It's Hug a Medievalist Day!

Today is International Hug a Medievalist Day!

Are you confused now? Wondering why you should want to hug a medievalist? Never mind. This piece explains it all.

I don't know if it was a medievalist who came up with the Horrible Histories song about the English kings and queens, but it's certainly in line with medievalist humour.



I might rely more on my coffee cup for that list, though, than on learning the song by heart...

And speaking of coffee, if you like either coffee or frisbee-like flying objects or stories about inventors, I recommend you follow this link to a story about the inventor of the AeroPress and the Aerobie. We have an Aeropress that we bought about 6 or 7 years ago, in the museum shop of the London Science Museum, and it is a wonderful thing - the Aeropress for making coffee, and the museum shop for buying things, not the other way around, of course.

Textile Forum Planning.

It's early spring, and what better time of the year than to start planning for November? We have found a date for our next European Textile Forum, and we are hoping to finish plans this week far enough so we can send out the official Call for Papers and update our website. If you are on the mailing list, you'll get anote when we have done that. (If you are not yet on the list, but would like to be - go here to subscribe.)


I'll disclose our year's focus topic for you here right now, though. It will be "Nonwoven Textiles", which includes nalebinding, braiding, felting, netting and of course knitting. So we're excited to hear what papers and presentations will be offered as soon as the CfP will be out. If you are interested in attending and presenting, you could start thinking about something right away... while we'll be planning the actual thing.

Sabine and I are beyond delight that our crazy idea from back in 2008 has developed into a conference that is going strong, and we are looking forward to having another week with fellow textile researchers, crafters, conservators spent talking, thinking, reconstructing and researching. It's a good bit of work every year to plan and prepare that conference - but when that week comes, it is stuffed with wonder and learning, and every time we lean back and say that putting in that work? It is so, so much worth it!

Friday Fun.

Thank goodness it's Friday! Here are some nice things that turned up overnight on the internet:

Medieval Cookery has a rant about the assumption that medieval spices were really, really expensive.

Christopher Eccleston was the greatest Dr Who, says IO9. I totally agree, and I'm still sad he was there only for one single season. That was way too short!

There is a reason why I try very, very hard not to shop at Amazon, even if it is so damn convenient. They have just confirmed that this is a wise decision.

Finally, and on a much happier note, here's amazing news: actual soft tissues from an actual dinosaur have been found! T-Rex cloning à Jurassic Parc, anyone?

Today seems uneventful. Things are back to "usual".

The cat is napping, as usual; yesterday evening was spent with friends coming over for some gaming, as usual; the study is still quite messy but I am working to reduce the mess, with limited and changing amounts of success, as usual.

There are a few different projects that I am working on, and I am again able to divide work-time between them without getting into a crunch, and if I'm efficient enough there is still time for getting some other stuff done. This includes making sure I can meet my next deadline (getting things ready for the Wollfest at Backnang, a week after Easter).

It is a really nice change to feel like things are manageable again! Even though the cat still makes me jealous with her blissful napping for hours, right beside my desk, making small content sleepy-cat noises...

Machines, Translations, Chess Pieces.

More links for you!

There's a database of medieval and early modern machine drawings available online, for free; the earliest drawings are by Villard de Honnecourt, from the thirteenth century.

If that is not madness enough for you, why not try this blog? It gives you a new chapter of Amadis of Gaul (1508) every Tuesday, translated into English. (This book drove Don Quixote mad, or so the blog says.)

Also: chess pieces, found in Northampton.

Digital VAT Developments.

Towards the end of last year, I blogged several times about the VATMOSS mess, and if you have been wondering whatever became of that issue - there is news.

The Digital Microbusiness Action Group has been busy, and they have gotten the attention of Andrus Ansip and David Cameron, among others. There is discussion now about those rules, and the concerns do reach the EU commission. So there is still hope for that absolutely insane law to be cancelled, or at least transformed into something that small businesses will be able to comply to.

It's still not over, though. At the moment, it's only hitting those who sell digital goods - but if we don't stop the madness, 2016 might see the rules extended to actual physical goods. This will hit you. If you are buying stuff over the internet from outside your own country, it concerns you - because your vendor will have to figure out where you are and how much tax to pay. It will even concern you if your vendor is in the same country... if he or she can't comply with the insane amount of bureaucratic rules imposed by that legislation, the business will have to shut down.

So if you have a business and have not already taken it, please fill out this survey. If you know someone who has a business, pass them the link and ask them to fill it out. Every survey helps.

