I'm Dan Q (he/him). I've spent the last 26+ years creating and writing online.
I work as a software engineer, and I volunteer with Three Rings. I live with my partner, her husband, two kids and a dog. I can sometimes be found geo*ing, performing magic, or recording the most pointless podcast.
I believe in open source, open relationships, and opening doors to marginalised groups. Black lives matter. Trans
rights are human rights.
Be nice to humans, human.
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PHP 8.4 on Caddy on Debian 13... in Three Minutes
I just needed to spin up a new PHP webserver and I was amazed how fast and easy it was, nowadays. Just the stock package repositories and around five commands and my fresh box and it was serving PHP applications over HTTPS. Read more →
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Peripheral Vision
The other night, I encountered an optical illusion by which I could see a particular partially-obstructed light only when it was in my peripheral vision. This put me in mind of the experience of being only peripherally able to see the internalised quirks of your employer that were once obvious to you, and this lead me to reflect a little on my first six months at Firstup. Read more →
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Nostalgia, Music, and Computers
It turns out that I get nostalgic about technology in the same way as I get nostalgic about music. Here's some things that take me right back to being nine, eleven, thirteen and fifteen years old. Read more →
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Imajica by Clive Barker
I recently finished reading Clive Barker's Imajica for what I think is the fourth time. It remains one of my favourite fantasy novels, and I'd love to tell you why. Read more →
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Why I Am So Tired
After dusting off and modernising a joke I first read in a chain email from 1996, I can tell you conclusively that the reason that I'm tired is because I'm overworked. Read more →
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Visualising Forged In The Dark probabilities
Blades in the Dark (and other Forged In The Dark-based games) use a highest-value-from-D6-dice-pool mechanic to resolve actions. I was looking for a visualisation of the resulting probabilities, but couldn't find one... so I made my own. Read more →
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Roomscale VR Still Rocks
I'd promised the kids I'd dig up my (ten-year-old!) original HTC Vive VR gear and hook it up in the living room over Christmas. Roomscale VR, even running on decade-old kit, still rocks and is as immersive as ever! Read more →
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Egg and Dispatch
I don't get much time for videogames, so when I find the opportunity to complete not one but two games within a single month, you know my recommendation of them holds some weight! Let me tell you about 'Egg', and 'Dispatch'. Read more →
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Actually, Yes! (that IS what my birth certificate says)
There's a certain kind of person who, upon hearing my unusual name, immediately asks whether that's what's on my birth certificate (with an underlying implication that it's not my 'real' name, whatever that means, if it isn't). Well: as of this week, thanks to a quirk in Scottish law, the name I've used every day for almost two decades DOES appear my birth certificate. Fuck the haters. Read more →
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More articles →
(articles are traditional long-form blog posts) -
Inspired by a conversation with Elle, I expanded my FreshRSS-to-blogroll generator to support injecting 88×31 buttons (where I have them) for folks I follow.
There's still a way to go, but my blogroll's looking a little prettier as a result. -
gradient.horse
Michail Rybakov's gradient.horse might be the second most-amusing use of a .horse domain name I've yet seen. Draw a horse and let it run wild and free with its friends in the gradient plains of your browser window! Read more →
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Found GC8YPVJ Finn1
On the morning of the Three RIngs Christmas party, I took an early walk to a nearby geocache, just outside the area where the roads are closed for the Warwick leg of HS2's construction. Read more →
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I think my “six seven”-obsessed younger child was in the kitchen with a biro earlier. How do I know, you ask? × Read more →
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Well my day, week, and year (which has been off to a slightly ropey start) got a whole heap better today when I received a postcard from August & Sappho, sent from 39c3 on a CCC postcard... with a CCC stamp!
Super cool, and exactly the mood boost I needed today. -
Gay sheep - what the FAQ?!
About 1 in 12 rams (and a similar proportion of ewes) show a strong preference for other sheep of their same sex. To save them from being destroyed by breeders, this German farm is rescuing them and adding them to their queer flock. Read more →
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88x31 Button Creator
Dan of ritual.sh has produced an absolutely epic 88×31 button generator; well worth playing with if you're into that kind of thing. Read more →
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Tonight I learned that when my electric car gets down to 5% battery, it sounds an alarm.
And that when it gets down to 4% battery, it sounds a louder alarm.
And that when it gets down to 3% battery, it engages 'limited performance' mode and shows a picture of a tortoise.
And that when it gets down to 2%, and you've already turned off the heating and the radio and you're wondering how much power the windscreen wipers are using... that's when it stops showing you it's estimated range.
Fortunately, I then only had half a mile left to go. But for a while there it felt a little bit hairy! -
Bitterly cold and starkly beautiful, this morning: West Oxfordshire is blanketed in an impenetrably thick freezing fog.It’s quite pretty, though I’m regretting not bringing my gloves out with me! × Read more →
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Chain Words
I've been enjoying playing Chain Words, from eclectech, intermittently, since it came out in November. If you've not given it a go yet, and you like a word game that's a bit different, you should try it! Read more →
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Not kink-shaming anyone, but I’m not sure I want to go to the ‘toilets viewing area’. × Read more →
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The younger kids' taekwondo school put on a free 'new years workout' class this morning. It was pretty awesome.
My watch says my heart rate averaged 146bpm, peaking at 169bpm. It's possible I'm not as fit as I used to be. 😅
But at least I don't feel like I might die, like I did during the 'dads go free' promotion last year. Progress? Read more → -
Why I Am So Tired [Video]
A video version of my recent joke about why I'm so tired, which was also made available in article and podcast formats. Read more →
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As part of my efforts to reclaim the living room from the children, I'm building a new gaming PC for the playroom. She's called Bee, and - thanks to the absolute insanity that is The Tower 300 case from Thermaltake - she's one of the most bonkers PC cases I've ever worked in. Read more →
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A small collection of text-only websites
Terence Eden's maintaining a list of websites that are presented as, or are wholly or partially available via, plain text. Obviously my own text/plain blog is among them, and is as far as I'm aware the only one to be entirely presented as text/plain. Read more →
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More posts →
(of all kinds:
articles, 
checkins, 
notes, 
reposts...)