Friday Quick Hits and Varia

It’s another bright, beautiful, and cool morning here in North Dakotaland. The last final exams are done and the stacks of grading grow smaller which each passing day. The long spring and summer days in the town of Grand Forks will be quieter now.

So as we begin our new summer routines, it seems like a good time for some quick hits and varia.

But, before you go any further, go and check out Joel Jonientz’s Kickstarter to fund the completion of his student-developed video game (and read an interview with him here and here). It’s over 20% funded and I have it on good authority that it will be awesome.

• Art of Byzantium from Greek Collections in Washington, D.C. this fall.

• Steven Ellis talks about retail space in the Roman world in an interview with the good folks at the American Academy in Rome.

• The Monumenta Germaniae Historica is now available online and free.

• Some great photos of the rock-hewn churches in Lalibela, Ethiopia on Good Friday (last week).

• Some interested goings on around the Byzantine monuments of Turkey.

• You can compare Sue Alcock’s trench sounds with my original trench sounds.

• Thorncrown Chapel, one of my favorite buildings, is under threat.

• This game is really fun.

• John McAfee interviews are always guaranteed to bewilder and amuse.

• Richard Rothaus and Andrew and Andrew Reinhard talk about their 100 Miles of Wild in the North Dakota Badlands on Prairie Public Radio’s Main Street.

• American University is rethinking MOOCs.

• The House of Collective Repair.

• Life lessons from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

• Michael Hussey has the Orange Cap in the Indian Premier League.

• Some notes on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s stay in Wilmington, Delaware.

• The closer you live to the Bakken the more money you make, and this is especially true if you’re the Dean of the Medical School at UND.

• What I’m reading: 18 chapters from the textbook written by my Scale-Up History 101 class, PKAP Survey Data, and various recent articles in the Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology.

• What I’m listening to: Mikal Cronin, MCII; Pete Murray, Feeler.