Comment on March Pieces Of My Mind #1 by kaleberg

What are proto-Jewish religions? Judaism didn't flow from a continuum of religions each worshiping a smaller number of more powerful gods before reducing that number to one. The Copernican Revolution was a big deal, but the idea that stars were just distant suns dates back to at least Roman days. The heliocentric theory had been around for a long time, too. The math was just a bit trickier. A big selling point of the heliocentric theory is that it gave astrologers a basis for measuring the influence of Mercury and Venus when computing horoscopes. It wasn't until they discovered Uranus that they got past the there are only seven planets because people only have seven holes in their head.

Comment on March Pieces Of My Mind #1 by Martin R

In reply to <a href="https://aardvarchaeology.wordpress.com/2025/03/10/march-pieces-of-my-mind-1-11/comment-page-1/#comment-86569">dotkaye</a>. <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph -->

Comment on March Pieces Of My Mind #1 by dotkaye

In reply to <a href="https://aardvarchaeology.wordpress.com/2025/03/10/march-pieces-of-my-mind-1-11/comment-page-1/#comment-86571">Martin R</a>. <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>quite a lot initially, after a decade or so I'd pretty much quit trying.. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph -->

Comment on March Pieces Of My Mind #1 by Martin R

In reply to <a href="https://aardvarchaeology.wordpress.com/2025/03/10/march-pieces-of-my-mind-1-11/comment-page-1/#comment-86569">dotkaye</a>. <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>I'm guessing that you weren't putting a huge amount of work into getting de-celibated!</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph -->

Comment on March Pieces Of My Mind #1 by birgerjohansson

<!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>My celibacy is not involuntary. I just don't care. -About the US and wrecking funding for research, I want to remind you of the near-miracles science gives us: "CRISPR cuts gene from head and neck cancers through direct injection—50% of tumors eliminated in animal models"</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-03-crispr-gene-neck-cancers-tumors.html -This is BIG. It is rare that a single gene allows tumors to be destroyed.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph -->

Comment on March Pieces Of My Mind #1 by dotkaye

<!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>our son has executive function disorders, though to be fair those layer on top of a number of health issues.. I feel if we could mitigate the chronic pain it would help with everything else. <br><br>my personal record for involuntary celibacy is between 10 and 15 years, depending on when you start counting. Oddly enough it didn't make me an incel.. bit depressed but. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph -->

Comment on March Pieces Of My Mind #1 by birgerjohansson

<!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>I discover a lot of "new" old music I completely overlooked at the time.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>-Would Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (2016) count as folk horror? It has an assassin angel in it.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph -->

Comment on March Pieces Of My Mind #1 by birgerjohansson

<!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>In the proto-Jewish religion, the major planets were minor gods, just like in the Greek or Roman religion.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Witchfinder General might have been a Hammer film. They redefined horror, but the quality was Meh.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>'Disorders of executive function' was our band name. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph -->

March Pieces Of My Mind #1

Comment on My Reading Regimen by birgerjohansson

<!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>NB! -If you live in the western hemisphere, you can see a total lunar eclipse Thursday night into Friday morning. I thought I should mention it, these events do not happen often.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph -->

Comment on My Reading Regimen by birgerjohansson

<!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>I try to find 'hard science' books that are rewarding even if I do not know much of the topic. Some authors are blessed with a talent for explaining without dumbing down the subject (a sin of many on-line articles). </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>And I have had to accept that biology and medicine is progressing so fast I have to make do with the briefest of summaries. By contrast, space science is straightforward if you have the basics. So I must sadly conclude Mars cannot be made habitable in less than a thousand years, whatever Musk says.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph -->

My Reading Regimen

I’ve been a big reader since I was tiny. When I was young I read fairly haphazardly, picking up books at semi-random at the library or from my first wife or from friends. In recent decades though, I have become much more focused in what I read, at the same time as my book-buying budget … Continue reading "My Reading Regimen"

February Pieces Of My Mind #3

February Pieces Of My Mind #2

Exasperated By 1981’s Outland

Criticising the logic of a 44-y-o movie may seem pointless. But I just have to get this off my chest. The last third of the 1981 blue-collar scifi cop movie Outland makes no sense. Let’s forget about the space mine setting. This is actually a riff on the classic 1952 western High Noon. Imagine instead … Continue reading "Exasperated By 1981’s Outland"

February Pieces Of My Mind #1

Thoughts After Seven Sessions of Vaesen

Vaesen, Sw. Nordiska Väsen, is a hit 2020 role-playing game where the player characters investigate incursions of folkloric beings in 19th century Scandinavia. The game is published by the internationally successful Stockholm firm Free League. In 2023/24, I happily game-mastered 15 sessions of FL’s game Mutant Year Zero. So what’s it been like for my … Continue reading "Thoughts After Seven Sessions of Vaesen"

January Pieces Of My Mind #3

New Paper: Axed Down and Thrown Into The Sea

Lindström, J. et al. 2024. Granhammar Man: axed down and thrown intothe sea in Late Bronze Age Uppland, Sweden. Praehistorische Zeitschrift 2024. https://doi.org/10.1515/pz-2024-2033 In 1953 a human skeleton and a set of tools made from antler, bone, bronze, stone and wood was found embedded in marine clay under a former inlet of Lake Mälaren at … Continue reading "New Paper: Axed Down and Thrown Into The Sea"

Radiocarbon Statistics Starting From The Year Interval

Back in November I wrote about new fieldwork data from Riddarholmen Island in Stockholm that documented activity there in the early-to-mid AD 900s. And in that connection, I mentioned that there’s something very awkward about the standard way of reporting calibrated radiocarbon dates. And there is no way around it in OxCal, the standard software … Continue reading "Radiocarbon Statistics Starting From The Year Interval"