Martin Rundkvist

Archaeologist, table-top gamer, book worm, punster, science fan, blogger, Leftie, LGBTQ ally, Swede

#archaeology #ttrpg #boardgames #books #science #blogging #left #stockholm #sweden

Blog: https://aardvarchaeology.wordpress.com/
Academia.edu: https://dot.academia.edu/MartinRundkvist
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=OqsOf74AAAAJ
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Rundkvist

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mrundkvist_at_archaeo.social@momostr.pink

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Last Notes

2026-04-16 16:34:23 UTC

I am a very poor mingler. I flee from mingling situations. It's very much not a question of me being shy. It's because it bores me to tears. I wonder how much of my career problems through the years have come down to the fact that it is impossible to kick back and have a beer with me.

2026-04-11 07:15:46 UTC

The Scandy languages like long sequences of consonants, and not just for reasons of coding non-Latin sounds with the Latin alphabet.
The SKS in Fisksätra, where I live, is a problem to many immigrants. But the place has a pet name in typical Stockholm style: Fiskis.
So a lot of people call it Fiskis-ätra.
#language

2026-03-31 15:24:07 UTC

Got so lucky with the weather on our hike today! Saw six cranes, four elk, one hare, lots of geese and fallow deer, and one picked-over fox carcass.
#spring #hiking

2026-03-09 06:30:09 UTC

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Please tell us more about the laser treatment. Is this like a surgical knife that automatically cauterises the incision?

2026-01-17 06:53:15 UTC

Immediately when an RPG is published, articles appear about how to tweak and modify the game and play it in variant ways. I find the whole idea exhausting. I just want to play the game in the most basic way, as written. I also avoid boardgame expansions. They always make the game longer and slower.
#ttrpg #boardgames

2026-01-17 06:38:35 UTC

#Goodmorning from dark, slushy, overcast Fisksätra. Today: #ttrpg prep, café meetup with #Wikipedia ns, dinner and game-master Coriolis at my friend's house. And you?

2025-12-19 10:00:06 UTC

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Hey Americans, did you know that in Scandinavia we don't even understand what "trust fund" or "putting our kids through college" means? Because everybody gets government-subsidised study loans, and there's no tuition fees.
#highered #socialism

2025-12-14 09:11:12 UTC

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Which book? Which one of my daughters are you inviting? 😄

2025-12-14 08:56:38 UTC

Next week:
* Apply for jobs
* Buy Christmas presents for my grownup kids
* Postcard writing event with the Writers' Union
* #Boardgames night
* #Ttrpg fan pub meetup
* #Wikipedia café meetup
* Portrait exhibition at the National Gallery
* Start playing the Mountain Witch RPG
And you?
#writing #art

2025-12-05 18:13:03 UTC

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It was a lot of fun to work with her stories!

2025-12-05 17:54:38 UTC

Kring 1 februari ger Hastur Förlag ut tio av Edith Nesbits kusliga, romantiska, roliga spökhistorier i min svenska översättning. Titeln är "En natt i lusthuset". Väldigt bra grejor!
#böcker #översättning
https://mstdn.archaeo.social/media_attachments/files/115/668/238/745/763/548/original/3cd72489b049d304.jpg

2025-11-16 18:36:48 UTC

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Read Joshi's biography, it's great! HPL was a little odd, but no loner.

2025-11-16 16:38:14 UTC

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HPL travelled a lot too, but only along the US eastern seaboard. He was too poor.

2025-10-30 09:07:15 UTC

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Unless these sites can read my IP number, but still not tell which country I'm in, then -- yes.

