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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На третий месяц конституционной истерики индеец Зоркий Глаз догадался, что над ним просто издеваются.

На самом деле это удивительное ощущение, когда ты смотришь живое кино о бесстыдстве эпохи. Только это не эпоха какого-нибудь Нерона, а наши дни в отдельно взятой стране.

Единственная цель изменений в Конституции — это как-то объяснить, почему Владимир Путин больше 20 лет не может выпустить из жадного кулака власть, данную ему однажды на 4 года. Это беда не Путина, к слову, а народа: на всем постсоветском пространстве, кроме самых цивилизованных республик (Украины, Грузии, немножко Армении) установилась та же ситуация: побултыхавшись немного без Генерального секретаря партии республики, помыкавшись со своей новой прогрессивной Конституцией самостоятельного государства, феодальное общество быстро заскучало и выдвинуло нового царька на веки вечные. И каждый из этих царьков по-своему объяснил своему народу, почему закон о смене власти конкретно к нему не относится. Ну там в Белоруссии он типа лучший хозяйственник и без него все развалится, в Туркмении — великий сын неба или кто он там, в Казахстане — отец народа великой степи, и так далее. Этот процесс кристаллизации местных царьков на обломках СССР идёт уже 30 лет, и мы привыкли. В России до последнего года пытались делать вид, что мы Европа и у нас все цивилизованно, без царьков, просто законы такие, что позволили чуть задержаться. Но в 2020 решили, что зачем цирк, расшаркивания и исходные схемы, если можно все обнулить без цирковых номеров и джигитовки. Тоже смешно, но речь не об этом. Затем были выделены деньги на рекламу — надо как-то объяснить народу, почему важно прийти и проголосовать за изменения в Конституции, которые касаются не его (народа), а одного лишь Путина. И понеслось... Это жалкое зрелище, когда задача поставлена, а как ее решить — креатива нет:

Какие нахуй семейные ценности будут в исправленной Конституции, каких не было в старой? Или вот совсем кризис мысли — котики. В любой непонятной ситуации рисуй котиков. Котиков все любят, проголосуют за котика, заодно и за поправки в Конституцию. Вид у котика на снимке совершенно охуевший, и его можно понять:

Какие нахуй отношения с животными регламентирует Конституция РФ?! Это же смех и портрет эпохи. А вот совсем уже прекрасно — волонтеры. Вообще волонтерское движение возникает по определению там, где не справляется власть. Поэтому в Конституции оно не прописано ни в какой. Ни в новой, ни в старой, ни в американской. Но мне всё-таки кажется, что художник тонко троллил, нарисовав добровольцев, закапывающих новую Конституцию нахуй:

 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.

 It’s nice to know someone appreciates the lush, long 6mm grass. It was a bit of a slog to get all these done, but it was worth it. I found the bigger the base the more the flock box struggled with the flocking. However with time and patience (not to mention a few shocks) we got there in the end.


Getting there...

 Remember these guys, well they finally made it to the flocking stage. Like the ECW forces, I based these as if on a rough field so hit them with the layers of brown flock. I was hoping the long green grass will make up for the lack of base detail. Although saying that, I did sprinkle a few pinches of rough sand onto the glued base before the flock, this did give it some stoney detail. This seemed to work well so next time I will add a little more.

I want my units in Dux Bellurom to be quite large so I increased the base size to a whopping 120x80mm. This should give enough room for nice dioramas and cavalry formations. I love this era and it’s nice to have burning away on the back burner.
 I still need to touch up the banner a remove the grass from the figures, but now they are done and can make room for others.

 It’s a lovely moment when you can take all your newly based stuff upstairs and combine it with your old stuff. The parliamentarian force isn’t too far off being finished now. The quick Dip Army Painter route is definitely the way forward with big armies like this.




 In my head I planned for four Foote Regiments to make up a starter force, just need to finish the red regiment and I’ll be there.

 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!

 I took these beautiful images from a Dark ages Facebook page for reference latter on with painting. Thank you Jack Sarge for posting them.

 Digging through a box of figures yesterday I found an old Grenadier Orc that I had painted back in 1986 or so. Well, I thought time to draft you into the army my son!
It was only when I brought him down stairs to the painting table I realised I had bought some orcs from EBay that matched him exactly. In fact I think the sculpt had been cut up to create the other as from the head down to the belt were identical. Well not being one to break up a family, this lot will be based together on the same base. The range is an old Grenadier box set I think.

