Posts Tagged ‘periods’

Saint Holy Rightous Joachim and Anne the partents of The Virgin Mary Mother of God feast in the Eastern Orthodox Church

Thursday, December 9th, 2021

Saint-Joachim-and-Anna-and-Jesus-Virgin-Mary-the-Mother-of-God

Feast day is cebelrated today in our Mother Church the Holy Eastern Bulgarian Orthodox Church 9th on December 9th December.
The name Joachim as derived from (/ˈdʒoʊəkɪm/; Hebrew: יְהוֹיָקִיםYəhōyāqīm, means "he whom Yahweh has set up"; Greek Ἰωακείμ Iōākeím)..
Anne, alternatively spelled Ann, is a form of the Latin female given name Anna. This in turn is a representation of the Hebrew Hannah, which means 'favour' or 'grace'. Saint Joachim has been a descendent of the bloodline of Saint King David (the one to whom the Psalms section of the Bible are ascribed) and Anna descends out of the Aaron the brother of Moses (who is the father of priests family line in Judaism).

Saint Joachim and Saint Anne are two less known saints in nowatimes even though in the Middle Ages this feast has been enormously popuplar in Both the Orthodox Christian East and the Roman Catholic West.  

St. Joachim and St. Anne (Anna) has been called Holy Righteous by the Church for a good reason. For they have possessed immerce sanctity that only of the born on earth ever have. They were called Saint Holy and Righteous, for a reason, and perhaps little might know but their is a sanctity hierarchy in the Church and the reason this accent of 3 words of the Church fathers is to emphasize the couple of St. Joachim and St. Anne had exceeding grace.
Saint Joachim and Saint Anne just like the Holy Family of Holy Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph are the Christian model for perfect famly in virtues, which all Christian families should try to follow to their maximum. The celebration of St. Joachim and St. Anne feasts seems to have been on purpose put to be done during the Christmas Fasting period for a reason, as for another preparation for the Great feast of Christ-mass known in the Church as Nativity (which improperly is unknowingly profanized by many with the abbreviation XMAS).

Lets shortly see few details of the Earthly Living of the two saints and why the Holy Fathers who prepared their Living we read today, call them with this grandiose epithets – Saint, Holy and Righteous.


Holy

  • They have lived all their live in servitude for the sick poor the hungry and the weak and dedicated all their God given lifetime in service for all whose begged in need.
  • They have been praying regularly and longly for the goodness of Mankind and families all around
  • They have been strictly following God's Old Testamental Jewish laws


Righteous


The english word Righteous stems from the Word 'Right' for a good reason as in the light of the Holy scriptures the Right side has been always associated with Good and the Salvation for the reason we know from Revelations that when time comes for God to judge the nations and everyone's individual deeds and rights as Christ has told in the Gospel those who have been done right (e.g. they have done good) and persevered to do good things throughout their short lifetime, will be put on the Right side of God – those are the so called Sheeps of Christ, the Unrighteous one will be put at the Left hand on the Judgement and will be cast out of the face of God because of their own undesire to receive and reflect the light of Christ (just like the Moon reflects the Light of the Sun) and transfers it to the earth and gives Light at night, each mans eternal God's predestination is to be like this receivers and reflectors of the Grace of The Holy Spirit.
Saint Joachim and Saint Anne has been such reflectors in such a enormous size that most of the Light they have emitted from God was transferred to rest of their relatives and people to whom they were continuously at help and as we believe in the Orthodox Church this process of re-emission of light is continuing even today. As we believe those who have departed from this life and have been favorable for God are staying in front of the face of God and praying fervently incessantly to God for the good of mankind. 

Saint-Anne-detail-national-from_Faras_National-Museum-Warsaw

Saint Anne fresco from Faras Gallery in Warsaw


True Saints

The saintship is a quality one receives as a Gift from God as we read in the patristic literature and cannot be attended by deeds, however the greatest gifts of God due to the practice were given to those who have persevered to suffer, greatest trials, persecution, shaming, hatred and lack of reception in society for their confession of the faith – this as we know in the New Testamental Church of Christ is mostly seen in the Holy Martyrs who confessed Christ to the degree they preferred to give out their life and bodies to martyrdom than to reject Christ.
Saint Joachim and Saint Anne even not a physical martyrs has the same perseverance even before the age of the Martyrs (that had been at highest degree in the first  centuries 1-st, 2nd, and Third century until Christianity has been legalized in the Roman Empire by Saint Constantine).

