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Archeology

The Magazzini Realised #buildyourownportus

Yesterday, I got the Lego bricks I’d ordered last week. So I set about building, to see if I’d got my LDD (Lego Digital Designer) design right. After I’d ordered them, I’d already spotted a few bricks I hadn’t put into the LLD model, and thus weren’t on my order list. But I was disappointed to that there were a a number of pieces – the corner tiles, the 1×4 bricks – that I’d entirely missed when I was ordering. Continue reading →

On Sirmione, jewel of peninsulars

Sirmio, jewel of islands, jewel of peninsulas, jewel of whatever is set in the bright waters or the great sea, or either ocean, with what joy, what pleasure I gaze at you, scarcely believing myself free of Thynia and the Bithynian fields, seeing you in safety. O what freedom from care is more joyful than when the mind lays down its burden, and weary, back home from foreign toil, we rest in the bed we longed for? This one moment’s worth all the labour. Continue reading →

PGRAS Southampton – Day 2 (there is no Day 1)

On Thursday, I attended the second day of the Archaeology department’s Postgraduate  symposium, at which every PhD student is expected to deliver an annual presentation on their research. Part timers like me are required to only present every other year, so this time I was an audience member only, and Chair for one session. I hadn’t managed to go to the first day, because I was at work. Here are some selected personal highlights of the day. Continue reading →

It’s easy… when you know how

It feels like I’ve spent the best part of four days learning Linux. Lets be specific (because I’ve discovered, you have to be specific), I’ve been learning the RedHat distro of Linux which does somethings differently to, for example, Ubunto. Oh, and I’ve been learning the Windows Command prompt syntax as well, all to get a Minecraft Portus up on to the University’s Minecraft server. Continue reading →

On Minecraft

It’s been an interesting couple of weeks in which to start thinking about building Portus in Minecraft. A fortnight ago, after a consultation with my nine year old Minecraft expert, and some reading around the subject I was about to recommend Bukkit to my colleagues as as the best way to set up a custom server, perhaps using some Rome specific modifications and textures (more on those later). Continue reading →

Changing direction?

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking around my participation in the Portus MOOC a few weeks back. This post is an attempt to get my thoughts in order, so I apologise in advance for any disjointedness. First of all, let me edit in some thoughts on locatative gaming, prompted by a Guardian article on social gaming I read today while I should have been bashing this post into shape. Continue reading →

Why Lego? #buildyourownportus

I wrote a post for the Day of Archaeology blog. Much of it summarises, and refers back to, recent posts here about the Portus MOOC and #buildyourownportus. But this bit is new: But then I [...] had to make a visit to the Vyne a week or two ago, and they currently have on display a large Lego model, based on all the archaeological evidence of what that place looked like in its Tudor prime. Looking at this model. Continue reading →

Visualizing Portus #UoSFLPortus

Right, I think I might have reached the limits of Lego Digital Designer. And I’m only about a third of the way through visualizing the Grandi Magazzini di Settimio Severo. I started with the excellent notes and drawings made by Grant Cox and Christina Triantafillou especially for as after a couple of us on the Portus MOOC started modelling building five. From that I created a Lego model of a single warehouse space – a guess a “Magazzino”. Continue reading →