Friday Varia and Quick Hits

It will be a downright balmy day here in North Dakotalands with a high expected to be 32 degrees F, but don’t fear that the denizens of the Northern Plains will get soft with these springtime temperatures in the darkest January. We’re under a blizzard warning for Saturday. So tonight, I expect my neighbors to be firing up their grills, lathering on the sunscreen, and playing backyard cricket, but tomorrow we’ll once again be hunkered down by the fire, reading our blogs, and dreaming of the Mediterranean sun.

In the meantime, please enjoy a artisnal collection of quick hits and varia:

• Apparently there were toilets on the second floor of houses in Pompeii. Upstairs and downstairs bathrooms make Pompeiian houses more conveniently accommodated than some homes I know here in Grand Forks!
• This is a fantastic use of GIF art in the service of a serious piece of web writing (and it’s a cool story too).  
• More New York Times stuff on life in Bakken Oil Patch.
• Free modern art books from the Guggenheim. There is very little not to like about free and art and books in the same sentence.
• My wife and I have very different opinions about birds, but this is a pretty cool page from Cornell’s Lab of Ornithology and the Macaulay Library.
• Did I post this in an earlier quick hits and varia? Maybe. But if I didn’t everyone should check out the BBC’s web recreation of their classic radiophonic sounds. Anyone who teaches online could certainly imagine uses for these sounds…
• Everyone knows about Punk Archaeology, right? (And if you’re wondering, yes, they are practicing.) If you’re in the Grand Forks area and need or want one of Joel Jonientz’s amazing technicolor posters, stop by my office.

 

• More on Frank Furness from Kostis Kourelis.
• One thing that was nice about working in Cyprus was that it was a bit distant from the exasperating and exhausting news of economic catastrophe in Greece. Now, however, it seems like the footsteps are getting louder and the extent of the problems more clear.
• Some great writing tips from H.P. Lovecraft to young writers.
• For those of you who keep a score card at home, the “new” iteration of my blog passed the 500 post point this week.
• And a pretty funny list of things that you should never say to your professor. I’ve received at least five emails this week asking me “if we did anything in class last week.” I now tell them: “You dodged a bullet. We actually sat quietly for 2 hours and did absolutely nothing.”
• It was nice to see that the return of the big Australian cricket stars to their team produced predictably awe inspiring results against an out matched Sri Lanka ….
• Has anyone thought of producing scholarly reviews of MOOC courses? I’d love to read a thoughtful review (or even semi regular reports) from these classes. I know I could just sign up and do it myself, but part of me wonders how we can judge the impact of these courses on popular and scholarly discourse. It’s one thing to have thousands of students enrolled, but it’s another thing to produce knowledge. Maybe I’ll have enough time in Cyprus to blog about Susan Alcock’s Coursera class in June. 
• Photographs of the sworn virgins of Albania. It’s interesting the virginity and gender are so deeply intwined. 
• This is an amazing sailboat. Read the article, but also check out the videos!
• What I’m reading: T. Weller ed., History in the Digital Age. Routledge 2013.
• What I’m listening to: The Bears of Blue River, Dames; Yo La Tengo, Fade.

I know it’s grainy,but I love the sparks from the smoke stack.

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