Off-Topic / Still alive and well [359]


Bobko is Bobko. I joined the forum late, maybe 2017-2018ish. Only alternate account I ever had was Bobko_V I think, which I used once or twice when I left my sh*t at the office and couldn't remember my password.

Edit: I suppose I may have posted as a guest many years back, but those would have been in straightforward work-related threads

Off-Topic / Still alive and well [359]

I'm confused, why is the OP referring to Cargo Pants as Indian? When talking about his underwear, as he often does, Cargo Pants refers to it as "my Jewish skidmarked underwear". In other instances he uses the phrase "my smelly Jewish ass". So is he Jewish or Indian? Is this a case of multiple personality disorder?

P.S. - Glad Cargo Pants was shown to be a liar, once again, and glad that you are in good health!

History / What are Polish opinions regarding Felix Dzerzhinsky? [17]


God, no. I think they are sneaky little creatures that enjoy too much their power of being able to look into the private lives of fellow citizens or just other people. Getting my jollies up by peering over someone's shoulder is not who I am. I am more on the fireman level, I hope!

I had a simple point, that there is some James Bond element to the job. It attracts a certain type of people. Iron Felix was a very interesting person, and not at all like the now century-old caricature of him. A butcher certainly, but a very pious one.

History / What are Polish opinions regarding Felix Dzerzhinsky? [17]


Yes, that's pretty romantic compared to slaying them for owning valuable cash generating assets you covet, or slaying them because they are of a different skin color or faith. By the measure of the entirety of human history, it was pretty romantic to kill over a discussion of ideas of how to better the average man's life rather than whether a man was a Huguenot, a Hussite, or Tutsi. When thinking of the different classes of society and prominent occupations within, I would rate intelligence workers somewhere above cops, and below firemen, maybe? The drive that makes a person want to be a cop is of a different distillation of romance than I would prefer. And I think the person that wants to work in intelligence is overall less likely to take bribes and be generally corrupt. It's this romanticism I refer to. As the father of an organization that had hundreds of thousands of employees over the decades, the culture he instilled was formative. I'm just reflecting on that.

History / What are Polish opinions regarding Felix Dzerzhinsky? [17]

@pawian
Ok. Now without irony - I do see a certain romanticism in the work of an internal security agent, or counter-intelligence agent. Felix once said "«У чекиста должна быть холодная голова, горячее сердце и чистые руки". For our non-cyrillic readers "A Cheka-worker should have a cold head, hot heart, and clean hands".

History / What are Polish opinions regarding Felix Dzerzhinsky? [17]

@pawian

So... no pride for a compatriot reaching staggering career heights abroad?

History / What are Polish opinions regarding Felix Dzerzhinsky? [17]


I'm sorry!

May I ask, just as in the earlier post from 2018 - why the outrage if Dzerzhinsky and his machine of terror never had a chance to operate in Poland?

History / POLES NOT KEEN ON REPRODUCING? WHY ARE THERE SO MANY GERMANS AND RUSSIANS? [67]

@pawian
God bless you Pawian, for your selfless dedication to fellow man.

History / What are Polish opinions regarding Felix Dzerzhinsky? [17]

Two new statues of Iron Felix have gone up in Russia over the past month, provoking the ire of the church, monarchists, and just good ol' liberal folk. Wonder if there are still people in Poland that would think to put up a statue of him? As mentioned above, he's probably the second most famous/consequential Pole of the 20th century after Pilsudski.

History / POLES NOT KEEN ON REPRODUCING? WHY ARE THERE SO MANY GERMANS AND RUSSIANS? [67]

The reason for this is that rice makes people energetic and horny, while smoked herring makes one sleepy and melancholic.

History / POLES NOT KEEN ON REPRODUCING? WHY ARE THERE SO MANY GERMANS AND RUSSIANS? [67]

Yes, but why? I feel you were so close to the truth, but then right before you got there... you stopped.

Life / Energy - Poland [71]

@gumishu

I could give you a lecture in how the Russians are a generation ahead of Poland in terms of their energy market. In a nutshell, Russia split up and privatized it's state-owned generation and transmission monopoly in the early 2000s. Since then, it has attracted - without exaggeration - 100s of billions of dollars of foreign investment, and has seen the construction of tens of new generation facilities. European companies like Fortum, E.On, Enel, and BASF now entirely own plants built by Soviet prison labor and are investing billions into upgrading them. New power plants are being built as well. I remember how in the late 1990s people were talking about an impending energy collapse in Russia because of aging generation capacity that had to be decommissioned. Now Russia exports energy, and all it took was to swallow national pride and be fair to international investors by holding up your end of the deal.

