Slavic Saturday

Czechs and Polish languages are reasonably similar. Not mutually intelligible, but similar enough that we can somewhat understand each other when spoken very, very slowly (which can be hard, especially for Poles). Our histories are also reasonably similar – both our nations wandered in from east and south, displaced local Germanic and Celtic nations, both established their foot on the ground by fighting and subjugating smaller slavic tribes and selling them to slavery to richer tribes to the south and west. Both eventually became big kingdoms of significant clout and with great ambitions.

But whilst the Lands of the Bohemian Crown were torn from within with Hussite wars and subsequently came as a whole under Habsburg rule, the Poland-Lithuanian commonwealth was not only torn from within by squabbles between its different religious and national groups (like Orthodox Cossacks vs. Catholic Poles), but the part of commonwealth inhabited by Poles was itself totally plundered by Swedes and in few centuries torn from outside and divided between Austria, Prussia and Russia. This difference in historical development has, to my mind, played a significant role in one of the most significant cultural differences between our nations today.

I was blissfully unaware of this difference until my twenties when I decided that a literate and educated person should have at least passing knowledge of the writings of Henryk Sienkiewicz. I have already read one of his books as a child – In Desert and Wilderness – but that is more or less just an adventure book, nothing special (with extra helpings of racism, which flew over my head at that time). I have decided to start with Quo Vadis, because that is his most prominent book internationally and has brought him in the end the Nobel Prize in Literature.

And thus my attempt at reading his works started … and immediately ended. After I have read Quo Vadis I was left with a huge “What The Actual Fuck Did I Just Read?!?” feeling and I could not bring myself to pick up that book or any other of Sienkiewicz’s works ever again. I was appalled, I was totally disgusted and repelled. The writing is excellent, I have no reason to not believe that it is historically well researched, the story is captivating but…

The whole book reeked to me of christian, specifically catholic, propaganda. And this is the difference that I was talking about.

The Czech nation has undergone internal religious divide around Jan Hus, a significant portion of it has challenged the authority of the Holy Roman Church, was beaten into submission and had Catholicism forced it. But it retained some religious diversity and freedom throughout – and ever since then there always were Catholic Czechs as well as Protestant Czechs living with each other in no insignificant numbers. When national revival came, Czechs did identify mostly around shared language and religion has always played second fiddle (even though Catholics were seen as “no true Czechs” by some, that point of view never really became mainstream) and that fiddle became more and more insignificant with each generation ever since.

Polish nation was beaten up from outside and divided into different empires, each with different ruling religion – Orthodoxy in Russian Empire, Protestantism in Prussia and a teensy bit in the predominantly catholic Austria-Hungaria. And although they were not persecuted due to their religion per se in their respective parts throughout this whole time, language as well as religion remained at the core of Polish identity for most, because the non-polish invaders were also mostly non-catholics.

And thus, through a complicated historical route we arrive at present situation. Czechs are one of the world’s leaders in “Not Giving A Fuck” about religion, and Poles are still predominantly actively observant catholics. Czech Republic has freedom of religion, freedom from religion and freedom to say just about anything about any religion you like, as long as you are not engaging in hate speech. Republic of Poland has still has anti-blasphemy laws on books and you can get into trouble for making a mildly amusing parody video making fun or being critical of the Pope.

Youtube Video: Brexit, Briefly: REVISITED!

There’s three things, pick two. I use it often in engineering, where the corners of the triangle are Cheap, Fast, Good and you can only pick two. Managers always, always want to pick all three, just as well as the UK seems to want to pick now. Have your pie and eat it is the motto of the day.

I cannot even snigger at the stupidity of Britons who voted to leave, since I have no doubt that had Czech Republic had a similar referendum, our results would also be similar. Because despite the objectively measurable fact that we are much better of in the EU than we were outside it, a lot of people yearn for the good old days.

