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.
-
How an RM Nimbus Taught Me a Hacker Mentality
Thirty to thirty-five years ago, as a young and curious hacker, I broke out of the restrictions on my secondary school's computer lab and briefly achieved rockstar popularity amongst peers who, through my tools, could now play videogames instead of doing their coursework. But their interest in the results of my exploits were incompatible with my interest in the sheet joy of discovery... and, inevitably, this meant trouble.
-
Our kid doesn't like bagel holes. She'll eat the rest of the bagel, but not the hole.
At least, that's the only explanation I can think of for finding things like this most mornings.
Alt
On a plate, buttered bagel has been nibbled all around the outside, leaving only the hole surrounded in a thin circle of bread.
-
I like it when the Internet says "yes, and".
I like it when the Internet says "yes, but".
I even like it when the Internet says "no, because".I'm not so keen when the Internet says "well, actually",
(Probably because it reminds me of what
a shit I was in some not-yet-forgotten time.)But I don't like when the Internet rallies a brigade
To pick apart a character flaw I have, but hate,
Or to attack something I'm not, and expect me to defend.So perhaps next time, start with "yes, and", "yes, but",
Or even "no, because"... or just say nothing, and
Remember what it means to connect with a human. -
Highlight of my workday was debugging an issue that turned out to be nothing like what the reporter had diagnosed.
The report suggested that our system was having problems parsing URLs with colons in the pathname, suggesting perhaps an encoding issue. It wasn't until I took a deep dive into the logs that I realised that this was a secondary characteristic of many URLs found in customers' SharePoint installations. And many of those URLs get redirected. And SharePoint often uses relative URLs when it sends redirections. And it turned out that our systems' redirect handler... wasn't correctly handling relative URLs.
It all turned into a hundred line automated test to mock SharePoint and demonstrate the problem... followed by a tiny two-line fix to the actual code. And probably the most-satisfying part of my workday!
-
This morning it took me three attempts to put on a t-shirt the right way around.
I don't think I slept too well.
-
That's Not How Email Works, HSBC
A confusing letter from HSBC informed me that I've not been receiving their emails, and I have to change the email address they use to contact me. Except I've been receiving all of their emails just fine! The problem, it turns out, is that surveillance capitalism is now so-widespread that the bank cannot conceive that their own attempts to spy on their customers might not be 100% reliable...
-
The internet’s hidden creative renaissance (and how to find it)
This article is good and touches on many sites, people, and topics that I care about... but it's painfully ironic that the author has written a post praising the independent Web... using Substack as their platform.
-
Who Is the Winking Chef?
Scott Wiener - who is even more pizza-obsessed than me - noticed the 'winking chef' image that's common on pizza boxes. Then he traced its origin, and wrote a blog post to share the story of the artwork. Delightful.
-
As previously indicated, I'm not anticipating cosplaying anybody. But I think I could do Greg Universe.
Not young Greg Universe, the Star Child of 'Story for Steven'... which seems to be the only variety anybody's ever cosplayed as before if an image search is to be believed. No, I mean: overweight old balding Greg Universe. I could totally pull that look off.
Alt
Composite image showing Greg Universe from Steven Universe, in both his 'young, rock star' version and the more-familiar 'old balding car wash owner who lives in his van' version.
Fake tan lines, white t-shirt (I'd probably make a 'guitar dad' one!), sweatpants, carrying a guitar. Easy.
Again, not that I'm planning to. Just saying that I could...
-
Why does SSH send 100 packets per keystroke?
Nolen Royalty wrote an interesting piece about diagnosing a quirky SSH-related issue, and I found it both interesting and inspiring.
-
Still at MegaConLive. I've not done this kind of con before (and still wouldn't, were it not for my tweenager and her various obsessions). Not my jam, and that's fine.
But if there's one thing for which I can sing it's praises: everybody we've met is super friendly and nice. Sure, you can loudly telegraph your fandoms and identities via cosplay, accessories, masks, badges, bracelets or whatever... but it's also just a friendly community of folks to just talk to.
The fashion choices are, more than anything, just an excuse to engage: a way to say "hey, here's a conversation starter if you'd like to talk to me!"
Overheard a conversation between my kid and another of a similar age, and there was a heartwarming moment where the other kid said, "oh wow, I thought I was the only one!" Adorbs.
Alt
Convention stage with MegaConLive branding.
-
I may have been dragged to MegaConLive London by my multi-fandom loving 12-year-old, but I at least managed to find somebody worth getting a selfie with.
Alt
Dan Q with Eddie Bowley.
-
My 12-year-old's persuaded me to take her to MegaConLive London this weekend.
As somebody who doesn't pay much attention to the pop culture circles represented by such an event (and hasn't for 15+ years, or whenever it was that Asdfbook came out?)... have you got any advice for me, Internet?
-
How You Read My Content (The Answers)
Kev Quirk ran a one-question survey recently about how people discover and read his blog posts, and I think it's a pretty inspiring idea. Sure, consent-based surveying introduces biases... but what analytic technique doesn't, really?
-
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.