Just in case you have not heard about it yet (and I suppose a lot of you haven't): There will be a new regulation regarding taxes when selling digital services within the EU. Before January 1 2015, whatever you sold was taxed according to the rules your business is based in. After January 1, tax will have to be calculated according to the buyer's country rules, and you will have to pay your tax to them.

The intention behind this new rule? Prevent the big players from sitting somewhere in a low-tax country and shipping out oodles of stuff to everywhere else, making a bigger profit because of the lower tax rates. Which is all very nice - but this rule is, madly, going to apply to everybody. It is supposed to "level the playing field".

Can you imagine what that means for small businesses? Right. It means a lot of hassle, plus a lot of additional time investment, plus paperwork, plus costs. Or breaking the law. "Levelling the playing field", in their case, will mean taking them off the playing field entirely.

I learned about that rule change about two months ago, and I was really, really glad that I had opted for physical copies of the Pirate Robert hat to sell. This morning, though, I filled out a survey about the impact of the new rule, and I learned that the EU plans to include physical goods into this madness from 2016 on. WHAT?

This, Friends, Romans and Countrymen, will truly mean the end of many small businesses. Doing the paperwork for taxes is bad enough when you are handling your own country plus the exceptions that come with the "normal" rules. If I have to register for taxes in every country I ship to? And handle that accounting as well? That might kill my business. Together with many, many other small businesses.

The Internet has made it possible to get things from about everywhere, and the new regulations will cut that back to getting things from the big players only. Please help protest against the new regulations, in hopes that we can get better rules for us small players. There is a EU-wide petition for this - please sign, and pass on the information.

If you are a small-business owner yourself, or know one, here is the survey about the impact. Every survey helps. Every vote in the petition helps. Belief in miracles probably won't hurt either.

Just because it's that time of the year, and just because I can - in case you are still looking for some inspiration for your shopping:

The British Library would like to aid you with their list of things you can buy. (Nice stuff, though the quill they offer as part of the writing set triggers one of my pet peeves. The first thing you do before writing with a modified feather? Take off that annoying fluffy stuff. Writing quills are not supposed to look like feathers! They look like naked central ridges of feathers, maybe with a little rest of the vane at the very top. The rest of the vane? Gone. Look at any picture of medieval scribes. Or later scribes using quills.)

Or maybe you are looking for a different kind of gift? Something that will not accumulate dust? You could sponsor something like the research project for bat-friendly roofing membranes (will run for 6 more days), or the archaeological excavations at Sandby Borg in Sweden, or help the UCL museum to protect and conserve its collection of very special skeletons.

(h/t to ossamenta for these last three!)

And once more, a slew of tabs has accumulated in my browser,  so it's high time for me to post those links and close the things...

The "Kaiserchronik" will get a new edition, thanks to a British University.

A Norwegian Iron Age tunic is going to be reconstructed in a joint project between two museums and a number of crafters.

English Heritage is offering backlist monographs as free pdf downloads.

A German food discount chain is selling antique coins for collectors - Archaeologik has a wonderful rant about that (in German).

Even more links are brought to you by ossamenta.

Oh, and finally? Mosaics. Old ones.

It's time to shower you with links again! So here you go...

Are you looking for a movie to watch on Halloween? Here's a list of 10 horror movies featuring archaeologists.

If you prefer some real-life horror, how about this: the Swedish government wants to close all of the Swedish archaeological institutes in the Mediterranean. No joke. Archaeologik has done an article about this, in German; there is a petition running against the closure. If you want to sign (please do, and please spread the word), there is an explanation at the bottom of the English translation of the letter.

For those of you interested in the history of People of Colour, check out this tumblr "bookshelf" with free downloads - the books are concerning early modern and modern time.

In case you are looking for an excuse to visit Rome, there's a Protolang conference planned for September 2015, with the CfP open.

And finally, a very interesting video on how a seemingly small change in environment can have huge effects: Wolves in Yellowstone.

There is, as usual, a stack of things to do today... before I leave for London tomorrow. I can't believe it is tomorrow already. Good thing that my presentation was finished before I left for Tannenberg (well, apart from that one last picture I have to scan and place today, and from going through it once more to make sure I will stay in time.) Somehow, this year, the autumn is chock full of things to do and of dates to keep. Yesterday was thus incredibly busy, and today will be no less so. At least life won't be boring anytime soon!

While I am refilling my travel necessaire and packing the things for the demonstration bits of my presentation, you can amuse yourselves with some links.

