I love Linux, let's get that straight from the start. My introduction to the Penguin occurred more than six years ago when a newly-bought laptop's pre-installed XP kept crashing. One particularly memorable event occurred just one month after the purchase, the mouse just stopped working, even after repeated reboots. Though Dell made it easy to completely restore the installed OS, I wasn't happy, so decided to check out Linux - which I've been using as my main OS ever since. Though in the interest of full disclosure I should say that I also have a VirtualBox'ed XP setup as well.
Come to think of it, this was not my first look at Linux. I bought Suse Linux in the late-nineties for around £30-£40 at Dixons, and had played with it a bit - but seeing as I went back to Windows, I mustn't have been overly impressed. Enter Ubuntu.
Ubuntu 8.04 surprised me. Here was a Linux that installed really fast (compared to Bill's offerings) and damn-near all hardware was detected and enabled. I was impressed! More so by Wine, the Linux software capable of running quite a few native Windows applications - an incredible achievement. But after the novelty had worn off, it soon became apparent that Wine had problems. Over the years, I have been forced to re-install Wine from scratch dozens of times. Still it continues to be actively supported and the improvements are evident. Kudos to its developers.
Ok, fast-forward to today (and the point of this post). Linux has continued to improve over the years, particularly when it comes to supporting hardware. Although I've tried dozens of flavours of Linux, I must be a creature of habit 'cos I'm still using Ubuntu as my main OS. But not the current offerings, oh no. I, like a huge percentage of Linux-land was appalled by the travesty that was released by the Gnome Developers as the 'future' of the Gnome desktop. So I currently am still using the long-ago EOL'ed (end-of-line) 10.04LTS version. I'm still with it 'cos it works. And also (surprisingly) because there are still security updates being produced for it, as well as kernel updates and its repositories are still online. Incidentally, I also have an interesting China-derived version of Linux called Deepin Linux running on another computer. This is based on Ubuntu 13.04 but with it's own cool custom desktop - definitely worth checking out.
After more than six years of use, with at least one computer having run 24/7 throughout that time, I can say positively that Linux's Achilles's heel is Wireless - putting it bluntly, it sucks! Initially my problems were with a Intel wireless card (IWL3945), but similar problems also occur with two other Atheros cards. These aren't trivial problems either. The feed splutters and stops continuously, before often dying completely, forcing a restart of the computer. Fortunately, removing & restarting wireless via 'modprobe' is often enough to get it going again - but not always. And this usually happens every few hours! Which begs the question, why am I still with Linux?
Well, thanks to an application called 'ndiswrapper', wireless is rendered usable again. What this app does is allow Linux to use native Windows wireless drivers, and which for me works great, but which also sucks - after all, Linux users are trying to get away from using Windows code completely. But without doubt, without Ndiswrapper, I would have stopped using Linux years ago.
What I have never understood is why more people aren't' complaining about this. Granted, there are 1000's of posts on various forums (many mine!) about this, but not to the extent I would expect - again Linux Wireless Sucks, so why aren't people more vocal about this? Maybe most "Linux users" just 'play' with it - ie. their main OS is Windows but will boot-up a tiny Linux partition occasionally and for a few hours just for the novelty. The "few hours" part is important - any wireless problems would usually go unnoticed in these short time-frames. Similarly, maybe most 'real' Linux users just run their computer for a few hours so never experience a dropped wireless connection when they come back to using the computer - as they most surely would if the computer was left running 24/7. This silence has always baffled me.
Not that I'm advocating complaining. I've slowly come to realise that it's generally a pretty thankless task writing software for Linux, and its developers really need to be applauded for the incredible job they have done & continue to do. But it doesn't make it any less frustrating either...
Apart from that, Linux is rock-solid, it never crashes. The one exception to this in six years concerned early versions of VirtualBox. That was the only application I have ever used that could cause Linux to crash completely. Everything after v.3.2 worked perfectly though - the version I still use, even though it is now very old. But it's quite a bit faster than the latest releases, especially on my aging laptop, so does quite nicely.
