In 2006, when my dissertation supervisor Bruce Trigger passed away, I was assigned the task of supervising the distribution of his books, offprints, etc. to various individuals and institutions.  Mostly that didn't give me any real power but it did have some perks, like getting to read all his old correspondence that was tucked away inside his ( Read more... )

Just to put thngs in their proper perspective, today's earthquake in Japan, at magnitude 8.9, is the largest ever to hit Japan, and the seventh-largest ever in recorded history, anywhere in the world, rivalling the 2004 Indonesian earthquake. I don't personally have any close people in Japan, but I know many of you do, and my thoughts are with ( Read more... )

Most days when I cross north into America, I get asked by the border guards what I do, and I always answer, "I'm a professor of anthropology," which has the advantage of being completely true. But Detroit's border guards are used to nurses and doctors and auto executives crossing the border, but don't get so many anthropologists, and inevitably ( Read more... )

"If you accept this assignment, please sign, and return this letter and such personnel/tax forms as may have been enclosed (if any) as soon as possible, but no later than ASAP."

So, my Voynich experience was quite neat. The filming took place at Hart House at U of T on Saturday afternoon, in one of those rooms that actually looks the way university offices are portrayed in the movies, with book-lined shelves and old wooden desks and whatnot. I was imagining a larger production crew, but really I was glad when it turned ( Read more... )

Next Friday / Saturday I'm going to Toronto to be interviewed for a TV episode about the Voynich Manuscript (for a new show that apparently doesn't have any website ... details to follow). I'm not an expert on it, but apparently they're really looking for a fairly local person who is a linguist and at least a passing familiarity with the MS, to ( Read more... )

Today's XKCD presents the solution to a centuries-old mystery:


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If you're an academic, no doubt you're familiar with citation styles such as MLA, APA, Chicago, and the like. But if you ever wondered how to cite a magic 8-ball result 'Will I get tenured?" or bathroom graffiti, this page fills in this and other important gaps.

Today I paid $1.87 (US) per gallon at the duty-free gas station on my way home. That's somewhere around 49 cents (US) a litre (add another 10 cents for the Canadian conversion); it's also less than half what I was paying two months ago. I was down to a quarter-tank, and I filled my (admittedly fuel efficient) Corolla for sixteen bucks. In July I ( Read more... )

CAPTCHA programs of the sort seen below are supposed to be completely automated, yes? It's an acronym for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart ... But given that anyone could need to enter a response on virtually any site, that means there is no way to monitor or censor them, right?


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