Category: Life Questions

Anonymous asks:

If you’re a Classical archeologist, how come you’re so knowledgable about evolutionary biology? And is Jim as smart as you are? Curious because I admire your wide-ranging intellect!

Flattery will get you everywhere, anonymous grey sphere.

So, for my undergrad I did what in New Zealand we call a conjoint degree.  You have a higher course load, and it takes four years (instead of three, which is the standard for a bachelor’s degree in New Zealand), but you come out of it with two degrees.  As a result, although I’m an archaeologist, I actually also hold a BSc in chemistry, which is fundamental to a lot of my work, because I’m interested in analytical techniques for investigating the chemical composition of artefacts and archaeological materials (for my PhD, I want to conduct analyses of that kind on samples of Roman window glass).  I also have a better-than-layman’s knowledge of biology and statistics, but they’re definitely not specialist subjects of mine.

Jim the Editor is about half as clever as he thinks he is, but that’s still enough to make him as smart as me. 😉 He probably has broader knowledge of a lot of subjects where I tend to dive down obscure rabbit holes… which helps in keeping me honest.

Vikingboybilly asks:

Are you out on a dig again?

Actually, I hit crunch time on submitting a proposal for my PhD thesis topic.  But I survived that, my topic was approved (I’m going to be researching the role of window glass in the evolution and social meaning of Roman architecture), and my students in the Roman Civilisation class mostly did pretty well too.  I’m going back to New Zealand for a bit in late June, then from there to Athens in late August for a year-long intensive study program.  It’s… pretty full-on, from what I’ve heard, but since I’ll be staying at a cushy research institute, my internet access will be much better than when I head out to the middle of nowhere for an archaeological dig, so it’s hard to say how often or how long I’ll vanish.

Anonymous asks:

What are you doing at the moment? How are feeling? where is Jim the editor?

Ehhhhhh… Well, I’m in charge of a university-level class for the first time ever, which is a lot of fun but so, so exhausting… and I have to propose a PhD thesis topic in a couple of weeks, and I know I want to work on Roman window glass, but beyond that there are still a bunch of methodological details to work out… So yeah. Fun times all around. As for where Jim is… Rome, as it happens. He’s in Rome, doing some research for his own thesis at the British School.

Anonymous asks:

Im going to try “your” crema di limoncello, seems to be good (im not the guy who asked that). Please make a quick review about feebas and Milotic, they are also some of my favorite pokemon. And im having so much fun reading your Moon chapters! So funny. Love your “impressions” of the new stuff, I also tried to play it avoiding the most spoilers possible; and your “flirting” with the hard grunt…

You probably want to follow some variation on these instructions.  Also, it’s very important to boil the milk; that stops it from curdling (and don’t worry about the milk going off – there’s enough alcohol in this stuff to kill most bacteria, so it keeps basically forever if you chill it).

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nasat asks:

A few days ago I finally evolved a Gloom into Vileplume on Pokémon Go. I can’t help but wonder if you’ve acquired one yet, and how the “catching them all” is going on that front?

I kinda fell out of the habit of doing anything with it regularly.  There was a period of a couple of weeks back in October when one particular patch was incompatible with my phone for some reason, and I couldn’t play.  By the time it was fixed I’d sort of lost interest.

Anonymous asks:

What kind of music do you listen to?

I sort of don’t, really.  I have a great big iTunes playlist of my favourite video game music (lots from Pokémon, lots from Civ V, lots from Undertale, lots from Homestuck which isn’t a video game but sort of acts like one, quite a bit from Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights, little bit from Starcraft, little bit from Final Fantasy), but I don’t follow any bands or performers, and to be honest couldn’t even name many, or describe them in terms of genre.

Anonymous asks:

You need to post more you exist solely to provide entertainment.

Yeah, I probably should.

At the moment I’m sort of sitting the exams that decide whether I get to write a PhD thesis and become a career academic or have to go home to New Zealand and get a real job, so… y’know, no pressure there or anything.  And the truth is, even when that’s over it’s probably not going to get better because next year they’re actually putting me 100% honest-to-goodness in charge of a university lecture class for the first time in my life (I’m teaching Roman civilisation) so who even knows how that’s going to go, and then after that I might wind up spending a year in Athens, so I should probably try to fit learning modern Greek in there somewhere…

I think for a lot of people who write or make videos or draw comics or whatever on the internet, there’s sort of a distant but aspirational goal of one day making money off it so you can actually treat it as a job, but for me… well, even if that were an easy thing to do (which it isn’t), what I do in the real world is interesting and important to me, which sort of puts a cap on this blog ever being more than a hobby.  Having said that… well, everyone needs a hobby, and I happen to like this one.  So I guess what I’m saying is I’ll do my darnedest.