Dan Q

I'm Dan Q (he/him). I've spent the last 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.
Be nice to humans, human.

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

  • Scarecrows

    As part of the Village Festival, there's a scarecrow competition around my way with a televisual theme. I love that my local community works so hard to carve out an individual identity and personality for itself! Read more →

  • Bored Gay Werewolf by Tony Santorella

    I recently read Bored Gay Werewolf by Tony Santorella. I guess it's got a 'werewolf'. It barely feels 'gay'. It certainly left me 'bored', at times. Turns out that it's a very middle-of-the-road story about Gen Z folks growing into their identities, using sexuality and lycanthropy as loosely-fitting framing devices. Read more →

  • I Wrote the Same Code Six Times!

    Could I rock an interview tech-test in a programming language I haven't touched in a decade? I wanted to know, so I found a tech-test... then solved it in six different programming languages in a single sitting. Read more →

  • The Difference Between Downloading and Streaming

    Mostly to make use of an animation I made for a different blog post that hasn't materialised, let me take a moment to explain to you the fundamental technical difference between 'streaming' and 'downloading'. Which won't take long... because there isn't one! Read more →

  • Google Shared My Phone Number!

    When people started calling my personal mobile number with questions about a voluntary organisation I'm involved with, I was confused: we weren't sharing that number. It turns out that Google had decided to take the number I used to verify my identity for Google Business some years prior and start putting it in Google Search results. WTF, Google? Read more →

  • Dynamic Filters in Pure CSS

    CSS is powerful and performant. Let's implement client-side list filtering (with the user's choice of AND and OR modes) in CSS, without a line of JavaScript. Read more →

  • Avanti's Accessibility Failure

    Train provider Avanti's website may be accessible... but their emails, which you need to interact with to USE their website... are not. It's simply not possible to verify your email address if you use a screen reader, and there's no guest checkout option. Read more →

  • Variable-aspect adaptive-bitrate video... in vanilla HTML?

    Thanks to recent browser enhancements, it's possible to show videos of different aspect ratios based on CSS media queries with no JavaScript dependencies. You can even combine it with adaptive bitrate streaming, even on static hosting. Let me show you how. Read more →

  • Deprecate React

    Just to reassure myself that I really can do all the things I say on my CV, I've been looking at tech tests that touch on each of them. I can definitely write React, for example... but... I might question the wisdom of a company that's exclusively recruiting for React skills in their front-end developers... Read more →

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  • Did not find GC81KDC Standardisation Roundabout

    Deciphered this puzzle when it was first published: so long ago that I’d forgotten the specifics of how exactly I did so (although I’m pretty confident I remember the gist of it). But I don’t find myself over this side of Oxford often, these days, and so it took until today that an errand brought […] Read more →

  • Found GC7ZA2Z My Friend Dotty

    In Marston on an errand, I found myself with enough free time to try to find another few local caches. This puzzle wasn’t as easy as Dotty’s other one, fir me, because for a while I was counting the wrong things, but I cracked it in the end. A slow walk past the GZ with […] Read more →

  • If this man isn't hired immediately, it's a huge loss

    Shortly after I found myself redundant, the other month, my former colleague Kyle wrote some inspiring words on LinkedIn that I've re-read about once a week ever since then. So now I'm going to keep a copy here for posterity. Read more →

  • Note #26759

    Happy Stone Circle Sunday!
    The youngest and I went out to Avebury Henge, the world's largest neolithic standing stone circle and henge. Read more →

  • Note to future self: when you want git to tell you all the files you’ve modified, but not those you’ve deleted (e.g. to pipe through xargs and feed to your linter for bulk-linting), the command you’re looking for is –git diff –name-only –diff-filter=M Read more →

  • Found GCAPFH3 Cherry Blossom

    Third time's the charm. I don't live too far away and I'm often found cycling to, from, or through Eynsham. As a result, I've on two previous occasions come to this GZ with a view to finding this cache... and both times have been glorious summer weekend days when the adjacent café has been brim full of guests, and I've declared it "too muggley" and backed off.
    Today, though, is a gloomy and overcast day, with rain on the way and a threat of thunderstorms. So as I cycled by, on my way home from the dentist, I stopped by. I quickly found and retrieved the cache, signed the log, and returned it to its spot.
    Now I'd better see if I can pedal all the way home before the clouds burst! TFTC. Read more →

  • Did not find GC74Z2R Metal bridge cache

    Stopped by while cycling back from Witney. Made a moderately thorough search above and below the titular bridge, without success. Might benefit from a checkin/note from the CO.
    Maybe I'm just not seeing it, or else maybe it's vanished in the six months since its last successful find. Great place for a cache, though! Read more →

  • Found GCAWNQH Light me up

    QEF while cycling into Witney for an appointment. Cache lid is absent (missing?): risk of becoming waterlogged later in the year, I suspect. TFTC.× Read more →

  • Note #26746

    In case you weren't already a little nervous or uneasy going in to the dental clinic, the doorstop at my dentist's front door will fix that for you.

  • Did not find GC9M1WJ Village Hall series 1179 - Mortimer Hall Marston

    Had to give up on this one for now. Found the plaque without difficulty and soon had a believable set of coordinates (though I briefly struggled with what was meant by the D & E description). Soon I was at the GZ and, after a brief hunt through the multitude of possible hosts, tried the hint. No use, though: I'm no wiser what I should be looking for. Sadly this is only a flying visit to Marston and I've got to go wrangle the kids now, but maybe I'll revisit next time I'm in the area. Read more →

  • Found GC9GJZH Dotty writes letters

    I'm in Marston on an errand and figured I'd pick up a couple of local caches that weren't around when I was last in the vicinity: which I guess was way back when I lived near here! The puzzle didn't leave me stumped for long, but I always used to score highly at Dotty's kind of game! TFTC. Read more →

  • Found GC9GEC1 Church Micro 14176...Old Marston

    A quick and easy offset church micro if ever I saw one. I'll tell you what, I totally approve of this form of formula - this letter is this number plus or minus something, ten just string them all together - rather than the more-common algebraic backflips one sometimes has to do. SL, TFTC! Read more →

  • Found GCANV4T #14 Longworth Loop

    While I searched through potential hosts in this off-the-path GZ, the geopup just stood in one particular place, looking at me as if I were a fool. I should've listened, because clearly her own geosense is developing: she was right next to the cache's hiding spot!
    TFTC, and thanks once more for such a brilliant loop of caches: all nicely hidden, well cared for, and appropriately sized. Really enjoyed our walk this morning Read more →

  • Found GCANV4Q #13 Longworth Loop

    After a brief hunt in a couple of candidate places a hit the hint, which was reassuringly clear on which host I should be searching. Soon the cache was in hand. TFTC. Read more →

  • Found GCANV4N #12 Longworth Loop

    After fashioning the requisite tool it still took me a solid 5+ attempts to retrieve the cache - it felt a bit like playing those wiggle-wire fairground games that I suck at so much! Once retrieved, the dog was very disappointed that start I was holding wasn't a plaything for her. TFTC, FP awarded for the right container, right hiding place, right difficulty. Read more →

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