And I have absolutely no intention of ever going back to Windows. In fact until recently, I had never even used Windows 7, but given that it was being EOL'ed by M$, decided to give it a spin on VirtualBox. Must say I was underwhelmed - given the amount of favourable press I had come across over the years, I had expected more. And with Bill's current offering having been slated by critics & supporters alike, I don't expect to ever try using that.
23 December 2013
5 December 2013
Musings on Georgi Stankov...
I first came across Dr. Georgi Stankov more than 2 years ago, whose web-site was linked to by a poster on a forum called Project Avalon. To be more precise, it was about 1 month before 11-11-2011, a then up-and-coming date that many 'New-Agers' (NA'ers) attached great significance to.
One of the topics most discussed among NA'ers is what is known as Ascension. Now most with a scientific mindset consider the idea absurd, and in general, so do I. Enter Georgi Stankov. Here was a scientist that spoke four languages, had considerable experience in the pharmacological sector, at least one pharmaceutical patent, and judging by his site, was supremely confident that there was something to this Ascension thing. He also has what he claims is a mathematically-rigorous "Universal Law", details of which are freely available and whose implications consign mere theories like Einstein's to the rubbish-bin of history. The more I read the more intrigued I became.
First off, Dr. Stankov informed us that he was an Ascended Master. Second, that he would be the first on earth to ascend, the kick-off date for which would begin on - you guessed it - 11-11-11. Stankov also ruled his site with an iron fist. Since it was his site, the democratic-process was non-existent, even though at first he said he was receptive to critical posts, this rarely proved to be the case in practice. Later on, any post he didn't like were deemed to be from internet-trolls working at the behest of the Archons/CIA/NSA etc. so were never posted. I particularly remember in the beginning a woman named "Ure" who was a prolific poster and as 'like-minded' as Stankov as he could possibly have wished for. They got along great together until there was a disagreement between them over something trivial, and Ure stopped posting. Well for months afterwards, Stankov went out of his way to belittle Ure at every opportunity, even though she had long since stopped posting there. He continued to visit her site though, because many months later I remember another of his condescending posts regarding something she had written, despite him being in complete agreement with it. This childish attitude of his was noted & commented on by several posters on his site. His response - as he was an Ascended Master, he didn't have Ego-issues, so the fault must lie with the posters who perceived his unadulterated honesty in this way! Remember, all of this was in 'The Beginning' from my standpoint. Later on, nobody dared criticise him for anything as he became increasingly less tolerant.
Anyone familiar with NA'ers will no doubt have guessed that much of their info comes from 'Channeled' material, and Georgi Stankov was no exception. He didn't channel himself, at first relying on messages from external sources, while also using his "Higher Self" to separate the wheat from the chaff. Later on, his channeled gems were produced 'in-house' by a couple of lady-channelers attracted to his site.
Having read his site almost daily for 2 years, I can say with some confidence that few people on the planet can have had as many failed predictions to their name as Georgi Stankov - dozens of them! These predictions were made wholly on the basis of channeled material, coupled with the discernment of Georgi's formidable Higher Self! Equally bizarre was Georgi's continued use of the words "proof" and "evidence" throughout regarding this information - this from a scientist! - especially when the passage of time was proving that it was nothing of the sort. Whereas valid predictions were non-existent, excuses were in abundance, as were the channeled messages which continued to roll in. But these failures didn't mollify his scathing comments about practically every other NA'er outside of his little circle in the slightest. In fact his posts towards them seemed to become increasingly vitriolic as time passed. I was fascinated by how someone as intelligent as Stankov could continually rationalise away these failures on the basis of still more of these absurd messages.
Needless to say, 11-11-11 came and went without the promised mystical predictions materialising - financial collapse, pole-shifts, Ascension etc. But the channeled excuses continued to roll in. When the NA'ers D-Day, December 21th 2012 came & went with ne'er an Ascension in sight, cracks were beginning to show. Initially he turned on his channelers. He then decided the "3-world" model that he talked about ad-nausea was wrong. I remember wondering at the time, how his enlightened sources could have gotten something so crucial, so wrong! Towards the end, the 3-world model had morphed into a dimensional-model, with new dimensions being added as stuff failed to materialise - eg. a pole-shift occurs in dimension 3, but since we have somehow ascended to dimension 5, we are not yet aware of it but would become so in time. As more time passed and nothing happened, more dimensions would be added, which resulted in us somehow 'outrunning' these calamities. I think we were finally up to 12 dimensions. He had also by this stage long since decided that rather than be first, he would now be last to Ascend. Hilarious.
