Don’t you just hate all the stupid quiz websites out there? You know the ones I’m talking about: “give us your name and we’ll tell you what superhero you are!” Well, I hate them too… that is, I hate them unless I’m bored and actually find the results rather funny. Today, a friend alerted me to one that tells you how your name will be defined in the dictionary. His was rather funny, so I decided to try my own… and then my family’s… and then a bunch of random people. Here is a select portion of what I spent the last hour laughing at:
- Darrell Rohl — [noun]: A master blogger
- Darrell J. Rohl — [adjective]: Smelling like turnips at all times
Tags: dictionary, fun, names, stupid
This weekend was full of amazing sights and exhausting activity. Throughout the last few days, I’ve done an awful lot of walking. On Friday evening, I walked all around the city of Durham to take in the wonders of Enlightenment: The Durham International Light Festival. Today, I went with a group of other guys from Christchurch Durham on a hike in Wharfedale, Yorkshire.
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Tags: Durham, england, enlightenment, festival, hiking, light, photography, uk, Wharfedale, Yorkshire
Flat Stanley with Durham Cathedral
Last weekend a special visitor arrived in Durham. He came in an envelope with a return address of North Point Elementary School. As I opened it, I was surprised to see a little boy inside. As I read the accompanying letter, I saw that my son Austin had sent me his little friend, Flat Stanley. Flat Stanley was just a regular boy until, one day, a bulletin board fell on him and flattened him out! While this might seem bad, there are some advantages, including his ability to travel all over the world in mailed envelopes.
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Tags: austin, Durham, Flat Stanley, North Point
The election’s today. Do your duty and vote.
Don’t give up hope. Be strong. Have courage. And fight. Fight for a new direction for our country. Fight for what’s right for America.
Fight to clean up the mess of corruption, infighting and selfishness in Washington.
Fight to get our economy out of the ditch and back in the lead.
Fight for the ideals and character of a free people.
Fight for our children’s future.
Fight for justice and opportunity for all.
Stand up to defend our country from its enemies.
Stand up, stand up, stand up and fight. America is worth fighting for. Nothing is inevitable here. We never give up. We never quit. We never hide from history. We make history.
Please. Go Vote today!
A year ago, I published a review of Tom Parker’s book, The Roman Frontier in Central Jordan: Final report on the Limes Arabicus Project, 1980-1989. This was published in the journal Near Eastern Archaeological Society Bulletin, volume 52, pp. 58-60. Here’s what I had to say:
Review of The Roman Frontier in Central Jordan: Final Report on the Limes Arabicus Project, 1980-1989, by S. Thomas Parker, with contributions by John Wilson Betlyon. Robin M. Brown, Vincent A. Clark, Patricia Crawford, Bert de Vries, Victoria L. Godwin, Jennifer C. Groot, Janet Duncan Jones, Jennifer E. Jones, Frank L. Koucky, Andrea Lain, Eric C. Lapp, Joann McDaniel, Robert Schick, and Michael R. Toplyn. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 2006. 2 vols. xli + 617 pp.
The Roman Provincia Arabia has been neglected by scholars of both history and archaeology for some time. Following the late nineteenth century work of Brunnow and Domaszewski (1904-9). little research had been conducted. It was not until the 1970s that G.W. Bowersock (1971) inspired a new generation of scholars to address this important frontier. Among this new generation was S. Thomas Parker, whose Limes Arabicus Project of 1980-1989 has been among the most successful archaeological projects in Jordan. The wide-ranging work reviewed here represents the long-awaited final publication of Parker’s ambitious project in this distant region of Rome’s extensive empire.
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Tags: Archaeology, book review, jordan, Limes Arabicus, Provincia Arabia, publication, roman, roman empire
Last week, I posted an article on using tag clouds to visualize the main messages given by Barack Obama and John McCain. The original post focused only on speeches given by the candidates between Monday, October 20 and Sunday, October 26. If you haven’t yet read that post, please do so now. As a follow-up, I have now created tag clouds for the speeches given in the following week. As with the previous post, these images were created using speech transcripts provided on RealClearPolitics.com. By visually highlighting the most frequent words, it is possible to consider the main messages. Here are the images:
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Tags: content analysis, election, mccain, obama, politics, tag cloud
Enlightenment: Durham International Light Festival 2008
Coming this week is Enlightenment: The Durham International Light Festival. I’ve seen this advertised around town and, although I’m not entirely sure what to expect, am really looking forward to it. According to the festival’s official website:
Enlightenment is a stunning and truly international light festival celebrating Durham’s religious and industrial heritage. Four new light-based artworks show Durham as viewed through the eyes of two very different cultures. The installations are a fusion of cultural identities, creative styles and methods of working. The individual pieces take their inspiration from the sacred texts, iconic images and traditions of Durham and a number of Eastern societies.
I will try to take photos when the festival comes and post those here.
Hadrian’s Wall is perhaps the best known (and arguably the most important) ancient roman monument in Britain. This article is the first installment in a planned series of at least 20 articles that will describe the Wall and its associated sites, including forts, milecastles, and civilian settlements.
Selected as a World Heritage Site (WHS) in 1987, Hadrian’s Wall has since become part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire WHS, along with the German Limes (gained WHS status in 2005) and Scotland’s Antonine Wall (gained WHS status in 2008). It is hoped (by me, at least!) that further remains of Rome’s extensive frontier system (stretching as far as Romania, Jordan and north Africa) will be added to this WHS in coming years.
The Wall is a physical structure stretching 80 Roman miles (about 73 modern miles) from coast to coast across Britain, from Wallsend in the east to Bowness in the west. While not all of the Wall remains in existence today, most of its course is known and can still be traced except where urban development has expanded on to the line of the Wall. The Wall, in its final stage of use, was constructed entirely of stone and was littered with 80 milecastles and a regular pattern of 2 turrets between each milecastle. Some 13 military forts were placed directly on the line of the Wall, with several additional forts located within the general vicinity but not directly on the Wall itself. Combined, this complex is well-deserving of its WHS status and the attention it has received in scholarly pursuits and the popular imagination.
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Tags: Archaeology, britain, england, frontier, hadrian's wall, history, roman empire, uk
Overlooking the verdant Valley of Elah, where the Bible says David toppled Goliath, archaeologists are unearthing a 3,000-year-old fortified city that could reshape views of the period when David ruled over the Israelites.
The site is Khirbet Qeiyafa, a five-acre site where excavations are being led by Yosef Garfinkel of Hebrew University. It is being recognized as an important site that can possibly yield additional archaeological evidence for the elusive period in which David was King of Israel. Among the finds uncovered at the site so far are an ostracon (piece of pottery that has been written on) with five lines of Hebrew text and burned olive pits which have been carbon-dated to the period 1050-970 B.C.
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Tags: Archaeology, bible, israel
In these last two weeks before the US elections, I thought it would be interesting to analyze the respective messages being given by Barack Obama and John Mccain. Through an analysis of their actual words, taken from speech transcripts over the past 7 days, a visual representation of each candidate’s main ideas can be generated. Using only those speeches given by the candidates between Monday, October 20 and Sunday, October 26 (limited as well to those with transcripts available at Real Clear Politics), the following tag cloud visualizations have been created:
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Tags: content analysis, election, mccain, obama, politics, tag cloud