Now on ScienceBlogs: The Laboratory at Harvard
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.
Category: Music
11-y-o Junior bought his first own album last Saturday: Mika's The Boy Who Knew Too Much. (My own first was Depeche Mode's Some Great Reward, bought at age 12 in '84 or '85). It's an excellent record once you've...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 4 Comments •
Category: Humour
In a somewhat less subculture-savvy move, an Internet service provider in Gothenburg has chosen to call itself GothNet. Nothing on their web site suggests that they have any inkling what "Goth" means to most English-speaking people today. The etymology...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 8 Comments •
Category: Humour
My friend Tor reports, "Complete Heyting algebras are a central object of study in pointless topology"....
Posted by Martin R at 12:18 PM • 1 Comments •
Category: Space
Stacy L. Mason is an Aard regular and a talented artist. Check out his awesome interpretation of the Swedish tardigrades that are going to Phobos! In other news, I have issues with the lyrics of the Kick-Ass Mystic Ninjas...
Posted by Martin R at 2:33 AM • 8 Comments •
Category: Health
Thanks to Felicia for the tip-off....
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 4 Comments •
Category: Humour
I really like the spam letters I get with the subject line "Hello Dear". Sometimes the spammer is even named Hello Dear. Here's the latest example.Hello dear how are you today i hope that every things is OK with you...
Posted by Martin R at 5:30 AM • 0 Comments •
Category: Archaeology
The conflict that drives the first two thirds of the long poem is centred upon certain problems King Hrothgar of the Danes has with his mead-hall "The Hart".
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 8 Comments •
Category: Humour
From 1980, a television appearance by the brilliant Tom Lehrer, where he performs a song that never made it onto any of his records back in the day. (I hear it's on the CD re-issue, though.) Via David Nessle....
Posted by Martin R at 4:23 PM • 6 Comments •
Category: Humour
A lesson in Swedish from the mall at Sickla. Last = noun from the verb lasta, "to load". In = in Fart = noun from the verb fara, "to travel", cf. "wayfarer" and "fare thee well". Load-in-travel. Delivery entrance....
Posted by Martin R at 8:27 AM • 13 Comments •
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 •
Category: Music
With thanks to Dear Reader Shelley, here's a 1969 French cover version of the Muppets' famed song: "Mais non, mais non", as written and sung by Henri Salvador....
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 1 Comments •
Category: Humour
My first wife had a cat named Cassandra, and she had a litter of three kittens. One was grey, black and white, and we called him Batman. Two were ginger, and I don't remember what we called them, but the...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 15 Comments •
Category: Language
In Chinese, polite figures of speech mark a distance.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 65 Comments •
Category: Biology
I am impressed by the gay dolphins' invention of nasal intercourse.
Posted by Martin R at 7:21 AM • 14 Comments •
Category: Humour
Conversing with a friend recently, I mused, what could be the background to the expression "batshit insane"? My friend suggested that it might have something to do with having bats in the belfry. I then wondered what the Swedish equivalent...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 30 Comments •
Category: Humour
I'm here to tell you there are lots of Christians who aren't anything like the preconceived notions you may have. We're not all into "turning the other cheek." We don't spend our days committing random acts of kindness for no...
Posted by Martin R at 4:24 AM • 2 Comments •
Category: Humour
So you're the principal of an English-language high school in Stockholm, Sweden. And you decide to put some serious money into an advertising campaign in the city's subway. Now, you want to express what we in Sweden call att...
Posted by Martin R at 12:49 PM • 28 Comments •
Category: Humour
I was contacted on Yahoo Messenger today by a chatbot named Alexandra Buford. She greeted me in a foreign language, so I thought it polite to reply likewise.Alexandra: yhneb martinrund Martin: yhneb Alexandra: Hi martinrund. it's Alexandra. Martin: yhneb Alexandra:...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 10 Comments •
Category: Humour
I take a childish pleasure from the fact that Shanghai International Airport is named Poo Dong -- snigger, snigger. Now, reading about tea, I find my scatological spot tickled further by the Poobong Tea Company in Calcutta. Poo bong. Stick...
Posted by Martin R at 4:39 AM • 3 Comments •
Category: Gaming
With kudos to Mattias who sent me the link, here are Stephen Lynch & Mark Teich performing a fine song about being a 14-y-o D&D-playing young man. To those of our readers who currently fit that description, let me...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 4 Comments •
Category: Humour
"When the fence is symbolic, the structural elements are often symbolic 'doorframes' made of wire."