 I will rebase him, but I did have to stop and take a trip down memory lane as I studied his base. Back then rather than painting hordes of figures, I would spend hours on just one. This one is based on a piece of cardboard cut from an art pad. Polly filler was then used for the grass and pricked with a needle to create grass, then painted. Boy, now I just wash and go with new improved ground mix from Luke’s APS.
I used to spend hours and days on just one character at a time, glad to say those days are long behind me but it was quite moving looking at the way I used to work as a teenager.

 It’s time to go back and give the Elves some love.

I’ve gone back over these guys and painted their helmet feathers black, they were left bronze before. I have done this so they will tie in better to the Oathmark Elves. More on this to come.

 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.

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.

 I thought I would give myself a lock down project to see if I could get some more Union troops done. The first batch were done some months ago and just left in a draw ( getting slightly damaged). This second lot, I just thought ‘too hell with it’ and decided to Dip them all in strong tone. This made them much more fun and quicker to paint, it also meant they were a lot more tougher than the first batch. The third batch were the original figures painted up around 1998, brought up to muster with a retouch of paint.

 Rather than paint individual regiments, I’m going for the Regimental Fire and Fury approach by painting a horde of generic bases that can be used for a multitude of regiments.


 Above is the first batch, shaded with inks and just matte varnished with spray varnish.
 A horde of standards, I stuck some on unpainted figures as I couldn’t be fussed to go back and do it all again. I decided it will be easier to paint the figure around the standard than go through another night of glue and fiddly scissors.
 These photos are out of order, this shows some of the combined forces rebased at last. Although I’m going to be using Bonny Blue Flag rules from Cavalier books, I’m basing them using Regimental Fire and Fury ratios. This is so I can use their fantastic scenario books for battles. These are great for the detailed maps and accurate troop numbers of the forces involved. Although I won’t be playing their core rules these scenario books are an amazing resource.
 The idea has always been to take my old collection from the Nineties and update them with many more different poses. This regiment being revamped was one featuring mostly Dixon figures, so I used a lot of Dixon miniatures in many different loading poses to add to it.
 More rebased figures, this was great because even though I had a rough idea of how many new bases there would be, I was surprised at how many just kept coming from all the batch’s combined.
Above, are some strips of figures Dipped in strong tone. Basing them on cereal packets was great because the cardboard can be bent, allowing you to get all around the figure to paint it.
 It’s the next day now and I managed to base up some of those command bases. The eagles and spear points are from Steve Barber miniatures.

A while back I bought a copy of ‘Bonnie Blue Flag’ from Cavalier books and I have to say I really liked what I saw. The rules seem to give me everything I was looking for in a ACW rule set, I decided then even though I must have 15 plus ACW rule sets, this was going to be the one for me. I became a Kevin Calder fanboy over night and quickly snapped up his other Sudan rule set too. I constantly patrol Cavalier books looking out for any other variants of the rule set that may of been released. Although, the rules are so adaptable that you could use them for a multitude of other eras.

The only down side though is that because they are a small rule set by Cavalier Books there doesn’t seem to be much support for them. This lead me to do my own research to clean details, however small, from the internet to help outline some of the rules in the book. A big break through came when I found Kevins blog ‘The Iron Brigade’. This was full of nice pictures of his games which gave loads of extra details into the system. I have created this post on here so I can dump any relevant information to save me trolling around in the future. Other like minded souls had made the same connection and had gone to the Facebook site to ask questions, these were not answered though. So here I have gathered images from various games Kevin has done and each one is a wealth of extra information and details for the rule set.



A Crazed stalker raids the internet for more information.
 It’s interesting to see here the use of skirmishers. They are kept on the table and placed around the parent unit at all times, unless destroyed. This wasn’t made very clear in the rule book, I thought you just took them off once they rejoined their regiment.

 It’s also good to see the mini dice in play. I think pictures like this would of been a better choice rather than the stock Cavalier book ACW illustrations in the rule book. It would of really helped define things. Also, Cavalier Books released another set of ACW rules and included the same illustrations... a bit poor I thought.
 This is interesting, dismounted cavalry on 40mm round bases. This shows their looser structure on the field. This is a nice touch and gave me some good ideas about basing units of sharpshooters. Everybody knows the green clad Berdan’s sharpshooters, but by basing up a Confederate unit of marksman in this way would really help define them from the other units.

 A photo taken from a Napoleonic battle hosted by Kevin, it again shows that with a few minor weapon range tweaks, these rules can be used for most horse and musket periods. I also noticed in one of these games that skirmishers could be based two to a base rather than singly. This is quite helpful to me as single figures are quite hard to store and keep safe. Two figures on a 40mm base are a lot more stable and also give the chance of a diorama.
Also interesting that this small unit of sharpshooters only has one skirmisher rather than three to reflect its small size. I will tag this post and keep adding to it, if and when I find out anything new. These rules are great and well worth a look.

