Tag: archaeology
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Universal Maintenance Design: Making Infrastructure R2-Accessible
How Designing for Robots Creates Better Systems for Everyone Part 3 of the R2 Astromech Project series In the previous posts, I explained why we need helper droids and traced how we lost the modular design philosophy that would have made them possible. Now I want to introduce a concept that could actually change how […]
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The Death of the Helper Droid: How Modular Design Philosophy Gave Way to Vendor Lock-in
A History of Lost Technologies and Changed Incentives Part 2 of the R2 Astromech Project series In the first post, I explained why I’m building an R2-D2 style helper droid—a universal translator for machines that can diagnose infrastructure, speak multiple protocols, and tell you what’s actually wrong in plain language. But that raises an obvious […]
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Teaching an Old Droid New Tricks: Why I’m Building an R2-D2 inspired ‘droid
Or: How a Fun Weekend Project Revealed Everything Wrong With Modern Technology Part 1 of a series on astromech droids, universal design, and the technologies we’ve lost and/or failed to develop. I’m sitting in my workshop come sitting room with an NVIDIA Jetson Nano, a tangle of cables, and an increasingly uncomfortable question: Why doesn’t […]
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Beyond Typologies: Why Archaeology Needs a Signal Processing Revolution
First in a three-part series introducing a groundbreaking approach to archaeological data science The Hidden Patterns in Ancient Landscapes Imagine standing in a field in County Roscommon, looking at what appears to be just another Irish pasture crossed by modern fence lines. But beneath your feet and etched into the landscape around you lie the […]
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Why Sligo Needs a World Class Museum
The case for a world class museum in the town of Sligo, northwest Ireland.
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Christian Minarets: Irish Round Towers and the Hidden History of Islamic Influence
Is there a link between Irish round towers and Islamic minarets?
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The Curious Re-Emergence of an Ancient Irish Tuath
Indiana: Balloq’s medallion only had writing on one side? You sure about that? Sallah: Positive! Indiana: Balloq’s staff is too long. Indiana: Sallah: They’re digging in the wrong place! Raiders of the Lost Ark, (1981) County Sligo, and the old Borough Corporation of Sligo town are roughly 400 years old, and both are creations […]
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The Sligo Mills at the Glasshouse
In 2005 excavations took place on the site of the present Glasshouse hotel. The site had been that of the Sligo Mills, owned by the Pollexfen family in the late 19th and early 20th century. The Pollexfens were WB Yeats maternal family. Mills on the site appear to have been there at least since the […]
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A Castle on Teeling Street?
A Castle on Teeling Street, Sligo The Discovery In 2007, during routine extension works, archaeologists struck a stone covering an old drain right under the present Weekender office on Teeling street. When the stone was lifted an unusual type of wine bottle was found, known from its shape as an onion bottle. These onion bottles […]
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Why Reinstating Access to Maeves Cairn May be the Only Way to Preserve It
The threat to Maeves Cairn on Knocknarea, Sligo and how best to approach its solution.