[PL] Leo

Leo będzie dalej trenował naszą reprezentację - Informacje - TVN24.pl - Portal informacyjny - 14.06.2008

Leo będzie dalej trenował naszą reprezentację

Selekcjoner piłkarskiej reprezentacji Polski Leo Beenhakker pozostanie na swym stanowisku co najmniej do końca listopada 2009 roku - zapowiedział prezes PZPN Michał Listkiewicz. Jeżeli tak się stanie, Leo poprowadzi “Biało - czerwonych” do końca eliminacji do mundialu w RPA w 2010 roku.
Leo do mundialu

- Nasza postawa wcale nie jest słaba, jak niektórzy uważają - powiedział przebywający w Austrii Michał Listkiewicz.
- Nie ulega wątpliwości, że Leo Beenhakker pozostanie trenerem reprezentacji co najmniej do końca listopada 2009 roku, a mam nadzieję, że kontrakt zostanie automatycznie przedłużony po awansie do finałów Mistrzostw Świata 2010 - powiedział Listkiewicz.

Nie wiem skąd w ogóle pomysł, że można by go wywalić! Beenhakker jest naszym najlepszym trenerem od lat. Trenuje drużynę od 2 lat (czyli od momentu wywalenia poprzedniego trenera - Janasa), a i tak osiągnął z nią już bardzo wiele. Myślę, że najwyższy czas skończyć z bezsensowną tradycją zwalniania trenerów po nieudanych (czyt. każdych) mistrzostwach.

Nawet najlepszy trener potrzebuje czasu, żeby ułożyć drużynę według własnego uznania i, nie oszukujmy się, potrzebuje także dobrych piłkarzy (a co do tego można mieć w naszej drużynie wątpliwości - nie samym Borucem się gra).

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ENGLISH

I am too lazy to translate this extract of article, but I’ll re-write its point. Michał Listkiewicz, president of Polish Football Union which for many years has ignored corruption in polish league, who finally (after couple of months) resigned from his function (or rather prmised he’ll resign in September), says he trusts our coach - Leo Beenhakker, and is not going to break the contract (which expires in in November 2009).
I’m kinda shocked that HE says he won’t fire Leo, who is the best coach of Polish team since times of Kazimierz Górski and Antoni Piechniczek. It’s time to finally cut down polish tradition of firing coach after lost (i.e. every) championships.

Even the best coach needs time to organise team as he wants and, let’s be sincer, needs also good players (and we can doubt this - there are more players than Artur Boruc to play!)

Holidays!

Aaaaaaaaah! At last! The end of the school, the end of problems! SUMMER HOLIDAYS!

This summer I won’t be going anywhere, just staying in Poznań, working at McDonald’s, learning how to play the drums and how to sail and going to bike trips every free time!

Pójść do Can(ap)ossy

Myślałem sobie ostatnio nad moją sytuacją w domu - wiadomo, że nie jest dobra i już nie będzie. Ale warto by w sumie stąd coś wyciągnąć, a nie to coś regularnie tracić, dlatego, że się chce utrzymać pewną linię oporu.

To coś to wszystko to oni mogą mi jeszcze dać, czyli mówiąc trywialnie - pieniądze. Zdaję sobie sprawę, że pisząc to udowadniam wielu, że jestem egoistycznym materialistą, ale mam swoje powody. Tych, którzy już sobie o mojej postawie wyrobili zdanie nie przekonam, ale chce mieć usprawiedliwienie przed samym sobą. poza tym ten blog czytam i tak tylko ja, więc chyba pasuje

Otóż taka motywacja powstała po dojściu do wniosku, że pieniądze są niestety bardzo ważne. Dzięki nim mogę przeżyć na prawdę fajne chwile - pojechać na obóz, zdobyć patent żeglarski, chodzić na lekcje perkusji itd. Przez długi czas dawali kasę na różnego rodzaju kursy, których ja nawet nie chciałem, a gdybym wtedy czegoś chciał to bym ich na pewno naciągnął. Ostatnio jednak, ojciec uznał, że skoro go nie szanuje (i tak się w końcu stało - im bardziej on mnie karał za to, że go nie szanuję tym mniej go szanowałem) to nie zasługuje na obóz językowy (który był już wybrany, i który obiecywał mi od 1 klasy - “już na niego zbieram”).

