The phone, I blame the phone for eating up almost all my morning! Now I'll quickly give you today's links:

De Gruyter has bought up Versita, now called de Gruyter Open. This part of dG will offer open access articles and journals, their start page is here.

And, to (semi-)quote* the webcomic Questionable Content: Baking is science for hungry people. If that makes you hungry for some baking science, head over here to learn everything you ever wanted to learn about chocolate chip cookies.

* It's a semi-quote because there is merchandise with that phrase, but to my knowledge, it doesn't turn up in a comic.

It's been almost a year now since I discovered HabitRPG, which I posted about back in February 2013. (For those of you who missed that first post and are too lazy to click the link, it's a to-do list with integrated life gamification. You have a little avatar that gains gold and experience for every task you do, whether one-off or recurring, and can die if you miss too many recurring tasks. Like a roleplaying character, it will level up when there's enough experience amassed, and the gold can be used to buy either in-game rewards like equipment, or buy permission to treat yourself to some real-life rewards, like the book you wanted, or having coffee with friends, or whatever you set for yourself at whatever gold price suits you.)

That was not the first planning gadget I had tried, but contrary to my expectations, I did actually stick with it and did not drop out after a week or two, or even half a year. My to-do list is still quite long, and some items stay on it nauseatingly long, but I do have the feeling that I am getting more done overall.

Habit is especially useful, for me, in keeping track of recurring tasks such as book-keeping (and you faithful readers will know exactly how much I love that task), but also small everyday things that tend to get forgotten. The to-do list can get a bit unwieldy if it becomes too long (if? it's always way too long), and tends to make me sigh because I have still not gotten around to doing this or that, but that is not a problem of the programme, but of my too-ambitious planning.

There are plenty of small things to keep you motivated, too - special gear turning up from time to time, a chance of finding something such as a pet or pet food, and recently implemented are "boss quests" where you have to fight a special monster by doing all your daily tasks, for example. You can also join friends in a party, or join a guild of like-minded folks. For long-term positive reinforcement of getting things done, there's the real-life reward opportunity, which also works nicely for me (and is the main reason why my little avatar does not have that much equipment - I preferred having coffee or lunch with friends, or saving up to buy that yoga mat, or a book).

When I started using Habit, it was still very much in development, and quite... buggy. That has much improved now, though it's still being developed and gets add-ons periodically, such as the long-awaited checklist option. More gamification is possible now than in the first months, with a class system and more complex stats (that you can also ignore if you want).

Sometimes the documentation and explanation on what things do is a little... vague, and there are still plenty of bugs being had, but the developing team (which sports many, many volunteers) is doing a really good job of tackling them. So while there's the occasional glitch, overall I don't mind that much. I really like using Habit, and it actually has made a difference for me. If you like RPGs (or even if you are just curious about that thing), go and check it out. If you need help or want to read some more about it first, here's the wiki for Habit... but I'd actually recommend you to jump right in and give it a try with a few tasks and a few recurring tasks, and see if it suits you. It just might.

I've barely started on the current big project, and first complications have already arisen, hooray - there is an issue with the fabrics I had planned to order. If I am lucky, I can get very similar replacements for them. If not... well. We shall see. At least it starts out quite, quite interesting.

There are bits and pieces I can get started on, though, and I am firmly planning to do so today, with just one single other point on my agenda.

(Sorry for the vagueness - if things work out, I'm planning to de-vague it soon, and you will be along for the ride.)

So while I'm feeling a little torn about how things will work, here are some scattered random links for you.

The Yarn Harlot writes about a baby sweater, and how only love could buy it. Yes. This. (Fits right in with the Fair Prices stuff that I blatantly plugged again yesterday.)

If you read German, Archaeologik posts about an excavation of a modern ceramic firing pit (pit was courtesy of a school project). If you don't read German, there's piccies.

