February 29, 2008
Category: Sweden
It's February 2008. I've had access to the WWW for 13 years. Yet I can still not get a news feed filtered to any reasonable approximation of my tastes. I want very little news: only the important stuff. I think...
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Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 16 Comments •
February 28, 2008
Category: NOIBN
When I was in Florida a month ago, right after having lunch with an elder statesman of the skeptical movement, I found the above polaroid photograph on the sidewalk outside the restaurant. The signs above the windows have allowed...
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Posted by Martin R at 8:02 AM • 2 Comments •
Category: Archaeology
The thirty-fifth Four Stone Hearth blog carnival is on-line at Archaeoporn. Archaeology and anthropology is quite a lovely and ladylike pastime for us ladies! The next open hosting slot is on 9 April. All bloggers with an interest in...
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Posted by Martin R at 3:44 AM • 1 Comments •
February 27, 2008
Category: Archaeology
Among Anglophone archaeologists there used to be hostility towards "scientism", often compounded to "naïve scientism" or "vulgar scientism".
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Posted by Martin R at 3:10 PM • 13 Comments •
February 26, 2008
Category: Archaeology
I know you are all secretely competing for who will have the pleasure of giving me an assistant professor's position.
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Posted by Martin R at 8:50 AM • 14 Comments •
February 25, 2008
Category: Archaeology
What were they supposed to do with a six-litre volume of crumbling amber?
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Posted by Martin R at 8:50 AM • 11 Comments •
February 23, 2008
Category: Archaeology
I'm a big fan of Danish archaeology. In my opinion it is the best in Scandinavia, both regarding the sites they have and what they write about them. This love of Danish archaeology has been a strong incentive for...
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Posted by Martin R at 3:15 AM • 18 Comments •
February 22, 2008
Category: Archaeology
The US has a strangely high output per capita of anthropology BAs.
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Posted by Martin R at 9:18 AM • 9 Comments •
February 21, 2008
Category: Archaeology
Thanks to Nixxon for the tipoff....
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Posted by Martin R at 4:52 AM • 1 Comments •
Category: Skepticism
I've just agreed to a flattering request from real.girl at Skepchick. This means that chances are you will find a skeptical archaeologist in partial deshabillé in the 2009 edition of the Skepchick skin calendar. And I'm train blogging again. And...
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Posted by Martin R at 4:42 AM • 15 Comments •
February 20, 2008
Category: Music
After work today I had dinner with my friends Asko & Eva and then went to the Cirkus concert venue to hear the Mars Volta. For those of you who have missed them, they're a US psychedelic progressive rock...
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Posted by Martin R at 6:02 PM • 3 Comments •
February 19, 2008
Category: Tree House Ruins
The children who used the site no longer exist: they're grownups now.
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Posted by Martin R at 4:53 PM • 15 Comments •
February 17, 2008
Category: Books
The anthology I edited last spring, Scholarly Journals Between the Past and the Future, has received one long thoughtful review by Alun at Archaeoastronomy and another one by the Grumpy Old Bookman....
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Posted by Martin R at 1:00 AM • 0 Comments •
February 16, 2008
Category: Archaeology
PDQ is a journal designed to provide a bridge between blogging and academia.
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Posted by Martin R at 4:37 PM • 0 Comments •
Category: Poetry
Here's a particularly fine song lyric from Californian 80s indie band Camper Van Beethoven, off of their 1989 disc Key Lime Pie. The song is a folky number in march time with violin, and David Lowery's singing is exquisitely...
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Posted by Martin R at 10:12 AM • 4 Comments •
February 15, 2008
Category: Archaeology
The thirty-fourth Four Stone Hearth blog carnival is on-line at Our Cultural World. Archaeology and anthropology be da shit, trudat! The next open hosting slot is on 9 April. All bloggers with an interest in the subject are welcome...
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Posted by Martin R at 4:50 AM • 0 Comments •
February 14, 2008
Category: Tech
I'm on a train in Östergötland. A while back I caught a fond glimpse of the barrow at Stora Tollstad in Sjögestad that me & Howard Williams trial-trenched and dated to the 9th century in 2006. I'm giving a talk...
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Posted by Martin R at 6:37 AM • 6 Comments •
February 13, 2008
Category: Archaeology
After the end of the year, there will be only one PhD student in archaeology left.
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Posted by Martin R at 4:40 PM • 12 Comments •
February 12, 2008
Category: NOIBN
We are not comfortable being associated with James Watson even at such a remove.
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Posted by Martin R at 3:45 PM • 16 Comments •
February 11, 2008
Category: Archaeology
Post-modernist hyper-relativism unexpectedly rears its ugly dying head in the form of a call for papers from one Tera Pruitt for the otherwise respectable Archaeological Review from Cambridge. Note the scare quotes around the words truth and valid claims.Call for...
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Posted by Martin R at 3:06 PM • 17 Comments •
Category: Politics
Science Debate 2008 is an initiative to inject more science policy into the run-up to the US presidential elections. Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum over at The Intersection just announced that they have sent formal invitations for an April 18...
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Posted by Martin R at 2:09 PM • 0 Comments •
Category: Music
Trolls have set an ambush here / To test the mettle of the dwarves
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Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 25 Comments •
February 10, 2008
Category: China
Back in October when myself & the family were in Beijing, we spent a Friday at the city's main amusement park. The place was almost deserted, so the kids didn't have to stand in line at all. They would...
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Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 3 Comments •
February 9, 2008
Category: Blogging
I hardly ever remember my dreams. When waking and then going back to sleep, like on a Saturday morning, I can however sometimes bring back fragments into the real world. This morning I dreamed that we were moving to...
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Posted by Martin R at 10:39 AM • 1 Comments •
February 8, 2008
Category: Music
The past week I've twice heard Nirvana's 1993 song "Heart Shaped Box" on the radio. I realised that its lyrics have a number of remarkably powerful lines. Kurt Cobain was a talented man. Here are the song's two verses.She...
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Posted by Martin R at 8:30 AM • 1 Comments •
February 7, 2008
Category: Archaeology
I got another job rejection letter today. Five out of 79 applicants (6%) got research positions in Linköping, 2.5 hours by car from my home. The five are two chemists, one neurobiologist, one environmental scientist and one gender studies scholar....
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Posted by Martin R at 3:28 PM • 0 Comments •
February 6, 2008
Category: Archaeology
As chronicled here in many entries over the past months, computer consultant, New Age author and homeopath Bob G. Lind has carved out his own niche in Swedish amateur archaeology with controversial interpretations of Scanian archaeological sites Ales stenar...
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Posted by Martin R at 8:56 AM • 4 Comments •
February 5, 2008
Category: Archaeology
I added two sites to my growing collection of abandoned club houses.
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Posted by Martin R at 11:07 AM • 9 Comments •
February 3, 2008
Category: Politics
None of the presidential candidates would be a viable politician in Sweden.
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Posted by Martin R at 5:26 AM • 276 Comments •
February 1, 2008
Category: Music
One evening last week in North Carolina, walking back from Chapel Hill to the Holiday Inn along road 54, I heard this brilliant send-up of everything Barry White ever recorded on the radio. Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you "Business...
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Posted by Martin R at 4:25 PM • 2 Comments •