Paul Vierthaler
vierth.bsky.social
Paul Vierthaler
@vierth.bsky.social
Chinese Lit, DH, Machine Learning, Dad of twins

Assistant Prof of late imperial Chinese literature and interdisciplinary data science at Princeton University
Feels like a nice night for a cocktail
November 5, 2025 at 2:22 AM
I’m not freaked out, you’re freaked out!
October 30, 2025 at 2:20 PM
Early history of the papacy a bit of a touchy subject in on Wikipedia, it seems
October 5, 2025 at 1:52 AM
Devon Fitzgerald @devinfitz.bsky.social with the first talk at the Forms & Function symposium, talking about the Xi’an Nestorian Stele!
October 3, 2025 at 5:45 PM
This is always one of my favorite facts! and reminds me I need to do something with the type drawers that I inherited when my uncles retired and closed down their print shop (which are just sitting there staring at me from across the room)
September 26, 2025 at 8:21 PM
It’s alive!
September 25, 2025 at 2:33 PM
Anyone in the Princeton area owes it to themselves to stop in and see Martin Heijdra’s marvelous new exhibit on the history of global bookmaking in Firestone library!
September 18, 2025 at 7:55 PM
Six years in waiting! Now I just have to wait to get home to play (assuming the servers let me download it.
September 4, 2025 at 2:09 PM
Many of my grandparents papers have come to me after their passing around five years ago, and among them is a 1947 receipt for my Grandma for “final payment of tuition” for nursing school. Six dollars.
August 18, 2025 at 6:36 PM
I’m extremely jazzed about this gadget, which replaces my clearly outdated glass and paper bug yeeting workflow (I can’t bear to squarsh them, so all bugs get politely escorted outside). It has a bonus magnifying glass, much to the girls delight!
August 16, 2025 at 1:46 AM
Damn this takes me back! And 1997 had some absolute bangers as well! Just one genre defining game after another
June 26, 2025 at 5:26 PM
This is the sight of me giving up (but are you really a sinologist if you've never had to paste an image into a sentence?):

If anyone knows what this character is, please let me know! I feel like it shouldn't be eluding me, yet it is! zi.tools hasn't been much help, nor has dict.variants.moe.edu.tw
June 25, 2025 at 7:18 PM
Kicking off day 2 of the Princeton China Digital Humanities workshop with an introduction to relational database by Prof Michael Fuller, after an excellent first day learning about the state of the field and IMMARKUS from Dr Sunkyu Lee!
June 17, 2025 at 1:54 PM
Scrolling through microfilm like it’s the 1970s (except the old lightbox(?) style machines have gone the way of the dinosaurs)! The scanner was hidden away in quite literally the most distant corner of the library, almost like they are embarrassed by it.
May 28, 2025 at 7:27 PM
I know we stopped stamping these a while ago, but whenever I see a “last borrowed” like this, I have a burning desire to know who checked out “Documents on the Compilation of the Siku quanshu” from Columbia in 1972
May 20, 2025 at 2:16 PM
The main text of the same edition is too tough for it (as you can perhaps see why in this image, which I find very difficult to read myself), but I wonder how the 72b model would perform (may need to spin up my own setup in short order ) :)
January 29, 2025 at 6:47 PM
Not a super challenging example, but this zero-shot performance is wild! My only quibble is it turns 邉 into 邊, which to be fair mean the same thing, but I'm interested in the use of such variant characters
January 29, 2025 at 6:39 PM
January 25, 2025 at 4:25 PM
I kind of love that when the university redid the house we are living in, the remodelers left not one but two stickers indicating that the air filters need to be changed by December 1981.
January 24, 2025 at 12:27 AM
Farmdude
December 3, 2024 at 8:19 PM
My aunt and uncles recently retired, closing the Spearville News after 120 years of printing rural small town papers (and for 70 of those years it was run by my family). This little Baltimore no. 10 (I think) miniature letter press was given to them a number of years ago and just passed along to me!
November 28, 2024 at 5:43 PM
The one true DH:
November 13, 2024 at 4:13 PM
It’s a beautiful fall morning here in Princeton, NJ!
October 23, 2024 at 1:43 PM
My very first piece of art for the new office just arrived! @ryancordell.bsky.social @skeuomorph.bsky.social
@elikaortega.bsky.social
October 21, 2024 at 10:12 PM
It’s faint, but the aurora is visible in Princeton, NJ!
October 11, 2024 at 2:32 AM