Smolensk: I don't know what to think.
Compare: Polish "Deputy chairman of the Polish commission investigating the Smolensk catastrophe, Colonel Miroslaw Grochowski ... At some point, the Polish crew was left to fend for itself, which is criminal,” said Colonel Grochowski, referring to when [Russian] commander at the airport, Colonel Nikolai Krasnokutski says in the recording: “They are taking the decision [to land] on their own. Leave it to them."
With Russian regulations as outlined in the Russian report: "pilots-in-command of foreign aircraft operating in Russia, shall make a decision on the possibility of ... landing at destination aerodrome on their own, assuming full responsibility for the decision taken". There are other references stating that the Russian flight controllers were legally not permitted to interfere with the decision to land that day, but I can't be bothered going through the report again: the message is the same.
Please see Politics, Economy and Society for a link to the report. I am very grateful to the blog for raising Smolensk back from tedious monotony to something worth looking at further. (He may hate me for saying it this way, but I hope he will understand.)
The strange thing is that I have looked at a similar report many years ago. I can remember virtually nothing about it, apart from my interest in the concept of 'pilot error' when this was a strong emotional matter of contention about the pilot being 'guilty'. However,...
Bugger it, Kiepskich is on television. Bye.
[Comment the next day. I was not going to write anything on the Smolensk crash, but you know how it is: just a couple of glasses of Champers (or whatever) and your mood changes. I was going to abandon it, but decided just to go ahead. I didn't even proof check it then, which I have done this morning.]
Wednesday, 19 January 2011
New 'Recommended Sites' Additions
I aim in my recommended blog list to produce a widespread list of sites about Poland written in English. Every so often I come across new sites and add them to the list without mentioning them in the text here. Today, I looked at TEFL Secret Agent's "Blog's I Follow", which has a lot of fascinating sites that are not about Poland, but having got part way down I wandered off and collected many more I can recommend. I am going to reorganise the list at some time, If I can, to give separate themes.
Since I am about to write on spring really having arrived (maybe), an example of a photo blog I have added is City Toruń Daily Photo, which displays winter pictures at the moment. I did find some marvellous Polish language picture blogs, but which, with some reluctance I admit, I do not include. An example, includes photos of the International Ice Sculpture Festival in Poznan.
I also found a number of sites written by Americans who consider themselves Polish, which I thought might be an interesting addition. They were mostly too US oriented for my tastes, but Bieganski the Blog did have references back to the Motherland, so I was hesitating. There is, however, a post on "Yes, There Will Be a Quiz: Polish Quiz' that seemed promising, but then I looked through it. Danusha Goska thinks that the Polish view of the Tatras Mountains in the South of Poland is roughly equivalent to the US view of the Alps, which are not only not in the same country, but are on a completely different continent. Give the quiz a try, anyway. It's pretty good for a foreigner. See also her impression of visiting Poland in 1989. It is both harshly judgemental and completely sentimental at the same time.
Since I am about to write on spring really having arrived (maybe), an example of a photo blog I have added is City Toruń Daily Photo, which displays winter pictures at the moment. I did find some marvellous Polish language picture blogs, but which, with some reluctance I admit, I do not include. An example, includes photos of the International Ice Sculpture Festival in Poznan.
I also found a number of sites written by Americans who consider themselves Polish, which I thought might be an interesting addition. They were mostly too US oriented for my tastes, but Bieganski the Blog did have references back to the Motherland, so I was hesitating. There is, however, a post on "Yes, There Will Be a Quiz: Polish Quiz' that seemed promising, but then I looked through it. Danusha Goska thinks that the Polish view of the Tatras Mountains in the South of Poland is roughly equivalent to the US view of the Alps, which are not only not in the same country, but are on a completely different continent. Give the quiz a try, anyway. It's pretty good for a foreigner. See also her impression of visiting Poland in 1989. It is both harshly judgemental and completely sentimental at the same time.
Tuesday, 18 January 2011
Spring Sale: Ray Shoes
I wrote about Winter Boots, but didn't know the name of the shop. Visiting Tesco on Sunday, I wanted to check: it turns out to be 'Ray'.
Having taken the picture, I noticed the sign saying everything was half price. I looked in and, sure enough, the new prices were in the process of being added to the boxes. If I had waited ..., but no, I wanted the boots when I bought them. Still, I bought a pair of black (leather top and inside) trainers, which I wanted as something that looked reasonably formal, whilst sill being suitable for casual wear. Price 44.50zl. The sale is on until 31 January.
