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Update from Tanzania by Dr. John McNabb: A postcard from Africa 4

Sadly this is my last postcard from Africa. We had a quiet weekend reading and discussing various plans for the future. Today (Monday 5th) on the other hand was a busy one. Pastory, James and I had a productive meeting this morning with colleagues and collaborators from the National Museum. @JamesColeArch with a Large LCT at the National Museum in Dar. This afternoon was another memorable one. Continue reading →

Gamer data: Fun preferences

AfterĀ last week’s hair-pulling day of frustration, I’ve made I bit more progress. The survey contained seventeenĀ questions which were based on the theory of four types of fun, set out by Nicole Lazzaro. These were 101 point Ā Likert scales, wherein the participant indicated their agreement with a statement, using a slider with no scale and the slider “handle” position set randomly, to reduce systematic bias. Continue reading →

Update from Tanzania by Dr. John McNabb: A postcard from Africa 3

Today (Thursday 1st May) is a national holiday in Tanzania so James and I had a more relaxed day visiting the galleries of the National Museum of Tanzania. The museum is an impressive place with really up to date galleries on human evolution and rock art. I took a lot of photos which will make their way into my lectures. The ethnographic collection also impressed me with the range and variety of material on display, reflecting Tanzaniaā€™s rich cultural heritage both past and present. Continue reading →

Proximity!

My Gimbal beacons arrived yesterday. These are three tiny Bluetooth LE devices, not much bigger than the watch battery that powers them. They do very little more than send out a little radio signal that says “I’m me!” twice a second. There are three very different ways of using them that I can immediately think of: I’ve just tried leaving one in in each of three different rooms, then walking around the house with the the simple Gimbal manager app on my iPhone. Continue reading →

Update from Tanzania by Dr. John McNabb: A Postcard from Africa

Saturday was a really memorable day. We finally got to see the Isimila Acheulean site. Iā€™d been reading about it for decades so I was very excited and James, who told me he had been literally dreaming about the place for years, was like a kid on Christmas Eve. Itā€™s the rainy season at the moment and Tanzania is very green, particularly in the highlands. The mountains and kopjes are blanketed in forest and dense thorn bush. Continue reading →

Update from Tanzania by Dr John McNabb

A few months ago CAHO was invited to form a collaboration through Dr James Cole of the University of Brighton (James is a CAHO alumni) and Dr Pastory Bushozi of the University of Dar-es-Salaam. The project is to re-examine the famous Acheulean site of Isimila in Tanzania. Picture taken from Dr James Cole twitter feed (@JamesColeArch) So James and I flew out on the 23rd of April to meet Pastory and to plan our campaign at Isimila. Continue reading →

Another look at my gamer data

Click to view slideshow. I’m still wrestling with R and wishing I was a natural (or maybe just a more experienced) coder. Everything takes so long to work out and to actually do. Last time I shared the results, I was just looking at the top-line data that iSurvey shares. This time I’ve downloaded the data and sucked it into R, the command line based stats language. I start off looking at the basics. Continue reading →

Scanning the Folkton Drums

I am currently working on a project looking at the art of portable Neolithic artefacts from Britain and Ireland. One of the remarkable findings so far is the degree to which markings on these artefacts have been erased and reworked. This is especially true of chalk artefacts. These processes of reworking provide important information about craft techniques, and the significance of art and imagery in this period of prehistory. Continue reading →