They longed for a child but remained childless into their old age (which can be equalled to martyrdom – many couples even today know how uneasy it is to live together for a very long time and not to be able to have inheritance).

Because of their continuous fasting periods they have followed, St. Joachim and St. Anne did not have much of physical intimacy (or sexual life) as we use to call it today, we know today that the lack of intimacy doesn't bring babies, plus the fact that it was obviously Gods desire for them be childless  until their very old age.
However  not realizing this once they have bring their Thanks Giving offerings according to Jewish law they have been ashamed by the Jewish Priest in the Solomon Temple in Jerusalen, even in their old age – (the jewish priests, just like our Christian priests are absolutely forbidden to insult anyone, and insulting an old person was a taboo back then just like it is considered bad today) being blamed for not being able to carry out a Child. 
Being shamed by a Priest at the community of jews was a terrible thing and some would even commit suicide.

Saint_Joakim_Joachim-Orthodox-icon

Others who had children jostled Joachim, thrusting him back as unworthy. In despair, he consulted the geneological records of the tribes of Israel and discovered every righteous man in the nation had been blessed with children, except him. 
This caused the aged saints great grief, and he and his wife left with heavy hearts.

However as the couple was saintly their reaction was to seclude from people and pray secretly to God. 
Saint Joachim went to the desert and fasted and prayed grieving with inhumally for 40 days, and saint Anne stayed and grieved in her garden thrice as first she has never had the chance to become a mother and she was publicly ashamed at their community and did not know where her Husband has been, perhaps thinking he might passed out somewhere because of his exceeding grief.

Sts. Joachim and Anna had been married for fifty years, and were barren. They lived devoutly and quietly, using only a third of their income for themselves and giving a third to the poor and a third to the Temple. Joachim had done this since he was 15-years-old, and God multiplied his flocks, so the couple was well provided for. 


The Miracle of Faith, Hope and Love – The Birth of the God-Mother the Queen of Heaven Virgin Mariam
 

Saint-Joachim-and-Anne-Chanter_Angelos_Akotandos_-_St_Anne_with_the_Virgin

God has seen the great grief of the two and as he is merciful worked a great miracle just like with  Abraham and Sarah, and give them a blessed child to comfort their old age, which will become later the Holy Virgin Mary (Theotokos / Богородица), to become the Mother and Hope and all Humanity from which the Light of the World and Saviour Christ was born. 

Holy-Righteous-Joachim-and-Saint-Anne-Birth-of-Virgin-Mary

God sent the Archangel Gabriel to each of them, who gave them tidings of the birth of "a daughter most blessed, by whom all the nations of the earth will be blessed, and through whom will come the salvation of the world." Each promised to have their child raised in the Temple as a holy vessel of God. The archangel told St. Joachim to return home, where he would find his wife waiting for him in the city gate. St. Anna he told to wait at the gate. When they saw one another, they embraced, and this image is the traditional icon of their feast.

Saint-Joachim-and-Anne-with-Holy-Virgin-Mary

St. Anna conceived shortly thereafter, and in the ninth month gave birth to the Blessed Virgin Mary. This Conception of the Most Holy Mother of God is celebrated by the Church on December 9 and the Nativity of the Theotokos is celebrated on September 8.

God sent the Archangel Gabriel to each of them, who gave them tidings of the birth of "a daughter most blessed, by whom all the nations of the earth will be blessed, and through whom will come the salvation of the world." Each promised to have their child raised in the Temple as a holy vessel of God. The archangel told St. Joachim to return home, where he would find his wife waiting for him in the city gate. St. Anna he told to wait at the gate. When they saw one another, they embraced, and this image is the traditional icon of their feast.

