The Off Topic Topic

[Malthus]

I'd love to go to Portugal one day. It looks really beautiful, and in every way the opposite of Toronto in February. 😄

I'm so sick of this shit weather ...

[HVC]

Peniche gets big waves too, but Nazare also gets crazy ones. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJc4Ir78KdE

[The Larch]

(might have crossed paths with the larch ).

Haha, that'd be really cool but I don't think the dates match, I'm several years older than you, IIRC.

[The Larch]

I'd love to go to Portugal one day. It looks really beautiful, and in every way the opposite of Toronto in February. 😄

I'm so sick of this shit weather ...

You should! It is indeed a great place. Great weather,  great food, tons of history, extremely affordable and really foreigner friendly. And I think there are direct flights from Toronto!

[HVC]

I'd love to go to Portugal one day. It looks really beautiful, and in every way the opposite of Toronto in February. 😄

I'm so sick of this shit weather ...

It's nice, cheap (relative lol) and has surprisingly diverse biomes for such a small country. Part of the north remind of New Zealand. South is arid (and crowded). Centre kind of scales between the two, depending how far away you are from the coast. Though I hear it's more and more depopulated.

[HVC]

(might have crossed paths with the larch ).

Haha, that'd be really cool but I don't think the dates match, I'm several years older than you, IIRC.

I was born in 84 so I don't know where that puts you, but if not me then maybe my cousins haha

[The Larch]

(might have crossed paths with the larch ).

Haha, that'd be really cool but I don't think the dates match, I'm several years older than you, IIRC.

I was born in 84 so I don't know where that puts you, but if not me then maybe my cousins haha

I'm a 79er myself, and we only went down there when I was younger, so unless you were there as a baby... 

Your older cousins... maybe, who knows?

[Malthus]

I'd love to go to Portugal one day. It looks really beautiful, and in every way the opposite of Toronto in February. 😄

I'm so sick of this shit weather ...

You should! It is indeed a great place. Great weather,  great food, tons of history, extremely affordable and really foreigner friendly. And I think there are direct flights from Toronto!

Yeah, everyone I know who has gone has had great things to say about Portugal as a tourist destination. It is definitely on my list.

[HVC]

(might have crossed paths with the larch ).

Haha, that'd be really cool but I don't think the dates match, I'm several years older than you, IIRC.

I was born in 84 so I don't know where that puts you, but if not me then maybe my cousins haha

I'm a 79er myself, and we only went down there when I was younger, so unless you were there as a baby... 

Your older cousins... maybe, who knows?

since I was a newborn, though I doubt I was interacting with 5 year olds lol. If you hung out with Mafra's or Vaz's that was them lol. My aunts and uncles all shared the same parents but got randomly given one of two surnames and no one knows why. Did save my uncle form the military police when he was younger. Came look for a vaz but he was a mafra

[Zanza]

Just saw a report on Republic Srpska, the Serb-part of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Looks like the next war brewing in Europe... 

[mongers]

Just saw a report on Republic Srpska, the Serb-part of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Looks like the next but one war brewing in Europe... 

FYP.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah - and I'd worry about Moldova too. Very pro-Western government which is trying to move into being aligned with and starting proper talks with Europe. Given everything it's not clear Russia would be satisfied with merely a frozen conflict in Transnistria any more

[Sheilbh]

Latest in the international banking leaks - this time Suisse Leaks from Credit Suisse with details of over 30,000 accounts leaked:
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/feb/20/credit-suisse-secrets-leak-unmasks-criminals-fraudsters-corrupt-politicians

While there's obviously a large amount of corruption going on here - including the Marcos's having bank accounts until the 2000s, Mubarak and Omar Suleiman, over 2000 Venezuelan accounts, 1000 Ukrainian ones (including a collective farm manager who was PM for one year, suddenly had millions and now liives in California), sons of Nigerian presidents with multi-millions etc - the thing that's really striking is just how many straight up criminals seem involved in Credit Suisse.

A guy arrested for human trafficking in the Philippines after his premises were raided and the police found 17 cubicles with women on webcam shows had an account with them for at least 4 years after his conviction when it got shut down due to some "due diligence" issues; a German executive involved in Siemens' massively bribing Nigerian politicians who had £24 million sitting in an account that his lawyers couldn't explain; a Serb wanted in Serbia for cocaine smuggling and securities fraud in the US who opened an account for a few million the year after the SEC got a default judgement against him for operating pump and dump schemes.

Just extraordinary - and over the last couple of decades which indicates that it seems a pretty serious pattern of behaviour to not care/ask questions - apparently the policy informally was don't ask any questions you don't want an answer to and never write anything down that would indicate an account was non-compliant.

[grumbler]

Apropos of nothing very much, an interesting chart came out of a discussion on warships1 regarding naval guns and in particular the choice of the RN to go with 10 14" guns on the KGV class versus the 8 15" guns on Bismarck.



One of the enduring (as in, someone makes this argument somewhere on the internet every single day) myths in history is that the KM Bismarck was the bestest battleship in every way ever built.  Of the (nominally) 35,00 ton battleships, she had the weakest belt and the poorest armament (though the best fire control), even though she cheated the system more than anyone.  Still very formidable at close range (note that these figure are for long-range engagements and her performance would look better at shorter ranges) she still is, ton for ton, as much an example of German over-engineering as the Tiger or Panther tanks.

[Malthus]

Question: on the chart, Richleau does somewhat better than Bismarck, even though both have the same number & size of guns (8 times 15 inch). What's the extra factor at work here? Better targeting control?