Miałem na niego na prawdę dużą chęć i żałuję, że wtedy nie docisnąłem sprawy do końca. Wtedy myślałem, że nie będę od nich nic brać co nie jest mi niezbędne. Teraz wiem, że bez sensu mam rezygnować z czegoś co normalnie bym dostał gdyby nie ten konflikt. Gdybym wiedział wtedy to co teraz, nie miałbym skrupułów i załatwiłbym obóz (a teraz pewnie bym się pakował).

W każdym razie patrząc na ich sytuację materialną i dotychczasowe praktyki (a także praktyki wobec brata), widać, że gdybym był grzecznym potulnym synkiem już bym tam był. Stąd można wnioskować, że (pomijając bycie niegrzecznym), obóz mi się należał (wiem, że to niefortunne słowo).

Więc czemu miałbym rezygnować z tych jakże realnych korzyści w zamian za poczucie, że przez te wszystkie lata bylem nieugięty w mojej postawie? Rachunek się nie równoważy. To okrutne, ale niestety muszę uznać, że strona pieniężna przeważa. Co mi z poczucia? Za ile je sprzedam kiedy będę musiał przeżyć do 1ego? Jeśli utrzymam relacje z nimi na odpowiednim poziomie (brak miłości i innych bzdetów, ale też brak otwartej wrogości) to mogę sobie zapewnić np. studia, albo nawet mieszkanie w przyszłości.

I nie chodzi tu o obdzieranie dobrodusznych rodziców z pieniędzy pod pozorem powrotu syna marnotrawnego. Tu chodzi o prowadzenie dalszej zbilansowanej polityki tak, aby uzyskać jak najwięcej od nich, jednocześnie próbując utrzymać niezależność. Pasuje to do teorii, że najlepszy jest zloty środek (mimo, że drogi radykalne są o wiele łatwiejsze - jedziesz po bandzie i nie przejmujesz się balansowaniem) I żeby było jasne: to nie są dobroduszni biedni ludzie. Patrząc na ich sytuację materialną POWINNI mi to zapewnić (jako że obowiązkiem rodzica jest zapewnienie dziecku przyszłości - bogatsi robią to tak, biedniejsi inaczej - każdy jak umie.)

Z tego powodu myślę, że warto na chwilę schować dumę, godność i wrodzoną chęć walki o swoje, przywdziać pokutne szaty i pójść do Canossy.

Każdy średnio rozgarnięty człowiek wie, że to wyrażenie pochodzi od sporu o inwestyturę. To był największy konflikt papieża z cesarzem w historii. Dwaj władcy o wielkich wpływach. Mniejsza o przyczynę. Ważne, że w po nałożeniu ekskomuniki i konflikcie z wasalami cesarz musiał ukorzyć się przed papieżem, stojąc przez 3 dni przed zamkiem w Canossie - tymczasowej siedzibie papieża.

Moją Canossą będzie Kanaposa - siedziba pana i władcy. Napisze ten jego pokorny list - niech się cieszy. I tak będzie wiedział, że to nieprawda, ale nie będzie mógł nic zrobić - wszystkie warunki zostaną spełnione. Chyba, że rozpocznie kolejną awanturę zarzucając mi, że list był nieszczery i żąda listu o tej samej treści, ale szczerego, czym zupełnie się zbłaźni.

Najwięksi z Rzymian wiedzieli, że czasem trzeba przegrać bitwę, by wygrać wojnę.

A dla tych, którzy obawiają się, że ktoś się włamał na moje konto i publikuje treści do mnie niepodobne, od razu piszę, że choć cesarz musiał ustąpić, kilka lat później zdetronizował papieża, który umarł na wygnaniu.

EU better knows of my rights

EU is a very useful organisation. Without its billboard campaigns I wouldn’t know about any of my rights!

For example on one billboard I read:

Everyone can be hit by a car!