Ikona_Kopiya_Sveta_Pravednaya_Anna

St. Anna conceived shortly thereafter, and in the ninth month gave birth to the Blessed Virgin Mary. This Conception of the Most Holy Mother of God is celebrated by the Church on December 9 and the Nativity of the Theotokos is celebrated on September 8.

Sts. Joachim and Anna took Mary, at the age of three, to the temple to be dedicated to the service of the Lord, and presented her to the priest Zechariahs. The parents then, after offering up her sacrifice (according to the custom of the time), left the Virgin with other maidens in the apartments of the temple to be brought up therein. The Church commemorates the Presentation of the Theotokos on November 21.

 Although Anne receives little attention in the Latin Church prior to the late 12th century, dedications to Anne in Eastern Christianity occur as early as the 6th century.

Bistritsa Monastery of Saint Jaochim and Saint Anne (near Sofia, Bulgaria)

The Bistritsa monastery "St. Yoakim and Anna" is located in the Mali dol part of the Vitosha mountain, about 2 km to the south-east of the village of Bistritsa.

Bistrishki-monastery-st-Joachim-and-st-Anna

Short History

According to priest Dragomir Kotev, author of regional studies of Bistritsa, during the time of Tsar Boris I or later during the rule of Simeon, a great temple was built there and was expanded during the Second Bulgarian Kingdom. It was part of the monastery complex called "The Little Mount Athos."

Bistritsa-monastery-st_Ioakim-Anna-Church

During the siege of the Ottomans and after strong resistance, the fortress and monastery were destroyed, and during the Ottoman domination the ruins of the old monastery were buried deep in the ground. The site was marked by a stone cross and people continued to gather at the sacred place. During excavations in the 20 century, the cross was discovered erect placed in what is today's holy throne in the temple. Now the cross can be seen outside the church.

Saint-Joachim-and-Anne-Bistritsa-near-Sofia-monastery-Cross

During the period of the Bulgarian Revival the memory for the monastery continued to exist.
The monastery "St. Peter" which had existed on its present place in the IX—X century, was destroyed by the turks in the XIV century. Its foundations were discovered in 1925 and the present church was sancrified in 1950. After the Liberation of Bulgaria from Ottoman rule in 1878 the church was rebuilt as a chapel. The construction of the present monastery is connected with the visions of the prophet Bona Velinova. On Orthodox Sunday (the first Sunday of Lent) in 1925 she spent the night in fasting and prayer, and in the morning gave a detailed explanation of how the church destroyed by the Ottomans looked like. Bona ordered people to dig and foundations of the old temple were discovered. She said that it should be rebuilt, and called after the holy family pf Sts. Joachim and Anna. Since then, every year on Orthodox Sunday a solemn service takes place here. The new church was built with funds and volunteer work from local people in the period from 1936 to 1950 and was consecrated on August 6, 1950. Legend has it that the treasures of the last Bulgarian kings are buried somewhere around. Not far from the monastery there is a a spring. Here on Christian holidays, after services in the monastery, pilgrims come to drink water from the holy spring. They believe that this water cures eye diseases. 
During the period 1965-77 residential buildings were built. The complex consists of a parish church, the St. Ivan Rilski chapel and a massive building to its right, a kitchen and rooms. 

At present the monastery functions regularly. It is a complex including a church, one-nef, one-apse, with a cupola and inner and outer narthex, residential and farm buildings. The church was built over a mound necropolis, and under the church nef there is a preserved ancient vault from the end of the IV – the beginning of the V century (3,35 x 2,99 x 2,28 m), to which a stone staircase from the narthex.

Bistritsa-Monastery-saint-Joachim-and_Anne-near-Sofia-Church-view-to-altar

The iconostasis of on the picture is from the palace (chapel) of last Bulgarian King Boris III. It was brought to the monastery after 1944.

Let by the Holy Prayers of Saint Joachim and Saint Anne God grants mercy and Grace to All families everywhere and to everyone that is grieving
God provides his abundant consolation of the Holy Spirit so we can endure the temptations and hardships of life !

