The EU VAT Action group has posted an update on their site - they're looking for surveys from European countries that are not the UK. If you haven't taken the survey yet, please help.
If you would like to look at sheep after that, you can see some from the beautiful Lake District here.
Tuesday, 10 February 2015
Monday, 9 February 2015
Time flies like an arrow.
It's been almost two years since I stumbled across HabitRPG, and I'm still using it. In fact, I'm using it daily. I can't believe it's been this long, and I am often amazed at the difference it makes in my life.
Case in point? Stressful times (like having an editing deadline) usually meant that a lot of the smaller, mundane things fell by the wayside. This includes things like getting some breakfast, or lunch, or putting away used dishes. It also meant long streaks of inactivity on maintenance tasks - getting the picture database up to date, for example, or remembering to defragment the HDD.
Chances of that happening have actually much, much diminished thanks to the "Dailies" column in Habit. Basically, I have a list of those recurring tasks that come up each week, and some of them each day - and they remind me to get my shit together and to get stuff done. For a lot of these smaller dailies, it means a frantic burst of activity towards the evening, but I won't complain about my timing here: they get done, and that is what counts.
For me, it serves as a tool to keep track of things I have to do, helps to motivate me when necessary, and helps me to structure my day. It's not always perfect, but it works very well for me, and it comes with a friendly community and is still growing new and useful features.
I've tried to infect a few of our friends with the Habit virus, more or less successfully so - it's not the perfect to-do list for everybody, or so it seems. I love it, though. (In case you have tried it out - tell me what you think about it in the comments! I'd be very, very interested to hear what you think.)
Case in point? Stressful times (like having an editing deadline) usually meant that a lot of the smaller, mundane things fell by the wayside. This includes things like getting some breakfast, or lunch, or putting away used dishes. It also meant long streaks of inactivity on maintenance tasks - getting the picture database up to date, for example, or remembering to defragment the HDD.
Chances of that happening have actually much, much diminished thanks to the "Dailies" column in Habit. Basically, I have a list of those recurring tasks that come up each week, and some of them each day - and they remind me to get my shit together and to get stuff done. For a lot of these smaller dailies, it means a frantic burst of activity towards the evening, but I won't complain about my timing here: they get done, and that is what counts.
For me, it serves as a tool to keep track of things I have to do, helps to motivate me when necessary, and helps me to structure my day. It's not always perfect, but it works very well for me, and it comes with a friendly community and is still growing new and useful features.
I've tried to infect a few of our friends with the Habit virus, more or less successfully so - it's not the perfect to-do list for everybody, or so it seems. I love it, though. (In case you have tried it out - tell me what you think about it in the comments! I'd be very, very interested to hear what you think.)
Friday, 6 February 2015
Friday!
I'm in two minds about it being Friday already - on the one hand, I'm really looking forward to the weekend, and on the other hand, I am not too happy that the week is over and I have still so much work left to do. Involving the book, of course, first and foremost.
Proofreading something in a non-native language is one notch harder to do than doing it in your native tongue, so I'm groaning quietly to myself even more than when I do a German proof. At least I know that it is normal for me to start looking at perfectly familiar words and wonder whether they were always written in this weird way...
I'm making progress, though. Assisted, just like the past few days, by ample amounts of tea in different variations and a sleeping cat as well as generous allowances of chocolate. Plus I'm getting some relaxing non-brain-intensive stuff done in the breaks, such as tidying up things and putting stuff away and sorting files. (And brewing more tea, and cuddling the cat - but the last point is compulsory on any day.)
Proofreading something in a non-native language is one notch harder to do than doing it in your native tongue, so I'm groaning quietly to myself even more than when I do a German proof. At least I know that it is normal for me to start looking at perfectly familiar words and wonder whether they were always written in this weird way...
I'm making progress, though. Assisted, just like the past few days, by ample amounts of tea in different variations and a sleeping cat as well as generous allowances of chocolate. Plus I'm getting some relaxing non-brain-intensive stuff done in the breaks, such as tidying up things and putting stuff away and sorting files. (And brewing more tea, and cuddling the cat - but the last point is compulsory on any day.)
Thursday, 5 February 2015
Sunshine! More reading!
There are three things that make proofreading much nicer to do: tea, chocolate, and sunshine. While I can make sure to get ample of the first two of these, sunshine is harder to control - so I'm absolutely delighted that the sun is actually shining today, and as soon as my stint at the computer will be finished (transferring those edits and corrections to the file itself), I'll sit down in the winter garden and enjoy some sun, light, and warmth while working.
There's not much else, news-wise, at the moment. Proofing is always slow work, and I have to do it in small batches and take frequent breaks to make sure that I'm fully concentrated so that I can catch as much of the issues as possible.