Know you rights!

More info on www.blablablah.eu

Well I won’t try to hide that I didn’t know that I have a right to be hit by a car…

Netherlands - Italy

As I am loyal fan of Azzuri I’m shocked that they do so badly. I have only one comment to this match:

WHERE’S THE FAMOUS ITALIAN DEFENCE?

Although I like Oranje too, so I’m happy they’re playing so well today - they can become one of the candidates to the gold medal.

Despite, today is a sad day.

I only hope they win other matches and go out from the group. Group D is relatively the weakest so whoever they meet I think they’ll defeat them (Spain/Sweden). As far as today’s match is not a sign of their permanent weakness, but weakness in one match with probable winners of the cup.

Non vi preocupate Azzuri! Solo giocate come i veri maestri nelli match prossimi!

(I know my Italian is not good but I don’t care now).

I have to return to chemistry.
Tomorrow I have matura exam of Italian and test of Chemistry and an essay for English.
On Wednesday - geography, maths (both tests)
Thursday - short test on English, another geography test and English test
Friday - matura exam of History

Why so much? It’s a week of death this week in my school. You have to write all test that you haven’t written in proper time.

Euro 2008

I know that I’m a little late, but this just has to be written. I know that my blogging lastly is of poor quality, but I don’t want to make another post full of excuses

Today there’s a first match of Poland team on the European Cup! And in addition… the match with Germans.

I don’t have anything to our western neighbours. In fact I really like them and they are one of my favourite teams on these champs. But for Polish people any rivalry with Germans is a matter of honor.

So it is - the first time Germans (despite the disadvantage) are in range of Polish team. And it’s really pleasant watching them playing like footballers and not little girls. If (I emphasise it - IF) we accomplish anything huge now - Leo Beenhakker should get some order or other decoration (why don’t we have nobility titles any more?!).

The rest of my predictions are:

group A
1. Portugal
2. Czech Republic
(yeah I know the matches have been already played but it was really my type)

group B
1. Germany
2. Poland

group C
1. Italy
2. Netherlands
(why not France? it’s a deathgroup so anything can happen and I think that Dutch team is now stronger than French)

group D
1. Spain
2. Sweden
(that way defenders of the cup would not leave the group, but who knows?)

next:

Portugal vs. Poland => Portugal

Czech Republic vs. Germany => Germany

Italy vs. Sweden => Italy

Spain vs. Netherlands => Netherlands

Portugal vs. Germany => Germany

Italy vs. Netherlands => Italy

Germany vs. Italy => Italy

but we’ll see

(OK I have to get down to learning finally - I’ve got 4 test tomorrow… but with the event of that size…)

RTW - AAR: The Ptolemaics 1

This is an After Action Report of my game

Rome:Total War, Total Realism Mod, Faction Ptolemaic Empire

This is my first time playing non-roman faction so I tried it on medium difficulty level. It’s my first AAR so don’t expect perfect work. I’ll focus on imaginary political events and teritorial expansion. As I usually play auto-battles - there will be no (or rare) battle reports.

The beginning

In the Philadelphos Ptolemy’s court, Eqyptian faction leader, a new adviser appeared - Casius Ignaceus - of whom we don’t know too much (except he was Roman). This may not seem an important event, but he gained king’s trust very quickly, so in 280 BC he became his most trusted friend. From that point Ptolemy’s policy has changed as he followed his advisers’ suggestions in almost every situation. We don’t know why it happend - maybe he has forseen the greatness of his empire if he did so, or he noticed that this wise man from distant Rome had some kind of sense of the way to follow. We don’t know. Anyway from this point the story begins.

Economical reforms

At the beginning of 3rd century BC Egypt ruled very big territory (among others: Iudea, Cyprus, Eastern Crete, southern coast of Asia Minor and of course - the Egypt itself), but its economy wasn’t developed enough to face contemporary empires and survive a long war. They owned most of the eastern mediteraenian coast cities, but they had almost no ports and dockyards! Even Tyr - homeland of Phoenicians - the nation of sailors - had no possibility to trade

The king decided to heal it by establishing the biggest project of food production of the whole known world. He also started to build ports and roads in order to expand trade. It was some kind risky because country spending most of its money on farms and roads was vulnerable to quick attack of more military-focused enemy. But that time the biggest Egyptian enemy - the Seleucid Empire was also wrestling with weak economy and - what even more imporant - with his neighbours on the north.

