Thursday, January 26, 2006

Beyond The End Of History

I was suddenly struck by something that was said in an online forum today. In online RPGs such as World Of Warcraft, there is an increasing problem known as "gold farming".

"Gold farming" is when businesses are set up which employ people in poor parts of the world (China, etc.) and pay them a small amount to play the game, gathering in-game resources. The company then sells those resources online for real cash.

It's so post-modern it makes my head spin.

Monday, January 23, 2006

Damn You, Mustafa Kemal!

If you hadn't made Ankara the capital of Turkey, the SOMA conference would probably be in Istanbul, which costs significantly less than £300 to get to.

Sunday, January 15, 2006

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

More Conference Joy

Hot on the heels of TAG, I've had a paper accepted for the Symposium On Mediterranean Archaeology conference in Ankara on March 9-11. My chance to impress other Mediterranean archaeologists and/or contract Avian Flu. Here's the abstract for my paper:

Sackers Of Cities, Rowers of Ships: Eastern Mediterranean Naval Warfare

The importance of Mediterranean seafaring to the development of Bronze Age cultures around that seas shores has long been acknowledged, particularly in terms of trade and cultural contact. Discussion of the military uses of the sea in this ear, has, however, been limited, with the alleged scarcity of evidence often being put forward as an explanation. Indeed, scholars such as Starr (1994) have claimed that there was no such concept as “sea-power” prior to the rise of Athens in the 5th Century BC. Given the aforementioned importance of the sea, such claims must be investigated. This paper will examine the evidence for military uses of the sea in the eastern Mediterranean Bronze Age. It will demonstrate that not only is there a variety of evidence to suggest the use of sea-power in the Bronze Age, and will suggest the nature of war at sea in that era.

There should now be a comments feature on this blog, so you can tell me what you think.