Language / Too many English words in the Polish language! [709]


I don't know really. I would say it is "przejście".


Note durations: Cała nuta, półnuta, ćwierćnuta (ćwiartka), ósemka, szestnastka, trzydziestka dwójka, sześćdziesiątka czwórka ;-)


Interestingly, most of these words are Polish: siodełko (nut), próg (fret), płyta wierzchnia (soundboard), mostek (bridge), podstrunnica or chwytnia (fretboard), gryf (neck), klucze (tuners), przetwornik or przystawka or pickup (pickup), singiel (single-coil) as in "mam Fendka na trzech singlach", humbucker or simply humb -- pronounce hoomb -- (humbucker) as in "Mam Gibola z humbami DiMarzio" ;-)

All-tube (all-valve) amplifier is simply called lampa. "Gram na lampie Mesa-Boogie". Solid-state amp would be tranziak and a digital amp would be cyfra. The speaker cabinet is paczka, and NOTE the flight-case is case (pron. kejs).

Aha, Fender Precision Bass is Precel ;-)

Now, you Alex translate to English:

"Mam japońskiego Pearla z tysiąc dziewięćset siedemdziesiąt dziewiątego. Korpus i gryf z mahoniu. Klucze stockowe. Główka w typie Gibola. Siodełko mosiężne, podstrunnica z perłowymi markerami w kształcie trapezu. Binding podstrunnicy w wycięciami na palce. W korpusie tummy-cut. Dwa oryginalne humby, trójpozycyjny przełącznik przetworników i przełącznik single/humb. Trzy pokrętła: dwa do volume i jeden Tone. Mostek tremolo, mosiężny, zablokowany klockiem mahoniowym więc zachowuje się jak stały. Gitara ma niesamowity sustain" ;-)

Language / Too many English words in the Polish language! [709]


Now you almost got me. I had to look up the dictionary for the English meaning ;-)

Breakdown would simply be brejk.
"Eight note" is ósemka, not sure what you mean by "middle"?

If you ask me about "upbeat", that would be przedtakt ;)

Language / Too many English words in the Polish language! [709]

My former guitarist is obsessed with very complex structures in his compositions. It was how he used to describe the structure of one of his songs:

Intro
Ryf (riff)
Brydż (bridge)
Zwrotka
Ryf
Zwrotka (verse)
Brydż
Wokaliza
Ryf
Refren (chorus)
Wokaliza
...
Outro jak intro.

News / "Shale Gas Revolution" will make Poland a Leading Country in Europe! [202]


Tell me more and present some facts. In reality, Poland's environmental regulations are pretty strict and well defined.
An armchair opinion?


Yes, I have heard there are water-fuelled cars in US. As long as the water comes from the Mexican Gulf.

Life / Who is poor in Poland? [720]

Grzegorz_, you might find these publications quite interesting, the same source:



oecd.org/document/48/0,3746,en_2649_34111_44791728_1_1_1_1,00.html


oecd.org/document/61/0,3746,en_2649_34111_44904829_1_1_1_1,00.html

I would say, Grzegorz_, no, I do not think Poles are poor in general. There are some riches, there are some poor, however the distribution is not dramatic. By no means Poland could be described as a poor county. It is enough to travel around Poland, talk with many many people, and I do both. Just use your own eyes instead expressing opinions from an armchair.

The grave mistake in the whole discussion is creating the contrast between "rich" and "poor". By analogy (my feet in basins analogy was not understood at all!), I could say Saudi Arabia were a warm country and Iceland were a cold country. How would you describe Poland then? Warm? Cold? And perhaps simply "moderate"? The same with "rich" and "poor". Poland is neither "rich" nor "poor". Poland is a moderate, decent country to live.

What country could be described as poor? India, for instance. It does not matter there are some top riches in India. The country is simply poor. It's enough to fly there and see. Same with Poland, it is enough to open eyes and see. Of course, Havok would immediately go to one of "familok" houses and show everybody the Polish slums. Because you see what you want to see.

Germany, oh yes, it is a pretty rich country. Things are relative however. When bad times come, German people feel they have been deprived of what they deserved for, making them relatively poorer than they had been. I see constant growth in Poland and it makes me feel good, although Poland is decidedly not as rich as Germany.

Life / Who is poor in Poland? [720]

I have already told you my case IAAM: I 'don't remember' what my income is but I'm sure we have 4 PC and 1 DVD player that nobody of us uses. As far as I can remember we have two toilets and running water. Last Autumn I had two cars, FWIW, but scrapped one meanwhile. On very cold Winters yes, I cannot heat my house enough since our furnace is 18 kW and cannot deliver more at -20C. Enough?

