It has been a cold week (-25 F when I went to bed last night), but here are some warm quick hits and varia on a warming Friday morning:
- We have arranged to have Geoffrey Rockwell to campus in March. Rockwell is a professor of philosophy and humanities computing at University of Alberta, one of the leading Digital Humanists in North America, and the project leader of TAPoR (Text Analysis Portal for Research). The Working Group in Digital and New Media will coordinate his visit in collaboration with EPSCOR, the departments of English, History, and the Communications program. He’ll be on campus on March 1st and 2nd.
- On a more mundane note, these visualizations of the distribution and circulation of digital media published by Springer are really really cool. Check out the icons.
- A new Teaching Thursday on concept mapping.
- Two bizarre stories involving religious artifacts from Cyprus this week. First, a monk from Kykkos and several accomplices were stopped at the Athens airport when they attempted to smuggle the skeleton of a relatively recently deceased nun back to Cyprus (for more here). Next Boy George returned a stole 18th century icon to Cyprus that he had purchases in 1985 (for more here). I guess it’s been a week for Furta Sacra!
- This is a great article on using Omeka in a classroom environment. I particular like the idea that it’s acceptable for students to feel some discomfort in the digital environment.
- For folks interested in baptistery, this would be a great exhibit: Take me to the Water. The idea that there existed postcards showing river baptisms has a nice parallel with the public monuments that marked out the baptismal ritual in antiquity.
- Someone linked to this on Facebook, but I don’t remember who. It’s a great poster by The Oatmeal on how to use the semicolon.
- This is a fun blog post suggesting that people who own the iPad read at different times of day based on data from Read it Later.
- Some thoughts on Digital History at the American Historical Association annual meeting.
- This is a cool group of essays from the Edge World Question Center on what scientific concept would improve everybody’s cognitive toolkit.
- David Pettegrew continues to produce some great translations and discussions on Corinth. And Paperless Archaeology should be on all digital archaeologist’s reading list.
- It’s great to see Australia’s one-day cricket side going up 2-0 against England while lacking an (out of form) Ricky Ponting and (an emphatically in-form) Michael Hussey. Maybe the handwringing over the state of Australia Cricket is misplaced a bit. After all, it’s good for world cricket for the Australian test side to stumble. If we’ve learned anything from Pete Rozelle and the NFL, parity in sport attracts interest.
- What I am reading: R. M. Burns and H. Rayment-Pickard, Philosophies of History. (Blackwell 200).
- What I am listening to: The National, Boxer.