I am not sure how big the Ray chain is: they are very weak in establishing an internet identity. They also seem to trade under the name Commex, linked to the name K Jasionowicz. I suspect they are based in Olsztyn, the same as Panda, whose shoes they sell.
The shop I visited is in the Tesco shopping centre in Piastów - part of my routine weekly shopping. I said it is in Pruszków last time, but it is just across the border. Although it is a tiny shopping centre, it also has the big name, Deichman and CCC shoe shops.
Apart from visits to Tesco, Piastów is just a place I pass through. It has an historically interesting name, but this was chosen by local people in 1926. Wikipedia tells me that it is the second most densely populated town in Poland. I do admire the extent to which Polish people have put information on English Wiki, but the language often betrays its origin: "In the Middle Age villages of Żdżary and Utrata lied in the place of todays Piastów".
Having taken the picture, I noticed the sign saying everything was half price. I looked in and, sure enough, the new prices were in the process of being added to the boxes. If I had waited ..., but no, I wanted the boots when I bought them. Still, I bought a pair of black (leather top and inside) trainers, which I wanted as something that looked reasonably formal, whilst sill being suitable for casual wear. Price 44.50zl. The sale is on until 31 January.
I am not sure how big the Ray chain is: they are very weak in establishing an internet identity. They also seem to trade under the name Commex, linked to the name K Jasionowicz. I suspect they are based in Olsztyn, the same as Panda, whose shoes they sell.
The shop I visited is in the Tesco shopping centre in Piastów - part of my routine weekly shopping. I said it is in Pruszków last time, but it is just across the border. Although it is a tiny shopping centre, it also has the big name, Deichman and CCC shoe shops.
Apart from visits to Tesco, Piastów is just a place I pass through. It has an historically interesting name, but this was chosen by local people in 1926. Wikipedia tells me that it is the second most densely populated town in Poland. I do admire the extent to which Polish people have put information on English Wiki, but the language often betrays its origin: "In the Middle Age villages of Żdżary and Utrata lied in the place of todays Piastów".
Friday, 14 January 2011
Kompas: Crown Prince of Polish-English Translators
Kompas's Tłumacz i Słownik Języka Angielskiego 7 (link in Polish) is unquestionably the best English Polish translator on the market for anyone like me that wants to produce good English translations from Polish text. I would describe it as uncrowned King, but there are still enough things to be done, for this metaphorical truth to seem a bit too extreme a compliment.
I looked at the Techland rival back in July 1999. Looking back at my comments, I am amused by my attempt to be fair and balanced. Now that I am more used to commenting on the internet, I can more honestly say that Techland's translator is complete and utter rubbish. Do not buy it. If you are given it as a present, ask for the receipt, go back to the shop and buy Kompas instead. If Techland is the full price version, rather than the cut down version, you can add a good Polish-English dictionary as well. You'll probably get change in both cases.
My ire yesterday, however, was directed at the Oxford University Press/pwn.pl/PolEng Translatica 7+. I saw this in Empik and it was only slightly more expensive than Kompas, so, since I haven't tried it since the first version came out, I thought I'd buy it. It immediately seemed that this was also a cut down version and absolutely useless for serious translation. With Kompas, I am used to putting in large amounts of text: over 100 pages at times. These cut down versions accept a paper page or two. Internet pages are often longer than this. Fortunatley, however, trying Translatica again today, it is working better and accepts a full amount of text - 26 pages.
Translatica's functionality is still substantially inferior to Kompas. The 2008 accolades of winner in Chip magazine's test of text translation applications and Computer World's highest position amongst English language translation programmes (recorded in Polish on Kompas's box), still hold true.
What I don't understand, is why a superior product such as Kompas is cheapest. I also bought the latest version - Tłumacz i Słownik Języka Angielskiego 7 - to update my version 4. This is on sale in Empik for 89zl (99zl on Kompas's website). Translantica cost 99zl. Techland's wasn't on display, but the cut down version used to be 99zl, whilst the better version I bought back in 1999 cost 140zl (discounted from 180zl, as I recall).
