Shrooooooooms!

Daily Photo Posted by kitt at 10:10 on 10 January 2016

While trimming the mandarin tree yesterday, I discovered this mass under the tree, close to the fence.

It is huge. I wish I could find my macro lens to take a close up of this crazy mushroom mass.

It has a light dusting of white mold spores on it, which makes me likely to remove it, since, well, I'm eating 10 of these mandarins a day. If I start hallucinating (how can you tell, with all that I write here?), check these mushrooms and mold first.

Drupal 7 redirect to last published node of a specific node type

Snippet Posted by kitt at 22:28 on 9 January 2016

Okay, you have a number of node of a particular content type, say, a Daily Photo, and you want a link, say, a menu link, that will always take you to the latest published node of that content type, but do it with a redirect, instead of a view with the latest node. The former says, when you go to this URL, redirect to the correct URL; while the latter says, when you go to this URL, display the content from that other URL here. Sometimes the latter is better, I prefer the former for my daily photos.

So, here's how you'd create that redirect in Drupal 7. You can put this into a page, or create a new module and add this to it, or use an existing module (say, a features module or something).

<?php
 
    $query = new EntityFieldQuery();
    $query
    ->entityCondition('entity_type', 'node')
    // of course, this would change to your node type
    ->propertyCondition('type', 'dailyphoto')
    // only published ones
    ->propertyCondition('status', 1)
    // 'posted' can also be 'created' if you prefer
    ->propertyOrderBy('posted', 'DESC');
 
    $result = $query->execute();
    if (isset($result['node'])) {
      // yup, ugly.  Works.
      $nids = array_keys($result['node']);
      drupal_goto('node/' . $nids[0]);
    } else {
      // well shit, go home
      drupal_goto('/');
    }
 
?>

Mandarins!

Blog kitt decided around 19:25 on 9 January 2016 to publish this:

Andy asked me to trim the mandarin tree that has branches that are overhanging the hive. I've been trying to pick the mandarins off the tree, eating them so that they don't go to waste, hoping that I could eat enough that the branches would lift and stop touching the hive. Turns out, eating five a day wasn't enough to lift the branches. Nor was 7. Nor was 10.

So, despite eating 10 mandarins a day, I had to give up, and cut back the branches. I don't mind pruning a tree if it needs it. I do mind deliberately making a lopsided tree because I'm accommodating some arbitrary, artificial, movable blocker.

In this case, the hive with its 60 pounds of honey isn't exactly "movable," so I trimmed the branches so that none were touching or hanging over the hive.

And ended up with 16 cups of mandarin oranges.

Yeah, it's going to take me a long while to eat all of these.

Look!

Daily Photo Written with a loving hand by kitt some time around 18:53 on 9 January 2016

Can't stop laughing! The Martian is a hysterical book.

The Snowman

Book Notes Written with a loving hand by kitt some time around 17:33 on 9 January 2016

That's right, the seventh Harry Hole book, and, because I read these out of order, the last one in the series for me to read. This one is the first one optioned to be turned into a movie (optioned I think in 2014, though you can probably search and figure that out quickly). Of all the books, I have to say I agree that this one would make the best movie, though all of them would be good.

Having read the previous six and the subsequent three, I knew what was going on around this book. I knew how it was going to end, and I STILL didn't see all the twists. I knew a couple were false, but didn't really know that others were twists except for the fact I wasn't near the end of the book. That said, I was still deeply engrossed, reading fast, and agitated during the climax of the book.

All the expected characters were in the book. If you are reading them in order, then this book is an OH. MY. GOD. in its conclusion.

Having not particularly liked the first Harry Hole I read, I am somewhat delighted at now being a fan. Lots of gruesome, ahhhhh-cannot-unthink scenes, but Nesbø's twists and puzzles and misdirects are just way worth it. The broken hero story makes it more appealing.

This book is readable stand alone, but for maximum impact and oh shit revelations, read them in order.

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