Simultaneously, he sent all his army to the nearby rebel provinces like Arabia or territories of northern Africa to the west of Egypt, and tried to conquer Bostra to have a good base to the future conflict with Seleucid Empire. This wasn’t easy - all he had were the units normally defending the cities and no extra recruitment.

The Crete campaign

The same situation showed on Crete. The Greek city of Kydonia was a constant danger and local Egyptian general had no views on reinforcments from the mainland. But so did Greeks (though they had smaller distance to the main cities). More - they had the same amount of soldiers in garrison so the assault wasn’t an option. Egyptians took all their army from Hierapytna (leaving it “welcome” for the enemy) and set ambush in the halfway to Kydonia. Greeks got to the trap hoping to occupy the city not conquering it before. The short but bloody battle brought the Egyptians an advantage of circa 2-3 units in the whole conflict.

But the siege wasn’t so fortunate. After one tour of siege it came out that there’s another army of 3 units brought there by a ship. The enemy’s advantage was too big. Hiring 3 mercenaries units was too expensive and also impossible due to the lack of them in region. Captain decided to lift the siege and pull back halfway to Hierapytna. This time he didn’t set ambush because enemy wouldn’t be taken in twice the same way and would bring extra forces to be sure the battle is won.

Fortunately Greek captain tempted to catch fleeing enemy, and underestimated him. He brought no units from the city. By the time of battle it came out that Egyptians hired additional mercenary unit - the forces were equal, but Greeks were shocked finding enemy not as vulnerable as they thought it would be, and Egyptians were well-prepared and confident of having their genuine captain with them.

After that battle Kydonia was taken in one tour. After that conquest Greek Cities sent an emissary begging for peace, as they were in war with far more powerful Macedon. Faraoh agreed, because he had no profit in having bad relations with this faction any more, but Greeks (as the beaten ones) had to accept conditions - annexation of Byzantion. Soon after, the Egypt-Macedon alliance was announced to ensure that there will be no problem in the west during the war with Seleucids.

The First Seleucid War

The war with Seleucids was inevitable. Sooner or later one side would attack the other. Both empires weren’t very rich and needed some time to recruit armies. Pharaoh decided to strike as first and train new soldiers for the money form looting.

At this time the situation of Iudea, Phoenicia and cities of southern Asia Minor was not good. The worst was the situation of Mytilene (an island by Anatolian coast) and Maronia (and later Byzantion) situated on the European mainland near Bosphorus. Kingdoms of Armenia, Parthia and Bactria turned down the offer of alliance against Seleucids, but were in state of high rediness, predicting the coming war.

As the expenditure for the farms started to pay for itself Pharaoh decided to start recruitment in Iudea and Phoenicia and send three of his sons to the front. They hired some mercenaries units and alongside with the ones gathered from the nearby garrisons - they formed an army, which stroke Seleucid Empire. The enemy wasn’t expecting attack and Egyptians, after breaking the first resistance, were moving forward till their army was big enough to fight. They established the front in Antioch, Seleucia Pieria and Nicopolis.

A new Pharaoh

In 269 BC faction leader Philadelphos Ptolemy died in his villa in Alexandria. His son Arihideaos Ptolemy has become new Pharaoh, and continued his father’s policy. The first act of his was making Paleapaphos in Cyprus a new capital to better manage growing empire.

People of Alexandria in grief after Philadelphos’ death, furious for taking the capital form them, and fearing that this is a sign that this new empire wasn’t Egyptian any more, revolted. They killed all aristocrats and members of local government as they said they were “slaves of Greeks”. The Republic of Alexandria couldn’t be beaten quickly because all armies were engaged in Anatolia and any garrison movements would provoke more revolts in main Egypt.

