Maitani

How long util you can light up a home grown one? :) - Eivind

It's a tedious business, growing tobacco. It needs constant attention when growing, special storage cottages with rails attached to them for the drying racks (so you can push the racks into safety when it rains, which, I admit, was hell'uva fun for us kids but a nervous rush for our parents since they were afraid it was gonna ruin the leaves, their livelihood), but first you had to... more... - Faruk Ahmet

"The Cassiterides, meaning Tin Islands (from the Greek word for tin: Κασσίτερος/Kassiteros), are an ancient geographical name of islands that were regarded as situated somewhere near the west coasts of Europe.[1] The traditional assumption, ignoring Strabo, is that Cassiterides refer to Great Britain, based on the significant tin deposits in Cornwall.[2]" - Maitani from Bookmarklet

[edit] from http://ff.im/1fbdeX !!! (first I linked back to my own post mistakenly) - Maitani

"Lisa Ross’s luminous photographs are not our usual images of Xinjiang. One of China’s most turbulent areas, the huge autonomous region in the country’s northwest was brought under permanent Chinese control only in the mid-twentieth century. Officially, it is populated mostly by non-ethnic Chinese—Turkic peoples like Uighurs (also spelled Uyghurs), Kazakhs, and Kyrgyz, as well as Mongolians and even Russians—and its population has long had difficult relations with Beijing. In 2008, 2009, and 2012, Xinjiang was the site of bloody protests." - Maitani

"Instead of representing these political conflicts, however, Ross’s photographs are unassuming and quiet; people are never present and the objects she captures—stone on sand, cloth on stone, the skeleton of a dried animal—have an incandescent glow, as if lit by another sun. In fact, these images reveal a little-known religious tradition in Xinjiang—its desert shrines to Sufi saints. Taken in the Xinjiang’s Taklamakan Desert, they are collected in Ross’s addictive new book Living Shrines of Uyghur China." - Maitani

"The aim of the project is to map the Jewish presence in the Byzantine empire using GIS (Geographical Information Systems). All information (published and unpublished) about the Jewish communities will be gathered and collated. The data will be incorporated in a GIS which will be made freely available to the general public on the world-wide-web. Researchers and members of the public will be able to create maps according to their own specifications. Chronologically, the project will begin in 650. This is soon after the Arab conquest of Egypt, Palestine and Syria when these regions, with their substantial Jewish populations, were permanently separated from the Byzantine empire. The end-date is fixed by the arrival in the region of large numbers of Jewish immigrants from Spain in 1492. Geographically, the core areas of Asia Minor, the southern Balkans and the adjacent islands including Crete and Cyprus will be included for the entirety of the period, Byzantine Italy however, will only be... more... - Maitani from Bookmarklet

"Dark matter is the commonest, most elusive stuff in the universe. Can we grasp this great unsolved problem in physics?" - Maitani from Bookmarklet

"Alexander B Fry is a graduate student in astronomy at the University of Washington in Seattle and owner of The Astronomist blog. His research interests focus on cosmology and extragalactic astronomy." - Maitani

"Chile's government told to stop allowing firms to exhaust water sources with little regard for local people" - Maitani from Bookmarklet

"More than 100 environmental, social and indigenous organisations protested in the Chilean capital, Santiago, this week to demand that the state regain control of the management of water, which was privatised by the then dictatorship in 1981. More than 6,000 people took part in the peaceful "great carnival march for the recovery and defence of water" on Monday, according to the... more... - Maitani

"From what we know (or can infer) about the social life of early humans in the Middle Paleolithic period (300-30 thousand years ago), our hunter-gatherer ancestors lived in small nomadic bands, each consisting of a few dozen (20-50) individuals. Several such bands may have maintained regular contacts and converged into loose ethnic units (“tribes”) totalling a few hundred members, which gathered seasonally for collective purposes such as ritual celebrations, marital exchange, etc. In such conditions a single speech community, capable of maintaining a shared linguistic code (unified by cultural transmission), can hardly grow larger than a tribe. In effect, a cluster of allied bands corresponds to a linguistic unit as well as a cultural one (with a shared system of customs and laws). Such a model is supported by studies of modern societies retaining an archaic type of organisation, such as the Indigenous Australians. At the time of first European contact, the population od Australia was... more... - Maitani from Bookmarklet

