00:01.70 archpodnet All right? Welcome back to the serum archeology podcast episode two fifty nine and Doug had to leave at the end of the second segment where we got 2 segments out of him so that's good and Andrew and I are going to talk about just ah I've got some some last things down here that I wanted to mention and honestly they're more into the. 00:19.30 archpodnet Learning and sort of volunteering but may include travel or buying equipment. So um, one of the ones I did want to mention that is another online thing that I don't think was mentioned was the masterclass series right? There are a lot of good like archeology related stuff on masterclass I don't have a subscription to that. It's like really expensive but. 00:30.99 Andrew Um. 00:34.36 Andrew Yeah. 00:37.16 archpodnet You you can? yeah now if you can get like 1 off courses on there either if you have to buy a membership but either way it's worth looking into if you've got the means and the time because there's really high level. You know quality stuff on there that I've seen so. 00:49.97 Andrew No yeah, that's a good one and I think I've had a student or 2 or 3 over the over time who ah were members of that this the same kind of people. We're talking about people who are the lifelong learner crowd or that kind of thing who are really into it. But I think I noticed the same thing the expense I think it was pretty expensive. 00:59.83 archpodnet Yeah. Yeah, it's not cheap, but but they're all like highly qualified professionals on there like if you're going to learn astronomy I'm pretty sure it's from like Neil degrasse tyson you know what? I mean so you know yeah yeah, like richard dawkins teaching you about evolution right? like it's a whole bunch of you know. 01:06.57 Andrew But yeah, yeah. Right? Oh it totally is. Yeah, yeah, it's pretty awesome. Exactly it it It is that good. Yeah. 01:22.50 archpodnet Yeah, yeah, and then some other stuff in the realm of the real is ah ecotourism and I've talked about earthwatch before and my field school was technically an earthwatch program because I couldn't get to oldevi gorge in Africa where I absolutely wanted to be any other way. Was nobody else doing programs over there I looked from university programs and all kinds of stuff and I ended up paying paying the money to be an ecotourist basically on an earthwatch program digging almost two million year old hominid fossils. 01:41.32 Andrew Um, yeah. 01:50.82 Andrew Um, me. 01:55.87 archpodnet And our our hominid deposits. Anyway, we never found any hominids we found extinct alligator and hippo which is kind of cool. But yeah and I don't know far if our if our stuff we were only there for three weeks we got to do lab work. We got to activation we got to go visit the serengeti some Masai camps just living at the leaky camp and the tent was amazing. 01:59.62 Andrew Um, right. 02:13.71 archpodnet Opening the Zipfl flap on your tent and seeing giraffe and zebra outside the the briar fence outside the camp was just I mean ah indescribable. It was amazing and and hearing like like learning how to sleep while hearing lions and hyenas in the distance was a little disconcerting but you get used to it. 02:21.41 Andrew Um, yeah. 02:33.23 archpodnet And um, it was just it was just an amazing experience. It wasn't cheap. You had to get to Africa and it was like $5000 for this particular one but you'd look at the earthwatch website and they got stuff all over this country that might be four or five days it might be two or three weeks it might cost $800 it might cost. You know $6000 it's just if the. 02:38.60 Andrew Yeah. 02:52.96 archpodnet Variety is huge and it's not. It's mostly not archeology right? They have stuff all over the map but there is archeology on there. So if you're interested. It's worth checking out. 03:00.87 Andrew Yeah I will say that in my career There's been several different projects in completely different places like I think one in Germany one in Belize where they had earthwatch volunteers over the years so earthwatch is a kind of It's an organization with a lot of tendrils all over the place. 03:20.76 archpodnet Yeah, and I mean do you know anybody that's used it as ah as a professor doing research because I know if you're struggling to find some some funding. That's mostly what it's for is having volunteers help pay for some of the funding for some of your work. But I don't know the logistics of it and and how that actually works. Do you even get enough. To do an entire like project or is that just one of the sources of funding. 