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 11 Comments •
Category: Gaming
I got my driver's licence late, at age 22, because I wasn't interested in cars and didn't want to support automotive culture. When I finally did get myself a licence, it was because I was starting to feel embarrassed...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 6 Comments •
Category: Children
Yesterday my glorious daughter turned 5. Today my radiant son turned 10. In the maternity ward five years ago I quipped to the nurses, "The kids being born one day apart, I suppose I'm only fertile for one week each...
Posted by Martin R at 5:35 PM • 9 Comments •
Category: Humour
When was the last time you saw the Muppets perform "Mahna mahna"?...
Posted by Martin R at 5:50 AM • 19 Comments •
Category: Humour
Over at Podcastle, I just heard an amazing reading/performance of an amazing surrealist love story, "Fourteen Experiments in Postal Delivery". It was written by John Schoffstall, first published as text two years ago, and read by Heather Lindsley at Random...
Posted by Martin R at 1:32 PM • 1 Comments •
Category: Humour
Looking closer at this cover of a Chinese pirate edition of Disney's 1937 animated feature Snow White, we find a couple of fine Engrish phrases. "Latinum Edition" is pretty good. But wouldn't you agree that "Still the Fairest of...
Posted by Martin R at 12:45 PM • 8 Comments •
Category: Humour
I've posted a fine example of Ansiktsburk song lyrics before: listen to a song in a language you don't understand, and try to imagine that it is actually sung in your own language though with a funny accent. Then...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 8 Comments •
Category: Music
More good and witty UK rapping, this time a year-old hit from Dan le Sac vs Scroobius Pip. Thanks to Paddy K for the tip-off....
Posted by Martin R at 3:27 PM • 0 Comments •
Category: Humour
From UK rapper Elemental, an extremely witty song about tea with a funny video! Via Paddy K and Brass Goggles....
Posted by Martin R at 3:54 AM • 3 Comments •
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 •
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 •
Category: Archaeology
I know you are all secretely competing for who will have the pleasure of giving me an assistant professor's position.
Posted by Martin R at 8:50 AM • 14 Comments •
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...
Posted by Martin R at 3:15 AM • 18 Comments •
Category: Archaeology
Thanks to Nixxon for the tipoff....
Posted by Martin R at 4:52 AM • 1 Comments •
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...
Posted by Martin R at 8:56 AM • 4 Comments •
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...
Posted by Martin R at 4:25 PM • 2 Comments •
Category: Archaeology
Field archaeology has its perks, one of which is the interaction with the public.
Posted by Martin R at 8:50 AM • 1 Comments •
Category: Humour
Scandy readers will be very familiar with this. As we learned from "Hatten Är Din", "Ansiktsburk", "Fiskpinnar" and other Turk Hits back in 2000, you can get wonderfully absurd results if you listen to a song in a foreign language...
Posted by Martin R at 3:44 AM • 5 Comments •
Category: Humour
A lookalike of my future self: German musical singer Jerzy Jeske!
Posted by Martin R at 8:50 AM • 4 Comments •
Category: Archaeology
The ground level in the meadow has somehow risen 80 cm since the stones were put in place.
Posted by Martin R at 12:19 PM • 14 Comments •
Category: Archaeology
"Suddenly I saw the entire big picture. My measurements confirmed all theories. It was a highly exact solar clock and also a sacrificial site."
Posted by Martin R at 1:38 PM • 18 Comments •
Category: Archaeology
Archaeologists have an extremely strange worldview. We never simply see what's going on around us right now: we keep thinking about what a place would have looked like hundreds of years ago, or what it will look like in the...
Posted by Martin R at 4:24 PM • 0 Comments •
Category: Humour
It says here that the hero is wearing a piece of cod!
Posted by Martin R at 1:46 PM • 10 Comments •
Category: Archaeology
You've got to have long hair to take in the vibes.
Posted by Martin R at 8:50 AM • 16 Comments •
Category: Humour
"Oh my, that's a thick book! Is it maths?"
Posted by Martin R at 8:51 AM • 6 Comments •
Category: Skepticism
Richard Dawkins and meth-user cum charismatic preacher cum gay john Ted Haggard.
Posted by Martin R at 6:38 AM • 4 Comments •
Category: Sweden
It's straight, it's noisy and it stinks.
Posted by Martin R at 8:50 AM • 19 Comments •
Category: Humour
Satan laughing spreads his wings, as TV comedian Ozzy Osborne used to sing.
Posted by Martin R at 8:50 AM • 10 Comments •
Category: Humour
Professor Steve Steve is on tour in Scandinavia.
Posted by Martin R at 10:21 AM • 11 Comments •
Category: Humour
You of course know that there's a rare moss named Anomodon attenuatus.
Posted by Martin R at 4:09 PM • 15 Comments •
