Dan Q

I'm Dan Q. I've spent the last 25+ years creating and writing on the Internet.

I work at Automattic and volunteer with Three Rings. I live with my partner, her husband, two kids and a dog. I can sometimes be found out geo*ing, cycling, or performing magic.

I believe in open source, open relationships, and opening doors to marginalised groups.

Photograph of Dan, his ponytail hanging over the shoulder of his black t-shirt, smiling from behind his beard and waving to the camera.

  • Feed Readers Beat Doomscrolling

    If you're dodging news media because the alternative is catastrophic doomscrolling... perhaps you ought to be using a feed reader? It's a much healthier way to keep up with the Web. Read more →

  • WebDX: Does More Mean Better?

    I like the work that the WebDX Community Group have been doing, but I find myself asking: are we at risk of implying that giving the Web 'more' features invariably makes it 'better'? Read more →

  • Work Slippers

    Last month, the dog ate my slippers, and in the week it took me to replace them my work productivity took a dip. Coincidence? Nope! They were my 'work slippers', and it turns out I needed them! Read more →

  • A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers

    Right after I finished A Psalm for the Wild-Built, I began reading its sequel A Prayer for the Crown-Shy and... it's also wonderful. It takes a different-but-similar approach to the philosophy of identity and purpose, and the story provides a deeper look into Dex's world, but it's still a familiar-feeling continuation of a beautiful story that's comforting and sweet. Read more →

  • AI vs The Expert

    Inspired by an 11-year old comedy sketch, I asked a GenAI to solve an unsolvable programming problem... and (for at least some models) it failed in exactly the way I anticipated: claiming to be able to solve it and delivering code that just... didn't. What does this teach us about AI trustworthiness for problems that might be solvable, but for which the human operator doesn't have sufficient comprehension to verify? Read more →

  • A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers

    While I've been ill I read A Psalm for the Wild-built by Becky Chambers, which had been on my reading list for a while. It's a comforting and compelling story about purpose and identity in an environmentally-conscious utopia, and it's flipping awesome. Read more →

  • OpenStreetMap rocks (especially on foot)

    OpenStreetMap blows Google Maps out of the water for walkers and also for if you're trying to find a particular-named house in a rural area. I'm not saying never to use Google Maps (there's plenty of things it's the king at): but maybe consider giving OpenStreetMap a go next time you need a digital map? Read more →

  • The Blind Piemaker

    Ruth and I spiced-up this week's date night with a challenge from a mysterious book: Ruth, blindfolded, baked pies while I instructed her only in non-verbal ways. It was challenging, stressful, and... pretty fun! (Also we got to eat pie.) Read more →

  • WordPress to ClassicPress

    A few weeks ago I switched this blog to ClassicPress, a fork of WordPress. Here's a deep dive into how (and why) I did it, as well as a look into what my experience so-far has been with this (mostly-)cut-down version of the world's most popular CMS. Read more →

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  • There are few moments of self-satisfaction so great as accidentally running a bath to both the perfect depth and the ideal temperature, after forgetting you'd started drawing the water at all. Read more →

  • Post: Dog Tired

    Woke up. Had a walk. Now it must be time for a well-earned nap. 💤 Read more →

  • Post: More castles and mazes

    Made a little progress on the game idea I'd been experimenting with. The idea is to do find a series of orthogonal (like a rook in chess!) moves that land on every square exactly once each before returning to the start, dodging walls and jumping pits.

    But the squares have arrows (limiting the direction you can move out of them) or numbers (specifying the distance you must travel from them).

    Every board is solvable, starting from any square. There'll be a playable version to use on your device (with helpful features like "undo") sometime soon, but for now you can give them a go by hand, if you like this kind of puzzle! Read more →

  • Post: Cherry blossom

    When I was a child, we had a cherry blossom tree in our garden. In late Spring, as the flowers began to wilt, I'd enjoy shaking it to make flutters of pink confetti rain down around me.

    This tree, though, spotted on the school run this morning, is very early in its bloom. It feels like a happy reminder that Spring is beginning.

  • I noticed that automated emails from Steam weren't doing alt-text very well. Some image links had no or inadequate alt-text. (Note that Steam don't support opting for plain text rather than HTML emails.)

    I'm fortunate enough to depend upon alt-text never-to-rarely. But I prefer not to load remote images, so I still benefit from alt-text.

    I filled out a support request to Steam layout out the specific examples I'd found of where they weren't doing very well, and stressing why it's (morally, legally, etc.) important to do better.

    And you know what: they quietly fixed it. When I received an email today telling me that something on my wishlist is on sale, it had reasonably-good alt-text throughout. Neat.

  • Voice of America

    In light of Trump's attempts to axe Voice of America, because it is, he claims, "anti-Trump" (and because he's so insecure that he can't stand the thought that taxpayer dollars might go to anybody who disagrees with him in any way, for any reason), I've produced a suggested update to the rules of Twilight Struggle for the inevitable 9th printing.

  • Found GCAP4MF Church Micro 15127...Curbridge

    I had an errand to run in the Windrush Place estate on the other side of the A40, and the geopup needed a walk, so I opted to park the car over in Witney so my four-legged friend and I could walk the remaining way over to Curbridge and find this cache. Read more →

  • Post: Castles and mazes

    Possibly I'm a little late for the "casual daily puzzle game" party. (Did Wordle already get invented in this timeline; I forget?)
    I think there's something in an idea I've been toying with. Bring on the weekend, when I can throw some brainpower at the frontend code!

  • It's not cheating if you write the video game solver yourself

    Robert Heaton wrote a solver to help him crack a puzzle in a video game, and I'm 100% behind this as a valid approach to playing single-player games, if it's more fun for you than the alternatives. Read more →

  • Post: Coaching in the Library

    I decided to take my meeting with my coach today in our house's new library, which my metamour JTA has recently been working hard on decorating, constructing, and filling with books. The room's not quite finished, but it made for a brilliant space for a bit of quiet reflection and self-growth work. Read more →

  • I've been trying to comment more on other people's blogs. It's tough, because comment forms continue to wane in popularity, and it's not always clear who'll accept Webmentions, but there's often the option of a good old-fashioned email or a fediverse ping.

    It occurred to me that I follow a significant number of personal blogs, and my privacy systems mean I'm a bit of a ghost to most analytics systems they might use, so the only way they'd ever know I was there would be if I said so.

    Plus, the Internet is better when it's social. There are some great people out there, and I'm enjoying meeting them!

    (You're welcome to throw comments, Webmentions, or emails my way, of course, too!) Read more →

  • It is as if you were on your phone

    When you use your phone to play this game, it really does look indistinguishable from being on your phone. Weird! Read more →

  • Post: Horny and Silly

    This year it'll be 10 years since webcomic A Softer World ended its 12-year run. If you missed it, you can still go back and read them all.
    But in the meantime, here's one of my very favourites. Read more →

  • Did not attempt GC3KQKM RRR12 2nd tree downstream

    Did not attempt to find, today: an angler was sitting almost right at the GZ, enjoying the peace and quiet that my geokid would have quickly disrupted! So we moved on… Read more →

  • Did not find GC4B6QJ RRR 13 Not that Alder - incy wincy!

    No luck here for the geokid and I. He speculates that perhaps “down came the rain and washed the container out.” Read more →

  • More posts →
    (of all kinds: articles, checkins, notes, reposts...)