Amen

Baby boomers and Generation X, Y, Z – Generational Marketing and 4 Common personality stereotype traits of people born over the last 60 years

Saturday, August 18th, 2018

baby-bommers-and-x-y-z-generations

Those who are employed in the realm of Social or Internet Marketing definitely have to know the existence of at least 4 different conditional stereotypes, these are Baby Boomers and Generation X, Generation Y and Generation Z (Millenials).

According to Socielogist Karl Mannheim (who is among the founding fathers of classical socielogy) – "All members of a generation share a similar collective experience" or in other words people are categorized in generations depending on when they were born.

As stereotypes they're generalization of people born in different periods of time and sharing same or similar traits.
Because of the age and the conditions they grew up and as they share those general spirit of time and age, they tend to be more or less behaving in a similar ways in how they think save / spend money or share some common approach to life choices and attitude towards life and worldview.

But before proceeding to the 4 main cohert provisional stereotypes, its worthy to mention how these four common trait generations came to existence with a little bit of pre-history.

The pre WW I and WW II world situation and the First and Second World War played a pivotal role in forming the social conditions necessery for the development of the baby boomers.

* The depression Era people

Born in period: 1912 – 1921 who came at full maturity around 1930-1939 right in the beginning of WW I (all of whom are already deceased) as of 2018 as a cause of the war uncertainty and the havoc and the war conditions were very conservative, compulsive savers, tried their best to maintain a low debt. They had the mindset (responsibility) to leave some kind of legacy to their children. They were very patriotic, oriented towards work before pleasure, had a great respect for authority and had a strong sense of moral obligation. For all this character traits of this people undoubtfully a key role played the strong belief in God mostly all people had at the time.

The next in line conditional stereotype of people that came to earth are the:

* The World War II Generation
 

Born in year period: 1922 to 1927 who came to a mature age exactly at the terrible years of Second World War.

People of that time were either fighters for or against the Axis Powers or the Central Powers with the common shared goal to fight against the enemy (of course there are multiple of people who were just trying to survive and not taking a side in this meaningless war).

The current amount of people living are estimated to few million of deathbed elders  worldwide.

As above conditional generations types mentioned are of importance for historical reasons and most of the people belonging to those depression pre WWI and WW II era are dead or just a few millions an overall in un less-consuming age (excluding the medicine consumption which is higher compared to youngsters).

I'll further proceed further with the Baby Boomers, GEN X, Y, Zs who are de-facto the still active members participating to society and economy more or less.

baby-boomers-generation-x-y-z-chart-table-by-year-of-birth

So what are these 4 Stereotypes of Generations that and why are so important for the modern marketers or business manager?

 

1. BABY BOOMERS also called for a short (Boomers)
 

we-are-who-are-baby-boomers

These are people who have been defined by a birth year range (period) from early to mid 1940s  until 1960 and 1964.

 In Europe and North America, boomers are widely identified with privilege, as many grew up in a time of widespread government subsidies in post-war housing and education, and increasing affluence.

As a group, baby boomers were considered the wealthiest, most active, and most physically fit generation up to the era in which they arrived, and were amongst the first to grow up genuinely expecting the world to improve with time. They were also the generation that received peak levels of income; they could therefore reap the benefits of abundant levels of food, apparel, retirement programs, and sometimes even "midlife crisis" products. The increased consumerism for this generation has been regularly criticized as excessive (and that's for a good reason).

One feature of the boomers was that they have tended to think of themselves as a special generation, very different from those that had come before or that has come afterward. In the 1960s, as the relatively large numbers of young people became teenagers and young adults, they, and those around them, created a very specific rhetoric around their cohort, and the changes they were bringing about. This rhetoric had an important impact in the self perceptions of the boomers, as well as their tendency to define the world in terms of generations, which was a relatively new phenomenon. The baby boom has been described variously as a "shockwave" and with a methapors such as as "the pig in the python".

