Indiana Jones and the Desecration of the Temple of Doom

A friend was a archeologist, until he got tired of rainy days digging through mud and dirt making cultural importance assessments on the sites of future roadways and construction projects.

He supposedly found some interesting things in his digs, but nothing quite like the what you see in the Indiana Jones movies. When antiquities collectors "find" artifacts from the past, and send them to dealers, who sell them to collectors, there are a whole range of questions to ask. These include:

• Who "owns" the works in question?



• What laws are in place to protect that ownership, and what is the potential risk in violating those laws?



• What international impacts can the movement of such treasures have upon political relationships between countries?

Reasononline takes a careful look at the subject in Reason: Ancient Treasures for Sale: Do antique dealers preserve the past or steal it?

Interesting classification of three different groups involved in the debate:

• Academics, dealers, and collectors who want cultural artifacts to be able to move around the globe in a regulated manner, so that they can be shared by people and learned about with the exposure.



• National officials and academics who believe that these cultural artifacts are tied to the place where they were found and are part of the history and identity of that culture.



• Archeologists and historians who believe that such cultural treasures are only part of the picture, and should be left where they are, so that they can be studied in context, and tell us about the past.

If you where hiking along in the local state park, and you found something of potentially historical significance, would you:

• Take it home with you, and display it on your mantle?



• Take it, and contact your local historical society, or a government official?



• Leave it where it is, make a note of the location, and contact your local historical society or a government official?

Would it make a difference if it were an arrowhead, a saber from the civil war era, a piece of colonial pottery, or something else?

Another friend recently had me helping inventory some of the contents of an antique shop, where the owner had past away, and the contents of the shop needed to be sold. Some of the items in the shop were more artifact than antique. It was amazing seeing works produced 500 or more years ago. The attraction to sharing these pieces of work is understandable. It would be great to share them with as many people as possible.

With an opening like this, I was predisposed to enjoying the paper that went along with it:

It is with some regret that I submit this thesis for storage in Avery Library. It is a dingy underground hole that refuses to lend the books, even though it is generally impossible to make photocopies with the broken copy machines. Perhaps that doesn't matter, since so many of the books cannot be found after checking the three separate places where they "normally" might be and spending an inordinate amount of time checking with the librarian. It has been nothing but a source of irritation, aggravation, and general frustration. I hope that nobody every finds it necessary to descend into that pit in search of my work. Perhaps one day Columbia will be enlightened enough to digitally archive theses and dissertations, making them available online.

I wasn't disappointed. It is a thoughtful and entertaining look at how people interact with the social places that surround them, and the redevelopment of Times Square in New York City - Visual Order in Times Square: The Social Regulation of Urban Space (pdf).

Sponsored Search Video

Nice Google Tech Talks presentation:

Challenges in the Design of Sponsored Search Auctions

Ubisoft Making Movies

A friend forwarded a link to a Wall Street Journal article which mentions plans by game maker Ubisoft to start producing full length movies.

It makes sense that they would. Wonder if they'll be able to match the skills and stories of Pixar.

The Value of a Mentor

I really like the positive and enthusiastic approach that Penelope Trunk follows in her post: You need a mentor now, here's how to get one

I wish that I had found a mentor early on, in one of my many careers. Some nice advice here from Penelope on how to find one.

Berkeley on Google Video

The University of California at Berkeley has released over 250 hours worth of video with educational content, including classes, symposiums, and events. (Hat tip to Tara Calishain)

The press release from Berkeley has more details:

UC Berkeley offers courses and symposia through Google Video

I'm finding myself excited over the Information Systems 141 - Search Engines: Technology, Society and Business videos, which include speakers from Yahoo!, Google, and Microsoft, as well as others.

Government writing in plain language

When your audience is a broad spectrum of the citizenship of the United States, part of your mission is to communicate with them in a language that they can understand.

A movement within the federal government to help writers use easy to understand language led to the creation of the Plain Language website. There are some nice tips on the site for anyone who writes to a wide audience on their page about Usefulness in Web-Writing.

There's a column at the site of The American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) on the development of the plainlanguage.com pages from one of the folks instrumental in its redesign of a year or so ago. One of the fun aspects of the redesign was that it was a project bringing together graduate students at Johns Hopkins University with the federal government.

The efforts of those students, and the feedback the site has seen has led to the creation of a new site, and guidelines for people who write web sites for the federal government: Webcontent.gov. If you're interested in usability and accessibility, this site is worth checking out. If you're interested in writing in a way which will make it easier for visitors to understand your message on your website, it's also worth a visit.

A Druid on Rugby

When the national poet writes scathing poetry about your rugby league's management, you know you have some problems: A poet speaks of rugby shame, of wooden spoons and who's to blame

Reflections of leadership in everyday encounters

An excellent article from USA Today on Raytheon CEO Bill Swanson's Unwritten Rules of Management, titled CEOs say how you treat a waiter can predict a lot about character.

All thirty-three of the rules are listed in the article, yet I found myself sending for a copy of the actual booklet, which is free. There are a few folks I want to share it with...