Tuesday Share: June 9, 2009

This week’s eclectic share of stories

From the best aggregator of random cool stuff on the Internet, Boing Boing comes non-toxic metals that are liquid at room temperature!  I’ve played with Mercury and it is a great deal of fun but we we all know the risks of mercury poisoning (or we should) so finding cool metals to play with that won’t kill you is a plus.

No one doubts the huge effect Ronald Reagan had on the United States… I don’t know if it was all positive though.  The Right has lionized the man, making him into some sort of superhuman, but there are many things that Reagan did that were illegal and did not benefit Americans.  It is important to not lose all the negatives that Reagan brought us when we write the history – 20 things You Don’t Know about Ronald Reagan.

We’ve all heard the story of how the personal computer was going to create the paperless office, and here we are 20+ years later awash in boring, old, analog paper.  Paper still has many uses and does several things better than its digital counterpart.  Learn/review some of them at Dumb Little Man.

Continuing their 30 days to a Better Man project the Art of Manliness recommends that you update your resume.  My resume is already up-to-date and I’m thankfully gainfully employed in a relatively safe sector, but not everyone is or will be so lucky.  Best to be prepared for the worst and have an updated resume ready if the need ever arises.

For those of you interested in the procedure of politics there’s the unfolding story of the coup happening in the New York Senate!  The original story is here and an update can be found here.  While it seems the Republicans do have a numerical advantage their gaining control of the Senate depends on the rules of the Senate and how well both Parties know them and can use them to their advantage…  Procedure matters in these kind of events and a canny knowledge and use of them can allow a minority to stay in control for an extended period of time, As Willie Brown did in the California Assembly  circa 1995-96.

Finally journalists have found the courage to take on Oprah! This woman with no specialized knowledge on anything, besides appealing emotionally to a broad spectrum of American women, has used her television show for years to “Educate” her audience and launch careers of numerous people, some who deserved the attention, but many who don’t.  Especially egregious is her airing of loons like Jenny McCarthy and Susanne Somers who advocate for medical treatments (or lack of them) that endanger all of us.

Old Stuff: Necron Command

Pictures and thoughts on Necron HQ units

With the bill load at work hitting maximum this week and next I don’t have the time I’d like to write up a few of the things that are on the back burner…  I don’t even have time to get out of the office and record the goings on around the Capitol.  I’ll be going in this weekend in order to have everything I have to turn in done and ready for session Monday morning.

Since I’m not able to create content right now, please enjoy some additional older content.  My Necron HQ units…  I have two Necron Lords one with a Staff of Light and another with A War Scythe.  I also have both of the special characters for the Necron Army:  The Deceiver and the NightBringer.  I never use these two because my opponent either complain or just sink everything into killing them which makes for a boring game…  I’ve found that the most useful HQ unit in a Necron army (with a standard point value of 1500) is a Lord with Resurrection Orb and Veil of Darkness.  This set-up allows you to zap a squad around the table taking pot shots at units, the orb lets them stick around longer than they usually would.  if you’re going to use the Veil to get close combat units to the enemy closer, it might be worth it to pay the extra 10 points and get a Warscythe, though the staff of light is just as good (with one extra attack) if you’re just fighting troops.  Besides I’ve never been able to make Necron close combat units pay off…

Oh, look at that... the green bit is coming out...
Oh, look at that... the green bit is coming out...

If your opponent does let you use either of the C’tan units they can be a lot of fun.  The Nightbringer can chew through entire units, I’ve used him to take out an entire Tau army actually!  The Deceiver is a more subtle unit and using him successfully depends on how well you can exploit his special abilities…  I’ve head people talk about doing it but never seen him used in such a manner successfully… I’d have to dig up the rulebook to be more clear on this… and it’s in the other room… If you’ve had great success running either of them, I’d love to hear how you go about doing it.  The next Necron post will have my army list with it, so you can get an idea of how I play them.

Anyway enjoy the pictures!  New content coming next week…  The first post in this series is here.

