Divestment is “more urgent” in Toronto than NYC

A growing list of large institutional investors around the world – state and provincial pension funds, university endowments, and most recently, New York City itself, have been aggressively divesting from fossil fuel investments so as to do their part in mitigating against climate change. Here in Toronto, it’s been a different story. Prominent institutional investors, […]

The post Habitat: Environmentalists eye city’s investment policies appeared first on Torontoist.

Why all the secrecy?

If you follow the news in Toronto or if you’re interested in technology, you’ve probably heard of Sidewalk Toronto by now. It’s a joint project of Sidewalk Labs, a sister company of Google, and Waterfront Toronto. This is the tech giant’s first foray into urban development and infrastructure, with Toronto hosting the pilot project. In […]

The post Civic Tech: We tried to get a copy of the Sidewalk Toronto agreement appeared first on Torontoist.

In 2008, a few friends in Vancouver recognized that a voice was missing from reporting in our country. National news was increasingly international in nature. Provincial was disappearing. And, local seemed out of touch with its audience. So, they started writing the kind of content they wanted to read. Hyperlocal stories aimed at helping people […]

The post Torontoist has been acquired by Daily Hive appeared first on Torontoist.

This Date in Baseball for May 10, 2020

AP Sportlight for May 10, 2020

Mixed feelings around hockey about holding NHL draft early

WWE Money In The Bank Kickoff begins at 6 pm ET/3 pm PT on Sunday, May 10.

Top 10 Friday Night SmackDown moments: WWE Top 10, May 8, 2020

Wisconsin officials believe a plan of reducing compensation to highest-earning employees should help save the athletic department about $2.8 million.

Becky Lynch has become the Superstar with the most total days as Raw Women’s Champion, surpassing Alexa Bliss.

Unable to stage its big fundraiser because of the pandemic, Figure Skating in Harlem is going from the ice to the internet

Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh penned a two-page open letter advocating flexibility for college athletes looking to enter the NFL Draft.

Analysis: Tennis pros' US return amid pandemic no true model

Путешествие - это ещё и знакомства. В хостелах с незнакомцами ещё и делишь удобства, в в гестах - общее пространство. Как знакомиться, как держаться в международной англоязычной среде путешественников - интересует многих трэвел-ребят, тем более тех из них, для кого английский язык не родной.

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 This time I started earlier in the day while the little chap was watching TV,  rather than nod off, I thought I would activate and tackle those projects that have been waiting to be completed. The ECW regiments were long over due, time to get the Flock box out again.


 As I want these units to be nice and quick and not too taxing, I’m going for a few layers of flock to base them. Dark earth, light earth, 2mm static grass then a longer mix of 4/6mm static grass. Maybe some flower tufts thrown in here and there too. Nice and quick with no painting going on.

 The little chap enjoyed his game with my old Britain’s figures, so I thought I would get him his own.  A big bucket of soldiers from Amazon was just the ticket!
I chose the Americans and He chose everything else, including all my heavy weapons. He loved them!

 With the other two bases finished, I took the opportunity to get them all together and add some battle debris. Broken shields and weapons and spears stuck in the ground.
This warrior has thrown down his heavy shield and unslung his short bow.
 These bits and bobs help to tell little stories in each base and add to the drama. I’ve just noticed there is a spot where the ground mix didn’t get to around the feet of the Dwarf with the spear, must fix that.


 I wanted to give the impression that the shield wall was hard pressed and under a lot of pressure, I think the extra details help with that illusion. The base below is one of the new ones with a wild charge getting started.


I also added shields etc to the back ranks to fill out the bases.

 After years of waiting, Dain finally gets to meet Thorin.
 The wolf packs meet up at last.
 A large black Warg snaps commands to his messengers.
 Iron Hills Dwarves battle Gundabad beserkers.
 Gundabad trolls lead the march of the Trolls, tickets now available.
 A throng of trolls. Two Dark Alliance 20mm plastic trolls flank a metal GW war troll.
 Drain and Thorin muster to protect a back gate.
 The great white wolf commands her forces. Her pack is made out of large black wargs, grey wolves and white wolves from the north.
 Two Snow trolls with their animal hide trappings.
These lightning fast wolves will be the terror of the battlefield, moving at incredible speeds to out flank and surround the enemy.

