Happy flying dildo anniversary to those who celebrate it.

Hitpoints & History begins in 20 minutes! Tickets are still available at hitpointsandhistory2026.eventbrite.com

See you soon!

Photo of Julie Levy. Caption reads "Presenting: Repeating Rome: multiple Truths of The Forgotten City, January 31 @ 1:00pm US Central Time

✨Meet the presenters!✨ Julie Levy (she/they) is an archaeogamer, independent scholar, and activist. She is the Managing Director at the Save Ancient Studies Alliance, an organization devoted to bringing ancient studies into the mainstream.

Today Hitpoints & History is shining a light on our conference’s panel: Using TTRPGs to Activate Mythology! Presented by Dr. Michael Anthony DeAnda, Kai Hakamori, Ziyi Wu, Alexej Hrajnoha, Bradley Estacio.

Photo of Dr Alexander Vandewalle. The caption reads "Presenting: Go Kill Time: Mythological Chrononormativity and Ludic Critique, January 31 @ 10:15am US Central Time

✨Meet the presenters!✨ Dr. Alexander Vandewalle is a postdoctoral researcher who specializes in the reception of antiquity, history, and mythology in video games. For his PhD thesis (2024), he investigated the characterization of Greek mythological figures in games.

Photo of Colin Snyder. Caption reads "Presenting: Games as Modeled Beliefs, January 31 @ 3:45pm US Central Time"

✨Meet the presenters!✨ Colin Snyder is a game designer and artist based in Brooklyn, New York. He is the founder and director of Little Red, an independent game studio and publisher of nonfiction games.

Photo of Meghan Sullivan. The caption reads "Presenting: History's Greatest Hit: How The Oregon Trail Changed The Classroom Forever, January 31 @ 11:00am US Central Time"

✨Meet the presenters!✨ Meghan Sullivan is the founder of History N’ Games, an educational video & audio podcast that helps video game fans discover & explore the real history hidden inside their favorite games. Meghan has been in the games industry for 2 decades, & loves Mario Kart and Mass Effect.

✨Meet the presenters!✨ Joel Gordon is a socio-cultural historian whose research focuses on the development of eschatological thought in the ancient world. Related to this is his reception studies work which explores how the gods/heroes of antiquity are portrayed in modern mass media.

Picture of Dr Roselyn A Campbell. Caption reads "Usually too much titty: Player Perceptions of Gender in Assassin's Creed, January 31 @ 1:45pm US Central Time"

✨Meet the presenters!✨ Meet the presenters! Dr. Roselyn A. Campbell is a bioarchaeologist and Egyptologist Her most recent research project explores how players learn about gender in the ancient world through the Assassin’s Creed video games.

Photo of Dr Kate Minniti. Caption reads "Presenting: Players & Pyramids: a short history, January 31 @ 11:30 am US Central Time"

✨Meet the presenters!✨ Dr. Kate Minniti is an archaeologist and has been a gamer for more than two decades. Since 2013 she has been exploring how video games can represent and mis-represent both archaeology as a field and antiquity itself.

Black and white photo of Ahmed Alameen. The caption reads "Presenting: Why We Need to Make Games About History and Culture, January 31 @ 9:30am US Central Time"

✨Meet the presenters!✨ Ahmed Alameen is an award winning game developer/writer. He creates stories inspired by Mesopotamia and the MENA region, and his debut game - My Father Lied- was nominated at many events, and won best Arab Game developed at The Grand Game Awards 2025.

I just woke up from a nap and somehow while I was asleep, everyone on the bus has figured out we are not going to the right place

✨Meet the presenters!✨ Sav Sood, presenting Video Games, Memory and how we think of the Ancient World, is a first year PhD student in Classics at the University of Glasgow, studying the ways in which the ancient world is mediated through video games.

Home Play your way through the ancient world.

TOP is thrilled to announce 2026’s Hitpoints & History, a virtual conference all about archaeogaming!

Join us Jan 31st to hear from scholars & industry insiders about the connection between developer intent, player agency & historical authenticity.

Tickets and info can be found at hitpointscon.com

Nation’s Catholic Friends Fielding Sudden Barrage of Texts About The Pope

the past 3 weeks have felt increasingly like that terror scene where goodsir desperately tells silna “people are good!! this is not how englishmen behave!!” and then 15 minutes later the englishmen in question display even worse behavior

Mana whenua, Ngai Tahu hosts waiata after Tamati Ellison introduced the proceedings.

Queenstown Mayor Glynn Lewers addressing the gathered Mana Whenua & Manuhiri dressed in a traditional korowai

Manuhiri & Mana Whenua at the start of the days proceedings. People seated across from each other at the formal start of the day

Waitangi Day in Aotearoa New Zealand, the day in which we commemorate & celebrate the signing of Ti Tiriti between The Crown & Māori in 1840.

Ngai Tahu celebrations in Tāhuna Queenstown today. Non exhaustive photo essay

#WaitangiDay #Nikon #Photography

Toitū Te Tiriti

Shed a tear for the old Auckland tram network. Just imagine.

Today's Connections... ridiculous.

I missed the "badly attended with snobs" part the first time I saw this!

Streaming in 2010: You can watch an entire catalog of amazing movies and TV shows for a reasonable monthly fee

Streaming in 2025: our library is Batman movies and 28 seasons of a Tim Allen sitcom, it costs $159/month. We just destroyed the last piece of evidence that Mister Rogers ever existed

It’s the 151st anniversary of the crew of the Surat partying way too hard on New Year’s Eve and seeing in the new year by crashing the ship into Aotearoa New Zealand, whereupon the drunk captain tried to shoot a passenger - my great-great-great-great-great grandfather. Happy New Year everyone.

definitely!

I worked on BBC Horrible Histories, and wrote some of the Stupid Deaths sketches

Without doubt, my faves were Ancient Greek intellectuals: e.g, Empedocles who jumped in an active volcano trying to become a god…

Or Philitas of Kos who starved due to obsessively needing to correct grammar errors👇

Govt proposes change to free speech rules for universities The proposed changes will set clear expectations on how universities should approach freedom of speech issues.

This might be the most blatant attack on academic freedom and genuine free speech protections this country has seen in years. I've come to specialise in this godforsaken area, and yet I don't have any good words to express how dangerous this is because I'm so floored. www.1news.co.nz/2024/12/19/g...

The other conductor on the polar express YouTube video by Eleanor Morton

Realistic Polar Express
youtube.com/shorts/ud8Qo...

'There will be deaths because of this' - Warning over Health NZ IT cuts A West Coast IT worker is warning patients will die as Health New Zealand aims to slash its data and digital staff.

'There will be deaths because of this' - Warning over Health NZ IT cuts
#nzpol

Govt ends pilot programme for Māori and Pacific, sparking outrage Health leaders say the move is shocking, given the high bowel cancer death rates among Māori and Pacific communities.

Govt ends pilot programme for Māori and Pacific, sparking outrage
#nzpol

Science journalism becomes plain old journalism "For too long, science journalism has been treated as something distinct, something <em>extra</em> — the domain of specialists writing for audiences who are already deeply interested in and informed a...

"Siloing science journalism is dangerous because it leaves the public vulnerable to misinformation. ... It allows powerful actors to manipulate public understanding by filling the void left by a lack of evidence-based reporting." www.niemanlab.org/2024/12/scie... by @siricarpenter.bsky.social