Why the Hell nobody asks me how many guitars and amps I have, how much of recording gear my studio contains and how much I spent on that? Why nobody asks me why fcuk I bought the most expensive Pentax DSLR? Perhaps the statistician do not know about DSLRs, guitars and amps ;))))))))))

Life / Who is poor in Poland? [720]

yea, one of the representative sample (one of one thousand) would be Mr Jakub Wędrowycz. Since Mr Wędrowycz is an alcoholic, making his own booze and he's really not worrying about anything, he has no toilet or running water. Excited interviewer notes: "There are still households without running water or toilet!".

OK, I haven't visited many farmers recently but I may assume most of them have no PC. On the other hand, almost every household in cities, small or big, sports a PC. The statistician writes: "60% of households is missing a PC". Now, the farmer indeed has a DVD player because sometimes even farmer needs to have some fun. Meanwhile, the urban population does not need to spend money on DVD players because every PC has a DVD player. Aha! "Less than 50% of households are equipped with DVD player"...

Life / Who is poor in Poland? [720]

Do you know what is the representative sample in Poland? Some over 1000 people. For 40 million inhabitants.

Life / Who is poor in Poland? [720]


E) None of your business

Life / Who is poor in Poland? [720]

ItsAllAboutMe.
The statistical methods do not take into account the fact Poles hate if anyone else sticks their nose in the business and simply don't say the whole true. Also, the questions are constructed the way they miss the point. The major point missed is the black economy, which, as Monia pointed out, makes the big part of the national product. Same was said by Delphi before.

However, whatever we people living in Poland say, You Know Better. This leads to nowhere.
Therefore I suggested I will declare that I am unbelievably poor and will ask you for financial support. Unluckily, some Mod considered my suggestion unfit.

Life / Who is poor in Poland? [720]

Statistically, a person keeping one foot in a washbowl full of ice and another foot in a washbowl full of boiling water has average feet temperature of 50 degrees Celsius or 122 F.

Life / Who is poor in Poland? [720]


I simply respond "Weeeeell, I don't remember exactly... My memory is not what it used to be... What are the options?". Then the interviewer says: "Does your family make at least PLN2000 monthly?". Then I say: "Perhaps". Then she puts this figure in and goes to next neighbour.

We have never got a question: "How many PC do you have?". I would say "Four". And that's true.

Life / Who is poor in Poland? [720]

On the other hand... Monia... Why don't we admit Poland is indeed a very poor country and we live in shocking poverty? Our disputands will be happy and leave us alone in Poland. I could even expect that if we are convincing, some frajer will send us some money. Why give it up?

Because:
"Nieważne, jaka będzie Polska, biedna czy bogata, ważne by była katolicka" (It does not matter if Poland will be poor or rich, important is that Poland remains Catholic!" ;-)))))))))))))))

Who said the above, Ironside and of what political party member he was? ;)

News / "Shale Gas Revolution" will make Poland a Leading Country in Europe! [202]

Yea, I can remember the Greenies blocking the construction of the A4 motorway. Cutting couple of trees meant committing a crime for them. They ignored the fact someone was killed by a car in neighboring Strzelce Opolskie everyday because of the lack of the motorway.

Something similar can be heard in your comment, Jonny.

Life / Who is poor in Poland? [720]

"The Day I Met A Martian".

Ad rem:
The points I gave before were the defining factors of Communism.
The role of police, army and secret police are the features of any totalitarian system: Same for Nazi Germany, same for African or South American dictatorships, same for Black Colonels regime in Greece someday. The police, army and secret police are independent of Communisms. They only perform the regime enforcement role. If you do not agree with that, please define how much Communist Nazi Germany was or how much Communist the Greek Black Colonels were.

Now, 1989 meant slow democratic process. You either were born after 1989 or were a little kid at those times. This explains you simply are unaware why it was that way. Bear in mind, The Soviet Union (whatever it was called before) lasted for 73 years, more than lifetime of most people. Poland was under Communist oppression for 44 years, more than half of lifetime of many people (how old are you, by the way?) Soviet Union was a world superpower. The introduction of the Communist rule in Poland meant executions, sending people to exile, driving sane people mad. It was a police country, it was a police block. Any attempt for getting some freedom was brutally pacified.

People living for so long time under oppression simply thought the Communist system will last forever. (You simply are unable to get it, I understand).

My parents had given up any idea they would live up Free Poland again, Dad born in 1919, Mum in 1922*.
So we are coming to the Round Table. You look to this from today's perspective as a young man, and all looks very simply to you. It was not simple at all. Yes, the part of power was left with Commies but you are aware it did not last very long. Meanwhile, the real change of power took place. slowly but surely.

And Leszek Balcerowicz healed the Polish Zloty. You say he had been a Commie. Why did not he help Commies economically when they were in so deep trouble they had to dissolve the Polish United Worker's party, the leading Communist force for 41 years?