There has been a preliminary write-up of the survey data, and this is available at the EU VAT Action site. This is brilliant, because if you are a resident of any country outside UK (who are aware of the stuff by now), you can now email your minister of finance and send him or her that report, together with your concerns (contact data is provided in the EU VAT action post). Please do it, if you can, and please spread the word. We need to stop that madness.

It's coming closer.

The date when our book will be available is creeping closer! Monday, June 15 will be the day. Meanwhile, you can take a look at the book at our publisher's page, here. You can also pre-order it there (or, probably, at the independent bookstore of your choice).

It is thrilling to have a book come out, and I still can't believe it. We've worked a long time on that Beast of a book; so long that it seems really weird that it is finally done and finished and the work is over!

I'm also going to sell it via my online shop (and if you want, I'll even sign it for you). You can pre-order it there!

Gazillions of links.

I have a gazillion of browser tabs open, and that needs to change. So I'm going to give you a gazillion of links!

First of all, Franklin Habit has mashed Victorian knitting into an entirely non-Victorian baby hat that is definitely worth a look for its mohawk fringe. (Victorian, of course.)

Gamergate is still not dead - but you can auto-block them on Twitter. Here's an interesting article about that (which also explains what "sealioning" means).

If you need to insult someone, here is a much cooler way to do it (and much more long-lasting): Names for plants and creatures.

Having too much stuff in your house can be a problem - but one that you can tackle by getting rid of things you don't use anymore. Running out of storage space for archaeological finds? Much worse, and much harder to solve.

An article about recreating a Roman hairstyle is open access online at the EXARC journal.

If you are in Germany and would like to go to a creativity retreat, there is a project up on Startnext called Hand-Herz-Seele. Margit from Alte Künste (my partner-in-crime from the LonCon last year) is one of the teachers there, so you might get a chance to dye with her. The project is currently collecting "likes" to be able to start the actual funding stage.

Speaking of dyes and colours, Ask the Past tells us how to dress a child. Now that's still the proper way around there - blue for girls and pink for boys. As it should be. (Someone got it wrong some time after 1890...)

How to get me to contribute to your crowdfunding campaign.

In the wake of the Con Man campaign, I've looked at a few other campaigns on Kickstarter and Indiegogo recently, as well as at stuff on Patreon in the wake of Amanda Palmer's getting started out there. Yesterday I looked at a Kickstarter project trying to fund a video... and I realised a few things about those campaigns and me. So here's my thoughts on the subject.

I've helped fund a few campaigns during the last years, but really only a few. I tend to be very picky on where to invest my money, and a project really needs to get me enthusiastic about it before I will contribute. There are things that all the campaigns I spent money on did, however, and if they are missing, the chances are extremely high that I won't contribute even if the general idea is something I like. Here's the stuff.

1. Make sure I hear about it.
Yes, I know, that one's a Thank You Captain Obvious. However, it's important - the more people that know your campaign and speak about it, the better your chances. Ask your friends to spread the word,  and also ask those that visit your project page, whether they back you or not. If you know someone with impact on the 'web, ask them to spread word, too.

2. Make both the text and the video informative.
All crowdfunding platforms will let you post a video and a text. They often stress the importance of a good video. Me, I read the text first, and watch the video afterwards if I'm still interested. I'm most delighted if the text and video both convey the essential information but are not completely similar. A badly-made video will turn me off - it makes it seem as if you have not taken this seriously enough to part me from my money. Typos in the text and poor grammar? You have probably lost me already. Typos, poor grammar and poor layout? If you are planning to self-publish a book, you have definitely lost me.

3. Make sure I learn enough about your project.
I need a reason to get enthusiastic about your project. Concept art, design snippets, a trailer, music demos, drawings - you surely have detailed plans for your Thing, and I will want to see enough of them to let me a) understand what you are trying to do and b) become enthused about it. For you, a one-sentence description might be enough; it's not enough for me.

4. Offer me stuff for my contribution.
Whether they are called perks or rewards or whatevers, they are the backbone of the crowdfunding system for me. I'll own it right here and now: I might be generous towards my friends and colleagues, and other people that I know at least a little, but my altruism towards strangers is quite limited. Note that I wrote "invest" and not "donate" in the second paragraph of this post? Now you know why. If I'm helping fund your project, I want something back. There's always a few backers who will just want to give you money, and that's fine. Me? Sorry, but I'm not one of them. Offer me stuff. Lots of stuff, in different tiers, starting small. Digital things will work fine for me and won't be too much work for you to send to lots of people, or cost lots of postage.

