Posts by Frank Walker7

I’m not quite sure what Charles was aiming for there, but he ended up snagging a really solid third-place finish and just cruised right past them.

Oh man....

I was wondering if anyone had any insight into why Max was sliding off the track so frequently yesterday? I know the rain played a part, but it felt like there was something else going on there.

And just like that, we're looking at a yellow flag... definitely not the best omen for tomorrow's race.

It feels like Perez knows exactly when the pit wall isn't giving him the full story.

When it comes to the broadcast, I actually looked away for just a split second yesterday right when Sergio Perez's engine gave out.

It wasn't until much later that I realized you couldn't even see him spin out on the live feed because, of course, they were zoomed in on Lewis Hamilton instead.

You're watching this intense battle for third place on the final lap, staring at the screen, and there is absolutely nothing to see.

It’s honestly like a penalty being called in the 90th minute of a huge game, but the camera decides to zoom in on the logo on someone's sneakers.

Megatron said:They’re going to fire this director right after the race ends.

If it were up to him....

Did anyone happen to catch who snagged the fastest lap today?

Elizabeth Mendoza said:It feels like every single new season, the broadcast directors get more wasted, and the camera work gets even worse. It’s honestly unwatchable. They just give up on the actual racing; instead, you get black screens, or they switch to those three static corner cameras just to wait for cars to fight, or they zoom in so close on decals that you miss 90% of the lap. My head is spinning after just 40 minutes. This is straight-up unwatchable.

I actually ended up Googling what Sofin was, only to find out it's just a company owned by Latifia.

We've spent the last ten minutes staring at the rear wing of a Williams car.

shadowtrucker said:🙂

It's just not working, unfortunately.

Leclerc's SS quota is at 10 for the fastest lap.

Am I losing my mind here, or is that actually doable?

Elizabeth Mendoza said:They just want the sponsors to get noticed with that ridiculous 300x zoom.

Honestly, it’s pretty noticeable because you're constantly being distracted by the zoom, so you can't actually see what's happening on track. In a sport where thousandths of a second matter so much, it's frustrating when they don't even show the full car.

Has it really been this bad since the start of the season? I don't recall things being quite this lackluster in previous years.

The camera work was honestly pretty rough; it kept zooming in on the sponsor logos on the car instead of actually showing us the wheels properly.

silverotter72 said:What exactly is so hard to grasp here?
To actually extract resources, they need technology—technology they’d have to purchase because they simply don't possess it, and I highly doubt anyone is just going to hand it over as a gift.
Even if they have existing wells, keeping them operational requires maintenance, which again, demands foreign tech.
If they want to mine ore at prices that actually make economic sense, they're back to square one: needing technology they don't own.
Then there's agriculture. To plant anything meaningful, you need high-yield seeds (which they buy from Americans) and the machinery, like tractors, to scale production. They pull all of that from Germany or the USA. They don't have their own. The only alternative is using low-quality seeds and outdated methods.
And even when something finally grows, albeit in much smaller quantities, they still have to harvest it. Again, more machinery, more tech, and so on.

All those oil reserves, gas, minerals, and miles of empty land don't mean a thing if they can't actually utilize them. It’s that old saying: a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. In this case, it feels like they killed the bird in their hand with a cruise missile just to try and catch the ones in the bush, only to watch the whole thing fly away.

And yes, the European Union will eventually have to pay whatever the market demands, likely at a premium. But, the EU also has its own resources that it'll now be forced to develop and utilize—something it really should have been doing a long time ago instead of relying solely on cheap handouts from neighbors. We're seeing now that "cheap" often turns out to be significantly more expensive than it looks at first glance.
It’s like what wealthy people say: "I'm not rich enough to buy cheap things." Well, I suppose the European Union has just learned that lesson the hard way.

I'm actually most curious about that first part, specifically regarding how it hits the broader economy rather than just individual households.
We'll just have to wait and see how it unfolds over the next few years.

By the way, I've always wondered why we don't just plant a bunch of nukes and call it a day to solve all our problems!