Random fact of the day: I'm still doing yoga. My standard go-to site is doyogawithme.com, which I still highly recommend. There are pay-for sites that are by far not as nice as that one. And online yoga is a business with quite a bit of money to be made, as noticed by a company called YogaGlo... who have, apparently, patented a certain layout of the room for video classes.
This has led to hubbub and kerfluffle with the other yoga class sites, among them Yoga International. How is that interesting for you, you ask? Go read their open letter - and then you might want to enjoy their offer of all their classes for free (offer stands with undisclosed end time, but probably not forever).

Dear Doug, thank you so much for your January question. This was a welcome excuse to go waste a lot of time finally catch up on my blog statistics again. Though I confess that I am a slight bit confused by them...

To keep those of you not checking into Doug's summary up to date, January’s questions are:

What are your best (or if you want your worst) post(s) and why? Compare and contrast your different bests/worsts.
I leave it up to you to define what best is. We bloggers have all sorts of different stats available to us.

(Doug then gives a list of suggestions on what could be defining best and worst.)

So naturally, the first thing I did was look at stats. As all bloggers, I have the blogger stats available to me, plus I have an extra statcounter installed. Both are somewhat... lacking, to my taste, in giving a good and complete overview - the blogger one tells me that some of my early posts (from back in 2010 and 2009) have never received a single visit, which I find hard to believe. This one here, for example - which is admittedly not one of my most brilliant posts ever. However, at least the most patient husband of them all usually reads my blog every day, so it should have at least one view, right?

According to blogger stats, most of my relatively current posts get hits somewhere between the high twenties and low sixties, with outliers (often linky posts that get handed on by others) that are solidly in the one- to twohundred hit range. This is probably not counting any rss feeds, though I am not sure how many of you get this via feed.

The most viewed post of all time (9485 views) is actually a link post - this one here, linking on to instructions for unwinding a small skein of yarn. Follow-up with 6586 hits is my own post about how to untangle a skein of yarn, which has been popping up as the most viewed one consistently since I wrote it back in November 2009. I still like it, too - it's long and tries to be a little humorous as well. So that's probably what I would consider one of my best posts, in terms of effort spent to views gained, and possibly also helpfulness (at least I hope so).

Much lower in the hitcount lists are other posts that were a more than average effort to write, like the Skjoldehamn neck flap one (2775 hits). Pictures from this, however, have been turning up across the 'net (and not always with acknowledgement).
On a more positive note for me, posts about the Textile Forum (and there's many of them) are consistently getting higher hit counts than my normal posts, too - and since that conference project is one very close to my heart, this makes me very happy. They are not always what I'd consider a splendid piece of writing, though.

And some of my favourite posts in the blog are the ones about fair prices for crafts - all tagged under "fair prices for crafts campaign". They did get a good share of love (and hits), ranging somewhere between almost 500 and 1340 hits for the posts in the main series (the one also linked to on the sidebar).

That's about what I would consider the best posts of my blog. I won't go into the worst ones, though - with trying hard to post weekdaily all year around, there are bound to be plenty of non-brilliant posts just telling you that I ran out of ideas, or giving a random link and two lines of uninspired writing. I am sorry for those, and I feel a little bad about it every time I post such a one, but really - it can't be helped, and putting on pressure to be totes brill all the time... just won't work.

If you will tell me about your favourite post (or your least favourite one!) on this blog in the comments, though, I'd greatly appreciate that!

I am settling back into a normal work rythm after the winter break, though with more incentive to settle in quickly and efficiently this time - I have a deliciously large project on my desk.

In addition and as usual, this time of year is also interesting in regards to finishing stuff (such as the bookkeeping and tax stuff) and preparing stuff (such as fixing event dates for the coming months, and preparing for the big taxes thingie).

Finally, there's catching up to do - some catching up on the news, some on emails, and some on - you guessed it - interesting (or possibly interesting) links. So here you go:

Doug has summed up the archaeology blog carnival responses for December. It's a long post, and I was thrilled to be in there almost at the top. (I read all the way through it, though - it is worth it.) I'll post my reply to the January question one of the next days - once I have managed to look at my blog stats a bit...

