Hello from Warsaw (Poland)
Hi Everybody!
My name is Kuba, I am PhD physics student from Poland. It is not easy to live in such a religious blackhole of Europe, it is said (and sad) that there is about 90% of catholics in the country.
Funny thing, that Poland borders with Tschech Republic - in contrary it is the most atheistic country of the world (70% atheists or agnostics, as far as I know).
Last week the Institute of Physics, in which I work, celebrated 50th anniversory. And guess what: The celebration begun with a holy mess...
We were joking, that they prayed to the Holy Marry of Semiconductors.
Greetings to all
PS I am very sorry for possible language mistakes, english is my second language, I hope it is not a big problem for you
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Nice to meet you.
I like it -- The Holy Mary of Semiconductors.
Post often, if we don't understand each other, we can work it out. You are doing well so far.
CJ, in Portland, Oregon, USA.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
I work-ka did with meny meny Polish peoples at big factory in Toronto, meny jyears. I luv-ed and ryeespikted dyem all. I never meet a stupid Pole-ic and I have never meet a Lazdyee Pole-ic; but they no stay long, they ofden leev-id for butter pay-ying job by-cause others peoples offer dyay more moneys; by-cause they know-did when dyay hire a Polich person dyay hire byest of all.
Welcome!!!
I have worked with meny Poles over the years in a Toronto area factory. I loved and respected every one of them. I never met a stupid Pole and I never met a Lazy Pole. Most left my factory for better paying jobs because other employers knew what I knew; when you hire a Pole you hire the best.
"Very funny Scotty; now beam down our clothes."
VEGETARIAN: Ancient Hindu word for "lousy hunter"
If man was formed from dirt, why is there still dirt?
Greetings and salutations!
I'm local Czech resident (not Tschech) and I live near border of Poland. I know Polish language well, mostly passively after all these years. You know I still remember reading from these 1st class reading-books, Krajobraz s uśmiechem?
(Landscape with smile)
For me, Poland has several highlights. The first is Polish market. Poland has useful wares and delicious foods to buy, I mean, before they make a bigos and cold fruit soup of them.
The second is the craziness of religious laws that I hear about from time to time. They almost beat the large-scale asset-stripping of Czech public projects.
The third is the great Polish patriotism. Really, I'm impressed how patriotic Poland is, and I wonder why and how. In a city that is half on Polish side, half on Czech, you will see Czech + Polish signs on Czech side, but only Polish on Polish side. I wonder which side paid for the double signs.
Fourthly, there were reputedly Polish raiding parties, ravaging Czech border mountains and forests for snails and blueberries, but these are some old news.
Fifthly, it seems to me there is a great affinity between Poland and USA. Perhaps because of the religiosity.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
Yeah - fun first post - nice to have you onboard.
Sorry for mispelling the name of your country, it's Czechy in polish, as you probably know.
It's nice that you like the polish food, i am a big fan of it too, I must confess on the other hand that I don't know much about czech food, I was in Czech Republic as a child and I only remember "knedliczki" which weren't so good...
Poles are great patriots indeed and I think the reason is that there was formally no polish country for about 200 years - the nation had to be deeply patriotic in order to keep it's identity.
In my opinion the affinity with USA comes mainly not from the religon, but for tendency to have a extermely powerful ally - after the IIWW trauma and years of communism.
Well Hello there.
What kind of physics are you studying?
Also, the ties with the US actually go back to before there was a US. Remember general Tadeusz Kościuszko.
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Welcome. Great to have another techie scientist.
Your English is better than many people I know in the South East US.
For example, typical Southern saying hello to you - Heidi, hire yew.
In your case the typical southern would say to y'all, I cuddint unnerstand a wurd y'all sed. Y'all must be from some farn country.
I live in Orlando, Florida US, home of Disney World.
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"I guess it's time to ask if you live under high voltage power transmission lines which have been shown to cause stimulation of the fantasy centers of the brain due to electromagnetic waves?" - Me
"God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks please. Cash and in small bills." - Robert A Heinlein.
Hi!
I deal with semiconductor lasers produced in the nitride technology. Few years ago the institute grew one of the first blue diode lasers in europe (a pitty that i didn't take part in it!), and now it's trying to push the technology into the green region (so called green-gap). The competition is high, for example the groups from german Fraunhofer institut or Osram OS are realy good at it.
I work in the optical laboratory, extracting the information about the structures from spectra.
And you? How are you related to science?
It's nice to hear that Polish scientists are comeing back on top, from Capurnicus to 1939 Polish scientists lead the way. Add in Marie' Curie' and meny others. But those Polish mathamaticians/code breakers of the 1930's, the ones who broke the Nazi's enigma code are also the ones who gave us our modern world, When Germany invaded Poland in 1939 the enigma machine and the Polish mathmatical solutions where smuggled out to Britian by Polish intelligence. Alan Turing among others, turned them into high speed computer software. British scientists get credit for inventing software, but it was Polish genius that they did it from.
"Very funny Scotty; now beam down our clothes."
VEGETARIAN: Ancient Hindu word for "lousy hunter"
If man was formed from dirt, why is there still dirt?
I was a design engineer and a R & D engineering manager for over 20 years for a mainframe computer peripheral co, part of Sun and now part of Oracle. Now I am a manufacturers representative for custom magnetics and LED speciality products. Still get to do limited design, but I get lots of travel and free time. I live in Florida but travel about 90% of the time. Right now I'm in the Southwest US.
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"I guess it's time to ask if you live under high voltage power transmission lines which have been shown to cause stimulation of the fantasy centers of the brain due to electromagnetic waves?" - Me
"God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks please. Cash and in small bills." - Robert A Heinlein.
Hey man,
I'm new too. Must be weird living in a palce where you are so outnumbered. I've been pretty overly exposed to religion also, but nothing like that!
Also your English is fine and will probably improve if you hang around enough.
Regards
Me personally? Let me give you the better of the two answers first.
I have only ever had an A grade in every science class that I have ever taken. I don't know if the grade system translates for you but that it the top grade over here. I have since maintained my contact with such topics over the years.
The optical stuff is material that I have not spent much time with. However, I used to know a guy on the internet who was doing a good bit of that work. He does something where he can stop a laser pulse in a test cell and release it at a later time.
Anyway, I have enough background where I can spot bull shit when it comes my way.
Now let me give you the lesser answer.
I am a psychiatric social worker and I have been published in the soft sciences a few times. The last one was something along the lines of “on the disclosure of a psychiatric history when seeking higher education”. I know that that is not the exact title but it should give you the general idea.
Academic rigor is not up to par in this field.
Right now, I am in a bit of a battle with a couple of my colleagues over the phrase “Recent studies have shown that a healthy lifestyle leads to improved health”. OK, let me take that apart.
The second part “A healthy lifestyle leads to improved health” may be taken as apriori. It is so true that nobody needs to do studies on the matter. Further, there is no need to cite studies on the matter.
The first part “Recent studies show that...” is so open to criticism that it is a soft target. Well, the statement does not even cite any studies. It only asserts that studies exist that say something that might relate to the second part, which, as I say is not something worth spending money on to determine.
As it happens, that is the first line of a document that claims to be a rational basis for further work. If they pull that crap, then it opens up everything that follows to be taken apart with a fine tooth comb.
If they want to say something like that, then I am pushing for it to be rendered more like this:
A recent study by [internationally recognized body] [title of work] found that [first sentence of the abstract]. Further, [internationally recognized body] [title of work] concurs, stating: [first sentence of the abstract].
That is the specific hell that I have to work in.
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