Good old days that never were. If I were to pick only one reason for why EU is a massive political success despite all its flaws it would be this:

There was not a war between members of EU for two generations. Prior to that, the whole EU history was stumbling from one war to another, and the scars from those wars still did not heal.

Killing and Dismembering an HDD

My parents PC started to act up a few weekends ago. I knew the motherboard was defect already, so I have decided to buy everything new, including an SSD – but I thought the old HDD can still be used for data storage. I was ronk. When I built the thing, it was still acting up, and finally I got the message that S.M.A.R.T. detects problems with the drive. So I decided to nix it and throw it out. It did not contain any important information, but even so I wiped it repeatedly, then performed full format, and then I disassembled it, run the platters over with a screwdriver and with strong neodymium magnet. Hopefully not even Nick Fury should now be able to recover the data that once was there, and should he go through the trouble being pissed at finding a bunch of flowers and gingerbread pictures.

When building it back together I did not build in one crucial part – the two half-moon shaped neodymium magnets that you can see to the left of the center in the photo. They are very slim and very, very strong – it is not easy to pry them apart in hand. I decided that they are simply too nice in themselves to throw into recycling and they might be useful in my workshop later on.

Two days later I got an idea how to use them and they might prove to be THE solution to a problem that I was looking for for over a month now, or at least a good part towards a solution. I hope to try that out soon, the weather is getting warmer, the flu or whatever was trying to kill me seems to have failed, so hopefully next weekend I will be able to resume working on knives.

©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

Why I (Almost) Always First do and Then Learn

I have an acute case of opinions, and I have a platform. Therefore I am going to inflict them on you. Lets get ready to ramble…

During my life I have learned a lot of different stuff – building and installing computers and programming in VBA as well as masonry, plumbing, carpentry etc. Jack of all trades and all that. That is nothing exceptional, most homeowners here have at least the basic of some of those skills. But some of the skills that I have tried or intend to try my hand on – like knife-making, leather work or wood carving – require not only a lot of finicky skill, but also a lot of knowledge.

My approach to acquiring said knowledge was, is, and will remain, maybe somewhat illogical from an outsider’s point of view, but I found out that it works the best for me. I hasten to add though, that I am only using it when there are not real stakes regarding safety and/or urgency to be had in the matter – if there are, I pay for experts and craftsmen to do the job quickly and properly the first time.

That approach is this – I start with some rudimentary knowledge and dive right into it, start big, fail on so many levels and end up with a result that has so many flaws that it is pitiful at best (like my first knife, that I regrettably lost).  Then I think about what went wrong, read some more information, try again, start again big, fail a bit less and get something that I need not be ashamed of, although it is of course still very short of being a masterpiece, even an “apprenticepiece” – like my second knife:

©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

All those failures do not stop me of course from ramping up the ambitions for the next project(s), where I learn from my previous mistakes and boldly introduce completely new ones. Like in the knife I have made for my father’s fiftieth birthday and a knife I made for myself:

©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

 

©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

And so on and so forth. Only after each failure, will I really seriously start to research and read some serious theory on the things that I just tried to do and see what the actual craftsmen have to say. And through this process, where I first try, fail and then read, I eventually get to something half-decent, like Ciri’s dagger, which nevertheless is still somewhere in the middle of my learning curve (and probably everything ever will be).

One reason for this approach is fairly mundane – books are expensive, our local library is crap and internet with a lot of information freely available was not a thing for first half of my life. But I hold onto it even now – for example I will start reading on leather work only after I actually start to do some work in it, not before (I have actually done some small leather work – the two last sheaths shown, but nevermind). The same plan goes for engraving metal, or inlaying etc. Why do I persist in this manner of doing things, where I inevitably reinvent the wheel multiple times over? Could I not save myself a lot of trouble and time learning the theory first? After all, that is how a lot (not all) of our school system works – a huuuge chunk of theory upfront and then maybe some medium to big-ish chunk of praxis.

