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Kind: Articles

Traditional long form content: a post with an explicit title and body.

  • Graph showing danq.me, at 234kb, just above gomakethings.com in the 512kb league table.

    Home Page, 50% Off!

    By optimising a few bits of my homepage I've halved its size, which incidentally takes me up from the third to the second league of 512kb club members!

    Read more (374 words)

    • Article
    • 1 comment
    • posted 22 March, 2024
  • Video preview showing Dan overlaid on a screenshot of Ultima Underworld II.

    My Favourite Video Game Easter Egg

    My favourite video game Easter egg is Alorik's crystal ball from 1993's Ultima Underworld II, and I'd love to tell you why.

    Read more - about 12 minutes (2695 words)

    • Article
    • 2 comments
    • posted 20 March, 2024
  • A design for a completely different part of the WooCommerce Extensions Management tool, again with a little green blob. Dan's floating head looks thoughtful above it, with a thought-bubble reading "wow, we're really going all-in on these little blobs, aren't we?"

    The Stupidest CSS

    Yesterday, I wrote the stupidest CSS code of my entire web development career. The code itself wasn't the stupid bit; my misinterpretation of the designer's wishes was what caused the problem!

    Read more - about 3 minutes (514 words)

    • Article
    • 5 comments
    • posted 19 March, 2024
  • ECG printout showing a report of "Abnormal ECG: sinus arrhythmia".

    Zap

    This week, a live-to-earth fault on the grid resulted in me getting zapped with mains electricity. Unfortunately, it didn't give me superpowers, just a mildly-interesting anecdote and a partially-shaved chest.

    Read more - about 6 minutes (1197 words)

    • Article
    • 8 comments
    • posted 14 March, 2024
  • Printed letter on Vagina Museum headed paper, reading: Dear Dan Q, I'm assuming you donated ยฃ50 on 1st February in response to my desperate plea for help on Mastodon. I'm pleased to say this was printed on our brand spanking new Brother Laser. The entire Vagina Museum thanks you for your generosity in our hour of need. Yours quim-cerely, Zoe Williams; Head of Communications and Fundraising

    Yours Quim-cerely

    I received a lovely letter from the Vagina Museum - which I've not had the opportunity to visit yet - printed on their new laserjet printer.

    Read more (192 words)

    • Article
    • posted 10 March, 2024
  • RSS reader showing duplicate copies of the news story "Barbie 2? 'We'd love to,' says Warner Bros boss", and an entry from BBC Sounds.

    BBC News... without the crap

    BBC News' RSS feed has lately started getting duplicates because they're mucking about with guids. Also what's with the iPlayer and BBC Sounds content in there? Let's "fix" that for them, shall we?

    Read more - about 3 minutes (603 words)

    • Article
    • 10 comments
    • posted 9 March, 2024
  • Photograph of a boxing match, but with the heads of the competitors replaced with the ActivityPub and RSS logos (and "AP" or "RSS" written on their clothes, respectively). RSS is delivering a powerful uppercut to ActivityPub.

    RSS > ActivityPub

    RSS is better than ActivityPub. Fight me.

    Read more (358 words)

    • Article
    • 6 comments
    • posted 8 March, 2024
  • Laptop and mug alongside a notebook and pencil. In the notebook is written "TODO: 1. Come out to colleagues. 2. ???. 3. Profit."

    Out as Poly at Work

    I've been "out" about my polyamory in every job I've had for the last 20+ years. I recommend it.

    Read more - about 6 minutes (1271 words)

    • Article
    • 2 comments
    • posted 5 March, 2024
  • A series of webhooks sent from Sonarr to Huginn to Slack.

    Sonarr > Huginn > Slack

    After IFTTT axed their Legacy Pro plan, I needed to move my Sonarr-to-Slack notification system to Huginn. This turned out to be super easy!

    Read more - about 3 minutes (500 words)

    • Article
    • posted 22 February, 2024
  • A snow-covered Alpine glacier sandwiched into a gully of exposed rocks.

    Freedom of the Mountain

    Being able to safely ski virtually any run in any resort is a privilege I enjoy, but I wonder if perhaps my skiing skills have peaked and it's time to try to learn another snowsport...

    Read more (414 words)

    • Article
    • 1 comment
    • posted 19 February, 2024
  • Screenshot showing an expanded "theme switcher" menu on a Website.

    Shiftless Progressive Enhancement

    Today a 7-year-old helped remind me that progressive enhancement doesn't have to mean render-blocking DOM manipulation nor ugly layout shifts.

    Read more - about 3 minutes (557 words)

    • Article
    • 3 comments
    • posted 6 February, 2024
  • Monochrome photograph showing sprinters at the starting line.

    100 Days To Offload

    The #100DaysToOffload challenge asked personal bloggers to author 100 posts in a year. I've done that a dozen times by accident, but does it count?

    Read more - about 3 minutes (628 words)

    • Article
    • 3 comments
    • posted 5 February, 2024
  • A young white man with platinum blonde hair holds up a large, boxy digital camera.

    Oldest Digital Photo... of Me

    The oldest photo I own of myself was taken in 1982, when I was almost 2 years old. But how old is the oldest DIGITAL photo of me? Let's try to find it...

    Read more - about 3 minutes (478 words)

    • Article
    • 1 comment
    • posted 3 February, 2024
  • Screenshot from Netscape Columns: Web Site Stories: the Coming Soon page is now laid out in two columns, but the expected launch date has been removed.

    Netscape's Untold Webstories

    Back in 1996, Netscape promised to publish a series of articles about making the best of the Web. With help from the Wayback Machine, let's see how that turned out for them, and learn a little about late-1990s web design as we go along.

    Read more - about 13 minutes (2934 words)

    • Article
    • posted 2 February, 2024
  • Trophy on a desk with the plaque "most pointless blog posts".

    Reflecting on Bloganuary

    Well that was Bloganuary! I managed to write a prompt-based blog post for every day in January, totalling about 20,000 words, along with a handful of other posts, and in doing so managed my longest "daily streak" in 25+ years of blogging. So what's next...?

    Read more - about 4 minutes (904 words)

    • Article
    • 4 comments
    • posted 1 February, 2024

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