Anatolian campaign

By this time African provinces were all conquered and its conqueror with his army was transported to the Asia Minor coast. With forces consisting only of garrisons of local towns (one unit per town - smaller garrisons would provoke riots) and small reinforcement form Africa, Egypt decided to strike Smyrna - Seleucid town separating Mytilene and Halicarnasus. The resistance in whole Asia Minor campaign was far bigger than in Middle East.

Additional forces from Cyprus came to support the main forces - they sieged mountain citadel Adana trying to close main Seleucid forces in a trap and cut off the reinforcements trail just until they’re defeated. Unfortunately they failed and had to pull back to the city of Side. Because of that defeat, Seleucids managed to bring some reinforcements and Egyptian forces on the west were forced to stay in Sardis waiting for support.

This time Egyptian diplomat managed to set temporary alliance with Pontus, but new allies refused joining the war actively. The status quo on the paeninsula couldn’t be preserved, because all forces wanted to expand there nand didn’t want to resign. Pontus focused on conquering local rebel cities - doubling its territory and growing in power.

The Arabic campaign

This was one of the most difficult campaign versus rebels. All the cities were far away from each other, army had to move very long distances and conquered cities were revolting instantly (even after the slaughter of most citizens). The general of Arabic forces found himself commanding army that normally should be disengaged - units consisting of 3-9 men, mostly mercenary. He could’t hope for reinforcements as any cities were far away and all recruited units were sent north. He’s still coping with revolting cities trying finally conquer all the peninsula.

Breaking status quo

Fortunately, the new economy of the Empire started to show on - the Egyptians now had enough money to hire some mercenaries and start recruitment on Cyprus and Rhodes. After few years of preparation - they could attack Seleucids. This time the manoeuvre of cutting off main Seleucid forces finished succesfully. Egyptian army from Sardis defeated main Seleucid forces in Pessinus, and assaulted Prusa with almost no resistance.
This time joined garrisons of Maronia, Smyrna and Mytilene sieged Pergamon, but were forced to lift it.

At that time forces in Middle East made an expedition to Tarsus and sieged it. The Anatolian joined forces managed to assault Pergamon and directed to Abydos - the last Seleucid city in Anatolia, located by Bosphorus. The army was mainly 15-20 man units, very tired of long campaign. In total they counted 800 men. the garrison of Abydos was only of 200 men - the assault was a matter of time. The Eusebeia had surrendered itself without fight. Conquest of Tarsus and Abydos were the only obstacles to the triumph of Pharaoh’s army and the end of both Anatolian and Middle East campaigns.

Treason

But then Macedonians declared war by blocking Kydonia’s port and broke alliances. There wasn’t any land attack, but it’s very possible that sooner and later Macedon will make use of its advantage in the sea and start organising invasions.

The map overview

[To describe the real situation on the map I use toggle_fow cheat - but I avoid checking my enemies' armies' positions].

The
Greeks forestalled Romans in conquering Corfinium and expanded in
Italia (trying to conquer Rhegium as well), but exposing the main
regions in Greece to the Kingdom of Macedon. Romans were probably
preparing for the big bitzkrieg-like attack. They conquered Corfinium, Tarentum, Croton and Macedonians defeated garrisons of Sparta Athens and other Greek cities. Soon, Illyrians occupied Apollonia, so Greeks were left with Thermon and Syracuse.

Carthage is still busy with
conquering West-north Africa regions, but having problems with Iberians
trying to get their coast cities back. Illyrians had a trip north
resulting in occupying Panonia. So did Macedonians - they started war
with Thrace and are still moving forward dividing Thracian territory in half. There’s little chance they’ll go further as Sarmatians have expanded almost to the Baltic sea.

Seleucids have alliance with Armenia, Parthia and Bactria and are probably preparing counter-attack for Ptolemaics.

