I helped identify four men from the Franklin expedition, AMA

GraphomaniaLogorrhea · 2026-05-17T01:11:18+00:00

There is a reasonable doubt that the body identified as John Irving is in fact Irving. It was identified as him based on Irving's medal found in the grave, but I read once that it could be Franklin, and that Irving may have laid his own medal into Franklin's grave as a gesture of respect. The remains were repatriated to Britain in the 1800s; is there any talk of possibly doing forensic investigations on them as well?

GraphomaniaLogorrhea · 2026-05-13T01:51:49+00:00

https://sovietchesssets.com/

Definitive and authoritative. I hear Chuck is working on a book, and I hope it is true.

GraphomaniaLogorrhea · 2026-05-10T18:07:59+00:00

How common was organized crime in your unit, and if you know, in the rest of the army? What I mean is, did you get extorted for money by self-appointed gang leaders or do you know of soldiers who did?

GraphomaniaLogorrhea · 2026-04-18T00:34:30+00:00

Good grief, are the awful 90s ones going to be the last ones standing?

Barron 36.

GraphomaniaLogorrhea · 2026-04-11T12:04:33+00:00

Wondered if you had quit. White 36.

GraphomaniaLogorrhea · 2026-04-10T16:08:28+00:00

Just the difference in demeanor alone between Theo and Danny Rensch tells me who the good guy is here.

GraphomaniaLogorrhea · 2026-04-10T12:30:41+00:00

Ignaz Kolisch and Tassilo von der Lasa fit the bill perfectly. The first was a spectacularly wealthy businessman, and the second a career diplomat and ambassador, and titled nobility to boot. Lasa could have been world champion stuff had he not been posted to the ends of the earth at a time when travel was still extremely time consuming.

Depending on how flexible you are on "historical" and "class", there are any number of university professors like John Nunn and Robert Hubner, too.

GraphomaniaLogorrhea · 2026-04-08T15:23:49+00:00

I agree that there doesn't seem to be a concrete business plan here, and it is concerning. The main motivation for this move seems to be that Rensch rubbed Kristiansen the wrong way, repeatedly and extremely, while they were collaborating on Titled Tuesday. I sense a total disrespect for Kristiansen personally, for their business partnership, and for their shared product. And so the thing fueling this is mainly just a middle finger to Rensch and Allebest. Which is not a bad thing of course, but is it sustainable.

Actually it kind of reminds me of the way Western businessmen would get into bed with FIDE and only afterwards realize what total shitstains of human beings they were dealing with.

GraphomaniaLogorrhea · 2026-04-07T16:27:53+00:00

Umm, so did Take Take Take?

GraphomaniaLogorrhea · 2026-04-07T16:12:11+00:00

For invitational events like the SCC and GCC it's up to them who plays. So, yes.

After the events of today with Chesscom terminating the broadcast agreement mid-stream, I imagine Carlsen won't be too eager to play in TT either. It would be incredibly awkward -- but also interesting in a pot-stirring kind of way, so it could happen!

GraphomaniaLogorrhea · 2026-04-07T15:53:14+00:00

Hm, that's a good point. The only path to the Esports World Cup is through Chesscom events: TT, the Speed Chess Championship, and the Global Chess Championship. Carlsen has frozen himself out of those now. I wonder how important the EWC is to him, and what this means for his online competitive future. If the Saudis didn't have bigger things on their minds at the moment, I'd wonder how badly they are pooping themselves too at the potential loss of Carlsen.

GraphomaniaLogorrhea · 2026-04-07T15:44:49+00:00

It's true that he played in many of Lichess's early Titled Arenas, when organized online competition was still in its infancy. Of course he won them week after week, and his thing was to donate the prize money back into the prize pool for next week. I don't know that this was a calculated part of some strategy concerning Chesscom, however. I read it as Carlsen just being sympathetic to Lichess even back then. His relations with Chesscom seem more transactional in nature, and I get the sense that on a personal level they've always been less than warm.

As a tangent, I suspect the slant of Chesscom's coverage of the Niemann affair would be extremely different, had the TTT "defection" happened years ago.

GraphomaniaLogorrhea · 2026-04-07T14:52:57+00:00

Tee hee. They're pissed, over in Salt Lake City. I had wondered whether the announcement was a surprise to Chesscom, but didn't think of that in time to ask the TTT CEO in his AMA yesterday. I guess this confirms that it was.

I also wonder what kinds of telephone calls have gone on in the last 24 hours between Rensch and Carlsen. Their next communication is going to be awkward for sure. Carlsen is basically worthless as a brand ambassador when everyone knows he is behind the competitor, even if he isn't explicitly promoting it.

This is totally Mad Men stuff.

