How Is Energy Consumption Moderated In A Car?
Category: Tech
Where is the "switch" that allows the alternator to suck less energy out of the tank when I turn off my wipers?
Posted by Martin R at 4:37 AM • 15 Comments •
Aardvarchaeology
Martin Rundkvist's blog. Archaeology, skepticism, Sweden. And books and music and stuff.
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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.
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Blogroll
Tech:
2011 Enlightener & Obscurantist Awards
Category: Skepticism
The Board for the Environment of Mora and Orsa municipalities receives the Obscurantist of the Year anti-award, as it has disregarded scientific knowledge when dealing with so-called electromagnetic hypersensitivity.
Posted by Martin R at 3:33 AM • 10 Comments •
Take Cover, Yacht Cover Aloft
Category: Photography
You might want to weigh the winter cover for your boat down with water tanks.
Posted by Martin R at 1:57 PM • 1 Comments •
How To Plot A Coordinate Dataset In Google Maps
Category: Tech
As an archaeologist I often need to plot coordinates on maps and plans. At every scale, really: from individual finds on the plan of an excavation trench to the distribution of something across Europe.
Posted by Martin R at 3:37 PM • 12 Comments •
Boat Carriers
Category: Archaeology
The yachting club's boat lift reminded me of a motif in Bronze Age rock art: the boat carrier.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 8 Comments •
I Don't Give A Damn About My Apple Products
Category: Tech
"Aha", I hear you say, "this is one of those 'PC is better than Mac' screeds". Not so.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 12 Comments •
Rode A Paunchy Plane
Category: Tech
The rear undercarriage sits in bulky pods on the fuselage, right below the wings. Makes the plane look like it's got a beer gut.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 2 Comments •
Neal Stephenson's Subterranean Orgy Computer
Category: Books
"He could see the nanosites in his skin. But for all he knew, he might have a million more living in his brain now, piggybacking on axons and dendrites, sending data to one another in flashes of light. A second brain intermingled with his own."
Posted by Martin R at 7:41 AM • 6 Comments •
I Hate the Great Firewall
Category: China
I am unable to access Twitter, Facebook, any Blogspot blog and often most of Google's services including Gmail.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 12 Comments •
Recent Sb Flakiness Caused by DDoS Attacks
Category: Blogging
Dear Bloggers, We have been forwarding reports from bloggers and users to our hosting service, Rackspace, over the past few days. After monitoring our traffic and these reports, Rackspace has determined that ScienceBlogs is experiencing a distributed denial of service...
Posted by Martin R at 2:49 PM • 2 Comments •
A Narrowed Social Horizon at Facebook
Category: Tech
Have you noticed that you are only seeing updates in your Facebook feed from the same few people lately?
Posted by Martin R at 3:25 AM • 6 Comments •
Wikileaks' Non-Mountainous Non-Bunker
Category: Tech
We're told that Wikileaks is "partly hosted on a server in Sweden that is lodged in a former nuclear bunker drilled deep inside the White Mountains". This confused be for a moment, since there is no mountain range of that name in Sweden.
Posted by Martin R at 3:34 AM • 7 Comments •
Eager For Better E-Book Deals
Category: Books
I want to buy unprotected e-books from on-line book stores for about half of what a paperback copy costs on-line. I don't want to "borrow" the files, and I don't want to pirate them. But nor do I want to get ripped off.
Posted by Martin R at 2:44 PM • 12 Comments •
Rode Some Planes
Category: Tech
The movements of EU bureaucrats has created a market for short plane hops anchored in Brussels, and so the cheapest way for the rest of us to move about by air in Western Europe is often to join the briefcase carriers and change planes in Belgium.
Posted by Martin R at 10:35 AM • 5 Comments •
Synthesiser Mind-Meld
Category: Music
A vintage 80s synthesizer hooked up to a recently released EEG game controller, which allows the combo's creator to change the pitch of the synth's output with his thoughts.
Posted by Martin R at 3:41 AM • 4 Comments •
School Girls Fined for Placing Teacher Break Room Under Electronic Surveillance
Category: Children
Reports Swedish Broadcasting, Dagens Eko:When two school girls in the 13-16 years age bracket found a lost key ring for their school's teacher break room, they had an idea. They bought simple audio surveillance equipment in a tech store, waited...
Posted by Martin R at 3:27 AM • 12 Comments •
Junior Live-Streams His Video Gaming Sessions
Category: Children
It's like a crowd of kids in front of a gaming console and a TV set, lounging in the living room and watching one kid play a game -- only they're all on different continents.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 3 Comments •
Free Books in My Phone
Category: Books
Whenever I like I can get books for free over the net from within the e-reader: either old ones whose copyright has expired, or newly written ones with a Creative Commons licence.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 5 Comments •
Holographic Radar Detector Images Underground Metal Objects
Category: Archaeology
Still in the prototype stage, this technology will image underground metal objects in 3D.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 7 Comments •
Twitter Conversations Scare Off Followers
Category: Tech
If I subscribe to a Twitter feed and discover that it's full of banal lines from one-on-one conversations, I just unsubscribe.
