2018’s Painted Microarmor

January 6, 2019 James O'Keefe Leave a comment

2018 was a marginally better year for painting miniatures. Many of them were ones I bought from av8rmongo. I completed:

6 GHQ M1A2
6 GHQ M2A2
6 GHQ M60A3
6 GHQ M106
10 PFC C-in-C Leopard 2A5
4 PFC C-in-C Lynx C&R
1 M1A2 with Mine Plow
1 M9 ACE
4 M105 Deuce
3 PFC C-in-C UH-60s
3 Heroics and Ross UH-60s
2 Heroics and Ross CH-47s
9 Merkava 4
6 Magach 7C

Vehicles in NATO tri-color camouflage were done with Floquil’s NATO Green as the base, overlayed with NATO Brown and NATO Black. Tracks and windows were then dry brushed with Floquil railway dark gray. I painted the tracks in Floquil Mud and splashed the sides, front and back with the same.

The helicopters’ base was Floquil NATO Green. Windows and wheels were done with Floquil railway dark gray with exhausts in NATO Black.

The Israeli vehicles are done in an unknown Floquil color.

I got out my new macro lens and with a light box, photographed some of the miniatures. I photographed in aperture priority mode at f/16 so I could get most of each miniature in focus. I tried different exposure values to get them bright enough. With the camera settings I used and the light box, I didn’t feel the need to edit them.

GHQ M1A2

GHQ M106

PFC C-in-C Lynx C&R

GHQ M9 ACE

GHQ M1A2 with Mine Plow

GHQ M105 Deuce

PFC C-in-C UH-60

Heroics & Ross UH-60

Heroics & Ross CH-47

PFC C-in-C UH-60 close up showing the interior

Various Israeli Microarmor

GHQ Merkava 4

You can see a slide show of all microarmor photographs I have posted:

Art, Censorship, Web/Tech

Patreon made it easier to troll its users

December 29, 2018 James O'Keefe Leave a comment

Scott Helme is a Information Security Consultant. He has a Patreon account on which he posts about computer security issues and which he uses to take in donations for each blog post. Recently he found out that Patreon suspended his account:

So @Patreon suspended my account.
They did this in secret. They have not notified me.
I simply noticed that they stopped sending me money.

— Scott Helme (@Scott_Helme) December 24, 2018

He could still post and people could still signup to support him, but, taking a page from Paypal, Patreon prevented him from withdrawing any of the money people donated. Eventually, Patreon completed their investigation and emailed him that he was good to go. He eventually discovered that:

* a few emails further up I got this. Apparently someone suspicious pledged to me so they suspended my account to make sure it hadn’t been hacked. Can anyone explain that to me? ? pic.twitter.com/o9V1dQfUpP

— Scott Helme (@Scott_Helme) December 25, 2018

He estimates that account withdrawals were suspended for between 18 and 47 days.

Account takeovers are a real problem. Had his account been taken over, it would be good if someone couldn’t take his money out and notifying the account that they think it might be hacked could tip the hacker. In that light, it could make sense to act as they did.

Having multiple other methods of contacting the user would have helped in this case…. well unless email, phone number and Signal were compromised. Patreon would need to prove they are who they say they are, of course. Phishing is a problem as well.

That all said, going from one fraudulent pledge to account takeover seems a stretch.

But this incident reminded me of Violet Blue‘s reporting in Engadget about a troll campaign against women AMSR video creators:

Capitalizing on entrenched and easily exploitable anti-sex policies by internet giant payment processors and a new internet sex panic ushered in by FOSTA, 8chan trolls have started a campaign to mass-report attractive women who make ASMR videos. Listing names of women making these sound-effect videos in a forum thread called “PayPal lowering the hammer on ASMRtits” they’ve declared war by posting links to report pages for PayPal, and called upon fellow haters to get the women kicked off YouTube and Patreon as well.

… and that Patreon just added another method for trolls to harass Patreon’s users. If all it takes is for one fraudulent looking donation to pass into someone’s account to flip the Account Hacked bit, trolls will use Patreon’s process to suspend a user’s ability to withdraw their money for two to six weeks. That would screw up the life of anyone who makes a living via Patreon.