Below is a great picture showing the game in process. Note that some skirmishers have been based as units of ‘comrades in arms’, multiple figures in groups of skirmishers, loading and firing to maintain a constant fire. This is an idea I will play with for sure.

 Not happy with conquering the rest of the house, the Armoured Dalek invasion force turns its attention to the living room. Only the human Lego force of Earth stand in their way.

It was just an excuse to do some funny voices. My little boy now thinks Daleks are really funny, if only he knew.

I do enjoy painting orcs, it is so enjoyable and freeing after painting hundreds of identical uniforms. These bases had an extra level of enjoyment because they contained many orcy helmets converted with green stuff. I think in the whole they turned okay and add to the hodge podge look of the units. I had planned to spread these helmet guys out but ended up using them all on these two bases, they were finished and ready to go when I needed them, so they were used.
This giant orc Warlord is from Reaper Miniatures. He is massive and so he counts as two orcs in one. My six to a base rule works out as if they are small Goblins, they get an extra figure or two. If they are giant warriors, well then they get one less. This is to keep the fighting value of the base the same visually.
Plastic Warlord Games orcs with green stuff heads and an old plastic GW banner bring up the rear. Also on this base is the classic standard bearer for Harboth’s Black mountain boys. Classic! No point hanging onto these precious opp models, get them painted and use them I say.
It appears my years in Art college weren’t wasted after all. Subconsciously when basing these brutes, I arranged them in such a way that the surrounding orcs weapons help guide your eye on to the leader of the piece. Twenty five years later I finally got it right...
Plastic axes were stuck on the leader’s helmet to give him a kind of orcy centurion look. This is influenced by the films I have to say and has a nice brutal look to it.

The Elf head on the standard was a nice find, however the pole was really thin and bendy. I reenforced this by adding a green stuff banner which really helped. I tore holes in it and made it look very tattered and the result was very pleasing.
The orc above with the mace was made from a Fire forge Sergeant’s body, oathmark goblin arms, warlord games orc head and green stuff mask. He also has a plastic cloak from somewhere too. A real  jumble of bits and pieces. I think here lies the real fun of this project, using parts to create unique figures. It’s very rewarding and I have to say becomes very addictive, in fact once you start it’s hard to stop.
A new base now and this one is lead by a very old sculpt indeed. I think it is an old ‘Perry’ Chaos warrior. Well, an orc who is a Chaos warrior at any rate. I always try to theme my bases slightly and they are always influenced by the leader. This oop figure needed some old friends to keep him company, so I found some other old Citadel miniatures for the base. Saying that, his two closest warriors are more kit bashed plastics with green stuff helmets. New meets very old.
Orcy spears and pole arms can be made by cutting off spears and sticking on naggaity goblin swords. Obviously this works better with plastics and plastic glue. I have found that once the glue has melted the two bits together the weapons are quite durable. The spear shaft will bend rather than the sword break off.
Again the arrangement of  positions helps to draw your eye into the centre of the piece. I surprise myself with this arty bullsh@t.

TIPS.
The motley crew. Earth brown paint was stippled over these guys to give them a real dirty look.  Lots of brown washes of various shades, green washes, black washes, in fact just go crazy with colour washes, you can’t really go wrong. Once a fine metal dry brush goes over the top, it all looks good and gives the armour a grungy look.

 Flesh wash is good for rusty armour so put patches of that here and there. If you have any bronze looking armour or shields, try some green wash on that too. Mix washes together to make the grungiest washes. I have a pot labelled ‘magic mix’ where I have mixed black with brown ink, this is great for orc skin, armour, weapons... well everything really. Just slap it on all over. It even smells bad because the tap water used in the mix has gone off, every time you open the orc shading pot... you get the orc!.

Give the kit bashing a go, it’s great fun and you will create something unique. Just because you have bought a plastic box set, don’t be scared to mix it up with another of a different make. Single sprues of Dark Age/medieval plastics can be bought on eBay for under a fiver. I use these to try and test things out, if I really like the results I will commit to buying a whole box. Plastics are a lot cheaper than lead so there is room to buy and try out different options without busting the purse strings..
Create me an army worthy of Mordor!

 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.

 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 →

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 […]

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 […]

Hi guys,  I don’t know what happened to all of my recent messages, I am guessing that the Clouds were at their nasty work again – stealing!  So I am going to write more and you write me back ok? Well I just got back from one of my favorite little planets, planet Earth.  I […]

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 […]