If you are in the US and thinking of getting started in a conservation career, here's a grant to help.

There's a new book out, called "Clothing the Clergy" - it does sound interesting, but I have not been able to check it out yet.

If you are a language freak or just plain interested in the relation between languages, here is the graphic for you - and the blog posting that might then also be worth a closer look.

In case you are more interested in typology, you can play the kerning game here.

And as a final link for today, even though we're far away from Easter still, here's a post about the bioarchaeology of crucifiction.

I have been skimming, reading and researching a heap of articles recently (processing them with the help of Qiqqa, as explained some time back).

Article databases and online journal repositories can be a wonderful way to lose a few hours, by a similar thing to the encyclopaedia effect - you sort of hop from one topic to a related one, and from one author to more of that author to another author... well. I think you all know how that ends. If you don't have access, though, it will most probably end in frustration - so many things, such high prices, so little chance to get at them.

One easy way to get article access is to get a library card from a friendly University library in your vicinity. But what if you do not live near one? For the Germans (or those living in Germany), there is good news: Everybody who has a permanent address in Germany can ask for participation in the Nationallizenzen scheme.

You register for this (stating, of course, your German address); then you get sent a letter with your login data. The Nationallizenzen access has a few restrictions, such as moving walls keeping you from the most recent publications and similar, but it's a very nice and convenient way to get at a huge number of articles and e-books that you otherwise would pay several arms and legs for.

So... hooray for access! And now I shall read some more articles. Because I can. (And because I need some more nice references and suggested further reading for, oh, still too many topics of that book project.)

I joined into Doug's Blogging Carnival last month (here is the digest and link list of all the 60+ bloggers who participated), and I did enjoy this a lot - I rarely blog to a topic that was pre-specified for me, and it's a nice challenge. Plus it has sidetracked me to a number of other archaeology blogs that I peeked into, and it sort of feels like connecting with other blogging archaeologists... even though it might be no "real" connection, if you know what I mean. (Don't fret if you don't. I'm rambling here.)

That said, I have just realised that December is not so very long anymore... so it's time for me to tackle the December questions for the Blogging Archaeology Carnival: What are "the Good, the Bad and the Ugly" of blogging for me?

The Good? There's a stack of things that I like about my blogging. It adds a little element of structure to my day (seldom a bad thing for a freelancer). It keeps me writing, and practising my English (never bad for a second language). I can try to be funny, share some personal things that I am excited about and that I want to get out into the world, help other folks spread the word about events, or blogs, or CfPs.
Also, I have an excuse to rootle around other blogs and investigate stuff and read up on things - it's research for my daily blogging, since I have to have something to write about, right? And I am absolutely delighted if I get a nice comment, or if I meet somebody at a conference or on a fair or at an event and get to hear something like "oh, that is your blog? I've been reading it for ages!"

The Bad of blogging is there, too. Of course. The days when I don't feel like blogging and have to do it anyways - because I am supposed to. Stretches of days when I feel like I have nothing to say that is of any interest to anybody, and that I am blogging such lame stuff that I will lose tons of readers. The times when I have so many links piled up that even though that's plenty of stuff to blog about, I can't get the motivation to get them into something like order and package them into a suitable post. And sometimes I would love to get some more comments, some more feedback, just to have an inkling on how I am doing. (Myself, I'm not much of a commenter on other blogs, too - so I probably should not complain about that one.)

On the Ugly front, though, I am happily almost untouched. I have not gotten any real bad vibes due to blogging, I have not lost jobs or opportunities (at least not that I know of), or had other grievances. The worst that happens to me, blog-wise, is someone re-posting things without acknowledging their source and the occasional spammer attack. There's no way to completely prevent the first, so I just shrug it off; the latter has been greatly reduced by turning comment moderation on for posts that are older than three days or so.

Here you go, Doug - that's my Good, Bad, and Ugly of Blogging.