ZucchiniMann 🛸 (✸,✸)

@ImShahinyan One of those Morphy like problems... When you've seen it once, you solve it at once

White mates in 2 How quickly can you solve this? 🤔

@ImShahinyan The black pawn on c4 is useful because it blocks Qb3

White mates in 2 How quickly can you solve this? 🤔

The highest quality video of the moon was just released… this is so beautiful.

The United States has spent EIGHT TRILLION DOLLARS fighting and policing in the Middle East. Thousands of our Great Soldiers have died or been badly wounded. Millions of people have died on the other side. GOING INTO THE MIDDLE EAST IS THE WORST DECISION EVER MADE.....

@ImShahinyan Let's try to see how this disaster could happen : 1. d4 Nf6 2. Nd2 e5 3. dxe Ng4 4. h3?? ie we are at move 4

We are at move 3! Black to play and win!

@ImShahinyan Find the square where the Queen covers the rook and the bishop. Remember that their Knight cannot move

White mates in 2 Level: Difficult😎

@ImShahinyan Shame on me, i didn't realize there was a queen in the corner, that's the reason why it took me so long for a one-mover!

White mates in 1 😎

@ImShahinyan One move isn't enough to prove cheating

Cheating❗️❗️❗️ In this position, any normal player would promote the pawn and win the game. But against GM Eric Hansen, white played an unbelievable engine move and got banned for cheating. Can you guess the move? 🤔

I am Jeff Bezos. I own The Washington Post. I bought it in 2013. For $250 million. That's 0.1% of my net worth. A rounding error. A tax strategy. A civic gesture. On Tuesday, we laid off one-third of the newsroom. 300 people. I was not on the call. I had other commitments. The publisher was also not on the call. He had other commitments. HR handled it. HR is very good at handling things. We eliminated the sports section. Sports was not profitable. We eliminated the books section. Books were not profitable. We eliminated every photojournalist. Photos can be licensed. From agencies. That still employ photojournalists. For now. We shrunk the metro desk. From 40 reporters to 12. Washington D.C. only needs 12 reporters. To cover democracy. Dying. In darkness. That's our slogan. "Democracy Dies in Darkness." We added it after the 2016 election. It was very popular. With subscribers. Who are leaving. The Post lost $100 million last year. That's a problem. Not for me. For the people who work there. Worked there. The executive editor announced the cuts. He said we were "repositioning for the future." Repositioning means layoffs. The future means fewer journalists. We closed foreign bureaus. Foreign news is expensive. We canceled the daily podcast. Podcasts require staff. Staff requires salaries. Salaries require revenue. Revenue requires subscribers. Subscribers require trust. Trust requires editorial independence. Editorial independence requires not killing the endorsement of Kamala Harris three weeks before the election. I killed the endorsement. In October. Before the election. Some people said this was because I wanted access to the incoming administration. Some people said this was because Amazon has $2 billion in federal contracts. Some people said this was because I'm building rockets that require government approval. I said it was about "principle." Principle is a word that means many things. To many people. The subscribers left. Hundreds of thousands of them. In weeks. The opinion editor resigned. Publicly. Other journalists resigned. Less publicly. The ones who stayed got laid off. On Tuesday. The same week I donated millions to Melania Trump's inauguration fund. That was a coincidence. A very public coincidence. The same week Amazon announced 16,000 layoffs. That was also a coincidence. A very large coincidence. Someone asked why I don't just fund the Post myself. I could. $100 million is nothing to me. I make that in hours. Sometimes minutes. But that's not how business works. The Post must be "sustainable." Sustainable means profitable. Profitable means fewer journalists. Fewer journalists means less coverage. Less coverage means less accountability. Less accountability means... Well. That's the point. Isn't it? The laid-off staff rallied outside the building. On Wednesday. They held signs. They gave speeches. They talked about "the mission." The mission is journalism. Journalism is expensive. I am the richest man on Earth. Some days. Depending on the stock price. The Post's slogan is "Democracy Dies in Darkness." I'm turning off the lights. One section at a time. One bureau at a time. One photojournalist at a time. 300 people at a time. But the slogan stays. The slogan is good for branding. Someone asked if I care about journalism. I said: "I care deeply about the role of a free press in a democracy." I said that. In a statement. Written by someone who still has a job. The truth is simpler. The Post was a hobby. Hobbies get expensive. Hobbies get complicated. Hobbies require attention. I have rockets. I have retail. I have cloud computing. I have federal contracts. I have relationships to maintain. With the administration. That my newspaper used to cover. Critically. We still cover them. With 12 metro reporters. And no photojournalists. And no sports section. And no books section. And no foreign bureaus. And no daily podcast. And no Harris endorsement. But we have the slogan. Democracy Dies in Darkness. Very inspiring. Very marketable. Very ironic. Anyway, I remain committed to journalism! The statement said so.