 

2. Generation X / GEN X

generation-x-who-are-they-gen-x-explained-picture

Generation X is considered the people born in the following birth year period 1960 forward in time until 1980s. A specific feature in the 60s-80s period was the shifting societal values, perhaps the spring of this generation was also connected to the increasing role and spread of communism in the world.
Sometimes this generation was referred as the "latchkey generation".
The term generation X itself was popularized largely by Douglas Coupland in his novel 1991 novel Generation X Tales for an Accelerated Culture

A very common trait for Generation X was the reduced adult supervision over kids when compared to previous generations a result of increasing divorce rates and the increased role of one parent children upbringing (in most cases that was the mother) which had to be actively involved as a workforce and lacked physically the time to spend enough time with its children and the increased use of childcare options in one parent families.

They were dubbed the "MTV" (Music Television) generation – that was a hit and most popular music TV in the early 1990s.
The kids representing generation X were described as slackers, cynical and disaffected.

The cultural influences dominating the tastes and feelings of the teen masses of that generation was musical genres such as punk music, heavy metal music, grunge and hip-hop and indie films (independent films)  produced outside of the major film studio system.

According to many researches in midtime those generation are described as active, happy and achieving a work-life balance kind of lifestyle.

People belonging to Generation X are described as people with Enterpreneural tendencies.

Just to name a few of the celebrities and successful people who belong to this generation, that's Google's founder Sergey Brinn & Larry Page (born in 1973), Richard Stallman (founder of Free Software movement) as well movie and film producer celebrities such as Georgi Clooney, Lenny Kravitz, Quantin Tarantino, Kevin Smith, David Fincher etc.

According to United Kingdom survey study of 2500+ workers conducted by Workfront, GEN X are found to be among the hardest working employees in today's workforce. They are also ranked high by fellow workers for having a strong work ethics (about 59.5%), being helpful (55.4%) and very skilled (54.5%) of respondents as well marked as the best troubleshooters / problem solvers (41.6%) claimed so.
According to research conducted by Viacom, gen x they have a high desire for flexibility and fulfillment at work.

3. Generation Y (Millenials) – GEN Y
 

who-are-generation-y-millenials-explained

Following Generation X came on earth Genreation Y the birth period dated for this kids were years are stretchy year period that this generation is described are years 1980s – 1990s to yearly 2000s where birth period range of those ppl ends.
This kids are descendants of the GEN X and second wave Baby Boomers.
In the public this generation is referred as "echo boomers".

The Millenials characteristics are different based on the region of birth, they're famous for the increased familiarity with communication, media and digital technologies.

millenials-focus-on-technology-innovation-and-their-technological-preferences

There upbringing was marked by increase in liberal approach to politics.
The Great recession crisis of the 2000s played a major impact on this generation because it has caused historical high levels of un-employment among youngsters and led to a possible long term economic and social damage to this generation.

millennials-are-heavily-influenced-by-their-peers
Gen Y according are less brand loyal and the speed of the Internet has led the cohort to be similarly flexible and changing in its fashion, style consciousness and where
and how it is communicated with.

As I am born in 1983 me and my generation belongs to Generation Y and even though Bulgaria before 1991 was a Communist regime country, I should agree that I and many of my friends share a very similar behavior and way of thinking to the GEN Y stereotype described, but as I was born in a times of transition and Bulgaria as a Soviet Union Satellite at the time has been lacking behind in fashion and international culture due to the communist regime, me and my generation seem to be sharing a lot of common stereotype characteristics with Generation X such as the punk-rock, metal, hip-hop culture MTV culture and partly because of the GEN X like overall view on life.

Among most famous representative successful people of the Millenials generation are Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook founder), Prince William (the second in line to the British throne), Kim Jong Un (the leader dictator of North Korea) etc.
 

 

4. Generation Z ( GEN Z) / iGeneration / Generation Sensible (Post Millenials)
 

who-are-generation-y-millenials-explained

Following Millenials generation is GEN Z, demographers and researchers typically set as a starting birth date period of those generation 1990s and mid 2000s. As of time of writting there is still no clear consensus regarding ending birth years.

This is the so called Internet Generation because this generation used the internet and Smart Mobile Phone technology since a very young age, they are very confortable with technology (kinda of wired) and addicted to social media such as Facebook / Twitter / Instagram etc. Because of the level of digital communication, many people of this generation are more introvert oriented and often have problems expressing themselves freely in groups. Also they tend to lack the physical communication and more digitally community oriented, even though this depends much also on the specific personality and in some cases it is exactly the opposite.