 I gave myself a challenge tonight of seeing how quick I could paint some ACW soldiers to a standard I’d be happy to game with. I started off with a black under coat and added single colours to block out the uniform. I forced myself to just use one coat colour ( Foundry Union uniform B), I found later this can be dry-brushed with earth brown and this acts as a highlight. The soldiers are rough and ready campaign guys, so mud and dust was added to them.

Also, I love the fact that the varnish is as hard as nails and will protect them from knocks and scrapes. My last lot, because of the number of them, I just matte varnished without any gloss or floor varnish underneath. This didn’t sit well with me and I’m a lot happier knowing this lot have been dipped.



 As with the ECW lot, the flesh is the only paint I allowed myself to use two colours on. It made such a difference it was a ‘no brainer’. Skin tone under Army Painter needs two colours I think, as sometimes without, it can loose something and the men appear a little lifeless.


 Well after the quick blocking in and weathering I gave them a brush with the Army Painter strong tone. The results were very pleasing, a lot better than the photos do justice really.

For the American Civil War you need a lot of men unless of course you are using skirmishing rules. This I think has to be the route for me now with all of of my big projects, the results are quick and still pleasing. It’s also nice to force yourself into new ways of working which helps keep the hobby fresh and rewarding. I think that is a good word to use for the Dip, rewarding. Seeing those bags of figures in draws get a lick of paint on them and become units and thus, usable.

 We’ll have to see how they turn out when they’re matte varnished
This lot must have taken me an hour maybe a bit less. The brown tone works well on these guys but should be even better on the soft greys and browns of the Confederate army.

Experimenting with different techniques with this second batch. The strong tone brown is quite dark so is great for clothes but I feel some areas of the mini need a stronger contrast. So with this second group I gave their muskets a wash of black. Also their equipment is very dark too so while I had the ink on the brush I tried on their blue uniforms and a little on their faces. Watching a lot of references and from my own re-enactments, I know the black power gets all over the face with biting cartridges etc, so a bit of black contrast on the face wouldn’t go a miss.

This extra shade on the face did bring out the expressions and characters of the figures a lot more. Again, really quick to do and gave another level of detail to the mini. I will compare the two batches at the end and see which I prefer.

I’m finding that painting them in little strips of five or six minis is actually really fun and gives a much more instant and rewarding experience.

As I paint these guys I try to use the brush in such a way that I leave areas of black undercoat still showing in the recesses. This should help the should help the shading later with the brown tone.

There is one more technique I would like to try on a third batch, using two tones of Army Painter at the same time. A black Dark tone for the equipment/uniform areas and a Strong tone for the trousers etc.

 Yes, these lot worked okay, the Dip did it’s job. I was curious to see how the brown stain would look on the dark blue and I think it looks good. Going forward I might give them a slight blue highlight before the Dip.
Excuse my spray painted hand I thought I would get some more chaps under coated and painted up while the iron is hot.




 Above is a batch of figures I bought off EBAY, they were painted well but lacked shading. I thought whilst I had the Dip out I might as well give them a coat. I do need to correct a few things on their details but they should help to swell the ranks.
 Meanwhile, My own batches of generic Union troops are drying nicely.
 

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.

 After the bases were covered in ground mix yesterday, tonight I brought out the Flock box to give them some long field grass. This is a lot of extra work but I think it really helps finish off that American look.



 I think the Flock box really comes into its own on larger bases.

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. […]

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 […]

There are dozens of articles Out There on "Zoom fatigue", with a wide range of ideas about causes and cures. Gianpiero Petriglieri offered the BBC a couple of hypotheses about why "Zoom calls drain your energy": Being on a video call requires more focus than a face-to-face chat, says Petriglieri. Video chats mean we need […]

Two years on, and still my favourite Chinese mistranslation…. pic.twitter.com/0EHeQjybeB — Antiokhos in the East (@AntiokhosE) May 6, 2020   How did it happen? There's no problem with "xiǎoxīn 小心"; it just means "be careful [of]; pay heed to". The problem comes with the second half of the warning, where luòshí 落石 ("falling rocks") is […]

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.

This headline puzzled me: I interpreted it as Doctors are showing a buried CDC report to top White House officials And I wondered, what was that report? and why did the CDC bury it? And who are the doctors digging it up? What the headline actually meant, of course, was Documents show that top White […]

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 […]