Dan Q

I'm Dan Q (he/him). I've spent the 26+ years creating and writing online.

While I'm considering a new paid role, I continue to volunteer with Three Rings. I live with my partner, her husband, two kids and a dog. I can sometimes be found geo*ing, performing magic, or recording the most pointless podcast.

I believe in open source, open relationships, and opening doors to marginalised groups. Black lives matter. Trans rights are human rights. Don't be an arse.

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

  • Change Your Star Sign

    The star sign associated with my birthday is Capricorn, and I really don't embody any of the typical Capricorn characteristics, so I changed my star sign to Aquarius. And today, I've launched a website to help others change their star signs, too. What will you change yours to? Read more →

  • Delivery Songs

    In the UK, ice cream vans are perhaps the only delivery service with their own jingle. Turkey and India are WAY ahead of us in this regard, and I've got a few ideas about how we fix that... Read more →

  • 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 →

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    (articles are traditional long-form blog posts)

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  • Apparently Automattic are laying off around one in six of their workforce. And I'm one of the unlucky ones.

    Anybody remote hiring for a UK-based full-stack web developer (in a world that doesn't seem to believe that full-stack developers exist anymore) with 25+ years professional experience, specialising in PHP, Ruby, JS, HTML, CSS, devops, and about 50% of CMSes you've ever heard of (and probably some you haven't)... with a flair for security, accessibility, standards-compliance, performance, and DexEx?

    CV at: https://danq.me/cv/index.html
    Read more →

  • My on-again-off-again relationship with AI assistants

    Like me, Sean McPherson finds AI agents sometimes useful... but struggles with whether they're actually as useful as some folks seem to claim. Read more →

  • 8-year-old, angry: Give me that fucking thing right now!Me: [Child’s name]! That’s not an acceptable way to ask for something!8-year-old, calmer: Sorry. PLEASE can you give me that fucking thing? Read more →

  • Bored of it

    … Every article glorifying it. Every article vilifying it. Every pub conversation winding up talking about it. People incessantly telling you how they use it. I feel dirty using it. You know what I’m talking about, even though I’ve not mentioned it. … Paul Robert Lloyd If you don’t know what “it” is without the […] Read more →

  • Post: To-go pint

    Sometimes the kids need to leave your pub dinner before you finish your drink, and you need to take a “to-go” pint. × Read more →

  • Note #26217

    For a little while I got to lie in the sunshine and read my book in quiet solitude. But before long I found I was sharing it with a small child and his noisy games console.Still delightful, though, and it feels wonderfully Spring-like out there today. × Read more →

  • Post: Istanbul decompression

    It wasn’t until I made time for myself to get out into the countryside near my home and take the dog for a walk that I realised how much stress I’d been putting myself under during my team meetup, this week.Istanbul was enjoyable and fascinating, and I love my team, but I always forget until […] Read more →

  • Found GC7B9C6 Heykel&Boğaz/Sculpture & Bosphorus- Virtual Reward

    As others have observed, this is a bit challenging right now owing to the hoardings that have been erected in the way. But like others, I found a gap in the fence through which I was able to photograph the sculpture. TFTC! Read more →

  • Found GC6JQAX Rainbow Stairs

    Whether or not this piece of art is or was an act of political defiance, it might need to be one once again. Brought my own rainbow so I could be part of it, too. 🌈✊ Read more →

  • Reply to: Is Not Answering the Thing Now?

    Marc Thiele asks whether people just don't reply to emails any more. I try to, but I write a response on behalf of everybody who, like me, has failed to do so in the past on account of the awkwardness of replying 'eventually' if you missed the chance to reply immediately. Read more →

  • Found GC7B79C Kız Kulesi/Maiden's Tower- Virtual Reward

    Went over on the ferry. Using my phone as my GPSr and also my camera, so snapped a thumbs up, and my name, and my face, all with the tower visible. Looks like it’s going to rain so I’d better find some shelter! TFTC!××× Read more →

  • Found GCAJHQ1 The Fountain of Sultan Ahmed III

    Two virtual caches in such close proximity! And what a beautiful fountain. As requested, photo shows the fountain and my username, but also me! Greetings from Oxfordshire, UK, and TFTC! Read more →

  • Found GCAJG5P The Two Mosques Virtual Reward 4.0

    Here with worth colleagues on our "day off" from meetings and code hackathons, we're planning to visit the mosque I chose to photograph behind me. TFTC, and greetings from Oxfordshire, UK. Read more →

  • Found GC6VTEG Galata Bridge #3

    After lunch with my work team in a delightful restaurant overlooking the bridge I decided to take a diversion on the route back to our coworking space to come and find this geocache, my most-Easterly yet. Read more →

  • Post: Geocaching Convex Hull now includes Turkey

    Thanks to finding a couple of geocaches here in Istanbul, my geocaching “2D convex hull” (the smallest possible convex polygon that covers an area), which I wrote some code to draw last year, just expanded a little further to the East. 🎉 I’ve got a lot of the world left still to encircle, but I’m […] Read more →

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    (of all kinds: articles, checkins, notes, reposts...)