2025-10-30 08:18:48 UTC

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Tried two more free image location ID web sites with the same screenshotted pics from my buddy's balcony. So far three sites have been unable to pinpoint them correctly. All three have correctly identified the location as somewhere in the southern 1/3 of Scandinavia -- but indicated wildly erroneous coordinates in that region.
It seems the image recognition technology can recognise Scandy urban architecture in general, but not identify individual buildings.
#ai

2025-10-29 08:44:24 UTC

Tried the first Duckduckgo search hit on "image location ID", a site named Findpiclocation. Fed it two screenshotted pics from my buddy's balcony, no useful metadata. It got the location 500 km wrong; Copenhagen instead of Stockholm.
Even more confusingly, it got the name of the place wrong. Instead of the location it gave me coordinates for, it mentioned the Malmö suburb of Hyllie!?
#ai

2025-09-25 08:27:07 UTC

Stevenson's "Olalla" is about a family of Spanish grandees who have bred themselves into drooling idiocy.* Not sure yet if the idea is that they've practised incest or mingled with the peasantry. Either way, it doesn't make Stevenson look good at all.
* Sorry, I mean severe intellectual disability.
#books

2025-09-02 14:54:48 UTC

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A game of Brass is largely a race to occupy the building boxes on the board.

2025-07-22 08:01:46 UTC

The German term for ulta-processed foods is HOCHVERARBEITETE LEBENSMITTEL. ❤️
#language

2025-07-22 06:45:43 UTC

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I hit the pu-erh because I ran out of Assam and I'm not a fan of the Gray Jarl.

2025-07-22 06:09:40 UTC

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This brick is some high-end tourist shit with a smooth surface where you can't easily see the layering.

2025-07-22 05:55:42 UTC

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Terve! The closest I've been to Längelmäki is Jyväskylä. One of my buddies from #scifi fandom lives there. I have romantic ideas of summer in Finland because of Arto Paasilinna's novels.
CoC is a great game, though after a while you get kind uf used to immortal sorcerers and robed cultists. I have resigned myself to being the forever GM. It's the perfect pastime for a loud extrovert with a lonely job. #ttrpg

2025-07-22 05:39:00 UTC

I think I just put too large a chunk of pu-er #tea into my morning cup. You have to saw the brick up with a bread knife. Gonna be bouncing off the ceiling from all the #caffeine. No, the psychoactive substance in tea is no different from the one in #coffee.

2025-07-22 05:38:21 UTC

#Goodmorning from sunny Fisksätra. Today: translate Stevenson, #ttrpg prep, swim. And you?

2025-07-21 18:33:38 UTC

Here's an important message to religious people. The Creator of the Universe, to whom galaxies are like grains of sand, is extremely interested in what *you personally* do with your genitalia, and in whether they match the gender coding of *your personal* clothes.

2025-07-06 06:09:12 UTC

Talking about the brief correspondence between Lord Dunsany and Aleister Crowley offers a great opportunity to show people in the know that you are aware of the correct pronunciations of these names, while just confusing 95% of everyone who hears you talk.
#fantasy #occult

2025-06-29 13:53:07 UTC

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Well done, dad!

2025-05-09 10:31:47 UTC

I didn't understand the expression "the languages of culture" until I learned that there are pretty big languages without a dictionary, no newspapers, no novels, no stage plays. Swedish is a small and fairly late #language of culture.

2025-05-06 20:05:45 UTC

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Undrar vilka andra svenska myndigheter och organisationer som har fått det där brevet. Länsförsäkringar? Forum för Levande Historia? Kungliga Livgardet?

2025-05-06 19:22:20 UTC

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It's truly the time of the crazies and morons in the United States, enabled by the country's deplorable majority. The US embassy in #Stockholm, #Sweden, had sent an official demand to the City Planning Office that they cease all activities for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Or else the embassy will refuse to deal with the City Planning Office! "It's their loss", is the official response.

2025-05-06 11:36:06 UTC

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Did you know? The solo on Gerry Rafferty's 1979 hit "Night Owl" that sounds like an ocarina is actually a Lyricon, a rare and obscure 70s electronic wind instrument.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyricon
#music #rock #synth

2025-05-06 07:27:10 UTC

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I assume that you will be performing with a foil-wrapped cucumber stuck down the front of your spandex tights.

2025-05-06 07:23:46 UTC

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"It's *supposed* to be sexy!"

2025-05-06 07:07:15 UTC

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This research will lead straight to people marrying tardigrades!!! It must end!!!

