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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, chairman of the Swedish Skeptics Society, atheist, lefty liberal, bookworm, and father of two.
December 31, 2009
Category: Food
Today I did something that, had I been a truly rational consumer, I would have done 20 years ago. Fisksätra has two grocery stores. One is a big chain store and the other is a typical turkbutik, a mom'n'pop store...
Posted by Martin R at 8:22 AM • 10 Comments •
Category: Art
My brother-in-law Peter Köhler is not only a very nice guy, but also a successful artist. He regularly exhibits his work at Magnus Karlsson's gallery, one of Stockholm's most prestigious venues. Peter's next show there is scheduled for 9...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 0 Comments •
Category: Archaeology
The eighty-third Four Stone Hearth blog carnival is on-line at the Primate Diaries. Catch the best recent blogging on archaeology and anthropology! Submissions for the next carnival will be sent to the keeper of A Primate of Modern Aspect. All...
Posted by Martin R at 3:52 AM • 0 Comments •
December 30, 2009
Category: Tech
Is it a dud release, like the second-to-last Windows version? I can't tell, because it won't even install on my vanilla 2008 netbook.
Posted by Martin R at 8:21 AM • 31 Comments •
Category: Gaming
I suddenly came to think of my first character in a role-playing game. His name was Gildor, he was an elf and a "fighter" -- I suppose he must have been a soldier actually -- and he came to...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 8 Comments •
December 29, 2009
Category: Skepticism
The Swedish Skeptic Society's annual awards for 2009 were announced yesterday.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 27 Comments •
Category: Blogging
I recently celebrated four years as a blogger. But disregarding what I was doing before I joined Sb, today marks Aard's third anniversary! It's one of the older active blogs on the site: of the 55 that joined at various...
Posted by Martin R at 8:19 AM • 3 Comments •
December 28, 2009
Category: History
Imagine that you're dropped into the city you live in with only the clothes you wear. No wallet, no hand bag, no money, no cell phone, no identification. And it's 500 years ago.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 49 Comments •
Category: Archaeology
The 83rd Four Stone Hearth blog carnival will run at the Primate Diaries on Wednesday. Submit great recent stuff to Eric, your own or somebody else's. Anything anthro or archaeo goes! The carnival needs hosts. It's a great way to...
Posted by Martin R at 2:58 AM • 0 Comments •
December 26, 2009
Category: Having Fun
I've had this decent idea for a post popping up in my mind twice and then dropping out of it before I had a chance to write myself a note. It's something about fragments, about beginnings of stories stacked onto...
Posted by Martin R at 1:57 PM • 16 Comments •
December 24, 2009
Category: Archaeology
I spent Wednesday evening wrapping presents and reading the latest popular archaeomags that have reached my mailbox. Pleasurable pursuits!
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 3 Comments •
December 23, 2009
Category: Archaeology
UNESCO has warned that if the tower will be beginning to be built, St. Petersburg will be officially excluded from the World Heritage list.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 0 Comments •
December 22, 2009
Category: Homeownership
Last year my wife and I bought a house. Since then we have been tenants of Nacka municipality who owned the land the house sits on. It's a tiny plot, hardly larger than the house itself, and surrounded by communal...
Posted by Martin R at 4:47 PM • 2 Comments •
December 21, 2009
Category: Sweden
Muslim immigrants have become more numerous from the 80s on, the Swedish Church separated from the state in 2000, and so it is no longer uncontroversial to bring entire school classes to church.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 15 Comments •
December 19, 2009
Category: Photography
Before lunch yesterday I took a walk and listened to Planetary Radio. And I mused, as so often, that I am very lucky to be living and working on the inner margin of the Stockholm archipelago. The picture below...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 6 Comments •
December 18, 2009
Category: Archaeology
The mines of Gladhammar near Västervik in SE Sweden once produced iron, copper and cobalt. Now they pose a big environmental problem because of heavy metals leaching out of the spoil heaps.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 4 Comments •
December 17, 2009
Category: Music
I've listened to Escape Pod, the science fiction short-story podcast, for four years now. And lately I have become increasingly awed by one of the newer hosts, Norm Sherman. His writing is acerbic, his delivery is deadpan, the guy is...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 3 Comments •
December 16, 2009
Category: Archaeology
The eighty-second Four Stone Hearth blog carnival is on-line at Anthropology in Practice. Catch the best recent blogging on archaeology and anthropology! Submissions for the next carnival will be sent to Eric at the Primate Diaries. All bloggers with an...