TL;DR: Babel happens. :-) - Le Slip Anglais from Android

"Please note: All posted hyperlinks to articles included in each volume will lead readers to the Language archives available via JSTOR. Users without access to JSTOR may purchase individual articles, or participate in the "Register and Read" program of JSTOR, which provides free access on a time-limited basis to those who complete a registration form." - Maitani from Bookmarklet

http://memiyawanzi.wordpress.com/2013... - Maitani

"Access to digitized manuscripts online (see Irene’s Navigating the Digital World) is changing the way medievalists can and are expected to work. While the benefits of accessing an electronic facsimile for research with respect to preservation and efficiency are obviously enormous, there are numerous reasons why I’m glad my current research requires hands-on interaction with my subjects (in amazing Bruges, no less). The physical element of codicology is partly why I was drawn to studying medieval books as objects, rather than for the texts they contain." - Maitani from Bookmarklet

"Traveling through the Flemish countryside on my way back from Bruges provides a great backdrop to consider my research trip and the manuscripts I’d explored over the past few days (with the gracious cooperation of the Biekorf Library’s leadership and staff). While, of course, I run through my usual checklist of paleographical features which can be done on-screen – pp biting? Ampersand... more... - Maitani

This is a reminder that someday soon I should visit lovely Bruges. :-) - Maitani

"Supervolcanoes are volcanic eruptions thousands of times more powerful than normal volcanic eruptions. These types of eruptions cause significant local ecological disturbances and have profound effects on global climate. On the scale of geological time they occur quite frequently." - Maitani from Bookmarklet

"Volcanologists categorize eruptions by the amount of volcanic ash ejected upon eruption using the Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI). The VEI consists of 8 levels, with VEI-8 eruptions considered “supervolcanic eruptions” ejecting 1000 cubic kilometers of ash or more." - Maitani

"When you think of the acropolis, one immediately thinks of the Parthenon in majestic ruin, or perhaps the famous Caryatids on the porch of the Erechtheion. Perhaps, while you’re busy—perhaps a little too busy—admiring the architectural scenery as you progress up the sacred way, you might not notice some very very important bits of archaeology. Yes, I’m talking about those mysterious holes in the ground. One passes them without thinking, but when you start looking, they’re everywhere. Not interesting, you say? Well, let me tell you more: these are, in fact, carved-out bases for inscriptions, in which they were placed and then fixed in position by pouring molten lead into the gaps. Inscriptions, containing sources for all kinds of exciting aspects of Ancient Greek political and social history!" - Maitani from Bookmarklet

"During the Easter break I had the wonderful opportunity to participate in the Postgraduate Epigraphy Course put on by the British School at Athens March 24th to April 7th, taught by Robert Pitt (BSA Assistant Director) and Graham Oliver (University of Liverpool). As many of you may know, my Ph.D. work focuses on the Ancient Greek dialects, for which the overwhelming amount of evidence... more... - Maitani

"The first week of the course was devoted to seminars in practical epigraphy and field trips around Attica and Delphi. The first stop of the Grand Tour (of epigraphy) was the mighty acropolis with its many aforementioned holes in the ground, but still with much remaining epigraphy to be reckoned with, mainly a lot of dedications. One example (IG I³ 833 + IG II² 4147) gives an excellent... more... - Maitani

"Apr. 15, 2013 — A brain-training task that increases the number of items an individual can remember over a short period of time may boost performance in other problem-solving tasks by enhancing communication between different brain areas. The new study being presented this week in San Francisco is one of a growing number of experiments on how working-memory training can measurably improve a range of skills -- from multiplying in your head to reading a complex paragraph." - Maitani from Bookmarklet

""Working memory is believed to be a core cognitive function on which many types of high-level cognition rely, including language comprehension and production, problem solving, and decision making," says Brad Postle of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who is co-chairing a session on working-memory training at the Cognitive Neuroscience Society (CNS) annual meeting today in San... more... - Maitani

"The cornerstone brain-training exercise in this field has been the "n-back" task, a challenging working memory task that requires an individual to mentally juggle several items simultaneously. Participants must remember both the recent stimuli and an increasing number of stimuli before it (e.g., the stimulus "1-back," "2-back," etc). These tasks can be adapted to also include an audio... more... - Maitani

"A new study that examined how the brain learns and retains motor skills provides insight into musical skill." - Maitani from Bookmarklet

But … but … but … sleep is unproductive and a waste of time! - Amit Patel

To never know where it is taking me and what it will teach me. :-) - Maitani

I'm really glad you like it! - Bren from iPhone

<3 - Kelli H.