2025-05-06 07:00:45 UTC

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Chronology, my friends! The de-domestication process will be long over before the era of the Corvid Scientists.

2025-05-06 06:50:43 UTC

It would be fascinating to follow the evolutionary de-domestication process of agricultural plants and animals after the end of human husbandry. Many strains and breeds probably wouldn't just die out, but the selection pressure on them after humans left them alone in the wild would be immense. What will wheat, bell peppers, potatoes, sheep, cows, chickens look like after being left to their own devices in habitats all around the planet for 200,000 years? Sadly no scientists will be around.

2025-05-06 05:59:38 UTC

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This guy also had a great explanation for why he had converted from prison Islam to 7th Day Adventism. Because Jesus was the only religious leader to come back from the dead! Yes, and Bilbo Baggins was the only hobbit to help kill a dragon.
#religion

2025-05-06 05:53:06 UTC

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A memory: an ex-convict carpenter has turned 7th Day Adventist and is trying to proselytise me and my wife. I ask why anyone should specifically believe in the writings of their prophet Ellen G. White (rather than someone else, or none). He is thrilled to have the answer! And gives us chapter and verse from the Bible about how women *can* be prophets. Which is beside the point.

2025-05-06 05:07:01 UTC

#Goodmorning from overcast Fisksätra. Today's deskwork, cycle into town, watch new documentary about Swedish policemen specially trained to defuse protest - counterprotest situations. What are you up to?

2025-05-05 19:47:56 UTC

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In the classroom?

2025-05-05 18:41:57 UTC

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Sure I am. Teaching a class is not an exchange of arguments between ostensible peers.

2025-05-05 17:22:21 UTC

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This is the moment when you see that you're engaged in discussion with someone who will not be able to understand who won the argument. You are effectively the only competent participant, and you might as well just talk to yourself.

2025-05-05 15:41:46 UTC

You know the pleased smile on the face of someone who isn't super smart, and isn't very good at following a line of argument, when they remember a rehearsed stratagem and prepare to deliver it? Only it's not actually relevant to the discusdion? It's just vaguely linked to the *theme* of the discussion? That smile. So fucking depressing.

2025-05-05 06:03:44 UTC

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What are you #reading? I'm in the middle of Pratchett's "Witches Abroad" and Mitchell's "Ghostwritten". One on paper, one on pixels is my rule these days.
#books

2025-05-05 05:37:56 UTC

#Goodmorning from sunny Fisksätra. Today I start writing the finds discussion for the Gotland fieldwork report, that is, its core scientific content. Also nap and bike ride. What are you up to?

2025-05-03 07:49:24 UTC

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*high five*

2025-05-03 07:43:22 UTC

Insanity in three Swedish expressions:
* Skogstokig: so crazy that you're running around blindly in the woods.
* Bindgalen: so crazy that you have to be tied up.
* Karltokig: crazy about men.
#language #mentalhealth

2025-05-03 07:41:23 UTC

Swedish expression: haschtomte, "weed gnome", a confused ridiculous stoner.
#language #cannabis

2025-05-03 05:47:21 UTC

What would you do if you got a salary for five years of full-time research? Here's what I did.
https://aardvarchaeology.wordpress.com/2025/05/03/taking-stock-of-five-years-research/
#academia #science #archaeology

2025-05-02 10:16:12 UTC

Another unexpected job found: I searched for "archeo", the American spelling, on a Danish site. And got one hit, for a job as a fashion model.
"Are you a smiling, outgoing guy who’d like to work with a successful e-commerce business while getting experience in front of the camera? Then you might just be one of Trendhim’s new House Models! We're looking for fresh new faces for collection shoots, product images, and marketing campaigns."
#archaeology
https://mstdn.archaeo.social/media_attachments/files/114/437/715/466/222/293/original/abbc62b13c3b0b0c.png

2025-05-02 05:45:11 UTC

Searching for jobs involving #archaeology, I'm confused to find a job ad for temporary daycare staff in Karlskoga. Turns out there's a Kindergarten there named "The Archaeologist".