03:38.88 Andrew Yeah I think my guess is it's just one of the sources of funding again. The the projects I worked on where there were earthwatch volunteers. Um I Only saw that as a student so I didn't know behind the scenes you know what? I mean like the money percentage or whatever but to my feeling It's just it's as it always is. It's just. 03:50.35 archpodnet Um, yeah. 03:58.40 Andrew Hey you get funding wherever you can and earthwatch is one of them I don't know if you could go out with an only earthwatch funded project that feels a little thin to me. Yeah. 04:07.19 archpodnet Sure, Okay, well some of the other stuff I've got on here is more virtual and I don't Know. Do you have any other ecotourism type ideas or things you could go out and see that are you know? Maybe you have to pay for. But. You still learn and possibly work and volunteer and help on that I can't think of any others besides earthwatch. 04:24.96 Andrew Um, yeah, no, not not off the top um top of my head like there sometimes ah I was trying to think like local University and stuff will sort of have things like this but but. 04:34.15 archpodnet Okay. 04:36.85 Andrew It almost every time it it boils down to you have to actually sign up for the unit Somehow like they have to enroll you because of the again because of the insurance and that kind of stuff so that's not that I would not say is your first stop. Ah so after that I I don't have too too much more I would say that on the last. 04:40.22 archpodnet Um, sure. 04:55.64 Andrew Um, the last segment there when when we were talking about um met metal detectors and ah arrow collection groups I would I would be very very like I would you're playing with fire on that one. So like some of those groups man for me personally. 05:00.81 archpodnet Yeah. 05:08.99 archpodnet Yes. 05:15.12 Andrew I Would not recommend those just because I've had very bad experiences especially with the arrowhead collecting groups like I would stay ah miles away from that. Ah, just so note note to all like come into any of this with a you know. 05:21.37 archpodnet Oh yeah, for sure. 05:31.38 Andrew With the grain of salt ready to roll even even local even local archeology groups just make sure they're on the level. You won't know it first but just kind of keep your eyes open. You know there sha d. 05:42.74 archpodnet Nice, Yeah, that's good advice. The airhead collecting ones Definitely are usually not not on the up and up. Yeah, ah, but the metal detecting ones. There could be some that are endorsed by and even possibly run by your local archeological societies right? because there's a lot of. 05:49.60 Andrew Yeah. 05:57.52 archpodnet Lot of valid things you can do around that and a lot of people that aren't interested in necessarily breaking the law or reinterpreting the law and ah you know and going that route. So yeah, definitely take it with a grain of salt. 06:01.76 Andrew Yeah I I right I hear you just my personal experience with some of that world was very not on the up and up you know so when I heard that I was sort of like Lu beware. 06:12.22 archpodnet Um, yeah, right right? Yeah I know I know I feel like I had to mention it. But yeah, definitely be cautious. Ah as far as all the other things go. 06:20.54 Andrew We Wear Yellow Light Yellow light. Sure yeah. 06:28.77 archpodnet So so the rest of this can be done the the other I've got 3 more things down here I might think of a few more but these can be done from your couch right? from the comfort of your own home. The easiest one that you could do right now without any other equipment possibly ah an accelerated graphics card but otherwise is second life second life has. 06:34.33 Andrew Um, right. 06:48.50 archpodnet If You've never heard of it. It's like a virtual thing. It's been around like 20 years and it's this virtual world that you join you have to come up with your own name and your avatar and all that stuff. But once you get past all that there are people who have built replicas. Accurate Replicas of entire archaeological sites in second life that you can like virtually walk around fly around meet somebody else in there and and and look at stuff and there's like there's there's often like informational displays that might have audio or video that you can actually sit and watch almost like you're in a museum. At the site right at this virtual site and it's just the work. Some people have put into this stuff even if the actual visual representation isn't like super great or accurate. Maybe you don't have an awesome graphics processor. Maybe they didn't do a very good Job. There's often other information attached to it and you can kind of visualize what the information is talking about. 07:22.44 Andrew Um, yeah. 07:40.97 archpodnet When you're listening or watching something you can look around the structure or area or town and say oh yeah I get it. This is really cool. You know it's just a really neat low cost because it's free. Um, so you can you can get into it for nothing. Yeah and I I like it I've been in there in a long time. But. 07:45.20 Andrew Um, right. 07:51.10 Andrew Right? That's I've I've never heard of that but I've I've experienced sort of a similar thing I'm sure it's not through second life. But ah I used to. Assign my students to go online and tour lascau so you can you can look at the Cave paintings of Lascaux like online and it's pretty cool. Um, and it's actually pretty funky I Highly recommend putting headphones on because. 