One thing I’ve noticed about myself is that I seem to believe that anything can be done well or poorly. As a result of my perfectionism and scientific curiosity, I often spend hours obsessively researching even the most mundane problems that crop up in my life – which air humidifier to buy? how to build a quiet PC that can run recent games? what mp3 bitrate should I use to compress my music? what could be causing vibrations on the steering wheel of my car?
I construct clever Google queries, read through hundreds of posts, engage in long and painful thought processes, and – when all else fails – I actually do something and see what happens. In the end, I usually come up with some sort of useful synthesis.
Since I am unable to break this habit of trying to do things the Proper Way, the least I can do is share the knowledge I’ve accumulated with others. So when I get an interesting result that I have not been able to find on the Internet, I will post it on this blog in the hopes of helping a few hundred other people with similar needs.
About me
My name is Tomasz P. Szynalski. I live in Wroclaw, Poland. I’m writing this blog in English because I want my posts to help the broadest group of people possible and because I want to promote the use of English as the language for the Internet.
I also made:
- Antimoon, a website where I share a kick-ass method of learning English (here’s a page about me on Antimoon)
- TypeIt.org, probably the best online tool for typing accent marks, phonetic symbols, Russian letters, and other special characters
- a popular online tone generator
- Plasticity, a game which trains you to discriminate similar tones (and may offer some relief if you suffer from tinnitus)
I used to work as a freelance Polish translator. I spend a lot of time thinking philosophically about the world around me.
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Tomasz, you write better English than 99% of the so-called English-speaking population that I’ve encountered in my lifetime. Wow. You must be directly related to Joseph Conrad.
I agree! This is a REALLY impressive blog. Your English is fantastic, as (on the limited amount of your blog I have read so far) are your analytical skill and ability to sift bullshit from sense in the goldpanning exercise that is surfing the internet. Keep it up!
Wow – Tomek – your blog has PageRank 5 – a lot of people would kill for it:)
Congratulations!!!! I envy you:)))
Hello Tomek,
thank you for the typing program and links. I have shared our pages with ten friends learning English.
FSILanguage.com is a page you will enjoy.
If the first attempt to open it is unsuccessful, please don’t quit. It is great.
God bless you.
Wow, I do the same thing! Except I do not post >.<
I just started blogging so maybe I might add my experiences. I wanted to thank you for the loads of helpful information you have posted and will be looking forward to your blogs ^^
And I agree Thomas W, your English is flawless.
Take care!
If I searched, I could probably find some English language flaw. But from what I’ve read so far, nothing has stood out! Good job in your English language learning.
Hi Tomek.
Your Blog helped me out of a gap regarding Volume Shadow Copy.
My congratulations and thanks a lot.
Have a great new year 2010 and keep on writing.
Kind regards – pozdrowienia
Charles
Bravo Tomasz on a fabulous blog.
I’ve been enjoying your monitor reviews. I was all set to buy a 2209wa and now I’m thinking more towards an LED backlit screen. Do you have experience with those? Are they safe for the eyes or as some claim does the flicker from the Pulse Width Modulation used for dimming cause headaches?
You are GREAT! Your posts on HTLAL are the cleverest on the site. You provided great advice and were very funny. I laughed so much that I spent a long time finding you. You are an extraordinary writer in English. I am currently trying to learn Polish. It is difficult for me to find a good audiobook in Polish. I saw the, “Proces – Kafka” 12 CD book as you recommended on Amazon. However, I was not sure of how to find the corresponding Polish translation. I searched by publisher to no avail. I am an intermediate level student of Polish. Maybe I could pay you to help me learn Polish? Maybe I could pay you to translate some jokes from English to Polish? Best wishes.
Cano.
I’ve never posted on HTLAL, though I am Polish and I am a translator. I think you’ve got the wrong guy 🙂
One of the better, and more honest blogs.
Great job, all us perfectionists thank you for helping with the never ending search for the superior products and techniques for doing things. Unfortunately, new doesn’t mean better any more. Older products that were stellar, tend to remain “stellar’ for years — like certain Bose speaker-amplifier models. And I have AR2-A speakers from the 1963 vintage that sound better than most sound systems today. I listen to them daily for the last 49 years. That’s value.
It seems you haven’t learned anything in a year, or perhaps you’re hoarding all of your knowledge these days.
hi Tomasz
i need to ask you something about tinnitus. i need to speak with you
Hi Tomasz,
I must say to you that words can never and will never be able to tell the thank you I have in my heart to you, you are a wonderful scientiest.
