Ummagumma

The set up for the "Eviction Notice" mini scenario in OCS Crimea .  The Germans and Romanians are ready to strike the Soviets.  The offensive starts with a series of fighter sweeps around Kerch to surpress Soviet air power in order to clear the way for air support of the upcoming German overrun attacks.  Please note that I do not show Reserve Markers any any of the screenshots in this post (there are only a couple).  That allows you to better see all the units involved. In a way, it seems odd that I have rarely mentioned the Operational Combat Series (OCS) since starting this blog. I really enjoy this series and, as I posted back in 2011 , “OCS is the best modern operational model wargame I’ve ever played...no game better simulates how an actual “blitzkrieg” attack works upon a defended area or how the oozing breakthroughs of the Soviet forces can drive the German army back.” The last OCS game on my gaming table was Baltic Gap back in 2009. But I didn't post anythin

[Read prior Elder Reports: One , Two , Three , Four ] Around mid-March, my mom developed what I thought were seasonal allergies. I got her some over-the-counter medication and hoped that would knock out her cough and runny nose. It didn't. The next day she seemed lethargic and had a low-grade fever so I decided to take her to a nearby urgent care to be checked out. At the time, I thought she might have something like a UTI or maybe she was getting pneumonia. But it turned out to be the latest strain of COVID. That was disconcerting, to say the least. I was exposed. I would have to quarantine myself with her. So, she and I set out on an adventure. The doctor prescribed Paxlovid for her. Her symptoms were fairly mild but a chest X-Ray revealed some small nodules forming in her right lung. That night, she was developing a migraine. I gave her some medication for that which basically knocks her out and helps her sleep. Unfortunately, she woke up needing to use her bathr

The classic shot from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind .   Clementine and Joel lying on the frozen Charles River gazing at the stars and each other. When you research Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind online, you will discovery that there is no shortage of videos and posts by people who claim it is their favorite movie of all time.  Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 92% favorable rating among over 250 movie critic reviews.  More than 250,000 viewers give it a 94% rating.  Over on the IMDB site, more than 1.1 million viewers give it an average rating of 8.3 out of 10, with the movie currently ranked 95th on the Top 250 films list. So, it is a well-liked film, to say the least.  I would place it somewhere in the lower part of my personal Top 25 films list.  I was excited to revisit this masterpiece after going awhile without seeing it.  This viewing of the film (actually repeat viewings) did not disappoint and it allowed me to consider some of its various strengths and aspects in a ne

This morning I read an article in Wired entitled "Forget Chatbots:  AI Agents Are the Future".  This is something I have posted about here , here , and here , among other places.  Ironically, I decided to use a chatbot to talk about the article and its implications. Claude:  The article discusses the emerging trend of AI agents that can take actions and get tasks done, beyond just answering questions like traditional chatbots. It highlights a few examples of these AI agents: Devin from Cognition AI - An "AI software developer" that can plan projects, write code, test it, and deploy it, performing tasks usually done by human software engineers. Devin impressed investors and engineers with demos of complex software engineering capabilities. Auto-GPT and vimGPT - Open source AI agents that can browse the web, use computer programs, and attempt to complete tasks assigned by humans. The author tested these and found them promising but still error-prone. SIMA fr