Yesterday's post was the 945th post in this blog, can you believe it? I am already waiting for the day I totally miss posting for the one thousandth time, just like I usually miss my blogiversary. (That's on December 8, by the way.)

Today is the day I finally managed to carry my computer, my coffee and myself into the wintergarden for the morning, when it's still nice and cool and I can enjoy lots of fresh air. And fiddle with where I am seated in order to get wlan stable enough to actually do work. Guess what? Today is also the day some company is doing construction-esque work in the neighbourhood... right outside our garden. With noises.

Tomorrow is Wednesday. That's not Friday, by a long while. (Yes, that was really random, and not very informative - you all knew that anyway. But it makes such a nice sequence with the two previous bits.)

And now for something completely different: Here's an article about weird languages. Well, if you had asked me, I'd have said that every language is weird in its own way... but it looks like there's a definition that gets you weird and not-really-weird ones.

Speaking of weird, a while ago I posted about the WEIRD bias in social studies; someone kindly sent me a follow-up graphic that you can find here.

That's today's random bits and bobs!

A bit more than three years ago, I made myself a new tent for the market stall - with a little help from my friends, and with a good dollop more mishaps and related adrenaline highs than I had planned for. The tent, dubbed "the TGV", has served me very well, and I totally love it. But these days, it's in need of a little loving care, and a bit of tweaking. (In case you missed that story: the tag "the tent-making saga" lets you read all about it.)

This is the newly finished TGV - the cloth in the apses goes straight to the ground, as it should.

Since the tent was made in a pattern that was cut a little, uh, alternatively, it has stretched differently than a normal tent in that form would have done. Especially in the apses, the stretching of the fabric has led to a curious form of sagging where the tent can still be set up with some tension on the lines, but the bottom part of the cloth lies right on the ground. That effectively shrinks the floor space in the two apses.

See how the feet have sagged? It's even worse these days.

Now, most people would be able to deal with a little bit of shrinkage. The TGV, however, is... small. And when I go to an event by myself, I have all my clothes, my two little chests, my firewood and other fire stuff, the box with odds and ends, my wares, my sales table, and my decoration stuff in there. Oh, and my bed. Or what I call my bed.

The bed is just large enough for me to sleep in, and it just (really just) fits in one apse. Or I should say it used to fit - I can still squeeze it in, but then part of the tent cloth is already touching the bed. That's no problem... unless it rains. Oh, and one of the tent poles is so close to the bed that I am always a little afraid I will one day roll over in a bad dream and just kick out that pole, and with it all the tent would go down on top of me.

From opening up the front, the front flap has also stretched quite a bit, but that is not as incommodating as the apse shrinking. So last Friday, our garden has seen the tent go up, the tent received some pencil markings for the new location of the peg loops on the apses, and the ridge pole has a new hole - set a bit inwards from the end, giving me more sleeping and moving space in the apse. Now I only need to move the peg loops to their new place, and the tent will be fine for the next few years of service. And I'm really looking forward to having just enough sleeping space again instead of just not enough!

As of yesterday evening, I am the (middling) proud owner of a (mediocre, but functioning) model of a warp-weighted loom.
Well, to be honest, it's not completely finished yet - I need to fiddle with the position of the heddle rod brackets a bit more before fixing them.


It was made out of scrap wood that was hanging out in our basement plus two Y-shaped pieces of hazel wood, straight in from the garden. It's even set up already, and I have woven the first few wefts.



As you can see, the starting border is totally out of dimension in comparison to the huge loom size (about 30 cm width), as is the rest of the weave. That is the problem with models regarding textile - it's very hard or impossible to scale down the actual textiles, and that changes the overall look of both production models and garment models. In case you ever wondered why a small doll dressed up to model a set of garments looked ever so subtly wrong, that is probably the reason: if you don't scale down the fabric itself, the drapes and folds will be too large and too stiff.

In my case, however, that is irrelevant - I only want the small model to take along for workshops and seminars, to be able to explain the basics behind weaving and warp-weighted weaving. So scale, in this case, is not the issue.

(The starting border and weave is that narrow for a reason, by the way - not only because I wanted to save time in setting up the loom. It's the start of a form-woven tunic. I do not expect the piece to ever see the day of actually getting the body of the tunic added in... but it could happen. Theoretically. One day.)

If you are one of the folks who read German, here's some archaeology stuff for you to check out. If you don't read German, there's pics in the first and third link - don't miss the Playmobil Burial of Hochdorf!

An old tunic has thawed free - how can I have missed the Lendbreen tunic, since this article came out in March already?

On Minuseinsebene, there's a blog entry about Star Trek and Archaeology.

In Konstanz, there's a tradition of having archaeology meet playmobil - the currently running exhibition is "Playmobil and the Celts", running until September 15. If you're too far away for a visit, follow the links. There's pictures that are too cool for words. Click the link already.

And never forget Rainer Schreg's blog Archaeologik, where the latest post is about the destruction of part of a pyramid in Peru (most of the links there are to English texts).

If you are part of a cat's staff (someone needs a can opener, after all), chances are you will have wondered what your furry friend is up to when outside, and what adventures he or she has. Or how far the territory stretches out.

There has been a recent study made with 50 domestic cats, tracked over several 24h-periods, to reveal the secret life of the common house cat. You can get a first impression of the feline roaming and adventures via the BBC and a little bit more about the background here.

Our cat, by the way, is currently sleeping in a cat bed less than a metre away from me - so I know exactly what she's up to: her post-breakfast nap, which usually lasts until about 5 pm. Then she has important cat stuff to do outside before returning at about 7 for dinner. Such a hard life a cat has!

There has been a project recently dressing up ancient statues in modern garments. A photographer and a photo retoucher took some liberties with statues of classical guys and gals, dressing them up (including sunglasses, you're never too old to be cool) and documenting their total kickass modern hipsterness.

It's too cool for words. Go have a look at Léo Caillard's site (that's the photographer), where you can see all the hipstery goodness yourself.

Edit: As Panth rightly comments, the statues were not physically dressed up - it was a photo and photo retouching/shopping action (my wording was a bit ambiguous).

You wouldn't have thought it was summer on the Saturday - all the day was very grey, dull, and rainy. Sunday, fortunately, was much better and made the weekend a very nice one over all.

It's still obvious, though, that every plant this year (at least every outdoor plant) is about one month later than normal. We still do not have any tomatoes worth mentioning - the small fruits already hanging on the plants are still very green and far from being ripe. But I do hope that we'll be able to eat some before the end of this month!

The hairnet is coming along nicely as well, but will need a few hours' more work before it is finished. Even if work goes very smoothly and each single knot only takes a few seconds to make - such a net has a lot of knots, and thus eats up work time and thread like crazy. And today, there is a bunch of other stuff on my list of things to do, so I will probably not get around to much netting. (Among the things on the list are small repair jobs for the market and fair equipment - a missing peg, a torn-off band, and some stuff to check and put away into its correct place.)