Friday Quick Hits and Varia

It’s a chilly day here in North Dakotaland, but at least the last of the Thanksgiving Day snowflakes have settled on the ground and the wind seems to have let up. My house was freezing this morning and it was all I could do to get out of my warm bed to provide you (dear reader) with some holiday weekend entertainment. 

So, here are some lovingly selected and curated varia and quick hits.

• For my Corinthian colleagues, particularly those who have spend earnest hours at Room Marinos on the east side of the village, this video will surely bring back fond memories.
• The Australians have provided us with a nice guide for digitization conveniently available in pdf format.
• Michigan geography humor (via Dimitri Nakassis). GO BUCKS. BEAT MICHIGAN.
• A completely charming story about local history (via Richard Rothaus).
• Let’s say you need a book, but only have $2 and are in Toronto and have no particular idea of what book you want. If that’s the case, then there is a vending machine for you.
• Another link from Rothaus: the now destroy walled city of Kowloon in Hong Kong which was formerly the densest settlement on earth.
• I love the longstanding conversation about how annoying hipsters are. First here and then here. (And all this comes over 2 years after an unabashedly hipster publication N+1 declared the hipster dead.)
• Some thoughts on the recent volume of The Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory from Michael E. Smith. The volume looks at the relationship between experiential practices and GIS in documenting archaeological space. 
• It’s always worth a visit when Kostis Kourelis fire up the ole blog again.
• Thanksgiving is traditionally one of the slowest days on my blog. Yesterday I had only 31 page views or about 1/3 the average number.
• Using balloons to give the community access to the sky. The idea that anyone could send up a kind of UAV for under $200 is both terrifying and (in some perverse way) comforting. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (This, on the other hand, does not fill me with the same confidence…) 
• Some arresting photography of a massive solar installation being set up in Mojave Desert. (It reminds me a bit of the work of my colleague Sam Fee.)
• I really like the first writing tip offered here by John Steinbeck: abandon the idea that you’re ever going to finish.
• On small business Saturday (a concept that I whole-heartedly embrace even if I have no intention of shopping at all this weekend), shop at my cousin’s store. They have nice stuff.
• Some interesting thoughts on the economics of Spotify and Pandora.
• What I’m reading: Bjørnar Olsen, Michael Shanks, Timothy Webmoor, Christopher Witmore, Archaeology: The Discipline of Things. (Berkeley 2012).
• What I’m listening to: Galaxie 500, On Fire. The Weeknd, Trilogy.

A Mango Tree

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