Well, it finally seems that the penny has dropped with Georgi Stankov. Despite being a prolific poster - by his own admission, he used to spend 8-12 hours a day on his site - he hasn't posted in well over a week. He had threatened to cease & desist similarly several times over the past 2 years, but always resumed within a day or so. This apparently was brought about after his "twin-soul" Carla, one of his Channelers, and who if memory serves, is Canadian, had been told by her 'source' to join Georgi in Germany prior to the latest predicted 'imminent' date for Ascension/Pole-shift yada-yada - which she proceeded to do. So either Georgi is currently marshaling his forces as an Ascended master and getting ready to return and sort out the Earth for us like he had promised (so much for 'free-will') or he and Carla are sitting somewhere wondering how another prediction has gone awry...
Maybe it's time he finally honoured that promise he made to his wife to forget about this nonsense if by such-and-such a date nothing had happened - a date long since reached - and devote his time & energy to his family (who unsurprisingly are non-believers). That said, should he continue posting, I'll continue reading - if only to see how the next series of failures will be rationalised away. I'd also recommend he read a few books by Jacque Vallee and John Keel. Basically, the answer seems to be that there are no answers. Reality itself is irrational and no amount of rationalising will produce a satisfactory answer - a conclusion both authors also seemed to have arrived at. Personally, the notion that we may have been dreamed into existence by an all-powerful 'God' is as good a theory of reality as any.
PS: I originally came across channeled messages around 2009 but very quickly became disenchanted with the meaningless drivel most of them contained. Their predictive rating must also be close to zero, which is ironic if these are from 'enlightened' beings! I really grew to loathe Mike Quincey's prodigious output - 3 - 4 times a week! His 'Salusa' channel was particularly vile - much ado about nothing sums it up nicely. Normally 'Salusa' was a real fence-sitter - never making predictions. But twice he made predictions on my watch, or rather confirmations of some other channeler's predictions - both of which turned out to be wrong. One was the (in)famous October 14 2010 Landings that originated from Blossom Goodchild. The only 'channeled' information I ever gotten anything from was the Ra teachings that were channeled by Carla Rueckert. I have listened to this information (all 18 hours worth, converted with Natural Reader) at least a dozen times - good stuff!
Edit: Wow, some synchronicity! - 2 days after posting the above about 'Salusa', Mike Quincey is back to spite me! Since he had suffered a stroke, I felt sure it must have been someone else channeling 'Salusa', but no, it's Quincey all right - a link to his site. The fact that most of the NA'ers are joyfully applauding this news leaves me a mite depressed...
Edit: just checked Stankov's site (3 months on). One additional post - his final post it seems - way back in January titled "The Language Of Silence". A re-post as it happens, from sometime in 2012 when all of this nonsense seemed more real to him! It also sums him up perfectly, so if you never read another thing by him, read this. 'Ascended Master' material? I don't think so.
Edit: Georgi Stankov has finally flushed this turd - the web-site has gone!!! I make that about 5 months since his last 'real' post. I must admit, I used to enjoy reading his ravings, if only to pour scorn on them. RIP.
Edit: Haha, the flush failed apparently! - site is up again, but no new material.
