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Dan Q

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Personal blog of Dan Q: hacker, magician, geocacher, gamer...

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[Checkin] Dan Q found GC8Z1F6 Church Micro 13672…Great Bourton ⛪️

This checkin to GC8Z1F6 Church Micro 13672...Great Bourton ⛪️ reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs. My family and I have made a tradition of our regular attendance of Fairport’s Cropredy Convention. There I – being the earliest riser of us – have in turn made a tradition of getting up […]

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[Checkin] Dan Q did not find GC91EH6 War Memorial #1,340 ~ Great Bourton 🌹

This checkin to GC91EH6 War Memorial #1,340 ~ Great Bourton 🌹 reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs. My family and I have made a tradition of our regular attendance of Fairport’s Cropredy Convention. There I – being the earliest riser of us – have in turn made a tradition of […]

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[Repost] Riding With Strangers: California Hitchhikers in the 1970s

[Repost] Riding With Strangers: California Hitchhikers in the 1970s

From 1973 onwards Doug Biggert, driving around California, took an (analogue!) photograph of every hitch-hiker to whom he offered a lift. Now you can view a gallery and read his story.

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[Repost] Hetero Awesome… Hijacked

[Repost] Hetero Awesome… Hijacked

I somehow missed the news from June about Daniel Hamrick, who courageously got on stage to play a anti-transphobia protest song at a 'heterosexual pride' event in one of the most deeply-conservative parts of the USA. Here's the video of his (short!) set.

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[Repost]

"I still get that powerful feeling that anything is possible when I open a web browser — it’s not as strong as it was 20 years ago, but it’s still there." - Geoff Graham

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[Repost] The rise of Whatever

A freaking excellent longread by Eevee (Evelyn Woods), lamenting the direction of popular technological progress and general enshittification of creator culture. It's ultimately uplifting, I feel, but it's full of bitterness until it gets there.

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[Article] Internet Services^H Provider

[Article] Internet Services^H Provider

When you signed up with an ISP, you used to get Web space, email, shared FTP access, a nearby IRC node, newsgroups, and a software bundle. Nowadays you get a shit router, a voucher for a free month of a streaming service you didn't want, and crap customer service. Where did we go wrong?

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Hammocking with the Dog

Finished work. Figured I’d chill in the hammock for a bit as it’s so nice out. The dog decided she wanted to lie in it too. So now I am a pillow for a dog.

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[Note] Part of the Internet, or connecting to the Internet?

Some time in the last 20 years, ISPs stopped saying they made you "part of" the Internet, just that they'd help you "connect to" the Internet.

Most people don't need a static IP, sure. But when ISPs stopped offering FTP and WWW hosting as a standard feature (shit though it often was), they became part of the tragic process by which the Internet became centralised, and commoditised, and corporate, and just generally watered-down. The amount of effort to "put something online" didn't increase by a lot, but it increased by enough that millions probably missed-out on the opportunity to create their first homepage.

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[Note]

In the event of a fire on my bus, I’m concerned that the head of the man sitting in front of me is flammable.

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[Note]

In my first few weeks at my new employer, my code contributions have added 218 lines of code, deleted 2,663. Only one of my PRs has resulted in a net increase in the size of their codebases (by two lines). I need to pick up the pace if I’m going to reach the ultimate goal […]

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[Repost] You MUST listen to RFC 2119

Have you ever wanted to hear a (sarcastic, passive aggressive) dramatic reading of RFC 2119? Eric Bailey - and the actor he found - have got you covered!

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[Repost] A Castle Built From Random Rooms

A Twine-like choose-your-own-adventure, but with the rooms randomly shuffled each time, in sort-of a semi-rougelite way. Some imaginative work in this. And the art style is wonderful!

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[Article] Quesapizza-pizza

[Article] Quesapizza-pizza

A quesapizza is a quesadilla, but made using pizza ingredients: not just cheese, but also a tomato sauce and maybe some toppings. A quesapizza-pizza is a pizza... constructed using a quesapizza as its base! Watch me make one in a 90-second timelapse.