"I hesitate to call Teotihuacan THE earliest city, for several reasons. First, that designation depends on one's definition of city and urbanism; and second, archaeologists continue to locate new cities and provide better dating for known cities. Nevertheless, Teotihuacan ("Teo" for short) was AN early city in central Mexico, certainly the earliest large city in the region. Teo was founded several centuries before Christ, and it reached its height between about 200 and 600 AD." - Maitani from Bookmarklet

^I concur. We arrived very early in the morning and were the first atop the Pyramid of the Sun. It was beautiful. - Kelli H.

"What field of linguistics should I pursue?" - Maitani

Produced by Cascadilla http://www.cascadilla.com/# "Cascadilla Press is an independent scholarly publisher of linguistics books, software, and teaching aids." - Maitani

"Constantine Cavafy was born in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1863, and died there seventy years later of throat cancer. The uneventfulness of his life would have made the strictest of New Critics happy. Cavafy was the ninth child of a well-to-do mercantile family, whose prosperity went into rapid decline with the death of his father. At the age of nine the future poet went to England, where Cavafy and Sons had its branches, and he returned to Alexandria at sixteen. He was brought up in the Greek Orthodox religion. For a while he attended the Hermes Lyceum, a business school in Alexandria, and some sources tell us that while there he was more interested in classical and historical studies than in the art of commerce. But this may be merely a cliché in the biography of a poet." - Maitani from Bookmarklet

"In 1882, when Cavafy was nineteen, an anti-European outbreak took place in Alexandria which caused a great deal of bloodshed (at least according to that century’s standards), and the British retaliated with a naval bombardment of the city. Since Cavafy and his mother had left for Constantinople not long before, he missed his chance to witness perhaps the only historic event to take... more... - Maitani

"Cavafy knew ancient and modern Greek, Latin, Arabic, French; he read Dante in Italian and he wrote his first poems in English. But if there were any literary influences—and in the book under review Edmund Keeley sees some in the English Romantics—they ought to be confined to that stage of Cavafy’s poetic development which the poet himself dismissed from the “canon” of his work, as... more... - Maitani

"Catholics and Protestants celebrated Easter on March 31 this year, in accordance with the Gregorian calendar; Orthodox Christians will celebrate this holiday on May 5, in accordance with the Julian calendar; and Jews celebrated Passover on March 26. But one group, the Samaritans, will observe Passover on April 23, even though they are not considered Jews by Israeli rabbinical authorities. The calendar discrepancy is attributed to the fact that Jews start calculating from the first year of creation, whereas the Samaritan calendar starts from the first year Joshua Bin-Nun entered Israel. As a result, the leap years are not parallel and Samaritan festivals sometimes take place a month later. Although only some 750 Samaritans remain, the group is still highly are visible in Israel. Their annual Passover celebration, which takes place on Mount Gerizim overlooking Nablus in the West Bank, or Samaria, is a major spectacle attracting thousands of visitors to the scenic hilltop. But who are the Samaritans?" - Maitani from Bookmarklet

Shawn! :-))) - Maitani

"Anglesey (/ˈæŋɡəlsiː/; Welsh: Ynys Môn, [ˈənɨs ˈmoːn]) is an island off the north west coast of Wales. Two bridges span the Menai Strait, connecting it to the mainland: the Menai Suspension Bridge designed by Thomas Telford in 1826 and the Britannia Bridge. Although serving as the chief part of the kingdom of Gwynedd, Anglesey is no longer part of that county; instead, Anglesey, Holy Island, and other nearby islands make up the current Isle of Anglesey County.[1] Almost three quarters of the inhabitants are Welsh speakers[2] and Ynys Môn, the Welsh name for the island, is used for the UK Parliament and National Assembly constituencies. With an area of 714 square kilometres (276 sq mi),[3] Anglesey is the largest Welsh island, the fifth largest surrounding Great Britain and the largest in the Irish Sea.[4]" - Maitani from Bookmarklet

This is where I spent 4 weeks studying coastal and fresh water ecology! Good days, even if some of the people weren't very nice to me. - Halil

"An earlier GeoCurrents post on why Russian Jews are not Russian generated a discussion of Karaite Judaism, and GeoCurrents promised a post on this topic. So two years later we are taking a closer look at this fascinating group. Like the Samaritans, discussed in the previous GeoCurrents post, the Karaites accept only the Five Books of Moses (the Torah) and the Book of Joshua, and their identity as Jews has been questioned on a number of occasions. Unlike the Samaritans, the Karaites celebrate Passover on the standard date, though their observance of the holiday is quite distinctive. Because the Karaites believe in a strictly literal interpretation of the Torah, without any adherence to the Oral Law embodied in rabbinic-talmudic tradition, the Karaite Haggadah (i.e. the text that sets forth the order of the ceremonial Passover meal) contains only verses from the Torah describing the Exodus from Egypt and the ten plagues, but none of the Talmudic discussions. Curiously, the Karaites do... more... - Maitani from Bookmarklet