Final Edit: OMG Georgi is back!!! He has actually been back for a while, over 3 months in fact, but since I hadn't checked out his site for ages, I only discovered this yesterday. And he's more deluded than ever! He has apparently now 'promoted' himself to the exalted position of "Logos-God" (I kid you not!) - 'cos the channeled sources told him he was one! He has also added another 3 failed Ascension-date predictions to his tally since he recommenced posting, the last of which is laced with the usual certitudes that time has once again proven to be wrong. Hilariously, he vents his frustration of these failures by blaming almost everything from the price of beer to the ineptness of the 'lightworkers' in his charge - yet not a word is said against the absurd channeled messages themselves. Intriguingly, he also seems to have abandoned Germany (and his family!) and is now shacked up with his 'always-wrong' channeler Carla (and "twin-soul" hehe) in Canada. But recently he had had to go back to Germany for a serious operation involving a tumor - which he admitted to having deliberately ignored on account of the then-pending Ascension dates - and got it into his head that this infirmity was actually a physical manifestation of the sins of Mankind itself, which needing to be atoned for, required intercession of a benevolent Logos-God such as himself! Honestly, I'm not making any of this up! Hell, he even invokes the crucifixion scenario when writing about this selfless act of his for us!!! As they say, you couldn't make this shit up! People have been committed to institutions for far less methinks. While first-class entertainment of sorts, there may also be the makings of a PhD thesis here, along the lines of how some people will try to rationalise almost anything to themselves. The fact that Georgi is back posting clearly shows how desperate he is to believe in this stuff, and apparently, part of that involves getting others to suspend reality and believe it too. A bit how religions are formed I suppose - deluded-individual -> ardent-believers -> zealous-cult -> despotic-religion. Way to go Georgi!
Final, final Edit: :) 2.5 years on, since this initial blog entry, it seems like Georgi Stankov has finally admitted defeat (my interpretation) and thrown in the towel. His 'final' post informs us that he is done posting at his site, after having been informed by the 'Elohim' that he has successfully completed his mission! Hmmm, if their definition of a success is making a gazillion predictions over the past 6 years, ALL of which failed to materialise - then yes, Georgi Stankov has been an outstanding success.
His penultimate post is the usual doom & gloom - global economic meltdown, followed by the mandatory Ascension scenario he so craves - but given that he has predicted the same thing so many times already, well, I wouldn't lose too much sleep over this one either. After all, as a stopped clock is right twice a day, even Georgi must eventually get something right, or at least, not hopelessly wrong, as all of his other predictions have been. The corrupt global financial system will eventually implode, but that is not so much a prediction as a mathematical certainty - so no kudos go to Georgi on that one, as this has not only been predicted, but shown from past history to have occurred previously, by many others.
I will make a prediction though. I predict that if a financial meltdown, even a little one, does occur this year, Georgi will be back posting again! He even suggests as much in the closing of his final post, leaving the door open for his return should the cravings get too strong. This nonsense is a drug to him.
Final summing-up. Well, that didn't take long - as predicted, Stankov is back posting! He managed a whole 2 months before falling back off the wagon. As of early November 2016, he is back to his usual almost-daily ranting, having given no reason for his return. The guy is hopeless.
One of the topics most discussed among NA'ers is what is known as Ascension. Now most with a scientific mindset consider the idea absurd, and in general, so do I. Enter Georgi Stankov. Here was a scientist that spoke four languages, had considerable experience in the pharmacological sector, at least one pharmaceutical patent, and judging by his site, was supremely confident that there was something to this Ascension thing. He also has what he claims is a mathematically-rigorous "Universal Law", details of which are freely available and whose implications consign mere theories like Einstein's to the rubbish-bin of history. The more I read the more intrigued I became.
First off, Dr. Stankov informed us that he was an Ascended Master. Second, that he would be the first on earth to ascend, the kick-off date for which would begin on - you guessed it - 11-11-11. Stankov also ruled his site with an iron fist. Since it was his site, the democratic-process was non-existent, even though at first he said he was receptive to critical posts, this rarely proved to be the case in practice. Later on, any post he didn't like were deemed to be from internet-trolls working at the behest of the Archons/CIA/NSA etc. so were never posted. I particularly remember in the beginning a woman named "Ure" who was a prolific poster and as 'like-minded' as Stankov as he could possibly have wished for. They got along great together until there was a disagreement between them over something trivial, and Ure stopped posting. Well for months afterwards, Stankov went out of his way to belittle Ure at every opportunity, even though she had long since stopped posting there. He continued to visit her site though, because many months later I remember another of his condescending posts regarding something she had written, despite him being in complete agreement with it. This childish attitude of his was noted & commented on by several posters on his site. His response - as he was an Ascended Master, he didn't have Ego-issues, so the fault must lie with the posters who perceived his unadulterated honesty in this way! Remember, all of this was in 'The Beginning' from my standpoint. Later on, nobody dared criticise him for anything as he became increasingly less tolerant.
