We're hiring a collections inventory specialist to help with our museum program. Pass along to anyone who may be interested.
asu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/ASUSta...

Bubo the owl

The Kracken

The children of the hydra’s teeth

Talos

Got to see some old friends and childhood nightmares today at the Ray Harryhausen exhibit at the Mini Time Machine Museum in Tucson. Worth checking out if you’re in the area.

Also, I thought of this one later

A comparative analysis of metropolitan identity through multi-franchise character typologies: cultural semiotics and spatial analysis. In this essay I will...

Happy opening day!

Congrats to Britt Davis on completing his dissertation defense today. His work focused on the dynamics of regional networks and local political strategies in the Belize River valley in the early and middle Preclassic period.

I hate those rolling pod chair classrooms so much. We have a bunch of rooms like this and it always a drag.

I saw a quail that looked like a muppet today… that is all

I found my next hobby. My son wanted some Rubik’s cubes and related things for Christmas which he is enjoying but somehow I’m now the one memorizing algorithms and learning how to avoid OLL/PLL parity and trying to improve my TPS.

The Barcelona Past Networks Summer School 2026 is now open for applications! The 4-day summer school takes place in Barcelona from 16 to 19 June 2026. You can find all details and apply here: https://www.pastnetworks.net/

Happy New Year!!! Here’s to a good 2026

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate!

Red on buff ceramic jar by August Wood

Beautiful red on buff jar by August Wood we got at the S’edav Va’aki Art Market happening today and tomorrow. There are so many great folks out there with beautiful work so check it out if you’re in Phoenix

It was really good. The bread wasn’t exactly right but still good. Would be better if I had a meat slicer but still a good recreation.

The original from DiNic’s in Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia.

Melissa grew some broccoli rabe and peppers plus pork shoulder was on sale which means I got to try to recreate the best sandwich I’ve ever had. Roast pork, sharp provolone, long hots, and broccoli rabe on a Noble bread hoagie roll. Any meal that takes 3 days to make has to be good.

I always have a bunch of meetings to schedule with perspective students exactly during the time when most people are ending DST (Arizona doesn't do it, except for the Navajo reservation). Further different countries start and end DST on different days. Causes a right mess. Leave your clocks alone!

I am exactly pockets get caught on my office door knob tall.

I don't know. I guess maybe they thought by moving it into a different field meant that we wouldn't notice. I originally found out about it because I got an email from Google Scholar about "new related research" and immediately recognized the problem.

Here is the PubPeer comment: pubpeer.com/publications...

I couldn't absolutely confirm the identity of the person involved because of their somewhat common name but I have an unconfirmed idea of who I think it is and I created a calendar reminder to check in on that person's CV quarterly.

Update: I sent an email to the publication on Sunday, I got an email over night last night saying they would start an investigation and then one hour later a note saying the article has been pulled. The original link/DOI is just gone now but the PubPeer comment will stand.

I submitted a PubPeer comment, documented the similarities extensively, and emailed the publication. I really hope something comes of this. I've not identified the plagiarist with certainty yet (based on a common name) but I will continue to pursue that as well.

Oh no! It gets worse. They published lightly different versions of the same thing to multiple places

An archaeological paper originally that was lightly rewritten and submitted to a civil engineering journal.

Someone just straight up plagiarized a former student's published work and submitted to another publication and posted as a preprint. It reproduces figures, large chunks of text, and has the same citations in the same order. MDPI of course... more to come.

Picture of dish described.

I’ve eaten this a lot but never made it myself until tonight. Lemongrass chicken on vermicelli noodles with fresh and pickled vegetables from our garden. From the garden: lemongrass, lettuce, carrots, daikon, cilantro, green onion, garlic, cucumber, and chile. Super funky and yummy with fish sauce.

I did this as a sort of test run for a "real" app I have in mind for a archaeological teaching exercise. Basically a game that teaches commons dilemmas in the context of irrigation communities.

Gone Viral!

A couple of weeks ago I started messing with coding a game/app in Codex AI on ChatGPT. I was actually fairly impressed with what I could get it to do. I ended up making a prototype of a simple game almost entirely using Codex. Check it out and see what you think.

mpeeples2008.github.io

Plan your next vacation around the distribution of Roman road using this awesome new tool by lots of folks, including my colleague Tom Brughmans. They doubled the number of digitally compiled Roman roads. Seriously awesome! Also a cool intro animation. itiner-e.org