Well, even discarding the fact that reinventing the wheel for yourself is tremendous fun, and having fun is the whole purpose of a hobby, I think following chunks of praxis with theory and not vice versa has a practical advantage as well, at least for me.

I have read first three books out of my new purchases, those on the left in the picture. Most of the info in them was not new to me since I already tried like 90% of the techniques shown and I knew all the theory. So I only got about 10% worth of new knowledge, which does not seem like much – just a few tricks, really. But if I started with only these books without having any clue whatsoever about how thinks work in praxis, I would get a lot less out of them on first reading, most of the content would go over my head and I would forget it straightaway. And when later on trying to put the things into praxis, I would have to get back to them and re-read them, maybe multiple times, whilst trying the things and failing at them anyway. Whereas having a lot of failures and intuitive understanding as well as theoretical knowledge of the matter already has allowed me to read them fairly quickly and absorb the little info that I did not yet have much more permanently (I think) because it connects smoothly with my past experience and knowledge.

There is of course one trapping to this “try first” approach, and a big one, that should be avoided – developing bad work habits that have to be un-learned. The distance between trying something and learning the accompanying theory should not be too big either way, because it is detrimental to learning both ways.

TNET 30: Woke Brands

I noticed yesterday that TNET is overdue, so today’s video topic is a new TNET too. Sorry for not writing too much lately. I got over the winter depression, but I just did not get any inspiration the last few weeks. Combined with problems at work it made me grumpy and reclusive like a hermit. And to top it all off today I got down with flu-like symptoms, I had to excuse myself from work early due to a splitting headache and at home I found out I have a fever as well.

The latest video by hbobmerguy is really well made and thoughtful. It is important to remember, that corporations are not people, they are cynical and opportunistic entities that might, but also might not, contain good people in them, and rarely (very rarely) some good people might even be at the top management levels. When a company does something seemingly good, it probably is not without ulterior motive.

Open thread, talk about whatever you want, just don’t be an asshole.

Previous topic.

New Books to Read Arrived

The situation at my work slowly deteriorates further*, nobody is sure whether they will have work tomorrow or not, management assurances to the contrary notwithstanding (we have been lied to before). I have already decided that should I get the sack, I will not be looking for a new job forthwith but I will dedicate a year to learning and perfecting my crafts – knife-making and wood-carving.

I already have decent knowledge of metallurgy, some rudimentary knowledge of history and even some skill, but there is a lot of potential for improvement on both the practical and theoretical side. And to expand my knowledge of theory, I have just invested non-trivial money into these beautiful books.

©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

They arrived today and I am eager to dive into them. I expect to already know some of it, but by far not all, or even most, so I hope to get a real knowledge boost. Which will be of course mostly forgotten afterwards, but that is the way of the world. I still should get out of it ahead knowledge-wise. I glanced through each, some are more pictures than text, some the opposite, but they all seem to be cramped with information on each site and right now I have no regrets of buying any of them.

If anything I still think they are not enough, I wanted to buy much more, but many books that I have got my eyes on were not available. Well, after I am done with these, I will look again. These should occupy me for a few weeks, or even months.

If you have some recommendations on the theme of blade making and blade history, feel free to post them in comments.

  • Honestly, in the pursuit of their greed, american corporate managers are capable of dying of thirst by refusing to drink when given a bottle of water instead of the lake they demanded.

The Stinking Beauty

Our Amorphophallus decided to blossom this year. A beautiful flower, the blossom itself is about 40 cm tall and it is difficult to get it into a picture.

And it had to be confined to a closed room, because it stinks of rotting flesh.

Yay.

©Charly, all rights reserved, click for full size.

Those Evil Unelected EU Bureuaucrats!

I glanced at comments under a video about the brexit clusterfuck and that made me want to very shortly address one of the most frequent – and in my opinion most nonsensical – objections against EU, used by brexiteers and euroskeptics everywhere. The idea, that unelected bureaucrats in Brussels should not be able to “dictate” sovereign states what to do and not to do.

