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What do you do when you've got a big 4x8 table of urban terrain setup after a mini-convention? You play Mech Attack on it, which four of us did recently. We usually play Mech Attack at the club using 10mm Scale rebased Mechwarrior Clix miniatures. However, we do have a stock for 28mm mechs for convention games... They are made from a variety of model kits, toys, and wargame models: …

Occasionally The Economist publishes nice graphs capturing social and economic trends. Here is one.It is part of a nice articleAcademic writing is getting harder to read—the humanities most of allThe downward trend in the humanities and social sciences is dramatic and perhaps not surprising.I was surprised that in the natural sciences the trend wasn't worse. The Flesch reading ease score goes from about 26 around 1960 to about 18 today. …

A budding photographer! (click to enlarge)Last year, my 11-year old (at that time) granddaughter, Emilie, came to me and told me that as a part of her school's Beta Club activities, she needed to make and submit a photograph. There was no specifics as far as subject matter but she knew the date her photo had to be submitted. In short, we spent some time talking about which subject she …

When you’re working on a key for a dungeon or other location, it can be difficult to come up with all the concepts you need to round the place out. One trick I’ve learned to cut this in half is to write rooms in pairs. So the idea is that you maybe have a shitty or boring list of rooms like so: 1d6 goblins. Treasure chest with some gold. Empty …

I wrote recently about the “vibe shift” that’s currently underway, and how we might build out way out of it. Joan Westenberg hits on a similar theme, and makes a powerful call for “pragmatic meliorism” – that is, neither deluded optimism nor destructive cynicism, but rather a pragmatic belief that “things are broken, AND they can be fixed; people are flawed AND capable of growth; systems are complex AND can …

I’ve been writing these solo gaming reports since March of 2020… but my solo gaming started a lot farther back than that – being a wargamer in the 1970s/80s meant that a lot of your collection only saw table time if … Continue reading →

– A couple of years ago, Mr. Money Mustache lost some credibility among the faithful when he wrote this blog post about actually trying to spend a bit more money, while buying a Tesla as the first step in that program. “Look at me!”, I thought to myself at the time, “I’m such an enlightened middle-aged Badass, adjusting habits and realigning myself at the snap of my fingers. Onward to …

Fuel the Dreams of Tomorrow's Leaders Today – Future Shapers, Colleagues and Friends, What an incredible journey World Futures Day—Young Voices (WFD-YV) has had since its inception in 2021! As I reflect on the conversations at the recent Dubai Future Forum, I'm filled with gratitude for the global community of futurists who have helped make this youth-led movement possible. Above all, it's the youth I have met, interacted with, and …

The Room Next Door (2024) • View trailerFour stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for thematic content, sexual candor and occasional profanityAvailable via: Movie theatersBy Derrick BangGreater love hath no friend... Pedro Almodóvar traditionally makes films about women — often a pair of women — and they always talk a lot. It’s tempting to assume that he’d have been happier as a director of stage dramas, but that would overlook …

January 17, 2025 This scarf scream warm weather to me, but I’m pretty certain that we can figure out ways to wear it every month of the year! scarf – Echo There are a few additional colors from the scarf that I could have included, but I felt that these 3 colors, plus black and white, were the most visible: scarf – Echo Even in the coldest weather, a warm …

[I will try to use official translations where they exist and commonly accepted English fan translations where they don’t just so we’re all roughly on the same page, however there may be times where I unintentionally veer away from both. We’ll be fine, I’m sure. One last thing: if I say “Shining Force III” I’m referring to the series as a whole.] CONTENTS ~Chapter 3: The Path of Pilgrimage~ ~Stump …

Chibitronics interviewed me for a Meet the Maker feature on their blog! If you want to know more about me, my background, my process, and what I do, check it out.Meet the Maker: Andrew Crawford The post Chibitronics Intervew appeared first on Evermore Stud.io.

Ahhh, here we are after a super-speedy week and I was thinking to myself this morning that Fridays have a completely different feel to them in January and February, don't they? I LOVE starting a brand new year with a crochet along, and each week I feel so happy to be immersed in all things yarn, colour, crochet and community. I walked along the canal yesterday morning like I do …

Wow! Biologists seem to have discovered an entirely new kind of life form. They’re called ‘obelisks’, and you probably have some in you. They were discovered in 2024—not by somebody actually seeing one, but by analyzing huge amounts of genetic data from the human gut. This search found 29,959 new RNA sequences, similar to each other, but very different from any previously known. Thus, we don’t know where these things …

Over the past few weeks I've been working on the lumber shed portion of Art Curren's kit-mingling project, Artz Lumber Co.. Even though I've written about some aspects of Curren's projects, especially his connection with E. L. Moore, I've never actually worked on one of his builds. In 2023 I came up with an idea for a little diorama that would feature E. L. Moore's Cal's Lumberyard project and the …