FFotW: Great Pacific Garbage Patch - A world of plastic trash

As you may know from some older posts I am a scuba diver and love nature (especially the sea). Today I came across a very interesting TED talk about the problems with the Great Pacific Garbage Patch of which more later. 

Source: Good Infographics

If you don't know what the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is: Have a look at the infographic, it explains pretty good what is happening there. Just imagine a huge mass of plastic floating in our seas. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is only the biggest one so far, there are many more floating and circulating around the sea. Its pretty difficult to get the real size of these beasts and they are measured by the amount of plastic floating in these areas but even this is rather difficult because some of the garbge sinks to the ground or is grinded down to a microscopic level.

Happy Birthday to me :)

Just a stupid Happy Birthday post. Especially since I am the one who has his birthday :)
But I have to see this funny video at least once on my Birthday and so I thought I can share it with you.

For all non german speaking readers: Its just a weird Happy Birthday song from arround 1982.
And yes I have this thingie as real LP at home! Lovely vinyl. But no player anymore, so sad.


So long,
Paradox0n

Man the trenches - Next wave of spambots attacking

Oh how I missed this... In the last few days there was a real flood of spam comments on my blog. All in the same manner like "Great blog visit my" or "Wow never read stuff like this, read my article". This time no visits spamming (at least if I can trust my statistics here) but a big mess in my incoming mails folder. Luckily this sh** is not getting published because in around 90% these comments are recognized as spam and filtered out by Blogger.
Anyone else having these problems lately?

But to post something relevant for the blog: I am sorting out the pictures for my pending battle report and have to force myself to watch the whole painting DVD stuff again because I have nearly forgotten everything I wanted to write about them. Perhaps I will go shopping in the near future because the DVD from Painting Buddha will be out soon and they seem to be worth buying.

So please stay tuned until I have recovered and can post some more interesting stuff for wargaming in the near future :)

So long,
Paradox0n

Wear a helmet!

On behalf of my own experience last week I can only say: Always wear a helmet when driving a motorcycle or a bike. I often see young guys driving their small Vespas and the like without a helmet (or having it dangling at the handlebars). I can't understand this and I even think of buying me one for biking if I will do it more often. The accident last week (re)opened my eyes what can happen even at a small pace.

A fitting psychedelic government campaign from the 80s. Pretty funny I think:

And yes, I am on the road of recovery so I will start writing again.

So long,

Paradox0n

Life is not fair

Just wanted to give a short life sign here and a very short explanation why it could (but hopefully will not) be a bit more quiet in the next few days. Sadly I had an accident while driving a quad yesterday and crashed the quad of my friend in the process. Luckily we only got slight bruises and myself a broken toe. Could have been worse most of the damage done isn't at living beings. So the next days I think I will have enough to do with managing the whole process (be it with police or insurance) and help my friend where I can.
And if this wouldn't be enough I have to prepare a speech which I should hold on Tuesday (and hopefully can) about accessibility for the visual impaired of web applications. At the moment the preparation does not go well because of the painkillers I take.

Cross your fingers that everything will turn out well and stay tuned.

So long,

Paradox0n

FFotW - No life on Mars

... but 70 seconds of stunning timelaps action: 9 months of Curiosity Rover work on MArs in 70 seconds. Really cool but sadly no aliens to see :D

Enjoy and I will be going back to posting in the next days when working days aren't as stressful as the last few days.


So long,
Paradox0n

Picking up the gauntlet

Finally! The next battle(s) between my Dark Elves and the Empire Army from Labschi looms on the horizon. Today we will have a smaller battle (maybe two) of 1250 points. We had the thing planned to be a massive game with the ETC comp but decided to play a smaller game (maybe two) for updating our rule knowledge and doing some testing with our armies. So we decided to use a german comp called "Kleiner Horus" (follow the link to german comp) which is made for games of 1250 points. The only thing we left out is the allowance for special character models.

