Another command group for the orc forces. These armoured orcs caused quite a problem as to who was going to lead them. Originally, it was going to be the guy with the fur cloak, but he looked a little underwhelming. So a quick look into the spares box produced a much bigger, better suited leader for the task.
 This crazed, motley lot are in fact a skirmish line of small snaga (slave orcs). They are being whipped and yelled at by larger orcs. They don’t look like they will able to do much with all their squabbling going on, but then again skirmishers in Dragon Rampant are rather limited.
 I was lucky enough to find a few goblins in chains which worked well whip armed orc from Northstar. I think the goblins came from Alternative Armies.
 The serious orc leader with his impressive uniformed band, he obviously has higher standards than most.
The unruly mob scuffle across the battlefield, making a dreadful din as they go. Reminds me of a school trip from the Seventies.

This was the second time trying out Luke APS basing material, again I was greatly impressed. The arid grassland mix seemed perfect for American ground. On top of this I put patches of summer grass flock and then patches of mixed herbs. Mixed herbs from the kitchen cupboard act as great leaf/fern cover on the base. A nice touch is to put some around twigs so it looks like the branch has started to break down.
These are still not finished yet, later I will get my flock box out and give them clumps of 4-6mm static grass.
I have been hanging onto an old bonsai tree that died twenty years ago for the purpose of basing. Now these fantasy bases were the perfect excuse to dig it out and use it. It’s twisty roots were perfect for a good Middle Earth look.

The results of the Dip were pleasing to look upon. I have almost doubled my Federal army in one go...result!.
These will be given some patches of 4mm grass today to finish them off.

The Regimental Fire and Fury way of generic basing is a good one. This bases will be able to represent a multitude of Union regiments. Although I have put together a hand picked group to represent the Irish Brigade, using the fantastic heads from Steve Barber models. That’s to come later, hopefully I can wizz through them with the Dip.

Creepiness In this Pocket-Sized episode #1005, Marc Abrahams shows an unfamiliar research study to Jean Berko Gleason. Dramatic readings and reactions ensue. The research mentioned in this episode is featured in the special Psychology issue (vol. 26, #1) of the Annals of Improbable Research magazine. Remember, our Patreon donors, on most levels, get access to each podcast episode before it is made public. 1. […]

The 1996 Ig Nobel Prize for biology was awarded to Anders Barheim and Hogne Sandvik of the University of Bergen, Norway, for their tasty and tasteful report, “Effect of Ale, Garlic, and Soured Cream on the Appetite of Leeches.” Recently, Bradley Allff, writing in Atlas Obscura, looked at the role medical leeches sometimes play in medicine in the USA. […]

Crazy-seeming research, every now and then, leads to something really, really wonder-filled. In this case, the discovery of something long-predicted (by Einstein) but seemingly impossible to perceive: gravity waves. (HT Maggie Lettvin)

‘Sentiment mining’ – i.e. trying to gauge the Public’s attitude towards an institution, product, firm (etc. etc.) though automatic analysis of Social Media posts (etc. etc.) is now considered an essential tool for market researchers and ‘reputation managers’. But there are problems. One of which is sarcasm. Given its prevalence, serious errors can be introduced […]

Vi Hart, adept at mathematics, music, and explaining things, made this video that explains the point (and the lack of point, too) of 12-tone music:

Harrisburg University proudly announces, in a press release: HU facial recognition software predicts criminality A group of Harrisburg University professors and a Ph.D. student have developed automated computer facial recognition software capable of predicting whether someone is likely going to be a criminal. With 80 percent accuracy and with no racial bias, the software can […]

A new comic strip—in Russian and in English—about some of the curious characters who have won Ig Nobel Prizes. The series appears on Instagram.

Hot Sauce Aggression In this Pocket-Sized episode #1006, Marc Abrahams shows an unfamiliar research study to Dany Adams. Dramatic readings and reactions ensue. The research mentioned in this episode is featured in the special Ig: the Triumph of Miss Sweetie Poo issue (Vol. 7, #1) of the Annals of Improbable Research Magazine. Remember, our Patreon donors, on most levels, get […]

BabyWasher, the automatic dirty-diaper-changing invention, honored by the 2019 Ig Nobel Prize for engineering, now has a name, and is now undergoing intense development. You can follow the progress by visiting the inventor’s new web site, BabyWashers.com.

Bereitschaftspotential In this Pocket-Sized episode #1007, Marc Abrahams shows an unfamiliar research study to Jean Berko Gleason. Dramatic readings and reactions ensue. The research mentioned in this episode is featured in the special Psychology issue (vol. 26, #1) of the Annals of Improbable Research magazine. Remember, our Patreon donors, on most levels, get access to each podcast episode before it is made public. 1. […]

We played another successful “reverse” game recently, so I want to document them in one place. Sushi No (Sushi Go) Play normally. Goal is to have the lowest score at the end of the game. 7 Blunders (7 Wonders) Play … Continue reading →

I find myself incredibly frustrated with Adobe products again. I don’t know why it’s so hard to make sorting and tagging software that just works, although I suppose having over 465,000 photos may stretch the limits of any software. But … Continue reading →

life’s stats and photo journal pages have been updated. Not too much interesting this time around… life has been crazy, but not due to trips, at least. It was a really weird Christmas, weather-wise. Mostly because it was super warm … Continue reading →

I feel like I owe the internet an update, but what could I possibly say to cover the craziness that has been the past two months? This Coronavirus thing was a thing. I had a Thailand trip planned for 3 … Continue reading →