5. Make your stuff attractive.
Attractive stuff, for me, is things I won't get later or otherwise, or things I will have to shell out more money for if I want them. I'll spend more on things that are guaranteed to be backer-only or campaign-only things. I'll also be more willing to contribute to a higher tier for something that I will only get that way. My decision process might be sped along if you have a limited number of early bird rewards as well - otherwise I'm inclined to ponder contributing or not for quite a while, possibly until I am sure the thing will definitely get funded. You also get me to invest if I feel like I'm getting a good deal - such as something for less than the retail price it will be sold at afterwards. Cut me a deal. I'm helping fund your idea, after all.

6. If you are funding a Thing, offer that Thing in your rewards.
I came across that one in a campaign to fund a book recently. The author was trying to fund a book... and that book was not offered in the rewards. At all. AT ALL. I read the sidebar three times because I could not believe it.
Now... if your campaign for a Thing sounds interesting enough for me to want help fund it, chances are about 100% that I am interested in said Thing. If I fund it, I want to get it. In the seriously weird case that you don't offer me a chance to get it in the funding, I will not contribute, period. To boot, it will feel as if you're laughing at me.
It's fine if you offer other stuff, in addition; it's also fine if your Thing only comes in a high tier because it is a physical object that costs a lot in production and you need to calculate correctly, and there's lots of other stuff coming before that tier. (I'm all about calculating properly, as you might know.)
If you make a book, or a film, or music, you'll have the highest probability of getting me if you offer a digital download for a low price. (I live in Europe. If I have to add shipping costs, which is usually the case, physical things that may be fairly priced will quickly escalate to "quite a lot of money".)
Tied in with this: be very clear on how your Thing will be available later. Will it be a downloadable film for free, and I get early access as a backer?  Will it only be available for a price? Or only for backers, forever? Only for backers at first, and maybe for everyone later?

7. If your thing is artsy, make sure I learn enough about your art.
Want to fund a music project? Let me listen to what you do first. Either include snippets of music long enough and not voiced-over in your video, or add links to your music that are easy to follow. I will not buy music I don't like, and I want to know if I like it before I invest in your campaign. I'm a stranger. Show me your stuff, I might love it.
Same applies to film or art. Give me snippets, give me samples, give me links to your previous work. As long as I don't know whether I like your style or not, and I can't find out easily, you won't get my support. If I like your style, I might help fund. Even if your style is not to my taste, if I like what you do on a level of crafts appreciation, I might still spread word about your project.

8. Start your rewards small.
Start your perks or rewards section with the one dollar option that buys "a heartfelt thank-you for helping make this happen" or something like that. Give me a 5$ section next with a little download or digital whatever exclusive to the campaign. And if you are doing music, art, books, I'll expect the next tier to give me access to the digital version of the Thing, and to be somewhere in the range of 10 to 25$. You have more chances on my money if it's in the 10$ range than in the 20$ + range.
Yes, it is possible to donate any amount of money without getting a perk, and that includes low amounts, obviously. However, I've seen campaigns that start with a 100$ perk as the first thing - and even if the campaign runner writes that every little bit of money is very welcome, it feels to me like anything below that sum is not really welcome, or appreciated and seen as helpful. No matter how often that is stated in the text. I look at the rewards bar very soon in my evaluation, and you have most probably lost me already if there is no single-digit option in it.
For the record: I've never spent less than the lowest tier to give me the actual Thing, and more money just as often as not (the lure of the exclusives!), but I've never spent anything on a campaign that did not offer the one-dollar option for a thank you. (Contributing anything will also give access to the backers-only feed, which might be a perk on its own if you do update there regularly. Which you should, see next point.)

9. Keep us updated.
Celebrate positive developments with your backers. Read their comments and answer them. Address their concerns. If a lot of them request something, try to make it possible (unless, you know, it's a really, really bad idea, in which case you should explain that it is and why.) They - we - are your fans and we're invested in your project. Do take us seriously. Frequent updates and answers to comments will make me feel like you are taking us seriously, and appreciating our support, and are very invested in the campaign.
If you run into problems and things will be late, tell us. Chances are very high that you will get support and understanding as long as you communicate with us. We want to support you and your idea, after all, not make you feel bad and stressed out!
Give us updates on the backer page, and if possible stretch goals. I will get excited if the digital stretch goal goods are given out to every tier of 5$ and above, or at least for every tier that gets stuff and above. It will make me spread the word in hopes to get more for the same money. Yes, I'm greedy. You can use that greed for your own purposes here.

