Now on ScienceBlogs: And so, driven on ceaselessly toward new shores
Martin Rundkvist's blog. Archaeology, skepticism, Sweden. And books and music and stuff.
Dr. Martin Rundkvist is a Swedish archaeologist, journal editor, public speaker, skeptic, atheist, lefty liberal, bookworm, and father of two.
March 31, 2008
Category: Tech
For the past two years I've been packing a soap-sized handheld computer named the Qtek 9100. It's a version of a design named the HTC Wizard, sporting a slide-out qwerty keyboard and running Windows Mobile. The machine's been good to...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 7 Comments •
March 30, 2008
Category: Music
It's a running joke around Sb that the single most popular blog entry on the whole site is one where a scibling calls Britney Spears the High Priestess of something not very flattering. In fact, as Spears's latest hit...
Posted by Martin R at 3:16 PM • 7 Comments •
March 28, 2008
Category: Archaeology
The last time these enthusiastic gentlemen interfered with the site, they were reprimanded by the County Archaeologist.
Posted by Martin R at 12:27 PM • 9 Comments •
March 27, 2008
Category: Music
Bluegrass music is rootsy acoustic proto-country. 70s heavy metal is bluesy electrified hard rock. Imagine what classic heavy metal songs would sound like if played by a bluegrass band -- banjo, fiddle, mandolin, bass... Imagine that. Imagine Hayseed Dixie!...
Posted by Martin R at 1:15 PM • 1 Comments •
Category: Archaeology
The thirty-seventh Four Stone Hearth blog carnival is on-line at Hot Cup of Joe. Archaeology and anthropology from outer space!!! And check out the new Skeptics' Circle!...
Posted by Martin R at 7:04 AM • 1 Comments •
March 26, 2008
Category: Biology
Water suppliers use natural water to make tap water.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 25 Comments •
March 25, 2008
Category: Language
A dialect is split into sociolects, that have to do with social class.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 35 Comments •
March 24, 2008
Category: Archaeology
In an attempt to check out the view from the kitchen window, the cat created an archaeological pottery assemblage.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 27 Comments •
March 22, 2008
Category: Art
There's actually a use for onion peel. Wrap it around an egg, wrap egg and peel in aluminium foil, and boil the egg the usual way. Red onion peel dyes the shell yellow, while yellow onion peel dyes it...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 11 Comments •
Category: Skepticism
A reader has pointed out that a propaganda website friendly with the Chinese government and hostile to Falun Gong is quoting a recent blog entry of mine. She suggests that this means that I am aiding the government in its...
Posted by Martin R at 4:06 AM • 5 Comments •
March 21, 2008
Category: Children
Swedes have taken up US Hallowe'en customs only very recently and half-heartedly, the whole thing being driven by merchants. But we do have something like trick-or-treating: the Easter Crone custom of Maundy Thursday. Traditionally, there's no Easter Bunny in...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 16 Comments •
March 20, 2008
Category: Blogging
Seed's recently taken up with a new advertiser, Proximic, that tries to put relevant ads into bits of the page that us Sbloggers don't control ourselves. Unfortunately, they do this in a mechanised manner that treats "relevance" in a simplistic...
Posted by Martin R at 6:07 PM • 12 Comments •
Category: Music
Last night I had the pleasure of catching two of my home town's best live music acts, each playing in a basement venue a couple of hundred meters apart on Stockholm's southern island. The Crawfish Cook and the Skandalites...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 2 Comments •
March 19, 2008
Category: Archaeology
As I mentioned the other day, I'm hoping to do some Bronze Age research once my current project about Dark Ages magnate farms is done. The Swedish Research Council's annual application deadline is less than two weeks from now, and...
Posted by Martin R at 3:19 PM • 19 Comments •
March 18, 2008
Category: Archaeology
Having done some surface investigations with non-destructive methods, a group of volunteer investigators including Patti Hearst's Sharon Tate's sister calls for the excavation of the Manson Family's last hideout."Vass said that, considering the quantity and the types of markers of...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 5 Comments •
March 17, 2008
Category: NOIBN
Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia and most of its contents are naked text that hardly takes up any disk space. Thus there is no reason to limit the subjects its contributors can write about. Fans have written hundreds of...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 22 Comments •
March 15, 2008
Category: NOIBN
Who are the victims? Who are the perpetrators?
Posted by Martin R at 9:20 AM • 24 Comments •
March 14, 2008
Category: Skepticism
The incest taboo is a cultural universal, and most likely genetically determined.
Posted by Martin R at 7:20 AM • 88 Comments •
March 13, 2008
Category: Archaeology
Lore Sjöberg at Wired celebrates the achievement of recently deceased gaming wizard Gary Gygax with an entertaining look at what it would be like if Dungeons & Dragons characters behaved like archaeologists.May 16 We have nearly finished our initial survey...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 4 Comments •
March 12, 2008
Category: Archaeology
PLoS ONE, the Open Access science journal, has finally published something with an archaeological bent: a fine genetics paper about the original peopling of the Americas. As part of their effort to stimulate scientific conversation about the journal's papers, they've...
Posted by Martin R at 3:25 PM • 0 Comments •
Category: Blogging
You must be a student of koryū, like me.
Posted by Martin R at 12:30 PM • 1 Comments •
March 11, 2008
Category: Skepticism
The Wikipedia entry about Falun Gong is heavily biased.
Posted by Martin R at 7:07 PM • 40 Comments •
Category: Blogging
I've twiddled some knobs behind the scenes.
Posted by Martin R at 5:22 PM • 22 Comments •
Category: Health
It would pose no problem for allergics if guide dogs were allowed everywhere on Swedish Rail trains.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 14 Comments •
March 10, 2008
Category: Film
Three siblings move to a big old house and find the field journal of their great-grand-uncle who studied fairies.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 2 Comments •
March 9, 2008
Category: Blogging
Happy 51st birthday, PZ Emcee of Pharyngula!...
Posted by Martin R at 7:00 AM • 0 Comments •
March 7, 2008
Category: China
The Chinese authorities and Falun Gong: a nasty autocratic regime persecuting a nasty manipulative cult.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 5 Comments •
Category: Books
I've been a devotee of Escape Pod, the weekly science-fiction short-story podcast, for 2.5 years now. Its audience has grown and grown and grown until Escape Pod is now the world's second-largest paying market for sf short fiction regardless...
Posted by Martin R at 6:21 AM • 4 Comments •
March 6, 2008
Category: Archaeology
Amateur scholars all around the Baltic argue that Birka was in their favourite spot.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 6 Comments •
March 5, 2008
Category: Archaeology
I am not a very good fieldwalker, though I hope to learn.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 15 Comments •
March 4, 2008
Category: Archaeology
We said that we really didn't know what to make of that pin.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 1 Comments •
March 3, 2008
Category: Books
In the US you can't popularise evolutionary biology without taking a stand against obfuscating fundies,
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 15 Comments •
March 2, 2008
Category: Blogging
My on-line buddy Vladimir over at Diogenes's Bottle has blogged extensively and almost incomprehensibly about my humble personage. Just look at the possibly wonderful (or not) things he has to say about me!La început - e drept - ideea ma...
Posted by Martin R at 3:21 AM • 14 Comments •
Highly Allochthonous 11.05.2009
Eruptions 11.05.2009
Not Exactly Rocket Science 11.05.2009
Corpus Callosum 11.05.2009
Starts With a Bang 11.04.2009
