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Dan’s Polaroids
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28.08.2026

Lake Garda with heavy clouds and half a rainbow.
It rained today again. But we got a rainbow.

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Now that’s a very interesting combination … and it makes for a very interesting conversation!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lf5oqGOCRCM

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A4

“You injured yourself again? What was it this time?”
“I have taken up type-writing. Unfortunately there are holes between the keys.”
“Did your finger get stuck?”
“I wish. I dropped a quarter of a digestive biscuit into the keyboard while I was writing a letter to my friend. I decided to use this as an opportunity to learn typewriter maintenance.”
“Ouch. You scratched yourself with a screwdriver then?”
“No, you’re looking at an A4 injury.”
“What’s that? A category? Sounds minor?”
“Let’s just say instruction manuals are their own hazards.”

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Music Exchange: Lost in Yesterday <> Satisfied Mind

V.H. and I are doing a music exchange where we shared three songs with each other and we each chose one to write about. I chose “Lost in Yesterday” by Tame Impala. Due to a curious technical issue – ahem, Apple Music, please design your permalinks more clearly, and make it c...

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The joy of

herein, a few moments of joy from recent days.

The joy of:
Realising I have a phrase to use in a piece of writing that I need to write down.Jotting down an idea on the closest surface.Hearing a new mashup from my favourite singer for the first time.Exploring a book with pictures. I really felt like I was exploring.Noticing how much reading about an artwork helps me understand it.Working on pieces of writing with others.Arranging mementos into my new letter rack, and trying my best to stack my museum maps into layers so I can see as many as possible.Starting a new scrapbook, and placing the first stickers in – of making the book my own.Autumn rains, and how water nourishes the ground.Trying to learn a new song on the guitar.Tidying up.Seeing someone smile.Someone smiling back.Friendship.

Dan’s Polaroids
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27.08.2026

A large tent with a wooden terrace. The large inflatable duck hangs over the railing.
Accommodation

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What the … why? … 😳 #a11y

What the … why? … 😳 #a11y

Dan’s Polaroids
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26.08.2026

A girl and a woman walking hand in hand through a narrow Italian street.
Wandering around

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Reading as participation in the indie web

In the past, I have used the shorthand “if you have a website, you’re in the indie web community.” I have used this because I don’t think there are, or should be, any other qualifying factors (i.e. using particular tools, having a certain site layout). While I think this sho...

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Moods, places; translations

I was listening to Lorde’s Melodrama, an album I haven’t listened to for some time. Her music continues to echo through my week. It is hard to believe that I got to see her perform live a few days ago; the electricity of the performance still sticks with me: the moments we a...

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Midnight scrapbooking

A warm glow from the still-on kitchen light passed through the hallway, illuminating the floral book, opened, on my lap. The night’s task: to start making the book my own. My impulse to create new things – music, stories, memories – is not dampened by the absence of dayligh...

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We’re now enjoying Beethoven‘s Violin Concerto live at home, as Kid A1 has decided to practice it “just for fun” ☺️

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TIL: “security by antiquity” from https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260821-why-older-tech-is-sometimes-safer-from-hackersPresumably a reference to (or a subset of) "security through obscurity".Best rationalization for old-tech-hoarding I have seen in a long time.Probably worth a longer cybersecurity post or a few. Like how to source (obtain), repair, maintain, and integrate with (or isolate from!) modern systems, or somewhere in between like local-only secure data transfers between such systems, perhaps gapped a la sneakernet.Glossary:security through obscurity  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_through_obscuritysneakernet  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sneakernet#security #securityByAntiquity #oldTech #cyberSecurity #Blaugust #Blaugust2026

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Why are there two pentagons in the otherwise hex-tiled American continents displayed in TRON: Legacy’s Rectifier Globe computer graphics?I was watching the TRON: Legacy 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray remaster (only my second time watching the 4K remaster) in the background earlier today...

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How I organise my bookshelf

Eula wrote a response (“Collecting reference books for creativity”) to my post on inspiration from physical artefacts and organising them. Ironically, I didn’t appreciate the continuity between these posts until now. I digress. In her blog post, Eula wrote about how she orga...

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Edinburgh Summer Sessions

You feel like you have joined a community in a festival line. Everyone is together, waiting for music — we all came here with a common purpose, a purpose that we can see, a purpose that we can feel. We came here because we are human. Many people are dressed up, in all colour...

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107 GB …  ? 🧐

107 GB … ? 🧐

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InDesign is also falling apart now, it seems. Laggy af on an M1 Max with 32 GB of RAM, and the undo command is regularly breaking (!). And it’s always the same story: people report these bugs to Adobe, but they just persist for months and months. 🤨
https://community.adobe.com/questions-671/undo-command-not-working-indesign-2025-893186

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Wonders of Web Weaving, Episode 16

The sixteenth episode of Wonders of Web Weaving is out:
In Episode 16, I chat with Nic, the author of nicchan.me about, among other things, using the web as a design tool, web accessibility, learning from others' code, and more.
I hope you enjoy the episode!

Wonders of Web Weaving also has an RSS feed you can use to follow along from wherever you get your podcasts.

Dan’s Polaroids
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24.08.2026

Our family of three with a mountain in the background.
In the mountains.