Patreon has more than a customer service problem.

Nature, Photography, War

Warship Wednesday: USS Monsoor

December 19, 2018 James O'Keefe Leave a comment

Back in August I visited Bath with my eldest to see the ships Bath Iron Works was creating. This included the Zumwalt-class destroyers USS Michael Monsoor and USS Lyndon B. Johnson, as well as the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, USS Hudner and USS Daniel Inouye.

The best way to photograph the ship yard was to take the Maine Maritime Museum‘s hour long Shipyards & Lighthouses boat tour.

The tour turns away from the ship yard and travels down the Kennebec River before returning, sailing past the ship yard to the Sasanoa River, turning around and traveling past Bath Iron Works to the museum.

I started the voyage with my 55-300mm lens. I got some photos of the various buildings along the river as well as some pictures of the ships under construction.

As we approached the ship yard, I switched to my 18-105mm lens. Unfortunately, I realized too late that the 2nd lens was set to manual mode with vibration reduction turned off. Ooops! Reminder to self: recheck that the camera and lenses are setup the way they should be before leaving.

Later in the day, we surveyed various vantage points across from the ship yard. After parking at the Dairy Queen near Sasanoa Point, I walked along the Sagadahoc bridge (Route 1) over the Kennebec. While very few people walked over the bridge while I was there, there wasn’t much space for a tripod, so I shot handheld. With the late afternoon sun high in the sky and the air over the river hazy from the August sun, very few of the pictures came out well.

On a return trip to see the LBJ, now that it is in the water, I’ll aim to arrive before sunrise and try using a tripod since that helped with the USS Hudner pictures. The rest of the pictures are at my Bath Iron Works photo album.

Nature, Photography

Photo Friday: Boston Harbor Birds

December 14, 2018 James O'Keefe Leave a comment

While photographing the USS Hudner, I also caught some pictures of birds in Boston Harbor. Double-crested Cormorants and seagulls mostly. They are also at my shore bird Flickr album.

Photography, War

USS Hudner

December 2, 2018 James O'Keefe 2 Comments

The USS Hudner, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, was in Boston for its commissioning ceremony. My son and I saw this ship in August when we travelled to Bath, Maine to photograph the Zumwalt destroyer, USS Monsoor. However, many of the photographs of the Hudner came out poorly due to distance or an error on my part.

While it was in Boston, I was able to go on a public tour of the Hudner. Most of the photographs are from that outing.

The following Saturday, I planned to take pictures when the sun came up. I woke up early, but decided I wanted to sleep more and tried to get back to sleep. After 30 minutes of failing to get back to sleep, I got up, threw the previous day’s clothes on, gathered my camera equipment (except for my remote trigger) and drove to a spot across the Reserve channel, which I probably should not have.

I drove to the lobster boat pier, found a sign that said not to enter, and doubled back to another spot. I parked, gathered my equipment, walked near the waters edge and found a large barge in the way. I decided to try the lobster pier again and found that the do not enter sign applied to a different fenced area, so I drove in. After asking if it was ok to photograph in the area and getting an ok, I grabbed my gear, setup my tripod and took a bunch of photos.

I watched as a Massachusetts Environmental Police boat appeared, came to the waters edge and dropped a Massachusetts Environmental Police officer off. We talked courteously and he went on his way.

Just then the light peaked through the clouds and lit up the Hudner.

I got a few more shots of the ship and the surrounding seagulls and decided to drive home. I saw another spot outside the port on the drive home, but ignored it. Since this was likely the last time I would get a chance to photograph any Burke-class destroyer, I turned around and got a few more photos of the ship and a number of birds from a little park.

However, the light was higher and much more harsh, so the pictures aren’t nearly as good, unfortunately. You can find all of the pictures I posted at my Flickr album:

Pirate Party, Politics, Voting Rights

Vote Today

November 6, 2018 James O'Keefe Leave a comment

I posted this over at the Massachusetts Pirate Party blog.