I have been treating acid reflux for the past 7 months but couldnt find a way round it with all kind of drugs and vitamins, but God used you to finally free me from this horrible stress that almost took my joy from me.
In one of your blogs, you mentioned flaxseed for gerd and the way you summerised it was amazing, and I tell you as soon as I started taking the flax seed 3 times daily for just 3 days, I have noticed an absolute esophagus pain free life.
I am so convinced that I have conqured gerd.
Thanks once again and I believe you are a special gift from God to mankind. Also thanks to your mother for passing this amazing medicinal food for an ailment that is so expensive to cure.
Icent Enaife London
Tomasz, I love your site. Keep it up.
Thank you for writing Online Tone Generator ! You helped me
set up my new sound system. Pisze z Kanady. Dzieki!
Geoff Lindsey | The merger that never quite was Mar 4, 2015 at 2:14 am
[…] highly pertinent comment comes in an email from Tomasz P. Szynalski, who made a quick comparison of iR and i.V forms in both the citation forms and the illustrative […]
I teach Highschool Physics in a school in Thailand. I have found your tone generator to be easily the easiest way for students to investigate resonance in pipes and i am using it this week to investigate frequency-dependent inductive and capacitative reactance in circuits. Thank you!
I’ve just read an article you wrote (http://goo.gl/CpmiMs) but I wasn’t able to leave a comment. So I looked you up online to ensure you’d read this: Those tips will really help me have my students detect unnecessary mistakes they usually make by not paying enough attention to patterns. I always tell them to watch and listen before trying their own sentences, but sometimes they seem to ignore the sample structures and use a lot of imagination combining a few words that wouldn’t make any sense to a native speaker. Well, in other words, thank you for the article!
Tomasz, two things,
1) Your bit on Tinnitus and the fact that human beings are mostly incapable of hearing complete silence shut down a panic attack I was having because I was noticing my Tinnitus again. Thank you.
2). I’m a professional academic editor and I just wanted to say, I was BLOWN AWAY to read that English is not your first language.
Thank you! Glad my write-up was of some help to you.
Just want to say a quick THANK YOU for your writings about tinnitus – they have given me a lot of inspiration about how to “fight noise with noise” so to speak. If i ever get anywhere with my own sound experiments, i will surely share them with you for an opinion.
Thank you, and all the best from Copenhagen to Wroclaw!
SUGGESTION: In your title above, I feel you should find a word more successful and triumphant than the word “Try”, which is defined as “an attempt or effort to do something”, as in the expression, “Well at least I tried”, which people say when the utterly fail at something.
At least here, you have not failed at all. The ongoing help you’ve giving others is real and wonderful. For example it enable me to find the source of strange sounds in my equipment, and to design filters needed, speeding my product toward production.
Tomasz, thank you for blogging about Tinnitus. I was recently diagnosed and it is frustrating and scary to think this problem might never go away. But I am glad to see lots of helpful and upbeat advice from you and others who have struggled with this mysterious health issue. Also, your use of English is excellent! (I’m a Polish-American and I only know a few words and phrases in Polish although my grandparents and parents were fluent in Polish.) Looking forward to more of your blog posts.
Tomasz, Thank you When I play your tone generator loudly Foy the dog next door. He stops his never ending yapping !!
You have saved his life 🙂
Also I have proven that with conditioning “you can teach an old dog new tricks”
Jon
Jon, many thanks for the report. Glad my generator made a difference. What frequency are you using? The information could come in handy 🙂
Hi,
I use the very top tone and vary it around 18500 – 20100 with the arrow keys until he stops his infernal din ! I think he’s now understanding the link.
Pea sized brain !
(the dog’s is not much bigger)
Thanks you for your generator online, Tomasz! 🙂
Tomasz, can you make me world’s best sine wave tone generator? I’ll pay you $50 for it. You can reach me at harmanmarkus@gmail.com
U mnie się sprawdza zwykły szum.
Hello, Tomasz..this “app”, is wonderful, it is exactly what I was looking for.
Thank you so very much for your service.
This really helped me with onevof my projects.
Thanks again. Steve Aspen.
Steveaspen@hotmail.com
Hi – your online tone generator is great – is there any way to add a phase changer to it?
Thank you for this website. I’ve just recently come upon this page and reading has helped me deal with my tinnitus. I worked around aircraft and jet engines for years, always with ear protection, and 5 years later this tinnitus comes up. My doctor has been unhelpful to say the least, so its’ up to me to do the research. Well spoken and written.
Thanks, but I’m not sure I understand your question.