Old Stuff: Necron Warriors

The nice thing about Necrons is that a very simple paint job can look really good on these guys. I painted my entire army in a couple of days because it took so little to make them look good. These were base coated in chaos black, drybrushed with boltgun metal and then various parts were painted over with scab red.

Necron Warrior

Warrior HordeNecron’s are technically my second army.  I was still building up an Ultramarine force when I bought the old army box that Games Workshop released when the Necron’s were given a codex in 2002.

The nice thing about Necrons is that a very simple paint job can look really good on these guys.  I painted my entire army in a couple Necron Warrior of days because it took so little to make them look good.  These were base coated in chaos black, drybrushed with boltgun metal and then various parts were painted over with scab red.

These would be tournament worthy If I based them.  I left them black because I didn’t know what I wanted to do and I feel, at this point, that trying to base the figures would require me to clean-up the actual models.  Also, there isn’t any kind of base I want to put on there that wouldn’t require extensive painting and/or modelling.  I don’t want flock grass or even sand/gravel.

Warrior Clos-upI apologize for the photo quality… If you have some tips on taking detailed pictures of tiny things with a simple digital camera, I’d love to hear from you!  I already know I need a stand, but what about diffusers and reflectors?

Tuesday Share

I’ve done this once or twice but I want to institutionalize it, every Tuesday I’m going to share a list of links to the stories I’ve read over the last week that I found interesting, thoughtful, provoking, etc… Whatever I feel is worth sharing, and what thoughts, if any, I had while reading them.

I’ve done this once or twice but I want to institutionalize it, every Tuesday I’m going to share a list of links to the stories I’ve read over the last week that I found interesting, thoughtful, provoking, etc…  Whatever I feel is worth sharing, and what thoughts, if any, I had while reading them.

So for the first Tuesday Share:

1.  After fighting to get it for years the source code of a breathalyzerwere revealed by court order, and it turns out they were junk.  This is a basic right that I thought we were all afforded, the right to face our accuser, but this has hit a snag when talking about software and proprietary systems.  As we depend on computers and technology more and more for everything in life, including our judicial process it is of the highest importance that we understand how they work and if they’re actually doing the job their creators say they’re.

2.  This is one amazing picture of the sun, and the blotches on the picture are more amazing!  My hat is off to the photographer for capturing this moment.

3.  In the same vein of having open access to how the technology we use works, how about having open access to how our legislator’s act and vote on the floor, where they’re suppose to be representing their constituency?  It shouldn’t be a difficult task to look up your, or any, Senator’s voting record.

4.  I found this essay on how Jesus of Nazareth fits into an historical context and how that is shown in the gospels a fascinating read.  What he is getting at is that Jesus and his apostles make mistakes that were (and are) common for regular people, especially lay-people, but are inconsistent with the belief that Jesus was a perfect being.  For those of you who believe that Jesus was the Son of God and  Humanity’s savior prepare to be offended by the historical bent of the essay.  For believers looking for real challenges to their faith and the underpinnings of it I suggest his other essays as well.

5.  It wasn’t that long ago that popular culture here in the United States tended to extol the excesses of Americans, from the lower class all the way up to celebrities and the very wealthy.  Our culture seemed to revel in just how much money we could spend.  Television shows like cribs, lifestyle of the rich and famous, and reality shows based around the lives of the wealthy, all showed just what money could buy.  That trend has ended with the recession, and many of those who’s lives were built on easy credit are now facing a difficult adjustment.  This public message with Seth Green about financial responsibility is both educational, humorous, and biting.

6. California’s been in the news recently… For our state’s fine ability to balance its budget…  Here are some assorted stories on that.  I don’t think anyone is looking forward to solving the mess…  Sadly, much of the problem is institutional and requires more reform than I thinktil political leaders, or voters have the stomach for.  Speaking of California, more wasteful spending by the State as it tries to take a anti-videogame bill to the Supreme Court, where it’s sure to lose and force the State to pay out legal fees, etc… for creating an law that goes against the 1st Amendment.

7. Finally a nice video that explains the cap & trade proposal regarding carbon outputs.

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