It was worthwhile my updating to Kompas's version 7, however. There are a number of changes, but the most important to me so far has been expansion of the already large dictionary and, although it may seem small to many, the inclusion of a direct link to Wikipedia. For instance, I have been looking at some text on the Lusatian Culture - more to come in the future - and I can immediately go from the translator to find references in Wikipedia such as the Lusatian culture itself and the Trzciniec Culture. Although it doesn't normally work as a one-click find, it does work in both Polish and English Wikis. (Setup and working interface are in English - far superior to Translatica, although most other things are in Polish: it would be good if the context descriptions in the dictionary were translated into English, but I guess that would be major work for something that would have little demand.)
I will still give Translatica a proper test. If I come to any substantially different conclusion, I will comment in a future post. To immediately give some credit to it, however, it does have a large number of useful phrases in it's dictionary that are not in Kompas. However, I might have been better off getting a proper dictionary. It can also translate Gmail, with which Kompas has always had problems and which, because it is on a closed site, Google Translate cannot access. (Techland's dictionary was abysmal.)
I haven't given links to Translatica and Techland on purpose, given my faith in Kompas.
Thursday, 13 January 2011
A Touch of Frosty Nostalgia for Old England
Thanks to my cousin Pauline for sending me a You Tube clip from the British TV series, The One Ronnie.
It induced a brief moment of nostalgia when I watched it, although the point of the sketch - making fun of computer terminology - started to pall about half way through. However, the nostalgia was more induced by the sketch's homage to another TV series, Open All Hours.
Although the basic format of Open All Hours - an old fashioned, small shop, with its owner and assistant - was not funny in itself, the script and its two main actors made it worth watching, at least until its originality palled. (I don't think I have much of a sense of humour compared to other people, to be honest.) The main actors, Ronnie Barker and David Jason can be listed amongst the versatile, greatest and most popular of British comedy actors. The first clip above reminded me how good British television could be on occasions. Indeed, David Jason, in addition to comedy acting, turned serious in an excellent TV detective series called A Touch of Frost, which used to be shown in Poland on Universal Channel (available with the N satellite network - I don't know about other networks).
Not that I have any nostalgia for British television generally. I used to think that two hours worthwhile viewing (of general entertainment channels) in a week was a good week: three hours was really exceptional. I even managed to live without a TV at all a few times (which made social conversation a tricky thing to manage - about half of daily conversations seems to start: "Did you watch X last night?"). (Interesting ending punctuation for that sentence.)
I can't even have any rose tinted view based on inability to watch British TV. I have routinely had BBC World in Poland, which I would happily nominate as the world's worst news/current affairs programmes: it even made computerised Euronews seem a quality channel. I finally stopped watching BBC World in the middle of a continuous and completely politicised propaganda attack during an election in Zimbabwe. The saturation coverage of this minimal world event just made the channel's complete lack of objectivity too much to bear. In any case, now having the N network, there is a wonderful assortment of English language news channels from around the world.
BBC HD has also recently been added to N's channels - standard BBC rubbish on the whole. As opposed to engendering TV comedy nostalgia, it has some of the most gob-smackingly awful comedy possible. Polsat's Kiepskich (lots of clips here) just knocks it all out of the window. If you remember the recent series of three Mummy films, where, in the first film, the revived Mummy had to absorb his body parts from living humans to regain his full power, the following adds an essential deleted scene. There are also connections to other Kiepskich clips.
It induced a brief moment of nostalgia when I watched it, although the point of the sketch - making fun of computer terminology - started to pall about half way through. However, the nostalgia was more induced by the sketch's homage to another TV series, Open All Hours.
Although the basic format of Open All Hours - an old fashioned, small shop, with its owner and assistant - was not funny in itself, the script and its two main actors made it worth watching, at least until its originality palled. (I don't think I have much of a sense of humour compared to other people, to be honest.) The main actors, Ronnie Barker and David Jason can be listed amongst the versatile, greatest and most popular of British comedy actors. The first clip above reminded me how good British television could be on occasions. Indeed, David Jason, in addition to comedy acting, turned serious in an excellent TV detective series called A Touch of Frost, which used to be shown in Poland on Universal Channel (available with the N satellite network - I don't know about other networks).
Not that I have any nostalgia for British television generally. I used to think that two hours worthwhile viewing (of general entertainment channels) in a week was a good week: three hours was really exceptional. I even managed to live without a TV at all a few times (which made social conversation a tricky thing to manage - about half of daily conversations seems to start: "Did you watch X last night?"). (Interesting ending punctuation for that sentence.)