10. Don't whine.
I've seen a few campaigns that ask for money because someone is in dire straits due to health reasons. They usually come with a list of this-and-that amount of money needed to pay for this-and-that, and with an undertone of whine. Or with an undertone of "I'm not really motivated to work for a living, so will you just hand me some moneyz kthxbye". Both of them, even if they are in there by accident and if the person is actually a kind, sweet, motivated and hard-working person will instantly turn me off. Undertones of whine sometimes occur in other campaigns, or in campaign comments, and they will turn me off there likewise. Yes, life is hard. Yes, your funding might not go as planned, or hoped. But if you start to be negative, you will probably lose more people than win.

And that, my friends, is how you get me to contribute to your campaign. If I like what you are doing, that is. Does it sound harsh? Maybe, but that won't change the fact that this is exactly what I am looking for when I decide on whether to participate and contribute... or not.

So. Anyone has a campaign they would like me to know about?

 

Feedback, please?

Springtime is a good time to take stock and plan stuff and get new things started - not just seeds. It's also a good time to make decisions about the future. And in this context, I'd love to have some feedback from you!

I've made more spindle whorls to replenish the much-diminished stock, and if you have bought whorls from me, I would very much appreciate to hear what you think about them, and if they are as good or better or worse than you expected. Or if they give you any trouble. I'm especially interested in some feedback about the disc-shaped whorls.

So if you have bought one of my whorls in the past, or used them, or if you are planning to and have comments, please let me know your thoughts either in the comments here or per mail to katrin.kania@pallia.net - and thank you so much for your help with this!

Pretzels, Hommages, Sunshine.

The world's oldest pretzel has been found in Regensburg - a carbonised baked good that dates to the eighteenth century.

Terry Pratchett's name will be sent around in our equivalent of the Clacks towers.

The indiegogo campaign for Con Man has reached almost 2 million USD.

For those of you with a delivery address in Germany, I am running a spring special in my shop:
 there's a 5 € discount on shipping for delivery inside Germany this week, until March 20. (Minimum order for this is 20€.)

And it's sunny outside - I hope you can enjoy some weather as fine as the weather here, too!

Good news, for a change.

For a change, there's good news from the EU: the seed regulation draft has finally fallen through. (In case you don't know what I am talking about, here's an old article from the Guardian about the regulation.)

Things like this give me hope - if it was possible to get the seed regulation canceled for good, we might still get the same result for TTIP, the weirdness and utter fail that is the Digital Goods VAT,  and other weird ideas that someone cooked up without doing a reality check first.

My tomato seeds have sprouted, by the way. There shall be tomato plants this summer - five different old or old-ish kinds, and three of them grown from seeds that I have harvested myself. I hope this year will be a better one for tomatoes than the last!

The Internet is full of eulogies.

Terry Pratchett died yesterday, aged 66, and the internet is full of eulogies for him.

I'm sad that he passed away. He was a brilliant writer, and his early Discworld novels gave me many hours of both contemplation and fun, a wonderful mix of the utterly hilarious and the deeply philosophical. If you wanted to think about religion, or what makes humans tick, or about the impact that belief can have, there was a lot of things to spark thoughts. He made puns that I deeply appreciate, and wrote characters that were at once over-the-top and absolutely believable.

I did not read a lot of his later works from Discworld; I felt that they lacked the lightness of the earlier novels, bringing the formerly hidden deeper thoughts more to the front and sometimes even pulling out a hammer to drive things home. I very much enjoyed the YA books, though, and I know a few people who remained avid fans of Terry Pratchett right through his career.

This development of his books and my taste in different direction actually made me realise that authors change, and novels develop, and readers change too. Like any other relationship, things can develop to make you grow closer, or make you grow apart, and it's perfectly normal not to love somebody's books over years and years. Or love them all the time. Terry's books and writing taught me that, and I am thankful for that as much as for his books and the hours of reading pleasure they gave me.

Thank you for your books, Terry Pratchett. Your stories will live on for a long time, and I hope that knowing this made facing death easier for you.

Con Man! Indiegogo! Not Firefly (but, erm, there might be parallels)!

I blame a friend of mine.

