Work continues on the Aeronef. The decks got their base coat and wash, and I managed to paint the highlights on five of them.
I also took one to completion, it got its funnel, turrets, windows and colors done up. Like I said before, I'm not looking to go overboard with these. Just a serviceable, table-top paint job.
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| I mentioned that while I was up at the Wargames Holiday Centre I was hoping to make a few purchases. Well,I did indeed, and here are a few pics of some of them. Mike has been selling off quite a few units this year in order to "slim down" the collection (for example, having nearly 180 x 36 man French btns seemed a bit OTT), and I hoped to buy a few units I'd always really liked. High on the list were these 2 regts of Austrian Hussars, 1 of 36 men and another of 48 (Wish they were both 48's). |
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| One of the problems I've always had with the Austrian army is the hussar uniform. Now I know they invented the things, but I've always thought the Austrian hussar uniform looked more at home in Billy Smart's Circus than on a battlefield. All that purulent bright green, stupid red trousers, and yellow plumes...Give them some long, floppy shoes rather than hussar boots and they would have looked better. Subsequently I've never had any great desire to paint any. So from years ago when I first saw these rather more subdued paint jobs they always appealed. They are all wearing overalls and the green is (a more realistic) darker shade. Despite this they are still suitably gaudy enough for hussars, with their red shabraques with yellow piping and either bright or dark blue dolmans. |
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| They are (naturally) the Elite miniatures castings, painted and converted by Doug Mason. All the sabres are pins soldered into the hand and are very tough. Even after many years of service up in Scarborough I only had to replace 3 swords out of 84. Doug has done plenty of bends and twists to these figures. There are only 4 basic figures here, officer, trumpeter and 2 trooper figures, and he really has imparted an incredible sense of movement to the models which really look the part of hussars at full tilt |
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| I just did a minimal amount of work on the bases to blend them with my standard basing. Just an oilwash and highlight then some grass clumps added. I also gave them a quick new coat of gloss. I had contemplated giving them a matt coat, but they look infinitely better in their original gloss glory. I'm developing a bit of a theory about gloss V matt: Gloss varnish isn't terribly fashionable these days which is actually a bit wierd. There is no debate about it bringing out the colour and establishing a visual contrast between the figure and its base, this is simply optical fact. Nonetheless, a lot of folk "prefer" matt these days. Anyway, my theory is, that gloss varnish makes well painted figures look even better and badly painted figures look even worse, while matt varnish just dulls everything down to a more median uniformity (no pun inteneded). So for Mr Average painter (like me, and most of you) we think our stuff looks better when we matt varnish it, because gloss just shows up all the cock-ups, while matt is more....forgiving. Anyway, thats my theory. These figures were painted by someone who really knew what he was doing, and it shows up even better in the flesh than through the lens of my rather inadequate camera. |
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| These weren't the only figures I bought from Mike, there are more (I just kept peeling off the tenners until he said stop) but the rest will have to wait for another time. |
As the death toll and the infected cases of widespread coronavirus continue to increase, global organizations and the tech industry has come forward with technology like blockchain to fight coronavirus.
Along with the equipment and monetary support, technology also withstands against the virus with better plans and solutions. Hence, tech industries have started leveraging blockchain technology in the wake of a global health emergency.
The Center for Systems Science and Engineering has already set up an online platform to track coronavirus and visualize the growing number of infected patients in real-time.
But Acoer, an Atlanta-based blockchain app developer, has also launched an alternative online data visualization tool to easily trail and depict the Cororanvirus outbreak using blockchain technology.
Acoer platform, named HashLog, is more advanced and clear as it pulls the data from the Hedera Hashgraph database using the HashLog data visualization engine.
Hedera Hashgraph is an immutable, transparent and decentralized database based on distributed ledger technology that provides synchronized and unchangeable data from the public networks.
Moreover, researchers, scientists, and journalists can use the HashLog dashboard to understand the spread of the virus and act against it swiftly.
For data sources, Johns Hopkins CSSE extracts data from WHO, CDC, ECDC, NHC, and DXY. On the other hand, Acoer maps the public data, including data from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO). Therefore, data may differ on both platforms.
To fight the further spread of the coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak globally, China has also received abundant monetary support from the international community to create better action plans.
China's govt-led organization and charities are responsible for overseeing and utilizing the influx of money to research and generate a solution for coronavirus. But due to the lack of coordination and mismanagement among the various organization, money is not being laid out to curb the crisis.
Recently, a paper published by Syren Johnstone, from the University of Hong Kong, discusses the problems encountered by charities, in China and elsewhere. It argues that the present crisis should be seen as a call to arms.
Syren urges for a borderless solution with better management of donations and implementation using the emerging tech like Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence.
Keeping that in mind, Hyperchain, a Chinese company, also announced blockchain-based charity platform to streamline the donation from all over the world.
Since the Hyperchain platform is based on the blockchain, it offers more transparency among the sender and receiver of funds to bring trust and immutability to restrict the transaction data deletion.
Overall, Hyperchain improves administrative function for the money and also extends the logistics actions.
@HACKER NT
