The North Alabama Society of the Archaeological Institute of America is hosting Professor Ann Macy Roth for two talks next Monday:

• Hatshepsut: Women and Power, 2:20 p.m. in Roberts 419 on the UAH campus
• Androgeny and Blurred Boundaries in Ancient Egypt, 7:30 p.m. in the Chan Auditorium (first floor Business Administration Building) on the UAH campus

You can read more about Dr. Roth's work, and much else, on the NASAIA blog, Excavate!

README file for Barrington Atlas Identifiers, version published 2008-08-20
Reference URL: http://atlantides.org/batlas

Background: http://horothesia.blogspot.com/search/label/batlasids
New maps covered in this release: 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 81, 82, 83
List of all maps presently covered: 7-88

Major classes of change from prior versions are listed below. Consult individual files named like map22-diff.txt for output files differencing from prior version to this version.

* No changes to previously released IDs.

I'd be interested to know of digital classicists, antiquisters and those inhabiting neighboring nodes who are making use of NLTK and what your impressions of strengths and weaknesses are.

README file for Barrington Atlas Identifiers, version published 2008-08-19
Reference URL: http://atlantides.org/batlas

Background: http://horothesia.blogspot.com/search/label/batlasids
New maps covered in this release: 7, 8, 9, 26, 27
List of all maps presently covered: 7-27, 35-66, 72-80, 84-88

Major classes of change from prior versions are listed below. Consult individual files named like map22-diff.txt for output files differencing from prior version to this version.

• No changes to previously released IDs.

The following feeds have been removed from Maia because they are generating errors on access and I have not been able to identify alternatives:

• Digital Arts and Humanities: Classics and Ancient History: the entire site seems to be having problems
• The Scribal Guild: Epigraphy and Archaeology of the West Semitic World: the feed returns nothing and the front page now reads: "This blog is protected, to view it you must log in"

The following feeds remain removed from Maia for reasons previously identified:

• Saving Antiquities for Everyone News [xml]: still abusing the "pubdate" field by populating with event dates instead of announcement publication dates. This causes notices to hover at the top of the aggregator until the date of the event -- sometimes months away -- arrives.
• Bryn Mawr Classical Review: Most Recent Articles [xml]: still abusing the "pubdate" field by repopulating it for all prior entries when a new entry is added, even if the prior entries remain unchanged. This causes old articles to "recycle" as new in feed readers subscribed to the aggregator feed. But note that the Bryn Mawr Classical Review Blog, which replicates the review content, does not have this problem and has been included in Maia since last Friday.
  

README file for Barrington Atlas Identifiers, version published 2008-08-15
Reference URL: http://atlantides.org/batlas

Background: http://horothesia.blogspot.com/search/label/batlasids
New maps covered in this release: 19, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48
List of all maps presently covered: 10-25, 35-66, 72-80, 84-88

Major classes of change from prior versions are listed below. Consult individual files named like map22-diff.txt for output files differencing from prior version to this version.

• No changes to previously released IDs.

Jo Cook is not the only one who didn't like my experiment with including comment and list archive feeds in the Maia and Electra aggregators. I don't like it either. They're out.

Meanwhile, BMCR has started producing a blog version of their reviews. It puts out a feed that properly handles the pubdate element. I've added that feed to Maia (see earlier comments on the direct BMCR feed). Thanks to Camilla MacKay for the notice.

README file for Barrington Atlas Identifiers, version published 2008-08-08
Reference URL: http://atlantides.org/batlas

Background: http://horothesia.blogspot.com/search/label/batlasids
New maps covered in this release: 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 24, 25, 39, 40
List of all maps presently covered: 10-18, 20-25, 35-40, 49-65, 72-80, 84-88

Major classes of change from prior versions are listed below. Consult individual files named like map22-diff.txt for output files differencing from prior version to this version.

* No changes to previously released IDs.

I was psyched to learn, through this morning's Huntsville Times, that the simulation development group at my old employer, AEgis Technologies Group, is getting their 3D modeling work showcased on NBC's Olympics coverage. I had a chance to get the guided tour last year; they're doing some great work, using a combination of sharp people, innovative methods, DigitalGlobe (and other) imagery and open-source software.

They've set up a demo site where you can find out more and play with some of the models: Virtual Beijing of Olympic Proportions.

I do have to correct one what must be a blunder in the Huntsville Times' write up: the images used cannot all be free ... it's the software they're using that's open-source. Or maybe the confusion is over the difference between "freely available" (i.e., not classified) and "free" (as in better than cheap).

For those who didn't have a chance to participate in one of initial Project Bamboo workshops, or who haven't had an opportunity to catch up with what's going on now in that context, I thought I might provide a pointer to the Project Bamboo Planning Wiki.

One current activity there is an attempt to Identify Themes of Arts and Humanities Scholarly Practice. My feed reader tells me that there's only one actual theme defined in this new section (just a bit ago), but I bet there will be more soon. The sole present one was offered by F. Allan Hanson (U. of Kansas, Anthropology):

• Ground of Research: "Humanities research is changing (or will change, or should change) from being grounded in texts (bibliographies) to relational databases."

I bet my legions of gentle readers have some opinions about this assertion. Feel free to comment in the comments, or on your blog, or on a public list ... or in the Bamboo Planning Wiki itself.