Ben Nagy
@rantyben.bsky.social
I turn latin poetry into long lists of floating point numbers. For (and only for) the purpose of potential employment I have a couple of phds or whatever.
Reposted by Ben Nagy
“The researchers suspect it once contained an ointment used for pain relief, because the woman’s skeleton shows signs of lesions and joint inflammation”
I disagree. This looks exactly like a dice 🎲 box that you hold game pieces and dice in. As a Roman historian: I don’t think it’s ointments. 1/2
I disagree. This looks exactly like a dice 🎲 box that you hold game pieces and dice in. As a Roman historian: I don’t think it’s ointments. 1/2
Archaeologists Unearth Intricately Decorated Box Carved From Deer Bone That May Have Once Held Ancient Ointments
The box was excavated from a Roman-era grave in England. It was found among a trove of artifacts spanning roughly 8,000 years of human activity
www.smithsonianmag.com
January 17, 2026 at 12:33 PM
“The researchers suspect it once contained an ointment used for pain relief, because the woman’s skeleton shows signs of lesions and joint inflammation”
I disagree. This looks exactly like a dice 🎲 box that you hold game pieces and dice in. As a Roman historian: I don’t think it’s ointments. 1/2
I disagree. This looks exactly like a dice 🎲 box that you hold game pieces and dice in. As a Roman historian: I don’t think it’s ointments. 1/2
Reposted by Ben Nagy
CFP EXTENDED: Teaching with Ovid, an online pedagogy symposium. The new deadline for submissions is February 16th.
To all those who have submitted abstracts for the original deadline: many thanks, and we will be in touch soon!
To all those who have submitted abstracts for the original deadline: many thanks, and we will be in touch soon!
January 16, 2026 at 3:28 PM
CFP EXTENDED: Teaching with Ovid, an online pedagogy symposium. The new deadline for submissions is February 16th.
To all those who have submitted abstracts for the original deadline: many thanks, and we will be in touch soon!
To all those who have submitted abstracts for the original deadline: many thanks, and we will be in touch soon!
Reposted by Ben Nagy
SCAM ALERT – IMPORTANT
The cat has already been fed.
The cat has already been fed.
January 16, 2026 at 11:35 AM
SCAM ALERT – IMPORTANT
The cat has already been fed.
The cat has already been fed.
Reposted by Ben Nagy
ClassicsBluesky 🏺🧵
#LatinForTheDay - 16 January #Catullus
“salve, nec minimo puella naso
nec bello pede nec nigris ocellis
nec longis digitis nec ore sicco
nec sane nimis elegante lingua,
decoctoris amica Formiani....
#LatinForTheDay - 16 January #Catullus
“salve, nec minimo puella naso
nec bello pede nec nigris ocellis
nec longis digitis nec ore sicco
nec sane nimis elegante lingua,
decoctoris amica Formiani....
January 16, 2026 at 9:35 AM
ClassicsBluesky 🏺🧵
#LatinForTheDay - 16 January #Catullus
“salve, nec minimo puella naso
nec bello pede nec nigris ocellis
nec longis digitis nec ore sicco
nec sane nimis elegante lingua,
decoctoris amica Formiani....
#LatinForTheDay - 16 January #Catullus
“salve, nec minimo puella naso
nec bello pede nec nigris ocellis
nec longis digitis nec ore sicco
nec sane nimis elegante lingua,
decoctoris amica Formiani....
Reposted by Ben Nagy
'Four centuries old Topiary in the cloister garden at Pazo de San Lorenzo in Santiago de Compostela, Spain.'
www.pazodesanlorenzo.com/en/pazo/
www.pazodesanlorenzo.com/en/pazo/
January 15, 2026 at 8:27 AM
'Four centuries old Topiary in the cloister garden at Pazo de San Lorenzo in Santiago de Compostela, Spain.'
www.pazodesanlorenzo.com/en/pazo/
www.pazodesanlorenzo.com/en/pazo/
Reposted by Ben Nagy
Read this thread out at work for a bit of light relief 😂
Gasps of horror and laughter from my colleagues as I went through, we needed this #TinyJoys
Gasps of horror and laughter from my colleagues as I went through, we needed this #TinyJoys
approximately three hundred of you have sent me this and you know what? Sure. I’ve got time today. Put 40 bulbs of garlic in my pasta, coming right up
January 15, 2026 at 10:07 AM
Read this thread out at work for a bit of light relief 😂
Gasps of horror and laughter from my colleagues as I went through, we needed this #TinyJoys
Gasps of horror and laughter from my colleagues as I went through, we needed this #TinyJoys
Reposted by Ben Nagy
Onomatopée parfaite ("queck!") de cette oie se faisant attraper au cou par un renard (c. 1310)
January 15, 2026 at 11:07 AM
Onomatopée parfaite ("queck!") de cette oie se faisant attraper au cou par un renard (c. 1310)
Reposted by Ben Nagy
Chat about this paper naturally focuses on the headline about AI being high “impact” but also narrowing science; a nice something-for-everyone (including the haters) story. Looking at Fig 2, you might ask “How can they have 30 yrs of impact data for AI?” Well, … www.nature.com/articles/s41...
January 14, 2026 at 11:39 PM
Chat about this paper naturally focuses on the headline about AI being high “impact” but also narrowing science; a nice something-for-everyone (including the haters) story. Looking at Fig 2, you might ask “How can they have 30 yrs of impact data for AI?” Well, … www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Ben Nagy
Did you know that there's a python package called ocrmac that uses apple vision? https://pypi.org/project/ocrmac/ . I did not. I have wasted days faffing with paddleOCR on a mac. ocrmac does at least as good a job as surya in my (non-exhaustive) tests so far, on my clipped newspaper image fragments.
Client Challenge
pypi.org
January 15, 2026 at 12:04 AM
Did you know that there's a python package called ocrmac that uses apple vision? https://pypi.org/project/ocrmac/ . I did not. I have wasted days faffing with paddleOCR on a mac. ocrmac does at least as good a job as surya in my (non-exhaustive) tests so far, on my clipped newspaper image fragments.
Reposted by Ben Nagy
A bit eclectic, but a rich collection on Cultural Evolution: Language and Literature in the Hungarian journal Helikon, which focuses on contemporary developments. It's in Hungarian, but it has an English table of contents.
January 14, 2026 at 7:44 AM
A bit eclectic, but a rich collection on Cultural Evolution: Language and Literature in the Hungarian journal Helikon, which focuses on contemporary developments. It's in Hungarian, but it has an English table of contents.
Reposted by Ben Nagy
PCA is one of those techniques that sounds unreasonable (yeah sure we all want to fit a p-dimensional ellipsoid to our data) but turns out to be a reasonable solution to a wide range of problems.
Also: I do hope stackexchange has been archived, because it is my gen's library of alexandria
Also: I do hope stackexchange has been archived, because it is my gen's library of alexandria
still one of the best explanations of principal component analysis (pca), explained at different levels from layman to the more math inclined stats.stackexchange.com/a/140579/132...
Making sense of principal component analysis, eigenvectors & eigenvalues
In today's pattern recognition class my professor talked about PCA, eigenvectors and eigenvalues.
I understood the mathematics of it. If I'm asked to find eigenvalues etc. I'll do it correctly li...
stats.stackexchange.com
January 13, 2026 at 4:13 PM
PCA is one of those techniques that sounds unreasonable (yeah sure we all want to fit a p-dimensional ellipsoid to our data) but turns out to be a reasonable solution to a wide range of problems.
Also: I do hope stackexchange has been archived, because it is my gen's library of alexandria
Also: I do hope stackexchange has been archived, because it is my gen's library of alexandria
Reposted by Ben Nagy
Dear Digital Humanists, you are all invited to the EADH 2026 Conference! We are meeting in September, in Kraków, Poland.
Mark the important dates in your calendars:
📆 8.02: submission deadline
📆 15-19.09: the conference
Read more: eadh2026.confer.uj.edu.pl
✈️ See you in Kraków?
Mark the important dates in your calendars:
📆 8.02: submission deadline
📆 15-19.09: the conference
Read more: eadh2026.confer.uj.edu.pl
✈️ See you in Kraków?
EADH 2026 - Jagiellońskie Centrum Humanistyki Cyfrowej
eadh2026.confer.uj.edu.pl
January 13, 2026 at 3:53 PM
Dear Digital Humanists, you are all invited to the EADH 2026 Conference! We are meeting in September, in Kraków, Poland.
Mark the important dates in your calendars:
📆 8.02: submission deadline
📆 15-19.09: the conference
Read more: eadh2026.confer.uj.edu.pl
✈️ See you in Kraków?
Mark the important dates in your calendars:
📆 8.02: submission deadline
📆 15-19.09: the conference
Read more: eadh2026.confer.uj.edu.pl
✈️ See you in Kraków?
Reposted by Ben Nagy
"Tityre tu patulae recubans sub tegmine fagi"
München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, BSB Clm 305; Virgil, Carmina; 2nd quarter of 12th century; probably diocese of Freising; p.40
München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, BSB Clm 305; Virgil, Carmina; 2nd quarter of 12th century; probably diocese of Freising; p.40
January 13, 2026 at 9:58 PM
"Tityre tu patulae recubans sub tegmine fagi"
München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, BSB Clm 305; Virgil, Carmina; 2nd quarter of 12th century; probably diocese of Freising; p.40
München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, BSB Clm 305; Virgil, Carmina; 2nd quarter of 12th century; probably diocese of Freising; p.40
Reposted by Ben Nagy
Amanda Gorman wrote this poem for Renee Good and that’s it for me tonight.
