Friday Varia and Quick Hits

It’s a gorgeous early fall day here in North Dakotaland with the temperature in the mid-50s this morning and an unmistakable crispness in the air. To celebrate, I’m heading onto campus for the first time since the spring to get a book at the library, do some administrative deeds, and walk around feeling collegiate.

As you contemplate the leaves changing colors, football, and curling up by a crackling fire with an adult beverage and a good book, I’ll serve up some quick hits and varia.

If you’re still hungry for more, check out the International Day of Archaeology and, in particular, Andrew Reinhard’s punk archaeology musings.

• One of the side-effects of austerity is more temptation to loot antiquities in Greece.

• A buried walrus amidst 19th century graves in England. 

• Before Byzantium. Dumbarton Oak’s online exhibit on the early activities of Thomas Wittemore (the founder of the Byzantine Institute).

• A starting position in Byzantine Theology and Visual Culture at the University of Chicago’s Divinity School.

• I guess a James Bond film was fine, but Red Bull extreme sports are not on Meteora.

• Early Spanish Forts in North Carolina.

• I really like the Hayling Island pop-up museum. 

• A mobile text analysis app! I wasn’t really looking for this, but I’m glad it exists.

• The NEH awards six digital humanities implementation awards. These all look like worthy projects embracing spatial approaches, crowdsourcing, networks, mobile applications, transmedia engagement and games. This is pretty much a summary of where the field is going.  Conspicuously absent: text work. 

• It’s funny how many of my colleagues have responded to this report. I am not sure that faculty understand how MOOCs will work yet.

• Require Reading: Typography in Ten Minutes. 

• Some great aerial views of my wife’s home town. These are breathtaking. More here: scroll down to heck out the photos of her alma mater – University of Queensland – here.

• Require viewing: Experiments in Speed. It’s only 9 minutes long, but it’s lovely and “it is potentially, fairly dangerous”.

• If you want to see a well-curated blog, check out Kostis Kourelis’s work at the Society of Architectural Historians blog. This week: Race, Space, and Trayvon Martin by Dianne Harris at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

• RIP: Amar G. Bose. I wonder how much he is to credit for the rise of the “New Audio Geeks”.

• North Dakota: A male dominated dystopia. And, if that’s not bleak enough, here’s a long read on being a stripper in Williston. Here’s my buddy Mark Jendrysik of the University of North Dakota’s Department of Political Science and Public Policy explaining the situation to the good residents of Norwegia.

• On a much lighter note here are some animated beer labels.

• People should support the Detroit Sound Conservancy’s Oral History Project on Kickstarter. If that’s not your cup of tea, here’s another worth project.

• The Worst Room.

• Anyone want to invest in helping me get my tour vehicle?

• What I’m listening to: Mikhael Paskalev, Jive Baby; Sleep Study, Nothing Can Destroy (for more good Minnesota bands check this out.)

• What I’m reading: A. Bevan and J. Conolly, Mediterranean Islands: Fragile Communities and Persistent Landscapes: Antikythera in Long-Term Perspective. Cambridge 2013.