Several years ago, for my birthday, he gave me as a present the DVD of Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog. That led to many, many interesting and amusing hours of DVD watching, not because we watched that half-hour thing so often (though I have listened to the soundtrack many, many times in the car), but because we branched out afterwards, wanting more from the actors. Neil Patrick Harris. Felicia Day. Nathan Fillion.

So we watched Firefly, and loved it*. We joined the mass of people who all say that it was canceled too soon (damn you, Fox!) and we'd have liked more, much more of it. But some things you don't get no matter how much you (and many others) would like it.

However. Sometimes, other stuff comes along that is also a good thing to have. And we are living in the blissful age of crowdfunding and internet communication and stuff (in short: something very much the future), so when John Scalzi posted a tweet yesterday about Alan Tudyk and Nathan Fillion trying to fund a tv-ish project on Indigogo, I did what you do in that case.

So @alan_tudyk and @NathanFillion crowdfunding a comedy series about science fiction cons? SEEMS RISKY TO ME https://t.co/BZk0MoeUjw
— John Scalzi (@scalzi) 11. März 2015

I went there. I looked, and I watched, and laughed, and then I waited a few long hours and showed it to the most patient husband of them all, who watched, and laughed, and logged in to indiegogo and threw some money at Nathan and Alan's project while I mumbled to myself "oh come on take our money already WE SO WANT THIS STUFF". You know. As you do.

They started their campaign on March 10. Yesterday night, when we went to bed, they had raised more than 750.000 USD, enough for five episodes. Right now, they are at a bit above a million USD, with more than 14.000 supporters. The campaign is running for a month more... they might have to invent some more stretch goals.

Oh? You want the link? Go here. Enjoy. Spread the word, if you like.


* We watched more than just Firefly, of course, but Firefly is the one relevant for the rest of the post. Just in case you are curious, though: Eureka. Castle. How I Met your Mother. The Guild. Buffy. Fun was being had, in varying degrees, though most of them were rather high.

The Power of Story.

Writing this blog is a perfect excuse to look at stuff every day, calling it, you know, "blogging research" or "keeping up with things for the blog". It is nice, it amuses me, sometimes it's frustrating, and sometimes I stumble across something that really touches me.

That happened to me yesterday, after I finished watching the paper about the medieval bread experiments. I clicked on UCD's youtube channel, looking for more nice stuff like it, and this one came up.



It started up on its own, and I would not have watched it otherwise. But it started, and the beginning sounded interesting, and it only got better from there. So I stayed with it until the end. It's a lovely, lovely piece - if you have a few minutes, do watch it. And thank you, dear readers, for being my excuse for doing blogging research, resulting into finding things like this!

Links, Courtesy of the Blogosphere.

News from here: The cat is sleeping, hazel pollen are flying prolifically (much to the chagrin of my poor nose), the sun is shining, and I have planted tomato seeds on Sunday.

Probably more interesting to you is the fact that after the mad rush to the finish line for our book project, Gillian and I are now patiently waiting until the book has done its things at the publisher's and we'll get feedback and the edits.

Apart from this, the blogosphere has provided me with links to things that you might also find interesting. Such as this Digventure piece about pioneering women in archaeology, which also fits in very nicely with Women's History Month.

John Scalzi has an opinion on opinions, and is voicing it on his blog.

Finally, a paper about medieval bread:

Sunshine makes bloggers forget to type a blog post title.

While I was busily writing on the Beast, Springer has been active and the Special Issue of Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences is finally live. It's an issue focusing on Experimental Archaeology, and it features an article I have written about the dearly beloved and never ending spinning experiment. If you'd like to read the Editorial (for free) or have a look at the articles (paywall), the special issue is here.

More reading? Jim C. Hines is doing a guest post series on his blog, about those not mainstream in SF/F - people of colour, people of non-binary gender, people otherwise not corresponding to the privileged multitude. It really is worth reading, so head over there and take a look. (Who knows, you might end up with some new authors to try.)

Even more reading? Gillian Polack is having guest posts too, in honour of Women's History Month. Also worth taking a look - these are very personal and very interesting stories.

I, however, have done enough reading for now, and will instead sit in the sun while working. (Sewing work has to be done, and what better colour to sew today than green, when spring is coming, and the sun is shining...)

TGIF.

It's Friday, hooray! After the frenzy of the last few weeks and still recovering from the nasty cold (which is almost gone now, thank goodness), somehow it feels like all I've done this week is dragging my feet. Which is not entirely true, though. There was definitely progress - even some progress in the garden, where last year's neglect is still very, very visible and leading to a need for quite a lot of weeding.

