Year: 2025
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When I was a child, we had a cherry blossom tree in our garden. In late Spring, as the flowers began to wilt, I'd enjoy shaking it to make flutters of pink confetti rain down around me.
This tree, though, spotted on the school run this morning, is very early in its bloom. It feels like a happy reminder that Spring is beginning.
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Barely-opened cherry blossom buds against a vibrant blue sky.
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I noticed that automated emails from Steam weren't doing alt-text very well. Some image links had no or inadequate alt-text. (Note that Steam don't support opting for plain text rather than HTML emails.)
I'm fortunate enough to depend upon alt-text never-to-rarely. But I prefer not to load remote images, so I still benefit from alt-text.
I filled out a support request to Steam layout out the specific examples I'd found of where they weren't doing very well, and stressing why it's (morally, legally, etc.) important to do better.
And you know what: they quietly fixed it. When I received an email today telling me that something on my wishlist is on sale, it had reasonably-good alt-text throughout. Neat.
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Voice of America
In light of Trump's attempts to axe Voice of America, because it is, he claims, "anti-Trump" (and because he's so insecure that he can't stand the thought that taxpayer dollars might go to anybody who disagrees with him in any way, for any reason), I've produced a suggested update to the rules of Twilight Struggle for the inevitable 9th printing.
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Found GCAP4MF Church Micro 15127...Curbridge
I had an errand to run in the Windrush Place estate on the other side of the A40, and the geopup needed a walk, so I opted to park the car over in Witney so my four-legged friend and I could walk the remaining way over to Curbridge and find this cache.
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Work Slippers
Last month, the dog ate my slippers, and in the week it took me to replace them my work productivity took a dip. Coincidence? Nope! They were my 'work slippers', and it turns out I needed them!
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Possibly I'm a little late for the "casual daily puzzle game" party. (Did Wordle already get invented in this timeline; I forget?)
I think there's something in an idea I've been toying with. Bring on the weekend, when I can throw some brainpower at the frontend code!
![Full image of A notebook is held in front of terminal output. The terminal begins with 'Start position: [0,4]' and then shows a series of 5×5 grids containing numbers: one, labelled 'Route:', shows random grid of the numbers 0 through 24; the second, labelled 'Puzzle:', contains 1s, 2s, and 3s, corresponding perhaps to the orthagonal distances between consecutive numbers from the first grid; the third, whose title is obscured by the notebook, shows the same thing again but with 'walls' drawn in ASCII art between some of the numbers. The notebook in front contains hand-drawn sketches of similar grids with arrows "jumping" around between them.](https://bcdn.danq.me/_q26u/2025/03/20250313_100059-scaled.jpg)
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A notebook is held in front of terminal output. The terminal begins with 'Start position: [0,4]' and then shows a series of 5×5 grids containing numbers: one, labelled 'Route:', shows random grid of the numbers 0 through 24; the second, labelled 'Puzzle:', contains 1s, 2s, and 3s, corresponding perhaps to the orthagonal distances between consecutive numbers from the first grid; the third, whose title is obscured by the notebook, shows the same thing again but with 'walls' drawn in ASCII art between some of the numbers. The notebook in front contains hand-drawn sketches of similar grids with arrows "jumping" around between them.
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It's not cheating if you write the video game solver yourself
Robert Heaton wrote a solver to help him crack a puzzle in a video game, and I'm 100% behind this as a valid approach to playing single-player games, if it's more fun for you than the alternatives.
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I decided to take my meeting with my coach today in our house's new library, which my metamour JTA has recently been working hard on decorating, constructing, and filling with books. The room's not quite finished, but it made for a brilliant space for a bit of quiet reflection and self-growth work.
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Dan, a white man with a ponytail, wearing a black shirt and jeans, sits in a rocking chair in front of an open laptop at a long desk; he has a notebook in his hand and holds a pen near his lips. He's in a domestic library with deep red walls, balanced-arm lamps, a woven rug on a wooden floor, and the wall behind him entirely covered with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. A grassy lawn and sapling trees can be seen through a window, bordered by floral curtains and two clumsily-placed WiFi routers that sit on the window ledge. On the corner of the desk lie various hand tools, suggesting that light construction work has recently taken place.
(Incidentally: I might be treating "lives in a house with a library" as a measure of personal success. Like: this is what winning at life looks like, right? Because whatever else goes wrong, at least you can go hide in the library!)
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I've been trying to comment more on other people's blogs. It's tough, because comment forms continue to wane in popularity, and it's not always clear who'll accept Webmentions, but there's often the option of a good old-fashioned email or a fediverse ping.
It occurred to me that I follow a significant number of personal blogs, and my privacy systems mean I'm a bit of a ghost to most analytics systems they might use, so the only way they'd ever know I was there would be if I said so.
Plus, the Internet is better when it's social. There are some great people out there, and I'm enjoying meeting them!
(You're welcome to throw comments, Webmentions, or emails my way, of course, too!)
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It is as if you were on your phone
When you use your phone to play this game, it really does look indistinguishable from being on your phone. Weird!
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This year it'll be 10 years since webcomic A Softer World ended its 12-year run. If you missed it, you can still go back and read them all, starting from asofterworld.com/index.php?id=1
But in the meantime, here's one of my very favourites:
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Did not attempt GC3KQKM RRR12 2nd tree downstream
This checkin to GC3KQKM RRR12 2nd tree downstream reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs. Did not attempt to find, today: an angler was sitting almost right at the GZ, enjoying the peace and quiet that my geokid would have quickly disrupted! So we moved on...
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Did not find GC4B6QJ RRR 13 Not that Alder - incy wincy!
This checkin to GC4B6QJ RRR 13 Not that Alder - incy wincy! reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs. No luck here for the geokid and I. He speculates that perhaps "down came the rain and washed the container out."
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Found GC4B6QP RRR 14 Put that Rod Away!
This checkin to GC4B6QP RRR 14 Put that Rod Away! reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs. A quick and easy find in a brilliant hiding spot. I was helped by the geokid with the reaching. Lovely spot for a great hide, FP awarded!
AltDan lifts a child up to … -
Found GC3KQK8 RRR11 Pillow talk!
This checkin to GC3KQK8 RRR11 Pillow talk! reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs. My partner Ruth is, by installments, attempting to walk the entire Thames Path. Today, I'm on transport support so I've driven ahead of her to Culham Lock and the dog and I are walking back to meet …