifesto
I’ve used almost all of available major Linux distributions but I haven’t found better than Debian or Debian based derivatives for both server and desktop installs.

Universal Debian Linux desktop background

I’ve red there is a sort of tradition that Debian users celebrate each Debian anniversary with a huge cake eating parties. Unfortunately yesterday I was sick so I couldn’t enjoy deb’s birthday.

Happy Birthday Debian ! 🙂

Short introduction to one of the most ancient Churches the Coptic Orthodox Christian Church

Sunday, August 12th, 2012

As an Orthodox Christian, striving to know the ancient practies of our Saviour Jesus Christ Church by God's grace some few months ago I was granted to I spend few months of time with an Coptic Oriental Orthodox Christian (Medhat Baky). Before meeting with Baky, I knew not that in Egypt there are Christians at all. The little time I spend with this Oriental Orthodox was very beneficial in spiritual sense. I was amazed of the deepness in which Baky knew Christian faith. Moreover I was amazed by the Grace of this Christian as Christ's joy and presence was very powerful in him. Unfortunately for some reasons historical and political reasons Copts Orthodox are not in official communion with the Eastern Orthodox Church. Copts rejected decisions of Holy Fathers on all Ecumenical Councils after 3rd one.Interestingly the same Church which has for 20th Pope (Patriarch) saint Anthony the Great which jealously was protecting true Christianity on III-rd ecumenical council did not participated in the rest of the Church ecumenical councils. Because of that in-participation of Copts in ecumenical councils, nowdays there are some dogmatical issues, where we the Eastern Orthodox (in my view incorrectly accuse) copts for being Mia-physits (Monophisits). According to definition Mia Physis
The dogmatical problem of Monophisitism, is quite severe, according to our Orthodox Eastern understanding by monophisite we accuse Copts for believing falsely that on the Cross the divine nature of Christ suffered only. Though the Monophisitism issue holds back the true communion re-union between us and copts I believe this whole issue is more on a "phylosophical" than a faith level. Coptic Orthodox nowdays is mostly in Egypt, Ethiopia and Africa and numbers 18 000 000 members. It is interesteng to mention even though, officially they're considered divided from the Only Holy (Apostolic) Orthodox Church because of their reject of Ecumenical Council 4, 5, 6 and 7, Copts spiritual life is still preserved in the early centuries and faith in them is strong. It would be great if this 18 000 000 of Christians the whole worldwide congregation of Orthodox Christians which as of time of writting is estimated from 300 000 000 to 400 000 000 people ! 🙂

Officially Copts Reject the accusation of Chalcedon ecumenical council (for disbelieving the two natures of Christ). Just for the sake of info on the Chalcedon Ecumenical council copts were judged to be heretics. Back in the day copts claim there was a political reason, as there were church fights to abolish the independent Egyptian Pope – which maintained that Church and State should not mingle.
Well anyways, I don't know who is right and who is wrong Copts or us, but what I know for sure is nomatter the dogmatical difference between us Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox in essence our faith is alsmost the same.

Coptic Church gave birth of many saints, through years many of this saints are also saints in whole Orthodox realm. Below is a nice videos I found on youtube explaining well, the basics of Copt faith and few interesting facts of their ancient faith.

Christians of the Nile Valley: An Introduction to the Coptic Orthodox Church – Part 1

Christians of the Nile Valley: An Introduction to the Coptic Orthodox Church – Part 2

The last Anchorite – A documentary (interview) movie about a Coptic Oriental Orthodox Hermit

Friday, August 10th, 2012

Some time ago, while checking spiritual related videos on youtube, I’ve stumbled on nice movie about probably one of the last left desert hermit monks.
Our age is an age of decaying spirituality and seeing something as hermitage is something absolutely unique.
The movie interestingly shows the desert near Cairo and st. Anthony’s coptic Christian monastery. The monastery is named after saint Anothony – The Great (who is well known in whole Christian dome as a forefather of monastic life. It is interesting fact that still 17 centuries after the creation of the monastery by St. Anthony this spiritual fortress continues to function as an open “Window to Heaven”.

The Last Anchorite – the true story of one of the last left Hermit monks (Part 1)

The Last Anchorite – the true story of one of the last left Hermit monks (Part 2)

Enjoy!

Father Daniil Sysoev – New times Orthodox Christian Martyr of the 21-st century

Thursday, August 9th, 2012

Christianity is well known to have almost “countless” number of known and unknown Christian martyrs. Martyrdom has been considered of a high esteem especially in the dawn of Christianity. Short after the martyrdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, many faithful to his teaching (including many of the holy apostles) endured martyrdom similar to the Lord’s crucifix on Golgotha.