2025-05-02 05:15:45 UTC

#Goodmorning from Fisksätra. Today's check for job ads, work on the fieldwork report from Gotland, maybe lunch with old dad, shop for food, cook dinner for nine, game-master Delta Green. What are you up to?

2025-05-01 20:06:45 UTC

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Jag är inte så krävande, jag kunde ha nöjt mig med sonen Jeff som också är död.

2025-05-01 19:29:21 UTC

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Och de hade med sig Elizabeth Fraser! Och hon sjöng "Song to the Siren" som extranummer! ❤️

2025-05-01 19:27:39 UTC

I år har Rosendal Garden Party lyckats med konststycket att inte boka en enda akt som 52-53-årig kulturvänster med kedjehus i Nacka vill höra. Förra året drämde de till med både Massive Attack och Cardigans, så då var det nästan övertydligt vem de ville locka.
(Självklart skulle jag ha gått på Kraftwerk om det hade varit sättningen från 1978.)
#stockholm

2025-04-30 11:59:29 UTC

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The first three pieces were found at the site before 1935. And the fourth was found two weeks ago.

2025-04-30 11:29:18 UTC

We recently found the fourth from the site of these rods from the hinges at the rear of neck rings, c. AD 500.
#archaeology
https://mstdn.archaeo.social/media_attachments/files/114/426/673/907/005/359/original/98b43e0efab9fcfc.jpg

2025-04-30 11:16:09 UTC

Det är väldigt roligt att Nynningens utmärkta låt "För Full Hals" från 1973 har en starkt kommunistrevolutionär och arbetarromantisk text, som samtidigt uppvisar en total brist på feministisk medvetenhet.
"Dom belönas med stålar och popularitet
För att föra ut sin förljugenhet
Men jag är ärligt talat inte ute efter klöver
En nytvättad skjorta är allt vad jag behöver"
https://genius.com/Nynningen-for-full-hals-lyrics
#socialism #feminism #rock

2025-04-30 08:22:42 UTC

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One very widespread part of the #Chinese #diaspora hails from the poor mountain region of Qingtian in Zhejiang province south of Shanghai. My mother-in-law grew up there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qingtian_County

2025-04-30 08:11:23 UTC

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The Chinese are extremely good at staying Chinese for generations in the diaspora. But though my daughter looks like her mother, she speaks very little Chinese and is culturally a mainstream member of the Swedish middle class. It would surprise me if she married a Chinese-speaking man. More likely my wife will be remembered 100 years from now as the single Chinese ancestor of a bunch of unusually handsome vanilla Swedes.

2025-04-30 07:46:06 UTC

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I think you're skirting the issue of your performance as Minister of Defence.

2025-04-30 07:45:19 UTC

A sign of cultural integration. Fisksätra has been home to a Greek colony since the tenements were built in the early 1970s. But now the local Greek Association has disbanded, and nobody sells souvlaki at the Walpurgis bonfire. Apparently because the grandchildren are no longer Greeks. And not living in tenements.
#integration #migration #immigration

2025-04-30 07:27:03 UTC

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Well, she loves him anyway!

2025-04-30 07:20:06 UTC

Love national celebrity news from countries I have poor knowledge of. I have absolutely no idea who these two are, but congrats to them!
https://mstdn.archaeo.social/media_attachments/files/114/425/698/177/895/228/original/0af96449babcbf95.png

2025-04-30 05:32:43 UTC

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The proponents of a theoretical fad movement always consider themselves to be the rebels. (-;

2025-04-30 05:28:16 UTC

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I am protected from such things by my stance, consistent since first-year undergrad days, of cynicism and disdain for theoretical fad movements. In my life, I have systematically scorned every major theoretical movement in archaeology from Binford 1962 on. It's not a great way to make friends with the members of these movements.
#archaeology

2025-04-30 05:22:24 UTC

The Library of the Academy of Letters currently have a big giveaway of books and pamphlets, many of them issued by the National Heritage Board decades ago.
It's strange to be so old in my field now that publications from campaigns and fad movements in archaeological theory and cultural resource management that I've seen come and go are now 20, 30 years old. Earnest slogans shouted from the covers of dusty, faded old pamphlets.

