NOIBN
Category archives for NOIBN
Is Peer Review 100%?
Posted by Martin R on March 15, 2010 Here’s a question for all of you journal editors and editorial board members out there. Does every single manuscript that your journal receives get the same peer-review treatment? Is there no pre-screening before stuff gets sent to reviewers, where patently kooky or ignorant contributions are killed on arrival? Is peer review 100%? Should it be?…
Fun with a Big Drill
Posted by Martin R on December 13, 2009 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 according to the plans they had been given for the job. When they tried to…
Locked Inside an Ethics Box
Posted by Martin R on December 12, 2009 You know these contrived situations you’re supposed to imagine yourself in prior to discussing some problem of ethics? I came across one in a recent Radiolab episode that reminded me of why I don’t like thinking inside those boxes. It’s wartime. You’re hiding in a cellar with your infant child and a bunch of other…
Mulled Wine and Waning Family Ties
Posted by Martin R on December 10, 2009 Around this time of year, Swedes like to throw little brief daytime parties with mulled wine and ginger bread cookies. Usually they’re on weekends, of course. In my mother’s family there’s been a tradition for decades of organising mulled-wine parties for the descendants of my maternal grandfather’s parents. This year my mom sent out invitations…
Laptop Day
Posted by Martin R on November 17, 2009 I’m enjoying one of my infrequent laptop days, that is, days during which it actually makes sense for me to tote such a device around. I type these words from the Konradsberg campus of the University of Stockholm. Konradsberg is a name that resonates in my city’s history, because it used to be one of…
I Got A Prime Time Spot
Posted by Martin R on November 1, 2009 If I had to take a paper newspaper, then I would like Dagens Nyheter’s news section, Svenska Dagbladet’s arts & entertainment section, no sports section and no business section. SvD is a conservative rag and some of its political columnists are really distasteful, but DN never gets anywhere near SvD’s coverage of the historical humanities.…
Fake Advertising Mom
Posted by Martin R on October 14, 2009 Autumn is starting to get nasty in Sweden, and immediately the Fake Advertising Mom pops up on billboards and in magazines. Sometimes she’s even part of a Fake Advertising Family. Here’s what I mean. I don’t claim 100% accuracy, but I believe I can usually tell on sight whether a woman has given birth and…
What Am I Doing Here?
Posted by Martin R on September 21, 2009 Yesterday’s paper sessions offered eleven presentations. I almost fell asleep several times. This was not mainly because four of the papers were in German and French which I have a hard time understanding when spoken quickly. The main reason was that few of my colleagues know how to perform an engaging presentation. Yes, you need…
Cordwood House
Posted by Martin R on September 14, 2009 Yesterday I joined my friend Dendro-Åke, his cousin and their charming wives to check out an example of an old exotic building technique near my home. On Skutudden Point near Baggensstäket (an area I keep writing about, it’s just full of history) are a number of little 19th century buildings along the shore, and at…
Urban Plastic Owl
Posted by Martin R on September 11, 2009 On my way to the Library of the Academy of Letters today I spied something unusual. Somebody on the second floor of Storgatan 30 is having pigeon trouble. They’ve studded the window ledge with nails and stuck a plastic owl to the front of the house. Those owls are pretty popular. My mom once found…