We’re almost living in a peaceful age with no official persecution of Church the if compared to many of the previous centuries. Nomatter faithful Christian still shed their blood for Christ. Probably in Christian missions, all around the world even in the moment of writting this article some faithful Christ servent is suffering martyrdom. In this post I will devote to one modern day Russian martyr saints of our Orthodox Christian faith – Father Danail Sysoev. He is most recent martyr saint I know of. Fr. Sysoev is still not officially canonized in the Russian Orthodox Chuch because according to Church canons, to proclaim someone officially a saint – 50 years or so has to pass since the saints earthly death.
Fr Danail Sysoev was a faithful God servent who has who lead a lot of people to the Lord Jesus Christ, by writting books, radio and TV talks, preaches and spiritual governing. I heard of him by Vsevolod a Russian brother in Christ from Moscow, I met just few days ago. Vsevolod shared with me that he is a spiritual child of father Danail Sysoev, because it was through him he was lead to Christ ….

Father Danail Sysoev was a fervent missionary for Christ and turned probably tens of thousands (or even hundreds of thousands) of people to faith in Christ in the only fully thruthful Orthodox Christian faith.

The Father was threaten numerous times over phone to stop preaching Christ or else he would be killed. But the continuing threats did not frightened him at all but on the contrary he even more fervently continued preaching the Gospel following the instructions of the Lord himself who said himself:

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spiritteaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.
Mathew 28:19-29

The father has done a great work for the heavenly kingdom, writting in his short 35 years of eartly living – 28 books ! ! !, besides that he was leading holy liturgies, doing missionary work, was a confessor of many and was taking care for his family ! ! !

The new-martyr saint works are explaining in good detail the Orthodox Christian faith and how by following and understanding correctly our faith we can reach paradise (The Heavenly Jerusalem) our Lord Jesus Christ promised us.
The Hierarch inspired hundred of thousands Christians all around the world to do a missionary work and live a life for Christ and is a well known and probaly the most bright nowadays primer of a person who worked hard for bring Christ kingdom on earth – just like our Church holy fathers.
Danail Sysoev was “dreaming” (desiring) for martyrdom. He even explained in his works that Martyrdom is one of the best glorious ending a Christian can have for his faith (this is also in concurrence with holy fathers writtings and our Church 2011 years tradition.

The Father was famous among Muslims in Russia for leading open debates with Muslims, questioning validity of Islam? Showing with multiple sources that Christ is the only “door” and God through which one can enter heaven.
Because of that and because of his truthful life like Christ said he was persecuted, blasphemed and killed for Christ’s name.
The missionary work Fr. Sysoev is one of the biggest missionary present works done within the Russian Orthodox Church.

Whole Russian nation was in shock in 20th of November 2009, when an unknown masked man entered the Church where the father was serving, the killed called out Father Sysoev’s name and shot him twice – once in forehead and once in chest …

The whole brutal scene occured in Moscow Church building which the father built himself collecting money in his lifetime….

Below is a short TV report of the brutal murder of the new-martyr, as well as the last preach of the father translated to English:

By the fr. last preach it is easy to determine the great spiritual experience and spiritual heights the martyr reached prior to his martyrdom.
There is also a full length documentary in Russian about Father Daniil Sysoev life but unfortunately I couldn’t find it with english subtitles, however it will be worthy for Christians speaking any Slavic language. You can check – (Я иду домой (Памяти отца Даниила Сысоева) on url – http://youtu.be/sqk0EambOQw

Prodigy night and Spirit of Burgas 2012 – few impressions

Tuesday, August 7th, 2012

The Prodigy Spirit of Burgas 2012 - How to steal a jet fighter latest prodigy album

As a kid I have been very big fan of The Prodigy. Prodigy were considered absolutely revolutionary style band in the 1995 – 2004 years. As an ex-big fan of the band and cause of the fact I happened to be near to Burgas I decided to attend their performance on August the 5-th.
Spirit of Burgas as every year happens on the beach of Burgas.

A large number of nice underground rock / punk / jazz / reggae etc. continuing for days is not so common on the balkans so Spirit of Burgas is quite a unique undeground music gathering …
Spirit of Burgas is taking place now for a 4-th year and starting to become an established Electronic, Dance, Metal feast here on Balkans.

Below is a list of all the bands that played on Spirit of Burgas 3 days feast this year;
Spirit of Burgas year 2012 bands agenda for 3 days list picture

The 1 night entrance fee was quite expensive 40 EUR, but for a famous band as Prodigy and the rest of bands bands playing on other beach scenes I guess the price was fair. The 3 days entrance fee worth it money much more though, for 3 days ticket the price was 60 EUR. The beer price too high; 1 beer price was 1.60 EUR. For a richer countries this prices are nothing and OK but for the low salaries in Bulgaria the beer price was killing.

Besides the high price, the only beer one can buy on the beach was Becks (taking me out the choice to buy another beer brand!). Everywhere around was those annoying writings on both billboards and video sceens B’ECKSPERIENCE, Jack Daniels, DSK Bank etc. Advertsiments should be but this was a bit over-stretched!….

