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Month: November 2024

  • Miika used a marquee tag to add a cable car to a web page, and I think I couldn't be more impressed.

    Read more (62 words)

    • Repost
    • of this original
    • posted 16 November, 2024
  • A white woman wearing glasses and a tinfoil hat touches her chin and looks upward, as if deep in thought.

    Sadder Than Fiction

    There's a short story that I tried on-and-off to write, but I've now given up on it. The concepts it makes light of all feel a bit too close-to-home, as conspiracy theorists increasingly migrate from the 'harmless nutjob' to the 'dangerous political leader' category.

    Read more - about 6 minutes (1203 words)

    • Article
    • with an accompanying podcast
    • posted 16 November, 2024
  • Screenshot from OpenTTD, showing a 21-platform station serving a steel mill. 7 platforms are actively being used, while 5 other trains are on approach or exit routes.

    Harswell Steel

    My past self, receiving a copy of Transport Tycoon for his 14th birthday, would have his mind blown if he could see the kind of insanely-complex super-stations that are possible in (the open-source successor to) the game 30 years on...

    Read more (90 words)

    • Note
    • posted 15 November, 2024
  • Found GC656RM Church Micro 8564...Ducklington

    This checkin to GC656RM Church Micro 8564...Ducklington reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs. The dog and I came out to Ducklington today for a spot of geohashing, in search of the 2024-11-14 51 -1 geohashpoint. After a walk around the fields to the East we had to give up on …

    Read more (147 words)

    • Checkin
    • to GC656RM
    • posted 14 November, 2024
  • Dan and his dog on a footpath with a field in the background.

    Geohashing expedition 2024-11-14 51 -1

    The dog and I got within 33 metres of a geohashpoint today, but couldn't quite make it to the zero point.

    Read more (197 words)

    • Checkin
    • to 2024-11-14 51 -1
    • 1 comment
    • posted 14 November, 2024
  • Maybe it's just that my sabbatical is making me pay more attention then usual, but it feels like I'm getting very lucky with nearby geohashpoints lately. Tomorrow's hashpoint in my graticule might be achievable!

    Full image of Map showing my location on Witney and a pin 2.5km away in a field outside Ducklington. Geohashpoint for tomorrow.
    Alt

    Map showing my location on Witney and a pin 2.5km away in a field outside Ducklington. Geohashpoint for tomorrow.

    This is a good omen, perhaps, for next week. Next week my mother and I are going to hop over to the West coast of Ireland where there are several contiguous mostly-land graticules that have never seen a successful expedition. We could be the first! 🤞

    • Note
    • posted 13 November, 2024
  • Kids' ability to pick up new words from context is amazing.

    Kids' confidence even when they've misunderstood how a word is used is hilarious. 😊

    This evening, our 7-year-old was boasting about how well-behaved his class was while their regular teacher had to attend an all-day meeting, vs how much it impressed the temporary teacher they had.

    His words: "Today we had a supply teacher and we totally DOMINATED her!"

    • Note
    • posted 12 November, 2024
  • Waiting patiently at the school gates on a distinctly Autumnal morning, our pupper's squat stature means she's about knee-deep in the season's golden leaves.

    Full image of A champagne-coloured French Bulldog stands patiently alongside a post to which her lead is tied. With her short stature she's about knee-deep in Autumn leaf litter.
    Alt

    A champagne-coloured French Bulldog stands patiently alongside a post to which her lead is tied. With her short stature she's about knee-deep in Autumn leaf litter.

    • Note
    • posted 12 November, 2024
  • I've just enumerated my personal domain names. There's a lot fewer of them than there used to be!1

    Anyway: here's the list -

    • danq.me and a variety of aliases (danq.uk, danq.dev, danq.link, danq.blog, scatmania.org); there's also like a billion subdomains in use of course, like things.danq.me and find.danq.me
    • freedeedpoll.org.uk, which I really ought to update at some point but which still clearly helps many people
    • dndle.app, a D&D-inspired Wordle-clone which I still get bug reports and pull requests for so clearly somebody's using it
    • geohashing.site, the central hub of Geohashing activity worldwide
    • egxchange.org, which hosts the most environmentally-friendly cryptocurrency wallet you'll ever see
    • abnib.co.uk, a community of friends (also with about a billion subdomains)
    • q-t-a.uk, my family website, which exists mostly to facilitate addressing for a stack of internal/selfhosted services
    • rockmonkey.org.uk, which doesn't do much nowadays
    • fleeblewidget.co.uk, my partner's blog, but I look after the domain registration
    • textplain.blog, my plain-text blog
    • levellers.blog, the blog of my D&D group
    • theimprobable.blog, which I look after on behalf of my partner's brother after using it to GPS-track his adventures

    I think that's all of them, but it's hard to be sure...

    Footnotes

    1 Maybe I've finally shaken off my habit of buying a domain name for everything. Or maybe it's just that I've embraced subdomains for more stuff. Probably the latter.

    • Note
    • 2 comments
    • posted 11 November, 2024
  • Dan smiling, wearing a cycle helmet, holding a GPSr by the side of a narrow road, with roadworks in the background.

    Geohashing expedition 2024-11-10 51 -1

    I finally got my Tron achievement by riding my bike^H^H^H^H lightcycle to a hashpoint in Barnard Gate and back... without crossing my own track!

    Read more - about 3 minutes (532 words)

    • Checkin
    • to 2024-11-10 51 -1
    • posted 10 November, 2024
  • Future Arimaa grand masters at practice, this Sunday morning boardgaming session.

    Full image of In a cluttered dining room, two children play Arimaa, a chess-like board game.
    Alt

    In a cluttered dining room, two children play Arimaa, a chess-like board game.

    • Note
    • posted 10 November, 2024
  • In spite of their signage, Costa weren't happy to take my old jockstrap for recycling.

    Full image of Sign made from a clipboard, in a coffee shop, reading "All cups welcome. We'll recycle any cup, from anywhere. Just hand to one of our team."
    Alt

    Sign made from a clipboard, in a coffee shop, reading "All cups welcome. We'll recycle any cup, from anywhere. Just hand to one of our team."

    • Note
    • posted 9 November, 2024
  • Adam's blog post "Content of the Week #7: 200 Creators" viewed in FreshRSS.

    XPath Scraping AdamKoszary.co.uk

    My old colleague Adam's started blogging again, but his blog doesn't have an RSS feed. Which means it's time for some more XPath Scraping in FreshRSS, and an excuse for me to explain the testing and debugging process I use when making XPath Scraping rulesets!

    Read more - about 6 minutes (1222 words)

    • Article
    • posted 8 November, 2024
  • After a morning of optimising a nonprofit's reverse proxy configuration, I feel like I've earned my lunch! Four cheese, mushroom and jalapeño quesapizzas, mmm...

    Full image of Gas stovetop.a frying pan contains a tortilla wrap topped with tomato sauce, cheese, mushrooms, and jalapeños. Beside its a plate containing a completed quesapizza: two crispy tortilla wraps sandwiching their contents.
    Alt

    Gas stovetop.a frying pan contains a tortilla wrap topped with tomato sauce, cheese, mushrooms, and jalapeños. Beside its a plate containing a completed quesapizza: two crispy tortilla wraps sandwiching their contents.

    • Note
    • posted 8 November, 2024
  • Build Colors from Colors with CSS Relative Color Syntax

    Caleb Hearth wrote an inspiring piece about CSS's new OKLCH functions, and now I want nothing more than to (re-?)implement something using this colour model!

    Read more - about 3 minutes (500 words)

    • Repost
    • of this original
    • posted 7 November, 2024

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