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Katrin How on earth did they do it?
27. März 2024
Ah, that's good to know! I might have a look around just out of curiosity. I've since learned that w...
Heather Athebyne How on earth did they do it?
25. März 2024
...though not entirely easy. I've been able to get my hands on a few strands over the years for Geor...
Katrin Hieroglyphs.
23. Februar 2024
Yes, that would sort of fit that aspect - but you can also go from bits of woods to sticks if you ar...
Bruce Hieroglyphs.
23. Februar 2024
I think the closest English equivalent would be 'Down the rabbit hole'. It has one entrance (No, not...
Harma Spring is Coming.
20. Februar 2024
I'm definitely jealous! Mine disapeared except for one pathetic little flower. But the first daffodi...
DEZ.
15
2

Because you have to blame something.

This morning I found a link to an article in my news digest - about how free-ranging cats are a danger to species diversity, and may be to blame for species going extinct.

Well. WHAT?

I'm aware that there's been a discussion about cats hunting, killing, and (not always) eating all kinds of prey animals, and that this should be curtailed to give the birds and whatever other species more of a chance to survive. Yes, cats are fierce predators with a very strong hunting instinct, and yes, I can see that this may pose a problem. I'm also not thrilled about cats killing birds.

However, I'm also not convinced that keeping cats indoors all the time is the perfect solution. It's definitely safer for the cat in regards to traffic dangers (rarely do cars go inside of living spaces, after all) - but having seen how our old lady lived a second spring when she discovered the Great Outdoors, keeping cats penned up inside, even if it's a rather large place, is also not the best thing that can happen to them. (There is a lot of pros and cons for indoor vs. outdoor cats, but all the cats that I have had in my own life were outdoor cats, and were very fond of their freedom. And I am talking about Germany here, which had the wild cat before the house cat came, so it's not really an invasive species here. Things are different for areas where cats are not more-or-less native predators. Also - feral cats are a problem everywhere, and they should be caught and at least neutered so they cannot breed without restriction. There's enough cats around already.)

To get back to the main topic though - in my firm opinion, free-ranging cats may today pose a problem for animal species that are in their prey spectrum, and are already struggling. The reason for that, however, is not the fact that humans keep cats as pets and companions, or else we'd have lost a lot more species since the Middle Ages or even earlier. Species diversity is endangered because humans have been very good at making bad decisions, at impacting the habitats of a lot of species, and reducing biodiversity overall through the use of monoculture, pesticides, herbicides, and general other Stuff That Is Very Bad For The Environment (TM). And it really ruffles my feathers to have that blamed on cats now. Because it's much easier, obviously, to say that cats are to blame for this or that going extinct than our ruining the planet.

Interestingly, the article itself, from what I've read of it, is not blaming it all on cats as much as the news digest snippet that I got sent does. If you're interested, it is open access in Nature and you can find it here. Linked within is another, equally interesting article about "Invasive predators and global biodiversity loss" where, interestingly, not only cats are listed - but also foxes, rodents, and other imported invasive species. And also interestingly, rodents have played at least as large, if not a larger, role than cats. In any case, the main culprit for importing these species is... the human.

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DEZ.
14
0

So many options...

I've looked a bit more for museum collection management software... and I am amazed at how many different options and solutions there are. Most of them, however, will upload or import or otherwise duplicate an existing file. Most of them are also designed to run on a server (though that is something that I could work with), which makes perfect sense for an accessible database, and are accessed through the browser. (Also workable.)

However, it takes a bit of time to skim the documentation for each of the options to see if it might be suitable for my purposes... and that's where I'm still stuck, skimming stuff and figuring out which one may be worth a try. 

That's all happening in little bits of time inbetween "proper" work stuff, though. With extra help from the little cat today (who has been putting her paw down on the touchpad more than usual...). But I won't complain too much about having a fluffy companion while working!