Life / Energy - Poland [71]


Meanwhile, by having a liberalized energy market, other countries attract billions of dollars in investment with foreigners building gigawatts worth of new generating capacity with no further incentive from the state than a guaranteed energy tariff over a period of say 10-15 years.

Life / Energy - Poland [71]


So long as you are calling things by their name. This is not business, and don't expect others to view it as investable.

Life / Energy - Poland [71]

Ok. That means Polish coal producers are losing $140 on every ton mined in lost profit (this is probably in a context where the cost of extraction is also higher in Poland than it is in the largest exporting countries). In today's global market, these kind of artificial greenhouse conditions can only be sustained by the state. This doesn't come without a cost. That cost is subsidies. Who pays for these subsidies is the Polish retail and industrial consumer of energy.

Life / Energy - Poland [71]

@jon357
I meant incredible in its sheer amount. We're talking about modern Russia, which whatever you think about it has more industry, and its population uses more electrical appliances, than England 110 years ago. Russia is just a much larger country with a very large and coal hungry metallurgical industry, great demand for coal in thermal power generation, and then also a large exporter. It's one of the modern world's largest producers along with China, the US, and Australia. It's why I used it as a close example. Given that more than a 100 years have gone by since, it's incredible that what the UK did in 1913 can still even be compared. Shows how far ahead of the world it was at the time, and also how much was lost through WW1.

Life / Energy - Poland [71]


This doesn't always play out the way you say, as in America, for example, voters in their majority rewarded the politicians that promised to dismantle the coal industry. Despite the heartbreak and dislocation it entails, the people in their collective wisdom saw that the pain of a minority cannot threaten the wellbeing of the majority.

edit: reading Coal Mining in the United Kingdom wiki page now, and learning that UK coal production peaked in 1913 at 287 million tonnes. I find this absolutely incredible considering modern Russia mines something on the order of 400mm tonnes. Crazy props to the Brits!

Life / Energy - Poland [71]


I don't think we are, because questions of labor - as our discussion shows - are intrinsic to questions of energy and energy transitions. What happened to the UK, will inevitably have to happen to Poland. Therefore, we're on subject!

I appreciate the sentiment, but feel you are not giving yourself an honest account of the costs. It's not simply a few points of an increase on your tax bill, which you may be willing to suffer, but real lost opportunities. I actually googled a $ amount right now, it's for the period 2013-2018, and it's $8B that Poland had spent on direct subsidies and grants to the coal industry (including electrical price subsidies, because Poland pays outsize through EU carbon trading scheme). This number does not include the pensions which will have to funded unto the coal miner's death. Can you imagine what this amount of subsides could do in other parts of the country's budget like healthcare and education? Those same coal miners, instead of spending checks for increased consumption of consumer goods, will be receiving better healthcare and more opportunities to retrain. Thousands or tens of thousands of Poles could be sent to the best universities abroad with full scholarships from the Polish state, as many other countries in the world do. The infrastructure that is necessary for the future energy transition could start being built. Instead, Poland supports an enormous dying industry and makes commitments to pay for its workers decades ahead. The young deserve investment just as the old, if not more. I don't like to talk in platitudes like this, but you started.

I also want to make sure you understand I am not arguing against coal-powered generation, but only against mining and the miners. The coal is of higher quality and cheaper when imported from Russia, and supposedly on par when considering Australia or SA. Just as British miners spread out across the world after the death of mining in Britain, so will Polish engineers spread out across myriad sites around the world to share the experience gained over centuries of mining in Poland. Polish universities will continue to have great geology depts and produce great geologists and engineers.

Life / Energy - Poland [71]


Regardless of how efficient British coal mining was, or how good the quality of the coking and thermal coal produced, the burden of funding those pension schemes combined with the early retirement age was unparalleled when compared to other similar operations in other parts of the world. In other words, you are making my argument for me, because why would something be in need of constant support if it provides a higher quality product at a lower cost? Some crucial piece of the puzzle seems to be missing here.

