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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, 2009
Category: Biology
Signs of spring so far around where I live, apart from the obvious sunshine and disappearance of the snow & ice:Crocus Snowdrop Scilla Blackbird singing at sundown (ah!) Magpies brawling...
Posted by Martin R at 9:11 AM • 15 Comments •
March 30, 2009
Category: Tech
An air source heat pump makes your house into a fridge turned inside out.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 17 Comments •
March 28, 2009
Category: Archaeology
The integrity of the museum-supplied data still stands, but now us users can help accrete more info around each find and site.
Posted by Martin R at 9:00 AM • 2 Comments •
March 27, 2009
Category: Music
Spring's finally reached Stockholm! To celebrate, here's a song by one of the city's finest folk singers, Stefan Sundström, off of his 1992 album Happy Hour Viser, "Happy Hour Songs". I translate:Spring Samba By Stefan Sundström One morning when...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 6 Comments •
March 26, 2009
Category: Music
The Mama Mia movie has revitalised interest in Swedish 70s pop giants ABBA. The other day I heard 10-y-o Junior's school choir perform "As Good As New". 5-y-o Juniorette and her pals at daycare sing garbled versions of all...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 3 Comments •
March 25, 2009
Category: Archaeology
The sixty-third Four Stone Hearth blog carnival is on-line at Millard Fillmore's Bathtub. Catch the best recent blogging on archaeology and anthropology! Submissions for the next carnival will be sent to me. The next open hosting slot is on 6...
Posted by Martin R at 2:57 PM • 0 Comments •
Category: Children
This adolescent boy, barely into sexual maturity, is being nasty to girls about their budding womanhood.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 12 Comments •
March 24, 2009
Category: Archaeology
Denmark has an excellent system in place to enable and govern a responsible and constructive metal detector hobby.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 10 Comments •
March 23, 2009
Category: Art
We've all had the same realisation: sooner or later somebody just has to make a series of several thousand short films of themselves smoking various tobacco pipes and listening to tango music, and put them all on YouTube. Well,...
Posted by Martin R at 5:03 PM • 0 Comments •
March 21, 2009
Category: Food
It looks like chocolate fudge cake. It tastes like compact sour-dough rye bread and molasses. It is basically compact sour-dough rye bread and molasses. You have it at Easter, cold, with cream and sugar. It is a Finnish thing....
Posted by Martin R at 8:45 AM • 19 Comments •
March 20, 2009
Category: Archaeology
The people on this site avoided burying stuff that keeps, not just during one era, but over repeated use phases covering thousands of years. Drat.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 8 Comments •
March 19, 2009
Category: NOIBN
On a whim, I've grown one of my infrequent beards, and it's starting to itch. The beard hairs are hard and bristly, and the mustache feels like having the skeleton of a herring glued to my upper lip. Kissing...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 18 Comments •
March 18, 2009
Category: Archaeology
The Swedish Heritage Board has begun putting historical photographs whose copyright has expired onto Flickr Commons.
Posted by Martin R at 8:22 AM • 0 Comments •
Category: Archaeology
Every issue of Fornvännen will henceforth appear on-line half a year after it was distributed on paper.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 7 Comments •
Category: Tech
The course imparts knowledge about the role of information technology and issues of responsibility, determinism and free will.
Posted by Martin R at 5:11 AM • 7 Comments •
March 17, 2009
Category: Archaeology
The sixty-second Four Stone Hearth blog carnival is on-line at the The Swedish Osteological Society's Blog. Catch the best recent blogging on archaeology and anthropology from a bony point of view! Submissions for the next carnival will be sent to...
Posted by Martin R at 5:54 PM • 0 Comments •
March 16, 2009
Category: Archaeology
I don't think curating, photographing and cataloguing things like this is a good use of public funding.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 27 Comments •
March 15, 2009
Category: Archaeology
Current Archaeology, "the UK's best selling archaeology magazine", has kindly given me a complimentary subscription. I recently received my first issue, #228 (March '09), and I found it an enjoyable read. Best of all, I liked James Barrett's and Adam...
Posted by Martin R at 10:46 AM • 1 Comments •
March 12, 2009
Category: Archaeology
You almost only find the feet and legs of the pots, hardly ever the wall or rim. Why is that?
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 40 Comments •
March 11, 2009
Category: Film
My wife and I watched the 2004 biopic Kinsey last night, about ground-breaking sexologist Alfred Kinsey. Good movie, good acting, interesting theme. And there's an added perk for fans of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. To the extent that the...
Posted by Martin R at 2:10 PM • 3 Comments •
March 10, 2009
Category: History
We're dealing both with historical reality and with historical fiction written a long time ago.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 20 Comments •
March 9, 2009
Category: Archaeology
I used to do all my plans and maps in a hard-core CAD program using a digitising tablet, but then WinXP came along.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 14 Comments •
March 8, 2009
Category: Blogging
It's time for a blogmeet! On Monday 9 March at 17:30 I want to see you guys at Akkurat on Hornsgatan 18 in Stockholm. This place offers an awe-inspiring selection of rare ales and malt whiskeys, and serves great...
Posted by Martin R at 4:31 PM • 8 Comments •
March 7, 2009
Category: Books
ARKHAM, MA--Arguing that students should return to the fundamentals taught in the Pnakotic Manuscripts and the Necronomicon in order to develop the skills they need to be driven to the very edge of sanity, Arkham school board member Charles West...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 4 Comments •
March 6, 2009
Category: NOIBN
Eight years ago I sold half an apartment to my former wife and found myself, for the first time, with a sum of money to invest. I did what conventional wisdom recommended at the time: stuck all the money into...
Posted by Martin R at 9:43 AM • 15 Comments •
Category: Food
When I give talks about Internet subcultures I like to say that I could devote the entire talk to on-line forums for retired Spanish-speaking transvestites. That's how niched groups a global communication network makes possible. Myself, I'm on a Swedish...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 2 Comments •
March 5, 2009
Category: Blogging
The 2008 Open Laboratory anthology collecting last year's best science blogging is now available on paper and for download. I'm not featured this year, but I was one of the judges, and I can tell you there's some great stuff...
Posted by Martin R at 12:39 PM • 0 Comments •
March 2, 2009
Category: Archaeology
The sixty-first Four Stone Hearth blog carnival is on-line at the Moore Group Blog. Catch the best recent blogging on archaeology and anthropology! Submissions for the next carnival will be sent to me. The next open hosting slot is on...
Posted by Martin R at 3:38 PM • 1 Comments •
Category: Psychology
Getting a really random number into a computer when you need one is tricky.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 13 Comments •