@JPraderaD @GMIgorSmirnov Vs. Tartakover

@GMIgorSmirnov Is this the Reti game? Reti vs can’t remember

Brilliant Move, But Why? 🤔🤔

@ImShahinyan 🙂 up and down🙂

White mates in 21. Sounds scary, but it isn’t 😅 If you find it, you owe me a smile 🙂

@ImShahinyan I got a mate in five but it's probably not allowed😅

Tried a new board game this week and was not impressed. Lots of flaws. 1. Only one scenario - Most games these days have dozens of scenarios you can play. This game starts the same every time. Very low replayability. Will probably get old fast. 2. No campaign mode - Every game is a standalone experience. This feels pretty lazy. Where are the Legacy style booster packs we can unlock? Where are the persistent changes, character upgrades, etc.? Just sloppy design work. 3. Crude miniatures - Yeah, they're kinda nice in a minimalist way, but it feels like they were just cutting costs here. No big bucket of plastic minis I can paint. Very low detail renderings on the small soldier pieces in particular. 4. No expansion packs - Adding on to the replayability problems is the fact that no new content has been announced. It's just good design and business sense to have the first 2 or 3 big box expansions already in production when the base game hits. But this is just a core set without any new content on the horizon. So the meta will probably die pretty fast. 5. New players are at a disadvantage - You have to play this game more than 2 or 3 times to find any kind of viable strategy. So new players are at a huge disadvantage. When I play a game, I want everyone to feel included so all players should be getting like 400+ victory points 6. Only one way to win - The only way to win is by taking the other player's king piece. That's it. No alternate paths to victory or other strategies to pursue. Just take the king and you win. Boring. I really would have liked if you'd been able to win by building up your kingdom peaceably, or pursuing alternate routes like farming, trade, or earning favor with a visiting monarch or something. As is, the game really pigeonholes you into just one approach. So yeah. I won't be revisiting this one. Sad, because it feels like there was a lot of potential here that was wasted by some short-sighted design and development decisions.

Hello, this is Yanis Varoufakis with a piece of news that would have been hilarious if it weren’t so scary. This morning, two policemen appeared on my doorstep to serve a summons ordering me to the police headquarters to be interrogated by the Greek DEA, our drug busting police department. Not as a witness, expert or not, but as the accused. Accused of what? Shortly after New Year’s, I appeared on a podcast organised by young people to answer their questions on everything that concerns Gen Z today: social media, the meaning of life, their job prospects, what I call technofeudalism etc. At some point, they asked me if I had ever used drugs. Determined not to do a Bill Clinton (remember the laughable “I didn’t inhale”?), I said I had. Apart from pot, I told them, I had one experience of taking ecstasy in Sydney 36 years ago. It was pleasant, I danced for 16 hours effortlessly but then, I added, it gave me a migraine for a week – and so I never used again. That was my introduction to making the point that, however pleasant drug taking may seem, there is a price to pay. And that the ultimate price is dependence, addiction – “the end of liberty”, I said emphatically. Do you see where this is going? Yes, the Greek police have opened an investigation of me under the charge of... aiding and abetting the narco-mafia. [Do me a favour folks: Please don’t tell Trump, OK?] Seriously now, at a time of war, genocide, stupendous exploitation and so on, my little trouble with the inane Greek police is neither here nor there. But it is important. Here, in Europe, many people still live under the illusion that we have liberty, rationality and freedom. We don’t. Dark forces are at work, pushing us into a postmodern version of the Dark Ages. So, beware, people! They are out to take away the last remnants of autonomy and freedom we have left. Resistance is, literally, existence.