 

 * Summary
 

As a Marketer, Human Resources hiring personal specialist, a CEO or some kind of project / business manager it is a good idea to be aware of these 4 common stereotypes. However as this are stereotypes (and a theory) as everything theoritized the data is slighly biased and untrue. The marketer practice shows that whoever conducts a marketing and bases his sales on this theoritizing should consider this to be just one aspect of the marketing campaign those who are trying to sell, stuff ideas or ideology to any of those generation should be careful not to count 100% on the common traits found among the above 4 major groups and consider the individuality of person everyone has and just experiment a little bit to see what works and what doesn't.

Also it should be mentioned these diversification of stereotypes are mostly valid for the US citizens and Westerners but doesn't fully fit to ex-communist countries or countries of the Soviet union, those countries have a slightly different personality traits of person born in any of the year periods defined, same is more or less true for the poor parts of Africa and India, Vietnam, China and mostly all of the coomunist countries ex and current. It should be said that countries who belonged to the Soviet Union many of which are current Russian Federation Republics have a personality traits that are often mixture of the 4 stereotypes and even have a lot of the traits that were typical for the WW I and WW II generations, which makes dealing with this people a very weird experience.

Nomatter the standard error that should always considered when basing a marketing research hypothesis on Generational Marketing (using generational segmentation in marketing best potential customer targets), having a general insight and taking in consideration those stereotypes could seriously help in both marketing as well as HR specific fields like Change Management.

generation-x-y-z-characteristics

If you're a marketer, I recommend you take a quick look also on following very educative article Generational Makarketing and how to target each of the GEN X, Y, Z and Baby Boomers and what works best for each of them.

Nomatter what just like all Theories, the theory of Boomers and the Generation segmantation is not completely true, but it gives a good soil for reasoning as well definitely helps for people involved in sociology and business.

Comments and feedback on the article are mostly welcome as the topic is very broad and there is much more to be said …

Hope the article was interesting to you ….

What was your Generation like?

An awesome drum and bass song Feed me – Blood Red

Saturday, April 13th, 2013

These days I seldomly listen to music. However when I like some song I play it again and again for hours. I know listening to music is the ultimate mind self-manipulation, but as long as it stimulates functioning of brain it is cool.
My metal background often makes me like more agressive beats and therefore after I was in love with Hard Rock, Trash, Black and later White (Christian Metal), I become very keen on industrial especially on Christian industrial, as I later believed in God and started listening to more of the so called White Christian Metal / Industrial. I found D'n'B quite later in my musical taste grow up but I completely fall in love with it. These love was mitigated over the last 4 years as I become more into Orthodox Christian faith and most of my music playlist included nice Orthodox Music, still however I have these periods when I want to listen to the good old hard core beats that I grow up with. In that sense, I remembered a good old DNB beat I listened almost everyday for 2 / 3 hours a day 2 years ago. The beat is awesome thus even now 3 years later I keep the same love for it. The band is not so popular Feed Me and I even don't remember how exactly I ended up listening this beat.


 

Feed Me – Blood Red – An Awesome Drum and Bass Song!!!!

Enjoy ! 🙂

 

IQ world rank by country and which are the smartest nations

Friday, March 14th, 2014

IQ_world_rank_by_country_world_distribution_of_intelligence
In a home conversation with my wife who is Belarusian and comparison between Bulgarian and Belarusian nation, the interesting question arised – Which nation is Smarter Bulgarian or Belarusian?