Anyone familiar with NA'ers will no doubt have guessed that much of their info comes from 'Channeled' material, and Georgi Stankov was no exception. He didn't channel himself, at first relying on messages from external sources, while also using his "Higher Self" to separate the wheat from the chaff. Later on, his channeled gems were produced 'in-house' by a couple of lady-channelers attracted to his site.
Having read his site almost daily for 2 years, I can say with some confidence that few people on the planet can have had as many failed predictions to their name as Georgi Stankov - dozens of them! These predictions were made wholly on the basis of channeled material, coupled with the discernment of Georgi's formidable Higher Self! Equally bizarre was Georgi's continued use of the words "proof" and "evidence" throughout regarding this information - this from a scientist! - especially when the passage of time was proving that it was nothing of the sort. Whereas valid predictions were non-existent, excuses were in abundance, as were the channeled messages which continued to roll in. But these failures didn't mollify his scathing comments about practically every other NA'er outside of his little circle in the slightest. In fact his posts towards them seemed to become increasingly vitriolic as time passed. I was fascinated by how someone as intelligent as Stankov could continually rationalise away these failures on the basis of still more of these absurd messages.
Needless to say, 11-11-11 came and went without the promised mystical predictions materialising - financial collapse, pole-shifts, Ascension etc. But the channeled excuses continued to roll in. When the NA'ers D-Day, December 21th 2012 came & went with ne'er an Ascension in sight, cracks were beginning to show. Initially he turned on his channelers. He then decided the "3-world" model that he talked about ad-nausea was wrong. I remember wondering at the time, how his enlightened sources could have gotten something so crucial, so wrong! Towards the end, the 3-world model had morphed into a dimensional-model, with new dimensions being added as stuff failed to materialise - eg. a pole-shift occurs in dimension 3, but since we have somehow ascended to dimension 5, we are not yet aware of it but would become so in time. As more time passed and nothing happened, more dimensions would be added, which resulted in us somehow 'outrunning' these calamities. I think we were finally up to 12 dimensions. He had also by this stage long since decided that rather than be first, he would now be last to Ascend. Hilarious.
Well, it finally seems that the penny has dropped with Georgi Stankov. Despite being a prolific poster - by his own admission, he used to spend 8-12 hours a day on his site - he hasn't posted in well over a week. He had threatened to cease & desist similarly several times over the past 2 years, but always resumed within a day or so. This apparently was brought about after his "twin-soul" Carla, one of his Channelers, and who if memory serves, is Canadian, had been told by her 'source' to join Georgi in Germany prior to the latest predicted 'imminent' date for Ascension/Pole-shift yada-yada - which she proceeded to do. So either Georgi is currently marshaling his forces as an Ascended master and getting ready to return and sort out the Earth for us like he had promised (so much for 'free-will') or he and Carla are sitting somewhere wondering how another prediction has gone awry...
Maybe it's time he finally honoured that promise he made to his wife to forget about this nonsense if by such-and-such a date nothing had happened - a date long since reached - and devote his time & energy to his family (who unsurprisingly are non-believers). That said, should he continue posting, I'll continue reading - if only to see how the next series of failures will be rationalised away. I'd also recommend he read a few books by Jacque Vallee and John Keel. Basically, the answer seems to be that there are no answers. Reality itself is irrational and no amount of rationalising will produce a satisfactory answer - a conclusion both authors also seemed to have arrived at. Personally, the notion that we may have been dreamed into existence by an all-powerful 'God' is as good a theory of reality as any.
PS: I originally came across channeled messages around 2009 but very quickly became disenchanted with the meaningless drivel most of them contained. Their predictive rating must also be close to zero, which is ironic if these are from 'enlightened' beings! I really grew to loathe Mike Quincey's prodigious output - 3 - 4 times a week! His 'Salusa' channel was particularly vile - much ado about nothing sums it up nicely. Normally 'Salusa' was a real fence-sitter - never making predictions. But twice he made predictions on my watch, or rather confirmations of some other channeler's predictions - both of which turned out to be wrong. One was the (in)famous October 14 2010 Landings that originated from Blossom Goodchild. The only 'channeled' information I ever gotten anything from was the Ra teachings that were channeled by Carla Rueckert. I have listened to this information (all 18 hours worth, converted with Natural Reader) at least a dozen times - good stuff!