Having the cat relax and hang out on the desk also means that I get to sneakily shorten her claws as necessary. She's not active enough anymore to keep all the claws short enough through wear and tear, and the tendons in older cats sort of wear out as well and don't retract everything as completely as it should be... and that has actually caused her issues with walking. Plus claw snags, which may look funny, but must be rather annoying and sometimes probably also painful. So we got a claw trimmer (human nail clippers have the wrong shape) and now we're keeping her claws short enough that they don't bother her. 

Fortunately she's fine with having her paws handled; the only really difficult claw is the thumb claw, but even that is unsupervised and standing out sometimes, in some sleepy positions. And then, snip!, it is suddenly a little shorter. And Madame is a good bit happier - not strictly in that moment, but overall, since being able to walk without pain is definitely a great factor in personal happiness!

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DEZ.
13
1

Object Tagging...

I'm still on the hunt for a replacement for my photo database software (sigh...), which means that occasionally I'm procrastinating by looking for something. The newest direction that I've been going is museum software. Most of that is tailored to run on an Internet server, but that's something that can be done by localhost.  

It does look like there's quite a few open source and free cataloguing software solutions for museums - so maybe, with a good bit of luck, one of them will be suitable for my purposes. (For most of the things I've looked at until now, one of the dealbreakers is that everything is uploaded into a new folder structure. I have a system for my files that helps me to find them outside of the database, and I'd very much like to keep that...)

While looking for stuff, I've stumbled across a "tagging game" (in German only, sorry folks) where you can look for, and tag, items in medieval artwork. So in case you need something to do and like to look at (and for) old things, you might want to check out the Austrian ThingTag!

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DEZ.
12
1

Cochineal. Because.

It's been a rather grey day here, and that makes me long for a bit of colour. Fortunately that's easy - here, have some small bit of cloth coming out of a cochineal dye bath:

Isn't that a nice shade? I'm quite fond of cochineal - I prefer cooler, darker shades of red to the more orange tones of madder, so I'm more a cochineal girl than a madderwoman, actually. (The combination of the two can be gorgeous though!) 

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DEZ.
11
0

Origami, Coburg, Christmas Tree?

If you like Origami and are thinking about an alternative to a Chrismas tree, you might find inspiration here: 

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That's definitely a very nice idea, and a stunning thing... though I suspect we will stay with our minimal decorating here! 

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DEZ.
08
1

NESAT in Warsaw, May 2024.

NESAT will be taking place again next year - and I'm so very much looking forward to it already! It's always a wonderful opportunity to go somewhere and meet up with old and new colleagues. If you're not familiar with this conference, NESAT stands for "North European Symposium for Archaeological Textiles" and was started to make textile archeologists feel less lonely once in a while.

This means every three years - last one was the virtual conference (due to Covid) in Oulu, Finland, but now we're looking to meet up in person in Poland for the next one. To my great delight, the paper about membrane gold threads that Tracy and I have proposed was accepted, so we'll be able to talk about our project there in May!

In case you're interested, you can learn more about the upcoming conference, and the past ones, on their webpage. Registration is also open now until end of February.

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DEZ.
07
0

Winding Down.

It feels like we're nearing the end of the year alright - days are getting ever shorter, the cat sleeps more and more (though that is due to age, I think, and not just due to the time of year and weather), and I'm trying to get things sorted for the end of the year, and winding down a little. 

Getting things sorted includes sorting and labeling pictures, and here's one for you: 

That is a good amount of quite expensive ground-up lice about to be stirred into a beaker of hot water. It was really, really exciting to dye with kermes, and I'm feeling very privileged!

That said... the colour turned out very nice indeed, but it's not that you couldn't come close or imitate it with a good knowledge on how to handle your madder and cochineal. Though it may be possible that with some post-processing, it can go more into the purple-y shade, and that might be harder to get with madder and cochineal. But, well, who knows?

It would be really, really interesting though how many people in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age would have been able to actually tell if something was really done with kermes, or if it was just well-faked. My guess would be that a good fake is indistinguishable from the real thing today, and would have been back then. Similar, probably, with shellfish purple. But, hey, expensive! Prestigious! So definitely a must-have!  

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