Miniatures, When Imagination Fails

Fall priming done

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We had a brief bit of warm weather, and with trimming and cleaning done, I set about priming the latest set of miniatures on which I plan to work.  Of course my list of primed, but not completed, miniatures is far too high.  Still, I finished priming a bunch of miniatures, including:

  • 1 Minbari Sharlin
  • 2 Brakiri cruisers
  • 4 Brakiri Halik frigates
  • 2 Shadow Hunters
  • 2 Shadow Omegas
  • 1 Shadow scout
  • 1 Shadow cruiser
  • 8 stands of Shadow fighters
  • 8 stands of Vorlon fighters
  • 8 stands of Minbari Nial fighters
  • 10 stands of Narn Frazi fighters
  • a whole bunch of Mauridian & Deisho from Ravenstar's Cold Navy line.

This is most of what I hoped to do last month, but the Shadow scouts are a pain to glue together, though they look fantastic, so I only worked on one.

I had hoped to make the Shadow Omegas' center section actually rotate, ala this post, and went so far as to buy the required brass rod and tube.  However, I decided that drilling out the center section would prove to be too large an effort.

I have a game coming up, so I am finishing up the Shadow Hunters.  I'll post pictures of the last two games next week I hope.

By Will Alone, Strategy & Tactics

Using nonviolent direct action to stop investor shakedowns of entrepreneurs

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Jason Calacanis is all a twitter about investors charging startups to pitch their ideas to them and calls on such investor groups to stop.  If they don't, he is willing to use nonviolent direct action tactics to get them to stop:

"However, if this is not done immediately, my group of startup CEOs and
angel investors will begin targeting specific groups for elimination. 
We will launch competing, fee-free events directly opposite your
events. We will encourage angels investors, service providers and
startups to boycott your events. You may even find our street teams
outside your events handing out flyers."

While I have my suspicions about the investor class in general, it is good to see more groups using nonviolent direct action.

Thanks to Shawn Broderick, who has also railed against such investor shakedowns, for pointing out the above article.

Celebrity, Social Justice

Extradite Polanski!

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On "Getting Over It," by Lauren over at Feministe (cited from Boing Boing):

What
does rape do to you? Afterward? It changed me; there is before and
after. Before, a child, playing with Barbies, looking sideways at boys,
wondering. After, confusion. Depression. A litany of fuck-ups and
fuck-its, whatevers, mistakes, trusting no one, least of all myself.
Before, sex was mysterious; after, miasma. I was tarred as a Lolita. I
was called jail bait.

Rape is not the only assault. Around rape is a large segment of the
population that questions the victim, a culture that looks down on
victims for allowing themselves to be victimized, or keep them
victimized, questions about the victim's credibility, questions about
the legacy of rape and how bad it is, because how bad is rape really?
Rape, because various levels and forms of sexual assault are systemic
and pervasive across all societies, exists alongside one's experiences
of unwanted touching, wanted touching, sexual objectification, sexual
desire, sexual harassment, incest, love, leering eyes, cat calls,
roaming hands, consent, confusion, tits, vagina, rectum, penis, mouth,
rape and not-rape, all of it loaded, all of it veering at rape's ugly
legacy, co-mingling, the legacy that tells us to be more careful, to
dress more conservatively, to BE BETTER AT BEING VULNERABLE, or BE MORE
POWERFUL, or BE MORE FEARFUL, or GET OVER IT ALREADY. Rape leaks into
healthy, consensual experiences. It lingers. It pervades.

There is more at the Boing Boing post about Polanski using alcohol and a Quaalude to make it easier to rape her, a link to her testimony clearly indicating that she said no and a quote from Polanski that everyone wants to have sex with girls.  This guy is amazing.  Perhaps someone should give Polanski these tips when he is back in jail:

Sexual Assault Prevention Tips Guaranteed to Work!

1.   Don’t put drugs in people’s drinks in order to control their behavior.

2.   When you see someone walking by themselves, leave them alone!

3.   If you pull over to help someone with car problems, remember not to assault them!

4.   NEVER open an unlocked door or window uninvited.

5.   If you are in an elevator and someone else gets in, DON’T ASSAULT THEM!

6.   Remember, people go to laundry to do their laundry, do not attempt to molest someone who is alone in a laundry room.

7.   USE THE BUDDY SYSTEM! If you are not able to stop yourself from
assaulting people, ask a friend to stay with you while you are in
public.