I can't even have any rose tinted view based on inability to watch British TV. I have routinely had BBC World in Poland, which I would happily nominate as the world's worst news/current affairs programmes: it even made computerised Euronews seem a quality channel. I finally stopped watching BBC World in the middle of a continuous and completely politicised propaganda attack during an election in Zimbabwe. The saturation coverage of this minimal world event just made the channel's complete lack of objectivity too much to bear. In any case, now having the N network, there is a wonderful assortment of English language news channels from around the world.
BBC HD has also recently been added to N's channels - standard BBC rubbish on the whole. As opposed to engendering TV comedy nostalgia, it has some of the most gob-smackingly awful comedy possible. Polsat's Kiepskich (lots of clips here) just knocks it all out of the window. If you remember the recent series of three Mummy films, where, in the first film, the revived Mummy had to absorb his body parts from living humans to regain his full power, the following adds an essential deleted scene. There are also connections to other Kiepskich clips.
Wednesday, 12 January 2011
Winter Boots
Back in London, I never even thought about winter boots. My conventional office-style shoes were quite adequate in almost every circumstance, with the occasional winter day of snow and ice being a mild inconvenience for their smooth soles.
Coming to Warsaw, most of the pavements were cleared and I could still manage, although I did gravitate to slightly more robust shoes with grip soles. However, I did have an early warning in a winter after-conference walk in Arłamów - a hotel/conference/skiing/holiday centre, famous for Lech Wałęsa's stay in communist times - nice prison. I didn't mind walking through the snow in my shoes - although some way up my shin, the snow didn't collapse across my feet much, so I didn't get particularly wet. However, the idea of getting some boots for the winter became implanted.
It came to a head when I was living in Kielce in a continuous 5 month snow and ice winter. I needed boots that could deal with this. Back in Warsaw for a weekend, I found just what I needed. A decent pair of solid boots for about 60zl. They were completely synthetic, so no worries about leather suffering from water and salt damage. I was warned about synthetic shoes not allowing my feet to breathe, but at a time when I was more wondering at what time my fingers fall off from frostbite after they'd lost all feeling, the idea of sweaty feet seemed quite attractive. Since they were cheap, they wouldn't last, I accepted, but just a couple of years would be value for money.
Last spring, some six years later, they started to let water in - I was also regularly using them throughout the rest of the year for walking in wet weather and digging the garden. They had been great, but I had to get another pair. In the interim, a pair of Wellington boots from Real (40zl, I think) did through the year and into the snow. I was looking for a pair of boots, but they all seemed expensive and/or not what I wanted for dirty, wet rough use - why the suede effect all the time? One day going into one (of three) of the shoe shops at Tesco in Pruszków - just by the checkouts, I found pretty much what I wanted.
The old boots are in the middle. The black ones on the left are the replacements. Also completely synthetic, they have velcro tightening bands, which are something I would not normally have taken, but, given experience with untying laces with cold fingers, I thought they would be ideal for easy removal ... and so they proved to be. They also have a furry type interior, which I hoped would be better than wearing two pairs of socks in the old boots. Although it hasn't generally felt as cold as last year yet, this does seem to work. Indeed, when I want to go outside quickly in the morning, I can just swiftly put my bare feet in and in a few seconds get outside, which I couldn't do with the lace ups. Price just 89zl - twenty pounds, UK or so.
Just beside them in the shop, was a pair of brown boots. These are less bulky looking than the black ones, with zips rather than velcro, and I thought they would be better going out if I wanted to look a bit more respectable. After some hesitation at buying two pairs, there they are on the right of the picture. 89 zl again.
The brand is K&M, distributed by Panda, Olszytn. K&M derives from the names of the company owners: Przemysław Kaczyński and Izabela Markiewicz. )The Kaczyńskies get everywhere.) I haven't found a website for them - two non-existent websites in one post. I don't know where the boots are made, but the boxes have the dates of production on them - July and August 2010, which makes me suspect they may be local ie from Poland.
Of course, cheap boots can't be expected to last very long ...
I want to wax lyrical about the marvellous Polish shoes shops that pile the boxes on the floor, so that you can see if they have your size, try them on and choose between various possibilities in one tenth of the time it takes messing around, waiting for and then being served from the storeroom by a shop assistant. However, this is enough for now.
Coming to Warsaw, most of the pavements were cleared and I could still manage, although I did gravitate to slightly more robust shoes with grip soles. However, I did have an early warning in a winter after-conference walk in Arłamów - a hotel/conference/skiing/holiday centre, famous for Lech Wałęsa's stay in communist times - nice prison. I didn't mind walking through the snow in my shoes - although some way up my shin, the snow didn't collapse across my feet much, so I didn't get particularly wet. However, the idea of getting some boots for the winter became implanted.
