Hacker News: 0rzech

New comment by 0rzech in "Why Amazon is full of crap [video]"

0rzech — Sun, 15 Feb 2026 21:50:14 +0000

This is the reason I buy printed books on Amazon and almost nothing else.

New comment by 0rzech in "Kraków, Poland in top 5 worst air quality worldwide"

0rzech — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 14:51:43 +0000

It was mostly buying votes with money from ETS instead of spending those money in whole on energy transformation as intended.

New comment by 0rzech in "Kraków, Poland in top 5 worst air quality worldwide"

0rzech — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 14:36:54 +0000

Despite Międzyzdroje (zachodniopomorskie, Poland) lying directly at the seaside, the air quality in winter is so bad it literally irritates the throat and can even give you headaches or make you nauseous, and only directly on the beach can you still breathe fresh air.

The common argument is that people use bad furnaces or burn bad fuel or trash out of poverty, but far too often the actual cause is mentality and not financial issues.

Smog kills around 40,000 Polish people each year. [1] It was reported in 2025 to be 20 times more than in car accidents. [2]

On the bright side, industrial and post-apo art fans can wear breathing masks in Poland without even pretending.

[1] https://pulsmedycyny.pl/medycyna/choroby-ukladu-oddechowego/...

[2] https://www.infor.pl/prawo/nowosci-prawne/6826105,umiera-od-...

New comment by 0rzech in "Jolla Phone Pre-Order"

0rzech — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 21:18:35 +0000

I was not asking about having terminal and root access. I was asking about security-wise parity, for example memory protection, full "disk" encryption, permission model, application sandboxing etc. This is the main selling point of GrapheneOS. This and Android application compatibility, but Sailfish OS has its Android compatibility layer too.

New comment by 0rzech in "Jolla Phone Pre-Order"

0rzech — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 18:04:02 +0000

AFAIR, I got refunded the whole tablet price in the end - I think half the price immediately, and the other half a few years later. It doesn't mean others were refunded too, of course. It was long time ago, though, so I may have mixed something up.

New comment by 0rzech in "Jolla Phone Pre-Order"

0rzech — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 17:58:42 +0000

GrapheneOS' main selling point is security. Is Sailfish OS better at that, or at least in the same league, nowadays?

New comment by 0rzech in "Jolla Phone Pre-Order"

0rzech — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 17:47:17 +0000

Same experience here, though from Sailfish OS run on their first Jolla phone.

Also permission model on Sailfish was much worse than on Android. I didn't use Android apps on Sailfish, though.

I really liked Silica UI, but available apps had much less functionality than their counterparts on Android and iOS. I think that open sourcing Sailfish and Silica would end up better for them.

Nevertheless, I kinda liked the phone, but ultimately went back to Android.

New comment by 0rzech in "Jolla Phone Pre-Order"

0rzech — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 17:41:27 +0000

I live in Poland and I'd expect the same as you.

New comment by 0rzech in "Signal Protocol and Post-Quantum Ratchets"

0rzech — Thu, 02 Oct 2025 21:00:08 +0000

Yup, in Poland, a mobile phone number (pre-paid or not, it doesn't matter) is tied to a PESEL number [1] at the time of purchase. The official justification, as usual, was combating crime, but the end result is a tighter grip on citizens' privacy by the government while spammers and others continue their business as usual.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PESEL

New comment by 0rzech in "Brazil central bank to launch Pix installment feature in September"

0rzech — Sun, 27 Jul 2025 19:42:49 +0000

Also, Mastercard is one of PSP S.A. [1] shareholders.

[1] Polski Standard Płatności S.A. - Polish banks' joint venture, which created and operates BLIK.

New comment by 0rzech in "Brazil central bank to launch Pix installment feature in September"

0rzech — Sun, 27 Jul 2025 19:38:28 +0000

PSP S.A. is expanding abroad, so perhaps BLIK will be available in more countries in some time: "In September, the first BLIK transaction was made in Slovakia, and BLIK Romania S.A. received authorization from the National Bank of Romania to operate in the country. In November, the Polish Payments Standard transformed into a joint stock company, to support the execution of its strategic goals." [1] [2]

BLIK has one ugly caveat, though: it has no chargeback procedure.