8.   Always be honest with people! Don’t pretend to be a caring
friend in order to gain the trust of someone you want to assault.
Consider telling them you plan to assault them. If you don’t
communicate your intentions, the other person may take that as a sign
that you do not plan to rape them.

9.   Don’t forget: you can’t have sex with someone unless they are awake!

10. Carry a whistle! If you are worried you might assault someone
“on accident” you can hand it to the person you are with, so they can
blow it if you do.

And, ALWAYS REMEMBER: if you didn’t ask permission and then respect
the answer the first time, you are committing a crime- no matter how
“into it” others appear to be.

Economy, Personal Development, Social Justice, Web/Tech

Shutting down Kula Ring

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I recently found the site Just For The Love Of It
that does pretty much what I wanted to do with my Kula Ring project.  It does not do all that I wanted to do, but since they are further along, it just does not make sense to keep Kula Ring around taking up my thoughts and limited attention, if only to worry about not doing it.

So, I am
officially shutting Kula Ring down and will keep the site around as
long as I want to pay for the domain name.  The decision took me all of two days to make, and allows me to concentrate on other projects that I have been thinking about.

I suggest that folks who want to give others the gift of their time and need a tool to help them find folks to give their time to, and more, should go to Just For The Love Of It.

Celebrity, Fun, Philosophy, Politics

A quote that made me laugh

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"I laugh when I hear the humanists whining about the reduction of people
to ciphers. What makes them think the destruction of men complete with
tricked-up names is any less inhuman than their destruction as a set of
numbers? I have already said that the obscure antagonism between the
would-be progressives and the reactionaries boils down to this: should
people be smashed by punishments or by rewards? As for the reward of
celebrity, thanks for nothing!" – Raoul Vaneigem, The Revolution of Everyday Life, Chapter 15 (Roles), Section 5.

More seriously:

"When people are overtaken by joie de vivre they are lost to leadership
and stage management of any kind. Only by starving the revolutionary
masses of joy can one become their master: uncontained, collective
pleasure can only go from victory to victory." – same as above, Section 6.

Politics

Congratulations to the German Greens & Pirates

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Congratulations to the German Greens for increasing their support in the German Federal elections from 8.1% to 10.7%.  It is a shame they will remain in opposition, but that they will have more MPs to advocate for Green values.

Also, congratulations to the German Pirate Party for receiving about 2% of the vote in the election.  While not the 5% they needed to get MPs in the Bundestag, still quite a respectable showing for such a new party.  Keep up the fight!

BTW, there is an interesting discussion about the election at Matthew Yglesias blog.

Ecology, Economy, Government, Social Justice

New ways to measure progress

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Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen, at the request of the French Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, put out a report on alternative methods for measuring economic performance. Such methods include Gross Domestic Product (GDP) statistics, but the report calls for including social and environmental factors.

Herman Daly and many others in the Ecological Economics community have been calling for better measures of our economic, social and environmental progress for over twenty years.  Indeed, Redefining Progress already releases its Genuine Progress Indicator each year, though at a three year delay.

Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns rightly points out (via Naked Capitalism) that GDP is an inadequate measure of our economic state.  Rather he wants to be sure that our economic statistics include not just income (GDP), but debt.  I completely agree with him and hope that such revised metrics, note the plural,  include measure such assets as our environment, the health & education of our people and other non-market debts and assets.

Hopefully this report will put a pressure on the world's governments to devise and track metrics that better reflect our economic, social and ecological progress.  Until then, we should create and track our own community indicators.

Games, Miniatures, When Imagination Fails

A bit of trimming

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Fall is here and with it the cold.  I am in the process of cleaning and trimming the miniatures I want to prime before it becomes too cold out doors to do it.  This includes:

  • 1 Minbari Sharlin
  • 2 Brakiri cruisers
  • 4 Brakiri Halik frigates
  • 2 Shadow Hunters
  • 6 Shadow scouts
  • 1 Shadow cruiser
  • 8 stands of Shadow fighters
  • 8 stands of Vorlon fighters
  • 8 stands of Minbari Nial fighters
  • 9 stands of Narn Frazi fighters
  • a whole bunch of Mauridian & Deisho from Ravenstar's Cold Navy line.

With any luck, I'll also finish trimming 2 Shadow Omegas.  A bit under half way done so far.

Also, I ran a game where the Shadows try to run a Torvalus blockade.  We had to cut it short due unexpectedly.  I'll post the pictures I shot with my cell phone soon.

The musings of Jamie O'Keefe: pirate party activist, geek, father and gamer.