Carol Johnson21 said:Someone else—maybe even you—already quoted this link and made the exact same point. Try to stay focused.

And what part of that is wrong? Dropping the thermostat by just one degree is a significant saving. Besides, winter is almost over.

What about just ditching the car 80% of the time and walking everywhere just to spite Putin?

Those sound like some real Alanford-style ideas for this situation... being a Dutch socialist, I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

slyfox43 said:For months now—maybe even a year—they’ve been avoiding the spot market for gas, leaving those ExxonMobil storage facilities across Europe sitting empty. This energy blackmail has actually lasted much longer than the invasion itself, though it hasn't quite achieved the leverage they were aiming for.

I mean, trying to blackmail people when there isn't even a shortage yet doesn't really feel like much of a threat, does it?

Plus, it all feels like political theater to me; I'm much more interested in seeing how the actual American energy sector responds to this.

silverotter72 said:Look, you can't pull oil out of the ground without cash, and you certainly can't turn raw material into a product without cash. You can't even handle basic farming, planting or harvesting, without capital.
But then again, if you actually have the money, you can always just go somewhere else and buy the raw materials there.

I'm not quite following your train of thought, though I think I caught your point at the end where you're really asking about the specific price tag involved.

Hmm... I wonder if anyone here is just bluffing?

When you look at how a real economy actually functions—specifically through manufacturing—it makes me wonder if it can truly thrive without access to Russian resources and markets.

My gut feeling is that an exporter of raw materials usually finds sanctions much easier to stomach than a manufacturer of finished goods, especially when massive players like China and India are standing by ready to buy.

Let's just set the politics aside for a moment.

Betty Murphy3 said:In Putin's case, he isn't physically imposing, yet he carries this massive arrogance—this sense of superiority over those he deems weaker. How should we interpret that? Is it the standard interpretation most people jump to? I call it an inferiority complex, or perhaps just a byproduct of his height. It's clearly something he struggles with.

Since he couldn't possibly pull off what his army is doing in Ukraine on his own, feel free to philosophize all you want about how his physique doesn't affect his decisions. Honestly, I’m curious—how would he fare in a one-on-one fight with a Ukrainian or a Russian man of average height? Someone who talks big about rats and cornered animals? Brrr, I'm shaking; I'm terrified. I just wonder how cold his eyes would look if, standing at 6'2", I grabbed him by the head at shoulder level. Would he still act so arrogant and powerful while issuing threats to Finland, Sweden, and everyone else from some basement under the Kremlin?

The moment his subordinates sit or stand ten yards away from him, you know exactly what time it is. It is incredible that people here still fail to grasp the reality of the situation based on examples like this. It isn't just that they fear him; he fears them too. That tells you everything you need to know about the actual dynamic at play.

6'2", huh? Yeah, right, as if you were some big shot like Regoč.

You definitely have some intense fantasies going on there; I bet you're dreaming about throwing hands with Putin in your living room lol.

swiftjackal11 said:Morning Ukrainian
An intelligence officer from Ukraine reached out to tell me about a meeting held deep inside Putin's stronghold in the Ural mountains. It was basically a gathering of oligarchs all trying to find a way to escape Russia. According to Terras, who shared what looks like a leaked document, Putin is absolutely livid because he thought this whole war would be a breeze—something finished in just a few days.

- The Russians didn't actually have a tactical plan. This war is bleeding them about $20 billion every single day. They’re down to their last few missiles, so they're being extremely stingy with them. They're running out of gear; their factories physically can't keep up with the demand. At best, they're just scraping by making rifles and ammo,

- Any new Russian weaponry might take three or four months to build, if they can even manage it. They're completely out of raw materials. They used to rely heavily on supplies coming in from Canada, Finland, and Germany, but those taps have been shut tight now, writes Terras.

I mean, is someone actually going to buy this? The idea that Russia is totally out of weapons?

Paul Patel95 said:Word on the street is they're already pulling the trigger on kicking Russia out of SWIFT

Which really brings me back to my original thought: I wonder just how much longer Germany can hold out without that Russian gas coming in?