I too am wary of an off-topic warning, so let me reiterate that Poland owes it coal miners only as much as it owes the members of any other industry which has become uneconomical to support - training and support in requalifying themselves for work in other sectors of the economy. I understand that for those over 45 this may be a tall order, and will mean that they will fall to the wayside of society. So be it. The money spent on supporting them in good status, is money that could go to a young engineer, or teacher in increased wages, and I hope there is no debate as to who is able to contribute more value to society - a retired coal miner, or a young teacher.

Life / Energy - Poland [71]

My point was that the miners' demands had made the entities they worked for fundamentally uneconomical. For what it's worth, most of the mines had closed on Atlee's, Macmillan's, and Wilson's watch - while Thatcher simply put that last nail in the coffin. It's not a Tory/Labor thing, but simply coal miner unions getting out of control, but perhaps I am revealing my prejudice here.

People around the world seem to romanticize coal workers, whether it's the UK in the 1970s, Ukraine and Poland now, or Appalachia in the United States. Why is it that this group of people deserves all the grants and subsidies over a metallurgist, merchant sailor, or oil rig operator whose lives are just as fraught with danger and disease, and whose contribution to our collective well being is not less?

Life / Energy - Poland [71]


...and you do not make the connection between this and the actions of the Grantham Vampire?

Life / Energy - Poland [71]


Well, it's hard to mine underwater (that is not to say this is not done).

Life / Energy - Poland [71]


It's a good thing if they can be replenished. Sometimes and in some places, the recovery rates can far exceed recharge rates. Another issue entirely, is making an entire aquifer unusable through its contamination. Negligent disposal of wastewater from coal mining operations can lead to this water penetrating into the water table. This water is highly acidic, and often contains heavy metals such as arsenic and lead. If this happens, it won't matter if it's recharging, since it will not be usable for any human activity.

Life / Energy - Poland [71]


You are correct. Those working on the face will have nothing to do at a hydro plant except perhaps pour the concrete during construction. A modern hydro plant operates practically without people, with the great majority of the people involved being high level professionals working at remote control sites.

Life / Energy - Poland [71]


There is groundwater everywhere, not just inside mines, and that reserve is a finite quantity that needs to be managed wisely. Once water is used, it needs to dumped or treated. This part of the process can "spoil" more water than was used in the direct extraction and processing stage through negligent disposal that contaminates waterways and subsoil aquifers.

Life / Energy - Poland [71]


You couldn't be more wrong - coal mining involves the use of colossal amounts of water. Here's a link:
sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S136481521000201X

TLDR: About a ton of water is needed to mine a ton of coal. In a typical operation, 250 liters of this would be freshwater, while the rest is recirculated. During the actual mining process water is needed to cool the cutting surfaces of mining equipment, and for preventing coal dust fires. During the processing stage water is again needed to manage coal dust as its crushed and ground. Often, the coal is then transported as a water-coal slurry by pipeline for final processing. Further amounts of water are needed for the general cooling and maintenance of equipment, as well as for providing the needs of the miners themselves.

Real Estate / Getting a mortgage loan with girlfriend [18]


I'm sure talking about how she may f*ck you in the future has really strengthened your relationship against future hardships. You sound like a swell fellow.

Language / Cultural disparities shown through Polish and English languages [189]


What is the point of your comments?

Off-Topic / Using Super Glue on a open wound/cut on the head [49]

@Cargo pants
What the actual f*ck? Tell this retard that sealing a wound that deep with store bought super glue will 100% lead to an infection. Any pocket of space that is left under the glue after this wonderful procedure will fill with fluid and get infected, if it is not already. Step one is to clean the wound thoroughly, then seal it. Super glue is not even close to being appropriate for a wound of that depth and width, in addition to being toxic and not sterile.

Life / Where do the wealthy class live in Warsaw? [32]


You get rich in Poland by excelling in education/sport/commerce, hard work, financial prudence, and favorable external conditions (i.e. luck) just like anywhere else in the world. These kind of questions really p!ss me off to no end. Just like Johnny Reb's troll question about what defines wealth for PF posters. It pissed me off so much I wanted to show him, using statistics, that there is a whole small-city's-worth of individuals in Poland that are far richer than his redneck standard of jet skis surrounded by "hardbodies".

People that think that successful Eastern Europeans, and poles specifically, all made their wealth through sex trafficking, money laundering, online fraud etc can all go and collectively f#ck themselves. Been dealing with this attitude from the western world's collective dregs (losers who don't get a "hello's"- worth of recognition at home in the west), who decided to descend on the East as some Wild West frontier beginning from the 1990s, and I find this tone worst than racist.