Election day is today. Polling places are open until 8pm. You can find your polling place at WhereDoIVoteMA.com.

If you believe you are registered, but you aren’t listed on the voter rolls, don’t walk away. The law says you can demand a provisional ballot and get a receipt. Follow up after the election to make sure they count it, but your vote cannot be counted if you didn’t cast it.

When you vote, we ask you to vote yes on Questions 1 and 3 and support any third-party candidate you agree with. You can find out more about the ballot questions below.

As always, we are looking for candidates for the 2019 town and city elections. If you are interested in running, fill out our supporter/candidate form.

More on the ballot questions

Question 1 would set the maximum number of patients per registered nurse which would vary by type of unit and level of care. Our increasingly corporate-controlled health care providers are against it as it would harm their profits. Send them a message that people deserve decent healthcare and vote yes.

Question 3 prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender identity in places of public accommodation. The legislature already approved it, but some anti-trans bigots believe that our fellow trans citizens and residents do not deserve equality and are using lies and fear mongering to try to get their way. Don’t let them win; vote yes.

On Question 2, we have not decided. Question 2 would create a citizens commission to advance an amendment to the United States Constitution to limit the influence of money in elections and establish that corporations do not have the same rights as human beings. We do not believe that corporations should have the same rights as individuals and I agree that we need to remove the corrupting influence of money in politics. Considering the influence of the rich and corporations on both major parties and on politics, it is pretty clear that once we open up any citizens process to amend the US Constitution, the rich will do their best to rewrite it in ways that enshrine their power and ideas. What is your opinion? Tell us in a comment below.

The Massachusetts Elections Division has more information on the ballot questions.

Photography

PAX East 2018 Photographs

October 25, 2018 James O'Keefe Leave a comment

I uploaded some of the photographs I took at PAX East 2018 months ago and am finally getting around to posting them here. Mostly they are photographs of cosplayers, though I got some of the the We’re All Frauds! – Succeeding Through Self-Doubt talk.

You can look through the whole album:

Miniatures, When Imagination Fails

Uploaded latest crop of 1/2400 scale warship photos

October 21, 2018 James O'Keefe Leave a comment

I recently posted more 1/2400 modern naval warship pictures I have found on the web. Here are some of them. All of the images are at whenimaginationfails.org.

GHQ

US Independence LCS-2 by gak8346.

PRC LuyangIII/Type52D DDG by gak8346.

PRC Taizhou/Project956EM DDG by gak8346.

PRC YutingII/Type072A LST by gak8346.

US Nimitz and Ford CVN by Scott Price

Superior

US Long Beach CGN by gak8346.

US Kidd DDG by scoobjd.

US Forrestal CV & Enterprise CVN by Scott Price.

Viking Forge

PRC LuyangII/Type 052C DDG by gak8346.

PRC JiangkaiII/Type 054A FFG by gak8346.

PRC Yuzhao/Type 071 LPD by gak8346.

FRG Hamburg FFG by gak8346.

FRG Bremen FF by gak8346.

US Whidbey Island LSD by gak8346.

US Thomaston LSD by gak8346.

US Garcia FF by gak8346.

US Iwo Jima LPH by Scott Price.

US Algol T-AKR by gak8346.

US Cape Isabel T-AKR by gak8346

Shapeways

Soviet/Russian Zubr LCAC by gak8346.

PRC Type 056 Corvette by gak8346.

Photography

2018 Honk! Parade Photos

October 19, 2018 James O'Keefe Leave a comment

On October 7th, I attended the Honk! Parade with some photographers from the Boston Area Photography Group meetup.

I used my 35mm lens for the photographs during setup, but switched to the 18-105mm lens once the parade started since the telephoto lens worked better with moving subjects. I set my camera to aperture priority mode, set it to f/8 and experimented with shifting my focus point. The Tony Northrup how-to video for my camera helped in ways the camera manual does not and I recommended it to one of my fellow photographers.

Here are a few of the pictures: