Glad to hear these sessions with the editors have happened at the AHA. I was a bit worried in Chicago that there weren’t many early modern/hist STM sessions on the schedule. It feels like a better networking & professional development venue than anything else. Met a lot of UP acquisition editors.

/2 I found Aidin Robbins's videos only a few weeks ago and I really like his style and method of storytelling. I've heard stories as long as I can remember about how Ireland used to be covered by forests, yet this film gives life to those old stories in a way that I haven't seen before.

/5 I had to leave because I was laughing too hard at the silliness of the situation.

/4 I’ve only used the translation headphones once: at the 2016 Eisteddfod in Abergavenny. I thought I was going to see some choirs but it turned out to be the Aberystwyth U-6 rap ensemble singing Bieber’s “Baby” while a 60-something guy in the booth translated the lyrics back into English.

/3 Yet this tech will work best with some education in the language. I need to have an inkling that the translation tech is accurate if I’m going to trust that I’m asking someone “where is the station” instead of insulting their mother à la Connery on SNL’s Jeopardy.

/2 On the one hand this is one of the sci-fi technologies that I’m most curious about from the Babel fish to the universal translator. It’s a natural outgrowth of having translators in a booth doing it live.

You can watch my recording of the talk here youtu.be/f888NWAuTL8

I always try to do something fun after a research stop. Today I was happy to learn that SUNY students get free admission to MOMA. Neat collection in a labyrinthine building. Along with neat art, I gave myself a strong dose of vertigo zooming my camera out to take the 2nd photo from the 5th floor.

This morning I presented a project about how André Thevet was partially responsible for the taxonomic confusion between the Great auk and Penguins. It was well received. #hss2025 #greatauk #penguins #histsci #earlymodern #animalhistory