This little conversation pushed me to intriguing question What is the IQ World rank if compared by country? Since a moment of my life I'm trying to constantly prove to myself I'm smart enough. For years my motivation was to increase my IQ. I had periods when studied hard history, philosophy and literature then I had periods to put all my efforts in music and mysticism then there was my fascination about IT and informatics and hacking, I had periods with profound interest in Biology and neourosciences, then of course psychology and social sciences and since last 10 years as I belived in God, I'm deeply interested in world religions and more particularly in Christniaty. All this is connected with my previous IQ (Intelligence Quotient) and my desire to develop my IQ. I'm quite aware that IQ statistics can never be 100% reliable as there is deviation (standard error) and its a very general way to find out about a person psychology. But anyways it is among the few methods to compare people's intelligence… I've done an IQ test in distant 2008 and I scored about 118 out of 180  – meaning my  IQ level is a little bit above average. The IQ conversation triggered my curiousity so I decided to check if my current IQ has changed over the last 6 years. Here is results from test I took March, 2013 on free-iqtest.net

IQ Test
IQtest just prooved, my IQ kept almost same, still a little bit above avarage.
Further on, I did investgation online to see if I can prove to my wife the thesis Bulgarians overall IQ is higher than Belarusian. I googled for IQ world rank by Country
Here is what I found ;

 

Nations Intelligence as sorted by Country

Rank
——–

Country
———————–

%
————-

1

Singapore

108

2

South Korea

106

3

Japan

105

4

Italy

102

5

Iceland

101

5

Mongolia

101

6

Switzerland

101

7

Austria

100

7

China

100

7

Luxembourg

100

7

Netherlands

100

7

Norway

100

7

United Kingdom

100

8

Belgium

99

8

Canada

99

8

Estonia

99

8

Finland

99

8

Germany

99

8

New Zealand

99

8

Poland

99

8

Sweden

99

9

Andorra

98

9

Australia

98

9

Czech Republic

98

9

Denmark

98

9

France

98

9

Hungary

98

9

Latvia

98

9

Spain

98

9

United States

98

10

Belarus

97

10

Malta

97

10

Russia

97

10

Ukraine

97

11

Moldova

96

11

Slovakia

96

11

Slovenia

96

11

Uruguay

96

12

Israel

95

12

Portugal

95

13

Armenia

94

13

Georgia

94

13

Kazakhstan

94

13

Romania

94

13

Vietnam

94

14

Argentina

93

14

Bulgaria

93

15

Greece

92

15

Ireland

92

15

Malaysia

92

16

Brunei

91

16

Cambodia

91

16

Cyprus

91

16

FYROM

91

16

Lithuania

91

16

Sierra Leone

91

16

Thailand

91

17

Albania

90

17

Bosnia and Herzegovina

90

17

Chile

90

17

Croatia

90

17

Kyrgyzstan

90

17

Turkey

90

18

Cook Islands

89

18

Costa Rica

89

18

Laos

89

18

Mauritius

89

18

Serbia

89

18

Suriname

89

19

Ecuador

88

19

Mexico

88

19

Samoa

88

20

Azerbaijan

87

20

Bolivia

87

20

Brazil

87

20

Guyana

87

20

Indonesia

87

20

Iraq

87

20

Myanmar (Burma)