Friday Finding of the Week - Wargaming rooms

H.G. Wells playing a wargame

Friday Finding of the Week (FFotW) will be my new weekly column where I will show you some of the stuff I stumbled upon while browsing the web. This can be miniatures, videos, tutorials or other stuff all around our cool hobby.
Even H.G. Wells was playing wargames so I thought of starting with a small collection of fascinating wargaming rooms I found while browsing for ideas for my own gaming table and stumbled upon whole rooms of which most of us gamers can only dream of.

Hitting a new blog record

Hey crazy wargamers! Yesterday my blog achieved a personal record: Over 110 views on one day which means more views in one day than normally in a week so far! I know for most of you this are peanuts, but I am really happy that this happened.
As the views raise and I get more followers (A warm welcome aboard new travelers!) I started to refactor the sections of the blog a bit and will reconsolidate some other parts (especially the blogroll).

In Germany we have a saying: "Alles neu macht der Mai" (which is in english "April showers bring May flowers" I think). This year this is true for my blog. At the amount of posts you can already see that I try to fill it up with content and I hope I can also refactor some parts of the blog itself.
Another thing I really think of is putting every blog I follow into my blogroll (Maybe split them but we'll see). I have them all in my reader, but making them more public would favor the smaller ones (even if I don't have hundreds of followers but for SEO this is a nice bonus). Perhaps this can also motivate to put me into the roll.

Happy Father's Day!

A really nice Bollerwagen

Just wanted to wish all guys a Happy Father'S Day! Don't know if this tradition exists everywhere (I know from USA and some countries in Europe). For me this is a day where real fathers should have a relaxed day (like Mother's Day) but most of the guys here just use it as a day to make party with their best friends (and wander around with their "Bollerwagen").

Hope you have a nice day, I hopefully can use it to finally paint some stuff. Don't know if I know how to handle a brush any longer :)


So long,
Paradox0n

One year of blogging

Nearly unnoticed my blog had its birthday. At the 11th of April last year, I welcomed you aboard this blog with my Howto build a swamp. Since then many things have happened:
- I started my tower project which is still waiting for its base
- I build a modular gaming table with the help of a friend
- I bought myself an airbrush which I still have to master (which makes loads of fun)
- I made some reviews and started my Hobby Basics series (for which some more articles are already in preproduction)

At the end of last year I had a very big motivation leak so posts become rare but I hope this time has gone and I can deliver some more stuff in the future.

And now it is your chance to give me some feedback (ok you have always the chance but now I am asking): Is there something you wish for me to do in the future. Or some stuff I shouldn't? Maybe I can fulfill something of your wishes.


So long,
Paradox0n

Camcorder and stuff - My setup for testing

Camcorder and accessories

As promised I shot some pictures of the camera and stuff I received yesterday. The camcorder is a Sony HDR-CX220E and is, although very tiny and not very expensive, able to record the things in full hd. The tripod is also a rather cheap one from a special from Aldi (a discounter here in germany). And I had to get myself a smartcard, because the cam was delivered without one. And last I had to get myself a pocket to safely store the camera. You can't believe what our cats are capable of in matters of destruction. All necessary cables (HDMI and USB) where part of the camera so I can start testing with a setup so that's it.

When pictures start moving

The horse in motion - First "movie" ever

Today a special package arrived and I feel myself like one of the pioneers of the early days when they started with zoetropes and the first moving pictures showed up in the early 19th century. And oh boy I am excited!

I got myself a small camcorder, a small tripod and all the necessary stuff needed to connect this stuff to my computer. I just have to find a decent, free video editing tool (not movie maker or something like that) because my Adobe Premiere license is suspended.

A long time ago I worked in school with semiproffesional equipment and a complete video editing studio, perhaps I can now work some magic again and present you some moving pictures in the futures. No promises will be done, but I will see what I can do. What I can promise is that I will do a short presentation and review of the camera as soon as I have worked out how everything gets together (camera, editing, youtube)

Stay tuned!

So long,
Paradox0n

Monsters!!!

Felt monsters are conquering my table.. .HELP ME! Nah just kidding. They are tooooo cute to be really dangerous or even a thread :)

Felt monsters attack!