Today, though, has some more sewing work on the agenda. Which I shall venture to do now, fortified by a nice cup of motivational caffeinated hot drink. And probably chocolate, because everything is always better with chocolate.

World Book Day!

I just found out that it's World Book Day today. Whee! It's nice to feel like I was able to catch up to a geek holiday in time (seeing that I already missed Pi Day this year), and it's also nice to think that all over the world (hopefully at least), people are celebrating books today.

Only it turns out that World Book Day is not World Book Day everywhere but only in the UK and Ireland. As worldbookday.com kindly tells me in its FAQ,  the rest of the world will celebrate that day some other time, oh, probably in April. The Unesco webpage tells me that the rest of the world is celebrating World Book and Copyright Day on April 23.

Really? Why can't there be one single date for world book day? I really like the idea - it's cool, and I'm all for making books the reason for some celebration. But can we please agree on the fact that a world something day should be on the same date for, say, the world? And not split into two? Even if the area in question has a history of being a special snowflake?

I honestly don't know what to think about this. It's really cool, and really weird that it's on two dates and that the split-off celebration seems to be larger and much more enthusiastic than the official one.
So, if you live in the UK or Ireland, I wish you a happy book day - it seems as if the organisation running the schemes and organising the day is doing a very nice job, and much fun is being had, and books are being promoted, and reading is, which is absolutely awesome. The rest of us will wait, though, until it is our turn in April - when stuff is probably going to be much more subdued.

Go discover some book stuff.

One of the things that keep me absolutely fascinated with the Middle Ages and medieval stuff is the constant discovery of new things. Well, new to me. New aspects, new interpretations, new discoveries, new finds - our image of medieval life is continuously growing, evolving, changing.

Case in point: These two blog posts by Erik Kwakkel. The first one is about transportation covers for medieval books, ranging from binding as a girdle book to boxes and satchels. Girdle books are probably quite well-known, but I had not seen the diverse satchels before... which would also be nice to take closer looks at to see how their construction is, and how they were sewn.

The second one is about cracking codes - the code that typography is, and the codes of abbreviation.  Did you know that there was a medieval form of shorthand? Or that there is a script that is actually called "littera inintelligibilis" - indecipherable?

It's probably a good thing that our book had a deadline - it would be just too easy to go on adding more and more things. The Middle Ages, after all, are long and large and full of interesting things!

Sunny Tuesday.

It's brilliant weather outside, the sun shining down and warming the air, crocuses are blooming, and my cold is finally letting up. I can taste things again, which is always wonderful (the one or two days where I don't have a sense of taste are the most miserable days during any cold for me), the cat is dozing, I have tea and a book to read and I'm still having the day off (still much-needed) and it's only half gone yet and that is wonderful.

For your delectation, while I am basking in the sun, here are a few links:

Canada's money can be Spockified.

Subterranean Press has a Humble Book Bundle that features Scalzi's Mallet of Loving Correction.

Speaking of Scalzi, he's helping the Internet with this list of Responses to Online Stupidity.

And the best lawywer's response ever.

Resurfacing. Finally.

As you can see from the astonishingly early blog post (before the afternoon!), I am slowly resurfacing. Our deadline for the manuscript submission has been met, even though technology conspired against us to make it as hard as possible, and there were a few last-minute decisions to make. Beast Trivia Snippet #1: When both authors of a joint project are suffering from nasty colds with plenty of side effects and too little sleep, things can be more tricky than they would ordinarily be.

While there will be some remaining stuff to sort out and clear up, and at one point in the future also the edit/proofread, things for now are much relaxed. A very, very good thing - I spent most of Saturday (the part not spent working, that is) and most of Sunday resting in deference to the nasty cold, and it finally seems to have taken the hint and is letting up. My devious plan for today is to do as little as I can possibly get away with, and I have already made much progress on that score: tea has been drunk, there was leisurely breakfast with a book, whiling away some time catching up on blogs I like to read, and petting the cat. Also: blogging with more time on my hands than these last days.

While I did not find much time to stay current with things these last days, it has not escaped me that Leonard Nimoy has passed away. I'm one of the generation that grew up with the New Enterprise, with Wesley Crusher and Captain Picard and Worf and Data, but I've seen a few of the original series too, as well as the films. Many other people have said a lot of appropriate words about Mr. Nimoy (and Mr. Spock), so I'll just post this video which, additionally, describes what I plan for today. And possibly also for part of tomorrow.



Rest in peace, Leonard Nimoy.