Category: Personal
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I'm in an extremely rural area and I needed a phone call with my lawyer about my recent redundancy. Phone signal was very bad, so I resolved to climb a nearby hill and call him back.
"I'm at a crossroads," I said, when I finally found enough bars to have a conversation with him.
"In your life?" he asked.
"I guess," I replied, "But also, y'know, literally."
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Pre-Worboys Committee British junction signpost in black and white, photographed against a bright blue sky. The signs point to Rosgill in one direction, Shap and Kendal in a second, and Bampton and Haweswater in a third.
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A Surprisingly Shit Bathroom
This bathroom at the holiday home where some fellow volunteers and I are doing some Three Rings work, this week, has a few unusual quirks, including this surprisingly-shit bathroom.
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The phone signal is so shit at this year's 3Camp venue that I've had to climb a hill to take a call from a lawyer (whom I'm speaking to about my recent redundancy). Nice to be outdoors, though!
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Dan, with a laptop, sitting alongside a rural Lake District lane in bright sunshine.
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Scots Fire Brigade Union demand new legal protections for people with more than one romantic partner
Scotland's Fire Brigade Union is calling for legal protections for the polyamorous. Wait, what?
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Found GC1DH7W Knipe Scar - On the Edge
A swift uphill scramble for my friend and fellow volunteer John and I, before dinner. We're staying in a nearby farmhouse for a week if volunteer work, writing software to help charities. Beautiful view from the summit this evening! SL, TNLN, TFTC!
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I'm off for a week of full-time volunteering with Three Rings at 3Camp, our annual volunteer hack week: bringing together our distributed team for some intensive in-person time, working to make life better for charities around the world.
And if there's one good thing to come out of me being suddenly and unexpectedly laid-off two days ago, it's that I've got a shiny new laptop to do my voluntary work on (Automattic have said that I can keep it).
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Black Macbook Pro whose screen shows a locally-hosted copy of the Three Rings web application, overlaid with a terminal running lazygit.
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Found GC97N3H Lodge Hill C & D
QEF as a cache-and-dash. This afternoon, owing to Some Plot, I needed to go speak to a lawyer in Abingdon, and rewarded myself on a successful mission by visiting this cache on my way home. TFTC!
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Apparently Automattic are laying off around one in six of their workforce. And I'm one of the unlucky ones.
Anybody remote hiring for a UK-based full-stack web developer (in a world that doesn't seem to believe that full-stack developers exist anymore) with 25+ years professional experience, specialising in PHP, Ruby, JS, HTML, CSS, devops, and about 50% of CMSes you've ever heard of (and probably some you haven't)... with a flair for security, accessibility, standards-compliance, performance, and DexEx?
CV at: https://danq.me/cv
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Change Your Star Sign
The star sign associated with my birthday is Capricorn, and I really don't embody any of the typical Capricorn characteristics, so I changed my star sign to Aquarius. And today, I've launched a website to help others change their star signs, too. What will you change yours to?
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My on-again-off-again relationship with AI assistants
Like me, Sean McPherson finds AI agents sometimes useful... but struggles with whether they're actually as useful as some folks seem to claim.
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8-year-old, angry: Give me that fucking thing right now!
Me: [Child's name]! That's not an acceptable way to ask for something!
8-year-old, calmer: Sorry. PLEASE can you give me that fucking thing?
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Bored of it
...
Every article glorifying it.
Every article vilifying it.
Every pub conversation winding up talking about it.
People incessantly telling you how they use it.
I feel dirty using it.
You know what I’m talking about, even though I’ve not mentioned it.
...
Paul … -
Sometimes the kids need to leave your pub dinner before you finish your drink, and you need to take a "to-go" pint.
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Dan, grinning, holding a quarter pint of beer in few rear passenger seat of a moving car.
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For a little while I got to lie in the sunshine and read my book in quiet solitude. But before long I found I was sharing it with a small child and his noisy games console.
Still delightful, though, and it feels wonderfully Spring-like out there today.
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Dan, seen from his 'head' end, lies in a hammock with a green book, 'Bored Gay Werewolf' on his belly. At the other end of the hammock a boy plays on a Nintendo Switch. Around them is a garden containing a climbing frame and a washing line full of white shirts and sheets.
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It wasn't until I made time for myself to get out into the countryside near my home and take the dog for a walk that I realised how much stress I'd been putting myself under during my team meetup, this week.
Istanbul was enjoyable and fascinating, and I love my team, but I always forget until after the fact how much a few days worth of city crowds can make me feel anxious and trapped.
It's good to get a mile or two from the nearest other human and decompress!
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Dan, a red leash hung across his shoulders, gives a half-shrug as he smiles for a selfie on a grassy trail between a hedgerow and a field. Behind him, near a weathered old-fashioned footpath sign, his French Bulldog looks at him expectantly.