Friday Varia and Quick Hits

It’s a brisk 45 degrees this morning and I can now – maybe – say with some confidence that fall has officially arrived on the Northern Plains. As I look out on the lawn that needs to be mowed one or two last times and the trees still filled with green leaves, I’ve begun to think of short, productive days filled with the pale sun of winter. 

Until then, I’ll do my best to keep my readers entertained with some quick hits and varia:

• Great, more Linear B, exactly what we need (I joke, I joke … this is pretty cool).

• Check out page two of the McGill Classical Studies Newsletter to learn why upstate New York has so many places with Classical names (pdf).

• Digging Data at the Oriental Institute’s library.

• Three volumes of the work at Zeugma in Turkey available online for free.

• The Institute of Fine Arts at NYU has a sweet Tumblr of images from its archive.

• More on the newest generation of stylite monks.

• Orthodoxy in North Dakota.

• A 7th century AD stash of gold jewelry from Israel. 

• One of our Punk Archaeologist, Josh Samuels, talks about his work in Sicily and his Engaged Anthropology Grant.

• Andrew Reinhard’s steam punk novel set in Archaic times: the Psychonautica (pdf). He’s looking for a publisher. Spread the word.

• My brother’s school is among those that received grants to fill their classrooms with tablet computers.

• The fate of gardens in Istanbul (think of the stories about how Late Byzantine Constantinople was filled with grazing sheep and orchards as the population dwindled or stories of urban gardening in Detroit.)

• Arcade Fire is getting almost all they can out of their collaboration with Googles.

• 3D archaeology and curation at VCU.

• If Armstrong and Aldren hadn’t made it back from the moon, this is what Nixon would have said.

• 19th century map of slavery in the U.S. by county.

• Using GIS to teach U.S. History (.pdf).

• Some interesting conversation about Digital Humanities and how it will challenge, engage, and transform the world of academic publishing. Do check out DHThis. It’s cool.

• Speaking of digital humanities, here are some videos of trucks crashing into a bridge.

• And, here is Rebecca Solnit in the London Review of Books.

• Living Rough: the largest homeless camp in the U.S.

• What I’m reading: S. Bond and S. Houston, Re-Presenting the Past: Archaeology Through Text and Image. Joukowsky Institute of Archaeology 2013.

• What I’m listening to: Crocodiles, Crimes of Passion; Ella Fitzgerald, The Cole Porter Songbook.

R.I.P Ray Dolby