Posted by Martin R at 4:48 PM • 0 Comments •
Category: Blogging
Today is my fourth birthday as a blogger! (Here's my first entry from 2005.) I see myself as the proprietor of and main contributor to a small daily paper on subjects that interest me. And I am enjoying myself! Trafficwise,...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 14 Comments •
December 15, 2009
Category: Archaeology
Exciting news about two less-well-known ship burials from the Avaldsnes area in Rogaland on Norway's west coast: dendrochronology shows that they are the earliest dendro-dated ship burials in Norway.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 3 Comments •
December 14, 2009
Category: Music
These are my obsolete portable music players. A post-1985 cassette player, a 2000 minidisc player and a 2002 iPod whose sole means of communication with the outside world is a firewire socket. In the 90s I didn't listen much...
Posted by Martin R at 2:20 PM • 8 Comments •
Category: Space
Don't miss the year's best meteor shower! Tomorrow night will be good as well.
Posted by Martin R at 8:36 AM • 4 Comments •
Category: Food
Part of the Swedish Christmas celebrations is that many people turn to traditional cooking. Yesterday my dad's wife & mine made sausages. They were really nice, way better than their limp and grey pre-cooking appearance suggested. But they were...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 2 Comments •
December 13, 2009
Category: NOIBN
A scary but pretty funny accident happened in central Stockholm the other day. A work crew was drilling for a geothermal heat pump when suddenly the drill went into an open subterranean cavity. There wasn't supposed to be one there...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 4 Comments •
December 12, 2009
Category: NOIBN
You know these contrived situations you're supposed to imagine yourself in prior to discussing some problem of ethics?
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 18 Comments •
December 11, 2009
Category: Politics
In England, a libel case is always a major pain for the defendant regardless of whether he wins or not. He has to prove that he's innocent (!), the damages are 140 times as high as in other European countries, and even if you win it costs you huge sums of money.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 3 Comments •
December 10, 2009
Category: NOIBN
A family is a temporary thing. In practice, it's almost impossible to keep any sense of genealogical cohesion for more than three generations.
Posted by Martin R at 1:22 PM • 15 Comments •
December 9, 2009
Category: Archaeology
The July issue of Fornvännen has come on-line in all its free full-text glory less than six months after paper publication.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 1 Comments •
December 8, 2009
Category: Archaeology
The on-line version of Antiquity's winter issue (#322) was published just the other day. Here are some highlights (links to abstracts, papers then hidden by a pay wall):A pair of "ornamental trousers" found in an exceptionally well preserved 1st...
Posted by Martin R at 1:09 PM • 6 Comments •
December 4, 2009
Category: Archaeology
The eighty-first Four Stone Hearth blog carnival is on-line at Spider Monkey Tales. Catch the best recent blogging on archaeology and anthropology! Submissions for the next carnival will be sent to Krystal at Anthropology in Practice. All bloggers with an...
Posted by Martin R at 5:20 PM • 2 Comments •
Category: Archaeology
Magnus Alkarp's book concentrates on the two craziest periods in Old Uppsala's history of scholarship, the 17th century and then the 19th-20th centuries, leaving the comparatively rationalistic 18th century out.
Posted by Martin R at 11:17 AM • 12 Comments •
December 3, 2009
Category: History
There are few named Medieval artists. And they have acted as magnets for attribution of anonymous masterpieces.
Posted by Martin R at 10:10 AM • 6 Comments •
December 2, 2009
Category: Photography
[More blog entries about photography, frost; foto, frost.] More pix below the fold!...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 3 Comments •
December 1, 2009
Category: Health
The Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare has decided to change the rules. Gay men are now allowed to donate blood. If the last time they had sex with a man was more than a year ago.
Posted by Martin R at 8:47 AM • 17 Comments •
Category: Archaeology
The 81st Four Stone Hearth blog carnival will run at Spider Monkey Tales tomorrow, Wednesday. Submit great recent stuff to me or Michelle, your own or somebody else's. Anything anthro or archaeo goes! The carnival needs hosts. It's a great...
Posted by Martin R at 1:44 AM • 0 Comments •
denialism blog 02.14.2012
respectful insolence 02.14.2012
uncertain principles 02.13.2012
confessions of a science librarian 02.13.2012
starts with a bang! 02.13.2012