Posted by Martin R at 9:19 AM • 7 Comments •
Swype: Fast Text Input for Android
Category: Tech
It seems I've found the solution, that allows me to type fast. Swype is an input method where you write each word by drawing a continuous line on the soft keyboard from key to key.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 2 Comments •
Swedish Heritage in Your Smartphone
Category: Archaeology
The National Heritage Board of Sweden has released a beta version of a location-aware heritage-data browser for Android. The name is Kringla Mobil.
Posted by Martin R at 1:23 PM • 7 Comments •
Facebook Fail
Category: Tech
Facebook has turned up security a notch and effectively locked me out when I'm on the road. I have hundreds of Fb contacts that I don't actually know and wouldn't recognise if I met them in the street. Mention their...
Posted by Martin R at 3:03 AM • 10 Comments •
Trainblogging
Category: Tech
It's been more than four years since the first time I blogged about how cool it is to have broadband on a train. But I still haven't gotten over it. Trainblogging again! The sun is shining and Södermanland zips past...
Posted by Martin R at 6:51 AM • 12 Comments •
Tech Note: Android Smartphone
Category: Tech
I recently switched from a smartphone running Windows Mobile to one running the open-source operating system Android put out by Google. Here are some impressions after two weeks of use.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 13 Comments •
Finnish Mail to Scan Paper Mail and Email It
Category: Tech
Finnish Mail are opening all the mail, scanning it, sending it to the villagers of Andersböle by e-mail and then delivering the paper originals only twice a week.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 9 Comments •
I Axed My Heat Pump and Now It Works Again
Category: Homeownership
I took the hood off the thing, removed the rotor and hacked away the ice, taking care not to bash the fine heat-exchange lamelles.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 17 Comments •
Ice Buildup Under Heat Pump
Category: Homeownership
A heat pump dribbles water through a spigot on the under side. It's been an unusually cold winter, and so the water has collected as ice on the ground beneath the box, building up layer by layer until it made contact with the casing and blocked the spigot.
Posted by Martin R at 12:41 PM • 13 Comments •
Tech Note: Help Me Choose a Smartphone
Category: Tech
What model smartphone are you using, Dear Reader? Are you happy with it? What should I get?
Posted by Martin R at 1:55 PM • 14 Comments •
Golf Ball Autopsy
Category: Tech
Not everyone knows what's inside a golf ball. I do. Or I thought I did.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 38 Comments •
Is the Karmic Release Ubuntu's Vista?
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 •
Obsolete Portable Music Players
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 •
Laptop Day
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 •
Information Longevity Talk in Gothenburg
Category: Tech
On Tuesday 17 November 17:30 I'm giving a talk as part of Mathias Klang's information security course at the University of Gothenburg. The theme is "Årtusendenas glömska: arkivsäkring i det riktigt långa perspektivet", which may hint to the intelligent...
Posted by Martin R at 8:00 AM • 4 Comments •
Upgrading Ubuntu Linux is Risky
Category: Tech
Hear me, Ubuntu-using brothers and sisters! Never use the on-line upgrade option to switch to a newer version of the operating system! In little more than two years, it has trashed my setup twice, once killing the machine outright, and...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 42 Comments •
Goodbye to ICQ
Category: Tech
I've been on the instant messaging service ICQ daily since 1997. Last week, though, my entry in some database apparently got screwed up, so my password no longer works and I can't get the retrieval mechanism to send me a...
Posted by Martin R at 9:22 AM • 0 Comments •
Weekend Fun
Category: Tech
Saturday me and the kids went on an unusual package tour. First we took the 1903 steam ship Mariefred from Stockholm to Mariefred, and got to visit the engine room while the machine was working. Mariefred is a small...
Posted by Martin R at 2:51 PM • 14 Comments •
Tech Note: Our Crappy Computers
Category: Tech
I find it a bit infuriating the way old computers become unpredictable.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 18 Comments •
Air Source Heat Pump
Category: Tech
An air source heat pump makes your house into a fridge turned inside out.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 20 Comments •
Course on IT Society's Vulnerabilities
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 •
Mapping Swedes and Geats
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 •
Elusive Randomness
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 •
Windows Mobile Media Player is Crap
Category: Tech
My switch from the iPod of course led to a huge drop in the ease of use.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 7 Comments •
Walls Impede Wifi
Category: Tech
The bandwidth of a wifi connection is extremely sensitive to obstacles.
Posted by Martin R at 9:03 AM • 5 Comments •
Finally On-Line Again
Category: Homeownership
After a bit less than a month's wait our new house is finally on-line! The winter of our off-line discontent dissolvèd made glorious broadband summer. So far only at 11 Mbps when we were promised at least 12, but the...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 10 Comments •
Wikipedia Eight Years Old
Category: Tech
Today's the eighth birthday of that excellent open on-line encyclopedia, Wikipedia.
Posted by Martin R at 4:52 PM • 8 Comments •
Aard's Second Blogiversary
Category: Blogging
I'm still having fun and hope you are too!
Posted by Martin R at 10:42 AM • 6 Comments •
No More Pocket Calendar
Category: Tech
Two weeks ago I left my pocket calendar on my desk at the Academy of Letters where I only work one day a week. This was inconvenient as I rely entirely on the calendar to remember what I'm supposed...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 20 Comments •
Death in the Age of Facebook
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 •
Email Ghosts
Category: Tech
I correspond with a lot of people and my email program remembers them all. Every time I type in the first few letters of an address, Thunderbird suggests a list of people it thinks I might want to write to....
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 3 Comments •
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