Edit: Wow, some synchronicity! - 2 days after posting the above about 'Salusa', Mike Quincey is back to spite me! Since he had suffered a stroke, I felt sure it must have been someone else channeling 'Salusa', but no, it's Quincey all right - a link to his site. The fact that most of the NA'ers are joyfully applauding this news leaves me a mite depressed...
Edit: just checked Stankov's site (3 months on). One additional post - his final post it seems - way back in January titled "The Language Of Silence". A re-post as it happens, from sometime in 2012 when all of this nonsense seemed more real to him! It also sums him up perfectly, so if you never read another thing by him, read this. 'Ascended Master' material? I don't think so.
Edit: Georgi Stankov has finally flushed this turd - the web-site has gone!!! I make that about 5 months since his last 'real' post. I must admit, I used to enjoy reading his ravings, if only to pour scorn on them. RIP.
Edit: Haha, the flush failed apparently! - site is up again, but no new material.
Final Edit: OMG Georgi is back!!! He has actually been back for a while, over 3 months in fact, but since I hadn't checked out his site for ages, I only discovered this yesterday. And he's more deluded than ever! He has apparently now 'promoted' himself to the exalted position of "Logos-God" (I kid you not!) - 'cos the channeled sources told him he was one! He has also added another 3 failed Ascension-date predictions to his tally since he recommenced posting, the last of which is laced with the usual certitudes that time has once again proven to be wrong. Hilariously, he vents his frustration of these failures by blaming almost everything from the price of beer to the ineptness of the 'lightworkers' in his charge - yet not a word is said against the absurd channeled messages themselves. Intriguingly, he also seems to have abandoned Germany (and his family!) and is now shacked up with his 'always-wrong' channeler Carla (and "twin-soul" hehe) in Canada. But recently he had had to go back to Germany for a serious operation involving a tumor - which he admitted to having deliberately ignored on account of the then-pending Ascension dates - and got it into his head that this infirmity was actually a physical manifestation of the sins of Mankind itself, which needing to be atoned for, required intercession of a benevolent Logos-God such as himself! Honestly, I'm not making any of this up! Hell, he even invokes the crucifixion scenario when writing about this selfless act of his for us!!! As they say, you couldn't make this shit up! People have been committed to institutions for far less methinks. While first-class entertainment of sorts, there may also be the makings of a PhD thesis here, along the lines of how some people will try to rationalise almost anything to themselves. The fact that Georgi is back posting clearly shows how desperate he is to believe in this stuff, and apparently, part of that involves getting others to suspend reality and believe it too. A bit how religions are formed I suppose - deluded-individual -> ardent-believers -> zealous-cult -> despotic-religion. Way to go Georgi!
Final, final Edit: :) 2.5 years on, since this initial blog entry, it seems like Georgi Stankov has finally admitted defeat (my interpretation) and thrown in the towel. His 'final' post informs us that he is done posting at his site, after having been informed by the 'Elohim' that he has successfully completed his mission! Hmmm, if their definition of a success is making a gazillion predictions over the past 6 years, ALL of which failed to materialise - then yes, Georgi Stankov has been an outstanding success.
His penultimate post is the usual doom & gloom - global economic meltdown, followed by the mandatory Ascension scenario he so craves - but given that he has predicted the same thing so many times already, well, I wouldn't lose too much sleep over this one either. After all, as a stopped clock is right twice a day, even Georgi must eventually get something right, or at least, not hopelessly wrong, as all of his other predictions have been. The corrupt global financial system will eventually implode, but that is not so much a prediction as a mathematical certainty - so no kudos go to Georgi on that one, as this has not only been predicted, but shown from past history to have occurred previously, by many others.
I will make a prediction though. I predict that if a financial meltdown, even a little one, does occur this year, Georgi will be back posting again! He even suggests as much in the closing of his final post, leaving the door open for his return should the cravings get too strong. This nonsense is a drug to him.
Final summing-up. Well, that didn't take long - as predicted, Stankov is back posting! He managed a whole 2 months before falling back off the wagon. As of early November 2016, he is back to his usual almost-daily ranting, having given no reason for his return. The guy is hopeless.
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