It seems progressive and social democratic politicians are at a loss over how to win elections and gain popularity, so here are my tips. 1. Increase taxes for the rich. 2. Stop subsidies to companies making huge profits. 3. Invest in social welfare programmes like education, health care, and […]

Mars Red Sky -- "Up The Stairs" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJmuQ2WfE4M #psychedelic

Every few months now I re-read this "Who Goes Nazi?" piece from 1941 and am blown away by how it captures the people we are dealing with 80 years later. harpers.org/archive/1941...

I'm bringing two games to this weekend's convention, Nördhelg Norrtälje. Come play Pergamon and Vaesen with an archaeologist! #archaeology #ttrpg

"... den största gruppen av bidragstagare ensamstående män utan barn. Det är också till den gruppen mest pengar går. Av de totalt elva miljarder som betalades ut förra året i ekonomiskt bistånd, gick nästan fyra miljarder, eller 35 procent, till gruppen ensamstående män utan barn. Regeringens […]

#goodmorning from overcast Fisksätra. Today: translate Stevenson, cycle. And you?

An acquaintance of mine was prone to giving these long autistic one-on-one lectures on abstruse subjects, oblivious to whether you listened or not. So it was a chore to end up with him on the 23-min commuter train ride. But luckily he had face blindness, so I used to stand still on the platform […]

Demographic observation: the side of my family that doesn't do higher education produced four generations way faster than the side that does. At heart, my dad is a passionate and talented carpenter who ran into a posh girl at age 19 and was then pushed to get a very hard-won BA.

My mud cake brings all the girls to the yard

According to a recent mainstream poll, if Sweden had a parliamentary election right now two of the parties currently in power would fall off the roster entirely and we would get a Labour-led government with 55% of the seats. The Conservatives would be dwarfed by the Fascists and both parties […]

RIP 😢 Jane Goodall, world-renowned primatologist, dies aged 91 https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/oct/01/jane-goodall-world-renowned-primatologist-dies?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other #janegoodall

Johan Forssell var biståndsminister i december 2023 när dealen med Somalia gjordes upp. Magnus Ranstorp utsågs till ledamot i Sidas styrelse 22 februari 2024. Inte bara Benjamin Dousa som borde hänga löst.

Kimchi is pretty awesome

Tidö har gjort en deal med Somaliska regeringen. 100 miljoner biståndskronor, som skulle gått till mat, skolor och demokratiprojekt, har styrts om till att ”stärka premiärministerns kansli”. Somalia ligger på näst sista plats i världen på korruptionsindex www.svt.se/nyheter/inri...

You know mini rosebushes that you buy in a plastic pot, and that people throw away when they quit blooming? I plant mine in the garden. This one's been thriving there for 10-15 years now. #gardening #roses

I see this newspaper article about second-hand clothes stores. And I think to myself, yeah, I should buy more second-hand clothes! Then I remember that I never actually buy any clothes at all. Just socks every two years or so. #fashion #shopping #secondhand

The Dalat gymnure (Hylomys macarong) is a soft-furred #hedgehog with fang-like teeth that lives in northern #vietnam. It was collected for the first time in 1961 but described scientifically only in 2023. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalat_gymnure #zoology #hedgehogs

My best reads in English during July through September. https://aardvarchaeology.wordpress.com/2025/10/01/best-reads-of-2025-q3/ #books

When I was a kid, my parents used to make me and my buddies get out of the house and take a walk in the middle of our day-long RPG sessions. Little did I know that I would one day take a long bike ride or even a long hike in the woods every day of my own accord.

#goodmorning from overcast Fisksätra. Today: apply for jobs,* translate Stevenson, give interview to archivist researcher, cycle, tea with old dad, laundry. And you? * Not because there are any where my CV is useful, but because it's Oct 1, the #unemployment benefit demands that I apply for a […]

Libidotek: erotisk boksamling.

När jag snackar med lokaljournalister som granskar skolkoncerner brukar jag köra kurs i hur tex IES agerar efter granskning. De mailar journalisten DU HAR FEL, sedan journalistens chef och i värsta fall granskas journalisten av Näringslivet Medieinstitut. www.journalisten.se/nyheter/nata...

Have you got a puddle next to your freezer despite no power outage? It's because a plastic bag has got caught between the door and the jamb, breaking the seal. It's condensation, not meltwater.

