They didn't dare to try this in Phoenix

On the first day of summer, Snapple tried to break a Guinness World Record.
And failed.
Spectacularly.
Still, any publicity, right guys?

- via Making Light

Yeah, but the weather's better in June

Recent evidence seems to point to the original use of Stonehenge as a site to celebrate the winter Solstice. These days, as many as 20,000 people celebrate the summer Solstice at Stonehenge (which is closed the whole next day to clean up the mess), but the archaeology, combined with knowledge of the natural cycles of pigs, points to a winter festival:

Dr Umburto Albarella, an animal bone expert at the University of Sheffield's archaeology department, which is studying monuments around Stonehenge, said pigs in the Neolithic period were born in spring and were an early form of domestic pig that farrowed once a year. The existence of large numbers of bones from pigs slaughtered in December or January supports the view that our Neolithic ancestors took part in a winter solstice festival.

Read the whole article.

- Via the ever-amazing Mirabilis.ca

No, really, everything's fine

Just busy.

I live at Casa Alpha, but I'm moving to Casa Beta over the summer, 'cause I'm marrying the senorita who lives there in October. Casa Alpha is getting a new backyard put in, as well as some miscellaneous repairs. Casa Beta is getting new floors. And some backyard work, come to think of it. And it's muy caliente outside, but that's what ya get when ya stay in Phoenix too long...

Shiny!

I don't know if you've noticed or not, but the links in the sidebar sometimes change more often than the comments here in Curmudgeon Central. Especially when I'm busy, as I will be until about November this year. Look for links with a date next to them and the word New! following. Like this:

[06/15] Chowhound [New!]

I keep the date added and New tags up for about a week. Have fun.

The Rules of Moopsball

My friends in the SCA will note an alarming similarity between Moopsball and the Estrella War. Go read the Estrella War Treaty, pointed to from the main page. I think the Moopsballers may have more fun, since they aren't solemnly reinventing the rules every year.

Just saying.

Link via Making Light

Apple/Intel

So: In a couple of years I can buy an Intel box from Apple, partition the hard drive and run all of my software on the same machine. Though not all at the same time, unless one of those packages that let you run Linux and Windows at the same time get ported to the new hardware. (Hint: This would be a Good Idea.)

I think that's wonderful.

But: I'll have to buy the hardware from Apple, at their mark-up. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Especially if the Apple stores are still around and keeping to their current service levels. Key for me isn't the Apple hardware. I quit caring about hardware differences after I switched from Amiga.

Key for me is the software. OS X can theoretically run on any modern hardware. Apple says they've been running it on Intel, albeit in the closet, since day one and I believe them. I bought the Apple laptop this year because I wanted OS X and I want to program on OS X.

And Apple gives their development tools away. The development tools I downloaded for free are exactly the same as I would have got if I had paid the $500 to join their developer program at a higher level (which I will do sometime in the next six months; once I'm over the learning curve I expect to need some of the extra benefits, like the testing lab time.).

Microsoft doesn't and they should.

And OSX has just as steep a learning curve as Windows does, but in the end the code itself is easier to write.

I enjoy programming again.

In short: Apple gets it. Software rules.

Taliesin in Zombie Apocalypse: Fortress or Deathtrap?

Must be Zombie Month here at the village.

Nancy Lebovitz points us all to a fascinating discussion of the defensibility of Frank Lloyd Wright architecture in the event of a zombie attack. While leading experts in either zombie defense or architecture have yet to weigh in with their opinions, this is a vital subject for discussion. Perhaps a Homeland Security grant is in order.

Link (be sure to read the comments!)

Bankrupt!

No, not me. Llamacom.com, my ISP for quite some time now, is closing up shop at the end of June.

This seems like a good time for me to clean house, so finger-rock.com and alienwine.com are going to disappear,at least for a while. My works-in-progress will be at patrickconnors.org. My email will also be changing; if you are already a correspondent, you'll get an update.