2025-04-29 06:46:57 UTC

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It was a major change with each of our kids when they quit napping at Kindergarten around age 3. Suddenly they were sleepy in the evenings.

2025-04-29 06:44:36 UTC

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How old is your daughter? Ours is 21, a happy engineering student at a distant university.

2025-04-29 05:37:31 UTC

#Goodmorning from sunny Fisksätra. Today: work on Gotland fieldwork report, cycle to archaeology library and check some literature for a Łódź colleague, cycle hom, dinner, cycle to Left Party's local HQ to learn about what our representatives on the municipal council are doing to make the Conservative majority back out of the chaotic situation their decisions have created in public transport. You will note that I'm cycling to town. It's currently faster and more dependable.
What are you up to?

2025-04-28 20:59:54 UTC

Love the footnote in Pratchett's Witches Abroad about the misspelled curse that caused everything a certain man touched to turn into Glod. ♥️
#books #fantasy #humour
https://mstdn.archaeo.social/media_attachments/files/114/417/597/758/711/395/original/c1c22933d27d9a5a.jpg

2025-04-28 11:34:23 UTC

Det skulle stärka SD:s nationalistiska trovärdighet mycket om de enbart utsåg fortroendevalda födda inom det medeltida Sveriges gränser. D.v.s. ytterst få i den nuvarande partiledningen. Det är t.ex. uppenbart ur nationalistisk synvinkel att ingen som är född i Blekinge eller Skåne kan vara en äkta svensk.
#svpol #historia #nationalism
https://mstdn.archaeo.social/media_attachments/files/114/415/367/947/467/321/original/d284de1fc55f7f68.png

2025-04-28 11:07:45 UTC

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Kan bero på att du har liberala åsikter. Inte "liberala".

2025-04-28 10:41:43 UTC

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Hur brukar det gå till när ett regeringsparti byter ordförande under mandatperioden? Kliver den nya ordföranden direkt in på samma ministerpost?
#svpol

2025-04-28 08:03:45 UTC

Did my taxes. Not complicated. But I'm still waiting for the refund after 4 years and 2 months of being an honest citizen and paying income tax in two EU countries on the same salary. *sigh*

2025-04-21 10:31:14 UTC

Sverigedemokratiska politiker uttrycker sig gärna med lite felanvända ålderdomliga ord. Det slog mig just att det är samma sak som när nyrika människor klär sig i lite för vräkiga märkeskläder, för att de inte kan koderna i den gamla, obekymrat lufsigt klädda överklassen.

2025-04-17 14:16:18 UTC

OK, it's true. Any fair judge looking at my #career will have to admit that I didn't amass a lot of pension points and I didn't teach #archaeology to very many future librarians and bus drivers.
#academia #failure

2025-04-17 05:26:13 UTC

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Detta är ju Delta Green!

2025-04-17 05:15:57 UTC

#Goodmorning from Fisksätra. Beginning my day as so often currently with exasperated disgust over the stupid and ignorant of this world, I plan to translate some 19th century Scottish fiction and then travel to Gothenburg to attend Sweden's oldest gaming convention, #GothCon. What are you up to?

2025-04-16 11:04:40 UTC

Flesh means both muscle tissue and skin. Swedish doesn't have a word that covers both. Our cognate of flesh, fläsk, means pork.
#language

2025-04-16 07:12:58 UTC

A fun part of fieldwork, and something my kids used to remark on, is that when I come home I bring unfamiliar leftover food from the expedition fridge: products that we never buy ourselves.
#archaeology #food

2025-04-03 08:53:16 UTC

#Tolkien 's earliest Middle-Earth fiction again from 1917:
Melko hears that there's this one guy hiking along the river Sirion. He responds to this by sending "a mighty army of spies" to look for the guy. Huh?