Warren Buffett: “The secret to life is weak competition.” “How do you beat Bobby Fischer? You play him at any game except chess.”

@alainpaulweber Proche de Karlsruhe? Il doit s'agir de BRUCHSAL.

« Le jour où les nazis ont fusillé « Poil de Carotte » Arrêté à Cassis en 1943, Robert Lynen est à 23 ans le seul acteur à avoir été passé par les armes. L’enfant prodige du cinéma était aussi un Résistant de la première heure. Je me souviens du jeune acteur Robert Lynen, qui tourna dans Poil de Carotte et dans Carnet de bal et qui mourut au début de la guerre », écrit Georges Perec qui se trompe sur la date. Le blondinet à la tête d’ange qui courait sur la Canebière s’est effacé des mémoires malgré la belle biographie que lui a consacrée François Charles en 2002 *. Son nom est indissociable de Poil de carotte qu’il interpréta en 1932 pour Julien Duvivier. Le petit rouquin aux taches de rousseur reçut à 12 ans une consécration mondiale qui ne le quitta pas. Ce qu’on sait moins c’est le destin tragique de ce vrai résistant de la première heure. C’est le seul acteur français à avoir été passé par les armes pour Résistance. Membre d’Alliance, le réseau de l’Intelligence Service, il est arrêté à Cassis au château de Fontcreuse en 1943, dénoncé par un officier français vendu aux nazis. L’héroïsme côtoie souvent la bassesse. . Le 7 ou 8 février 1943, Robert Lynen est arrêté au château de Fontcreuse avec son amie l’actrice Assia et Robert Vernon son ami irlandais fusillé aussi. « Un jeune acteur devenu terroriste arrêté à Cassis », titre la presse vichyste. Emmené à la prison de la rue Saint-Pierre à Marseille où il est interrogé, frappé, il est transféré à Fribourg en mai 1943. Entre deux séances de tortures et privé de nourriture, il est jugé les 15 et 16 décembre 1943 avec dix autres compagnons et condamné à mort avec eux pour « espionnage au profit d’une puissance ennemie » par un tribunal militaire. Il croupit à la forteresse de Bruschal près de Karlsruhe. « Robert chante ! Oui on l’entend chanter le soir dans sa cellule », relate un déporté à la Libération. Le 20 janvier 1944, la cour martiale du IIIe Reich confirme la sentence. Poil de Carotte est fusillé avec 13 autres compagnons le 1er avril 1944 sur un champ de tir à Karlsruhe. Il meurt en chantant la Marseillaise et en tenant la main de Jean Danis-Burel. Leurs corps sont jetés dans une fosse. Le 30 août 1947, la Marseillaise se félicite du rapatriement de son corps. Une cérémonie lui rend hommage aux Invalides le 23 décembre 1947 où la Croix de Guerre lui est remise. Poil de Carotte est inhumé au carré militaire du cimetière de Gentilly. Marseille ne lui a jamais rendu hommage. » Par Corrine Coco

The double sacrifice is a cool idea. But does it work? we asked. You voted as seen below. Scroll down for the solution.

MVL missed a nice win with the idea 1. a6 Ra4 2. Rc8!! (idea Ra8, a7 and then push the unstoppable d pawn...)

@ChessifyMe Rb5# is the idea

Doesn’t matter what you give — only what you take away. 🧊 White mates in 2

I didn’t plan a trilogy on Japan’s investigative journalism and the yakuza—but here we are 3 books, 1 investigation: Japan, yakuza, corruption and what the truth costs #TokyoVice → The Last Yakuza → Tokyo Noir Explore the shadows of the Rising Sun🕵🏻‍♀️ bit.ly/3WtKQWC