Comment

It’s really interesting game indeed. Even though it wasn’t too difficult and I was sometimes considering changing difficulty level for hard. Now I know it’ll be interesting and surprising anyway. It’s time for diplomacy now

Firefox Download Day 2008

<a href=”http://www.spreadfirefox.com/node&id=0&t=271″&gt;&lt;img border=”0″ alt=”Download Day - English” title=”Download Day - English” src=”http://www.spreadfirefox.com/files/images/affiliates_banners/180×150_02c_en.png”/>&lt;/a&gt;
Mozilla tries to increase popularity of Firefox, by…. beating the Guinness record in the biggest amount of downloads during 24h!

The release day of Firefox 3 is a Download Day. You can also take part - you just have to download FF3 in the day of release! Maybe that’ll show all IErs that there’s an alternative…

If you want to contribute in other way - visit http://www.spreadfirefox.com/en-US/worldrecord/

enjoy your downloading!

PS. If someone who doesn’t use Firefox is reading this post - I think it’s the best moment to try it - a brandnew FF3…

OpenWIFI in Poland?

I’m sitting at the main square of pleasant polish town - Szczecinek. As the town aims to be a resort there’s a free hotspot at the square. Of course it istn’t completely free, because every time you open a webpage it opens another tab with page of one of the hotspot’s sponsors. It also cuts off the internet (pings don’t come back) leaving me with 4 pages of the town

BUT

there are plenty other - non goverment-sponsored WiFi hotspots here which don’t require passwords, and (probably) don’t limit your acces! Is it a dream of OpenWLAN coming true?

No! It’s a bad sign. Those are probably normal home private networks which administrators either don’t want them to be secured or don’t know how to do that (or worse - they dont know that it CAN be secured).

This forces me to say that polish people should learn more before they buy their children Neostrada (popular ADSL service provided by polish quasi-monopolist in telecomunication - it’s slow, unstable, and expensivie in comparison to other broadband providers).

What does it mean that more and more people are connected if they don’t even try to get known this new invention an its rules. For them Internet, Neostrada and Internet Explorer are synonymous. Polish net is full of Neostrada’s children spending all their time on chats, and making their blogs even more pink.

However it’s not so shocking when you know that for ex-PM of this country internet is a big mystery (a land with colourful characters and ugly, slippery viruses), and bank account is nothing in comparison to his mother’s cupboard, if you want to store your money. He and other people like him show us the real attitude for internet of average Pole. Unbelievable! I don’t how it is in other countries, but definetly not so bad…

I have to be going now, because the square is getting empty - people come home for dinner - and the quare is going to be a dangerous place for a lonely boy with his laptop

Fighting with my Laptop: chapter 1

I know that writing this, I’m showing you I’m a n00b, but maybe that’s truth

I’ve installed ubuntu on my new laptop, but I’ve encountered one problem - I can’t connect to my WiFi network. I don’t want to fix it now, so I’ll try it tomorrow - conectng via ehernet and updating drivers. Maybe that’ll help.

What I’ve done till now is installing Firefox 3 RC1 on my rescueOS (yet-installed WinXP which I think I’m going to leave for mergency situations) - it looks good, some minor stuff improved (e.g. asking of remembering the password AFTER seeing if it works), but I haven’t really had ocasion to experience its speed (they say its the biggest change comparing to the earlir version).

What’s its disadvantage now (but only for the time being - before there isn’t stable version) is little amount of add-ons an almost no themes. I know there are going to be more, after release, but till that time I would be forced to use worse or none of them. I’m not so impatient - for me add-ons are half of the browser - so using new Firefox so early isn’t worth putting up with lack of them. That’s why I think I’m going to return to FF2 for a while.

By the way I found a great firefox extension - ScribeFire - it allows you to publish to your blog(s) directly form your browser. The only lack I’ve found is no tagging option (that’s why this post isn’t properly tagged- I’ll fix it up nest time I visit wordpress)

BTW I’ve created a new acount on my win. I try to log in - typing password. BAD typing again - BAD. Maybe I had caps lock pressed while typing it firstly? Typed with caps - BAD. WINDOWS IS BLOCKED. rebooting… typing nothing in password box… DONE ///I’m really tired, I guess

[update] I found it - there is “tagging machine”

Technorati Tags: firefox 3, FF3, ScribeFire, add-ons

[update] but  not the one of wordpress