2025-04-03 06:44:38 UTC

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Did you classify the lithics as well?

2025-04-03 06:40:55 UTC

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Neat! Where is this, please?

2025-04-03 06:36:13 UTC

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You mean, cold climate = no people?

2025-04-03 05:29:20 UTC

#Goodmorning from Fisksätra. Warm and sunny. I'm writing about a nearby failed computer factory, driving my dad and his wife, collecting my archaeology periodicals from their house, putting it all in my new shelf cases, translating Stevenson and welcoming my ex's dog who's staying with us for a few days while her mistress travels. What are you up to?

2025-04-03 05:23:14 UTC

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Vad kul! Jag har tyvärr ingen aning. Jag var hyfsad på 2D-GIS för 30 år sedan, men jag har inte hängt med sedan dess. Jag gör mina kartor i Google My Maps...
Är det en sagovärld du skall göra jordglob till?

2025-04-02 18:26:55 UTC

Organised my archaeology library. Two shelf cases are Iron Age and periodical suites, one case is Bronze Age, Historical archaeology and multiperiod / methodology.
#archaeology #books #libraries

2025-04-02 09:36:21 UTC

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Syftar namnet på de där experimenten där amerikanska forskare matade spindlar med olika slags knark för att se hur det gick för dem med nätspinneriet?

2025-04-01 08:30:31 UTC

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50°N! *the absolute ENVY*

2025-04-01 08:26:26 UTC

I suffer from moderate autumnal depression. Not enough to keep me from working, but I'm really morose around 1 December. It's the shortening days. I live at 59°N.
One of the few luxuries I allowed myself through many years of looking for precarious academic jobs was to never apply for anything north of 64°N.
I have now expanded this policy: never north of 61°N.

2025-04-01 07:57:00 UTC

Look at this promo photo from a Swedish organisation's web site. In the hallways, everyone walks smiling in the same direction, evenly distributed across the floor space, not interacting with each other. 😁
https://mstdn.archaeo.social/media_attachments/files/114/261/627/849/432/365/original/d8e3186f3648f1d2.png

2025-03-28 05:55:59 UTC

#Goodmorning from Fisksätra. Today's reading for work, translate Stevenson, a drive to the garden centre for planting soil and manure, replace some of the depleted soil in the section of the rose bed I freed up yesterday, transplant the old Ingrid Bergman rose from the back yard where the deer keep messing it up. What are you up to?
#gardening #roses #translation

2025-03-27 08:39:40 UTC

This is shaping up to be perhaps my best #writing week ever. I've started and finished popular article A, finished and submitted journal paper B, approved the proofs for journal paper C and received a journal issue containing paper D.
#academia

2025-03-26 20:51:29 UTC

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The garden allotments near my multicultural housing area is very popular with residents from all around the world.
I've even heard rumours of #Chinese former farmers who rent several allotments and grow unusual vegetables commercially for Stockholm restaurants.
#chinesefood

2025-03-26 18:40:43 UTC

Question about the US election system.
I gather that the two-party system and the 50/50 nature of federal-level elections are artefacts of first-past-the-goal-post ballot counting.
My question: why does the same mechanism not operate on the state level? Why did e.g. the Wyoming presidential election 2024 turn out 72/26?

2025-03-26 14:49:14 UTC

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Try everything once: except incest, country dancing and spinach custard.

2025-03-26 14:45:28 UTC

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Dog race and horse race do not mean dog breed and horse breed.

2025-03-26 09:15:28 UTC

Talking about #racism in Swedish is extremely difficult for a simple reason of #language. "Ras", the Swedish cognate of "race" does not mean "ethnic/cultural group of people". It means "dog breed". So unlike in English, where race can mean "family", "tribe" or "nation", the Swedish word "rasism" has an indelible connotation of genetics. Dog breedism.
1/2

2025-03-26 08:11:55 UTC

300 bags. #Tea porn.
https://mstdn.archaeo.social/media_attachments/files/114/227/721/830/764/413/original/7474e705fbff4df4.jpg