Marshall Schurtz

Hello Bluesky! A bit about me: I completed my PhD in Mesopotamian Archaeology at Penn a few years ago. After some time in corporate life, I decided to start a company to make archaeology interesting (& more accessible) to a new generation. Centered around travel, I created merakivatravel.com

Mesopotamian Archaeology Humor

So the new Spotify co-CEO names literally translate to: North-stream South-stream Or you could view it as... Upstream & Downstream Sounds like something out of a bad book

Shouldn’t be lost on people that often it’s the military that stands up to dictators, when the dictatorial thugs are in the streets Don’t think we are anywhere close to there but… history is history.

If you’re wondering how doing my business taxes is going… well

I'm still a believer in taxes, but... Being on the business owner side, I get the anti-tax sentiment! What do you mean I'm paying $412 in taxes to get $1000 in take home salary?? Obviously that's including both employee and employer taxes, but sheesh.

It's very funny to me that I joined Bluesky because of all the academics and tech people but I use it 99% to just read about NFL news... I left Twitter in 2020 and had been missing that sports "live tweeting" ever since

Hm. My #Youtube demographics are... skewed.

Completely infuriating that 99% Democrats are acting like we're still in an Aaron Sorkin drama

The folks obsessively posting about egg prices for the past few years have gone strangely quiet just as egg prices hit an all-time high.

The YouTube shorts algorithm... in one picture

One thing I've learned in 1.5 years of #entrepreneurship is how exponential growth feels, when you're starting from 0... All good to hear "wow in 6 years I built my biz to $1m by growing 2x every year" but that means year 1 was like $10k... And that's ok! 2x, 2x, 2x, 2x...

Who knew I studied 9 years just to fight N*zis

I didn’t join Bluesky because it’s not owned by billionaires but now… I’m glad that it isn’t and I’m here #atproto #inauguration #democracy #oligarchy

I’ve heard that @skylight.social is coming to BlueSky, so want to make sure have videos to take advantage of that!

Archaeologists are performing a colonoscopy… on a book? #archaeology #medieval #video #explainer #archaeologynews

The new BlueSky video feature is… actually pretty good?? It feels like a lo-fi version of TikTok but also feels natural. Hopefully we get people posting more native video here!

This week in Archaeology news! - A 1 Mile long secret tunnel under Cusco - Genetic study shows Iron Age Britain was women-led - Lasers help reveal tattoos on mummies No One Knows Why the Inca Built This Secret Tunnel Under Cusco | Archaeology News youtu.be/c4NSbs1lTng

The gap between current "reasoning" models and AGI is really obvious when you just have it do... scheduling. It *can* eventually get to an answer, but even just dealing with some simple "don't book during a holiday" logic it takes quite long and isn't 100% correct.

What do we think about the Netflix NFL score graphic? Kind of feels like the NBC version. All the info is pretty obvious… I don’t hate it? #nfl

Just landed in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia for the first time: First impressions, this is nothing like I expected. Lots more to see, but it’s very modern. Reminds me more of Dubai than I’d seen… Lots more to come

Well, that’s a first for a spam email… (no one “speaks” Akkadian, especially not me!)

One of the quick learnings from posting on YouTube on my personal account (vs. my business account): WOW people resonate much more with a personal account. For ~ same # of views, I'm getting 4x the number of subscribers. Plus way more "this is good, thanks dude" comments.

Finally jumping into try to regularly post on #YouTube First of the long-forms (with a good thumbnail and all!), though not my best work. Better videos are scheduled and in the queue but consistency and posting is the goal! www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9Zt...

I just realized that #Survivor Tribal Council is definitely just the vibes of a grad seminar discussion The secret we hide in the seminar is that no one did all the reading… Professor Jeff Probst!

Would people be interested in watching an archaeologist live stream the new #IndianaJones game that comes out next week? 🤠 (If enough people say yes, I can write it off as business expense 💲)

If you want to lose faith in humanity, read the comments on videos about the #UnitedHealthcare CEO shooting/assassination Seemingly every comment is joking about out of network coverage or just gleeful. Or implying he deserved it because he made millions of $$. ... what?! Really sad and gross

Anyone up for some experimental archaeology?? "The vase had a cocktail of psychedelic drugs, bodily fluids and alcohol. The concoction was flavored with honey, sesame seeds, pine nuts, licorice and grapes, which were commonly used to make the beverage look like blood." 🏺

What they don't tell you about filming a Vlog to put on Youtube... going through the clips takes FOREVER This one video from a couple hours at an archaeological site in Tunisia has 350+ clips to go through. I was only there for less than 8 hours! Assembly cut alone is hours of work :/

I’ll never forget being in high school and playing Magic until the sun came up. And us Magic friends telling other friends that we stayed up all night playing Magic, and them thinking we were learning magic tricks 😂

I was excited for for @dropouttv.bsky.social’s Nobody Asked, but Ep 1 was pretty underwhelming I’m not sure what I expected, but it feels pretty… flat? And not that funny? The questions are not that funny and without that, where’s the comedy Hoping Ep 2 is more exciting!

I really like the remove quote on Bluesky. Compared to other platforms... I commented on a TikTok, saying they were misrepresenting a quote - they made a video saying I'm wrong. Tbh, I don't care that much! I wanted to remove comment because not worth my time to debate, but can't really there