And Adam Michnik, am I wrong he had done his prison sentence for his anti-Commie activities? Where are Kiszczak and Siwicki today?
*) My Mum told me in 1993, a year before she died: "Son, I've never dreamt I will live up Free Poland again. And that has happened".

Ironside: You have been brain-washed. I'm sorry for you.

One of my friend said once: "If it comes to demolition of the Palace of Science and Culture, I will vote NO. Because if my grandson comes to me and asks me -- Grandpa, what was the communism? -- I will show the palace to him and say: Son, this was the communism; putting this monster into the very center of a beautiful city". It seems he was wrong. You see the Palace, Ironside, and get nothing about what communism was.

Life / Who is poor in Poland? [720]


Ask your Dad, he has lived in the Communist Poland.
I have already given my answers, see point 6, post #298. Pity you can't read.


The army, the police, the government in the first place. Plus, the chance of Soviet Army troops removal.

Life / Who is poor in Poland? [720]

Ironside, it should be your school to teach you history. I will answer you, though. And I think I give up after.

1. Soviet Union started collapsing in early 1980's due to "arms race" with US, the race a communist country could not win. There was martial law in Poland instead of Soviet invasion, because the Soviet Union was already weak and preferred Polish commies clean their own country. Not meaning USSR was not strong enough to crush small Poland in case of need.

2. In mid-1990's, Mikhail Gorbachev introduced reforms in USSR, some kind of liberalization, because he understood USSR would collapse soon and he tried to find the way to avoid the collapse. Hence "perestroyka".

3. Meanwhile, there was a lot of unrest in Poland since 1988, especially numerous strikes. The commie govt tried to pacify the society (and the Govt already knew the Soviets will not help anymore), so the Govt started printing money, creating hyperinflation.

4. The situation was so serious -- the commies knew they had bankrupted and could not count on Soviets -- that Commies had to negotiate. Meanwhile East Germans started escaping massively to West Germany via Poland, and Czechoslovak had enough too. Whole communist system started collapsing.

5. So the Polish commie found the way: They agreed to yield power to Solidarity on the condition Gen Jaruzelski would be the President, and the commies wouldn't be basically prosecuted. At that time, Soviet Army was still occupying Poland, mind you.

6. Commies lost the elections to free senate totally. Very soon, Poland became a free country.

7. The USSR ceased to exist in 1991, due to small coup d'etat by Boris Yeltsin. Meanwhile, all Soviet troops had been already withdrawn from Poland.

That was the last lesson, Ironside.
If you still learned nothing, see you some day in the quarter of Pruszków called Tworki. Me being the visitor, you the patient.

Life / Who is poor in Poland? [720]

Romania is a poor country because they made actually no reforms for past 15 years, moreover, the Government managed to kill many thousand of private enterprises over last two years due to silly tax policy. None applicable to Poland.

I wonder where you dig your wisdom from, Havok.

News / "Shale Gas Revolution" will make Poland a Leading Country in Europe! [202]

The whole Black Upper Silesia is undermined and nobody makes fuss about that ;-)

Life / Who is poor in Poland? [720]


The Communist system and of course, Soviet Union.

Forgive me Iron, this is NOT PERSONAL this time but I sometimes have an impression I'm talking to a child when I read your comments. Do you have any grasp of what the Communist system was and how it worked?

Let me give you a crash-course:

1. Some guy Lenin read some books by some guys called Marx and Engels and got idea he could save the world.

2. Since people in Russia were fed up with the World War I, Lenin and his pals made a bloody revolution. They had been trying to extend the revolution to the whole world, luckily Marshall Pilsudski stopped them near Warsaw in 1920. Something called "Cud nad Wisłą" or something like that, we seem to have some national holiday because of that in August, probably on the 15th.

3. Lenin and his comrade Stalin (say: S.T.A.L.I.N. not Stalich) succeeded in spreading the hate & anger between Russian workers and soldiers, finally establishing the Communist rule over Russia, making Soviet Union.

4. General idea behind the Communism was: No private property, no owners, everything belongs to the People, and You Will Get What You Need And What You Are Deserving For. Nice, yea?

5. Lenin soon spotted this could not work out and tried to make some capitalism (N.E.P. reform) but he died soon, possibly not without help of Dear Comrade Stalin, the latter becoming dictator, pardon me, Secretary General of The Communist Party of Soviet Union.

6. Stalin did not manage to make the ideals of Communism real, so he introduced:
a. No private property
b. All property is owned by the State
c. Money is symbolic
d. No religion, Communism the only religion, send priest to death labour camps.
e. Kill all landowners including farmers, make state-run agriculture, kill all industrial owners, kill them all, because "give me a man, and I will tell you for what he's guilty" as USSR Prosecutor Andrey Vyshynskiy said.

f. Establish Centrally Planned Economy.