Firstly people do elect representatives into EU parliament, and it is only sad that many people do not know this and that these elections have generally low turnout.

But what about those other bodies, I hear them cry, those are not elected!

Well, neither are such bodies within the different states. People who voice this criticism fail to realize that in Europe we have usually representative democracy, so our elected representatives do not usually decide directly about anything. That is not their function. The elected representatives negotiate and decide the rules for decisions – like laws and regulations – and those decisions are always, always put into action by unelected bodies following some common rules. For example the minister of agriculture in CZ is not voted into office, they are selected by politicians after the election and confirmed by a president. And the bureaucrats working in the offices are not voted at all and most of them carry over from one administration over to the other. They are employees of the state(s) and blaming them for deciding things in accordance with the laws and regulations that were decided upon by the politicians people voted into office is, to put it mildly, idiotic.

By this logic people in some district in Wales could argue, loudly and obnoxiously, that those unelected bureaucrats in London should not be deciding about what they can and cannot do and how!

Unfortunately, there are actually people who use that sort of argument too…

A Little Bird Mix

I am still waiting to be struck with an idea for writing, but luckily I got some useful birdie pictures to post at least – a goldfinch, a greenfinch and a siskin. All the same genus, but different sizes. And very different colors.

©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

Bonsai Tree – More leaves

As I predicted, nothing very much happened for about a month. The only visible change was that the leaves got more and more dark green and opaque, as the tree ramped up its chlorophylls supply. And the stem got a stiff wooden core and thickened again, gaining back the volume it originally had when it was all bloated with water. Subtle changes, they only could be observed up close and if you knew what to look for, but they are vital for the tree.

Last weekend the tree started to grow again and during this week it sprouted a new leaf and at the end of it there already is budding of another one. What will happen next is that the tree will sprout one long(ish) shoot upwards and one long(ish) root downwards. This first year I will leave it grow more or less uninterrupted to get a strong sapling. However the seed was fairly big, and the tree already is nearly as big as some of my current bonsai trees and I expect it in first year grow at least a few decimeters in height.

The growth rate and pattern will later on decide on what kind of bonsai it will be, but it seems that about 50-80 cm height in Chokkan  or Hokidachi style will be about right for this species. I have no experience with persimmons (and I choose to not look it up), but plenty with other species. So far it does not look like it would be suitable for the more “dramatic” styles – its growth pattern this first month is very similar to that of sycamore maples and the leaves are fairly big too. The distance between the nodes is very short, and if it stays so, that would be excellent.

©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

Some Goldfinches

The snow is melting now and the weather is sunny and moderately warm. But when it was snowing and freezing, I had a bit of luck and a few goldfinches visited the feeder, which does not happen very often. Pretty pictures that illustrate a very, very grim story.

©Charly, all rithgs reserved. Click for full size.

I seem to have seen a lot fewer birds on the feeder this year than previously. Almost no greenfinches, no bramblings, no woodpeckers, just very few blackbirds and siskins. I am not alone in this observation, it is scientifically documented trend across the whole of Central Europe, so much so that it was even reported in evening news in TV.

Then I have read that bird populations across Europe are collapsing, following a collapse of insect populations due to overuse of pesticides that kill both the insects and the plants they feed on.

And nothing will be done about it until it is too late, because not overusing pesticides would mean lower corporate profits.

Youtube Video: Flat Earth OR Why Do People Reject Science? | Philosophy Tube

Phil O´Sofy Toobe is great leftist channel. I do not agree with everything in his videos, but that is not because I disagree with him on principle – I disagree with him on practicality. In short, I think we are fucked beyond hope, because human race as a whole is irredeemable and this prevents sensible implementation of leftist policies on greater scale.

In this video he tackles some of the whats and whys behind science denialism. I recommend many of his other videos – and there realy are many. I still haven’t seen them all.