08:06.36 archpodnet Mean. 08:18.23 Andrew You click on it and it cruises you through and it plays this like funky mood music and definitely turn the lights down too because you're just sort of cruising through lascau and these are right? The Cave paintings. Um, and you can like look up and click on um and read about them and it's very. It's very awesome, but that mood music It's kind of like. 08:22.30 archpodnet Eyes 4 08:37.32 Andrew You know as as you're going through when it's kind of a it's kind of a trip. So I recommend that the only thing if you go on the Laska website half the time it'll click you straight into french so try if you're english speaking kind of make sure you're on the english side of things that's that's it but that one's cool. Yeah. 08:48.84 archpodnet Sure. Nice nice. That's really cool another one that doesn't necessarily require equipment. Although you can get a ah, it's called Google Cardboard if they're still doing it. But it's like a little. 08:56.20 Andrew Move. 09:06.39 archpodnet It's literally cardboard. It's flat. They'll send it to you for like $10 if you're ever. Ah, if you're in California and at some Google event I this is how I got mine. They're just handing them out for free but you basically you basically fold it into this like view master type thing that you can put your phone in and then you open up the special app. Um, ah. 09:15.21 Andrew Ah. 09:24.10 archpodnet Some apps are virtual reality apps. It really is a stereoscopic viewmaster type of thing where you've got 2 different images on the on the display and when you look at it through something that's that's separating those but your eyes are putting it together. It looks 3 dimensional and there's other ways to interact this one too. But Lihodomos Vr they have been a previous. Um, interviewees on the archeology podcast network but also advertisers on the archaeology podcast network so I need to mention that hasn't been for a little while a couple of years but they have gone to major archaeological sites around the world done high high high resolution photogrammetry and other imaging techniques. 09:49.22 Andrew Um, sure. 10:01.45 archpodnet To bring these sites into virtual reality space through their applications and again I haven't been on this website in a little while so they've been evolving expanding I don't know what to expect when you go there now and how you interact with it. But at 1 point you paid like you got some stuff for free. But at 1 point you paid like a fee. And you got access to everything and then I think at another point when they really expanded these out. It was almost like an in-app purchase for for each individual site that you wanted to look at so I don't know what their payment model is now but it is extremely high quality and. There's there's again information points. You can just click on them as you're looking at them and there's a little dot on the screen. It's hard to explain but you click on these things and it will move you around the thing you can't like walk around it at least you couldn't a couple of years ago um but it would move you around the area and then you could click on these little displays to get. Like sounds that would have been in the area at the time that they've replicated and um and audio explanations of stuff and things like that. But it's a really cool way to experience some some of the the big world heritage sites out there and and other stuff that they've done so I should look into it again because they've been. On a rapid expansion track when they got like a massive amount of funding a couple of years ago and be interesting to see where they're at these days. Yeah I yeah I know. 11:13.79 Andrew Yeah, that one sounds really cool man I Love this guys. It's like I learned you know what I mean when I talk to you guys about this kind of stuff I'm like oh I should check out Check that up sounds pretty cool. 11:25.80 archpodnet Well I also host the arche tech podcast and sometimes we talk about some of the stuff on that show and and then sometimes on other shows like the rock art podcast Alan Gold is the host of that show and he is a you know longtime California rock art researcher runs the California rock out foundation. He started it. And so if you're interested. That's another thing that you could join is the California Rock Art Foundation they do you know site tours and and all kinds of stuff usually in the eastern mojave where Allen is actually the one taking you around and and showing you stuff and and they've got a newsletter and they've got you know other cool information that they do. But. 11:47.94 Andrew Right. 