Music Data Mining - ScanLibs

Music Data Mining

A10 Cruiser Tanks For The Desert

I have been really slack this year when it comes to fresh gaming output. I had the big burst of Italian Wars at the start of the year which burnt me out a little, so with this year's Analogue Hobbies Winter Paint Challenge about to start I needed to get back in the saddle, warm up the Pro Arte Sable and start to splash the Vallejo again.

This year I have decided to have a tank theme and try and crack through the huge backlog of 28mm Early War desert vehicles I have lying around in the to do box (I say box I mean small garage). First thing was to get a bit of pre season training in with a couple of A10 Tanks I needed for our next Op Compass Campaign Game.

The vehicles are from Warlord Games and will join another 3 A10s that I already own. The vehicles are painted in the early war Caunter Scheme as most of my vehicles are, I've gone for a very pale blue grey for my third colour on these. I have given up debating Caunter Colours and stick to my own interpretation, I have vehicles in the official colours (the earliest) and then others with various shades representing my interpretation of the colour change / fade for the third colour.

There is also a (shock, horror !) conversion on one of the vehicles, it sounds big and clever but all I have done is taken a 3" CS barrel from a Rubicon Models Crusader it (cheers Steve 👍) and replaced the two pounder barrel on the original model to get a Close Support version, which is required for the game mentioned above.

It's nice to get a couple of new vehicles finished and hopefully this will get me in the mood for the challenge. After all looking at the pic below I have 11 Honeys, 4 A13s, 7 Crusaders, a Matilda, 5 Panzer III, 2 Panzer IV, an 8 rad, 3 Sdkfz 222, a Panzer II, 3 Mark VI Light Tanks, 3 Italian M13/40 tanks and 6 M11/39 tanks to be going on with.

The plan past year during the Challenge was to complete a small unit of 6 Cavalry each week to keep me driving forward, it worked a treat. This year I plan a minimum of 3 vehicles each week, so there are more than enough in these boxes to keep me going.

I only started playing around with weathering of vehicles a year or so ago so I'm quite new to it, there are some washes, some chipping and a bit of streaking on these, I don't want to go too far with it (some models are all weathering and no paint) but I'm happy with my progress.

The vehicles are due in action straight away so will have the opportunity to perform dreadfully (as all new units must) pretty soon.

So the wing table will be mostly empty for the next couple of weeks whilst I get this lot cleaned up, washed, dried, built and primed ready for the start of the challenge on the 21st December. See you at the start line.

The Nocturnal Financier

I may be a lot of things, but I'm essentially a Capitalist. A Capitalist believes in nocturnal finance. The way you retire is to have your money work for you while you sleep. For many, that's a 401K, but for the small business owner, it's the exploitation of labor, to quote Marx. Most small business owners have little in savings, and I'm ashamed to say, I'm not an exception.

To be a Capitalist is to put your eggs in the nest of others, hoping they'll warm and nurture them in exchange for payment. It's also to accept the rightness of your willingness to work for others back in your day as a nest warmer. That's the main difference between my nest egg and the nest egg of an employee. Rather than relying on the numerical supremacy of an index fund, I let some kid in their 20's, with little nest sitting experience, sit on my valuable eggs. Hopefully you discover the cracks early enough.

This Capitalist egg sitting may seem to fly in the face of the general social welfare, but I believe we can work towards a more equitable society while insisting people take the initiative to improve their individual situation. Only a cretin truly believes there's a level playing field. The game is rigged. Sometimes it's rigged in my favor but most of the time, not so much. I like the game, but it is a system designed by the winners to keep them winning. I know we can fix the game with a well thought out expansion (with a lot more players), rather than tossing the game (an egg toss).

I vacuumed my million square feet to get to my exalted seat known as "the middle." If I can keep the balls in the air long enough, I may slowly recede from my business while others do the heavy lifting. Because I have a bad back from that heavy lifting and no workers comp insurance. If I can raise up, mentor, or at least pay well my employees along the way, I consider that a double victory. One manages a game store now. Another is head buyer at a major distributor. I am a stepping stone, so I can't take credit for their victories, but I hope we came together to build something wonderful that positively impacted their future.

All of this could come crashing down with a couple bad months. Perhaps I injure myself. I have key man business insurance if I die, but a good maiming? Not covered. Perhaps a national tragedy keeps people at home. A major Bay Area earthquake, long overdue, could eliminate my entire community in a moment. There is no backup plan, no unemployment, no explaining the situation to the boss. The vast majority of my nocturnal capital is tied up in worthless cardboard. Does this instability and painful chance of failure make the true socialist feel any better about my exploitation? Doubtful, but there it is.

The restless sleep of the nocturnal financier means you're never quite rested. I taught my young nephew the phrase, "I'll sleep when I'm dead!" It angered his mother, but it should be the mantra of the small business owner. No safety net. No rest. No real time away. The boss is a jerk. The customers are unreasonable. The employees are stealing. Your partners carry knives for the inevitable stab to the back. I can't imagine life any other way, and if I had to have my labor exploited again, if I had to mind someone else's eggs, I would be longing for the sleepless nights of the nocturnal financier.