ah damn, RIP Margaret Hamilton. she took safety-critical software engineering seriously, and got people to the moon and back. news.mit.edu/2026/margare...

Jim Henson would have been 90 (yup, you read that right: NINETY) years old today. You can celebrate his life by celebrating creativity, diversity, peace, imagination, and silliness.

#BattlegroupNORTHAG battle report from the Fulda Gap as Soviet forces attempt to break through a gap in the American line near Petersberg... #wargaming #coldwar #joyofsix #micromarmour

Battlegroup NORTHAG: Clash at Petersberg

Despite plans to get at least one game of Battlegroup NORTHAG in a month in 2026, it was almost eight before Andy and I got the 6mm Cold Wa...

bleaseworld.blogspot.com

Played a 750pt company level #BattlegroupNORTHAG West German vs Soviets game last night to introduce Phil and Jenny to the game. It went right down to the wire (Soviets only had 10 BR left as Germans hit 0). @andycrow.bsky.social was happy he managed to recover a broken down Leopard with his ARV!

Another weekend, another excellent game of Battlegroup NORTHAG with Ben and @andycrow.bsky.social. In a change we tried a BAOR counterattack on the Soviets. A tense game had the BAOR break just ahead of the Soviets. #wargaming #Battlegroup #NORTHAG #6mm

News from India as despatches reach London of a skirmish fought at the village of Roti and Major Hugh Janus and his Sikhs try to capture rebel chapati baker Naan Poppadom! #SharpPractice #SpreadTheLard #Wargaming bleaseworld.blogspot.com/2026/08/shar...

Sharp Practice: The Man From Peshwarinaan

As a follow up to playing Andy's 'Man From Del Monte' scenario in the Peninsular, Phil and I decided to transport it to Bengal and replay...

bleaseworld.blogspot.com

Think about Miss Piggy. She lost a best friend and now an ex-lover in matter of 24 hours.

ACW action at Windmill Hill as Union and Confederate forces try to seize a strategically located observation post using #OnBloodyGround ACW rules. Excellent evening hosted by Phil & Jenny with @andycrow.bsky.social my chauffeur! Surprised how well the rules worked, very bloody!

The Cross of Honour for Valour for that Alpha Jet pilot, who heroically dodged AAA and SAM fire to deliver his bombs on target. Latrine duty for the armourer who strapped two duds to his wings... (yes reader, I was bitter!)

Steve Blease@ironcow2103.bsky.social · 2mo ago

The Soviet liberation of West Germany comes to a crashing halt today as @andycrow.bsky.social's Bundeswehr halt the advancing Red Army in today's game of #BattlegroupNORTHAG

The Soviet liberation of West Germany comes to a crashing halt today as @andycrow.bsky.social's Bundeswehr halt the advancing Red Army in today's game of #BattlegroupNORTHAG

Great day of playing #BattlegroupNORTHAG with @andycrow.bsky.social, Rob and Ben. 6mm battalion level game, unfortunately we ran out of time before reaching a conclusion (it was finely balanced at the end) but had a lot of fun - and I've never seen anyone roll as many 1's as Ben ever! 😂

Pig rustling #Écorcheurs action down BIG last night with @andycrow.bsky.social and Jack. Once again the pesky English archers got the better of the French (who could not strike anything) but the pig escaped so I'm claiming a technical draw!

This is a lovely site which helps remind us of much of what we take for granted in material progress ordinaryabundance.com (HT @aveek18.bsky.social)

Ordinary Abundance

A walk through a modern apartment, through the eyes of the people for whom everything in it was new.

ordinaryabundance.com

The short answer is: "no, honest" The slightly longer, and more worrying, answer is: "...because they don't even *need* to" And this post is one of the best longform explanations as to why that I've seen.

Alexis Conran@alexisconran.com · 2mo ago

It’s the question I get asked the most. The answer is troubling.

First game of #Écorcheurs tonight, @andycrow.bsky.social did a sterling job trying to understand and get us to play the rules properly! Undoubtedly we did many things wrong but was fun so will be trying it again next week. Welsh bowmen behind a wall are best not attacked over open ground!

Great game of #BattlegroupNORTHAG with @andycrow.bsky.social today. Didn't quite have enough time to finish but after their vanguard getting badly smashed the tide was turning the Soviet way as the US Battle Rating started falling badly as they started to lose more of their valuable tanks.

Battle report from the Peninsular was the brave boys of the Kingdom of Italy army try to capture the enemy spy, the man from Del Monte, before the British rescue him! #SharpPractice #SpreadTheLard bleaseworld.blogspot.com/2026/07/shar...

WW2 Far East #ChainOfCommand action tonight as @andycrow.bsky.social’s Japanese were treated to a good kicking in the jungles of Burma… #SpreadTheLard

It's nice to re-connect with an old friend. Today that was Kiss Me Hardy, a salty sea dog from 2003. Today an RN squadron took on a formidable Franco-Spanish fleet. Honors largely even, but Admiral Charles led a heroic boarding action taking the French flagship as a prize! #SpreadTheLard #Wargaming

Hydration break.

What a fantastic weekend of #SharpPractice at Bristol Independent Gaming, 4 scenarios from the French & Indian War over two days saw Malice Canadiene along with their Huron Allies take on an array of British and Continental forces. A fantastic weekend of #wargaming. #spreadthelard.

Phil and my Anglo-American force failed miserably last night to prevent @andycrow.bsky.social's French/Huron terrorists from burning farmsteads and rustling chickens from the Hudson valley... #SharpPractice French & Indian War action #SpreadTheLard

Got around to updating the blog with some Indian Mutiny #SharpPractice action #SpreadTheLard

Sharp Practice: Escort Mission to Dalpartha!

Apologies for the lack of blog updates, hopefully this after action report of a recent  Sharp Practice game with Phil and Andy last month i...

bleaseworld.blogspot.com

@andycrow.bsky.social and I lead the brave Indian freedom fighters to defeat in last night's Indian Mutiny #SharpPractice game (ok mainly my fault rolling high on every Bad Things Happen roll) #SpreadTheLard

Yesterday saw an overdue return of O Group to the table. We played (in 6mm) the first scenario from the Normandy book; 6th Royal Scottish Fusiliers (Ben and I) were to assault St Manvieu in the early stages of Op Epsom against the 26th PzGrenadiers (@andycrow.bsky.social). #spreadthelard #wargaming

Normandy O Group today against Ben and Rob, using Rob's lovely #6mm setup. The 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers faced a stern fight to break into St Manvieu, but a third assault on the church finally broke the back of the German's resistance #SpreadTheLard

"From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, 'Look at that, you son of a bitch.'" ― Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 astronaut.

Paul Byrne@theplanetaryguy.com · 7mo ago

This image of home just came down from the Artemis II crew. Taken after their translunar injection burn, there are aurorae at top right and lower left, and zodiacal light at lower right. Credit: NASA/Reid Wiseman

A portrait of every being who has ever been alive, their bones and ashes, and their distant, alien descendants who still populate the world The timing of this launch couldn't be better to remind us of how small and precious this planet is

👻 Jack Djinn Wail 🧞@jacktindale.bsky.social · 7mo ago

If Artemis is going up then it gives me an excuse to once again post this photo, the only one to contain every human being in the universe but one.

Plans for the USMC to seize Khragy Island don't make any sense to me.