Linky Stuff!

There've been a few things popping up that I find interesting enough to link them here - even though some of it is in German. You'll cope!

First of all, a video about Germany's last wire weaving workshop. It's very short, and it shows a huge loom right at the start, weaving... wire. 

The second item actually, sort of, potentially also concerns the shop: The Bundeskartellamt (the state's Antitrust Division) has started investigations against Paypal. (English version of that report here. I'm impressed there is one.) Their prices are fairly high for taking payments, and they might be abusing their dominant position. I'm utterly delighted about this, because I have read all their clauses, and they are very, very restrictive in what you are allowed to do as a company using them as payment venue. However... these days, with people from different countries ordering stuff online, and lots of people really appreciating paypal for its convenience and ease of use, it's a rather hard choice to not offer it as a payment option. I get the delight in using paypal as a customer, by the way - it's quick, it's easy, you get the goods right away, and it costs you nothing as a private customer. Well, at least not in a way that you will notice easily, because of course, costs for the payment will be priced in somewhere.

And then a very interesting German-language blog entry from the Archäologisches Freilichtmuseum Oerlinghausen - about the comic "Legenden aus Hamsterland" - which is a very right-wing comic, using elements from Early Medieval culture for the usual right-wing shitbrainy stuff. 

Finally, in English: An open access article about the possibility of some early calendarial notations in cave paintings... An Upper Palaeolithic Proto-writing System and Phenological Calendar. I'm not completely convinced, but it's certainly an interesting hypothesis!