Had the idea to read the last chapter of novels I remember as kind of a slog when I read them decades ago. #books

Haha, kolla chefen för kommunikation och samhällsnytta på Internetstiftelsen, om folk som inte använder maskininlärningstjänster: "Vi ser återigen det digitala utanförskapet växa fram. Skillnaderna är stora mellan de som använder AI och de som inte gör det." Nä hördu, jag är mycket integrerad […]

Voicemail on my cell phone? NO! Certainly not!

My favourite Great Old One is Azathoth. #cthulhu & Co are powerful and scary and have agendas where humanity is unimportant. But Big A has no agenda. It isn't even sentient. It just sits gibbering at the centre of the Universe and dominates it and doesn't even realise. Azathoth is H.P […]

David would start a Civ game and focus on finding all the opponent civilizations ASAP. Each time he encountered one he would exterminate them through save-scumming, where you restore the game every time you lose a fight. Eventually there would only be one enemy city left on the map. David would […]

Today there's a whole genre of world-building video games where you don't really have any enemies to fight. But already in the 90s, my friend David repurposed an early version of Civilization into a world-builder. Here's what he did. 1/x #gaming #worldbuilding

@mrundkvist It's a funny one. But I suppose we have to bear in mind that at that time, the other options available (cereals, etc.) weren't nearly as palatable as they are today. People were used to having to heavily process plant foods to get a decent meal. It also wasn't actually one of the […]

One of the first eight plant species domesticated in the Fertile Crescent is a cattle feed crop: bitter vetch, Vicia ervilia. Almost inedible to people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicia_ervilia

#hiking #friends

Duvnäs #morning

Here's an odd pair of statistics from a recent survey. Percentage of Swedes who have been on a date in the past year via online #dating: 2022: 27% 2025: 18% What has changed? Are people using LLM chatbots instead of flirting with live folks online? That's absolutely dystopian […]

All the talk about #llm s and autogenerated text reminds me of the 2002 Chinese Harry Potter novel that consists of a "The Hobbit" translation with search and replace on a few names. Bilbo --> Harry, Gandalf --> Dumbledore […]

#goodmorning from overcast Fisksätra. Today: cycle, hike, cycle, play an indie RPG. And you?

@mrundkvist "So kids, in his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming. Who wants to wake him up? Let's all shout very loudly!"

Please don't toot quotations from fascist morons for us all to condemn together. I'm on Mastodon to *avoid* reading what fascist morons say. I'm really distraught that the Internet has given them a voice. They belong back in their photocopied 80s skinhead fanzines. #fascism

Shrinking daylight hours cause seasonal depression and vitamin D insufficiency. But of course there's people who think that vitamin D supplements alleviate seasonal depression. Sigh.

Reading the Necronomicon to an appreciative group of seven-year-olds.

Deutsche Bank is now warning that the US AI bubble is about to pop. “It may not be an exaggeration to write that NVIDIA—the key supplier of capital goods for the AI investment cycle—is currently carrying the weight of U.S. economic growth. The bad news is that in order for the tech cycle to […]

"Det finns flera kvinnor som slutat med X än som nu använder X. Det säger något om plattformen." - Internet och svenskarna 2025

Den nyfunna silverskatten från omkring år 1200 väger ca 4,7 kilo. För det kunde man köpa 19 ton råg på den tiden. #historia

Details and pictures of the 4.7 kilo silver hoard of c. AD 1200 found recently near Stockholm. 24 000 coins! https://shm.se/blog-article/den-stora-medeltida-myntskatten-en-oovertraffad-upptackt/ #archaeology #coins

The US once experienced a Gilded Age. And now it is in its Gilded Toilet Age.

Yay! Ten months into job seeking, and I've just got my second interview. Both for municipal museums.

This week: * Give two lectures to foreign students * Hike * Play my buddy's indie role-playing game * Give interview about my archive use to a researcher * Prep to run two of my own Vaesen scenarios at a con in Norrtälje #archaeology #hiking #ttrpg #archives

Celebrating two successful guest lectures with #cake at Papa Lee's in Finntorp.

#goodmorning from Stockholm. I cycled here in the morning and gave a lecture on Viking Period skull manipulation to some friendly US students. Soon lunch, and then a talk about Medieval strongholds to another group. Very good for my morale! #teaching #archaeology

Tales of the Arthurian Knights https://aardvarchaeology.wordpress.com/2025/09/29/tales-of-the-arthurian-knights/ #blogging #BoardGames