Blog
More than you expected?
You're reading everything on my blog - including, among other things:
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notes (short, "toot-like" messages),
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reposts (links to other people's work, sometimes with commentary),
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checkins (records of places I've visited, often while geo*ing), and
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videos ("vloggy" content).
That might be more than you wanted to see, if you're only interested in articles (traditional long-form blog posts). Click a link to see just those posts, or
use the "Filters" menu to hide specific content types.
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Open source software plus open standards combine to deliver the latest cryptic crosswords by my friend Ash directly to my device.
MyCrossword publishes RSS feeds by setter. FreshRSS subscribes to that feed. Capy Reader syncs that to my phone. Forkyz imports the puzzle for me to play.
(The Android apps are available on F-Droid. Keep Android open.)
Net result: my phone tells me when Ash publishes a new puzzle and four taps later I'm playing it.
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Re: Decimal Clock
Niki proposed a decimalised analogue clock, with ten subdivisions broken into partial hours. I much prefer a traditional clock, and propose an alternative approach.
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The PO Box service that I use to receive postcards from the Internet sends me partial scans of incoming mail before it gets forwarded on to me. It's a tease! Hey look: you're going to get a postcard from... I want to say Croatia?
But now you have to wait until Royal Mail feel like bringing it the last 80 miles to my door so I can see it!
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Franked Croatian postage stamp.
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"Things" is a thing that showcases my things.
This week I relaunched my static site, Dan Q's Things, that catalogues my various Web projects. I'm pretty pleased with the new version! Let me tell you about why...
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"Things" is a thing that showcases my things. [Video]
A video tour of my favourite five features of the Dan Q's Things website I just re-launched, because I'm moderately proud of it.
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Geohashing.site's Better Banhammer
Off the back of yesterday's conversations about PHP-powered honeypots to IP-ban badly-behaved bots, I'd like to share the configuration I've been using to effectively protect Geohashing.site this year.
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Re: Blunt Banhammer Blocks Basic Bots Ballistically
Terence Eden's shared the honeypot he came up with to make a powerful honeypot-powered block against badly-behaved bots. I'm concerned, though: I've seen this pattern before and know that it can be used as a denial-of-service attack. Here's how I'd do it differently...
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JTA checked on our house this morning, which has been under repair since it flooded 269 days ago. There he discovered that, after countless delays and long periods of no progress, the replacement flooring has finally arrived!
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In light fog, alongside a skip, a flatbed lorry unloads pallets of floor tiles onto a residential driveway.
I'm still hopeful of a "Christmas miracle" of being able to move back home before the end of the year. But we'll see...
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The Day my Phone Number contained my TOTP
Once, I saw a six-digit sequential sequence of my phone number appear in an 'authenticator app' TOTP code. What are the odds? Incredibly rare. And yet, given long enough, inevitable. Here's how I put it...
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Dynamic Sorting in Pure CSS
Did you know that you can make a list of items "sortable" client-side with just one selector and one property of CSS per sort-criteria, and have a fully-fledged ordering system without an iota of JavaScript? Let me show you how!
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F-Day plus 266
It's been 266 days since we were flooded out of our home, and progress on repairs still seems to be glacial. It's still unclear if we'll be back by Christmas as delays and excuses continue to stack up. But the most-tragic thing is that working-around this temporary arrangement has become our everyday routine.
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Delightful location for lunch with the "Old Guard of Cake & Magic", my former team from the Bodleian Libraries, now what... two employers ago!?
Still probably one of the friendliest and most-passionate digital teams I've ever had the privilege to work with; it's so nice to be able to stay in touch.
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Cafe attractively decorated with parasols and net curtains.
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Your Losing
Briefly stuck behind this BMW in traffic, and had to wonder... who pays for a custom tagline/slogan on their number plate and doesn't run it through a spelling/grammar checker first?
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Blogsmaxxing
I glanced at my blogging stats and noticed that, with 559 posts so far this year (including this one), this has been my most-prolific year of blogging ever, beating the previous record holder of 2018. In honour of 2026, I feel like I should call this blogsmaxxing.
I should dig up my word-counter script and see if my bloggy fecundity is represented in quantity of words written, rather than "just" posts. -
Did not find GCB9ZGB Church Micro 2416...Appleton - St Laurence
This checkin to GCB9ZGB Church Micro 2416...Appleton - St Laurence reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs. Worked out the coordinates on the way out into the woods but was prevented from searching by muggles. Had a hint on the way back out of the woods but couldn't lay eyes, hands, โฆ