[1] Year 2024.

[2] https://www.blik.com/en/about-us#id-15ce9a61-2597-11f0-8657-...

New comment by 0rzech in "Final report on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 in-flight exit door plug separation"

0rzech — Sat, 12 Jul 2025 01:03:14 +0000

This is not about "writing to look smart". It's about using elegant style and using the language to it's full potential. There were multiple attempts to strip Polish people of their mother tongue and identity throughout the history, so we were taught to treasure both and use language's full richness. It's also simply nicer to listen to or read richer forms. These are the reasons for why we were told it speaks well of the speaker/writer. Also, elegance does not contradict communicating vital information. It's a false dilemma.

New comment by 0rzech in "Final report on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 in-flight exit door plug separation"

0rzech — Sat, 12 Jul 2025 00:48:26 +0000

> "a complex writing style preferred by educated people"

This is not a quote of me. Nor is it an honest summary of what I wrote. It also completely ignores the context: the "educated people" were supposed to "see through" - the same people who predominantly prefer the same style. I have also never claimed the style is not used by other people. Quite the opposite. Not to mention, that education until 18 years of age is mandatory in Poland anyway.

> how is that not pretentious?

The straw man you made up definitely is.

> You started by saying complex sentences should always be preferred

I wrote that we were always taught to prefer one over another (there were multiple teachers along the way), not that we were taught to always prefer one over another.

> but now you ended by saying "only where applicable"

There is no "but now".

> and the sentence under discussion was "too long".

I believe it is indeed.

New comment by 0rzech in "Final report on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 in-flight exit door plug separation"

0rzech — Fri, 11 Jul 2025 08:28:53 +0000

I remember an anecdote from my English teacher where a student went to London, and a taxi driver told her (the student) something along "What a lovely English! It's a shame nobody speaks like that anymore." ;)

New comment by 0rzech in "Final report on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 in-flight exit door plug separation"

0rzech — Fri, 11 Jul 2025 08:11:20 +0000

What problem? To make sentences like the one from NTSB report quoted here? Well, personally I would've split it and I'm pretty sure my teacher would've asked me to do it too if I were the author. ;)

New comment by 0rzech in "Final report on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 in-flight exit door plug separation"

0rzech — Fri, 11 Jul 2025 08:07:39 +0000

You could write the same thing using multiple sentences no problem, without affecting the meaning.

New comment by 0rzech in "Final report on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 in-flight exit door plug separation"

0rzech — Fri, 11 Jul 2025 08:03:34 +0000

It can if you count all the different forms of each word and proper nouns. But this way Polish may have even more words than english, given multitude of different forms. I've never checked that, though.

There's also the tendency in English to make new words out of existing ones to create new meanings, while in Polish we often use multiple separate existing words to create new meanings.

All in all, I believe English has more base forms than Polish.

New comment by 0rzech in "Final report on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 in-flight exit door plug separation"

0rzech — Fri, 11 Jul 2025 07:54:20 +0000

It's not pretentious and there's nothing to see through here. This is the preferred style in Poland and it's widely used, especially by the educated people. Just because the sentences aren't simple, doesn't mean they're not informative.

Also, we were taught to prefer compound and complex sentences over simple ones where applicable, not at all costs. For instance, the quoted sentence from NTSB report is a bit too long in my opinion.

New comment by 0rzech in "Final report on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 in-flight exit door plug separation"

0rzech — Thu, 10 Jul 2025 22:10:46 +0000

At school (Polish class in Poland) we were always taught to prefer complex and compound sentences over simple ones, because it's more elegant and speaks well the speaker/writer.

New comment by 0rzech in "# [derive(Clone)] Is Broken"

0rzech — Thu, 10 Jul 2025 21:23:09 +0000

I think your case would confuse me too. The one I had experienced and wrote about was simpler.