Yesterday I went to Öland and showed my students some sites and landscape. We were joined by human geographer Carl-Johan Nordblom who knows all the post-Viking stuff. Lovely day! Though we couldn't find our way to the best-preserved of the Resmo passage tombs. The land owner has tired of visitors and closed off the driveway from the main road.
My ride Stockholm-Kalmar was a fun little flying school bus, the Swedish 1983 design SAAB 340, seating 34 people. I had a great view when we flew back north in the sunset, golden horizontal lighting bringing out the surface contour.
There was a little misunderstanding. I was listening to a podcast in ear buds on the plane and covering one ear with my hand to dampen the engine noise and hear what people were saying on the show. The white cords were plainly visible. The hostess then offered me ear plugs. This struck me as an odd thought.
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Kalmar..that takes me back. The Air Force school for meterological assistants was based there in 1981. Lovely landscape, fascinating old buildings. And Öland has a very distinct "alvar" landscape.
The Great Seriousness!
It's a good thing the AirÅland picture wasn't taken by you on your Öland trip, since I think that would have indicated a new and cavalier attitude toward our own beloved special characters. That, and it's good to know that the flight crüe was friendly!
It's a shame I couldn't join you! Friday was a beautiful day, and I think I just might have been able to find your way to all four tombs :) Hope to be given a second chance some other time.
*high fives Anders*
Ludvig, I wanna dig with you!
(insomnia-related dizziness)
Speaking of aircraft... this is the bloody 21st century!
Why was there no flying car ready to take the posse directly to the sites? Screw driveways. And messy excavations -three words: robot f*cking diggers! And neutrino scans of the site down to bedrock! (demented laughter)
One word for the futuristic archaeologist: nants.
http://saltosobrius.blogspot.se/2006/04/nanotech-archaeology-ants.html
You're welcome Martin! Start on the 24th. Drop me an email /L
Nanotech ants! Stanislaw Lem advocated micro-and nanotech -independently of Feynman- and in the novel "Peace On Earth" suggested "synsects" would get ordinary war bogged down. If you could provide them with enough processing power to do a Fourier transform (necessary for image processing) anyone and anything breaking cover would be spotted and tracked within seconds. With a network of synsects, you could triangulate an aggressor using passive means only. Since this would favor defense, you could get a high-tech Somme.
...but you could do cool archaeology , too