Now on ScienceBlogs: The Galaxy's Biggest Valentine
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.
Category: NOIBN
The t-shirt deal is starting to look like a Nigerian scam. The original offer was that I would get some free printed t-shirts from Ooshirts.com if I advertised about their site. Now have a load of this:Do you have an...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 10 Comments •
Category: NOIBN
I looked up and there was this century-old two-masted sailing ship.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 12 Comments •
Category: NOIBN
Littering really annoys me, indoors, in the streets, in parks - and particularly in woods and wilderness. My whole family often collects bagfuls of garbage on walks or visits to the lake. I can't understand the mind of a person...
Posted by Martin R at 8:56 AM • 25 Comments •
Category: NOIBN
Geocaching is a GPS-aided combination of hide the Easter egg and orienteering for internet nerds. I have logged >700 caches since 2005 and had lots of fun. Borås Tidning now reports about a not terribly thoughtful geocacher. He had...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 6 Comments •
Category: NOIBN
2011 Having completed our first twelve years together today, my wonderful wife and I have agreed to go on for at least another dozen. 1999...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 19 Comments •
Category: NOIBN
Dear Reader, what are YOU waiting for?
Posted by Martin R at 3:05 AM • 22 Comments •
Category: NOIBN
I don't know about you, Dear Reader, but I think these lilac-coloured concrete hogbacks outside of the Nacka Forum mall's rear entrance look extremely gay. As Azar Habib put it in his hit "Hatten Är Din", Det tycker vi...
Posted by Martin R at 10:16 AM • 12 Comments •
Category: NOIBN
Plans and elevations by architect Ulf Gillberg of my dad's octagonal sauna.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 6 Comments •
Category: NOIBN
My old buddy, Aard regular Hi33y, spotted something worth taking a picture of Tuesday night in Birmingham. Not only have I apparently been canonised, I am also the owner of a Brummie rag market! Yesterday at Landvetter airport near...
Posted by Martin R at 4:37 AM • 4 Comments •
Category: NOIBN
I'm angry and confused. Death has never hit this close to home with me before. Anders was one of my best friends, a frequent guest at my table. I knew him for over 20 years. And now he's dead...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 15 Comments •
Category: NOIBN
Lately I have learned a few things about how to put an octagonal roof onto a two-story building.
Posted by Martin R at 1:52 PM • 11 Comments •
Category: Biology
I found Vanished Ocean to be a lively, engaging and solidly informative read, which even manages to make deep-ocean sedimentology look pretty exciting.
Posted by Martin R at 3:08 PM • 0 Comments •
Category: NOIBN
Across all of child-bearing age humanity, what is the normal attitude to getting sexually penetrated? Is it yes please or no thanks?
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 16 Comments •
Category: NOIBN
Universities in many European and Asian countries offer an upgrade to your PhD that turns the owner into a habilitated doctor, that is, someone who is allowed to teach PhD students. In Sweden, the recipient of the upgrade is called a docent.
Posted by Martin R at 8:38 AM • 24 Comments •
Category: NOIBN
These sinkholes are the same kind of geological feature as the cenotes into which the Maya sacrificed people, gold, jade and copal resin.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 7 Comments •
Category: NOIBN
In order not to get harassed by religious bigots, I'm not telling you which Mohammed I have made a likeness of.
Posted by Martin R at 10:26 AM • 25 Comments •
Category: NOIBN
I've been staying away from Twitter for fear that it would eat my life. But I guess I have at least to try it. So, Dear Reader, feel free to follow my tweets! And tell me who I should follow....
Posted by Martin R at 5:03 PM • 12 Comments •
Category: NOIBN
Dear Reader, you need to listen to the Drabblecast. I just listened to the latest episode and was completely blown away by the vast amount of work, wit and musical talent that goes into each episode. Norm Sherman is like...
Posted by Martin R at 3:42 PM • 1 Comments •
Category: NOIBN
After about twelve years of regular use my Braun 5515 sounded like a chainsaw, so I decided to buy a new electric shaver. Mind you, I had repeatedly replaced all the bits I could: the mesh, often; the knife, several...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 24 Comments •
Category: NOIBN
Some time around 20 March each year, my part-time employers in The Royal Swedish Academy of Letters celebrate the 1753 foundation of the Academy. This gives me a rare reason to dress in tails. And I now look forward to...
Posted by Martin R at 11:57 AM • 22 Comments •
Category: NOIBN
Is there no pre-screening before stuff gets sent to reviewers, where patently kooky or ignorant contributions are killed on arrival?
Posted by Martin R at 8:05 AM • 8 Comments •
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 •
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 •
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 •
Category: NOIBN
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.
