Here is, again, a stack of things you might find interesting:

A 17th century manuscript tells you how to organise your land surveying journal. Or, if you'd like to read about something else, that site has a huge collection of Early English books!

Aarhus University Press has a new free ebook this month, and it is "Past Vulnerability. Vulcanic Eruptions and Human Vulnerability in Traditional Societies Past and Present", edited by Felix Riede.

Ask the Past tells you how to improve your memory, 16th century style.

Semi-Rad talks about being new at the climbing gym and trying new stuff in general - and yes, I totally agree that being new at things is a wonderful opportunity, and has its own very nice and special delights!

Sometimes, I could just go "aaaarrgh" for a whole day. That is usually the case when Stuff Happens (TM)... like the current Stuff with the newsletter list for the Textile Forum. Let me share the sigh-worthy sad story with you.

Once upon a time, I thought it would be a good idea to change the website from the old version to a shiny new one... and it was. It also meant transferring the email list for the newsletter to a new newsletter sending thingummy, which I did, and I'm basically really happy about the move. But. But... here comes the big thing.

When I did the change, I accidentally did not set the whole thing to be double-opt-in. You know, when you subscribe to a newsletter or something and you get this slightly annoying email asking you to click the link to confirm your subscription? Well.

Turns out that this is really, really a good thing because it means bots or weird people will not subscribe random innocent bystanders to your random innocent newsletter list. Which, unfortunately, happened to the Forum list. And we're not talking about just a few dozen here - it is actually... thousands. Freaking thousands. Which is more than a nuisance, since my maximum of emails to send out per hour via my provider is rather small, so it takes a lot of time to get all these out. A honking huge lot of time. Like... several days of time.

It also means that I have, without ever wanting to, turned into a spammer sending unsolicited emails to people who have no idea how they ended up on this list, and feel quite annoyed by the email (as some comments in the unsubscription survey straightforwardly, and in no unclear words, let me know). I have, however, no really good way to find out if the subscription was legitimate or not.

To add to the complications, when I set the thing to "double-opt-in" after noticing, it turned these thousands into unconfirmed users - and again, I don't know whether they should be confirmed or not. And this happened three quarters through the sending of the newsletter... so I might just have to re-send the confirmation request email for those that did not get the newsletter, and then see what happens.

This is all annoying, and I am rather unhappy about bothering people with unsolicited email. Sigh.

So. Moral of the story? If you do a newsletter, always, always do a double-opt-in. If you get a newsletter that you never subscribed to, you might have been subscription bombed (something I also learned about today - it's someone else submitting your mail to newsletters). And if the newsletter senders are small fish like me, you might even do them a favour if you unsubscribe.

If you are looking for something colourful and nice to do on the weekend of May 21/22 and are in Germany, my friend Margit is doing a full-weekend course in dyeing with plants in Cologne.

The course price includes coffee, tea and 400 g of high-quality yarn; in addition, you can bring small amounts of your own yarn, fibre or fabric to dye. If you are quick, you will even be able to get one of the three last reduced-price tickets for only 203 € for the weekend instead of 239 € (which is still a very good price for two full days of dyeing activity).

You can read more about the course and register here at HandHerzSeele.

Incredible as it seems to me, it's Easter already - time to have some extra eggs (probably some from chocolate, too) and take a few days off. These are much needed here, as the past weeks have been quite busy and I've been feeling a bit under the weather today, so I'm more than happy to have some days off to spend time with friends and family, relax, catch up on news and generally have a good time.

Which also means I'll be not blogging for a few days; I'll be back on the blog on Wednesday next week. In the meantime, in lieu of an Easter Bunny, I'm giving you a Cat With an Easter Egg:


She was slightly confused by the sudden appearance of a yellow egg in her cat bed, but she took it in stride. Or, more correctly, she kept calmly and carried on napping.

Have a few nice days!

Miscellaneous linky stuff has, again, piled up around here so you are getting the appropriate post.

First of all, you might remember the petition about the impending closure of the Musée des Tissus in Lyon? Well, it's not over yet - there is still hope, as a consulting firm is going over the museum trying to figure out how it can stay open. The museum will remain open at least until July 2017 and maybe until the end of 2017, but might still be closed for good after that. You can read more about the current status here, and if you haven't signed yet, that same link will let you sign the petition to keep the museum open - every single voice counts.

I've recently been pointed to a BBC series called "Mastercrafts", and one of the parts of the series is about weaving. You can watch it on youtube (oh glory of digital videos!)

While we're talking about Britain - if you're looking to buy a home in Warwickshire, you could have the country's smallest castle. It does look lovely!

I'm off teaching, and thus I'll make a little pause in blogging - I'll be back next Monday.

Meanwhile, for you, a few links:

X-Ray of the oceans show the impact humans have. Not pretty.

Also not pretty: This story about two immigrant doctors nearly getting tossed out of the US.

Much, much nicer: A physicist who also is an origamist, and does incredible things with paper.

And finally, a big list of science podcasts (just in case you are looking for some).

 

The little cat has been ferrying home ticks for a few days now, so it is obviously warm enough for these little buggers to be really active again... which also means it's time for the yearly public service announcement:

If you are living in tick country, or plan to travel to one, there's two nasty sicknesses that can be transferred by ticks (which are the only members of the spider family I truly dislike). One of them, Lyme disease, is nasty and especially so if it is not detected in a timely fashion. The other, tick-borne encephalitis, is also nasty - but there is actually a vaccine against it, and at least in Germany, it is strongly recommended for those active outdoors.

So do consider checking your vaccination records and getting a refresher if you are running out of protection; look for ticks when you were outside and remove them as soon as possible. We have a tick-removing tool that has a loop you put around the tick, which works very well for both humans and cats, and grasps even small ticks very securely. Though they have no threads and some people say you should not turn them, I have the impression it's easier to get them out if you twist instead of pull straight. Whatever tool and method you use, make sure you have all of the tick out - sometimes, the head can rip off and stays in the skin.

To kill them, either pour boiling water over them, smash them until they burst, or (my preferred method) burn them. Don't think you can kill them by flushing them down the sink or toilet; they can survive several weeks under water with no problem. You really have to kill them dead with a capital D.

There you go. May your summer be tick-bite-free!