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Month: August 2025

  • The dog came out for a walk with the eldest kid and I, but we couldn't stop her sticking her head down rabbitholes!

    Full image of In a grassy field, a girl in a red dress and comfortable boots kneels with her head completely vanished down a rabbit hole.
    Alt

    In a grassy field, a girl in a red dress and comfortable boots kneels with her head completely vanished down a rabbit hole.

    (Oh, and the dog kept doing it, too.)

    • Note
    • 1 comment
    • posted 31 August, 2025
  • The Mastodon user interface showing an "Alt" button in the bottom left corner that is toggled and shows the alt text for the image: "Pink daisy flower on a piece of driftwood"

    Developing an alt text button for images on my website

    James has come up with a fun way to do Mastodon-like alt-text-bubbles. I'm intrigued, and am looking forward to expanding on the idea when I get the chance to try implementing it on my own blog.

    Read more (256 words)

    • Repost
    • of this original
    • posted 30 August, 2025
  • Looking forward to the school run starting again next week... so I get a bonus excuses for walks around our beautiful village!

    Full image of Paddock with horses under a sky of mixed clouds and an arching rainbow.
    Alt

    Paddock with horses under a sky of mixed clouds and an arching rainbow.

    • Note
    • posted 29 August, 2025
  • The cheese scones from
    My local supermarket
    Are hexagonal.

    It's not for packing.
    Their film-covered rectangle
    Leaves corner gaps.

    Are perhaps they made
    In honeycomb baking tins?
    Baked by bumblebee?

    Or else it's branding.
    A visual identity.
    Trying to sell more.

    A six-sided scone
    Does not taste better to me,
    Nor warm up faster.
    The butter doesn't care
    For the shape of your scone,
    Mr. John Sainsbury.

    Full image of A crumbly hexagonal cheese scone, buttered, on a blue-and-white plate, with a single bite taken out of one half.
    Alt

    A crumbly hexagonal cheese scone, buttered, on a blue-and-white plate, with a single bite taken out of one half.

    • Note
    • with an accompanying podcast
    • 1 comment
    • posted 28 August, 2025
  • Image representing post: Acai plays "Musical Transients" by Psynwav on Clone Hero

    Acai plays "Musical Transients" by Psynwav on Clone Hero

    Turns out I'm not quite done obsessing over Musical Transients, and I found a video of YouTuber Acai playing the album on Clone Hero, which was a fun and enjoyable watch-along.

    Read more (142 words)

    • Repost
    • of this original
    • 2 comments
    • posted 27 August, 2025
  • Flash of the Trans Pride Flag made from a transition between three different music videos.

    sophie reviews Psynwav - Musical Transients

    After sharing the album yesterday, today I found a review of Musical Transients which 100% echoes my experience of this amazing concept album. Spoiler warning: there are themes in the album that I think are most-fun to discover as you listen to it, but if you already did, or if you're not going to anyway, then you might as well read my and sophie's thoughts about it now.

    Read more - about 5 minutes (994 words)

    • Repost
    • of this original
    • posted 26 August, 2025
  • Will Smith, seen from behind, holds his hand aloft in front of a large crowd; composite showing how the video appeared both on Instagram and YouTube.

    Will Smith’s concert crowds are real, but AI is blurring the lines

    A recent video by Will Smith gained widespread condemnation for using AI to artificially-inflate his crowd's size. Except that's not what happened at all: a little creative editing by his media team, combined with a secret experiment by YouTube to make some videos look immeasurably more-shit by performing AI upscaling on them, seems to have kicked off this particular round of Internet craziness.

    Read more (427 words)

    • Repost
    • of this original
    • posted 26 August, 2025
  • Last month, my friend Gareth observed that the numbered lists in my blog posts "looked wrong" in his feed reader. I checked, and I decided I was following the standards correctly and it must have been his app that was misbehaving.

    Full image of App Store page for Unread: An RSS Reader by Golden Hill Software. What's New for version 4.5.2 includes a bullet point, highlighted, which reads 'This update improves display of articles from danq.me."
    Alt

    App Store page for Unread: An RSS Reader by Golden Hill Software. What's New for version 4.5.2 includes a bullet point, highlighted, which reads 'This update improves display of articles from danq.me."

    So he contacted the authors of Unread, his feed reader, and they fixed it. Pretty fast, I've got to say. And I was amused to see that I'm clearly now a test case because my name's in their release notes!

    • Note
    • 4 comments
    • posted 25 August, 2025
  • Album cover art for Musical Transients, feature raycast renderings of spirals and ringed planets above a checkerboard floor.

    Musical Transients

    Musical Transients from Psynwav is absolutely excellent, and (unless you've already learned better than to pay attention to my music recommendations) you should give it a listen.

    Read more (81 words)

    • Repost
    • of this original
    • posted 25 August, 2025
  • Maybe I'm just hungry, but this morning's breakfast bagel with brie looks especially scrumptious, right?

    Full image of On a floral plate atop a wooden surface z an open sesame bagel contains an Escherian 'endless staircase' of sliced brie.
    Alt

    On a floral plate atop a wooden surface z an open sesame bagel contains an Escherian 'endless staircase' of sliced brie.

    • Note
    • 1 comment
    • posted 23 August, 2025
  • QR code that looks like a maze hand-drawn in Microsoft Paint, annotated with various discouraging messages like 'wrong way' and 'doom'.

    MS Paint-grade QR Codes?

    I hand-drew a QR code so it looks like what I did was made a maze in Microsoft Paint. But it works! Here's how.

    Read more (290 words)

    • Article
    • 1 comment
    • posted 22 August, 2025
  • A two-axis graph labeled 'Beliefs about AI' with the x-axis of 'Transformative' and the y-axis of 'Positive'. The field is divided into four quadrants: 'Skeptical' in the bottom-left, 'Wary' in the bottom-right, 'Pragmatist' in the top-left, and 'Optimist' in the top-right.

    Four perspectives on AI

    Sean McPherson shared a "four quadrants" diagram for people's beliefs about AI, with a specific focus on LLMs used for coding assistance. Here's where I sit on it, and why.

    Read more - about 4 minutes (721 words)

    • Repost
    • of this original
    • posted 21 August, 2025
  • Photograph of three versions of the raptor engine, each one getting progressively simplified in mechanical parts.

    Just a Little More Context Bro, I Promise, and It’ll Fix Everything

    Based on my experience of 'vibe coding', I think Jim Nielsen's analogies are absolutely spot on.

    Read more (423 words)

    • Repost
    • of this original
    • 1 comment
    • posted 18 August, 2025
  • Composite screenshot showing an image gallery with thumbnails of a dog, a sandwich, and a man; the dog thumbnail has opened up into a larger photo, which is now overlaid with HTML and CSS code describing the mechanism by which the lightbox works.

    Details/summary lightboxes in pure HTML + CSS

    For years, I've been using a HTML+CSS-only technique for popover 'lightbox' images on my blog. Now I've come up with a more-semantic way to do the same, and its HTML code is tidier too!

    Read more - about 3 minutes (660 words)

    • Article
    • 2 comments
    • posted 15 August, 2025
  • A moderately-large house spider dropped down and startled my dog as she napped in her basket, so now she's hiding under my desk and refusing to return to bed. πŸ™„πŸ˜‚

    Full image of In faux-soft-focus, a champagne-coloured French Bulldog looks up from beneath an office desk, framed between the shorts-wearing legs of a white man.
    Alt

    In faux-soft-focus, a champagne-coloured French Bulldog looks up from beneath an office desk, framed between the shorts-wearing legs of a white man.

    • Note
    • 1 comment
    • posted 12 August, 2025

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