7. Stalin and his people killed many people by creating hunger in Ukraine, by centrally planned economy, because there were too many farmers in Ukraine to just shoot them down

8. Stalin and his people killed many million people physically and by sending them to the death labour camps. Ever heard of Katyń?
9. After the WWII, Stalin introduced Communism to all countries of Warsaw Pact, including Poland. The communist rule lasted from 1945 until 1989. 44 fcuking years....
10. Our brethren Hungarians tried to ask for some freedom in 1956 and got bloody war instead. Our brethren Czechoslovak asked for "Socialism with Human Face" in 1968 and got bloody invasion. We in Poland... don't you know?

11. In 1989, Poland became a free country. Because Soviet Union bankrupted due to Cold War expenses and their weird economy, Poland and movements such as Solidarity convincing Gorbachev in 1980's that it could not go any further or HE would have next bloody revolution.

And you are asking why the Polish Commies did not resign from the "Centrally Planned Economy"?! What the hell do you know about the history?

It was Gen. Jaruzelski who said: 'Sprawy socjalizmu będziemy bronić jak niepodległości!" Don't you know we had regular Soviet Army units all over Poland until 1989? Jarek forgot to tell you, didn't he.


Monia, czy my musimy rozmawiać z tym...

Life / Who is poor in Poland? [720]

Gumishu, it was very simple.
"Centrally planned economy", the essence of communism, meant nobody cared to really produce, because there was no personal interest of people in doing anything. If you just sat at the work, you were getting your worthless 3000 salary. Money was useless. It did not really matter how much money you had. You could not buy teh Maluch if you did not have a coupon from the Party. A flat? Joking?

You cannot plan the weather either, so you could have good crop (but not too good, or it was "klęska urodzaju", overproduction disaster, no jokes!) every year. If the Central Planning Committee had to plan production of everything, from a pin to a steel-works, don't be surprised.

The PGR, the state-run farms inherited another communist feature. Everything belonged to the People, meaning it belonged to no-one. Again, why to work? It was better to drink apple wine, steal whatever you could and take care of yourself.

The private farmers, and those survived as in the only country of the Warsaw pact, they indeed fed the nation. They were not willing to sell their produce to the State, as the prices were very low. So we had a phenomenon of "baba z mięsem", a countrywoman visiting their regular clients in cities, selling meat. Again, money meant nothing. If you had toilet paper, you had the real money in your hands. Etc. etc.

Now, take three years of bad crops in a row, panic in the market, people storing all they could buy, sugar, toilet paper, whatever they could buy, in absurd quantities, then the Centrally Planned Economy fell in such deep sh1t they could never come out of it.

Watch the films of Bareja. Those are NOT comedies. They are reality.

Life / Who is poor in Poland? [720]


Right! And the cyclists stole a great deal of that! ;-))))))))))))))))

Language / How to understand and remember the Polish nominative plural form? [9]

I was joking. Polska mowa, trudna mowa!

Life / Who is poor in Poland? [720]


You apparently are unable to learn anything from the history.
I wonder where the party could hide all that food to only keep the vinegar on store shelves, for so many years...

Have you ever heard about "centrally planned economy"? About PGR?

Life / Who is poor in Poland? [720]


I wonder Iron if your Dad still can remember the coupons for meat, chocolate/cocoa, vodka, cigarettes etc. Because you still claim nothing has changed in Poland since commie times ;-)

Life / Who is poor in Poland? [720]


You may be right.
Estonians have been mining shale oil for many years; i understand shale gas might be different?

Deep drilling such as 3 km is rather a standard? I ask you because I have already simulated such technologies for Polish, Hungarian and Norwegian companies ;-)

Life / Who is poor in Poland? [720]

Well, maybe yes, maybe not. PGNiG has a long-time experience with oil & gas exploration. They might chose a West European or a Canadian investor, for example, and have you thought about STATOIL?

Life / Who is poor in Poland? [720]


Right, and other points of yours are valid, too, now.

I do not however think the wars are major problem. The major problem is making the U.S. (and not only U.S.) the economic hostage of China. The greediness of world corporations is the main culprit. You Grzegorz seem to be an economy expert. Do not you think massive imports from China paid in USD simply mean creating inflation on world's scale and involving the rest of the world in it. Not that all other countries are not guilty.

You know what my dream is? PLN/USD = 4.50. Polish product more competitive in the U.S. market for example, less imports to Poland...

Life / Who is poor in Poland? [720]


"If" is crucial. IF. And IF NOT? What do you mean by the right track? Resigning from offshore production and giving employment back to U.S. Americans maybe?

I know your point, Grzegorz: The debt is to be paid off over certain number of years. However, constant borrowing, more and more, means starting a spiral with no exit.

Life / Who is poor in Poland? [720]

The U.S. Government will never be able to repay its debt if it continues borrowing and the debt is rising constantly to unbelievable levels.

Tell me Grzegorz_ what could the U.S. Govt. do to handle the debt.