12:02.57 archpodnet 1 of the guests he had on was Eric Hanson who's a friend of his Eric Hansen interestingly enough started out as ah, like a special effects guy in movies like he's got a lot of high end movies to his name as far as special effects goes and then a few years ago he started this thing called blue planet vr and they've gone around to again archeological sites and other like natural wonders type sites and done high-resolution imagery but for oculus quest right? So you don't need your phone and you literally can walk around these places and just. Experience them now. You can't look well you can't like move your feet slash walk around because you'll walk into a wall in your bedroom. But um I guess if you're in like the gymnasium or something you really could walk around. But so I know it's always something. 12:41.55 Andrew Um, so it's It's always something always something with these. 12:52.81 archpodnet But but you can like push the buttons and and move yourself around these things in a free ranging kind of way and then there's informational stuff that pops up as well and I've played around with it a little bit and there is some really really cool stuff in there I think it was like a $25 app which is about average for like a non gaming app on the oculus quest too. And it's totally worth it. It's really cool and it's the kind of thing where it's not static either. They're constantly putting new stuff in there I'm friends with him on Facebook now and I'm always seeing him going out on trips and you know they're doing shooting trips picking up some some new site and putting it into blue planet vr and it's just ah, it's just really cool. 13:11.96 Andrew Ah. 13:28.12 archpodnet Way to use some of that technology that you may already have or can pick up on the cheap like you can get ah you can get the the lower memory oculus quest too for like two hundred and fifty bucks nowadays if you want the higher memory capacity one I think it's ah 400 or something like that. Which. Personally as an owner of one of those I would say get the higher memory capacity one because you're going to be sad having to offload stuff when ah when you run out of space because it's a big difference. It's like it's something like you know, 50 or sixty gigabytes to two hundred and fifty six gigabytes that's the jump and it's a lot right? so. 13:52.53 Andrew Yeah. 14:01.64 Andrew Yeah. 14:03.78 archpodnet Um, anyway, good stuff. Can you think of anything else. Andrew. 14:06.53 Andrew I am completely tapped out I have nothing left. 14:12.42 archpodnet Ah, nice, nice. Well honestly didn't know if we'd go whole so a whole show on this. So this is pretty great. Yeah, um I think a lot of this stuff could be useful for archeologists if they just want to learn something about something new or interact with something in a different way explore a new technology for maybe. 14:16.69 Andrew Um, yeah, yeah. 14:28.40 Andrew Um. 14:30.40 archpodnet You know, displaying your own archeological information insights that you have maybe you could hook up with one of these virtual components and and put something together like that from an outreach standpoint or just like I said stay stay tapped in when you're when you're out for a little while because we all know it's sometimes in Crm you just get tired of the shovel bum life and you know you want to uber for a little while or something like that. 14:34.64 Andrew Um, yeah. 14:48.14 Andrew Um, yeah I think so it can kind of recharge your batteries in a funny way. You know if you're working cm all the time. It's like oh I'll look at Lasco a little bit. It's something completely different and still interesting. 14:49.91 archpodnet And but you want to stay plugged in you know so these could be some good resources for doing that. 14:59.83 archpodnet Exactly yeah and you know the the final thing we could also mention is well and you already know it if you're listening to the show is the archeology podcast network you know I get so many people over the years when you when you accumulated all that have written in and said oh you know I was either. You know I took archeology in college but I never did anything with it and your show inspired me to you know, go get some more you know education and and go into work. We've we've had people call it ah write in and tell us that they got out of crm because they just got out of crm for whatever reason and they got back into it after listening to the cm archaeology podcast right? and they they just. 15:37.73 Andrew Yep. 15:38.37 archpodnet Just re-energized their their brains and and and gave them the motivation to get back in. So um and I'm not saying you should get back in but you know if it if it fits for what you're doing I hope we can inspire you to do that or inspire you to even get out and do something else. You really want to do you know? whatever whatever keeps you happy. So. 15:57.39 archpodnet All right? Well, that's all I've got with that we will see you guys in a couple of weeks with another show all right stand by all, right? Let me do the outro. Thanks everyone for joining me this week thanks also to the listeners for tuning in and we'll see you in the field. 16:08.55 Andrew Um, okay. 16:15.67 Andrew See you guys next time. 16:16.23 archpodnet Goodbye.