If you wonder why the hell I am showing these... My wife got a crush on those and started making them herself. Two of them are permanently lingering on my working table and the cats are mischievously eyeing the other two... All of them are made out of felt, darning wool, yarn and some decorating stuff like buttons.

Back from a deep slumber

Heidiho dear readers, after a veeeery long time I'm back again. Hope you all enjoyed a happy Easter and had some merry days with your family.

Sunset on the desert road near Hurghada

I'm also back from my (too short) vacation in Egypt. Although short, it helped me to fill my batteries and get some long needed rest from work and some distance between me and my computer :) As posted, I had hoped to scuba dive but unfortunately some health issues prevented my wife an me from diving, so we just went on some extended snorkeling tours. And as unbelievable as it sounds, my wife was lucky as hell and even spotted a manta ray! I was not as lucky, as soon as I turned around it vanished in deeper water.
On these 16 days we had nearly everything possible: On our departure from Frankfurt our plane had to get an anti-ice treatment, we had nearly 2 hours delay and had to get within 30 minutes from one plane to another in Cairo. On our third day a sandstorm broke loose, it was pretty cold (at the first days only 25°C) but nevertheless some 30°C difference to my hometown! And on our last days the temperature went up to nearly 35°C. So yeah we had a pretty relaxed time and enjoyed it. Everytime we are in Egypt something happens which is pretty cool.

When air seems like water

Something completely different today! As you may know one of my other hobbies is scuba diving. A very good friend of mine is a pretty good diver and also does some more technical diving (wreck diving and this stuff) and asked me if I'm not interested in doing some ice diving one day. And he delivered the perfect advertisement video with his question :) Pretty sick and I don't want to withhold it from you!

Hope you enjoy this as much as I did.

So long,
Paradox0n


P.S.: My next Kickstarter package did finally arrive: Sedition Wars is mine! Hope I find the time to do some unpacking shots this weekend.

Painting workshops - The fear of failure?!

Perhaps you have already read the great day by day coverage of Mr. Lee about a painting workshop in Aachen (if not: do it, its worth a read). These articles made me think over some things and I just felt like having to write down my thoughts WHY I always missed the opportunity to go to one of those, even if they are only one or two hours away from me. I always look into the description of the announcements of the workshops in the big tabletop forums (perhaps I should add Brushbrothers in the future too) and especially the ones from Massive Voodoo or GeOrc always get me itchy and I'm always thinking and thinking and don't register myself in the end.

Still alive

Hey dear readers,

I'm still alive... Had to fight some health issues and some stress at work but I hope I can return to post again in a few days. Have already planned on some stuff and only need to shoot some photos.
So stay tuned for some stuff of Hobby Basics and Reviews.

Wish me luck :)

Greets
Paradox0n

Merry Christmas to all

I wish you a "Merry Christmas" and hope the "Christkindl" or "Santa Claus" or "Père Noel" or whoever brings the presents to you had a biiiiiig load of gifts with him/here.

Miniature wise I already got my surprise package from Mantic Games, the "Crazy Christmas Box" as present from my wife. There are really some nice addons for my armies in it, I think I will do a "Whats in the box" after the holidays.
And my mother-in-law bought me plastic glue from Revel and an airbursh care kit! Pretty cool stuff! I think the whole family thinks now I am weird :D

I hope you have some nice and tranquil days with your family and friends and wish you the best for the new year if I'm not coming to write in the next few days.


So long,
Paradox0n

Autumnal impressions

Not long ago I went to the "Europa-Park" the biggest funpark in germany because every year they have a nice halloween decoration. This time I was really lucky, because we had most of the time excellent weather which allowed me to shoot some nice Light/Shadow pictures (and some funny stuff too). Even the Eurosat, a big dome in which a rollercoaster is settled is decorated fitting to halloween.

This is Halloween, this is Halloween,
pumpkins scream in the dead of night

It was a funny day and after we returned home, the view from our kitchen granted me another (spooky) view:

If I only could paint somethink like that!

Some more picture heavy stuff after the break!