Dan Q

Category: Personal

Pocket Searching

Pocket dialling was bad enough. I once received a phone call from a friend whose phone called me – as the last number he’d dialled – just as he was putting on a harness in anticipation of doing a bungee jump. So all I got to hear was rustling, and shuffling… and then a blood-curdling scream. Nice one.

A cat on a mobile phone.
Hello? Yes, this is cat. Just thought I’d press some buttons and see who I got.

But in this age of smartphones, the pocket search has become a new threat. Thanks to the combination of touchscreens, anticipatory keyboards (I use SwiftKey, and I’m beginning to think that it knows me better than I do myself), and always-online devices, we’re able to perform quite complex queries quite accidentally. I’ve got a particular pair of trousers which seems to be especially good at unlocking my phone, popping up a search engine, typing a query (thanks to the anticipatory keyboard, usually in full words), and then taking a screenshot and saving it for me, so that I can’t later deny having searched for… whatever it was.

This morning, while cycling to work, I searched for the following (which I’ve reformatted by inserting line breaks, in order to transform it into the sort-of poem you might expect from sombebody both insane and on hallucinogens):

thanks again
and it all goes on
and I will Also
Also A bit LIKE THAT
THE ANSWER is
That you are looking at your Local Ryanair
and a ripening
and a ripening
I can assure are a BIT
and see the new template by clicking here
for
for YOU GUYS
GUYS HAVE YOU ANY COMMENTS
ON MY WAY BACK FROM YOU
And the other side and I will have the same
as a friend or relative
relative humidity
humidity
to you
you are here car
car
and
and embarrassing
embarrassing
the best thing is the first three years and over
over?

Maybe my phone is gradually becoming sentient and is trying to communicate with me. I for one welcome our new robot overlords.

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Something like HTTPS Everywhere for new Opera?

This self-post was originally posted to /r/operabrowser. See more things from Dan's Reddit account.

I’m looking for an extension that will automatically redirect-to-HTTPS for particular domains, e.g. to ensure that I’m using the secure version of Wikipedia, etc., whenever I go there. The HTTPS Everywhere plugin from the EFF does this for Firefox and Chrome; what can I do to make this work in Opera?

Repost posted at UTC on .

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Godzilla’s Family Vlog Review – Episode 12 – Secret Birthday Bonus

My review of Episode 12 of Godzilla Huntley’s Family Vlog was filmed on-location, secretly, in Godzilla’s bedroom, which I visited and broke into while she was on holiday in the USA. Later, I left her a birthday present (it was her birthday a few weeks earlier), hidden in her own room, and only when she finds THIS video will she know where it is!

Also available on YouTube.

Video posted at UTC on .

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Dan Q found GLCDYQ4Z The Oldest Pub in Stirling

This checkin to GLCDYQ4Z The Oldest Pub in Stirling reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.

Found with fleeblewidget on the way to a nice beer with half of reaperfish. We’d have found it faster if we hadn’t met reaperfish, though, because he found this cache back in 2009 and was convinced that my GPSr was wrong when it pointed me pretty much exactly to where the cache was. Eventually, fleeblewidget and I (and the satellites) turned out to be right, of course. TFTC!

Dan Q found GLCDYM4B A Stirling Sanctuary

This checkin to GLCDYM4B A Stirling Sanctuary reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.

Found with fleeblewidget while visiting my old friend (half of reaperfish), a local to this cache, for an evening of food and beer. A nice easy find, once we’d removed some of the wildlife that was clinging to the side of the cache! Didn’t have a pen with us, so I stuck a pair of googly-eyes onto the log: see photo of me holding the log with fresh eyes attached!

Dan with a googly-eye-emblazoned geocache log

Dan Q found GLCCC0DB Melting Mouth ~ Bath Time

This checkin to GLCCC0DB Melting Mouth ~ Bath Time reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.

Found with fleeblewidget while exploring along the lochside (and grabbing a few caches as we went), during a holiday to celebrate our anniversary. A very easy find during our little journey along the loch. fleeblewidget was getting tired at this point, and we’d both decided that we needed some lunch, so we resolved to find just one more cache after this one and then go and find ourselves some food in Kenmore.

Dan Q found GLCCC0FF Melting Mouth ~ Another Scone Stop!

This checkin to GLCCC0FF Melting Mouth ~ Another Scone Stop! reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.

Found with fleeblewidget while exploring along the lochside (and grabbing a few caches as we went), during a holiday to celebrate our anniversary. A great little cache to end our adventure on, and go and find some lunch. Thanks for the series of caches (even those which, like this one, were a little damp!).