Month: April 2025
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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.
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"Trans former judge plans to challenge gender ruling at European court": https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9qw2149yelo
Representation matters. That we have a trans former-judge, somebody both well-equipped and motivated to escalate this important challenge to the ECHR, is hugely fortunate.
We need more representation (of trans people specifically, but many other groups too, and perhaps particularly in the intersections) in positions of power, expertise, and authority. To defend the human rights of all of us.
Wishing you luck, Victoria McCloud.
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Found GC5FGMC R65: Hazelborough 1: Abby's woofday cache
This checkin to GC5FGMC R65: Hazelborough 1: Abby's woofday cache reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs. Found after a brief hunt with the help of a boy and his dog. Definitely needed the hint! TFTC!
AltAn 8-year-old boy in a white t-shirt and shorts crouches on a grassy trail, … -
Found GC9KWV4 Hazelborough trail
This checkin to GC9KWV4 Hazelborough trail reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs. Found after an extended hunt with the younger child.
AltDan helps a child open a small geocache container, in a forest.
A tough search: we were glad of the CO's recent comment to reassure us it's … -
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...
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Halifax Shared My Credit Agreement!
Today, my partner's husband received a letter, addressed to him, about a change to his credit card agreement. Except the letter wasn't about his credit card... it was about mine! Halifax dun goofed.
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Breakups vs Layoffs
I've had a few breakups, but I've only been made redundant once. There's a surprising overlap between the two! Here, let's put a Venn-Euler diagram together...
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Found GCAR5HV Ivy
This checkin to GCAR5HV Ivy reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs. The (long) log for Mossy describes the adventure to this geocache, too. Go read about it there.
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Found GCB61ZC Mossy
This checkin to GCB61ZC Mossy reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs. Saw GCB61ZC "Mossy" appear yesterday, but I'd already had an Easter Sunday beer or two and couldn't drive out here... in fact, I realised, I probably wasn't in a state to cycle out here either and so I resolved …
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The Devil's Quoits (Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire, UK) looks particularly striking in the bright sunlight of this Spring morning.
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A circle of standing stones in a henge, in a clearing flanked by trees, under wispy clouds in a bright blue sky.
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Y'all seemed to enjoy the "overworld" map I shared the other day, so here's another "feelie" from my kids' ongoing D&D campaign.
The party has just arranged for passage aboard a pioneering (and experimental) Elvish airship. Here's a deck plan (only needs a "you are here" dot!) to help them get their bearings.
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In the style of a passenger ferry, a floorplan for a dirigible, weighted down by polyhedral dice. Fantasy world quirks like bilingual text in Common and Elvish and the emergency exit sign depicting a fleeing witch complete the effect.
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In preparation for Family D&D Night (and with thanks to my earlier guide to splicing maps together!), I've finally completed an expanded "overworld" map for our game world. So far, the kids have mostly hung around on the North coast of the Central Sea, but they're picked up a hook that may take them all the way across to the other side... and beyond?
Banana for scale.
(If your GMing for kids, you probably already know this, but "feelies" go a long way. All the maps. All the scrolls. Maybe even some props. Go all in. They love it.)
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On a dining table lies a old-style map comprised of 12 sheets of A4 paper, sellotaped together. The map shows the 'Central Sea', an inlet from the 'Terminic Ocean', around which various settlements, forests, mountain ranges, and swamps can be found. An underripe banana sits in one corner of the map, weighing it down.
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Trip to Waddesdon Manor with the kids for an Easter Egg Hunt.
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Dan sits on a bus, a dog in his lap, alongside a boy and a girl. All three humans are wearing cardboard 'rabbit ears' hats.
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Geocities Live
Geocities.live transforms any web page into a 90s-Geocities-style variant of itself, and it does a surprisingly good (if slightly "samey") job of it. Its take on DanQ.me got me thinking, though: are there things I can learn from 1990s web design and apply to the next generation of my theme?
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ChatGPT beats GeoGuessr
Given nothing more than a screenshot or two of my game screen, from the starting position only, ChatGPT plays GeoGuessr better than I ever could. Apart from cheating at GeoGuessr, what else could this mean? Is this going to be a scary new weapon in the toolkit of Internet stalkers?