Friday Quick Hit and Varia
December 16, 2011 § 5 Comments
It’s a frosty day here in North Dakotaland emphasized with a slight dusting of snow. My office is a chilly 55, but the various little heaters are blasting and soon it’ll be warm enough for me to start my day. So with the chill outside and the chill inside, it seems like a good time to warm up with some quick hits and varia.
- Some more on man-camps and if you need high-quality luxury housing in the Bakken area, check this out. (via Richard Rothaus)
- Another type of camp. (via Kostis Kourelis)
- ISAW’s open-access journal (or is it a publication series… I think I’d like some clarification, but it seems really cool) is out.
- What is college for?
- So Australia was not the only side to encounter the buzz saw of South Africa’s bowling.
- I keep thinking about doing another “tips for academic bloggers” post that would be academic version of a list like this.
- With Spotify, I have an all new appreciation for lists like this and like this.
- One of my first blog posts on this blog was about a body found when excavating the foundations for the new President’s house here on campus. Our local forensic anthropologist published an article about this in March that I somehow missed.
- Hand-stitched Kanye West tweets: awesome and transmedia.
- I learned the phrase “like chalk and cheese” from this song by The Bats (although it sort of sounds like they say “like chook and cheese”.
- R.I.P. (I guess) Christopher Hitchens. Whatever one thinks of his book on Cyprus, it did much to make the political situation there better known globally. And I’ll have to think about this some: “Writing is what’s important to me, and anything that helps me do that — or enhances and prolongs and deepens and sometimes intensifies argument and conversation — is worth it to me…”
- A new blogging venture from an old friend.
- More abandonment porn.
- Some book porn.
- My colleague Eric Burin using his quantitative history powers for the forces of good.
- These stories depress and worry me considering how dependent I am on Amazon (especially when followed up by stories like this.)
- What I’m reading: E. Vaccaro, Sites and Pots: Settlement and Economy in Southern Tuscany 300-900. (Archaeopress 2011).
- What I’m listening to: War on Drugs, Slave Ambient, The Roots, Undun.
The view from my home office this morning
The link on the libraries was pretty cool (but, where’s the Fritz?), though the Long Room at Trinity scares me a bit, as I would not want to get up on those ladders. With most of the images, I am left with the questions of are they serving as more decorative pieces for the campus, and why would you create such tall stacks?
Dan,
I am guessing that the taller stacks are designed to maximize the density of books per square meter of library.
More than that, some of the older stacks certainly suggest that the culture of reading has changed over time. They do not seem particularly suitable for browsing!
Bill
Definitely. I guess just seeing such tall stacks makes my apprehension about heights perk up.
By the way, the link for Burin’s story should be http://www.wdaz.com/event/article/id/11533/publisher_ID/30/ as the link you have is to the 10PM newscast, which did not have any mention of him that I saw. Also, the link to your friend’s new blog is the same as the Kanye West tweets.
Dan,
Thanks! I fixed the links!
Bill
Think of ISAW Papers as an occasional papers series. When the first volume of the monograph series appears (soon), I think you’ll see the difference. It will appear in partnership with NYU Press, which will be happy to supply a hard copy, if you want one.