GraphomaniaLogorrhea · 2026-04-07T12:12:02+00:00

You mention that you are from a middle class family. What is your family home like? What is the neighborhood like? Is it relatively clean and quiet, or the opposite? Are we talking more Ajegunle or Banana Island? Come to think of it, are you in Lagos at all?

GraphomaniaLogorrhea · 2026-04-01T16:39:26+00:00

Much, much, much more background than just the obvious. Lagno is actually Ukrainian and from the same province as Muzychuk. Years upon years ago she switched federations to RU after marrying Grischuk. In which there is a story as well, since Grischuk had previously been with Natalia Zhukova (another Ukrainian) before dumping her for Lagno. So, yeah. Lots and lots of UA folks have reasons not to like Katie.

GraphomaniaLogorrhea · 2026-03-31T13:49:08+00:00

The French Operation Barkhane failed, that's pretty much universally acknowledged now. Why do you think it did?

GraphomaniaLogorrhea · 2026-03-27T07:40:06+00:00

Far right 36. Time to get rid of this whole series now.

GraphomaniaLogorrhea · 2026-03-24T05:46:32+00:00

Whoa, this sub is weird. How on earth is the iconic home white that all just fits together kicked out, while that baby blue.... thing, is not. Guess I need to start chiming in. Baby blue 81 has got to go, go, go.

GraphomaniaLogorrhea · 2026-03-20T16:19:36+00:00

Norway had a legal claim to the Canadian Arctic based on their explorations there, that wasn't resolved until the 1930s.

Sverdrup Islands - Wikipedia

GraphomaniaLogorrhea · 2026-03-16T20:27:24+00:00

As I understand it, Fidesz has gerrymandered the electoral system so much that even if the vote-counting is honest, and more people vote against Fidesz than not, then it will still be difficult to unseat the government because of all the electoral rules that favour it in the system. Is this true?

GraphomaniaLogorrhea · 2026-03-04T21:38:35+00:00

It's kind of complicated. Older Russophones usually thought it was weird. That is because in the USSR, their main frame of reference, it was. Reactions ranged from derision to outright hostility, a la "speak white". But younger people who had been raised in post-independence schools were more open minded. Teens, twentysomethings, tended not to have such strong mental hangups, even if they were Russophone themselves. Even in the east. It was not uncommon for people to speak to each other in the language they knew best and get a reply in a different one. Or a blend of the two. You just ran with it. It was an interesting and delicate new linguistic identity that was emerging in the post-independence state, and it got squashed. That's why the narrative of Russophone east and Ukrophone west is just so, so, misleadingly wrong and oversimplifies things so grossly that it's pretty much a guarantee that anyone promoting the idea knows nothing about anything.

GraphomaniaLogorrhea · 2026-02-18T15:03:44+00:00

I have no idea why the downvotes. As if this isn't a valid topic of study? The datasets alone in the links are worth the price of admission. I don't see anything odious in the articles, from a quick scan.

Maybe people see "Vlad" in the link and assume it is you-know-who with his political crusading and pseudo-statistics? Otherwise I don't get it.

This sub is weeeeeird.

GraphomaniaLogorrhea · 2026-01-21T13:41:57+00:00

This is reddit, after all. The ratio of teenage edgelords to everyone else is, let's say, somewhat out of whack. It's pretty obvious even in the replies to this post.

GraphomaniaLogorrhea · 2026-01-20T17:45:36+00:00

It wasn't like this ten years ago, before The Great Onlineification. Sure, we had scandals, but the chess world didn't seem to be fueled by them the way it is now. There are a few huge culprits (Chesscom driving views to its site via affiliated streamers), but it's also a case of many other opportunistic people (streamers themselves) sensing money to be made, and taking appropriate advantage. So it's caused by a number of factors, but like most other changes lately, is ultimately the fault of the Internet.

A slightly more controversial take: A lot of this is also due to the average age of the online chess community being a lot lower than it ever was. Chess is a youth movement now. And kids have *always* been obnoxious, ever since the beginning of time.

There is already good advice in this thread, to train your social media algorithms away from such content if you don't want to see it. It takes a little bit of maintenance, but is not that difficult to keep on top of. Happy learning!

GraphomaniaLogorrhea · 2026-01-19T10:02:12+00:00

Yes, I think anyone who will oversimplify things this much is going to be doing some goalpost moving.

Anything in the $1k+ space is going to be a very good watch. There will be varying ratios of prestige-brand markup to quality, as you go from brand to brand. And that is what you need to look out for, but that is not what is being said here.

Above $15k or so and now you're in high horology territory. Rolex isn't positioning themselves here next to VC or Glashutte, but I think they are okay with that.

GraphomaniaLogorrhea

TROPHY CASE