Posted by Martin R at 5:42 AM • 3 Comments •
Category: NOIBN
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...
Posted by Martin R at 4:11 PM • 14 Comments •
Category: Children
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,...
Posted by Martin R at 2:02 PM • 47 Comments •
Category: Travel
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...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 11 Comments •
Category: NOIBN
It's a bit like brick masonry, only you use cordwood instead of bricks and clay daub instead of mortar. And you always orientate the wood perpendicular to the wall.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 3 Comments •
Category: NOIBN
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...
Posted by Martin R at 2:53 PM • 10 Comments •
Category: NOIBN
Yesterday I had a clear illustration of how the brain determines the direction of a noise. I was listening to a podcast in ear buds when my wife asked me something. I took one bud out and talked to her...
Posted by Martin R at 8:25 AM • 8 Comments •
Category: NOIBN
If you look up an organisation on Wikipedia, then the article will be pretty useless if it's written by people with any sort of passionate relationship to that organisation. If they hate it, if they love it, they're not the right people to write about it.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 29 Comments •
Category: NOIBN
A woman in New Hampshire allegedly bludgeons her eight-months pregnant friend to death. Then she performs an amateur C-section on her victim, delivers the baby and assumes maternal responsibilities for it. After a week she and the baby girl, who...
Posted by Martin R at 4:53 AM • 0 Comments •
Category: NOIBN
Geocaching is a fun nerdy outdoors hobby where you hide tupperware under boulders in the woods and publish their GPS coordinates on the web for other geeks to go look for the tupperware. Sometimes when you look for geocaches in...
Posted by Martin R at 3:16 PM • 8 Comments •
Category: Children
The readers are not closely emulating their parents' life decisions, and they spawn regardless of whether they are in the middle of their studies or not.
Posted by Martin R at 8:24 AM • 0 Comments •
Category: NOIBN
I intentionally stay away from Twitter. Too many internet-related things already fracture my concentration and keep me from reading books. I go only so far as to update my Facebook status a few times a week. But for those of...
Posted by Martin R at 3:38 AM • 0 Comments •
Category: NOIBN
Is the length of your education significantly different from that of your parents?
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 39 Comments •
Category: NOIBN
Yesterday I inadvertently offended the Sb Overlords in an interesting way. Since I came on board 2½ years ago we've had a series of handlers or "community managers" who have all been competent, charming women. Punning a little, I have...
Posted by Martin R at 4:35 AM • 17 Comments •
Category: NOIBN
6% of applicants get grants from the Swedish National Bank's Centenary Fund.
Posted by Martin R at 2:54 PM • 5 Comments •
Category: NOIBN
I've been working as a consulting editor for the Royal Academy of Letters for almost a decade, most of that time from home. But since 2006 I've had an office at Academy headquarters in a quiet part of Stockholm....
Posted by Martin R at 9:56 AM • 9 Comments •
Category: NOIBN
Who is responsible for a package? The sender or the volunteer messenger who carries it? Do they perhaps have a joint responsibility? This issue has led to quite a number of arguments between me and my wife over the years,...
Posted by Martin R at 1:37 PM • 45 Comments •
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 •
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: NOIBN
On the problems of applying bibliometric assessments and Open Access practices in the humanities.
Posted by Martin R at 8:48 AM • 8 Comments •
Category: NOIBN
A house I have been asked to check in on over the holiday season was burgled last night along with two neighbouring houses. I've been on the phone to the police and the window repairman, and then I've been showing...
Posted by Martin R at 8:16 AM • 11 Comments •
Category: NOIBN
My friend of twenty years, retired broadcaster Lars Erik Åström, died the other day of cancer at age 69. Too soon by far: he has young grandchildren and he was a very good man without whom the world is worse....
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 2 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: Tech
"In the morning I left voice mail messages to call me on my mother's and sister's numbers. As I came in to work I saw S still logged in to his Skype account, where he'd left it going for his...
Posted by Martin R at 2:40 AM • 4 Comments •
Category: NOIBN
You know the Iggy & Stooges track "Penetration"? The one where Iggy sounds like he might be the penetratee rather than the penetrator? Now, I want you to imagine me singing that song, only with the word "affiliation" rather...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 15 Comments •
Category: NOIBN
I'm at the first Swedish Wikipedia Academy conference in Lund. Yesterday I did a talk on inclusionism vs. deletionism (vs. mergism) on the online encyclopedia (text available on-line in Swedish). Above is my audience who asked a lot of...
Posted by Martin R at 5:37 AM • 8 Comments •
casaubon's book 02.13.2012
denialism blog 02.13.2012
respectful insolence 02.13.2012
evolutionblog 02.12.2012
starts with a bang! 02.11.2012
