dan--q

[dan--q]

Details/summary lightboxes in pure HTML + CSS

For years, I’ve been using a HTML+CSS-only technique for popover ‘lightbox’ images on my blog. Now I’ve come up with a more-semantic way to do the same, and its HTML code is tidier too!

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[dan--q]

Internet Services^H Provider

When you signed up with an ISP, you used to get Web space, email, shared FTP access, a nearby IRC node, newsgroups, and a software bundle. Nowadays you get a shit router, a voucher for a free month of a streaming service you didn’t want, and crap customer service. Where did we go wrong?

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[dan--q]

Quesapizza-pizza

A quesapizza is a quesadilla, but made using pizza ingredients: not just cheese, but also a tomato sauce and maybe some toppings. A quesapizza-pizza is a pizza… constructed using a quesapizza as its base! Watch me make one in a 90-second timelapse.

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[dan--q]

Heterophonic Homonyms

On a car journey on which they’d otherwise have been fighting, the kids helped me start a collection of heterophonic homonyms – words that are spelled the same but have different pronunciations and meanings. I’ve got nine of them now in English, and maybe two in other languages… can you help me find some more?

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[dan--q]

Lock All The Computers

I wanted a button on my desk that, when I pressed it, would simultaneously lock every computer connected to my KVM system. Here’s what I came up with.

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[dan--q]

Please Fix This Site? Okay!

PleaseFixThisSite.com is a funny web-based take on that XKCD comic about extorting graphic designers who hate your design choices. But you don’t actually need to pay the extortionist to “fix” their site. Just have your userscript manager run a few lines of my code, and the effect is much the same.

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[dan--q]

Dan Has Too Many Monitors

My new employer sent me a laptop and a monitor, which I immediately added to my already pretty-heavily-loaded desk. Wanna see?

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[dan--q]

Person Rowing Boat

Ruth and I sometimes send one another the ‘person rowing boat’ emoji when no other emoji seems to fit, and I can’t even remember why we started.

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[dan--q]

Firstup Recruitment

I’ll soon by starting in my new role at Firstup, after a rollercoaster of a recruitment process that rocketed through all the usual tech job steps… but in barely over a week. What a rush!

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[dan--q]

The Last Post for the Nightline Association. How does that make you feel?

Fellow Nightline enthusiast James Buller has written a stirring piece about his decades of volunteering for and around Nightlines, and – as usual – underplays the importance and significance of his work. Here’s my take.

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[dan--q]

The Huge Grey Area in the Anthropic Ruling

The court ruling that declares Anthropic’s use of (purchased) books as training material leaves a curious sorites paradox. If we assume that an LLM trained on only one book (and so only capable of producing content directly inspired by that book) would necessarily be copyright-infringing, at what number of books does that cease to be the case?

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[dan--q]

Smug Interview Moment

Recently, I got to answer a technical interview question with “Coincidentally, I implemented exactly what you’re describing two weeks ago. For fun. Can I show you the code and the blog post I wrote to explain my design choices?”

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[dan--q]

Scarecrows

As part of the Village Festival, there’s a scarecrow competition around my way with a televisual theme. I love that my local community works so hard to carve out an individual identity and personality for itself!

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[dan--q]

I Wrote the Same Code Six Times!

Could I rock an interview tech-test in a programming language I haven’t touched in a decade? I wanted to know, so I found a tech-test… then solved it in six different programming languages in a single sitting.

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[dan--q]

The Difference Between Downloading and Streaming

Mostly to make use of an animation I made for a different blog post that hasn’t materialised, let me take a moment to explain to you the fundamental technical difference between ‘streaming’ and ‘downloading’. Which won’t take long… because there isn’t one!

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[dan--q]

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?

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[dan--q]

Queer Coded 🌈

Paraphrased from a conversation in a Manchester pub last night –Them: Your [dyed blue] hair is queer-coded, right? Like… you’re telegraphing you’re queer? Me: I mean… I’m also wearing a pride rainbow t-shirt and my watch strap is a ‘bi pride’ flag. I don’t feel like I’m being subtle. Them: Nah. The hair’s the giveaway.

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