"The roots of the Karaite Judaism go back to the so-called Heterodox Zone. Some scholars posited a connection between the Karaites as a remnant of the Sadducees, the 1st-century Jewish sect that followed the Hebrew Bible literally and rejected the Pharisees’ notion of an Oral Torah even before it was written. But most historians believe that Karaites emerged in the 8th century in... more... - Maitani

"News that an unfinished manuscript by children's illustrator Richard Scarry is to be coloured up by his son and published this autumn may not immediately thrill the children of today, but it will provoke waves of nostalgia in those of us who grew up with his busy anthropomorphised beasts." - Maitani from Bookmarklet

"The book will feature one of Scarry's best-loved and most ubiquitous characters, the alpine-hatted, singly-shod Lowly Worm, who drives an apple and was probably the first worm in space. The unfinished book of sketches and text, devoted to the cheerful invertebrate, was discovered among Scarry's papers, and his son Huck, also an artist, is colouring and completing it. Appropriately,... more... - Maitani

I loved to show and read Richard Scarry books to my son. :-) - Maitani

"The Japanese photographer Hiroshi Hamaya took many kinds of pictures, from Tokyo bargirls to smoking volcanoes. I knew him a bit in the 1970s when he was in his early sixties, an elegant kimonoed figure with hawkish features and shoulder-length grey hair, living with his wife in a beautiful wooden house south of Tokyo. He was a kind of hippy traditionalist, bohemian and deeply attached to the Japanese past. He had designed his house himself, entirely in accordance with traditional Japanese craftsmanship." - Maitani from Bookmarklet

"Code switching between Indonesian, French and English" - Maitani from Bookmarklet

I've found I can only load one language at a time. I even get confused if someone talks to me in my mother tongue if I have English loaded. - Eivind

"We have posted over 1200 articles to Medievalists.net in 2012, which cover a wide range of areas and topics. Which were the most popular articles we posted? Here is the top ten list of articles, according to the number of views by our readers. In first place is an article about a very unusual dance craze from the 16th century. As usual, articles about to world of sex in the Middle Ages can be found among top ten list, as does papers about Tolkien, the Vikings, and Richard the Lionheart." - Maitani from Bookmarklet

"The images presented online by the research project Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative are for the personal, non-profit use of students, scholars, and the public. All digitized images of photographs and original text artifacts are subject to copyright laws and, except where noted otherwise, are the property of the institutions that own the artifacts. Digital images of hand or CAD drawings of texts are the property of named primary publication or publication history authors. Commercial use or publication of these images is strictly prohibited without prior written permission from the project and/or the institutions/authors named in conjunction with particular texts. Text in the pages of CDLI may be freely copied, aggregated and re-used according to common academic practice; we request in the case of re-use of considerable textual data that mention be made of the source of such material, with reference to CDLI and its URL <http://cdli.ucla.edu>." - Maitani from Bookmarklet

"The Abbey of Montserrat near Barcelona, Spain, and the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (CDLI Los Angeles/Berlin) are delighted to announce the successful digitization of the Montserrat cuneiform collection. This significant new digital content to CDLI’s web offerings is now available, in Catalan, Spanish, French, and English, The origins of the Museum of the Montserrat Abbey and... more... - Maitani

That story is fascinating: A monk of Montserrat Abbey travelled to Mesopotamia in the 1920s (obviously as a pioneer of those excavation sites) and brought home a collection of cuneiform artefacts (among them important items, as far as I can see), and thus laid the foundation of the Museum of Montserrat. - Maitani

"Today, the same arguments once used against Jews, and then against South Asian and Caribbean immigrants, are now raised against Muslims and east Europeans. However, Kenan Malik finds some comfort in reviewing the facts of the matter. He then tackles the illusions." - Maitani from Bookmarklet

(Mine is not far from yours, I suppose.) - Maitani

"The former Free Imperial Town of Goslar has an over-1000-year history. Probably the discovery of silver and copper ore deposits induced the Saxon and Salic emperors to establish their largest and most secure palatinate here in the 11th century. For centuries it was the favoured seat of government in northern Germany and at the same time a centre of Christianity. The spires of the 47 churches, chapels and monasteries delineated the town’s unique silhouette. It was referred to as the “Rome of the North”." - Maitani from Bookmarklet

looks beautiful! - grizabella