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YouTubeNostalgia, Music, and Computers
It turns out that I get nostalgic about technology in the same way as I get nostalgic about music. Here's some things that take me right back to being nine, eleven, thirteen and fifteen years old.
Dan Q - The Podcast
The podcast that nobody asked for. Exclusively about things that only Dan Q cares about.
Give your eyes a break and stuff me in your ears! Each episode is an audio version of a post from my blog, so you can listen to me rambling on while you're driving, working, or even (eww!) at the gym.
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Episodes
Why I Am So Tired
Why I Am So Tired
After dusting off and modernising a joke I first read in a chain email from 1996, I can tell you conclusively that the reason that I'm tired is because I'm overworked.
Actually, Yes! (that IS what my birth certificate says)
Actually, Yes! (that IS what my birth certificate says)
There's a certain kind of person who, upon hearing my unusual name, immediately asks whether that's what's on my birth certificate (with an underlying implication that it's not my 'real' name, whatever that means, if it isn't). Well: as of this week, thanks to a quirk in Scottish law, the name I've used every day for almost two decades DOES appear my birth certificate. Fuck the haters.
The Beer Token
The Beer Token
Thanks to the success of The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy, we can never forget quite how much beer you used to be able to get for a fiver (plus an exceptionally-generous tip). Nowadays, it'll get you one pint, if you're lucky... and that offers us an exciting opportunity...
Hexagonal Cheese Scones
Google Shared My Phone Number!
Google Shared My Phone Number!
When people started calling my personal mobile number with questions about a voluntary organisation I'm involved with, I was confused: we weren't sharing that number. It turns out that Google had decided to take the number I used to verify my identity for Google Business some years prior and start putting it in Google Search results. WTF, Google?
Delivery Songs
Delivery Songs
In the UK, ice cream vans are perhaps the only delivery service with their own jingle. Turkey and India are WAY ahead of us in this regard, and I've got a few ideas about how we fix that...
Work Slippers
Work Slippers
Last month, the dog ate my slippers, and in the week it took me to replace them my work productivity took a dip. Coincidence? Nope! They were my 'work slippers', and it turns out I needed them!
AI vs The Expert
AI vs The Expert
Inspired by an 11-year old comedy sketch, I asked a GenAI to solve an unsolvable programming problem... and (for at least some models) it failed in exactly the way I anticipated: claiming to be able to solve it and delivering code that just... didn't. What does this teach us about AI trustworthiness for problems that might be solvable, but for which the human operator doesn't have sufficient comprehension to verify?
A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers
A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers
While I've been ill I read A Psalm for the Wild-built by Becky Chambers, which had been on my reading list for a while. It's a comforting and compelling story about purpose and identity in an environmentally-conscious utopia, and it's flipping awesome.
God’s Adviser
God’s Adviser
When I was a young child I took part in a school nativity play, and was so insistent about picking holes in the theological inconsistencies implied by the script that I had to be expelled from the classroom. Here's how it went down.
International Volunteer Day
International Volunteer Day
It's International Volunteer Day, and thanks to being on sabbatical I got to spend most of the day volunteering with Three Rings. I liveblogged everything I got up to in a series of notes to try to shine a light on what volunteering (in a developer/devops role) with Three Rings can look like; this post is a summary of all that liveblogging, plus a few extra thoughts.
Stuck in a Lift
Stuck in a Lift
About twenty years ago, I spent three hours playing I-Spy in a broken-down elevator. And in doing so, I learned two things about my friend Fiona.
Sadder Than Fiction
Sadder Than Fiction
There's a short story that I tried on-and-off to write, but I've now given up on it. The concepts it makes light of all feel a bit too close-to-home, as conspiracy theorists increasingly migrate from the 'harmless nutjob' to the 'dangerous political leader' category.
How I Learned to Enjoy Pickled Onion Monster Munch
How I Learned to Enjoy Pickled Onion Monster Munch
I like pickled onions. And I like the vinegar flavouring and the onion flavouring from salt & vinegar and cheese & onion crisps, respectively. So I ought to like pickled onion crisps too. So why don't I... and can I rationally persuade my brain that it's wrong?