It came to a head when I was living in Kielce in a continuous 5 month snow and ice winter. I needed boots that could deal with this. Back in Warsaw for a weekend, I found just what I needed. A decent pair of solid boots for about 60zl. They were completely synthetic, so no worries about leather suffering from water and salt damage. I was warned about synthetic shoes not allowing my feet to breathe, but at a time when I was more wondering at what time my fingers fall off from frostbite after they'd lost all feeling, the idea of sweaty feet seemed quite attractive. Since they were cheap, they wouldn't last, I accepted, but just a couple of years would be value for money.
Last spring, some six years later, they started to let water in - I was also regularly using them throughout the rest of the year for walking in wet weather and digging the garden. They had been great, but I had to get another pair. In the interim, a pair of Wellington boots from Real (40zl, I think) did through the year and into the snow. I was looking for a pair of boots, but they all seemed expensive and/or not what I wanted for dirty, wet rough use - why the suede effect all the time? One day going into one (of three) of the shoe shops at Tesco in Pruszków - just by the checkouts, I found pretty much what I wanted.
The old boots are in the middle. The black ones on the left are the replacements. Also completely synthetic, they have velcro tightening bands, which are something I would not normally have taken, but, given experience with untying laces with cold fingers, I thought they would be ideal for easy removal ... and so they proved to be. They also have a furry type interior, which I hoped would be better than wearing two pairs of socks in the old boots. Although it hasn't generally felt as cold as last year yet, this does seem to work. Indeed, when I want to go outside quickly in the morning, I can just swiftly put my bare feet in and in a few seconds get outside, which I couldn't do with the lace ups. Price just 89zl - twenty pounds, UK or so.
Just beside them in the shop, was a pair of brown boots. These are less bulky looking than the black ones, with zips rather than velcro, and I thought they would be better going out if I wanted to look a bit more respectable. After some hesitation at buying two pairs, there they are on the right of the picture. 89 zl again.
The brand is K&M, distributed by Panda, Olszytn. K&M derives from the names of the company owners: Przemysław Kaczyński and Izabela Markiewicz. )The Kaczyńskies get everywhere.) I haven't found a website for them - two non-existent websites in one post. I don't know where the boots are made, but the boxes have the dates of production on them - July and August 2010, which makes me suspect they may be local ie from Poland.
Of course, cheap boots can't be expected to last very long ...
I want to wax lyrical about the marvellous Polish shoes shops that pile the boxes on the floor, so that you can see if they have your size, try them on and choose between various possibilities in one tenth of the time it takes messing around, waiting for and then being served from the storeroom by a shop assistant. However, this is enough for now.
Tuesday, 11 January 2011
Spyware warning
Having finished the last post, I turned off Mozilla Firefox and then decided to turn it back on again. It stopped working and I had to restart the computer. Thinking this was just an odd blip, I repeated the process a couple of times without success and, one time, I got a report that SUPERAntiSpyware had stopped working.
Putting these two together, I noticed a new, world shaped icon in the bottom right hand corner of my lower Microsoft XP bar (near the time) - I don't know what the right name for this bar is. I restarted the computer and then scanned the computer with SuperAntiSpyware Free Edition. It found a Spyware called something like UniversalKnowledge, deleted it and, on restart, Firefox seems to be working fine.
I think I picked it up when going through websites for the last post - Yahoo UK search engine finds, so if something similar happens to your browser, this may be the problem. I have tried all the links in the post itself and the problem has not reoccurred. However, if you feel so full of wonder at all the fascinating information I gave and start searching the internet as a result, you may pick it up.
Putting these two together, I noticed a new, world shaped icon in the bottom right hand corner of my lower Microsoft XP bar (near the time) - I don't know what the right name for this bar is. I restarted the computer and then scanned the computer with SuperAntiSpyware Free Edition. It found a Spyware called something like UniversalKnowledge, deleted it and, on restart, Firefox seems to be working fine.
I think I picked it up when going through websites for the last post - Yahoo UK search engine finds, so if something similar happens to your browser, this may be the problem. I have tried all the links in the post itself and the problem has not reoccurred. However, if you feel so full of wonder at all the fascinating information I gave and start searching the internet as a result, you may pick it up.
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