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[Article] Heterophonic Homonyms

[Article] Heterophonic Homonyms

On a car journey on which they'd otherwise have been fighting, the kids helped me start a collection of heterophonic homonyms - words that are spelled the same but have different pronunciations and meanings. I've got nine of them now in English, and maybe two in other languages... can you help me find some more?

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[Note] Regions Unlocked

Thanks to the community's invention of a "Region unlocked" achievement, I've been able to instantly (and retroactively!) tick another one off my geohashing list, for my expedition on Trinidad early this year!

(Possibly I've achieved it other times, too: I haven't yet determined whether anybody successfully hashed in County Mayo or County Galway before I did last year, on account of both counties spanning multiple graticules and so requiring more research!)

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[Repost] Citing Lobachevsky

[Repost] Citing Lobachevsky

Do you know the story of how Tom Lehrer hid an Easter Egg in an academic paper he wrote at the NSA, and his joke wasn't discovered for almost six decades?

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[Article] Clapham South Deep Shelter

[Article] Clapham South Deep Shelter

This weekend I once again found myself underground beneath London; this time exploring the Camden South Deep Shelter with the help of the Hidden London folks. And it was pretty damn cool.

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Order of the Beast

Went to Wagamama. Accidentally made the “Order of the Beast”. (Plus a similar side, for those who read binary.)

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[Note]

Seventy years ago, residents of this part of London would take shelter from V1 and V2 bombs in a tunnel beneath my feet. And today, I’m going down there to take a look!

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[Repost] ArtificialCast

ArtificialCast is a lightweight, type-safe casting and transformation utility powered by large language models. It allows seamless conversion between strongly typed objects using only type metadata, JSON schema inference, and prompt-driven reasoning.

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I got kicked off LinkedIn this week. Apparently there was “suspicious behaviour” on my account. To get back in, I needed to go through Persona’s digital ID check (this, despite the fact that I’ve got a Persona-powered verification on my LinkedIn, less than six months old). After looping around many times identifying which way up […]

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[Checkin] Dan Q found GC94GEM Brize Adventure

QEF (once we started paying attention to the right host object!) for the geopup and I on a morning dog walk after an errand in the village. TFTC, now better get off to work!

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[Note] Bagel Holes

I’ve eaten “doughnut holes”, but I’ve never seen anybody market “bagel holes”. Untapped opportunity? 🤔

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[Article] Lock All The Computers

[Article] Lock All The Computers

I wanted a button on my desk that, when I pressed it, would simultaneously lock every computer connected to my KVM system. Here's what I came up with.

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[Checkin] Dan Q wrote note for GCB8W6H In Memory

Checked-in on this cache as it's had surprisingly-few visits yet. Reassured to find that it's all still in place and findable. Second-to-find's still up for grabs.

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[Repost] DOGWALK

[Repost] DOGWALK

DOGWALK is a free, open-source Godot game for Windows, MacOS and Linux, produced and given to the world by Blender Studio as a way of showcasing some of their video lessons. And it's adorable.

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[Article] Buldak

[Article] Buldak

Based almost-entirely on seeing some folks on Nebula do a blindfold taste test challenge of some Korean ramen, JTA ended up importing some of the same brand and I ate some for my lunch. Here's what I made of them.

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[Repost] Adding a feature because ChatGPT incorrectly thinks it exists

[Repost] Adding a feature because ChatGPT incorrectly thinks it exists

ChatGPT lied about the functionality of Adrian Holovaty's software tool, Soundslice. So rather than try to get ChatGPT corrected, he just... implemented the feature it had claimed he already had. Is this the first time in history that this has happened? It could be!

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[Article] Please Fix This Site? Okay!

[Article] Please Fix This Site? Okay!

PleaseFixThisSite.com is a funny web-based take on that XKCD comic about extorting graphic designers who hate your design choices. But you don't actually need to pay the extortionist to "fix" their site. Just have your userscript manager run a few lines of my code, and the effect is much the same.