And with that, I will leave you to your regulary scheduled rest-of-day... while I will go read some more. The sooner I'll be finished with that, the sooner I'll be able to spend more time on the next project that has come up, which is also book-related, and which I'll tell you more about as soon as it comes out of its wonky very early stage.
There's not much else, news-wise, at the moment. Proofing is always slow work, and I have to do it in small batches and take frequent breaks to make sure that I'm fully concentrated so that I can catch as much of the issues as possible.
And with that, I will leave you to your regulary scheduled rest-of-day... while I will go read some more. The sooner I'll be finished with that, the sooner I'll be able to spend more time on the next project that has come up, which is also book-related, and which I'll tell you more about as soon as it comes out of its wonky very early stage.
Wednesday, 4 February 2015
Reading for me, reading for you.
I'm planning to spend a large chunk of my time today on proofreading - the book has been printed, and I am wielding my Red Pen of Doom and am marking it up. It is always amazing and slightly (or more than slightly) frightening how much of a difference the printout makes. I can proofread someone else's article okay on a screen, but with my own writing or with longer things, nothing can beat a printout and the old-fashioned pen.
While I am reading, you might want to have some words to look at, too. So here are links to provide you with fodder:
First of all, 2015 is the anniversary of the English Magna Carta - and the surviving four copies have actually met for the first time ever. Here's a blog post about their meeting. (And about them.)
Isis at Medieval Silkwork writes about ground fabrics for embroidery. (Those that I know are mostly linen, by the way, with a very few silk ones thrown in. And I've found out that if you are doing counted work, there's a limit to how unbalanced a fabric can be to still have a nice-looking embroidery - distortion, anyone?)
More reading? As in book form reading? Here you go.
Penelope Walton Rogers has her own press now, Pangur Press, and she's starting off with free .pdf versions of some of her earlier publications - including the two volumes from York about textiles and textile production.
There you go. Have fun reading!
While I am reading, you might want to have some words to look at, too. So here are links to provide you with fodder:
First of all, 2015 is the anniversary of the English Magna Carta - and the surviving four copies have actually met for the first time ever. Here's a blog post about their meeting. (And about them.)
Isis at Medieval Silkwork writes about ground fabrics for embroidery. (Those that I know are mostly linen, by the way, with a very few silk ones thrown in. And I've found out that if you are doing counted work, there's a limit to how unbalanced a fabric can be to still have a nice-looking embroidery - distortion, anyone?)
More reading? As in book form reading? Here you go.
Penelope Walton Rogers has her own press now, Pangur Press, and she's starting off with free .pdf versions of some of her earlier publications - including the two volumes from York about textiles and textile production.
There you go. Have fun reading!
Tuesday, 3 February 2015
Opt out?
I've reviewed my facebook privacy settings this morning. They are not very private, since I use facebook mostly job-related - but it never hurts to check them now and then anyways. So everything was fine. And then I clicked my way through the other possible things in that settings part of FB... and made a discovery.
If you don't like facebook (or others) tracking where you go and what you look at to serve you ads based on that, you can actually opt out of this. It doesn't mean you won't get ads anymore (you will), but the ads are not based on your data. Sounds like a good idea to me!
The site is called http://www.youronlinechoices.com/ - just in case you'd like to opt out, too...
If you don't like facebook (or others) tracking where you go and what you look at to serve you ads based on that, you can actually opt out of this. It doesn't mean you won't get ads anymore (you will), but the ads are not based on your data. Sounds like a good idea to me!
The site is called http://www.youronlinechoices.com/ - just in case you'd like to opt out, too...
Monday, 2 February 2015
More book work.
I'm taking a break from going through the book draft, lovingly copyedited by my colleague over the last few days. It really is amazing how many inconsistencies and typos can slip through, even if you are trying for consistency and trying to have a typo-free text.
I don't have many more pages to go, though - and then, after a short break, I will go into the next stage: printing out the manuscript and giving it a good, nice, on-paper read. Some things just can't be done on a screen, and proofreading your own long text definitely is one of them.
The cat, meanwhile, is lying on her bed beside my desk and is snoring, and occasionally she's making small funny sleepy-cat noises. She's also taking great care of sleeping a similar amount of time on her left side and her right side, though sometimes she gets stuck in the transition and sleeps in a weirdly twisted s-shape for a while.
No rest for me, though - coffee instead! And about 40 more pages before I can go do something else for a bit...
I don't have many more pages to go, though - and then, after a short break, I will go into the next stage: printing out the manuscript and giving it a good, nice, on-paper read. Some things just can't be done on a screen, and proofreading your own long text definitely is one of them.
The cat, meanwhile, is lying on her bed beside my desk and is snoring, and occasionally she's making small funny sleepy-cat noises. She's also taking great care of sleeping a similar amount of time on her left side and her right side, though sometimes she gets stuck in the transition and sleeps in a weirdly twisted s-shape for a while.
No rest for me, though - coffee instead! And about 40 more pages before I can go do something else for a bit...
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