Author: Dan Q
Dan Q is a software engineer, a director of a voluntary organisation, a trainee counsellor, a keen geocacher, and an amateur magician. He lives with his partner and her husband in a polyamorous triad, and occasionally finds time to blog.
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Bloomscrolling & Agentic Intelligence
Aquarion's written about using agentic intelligence and the role of LLMs in various tasks. The conclusion's pretty solid, and I agree with it 90%+.
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Wikipedia @ 25: Necker Island
Today, thanks to Wikipedia, I learned a lot about a miniscule Hawaiian island with an interesting cultural and archaeological history... after I found my way there from a random page about a hip hop album!
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Wikipedia @ 25: Lake Baikal
Today's random Wikipedia article was about a kind of seal that lives only in Lake Baikal in Siberia, which turns out to be a really, really big lake. Like: it's got about a fifth of the world's fresh water in it; that's how big it is!
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Wikipedia @ 25: The Bugler of Algiers
Today's random Wikipedia article, which didn't make it into a full blog post or podcast episode like a few earlier ones did, was The Bugler of Algiers. This 1916 silent film, based on a novel called We Are The French, has no surviving copies and it's no longer even known what role some of the billed cast played in it! Among others, it starred Kingsley Benedict, who would later go on to feature in Fast and Furious! No... not that one... the 1927 silent comedy (which you can watch on YouTube... it's... about three times as long as it needs to be, IMHO).
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Rubberdogging
Rubberdogging, verb: attempting to invent a solution to a technical problem by explaining it out loud to a pet. From "rubberducking", the practice of doing so to an inanimate object, and "dog walking".
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Wikipedia @ 25: Yo-Yo
This year is Wikipedia's 25th birthday, and as part of the celebrations I learned who Marcus Koh is... but that wasn't remotely as interesting as learning about the long history of the yo-yo!
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Wikipedia @ 25: Presto Card
The Presto Card is Toronto and the surrounding area's equivalent of London's Oyster Card. I enjoyed learning about it, but I don't think it justifies a whole blog post of what-I-learned.
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Built In Obsolescence
Pagan Wanderer Lu's released a cover album of his own music, where the cover artist is... AI. Some of the songs have come out quite well, and it gives me cognitive dissonance to enjoy art while disliking what its process represents.
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Wikipedia @ 25: Rail transport in Indonesia
Wikipedia is celebrating its 25th birthday, and today I'm celebrating by discovering what the Argo Wilis is, along with a dive into a rabbithole about rail transport in Indonesia!
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CSS or BS
Keith Cirkel's made a game where you have to identify if something is a CSS property or a convincing fake. How's your CSS knowledge?
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Wikipedia @ 25: Wesley Merritt
Wikipedia is celebrating its 25th birthday, and somehow as a result I ended up reading about Wesley Merritt, who was the shortest-lived Governor-General of the Philippines!
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The first glimmer
Zach of The One and I wrote earlier this year about 'glimmers', which he describes as the opposite of 'triggers'. I love both the word and its concept, and I'm going to try to cultivate a better personal awareness of the glimmers in my life.
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Two Croissants
I woke up with this in my head and had to draw it.
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This plant has sonehow managed to grow through the atrtoturf lawn of our temporary home!
Life... uh... finds a way?
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A leafy plant growing in the middle of an artificial lawn.
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Observation:
Media franchises attract fandoms, and many get their fair share of character 'shipping (especially of the attractive characters).
Soccer also attracts huge fandoms... but I don't think I've ever seen or heard of "soccer slash" (even of the attractive players).
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Four-cell table showing the intersections of Fandoms and Slash with Media and Soccer, respectively. Media + Fandoms is a photo from Comic-Con; Media + Slash is a comic art picture of Captain Kirk and Spock kissing; Soccer + Fandom is a full World Cup stadium; Soccer + Slash just shows a question mark.