January 9, 2026 at 2:54 AM
Amanda Gorman wrote this poem for Renee Good and that’s it for me tonight.
Reposted by Ben Nagy
📆 Mark your calendars: the 7th edition of CHR will take place 5–8 January 2027 in Manchester, UK, organized by the Center for Digital Humanities, Culture and Media at The University of Manchester.
We hope it’s the perfect way to beat the post-Christmas and New Year blues. See you at #CHR2027!
We hope it’s the perfect way to beat the post-Christmas and New Year blues. See you at #CHR2027!
January 8, 2026 at 4:11 PM
📆 Mark your calendars: the 7th edition of CHR will take place 5–8 January 2027 in Manchester, UK, organized by the Center for Digital Humanities, Culture and Media at The University of Manchester.
We hope it’s the perfect way to beat the post-Christmas and New Year blues. See you at #CHR2027!
We hope it’s the perfect way to beat the post-Christmas and New Year blues. See you at #CHR2027!
"I have no problems with the American race, I just don't think it's reasonable to allow them to participate in international events unless they explicitly disavow the regime"
January 8, 2026 at 8:15 AM
"I have no problems with the American race, I just don't think it's reasonable to allow them to participate in international events unless they explicitly disavow the regime"
Reposted by Ben Nagy
These pastedowns in the binding of an incunable of Aristotle's Ethica Nicomachea were taken from a MS containing (pseudo-)Bede's Quaestiones in Leviticum (Rodez, Bibliothèque municipale, inc. M 30)
arca.irht.cnrs.fr/ark:/63955/m...
arca.irht.cnrs.fr/ark:/63955/m...
January 5, 2026 at 7:28 AM
These pastedowns in the binding of an incunable of Aristotle's Ethica Nicomachea were taken from a MS containing (pseudo-)Bede's Quaestiones in Leviticum (Rodez, Bibliothèque municipale, inc. M 30)
arca.irht.cnrs.fr/ark:/63955/m...
arca.irht.cnrs.fr/ark:/63955/m...
Reposted by Ben Nagy
From the 2022 drop era: “who needs wheat? Bread is so much tastier”
January 4, 2026 at 5:57 PM
From the 2022 drop era: “who needs wheat? Bread is so much tastier”
it is 9am on the day before I am supposed to make French food for a dinner, and I am a little worried that I slept in and got a late start of it 😨
January 4, 2026 at 10:35 PM
it is 9am on the day before I am supposed to make French food for a dinner, and I am a little worried that I slept in and got a late start of it 😨
Reposted by Ben Nagy
Reposted by Ben Nagy
Reposted by Ben Nagy
At midnight today, it will have been 2016 for the past decade.
December 31, 2025 at 5:20 AM
At midnight today, it will have been 2016 for the past decade.
Reposted by Ben Nagy
497 years ago today, Henry VIII attended a meal with Cardinal Wolsey and the Papal Legate Campeggio, for which this is the menu (one of the few menus for meals attended by Henry) that survive.
1/8
1/8
December 30, 2025 at 8:49 PM
497 years ago today, Henry VIII attended a meal with Cardinal Wolsey and the Papal Legate Campeggio, for which this is the menu (one of the few menus for meals attended by Henry) that survive.
1/8
1/8
Reposted by Ben Nagy
Let's end the day with a beautiful carpet page from this Pentateuch in Arabic
BnF MS Arabe 12; Pentateuch; 1353 CE; f.1v @gallicabnf.bsky.social
BnF MS Arabe 12; Pentateuch; 1353 CE; f.1v @gallicabnf.bsky.social
December 29, 2025 at 10:09 PM
Let's end the day with a beautiful carpet page from this Pentateuch in Arabic
BnF MS Arabe 12; Pentateuch; 1353 CE; f.1v @gallicabnf.bsky.social
BnF MS Arabe 12; Pentateuch; 1353 CE; f.1v @gallicabnf.bsky.social
Reposted by Ben Nagy
Intricate carpet pages from the Book of Durrow for you to contemplate
Trinity College Dublin, IE TCD MS 57; Book of Durrow; approx. 650-699 CE; Ireland; ff.125v, 192v @tcdlibrary.bsky.social
Trinity College Dublin, IE TCD MS 57; Book of Durrow; approx. 650-699 CE; Ireland; ff.125v, 192v @tcdlibrary.bsky.social
December 29, 2025 at 10:15 PM
Intricate carpet pages from the Book of Durrow for you to contemplate
Trinity College Dublin, IE TCD MS 57; Book of Durrow; approx. 650-699 CE; Ireland; ff.125v, 192v @tcdlibrary.bsky.social
Trinity College Dublin, IE TCD MS 57; Book of Durrow; approx. 650-699 CE; Ireland; ff.125v, 192v @tcdlibrary.bsky.social