For example the snark about the media treatment of a grave at Powered by Osteons.

The British Library has an interesting post about whether to wear white gloves or not.

Doug is doing a series about crowdfunding archaeology.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is offering fellowships; information and the possibility to apply for a fellowship are on this page.

Finally, an excerpt from The Art and Craft of Natural Dyeing: Traditional Recipes for Modern Use by J.N. Liles about dyeing on fermentation vats.

Just in case you are living in a place where there are ticks, or are planning to visiting one: tick season, at least in Germany, has started early this year, due to the very mild winter, and we've had several days now when we picked off three or even four ticks from our cat. (They were still wandering through her fur, looking for a good spot - our luck.)

Ticks and moths are the two pests that really get me riled, and itching to kill. them. all. Moths because they eat wool and silk (yes, thank you Captain Obvious, I'm sure no one of the blog readers here would ever have guessed), and ticks because they can transmit both an meningoencephalitis and Lyme disease, and I just find them freaky.

Here's the thing about ticks that the wikipedia article does not tell you: They are hardy. Really hardy. They will survive immersion in water (even water that has a drop of dishwashing detergent added) almost indefinitely. If you flush them down your toilet? They don't care. They might come back out of the drain, even. I know of three sure ways to kill a tick, and that is pouring boiling water over them, burning them, or smashing them to a pulp. In our household, the preferred method is an old pair of tweezers (the good ones don't take kindly to being flambé-d) and a lighter. Once that thing has shriveled to a black thing with glowing legs, it won't drink any more blood. (Sometimes they pop. Be wary of exploding tick in case you burn one that has already engorged itself.)

Another thing the Wiki article does not mention directly, unless you follow links: You cannot prevent getting Lyme's if an infected tick bites you; there's no vaccine against it. It is a weird sickness that may or may not cure itself spontaneously or linger on for ages, and it can have all kinds of weird effects. The best way to be safe against it is to try and prevent getting tick-bitten; if you have one, remove it safely as soon as possible (safe removal is pulling it out; a twisting motion might or might not help), put some disinfectant on the spot, keep in mind you had a tick and survey the bitten bit for infection - characteristic symptom is a red spot that grows outward, developing into a red ring. There's no guarantee that you get that ring if you got infected, though. (Yes, Lyme's is weird in a tricky kind of way. Didn't I mention it?) So if you develop symptoms from out of nowhere... you might want to ask your physician to test for Lyme's.

That said, Lyme's can be cured - antibiotics usually do the trick, the better the earlier you catch it. The meningoencephalitis is incurable once it has set on, so go get your vaccination shot if you are going to be in an area where you can get a tick. That's about all of Europe, folks. Don't risk your brains.

I stumbled across a blogpost yesterday that really, really touched me... written by Pat Rothfuss, and concerning charity, and why he does so much for charity.

Personally, I try to be a positive human being, and I try to believe in the good of others. I am generally very, very content about the many good things in my life; and I can sleep comfortably at night in a proper warm bed, unafraid of getting up tomorrow with no money, no home, no friends and no chances. That is a big thing, and more than enough to get a warm fuzzy feeling inside.
I also believe that if life were fair, there would be no hunger in the world and no utter poorness, my friends and family would never fall nastily ill (nobody cares for a cold or a small nuisance now and then), and everyone who was working honestly for a living should be able to lead a reasonably comfortable life off their income.

Unfortunately, life is not fair. There were illnesses and diagnoses of illnesses and deaths aplenty last year in the circles I move in, and there's nothing one can do against it but try to encourage and support those that live and remember, fondly, those that have stopped living. There's also war, and poverty, and misery, and lots more stuff going on in the world that I don't even really want to know about in detail, because it will mean I get a bellyache and become frustrated with how unfair the world is and lose sleep for a week. (It's a good thing there are petitions against a lot of political things in this flavour, and that these actually turn out to do some good. Much relieves my frustration and accompanying symptoms.)

I also know that I am not enough to change these big things. I can't make everyone become healthy, wealthy, and friendly to their fellow human beings. I am not the person who will develop a cure for cancer, or ring in world peace, or end all misery on the planet.

However, I've long tried to lead my life so that I can leave the world a little better. I try to be friendly to my fellow human beings, try to pay fair prices for crafts (and make others pay them, too!), spread the word about good things, and I believe that sometimes small acts can make a big difference - especially when there are more people involved.

So what Pat writes in his blog... really touched me. There you have someone trying to make the world a better place, and using his fanbase to help him do so. Thanks, Pat.