Friday Varia and Quick Hits

It’s a sunny, but cool spring Friday in North Dakotaland. It is also reading and review day, and this means that I survived yet another semester. It also means that I’m just that much closer to my summer adventures in North Dakota, Greece, and Cyprus, and my summer to-do list. These are all fun and exciting things.

So, while I try to balance my fatigue and excitement, I’ll pass on a little list of quick hits and varia to get the end of your week going right.

But, wait, before I start my weekly list, I need to include a brief advertisement. Fellow digital adventurer, Joel Jonientz, has launched his first Kickstarter campaign yesterday. Joel is a professor in the department of art and design and I’ve linked to his amazing blog more than a few times (he also designed the fantastic Punk Archaeology poster). He is using Kickstarter to raise money for a fantastic student project. They are designing a video game that infuses old school gameplay with artistic and musical sensibilities. It’s called Rhythm Planet and you should definitely support it and get everyone in your social network to support it. You’ll definitely hear more about it.  

Ok, now back to your regularly scheduled quick hits and varia:

• This before and after image of the looting around the site of Apamea in Sypria is insane.

• Archaeological sites from the air.

• These are some amazing tv programs from the 1950s and 1960s on the BBC. Many of them feature archaeological luminary Mortimer Wheeler.

• Qatar was offended by the nudity of Greek statues.

• The cat at Hagia Sophia.

• The team reports after the 100 Miles of Wild Adventure.

• I bet this study on sexual harassment among students doing anthropological fieldwork could be replicated among archaeologists.

• This is the ultimate tool for converting HATT (the Greek projection) to a system compatible with Google Maps.

• Check out ASOR’s new email newsletter The Ancient Near East Today.

• The Society of Architectural Historian’s call for papers. 

• A Pew Survey focusing on the beliefs and attitudes of the world’s Muslim population.

• Fear not, it seems like North Dakota has more oil than anyone expected.

• As the web turns 20 years old today, we should all admire the first website.

• The Subversive Festival!

• A massive, awesome rubber duck.

• This guy’s photographs are awesomely archaeological. Check out all the galleries.

• Reflections on a year without the internet.

• A spirited critique of the spread of for credit MOOCs and some interesting thoughts on why MOOCs have not been adopted by the Digital Humanities project.

• Women of Punk.

• A clever pedagogical ploy (although I am not sure that I completely understand what he was really truing to accomplish).

• I meant to post this earlier.

• What I’m reading: D. Katz, Solid Foundation: An Oral History of Reggae. (2003). (What I should be reading: B.D. Weaver, OilField Trash: Life and Labor in the Oil Patch. (College Station 2010).

• What I’m listening to: The Men, New Moon; Big Scary, Vacation; Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Mosquito.