Prodigy performance started about 10:30 on the so called Main Stage – a big scene facing the sea. Prodigy break out and enter, the scene right after a performance of modern punk band SUM 41

I don’t know the music works of SUM 41 that’s why I skipped most of their concert checking the other stages perf-s. On most of other stages mostly Bulgarian Punk / Rock / Alternative musicians were playing.
Prodigy’s scene break-up was done with some famous buzzling sounds known from their works, as you can see from the videos I post below.
The Stage was very over-crowded, according to some estimations the concert was attended by about 15 000 people ! ! !. Considering the decay in Prodigy popularity I guess this was quite a good number.
During The Prodigy‘s play all the other scenes were shut off in order to allow everybody to enjoy Prodigy.

I should admit, the music beats and ruffs were just great, but I didn’t liked the vox messages “Keith Flinth”, was spreading; Saying some iditic phrases like:

Where is my People?, My Prodigy People, My Voodoo People and plenty of other non-sense

As a Christian I know pretty well Prodigy’s music message is not in consonance in Christianity and hence I didn’t liked to be associated as a “prodigy person”, cause I don’t want to be associated with people who preach evil. Something else, showing off the low prodigy vocal culture was his frequent use of the F*CK word, which btw was probably the most used word by almost every musician playing on every scene all night long…

The scene lightning was rich but not bright, enough to clearly distinguish what is happening on the scene.
On the back stage, there was the name of latest prodigy album – How To Steal a Jet Fighter with a background of an old jet fighter plane.

Prodigy Vocalist Keith Flinth on main stage spirit of burgas 2012

The group scene performance was quite aggressive as always, actually probably it is the primitive behavior of the band and the primitiveness in music that attracts the crowds. People nowadays are too much civilized that the wild primitive deep in us is something we hardly miss as ppl.

The Prodigy in the beginning @ Spirit of Burgas 04.08.2012

The Prodigy – Breathe, Live @ Spirit of Burgas 2012

Prodigy Spirit of Burgas 2012 Black Sea Party Zone 1

The Prodigy Spirit of Burgas 2012 Black Sea Party Zone 2

Prodigy Spirit of Burgas 2012 Black Sea Party Zone 3

Prodigy Spirit of Burgas 2012 Black Sea Party Zone 4

Prodigy Spirit of Burgas 2012 Black Sea Party Zone 5

Prodigy Spirit of Burgas 2012 Black Sea Party Zone 6

Prodigy Spirit of Burgas 2012 Black Sea Party Zone 7

Prodigy Spirit of Burgas 2012 Black Sea Party Zone 8

The Prodigy – Spirit of Burgas 2012 Black Sea Party Zone 9

Prodigy Spirit of Burgas 2012 Black Sea Party Zone 10

By the way during the concert all around the scene, there was massive marijuana smoke (not to say fog 🙂 ). Probably kilos of “Mara” (as smokers call it for short in BG) was smoken by fans during the 1.15 mins group performance.
As a result, many of the ruffling fans were in a tranced “Nirvana” state 🙂
Something, I’ve noticed is the quality of Prodigy performance, has severely fallen if compared to old concerts of the band period 1999 – 2002.
One moment in the concert was really pissing off for me, when Keith Flinth instructed the public to GET DOWN, saying something like:

Now everybody GET DOWN, I SAID GET DOWN – the sheep fans just followed the ORDER squatting; This was pure “MIND CONTROL” – almost everyone squatted unquestionably.
A girl behind me tried to push me down, to make me kneel down as I refused to squat 🙂
I told her that “I don’t follow orders, jokingly and didn’t squatted 🙂

This squatting from Christian position looked like exactly like worshipping Prodigy as [ idol (God) substitute ] …
The concert end up in a very stupid way; there was no encore performance, not even introduction of the band members to the people and even a no simply BYE to the fans. They just shut off and went away silently like a beaten dogs 🙂

Following the end of Prodigy performance on the neighbor Stage, the “legendary” Bulgarian Punk / Rock old-school band KONTROL was playing. I had great fun with KONTROL as I used to be very much loving the band back in my metal years 🙂 KONTROL’s performance was just great, but unfortunately the scene lightning was again shit and the big Video Screens was switched off so I could see the band hardly. After KONTROL’s end up another hard-core Bulgarian band jumped the scene (PIRANNHA). This guys, were completely funny and i really disliked them as they were heavily copying Venom, even their logo was copied from Venom’s Goat Pentagram (the band mascot was a Satanic Pentagram on wheels (complete iditiosm) :D)
The vocal were cursing themselves, screaming funnily “F*CK PIRANNHA, F*CK PIRANNHA !” 🙂

Spirit of Burgas was supposed to close about 5 in the morning, but I was too busy and I left in 2:45, spending few minutes listening to some kind of nice sounding Drum and Bass DJ playing on the main stage.