87

20

Tajikistan

87

20

Turkmenistan

87

20

Uzbekistan

87

21

Kuwait

86

21

Philippines

86

21

Seychelles

86

21

Tonga

86

22

Cuba

85

22

Eritrea

85

22

Fiji

85

22

Kiribati

85

22

Peru

85

22

Trinidad and Tobago

85

22

Yemen

85

23

Afghanistan

84

23

Bahamas, The

84

23

Belize

84

23

Colombia

84

23

Iran

84

23

Jordan

84

23

Marshall Islands

84

23

Micronesia, Federated States of

84

23

Morocco

84

23

Nigeria

84

23

Pakistan

84

23

Panama

84

23

Paraguay

84

23

Saudi Arabia

84

23

Solomon Islands

84

23

Uganda

84

23

United Arab Emirates

84

23

Vanuatu

84

23

Venezuela

84

24

Algeria

83

24

Bahrain

83

24

Libya

83

24

Oman

83

24

Papua New Guinea

83

24

Syria

83

24

Tunisia

83

25

Bangladesh

82

25

Dominican Republic

82

25

India

82

25

Lebanon

82

25

Madagascar

82

25

Zimbabwe

82

26

Egypt

81

26

Honduras

81

26

Maldives

81

26

Nicaragua

81

27

Barbados

80

27

Bhutan

80

27

El Salvador

80

27

Kenya

80

28

Guatemala

79

28

Sri Lanka

79

28

Zambia

79

29

Congo, Democratic Republic of the

78

29

Nepal

78

29

Qatar

78

30

Comoros

77

30

South Africa

77

31

Cape Verde

76

31

Congo, Republic of the

76

31

Mauritania

76

31

Senegal

76

32

Mali

74

32

Namibia

74

33

Ghana

73

34

Tanzania

72

35

Central African Republic

71

35

Grenada

71

35

Jamaica

71

35

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

71

35

Sudan

71

36

Antigua and Barbuda

70

36

Benin

70

36

Botswana

70

36

Rwanda

70

36

Togo

70

37

Burundi

69

37

Cote d'Ivoire

69

37

Ethiopia

69

37

Malawi

69

37

Niger

69

38

Angola

68

38

Burkina Faso

68

38

Chad

68

38

Djibouti

68

38

Somalia

68

38

Swaziland

68

39

Dominica

67

39

Guinea

67

39

Guinea-Bissau

67

39

Haiti

67

39

Lesotho

67

39

Liberia

67

39

Saint Kitts and Nevis

67

39

Sao Tome and Principe

67

40

Gambia, The

66

41

Cameroon

64

41

Gabon

64

41

Mozambique

64

42

Saint Lucia

62

43

Equatorial Guinea

59

 

North Korea

N/A

 

– Countries are ranked highest to lowest national IQ score.

Above statistics are taken from a work carried out earlier this decade by Richard Lynn, a British psychologist, and Tatu Vanhanen, a Finnish political scientist. To extract statistics they analized  IQ studies from 113 countries.  

For my surprise it appeared Belarusian (ranking 10th in the world) have generally higher IQ than Bulgarians (ordering 14th). Anyways being 14th in world IQ Ranking is not bad at all as we still rank in the top 20 smartest nations.

IQ is a relative way to measure intelligence, so I don't believe these statistics are revelant but they give some very general idea about world IQs.

I learned there are some claims that in more developed economies people have higher IQs than less developed. If we take in consideration above statistics its obvious such claims are dubious as you can see there are countries in top 5 countries with highest IQ, and surely Mongolia is not to be ordered in countries with high economic development.

There are plenty of other interesting researches like "Does IQ relates to people Income?", Does Religious people score higher than atheists? According to research done in U.S. Atheists score 6 IQ points higher than Religious people. However most "religous" people IQ tested were from protestant origin so results are relative (I'm sure Orthodox Christian would score higher 🙂 ). The IQ nation world ranks fail in a way that, a social, economic and historical factors are not counted. According to Gallups research, the world poorest people tend to be the most religious, a fact supporting well the saying of all saints who say that for saintly life people who preferred deliberately to live as poor people.

 

How to fix Thinkpad R61i trackpoint (mouse pointer) hang ups in GNU / Linux

Wednesday, February 1st, 2012

Earlier I've blogged on How to Work Around periodically occuring TrackPoint Thinkpad R61 issues on GNU / Linux . Actually I thought the fix I suggested there is working but I was wrong as the problems with the trackpoint reappeared at twice or thrice a day.

My suggested fix was the use of one script that does periodically change the trackpoint speed and sensitivity to certain numbers.

The fix script to the trackpoint hanging issue is here

Originally I wrote the script has to be set to execute through crontab on a periods like:

0,30 * * * * /usr/sbin/restart_trackpoint.sh >/dev/null 2>&1

Actually the correct values for the crontab if you use my restart_trackpoint.sh script are:

0,5,10,15,20,25,30,35,40,45,50,55,58 * * * * /usr/sbin/restart_trackpoint.sh >/dev/null 2>&3

ig it has to be set the script is issued every 5 minutes to minimize the possibility for the Thinkpad trackpoint hang up issue.

One other thing that helps if trackpoint stucks is setting in /etc/rc.local is psmouse module to load with resetafter= parameter:

echo '/sbin/rmmod psmouse; /sbin/modprobe psmouse resetafter=30' >> /etc/rc.local