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.
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Meetup Magic
As I come to the end of a week in Mexico with ~400 of my the smartest, friendliest, open-source-loving geeks I could wish to know, I come to realise that Automattic's meetups are just... magical. Read more →
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We'll Pay You to Go (so we're confident in who stays...)
This week, Automattic made a very generous offer to employees who didn't feel aligned with the company and its leader: to pay them to leave. 8.4% of the company took it, and it's been a heartbreaking time, but we'll build back stronger, I'm sure. Read more →
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Digital Dustbusting
I've been doing a bit of tidying-up of the mess that is my personal Internet hosting. I've made a lot of progress, but the rest is probably going to have to wait until later in the year. Read more →
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What if Emails were Multilingual?
Wouldn't it be nice if there were a standard for multilingual emails? Oh wait, there is! Let's see how it works, and whether it's (ever going to be) ready for mainstream use... Read more →
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WP Engine's Three Problems
Matt Mullenweg kicked off a battle of words between Automattic and the WordPress Foundation and hosting company WP Engine. Without weighing in on the legal aspects (IANAL), I've written up my thoughts. Read more →
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D20 with Advantage
D&D players spend a lot of time rolling D20s. Sometimes they 'roll with advantage' - that is, roll two dice and take the largest. Last night I dreamed I derived the probability matrix for such rolls, and it got me thinking... could you construct a single die that rolls 'D20 with Advantage'? Read more →
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Idea: Meeting Spoofer
Coworkers keep scheduling meetings in periods you've blocked-off for no-meetings, head-down focus time? Maybe you should try scheduling fake meetings in those slots instead and see if they respect those any better! (But perhaps there's a bigger cultural issue you oughta look at instead.) Read more →
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Roll Your Own Antispam
The Web contact form of a nonprofit I founded started attracting a huge volume of spam, and conventional tools weren't helping. But a little analysis allowed us to block almost all of it without compromising on accessibility, privacy, or the false-positive rate. Read more →
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2024 in Videogames
With my busy schedule, I appreciate a video game that I can pick-up-and-drop at will and a prefer depth rather than quantity of content. This year, I've played and can recommend three games in particular - Horizon: Forbidden West, Thank Goodness You're Here!, and Tactical Breach Wizards. Read more →
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More articles →
(articles are traditional long-form blog posts) -
Goodbye, Tulum! You were delightful, if very hot. It’s time for me to head back to the UK.× Read more →
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EXIF geodata, and what if you took a picture on the moon?
Cassie Jones asks what EXIF photo metadata would - or should - look like for a photograph taken on the moon. It got me thinking, a bit. Read more →
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Hurricane Milton
From safely outside of its predicted path, just around the Yucatan coast, Hurricane Milton seems like a forboding and distant monster. A growing threat whose path will thankfully take it away, not towards, me. My heart goes out to the people on the other side of the Gulf of Mexico who find themselves along the route of this awakened beast. Read more →
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It’s a bit hard to perform close-up magic to an audience 40 metres deep, so I pre-recorded my favourite card trick! Then I talked over it, explaining to colleagues from my division why it’s my favourite bit of slight-of-hand, and what great magic tricks have in common with great code. I feel like I’m likely […] Read more →
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It’s 05:30 local time on the third day of my work meetup in Tulum, on Tyne Caribbean Coast of Mexico, and I was just woken by incredibly heavy rain. I got up and stepped out until it, and was surprised to discover that it’s almost as warm as the shower in my bathroom. In the […] Read more →
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Something I’ve long enjoyed about Automattic gatherings is the opportunity to meet some the most diverse characters you’ll ever find in one place. But today was the first time I’ve ever been at a beachside disco that was attended by a foraging racoon. × Read more →
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Max props to my employer for providing pronoun pins not just in a diversity of options but also offering blank ones for people not represented by any of the pre-printed options. × Read more →
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Well this is a sight to wake up to. 😍 × Read more →
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It took almost twenty hours of travelling but I made it to Mexico! × Read more →
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Think I blew Ruth‘s mind this morning when I set off for a week in Mexico with only a medium-sized, underseat-suitable backpack. But since working for Automattic five years ago I’ve totally been bitten by the travelling-light bug. Highly recommended!× Read more →
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Harry Segell’s 1938 play Heaven Can Wait went on to inspire such an extraordinarily long legacy of follow-ups.I’ve only seen the most-recent few and my experience is that the older iterations are better, so I probably ought to watch Here Comes Mr. Jordan, right?× Read more →
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This morning’s actual breakfast order from the 7-year-old: “A sesame seed bagel with honey, unless there aren’t any sesame seed bagels, in which case a plain bagel with honey on one half and jam on the other half, unless there aren’t any plain bagels, in which case a cinnamon and raisin bagel with JimJams on […] Read more →
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What the heck is going on with WordPress?
My colleague Paolo Belcastro invites you to play a little game: one of these phrases that begins "wp" is not like the others... Read more →
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CSS Cycling Gradient Text
Ana Tudor shared an absolutely gorgeous effect based on SVG filters, CSS properties, linear-gradients, and (after all of that) relatively-basic animations. It's pretty amazing. Read more →
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At work, we recently switched expenses system to one with virtual credit card functionality. I decided to test it out by buying myself lounge access for my upcoming work trip to Mexico. Unfortunately the new system mis-detected my lounge access as being a purchase from lingerie company loungeunderwear.com. I’m expecting a ping from Finance any […] Read more →
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More posts →
(of all kinds:
articles, 
checkins, 
notes, 
reposts...)