Notes – Dan Q

Sick words

This evening I pushed against my illness-addled brain to try to sit in on the fortnightly Zoom call with the Three Rings dev team. Unfortunately it seems like the primary symptom of my cold is an inability to string words together.

At one point, I apologised to by colleague “Beff” (I meant “Bev”, but I had just been talking about “Geoff”) that I couldn’t work out how to stop “scaring my screen” (well, I suppose Halloween is coming up…). Then, realising my mistake, explained that it was a bit of a “ting-twister”.

I should just go to bed, right?

Note #24701

Playing simultaneous games against both children might have been less challenging if they hadn’t both kept trying to start fights with one another at the same time! 😂

Note #24696

I’m back home from Mexico (and feeling a little worse for wear), where this young lady wanted to let me know that I was sorely missed.

Goodbye Tulum

Goodbye, Tulum! You were delightful, if very hot. It’s time for me to head back to the UK.

Hurricane Milton

From safely outside of its predicted path, just around the Yucatan coast, Hurricane Milton seems like a forboding and distant monster. A growing threat whose path will thankfully take it away, not towards, me.

My heart goes out to the people on the other side of the Gulf of Mexico who find themselves along the route of this awakened beast.

Five Cards

It’s a bit hard to perform close-up magic to an audience 40 metres deep, so I pre-recorded my favourite card trick! Then I talked over it, explaining to colleagues from my division why it’s my favourite bit of slight-of-hand, and what great magic tricks have in common with great code.

I feel like I’m likely to have to perform a lot more illusions at the bar later today!

Tropical rain

It’s 05:30 local time on the third day of my work meetup in Tulum, on Tyne Caribbean Coast of Mexico, and I was just woken by incredibly heavy rain. I got up and stepped out until it, and was surprised to discover that it’s almost as warm as the shower in my bathroom. In the distance, beyond the palm trees and over the hill, the booms of thunder are getting closer. Beautiful weather for a beautiful place.

Note #24649

Something I’ve long enjoyed about Automattic gatherings is the opportunity to meet some the most diverse characters you’ll ever find in one place.

But today was the first time I’ve ever been at a beachside disco that was attended by a foraging racoon.

Note #24647

Max props to my employer for providing pronoun pins not just in a diversity of options but also offering blank ones for people not represented by any of the pre-printed options.

Buenos días

Well this is a sight to wake up to. 😍

Note #24643

It took almost twenty hours of travelling but I made it to Mexico!

Pack Light

Think I blew Ruth‘s mind this morning when I set off for a week in Mexico with only a medium-sized, underseat-suitable backpack.

But since working for Automattic five years ago I’ve totally been bitten by the travelling-light bug. Highly recommended!

Heaven Can Wait

Harry Segell’s 1938 play Heaven Can Wait went on to inspire such an extraordinarily long legacy of follow-ups.

I’ve only seen the most-recent few and my experience is that the older iterations are better, so I probably ought to watch Here Comes Mr. Jordan, right?

Note #24625

This morning’s actual breakfast order from the 7-year-old: “A sesame seed bagel with honey, unless there aren’t any sesame seed bagels, in which case a plain bagel with honey on one half and jam on the other half, unless there aren’t any plain bagels, in which case a cinnamon and raisin bagel with JimJams on one half and Biscoff on the other half.”

Some day, this boy will make a great LISP programmer. 😂

CSS Cycling Gradient Text

An amazing CSS effect by Ana Tudor:

Wow, this is real pretty!

(You can edit that text. Really: try it!)

I’ve only recently (thanks, Spencer!) gained any level of understanding about the use of SVG filters in CSS, so this is doubly-impressive to me.