I feel like I should be writing in here more given the historicness of everything happening right now. But mostly I’m just tired and want things to stop being so terrible. And it’s only like week three or whatever. In … Continue reading →

[h/t Stephan Hurtubise]  

Readers of Language Log will certainly be aware of Tocharian, but when I began my international research project on the Tarim Basin mummies in 1991, very few people — only a tiny handful of esoteric researchers — had ever heard of the Tocharians and their language since they went extinct more than a millennium ago, […]

Ewan Spence, "Apple Leak Reveals Radical New MacBook Pro", Forbes 5/4/2020: Apple may finally be getting round to updating the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Intel's tenth generation processors. The good news is that the MacOS powered laptop going to get a bucketload of extra power.[…] This laptop is loaded to bear in terms of memory […]

Today's xkcd illustrates why topic modeling can be tricky, for people as well as for machines: The mouseover title: "As the 'exotic animals in homemade aprons hosting baking shows' YouTube craze reached its peak in March 2020, Andrew Cuomo announced he was replacing the Statue of Liberty with a bronze pangolin in a chef's hat." […]

Valerie Hansen has a new book just out: THE YEAR 1000: When Explorers Connected the World — and Globalization Began.  New York:  Scribner, 2020. A NYT review of Hansen's landmark volume is copied below, but let's first look at some interesting language notes concerning the background of the word for "slave" (Chapter 4 is on […]

Today's xkcd: Mouseover title: "Type IIII error: Mistaking tally marks for Roman neumerals" [sic] I was going to ask for your favorite (quasi-)scientific error examples, but then I realized that this just an inventory of testing-result types, so that things like p-hacking, file-drawer phenomena, confirmation bias, etc., are in a different space.

Something extraordinary happened on May 4, 2020.  Deputy National Security Advisor Matt Pottinger delivered an extremely impressive speech in virtually flawless Mandarin.  Here it is: Here's the transcript of Pottinger's speech (pdf), the formal English title of which is "Reflections on China's May Fourth Movement: an American Perspective — Deputy National Security Advisor Matt Pottinger to […]

Today's xkcd: Mouseover title: "DOWNSIDES: Adobe people may periodically email your newsroom to ask you to call it an 'Adobe® PDF document,' but they'll reverse course once they learn how sarcastically you can pronounce the registered trademark symbol." My own pet peeve, speaking of how normal humans choose to communicate, is people who send an […]

How can people be so mean to helpless animals?  While visiting my friends on Earth over Thanksgiving, I was taking a walk and Tra and I saw a dog abandoned in a box in the cold.  She had finished nursing her puppies and so the people who owned her just turned her out in the […]

I am so nervous about Valentine’s Day.  I haven’t ever done this before until I visited Earth and my friend Skeeter told me about it.  Should I give Spec a Valentine that is special and tells him how cute I think he is or should I give all my friends a Valentine that is the […]

I can’t tell you how great it is to be home.  I soo missed my family and my friends.  Thank you to my friends the Idea Seekers Spec and Tra who came to my rescue on the planet Earth.  And to think I almost got turned into a Warrior Drone by Jealousy Cloud over thinking my […]

You guys must give a lot of parties because you all have really good ideas!  I can hardly wait to see what Spec and Skeeter choose to do for the celebration party! Tra and Skeeter and I hung out on Friday with some of you.  It was so great to see everyone. I was expecting Spec would show up […]

I was coming home last night from a visit to Earth and as my spaceship slowed down to enter the atmosphere of Planet Sarillion I was horrified to see there was no planet!!!! There was just a big cloud and The Darkness.  I couldn’t believe it, where was my Mom and Dad, my friends, the […]

Hi all my friends, I was really looking forward to Olice Hush’s party today in the Palace.  I got all changed into my new fire dress and then the Darkness hit without any warning.  I couldn’t get out of my room, on my computer screen it said server failed and all sorts of other things happened to […]

Hi all.  Check out some of the really great party ideas some of you have added to my last post.  Watch the What’s New on the homepage.  Soon we’ll be doing some of them.  Continue to send me your party ideas – you guys rock. I have a challenge for you – how many NEW friends can […]

Dear Idea Seeker or Ally of the Idea Seekers, I have great news!  Greedy Cloud has been chased away and Spec and Tra discovered some new spring time house and garden items that he was hiding from everyone. Check them out in my house and garden, or go see Spec, Tra and Skeeter’s houses. Here […]

Guy 1: Cleaning gutters with a leaf blower. Guy 2: Holding him up with JUMPER CABLES.

Finally! The RAZR flip phone becomes useful!

Oh man, this is great! It's perfect for... seeing texts the second they come in? Showing off your cell phone? Watching videos in a horrid orientation? Wait a minute, why is this useful again?

~NSHA

The tail light cover used to be a plastic Folgers can. I know because the label is still on it.

From the submitter:

The Antennae snapped off of our radio at work. We fixed it at first by putting a metal scraper on top, but when we needed to use it, the music was gone. I put the fork in the hole. Now it works almost as good as before!

What is this music crap you kids are listening to?

From the submitter:

So I get up today and the kids are up before me watching TV. That's fine, it Sunday, got to sleep in, figured I go check my email and puts around online for a few. Later I go into the living room, to turn the TV so I can start watching Game highlights before the Super Bowl, but can not find the remote. I mean I searched everywhere. The usual places... In the couch cushions, under the couch, behind the couch and behind the TV.... nowhere to be found.

Near Paris, there is no need to see if there is another car behind you...