For Wikipedia's 25th birthday some people are doing the "read 25 different articles on 25 consecutive days" challenge. I'm going one further, and - where possible (and interesting!) - I'll be blogging (and maybe podcasting!) what I learn each day! Here's day 1 […]

🥐 I woke up with this image in my head and had to draw it. 🤣 🔗 Via: https://danq.me/two-croissants #armor #armour #croissant #comic

This plant has sonehow managed to grow through the atrtoturf lawn of our temporary home! Life... uh... finds a way? #note #nature #gardening Via: 🔗 https://danq.me/2026/05/12/29114/

[Comic art of Star Trek characters kissing] Observation: Media franchises attract fandoms, and many get their fair share of character 'shipping (especially of the attractive characters). Soccer also attracts huge fandoms... but I don't think I've ever seen or […] [Original post on danq.me]

Why, when I change the temperature on the thermostat of my Renault Zoe does it change the fan direction, too? Is this a UI affordance for people who want their faces colder but their feet warmer? I don't understand! #note #cars #userInterface Via: 🔗 […] [Original post on danq.me]

I came up with the term "inclusive front" to mean the band of people who care about the web's inclusivity. It's a play on words; we largely work on the front end, but I feel we're also like a political 'popular front' ( […] [Original post on front-end.social]

Even this self-checkout thinks I'm eating too much chocolate. #note #chocolate #supermarkets #food #funny Via: 🔗 https://danq.me/2026/05/06/cadbury-giant-butt/

How kind of the humans who constructed this sofa to leave a perfect dog-shaped nest in-between the cushions. Our pupper is appreciative. #note #dog #dogs #photo #photos Via: 🔗 https://danq.me/2026/05/05/29064/

You know it's been too hot and dry when, as soon as the rain starts to fall, your first thought is to go sit outside in it! #note Via: 🔗 https://danq.me/2026/05/02/sitting-in-the-rain/

🆕 blog! “NHS Goes To War Against Open Source” The NHS is preparing to close nearly all of its Open Source repositories. Throughout my time working for the UK Government - in GDS, NHSX, i.AI, and others - I championed Open Source. I spoke to dozens of departments about it, wrote guidance still […]

As I say in the post, if you're in the UK *please* write to your MP about this. Don't just pontificate online. Write a short email to your MP and tell them you disagree with NHS England's decision to shut down all their Open Source code.

Thames Water (that OH-so-reputable of water companies) messed-up my billing details. And in their hacky workaround to fix it, estimate that I'll be using £4,803.40 a year of water. What? 🔗 Via: https://danq.me/thames-water-one-day-bill

Something's gone wrong on the Jellyfin server I use to manage my household's film library, resulting in some unexpectedly-funny repetition... #note #film #films #jellyfin #nas #television #funny #technology Via: 🔗 https://danq.me/2026/04/30/watch-it-twice/

Pub lunch by the river in the Spring sunshine. ☀️ #note #pub #food #datenight #spring #river #oxford Via: 🔗 https://danq.me/2026/04/29/28940/

It's been a long journey for our 9-year-old over the last four years, but today he is - going many others, mostly older and larger than him! - finally trying out for his recommended black belt in taekwondo. 🥋 🤞 #note #taekwondo #children #sport #exercise Via: 🔗 […] [Original post on danq.me]

Man, I have missed having a battlestation to work at these last few months. It's nice to sit at one again, even if it's only a 'chicory battlestation'. #note #deskflow #battlestation #computers #flood2026 #work #office Via: 🔗 https://danq.me/2026/04/24/chicory-battlestation/

Lost in translation !

My "commute" since moving to the Chicory House isn't much longer than it is at our regular home, but it does involve going outside. Want to see? 🔗 Via: https://danq.me/the-commute-chicory-house-edition #coffee #dog #dogs #flood2026 #office #telecommuting #teleworking #video #work

There was a dartboard here, once. 🎯👻 #note #photo #photos #darts Via: 🔗 https://danq.me/2026/04/20/ghost-of-a-dartboard/

What breaks when one of your developers leaves? On Friday, I said goodbye to a colleague as she left us after most of a decade with the company. Then this morning, all hell broke loose on some production servers. It turns out that the API key that connected our […] [Original post on danq.me]

Today, for the first time ever, I reached the end of a roll if dental floss without first losing or giving up on it. #note #dentists Via: 🔗 https://danq.me/2026/04/17/flossed/

As if I hadn't suffered enough "flood damage" this year, I started my first workday since rebuilding my home office setup - hour the first time in months! - in our rental... by pouring a cup of coffee into my keyboard. 😱 #note #keys #keyboard #disaster #flood2026 […] [Original post on danq.me]

Now that we've finished our move into the Chicory House, I have for the first time in over two months been able to set up my preferred coding environment... with a proper monitor on a proper desk with a proper office chair. Bliss! #note #telecommuting #teleworking […] [Original post on danq.me]

A goldfinch came to my bedroom window to say hi, this morning. Good morning, Goldfinch! #note #birds Via: 🔗 https://danq.me/2026/04/14/good-morning-goldfinch/

Today's mission in what we're calling the Chicory House - our home while our actual house gets repaired - was to unpack the kitchen. I think it's looking pretty good! (The cardboard box you can see contains pans we brought with us that turn out to be incompatible […] [Original post on danq.me]

Long ago, you could move to a new area, scan for local WiFi networks, and fully expect to see a wonderful diversity of different network names. Some named for their locations, sure, but others named for people, or fandoms, or just "fun" ones. Has this art form died? […] [Original post on danq.me]

https://ergosphere.blog/posts/the-machines-are-fine/ Another really good article. I've not finished reading it yet but it's good enough to share before I do.

The dog is concerned. Why, despite all her warnings, am I still letting these men take all of our (surviving) furniture? #note #dog #dogs #flood2026 #houses #moving Via: 🔗 https://danq.me/2026/04/09/woof-burglars/

It's fifty-five days since my house flooded. Since then, I've lived in hotels, with friends, on volunteering retreats and - mostly - in a series of one- or two-week AirBnB-style short-term lets. It's been wild. It's also been wildly disruptive. To our work. To our kids. To our general stability […]

I've lived in a LOT of different places these last few months while we've been arranging a place to live for the next six months or so of our house repairs. Each new AirBnB has had its pros and cons (and each hasn't felt like "home"). But man, I really like the […] [Original post on danq.me]

I guess I'll need some "assistnace" from Tesco to explain why my (long-neglected!) Clubcard didn't work when buying some emergency sunscreen this morning. 😂 #note #supermarkets #spelling #words Via: 🔗 https://danq.me/2026/04/07/tesco-assistnace/

Today I had a Cadburys' Cream Egg... for breakfast. I am a monster. #note Via: 🔗 https://danq.me/2026/04/06/easter-eggy-breakfast/

Holy shit this is detailed. Can you believe the hubris to silently collect all this information on users? #privacy https://browsergate.eu/how-it-works/

The final of the short term lets we're staying in (before we switch to a medium-term one!) while our flooded house is repaired is also perhaps the prettiest. Our village this week is peak-Cotswolds, for sure! #note #flood2026 Via: 🔗 https://danq.me/2026/04/04/f-day-plus-50-2/

Yesterday saw the penultimate "meal together" of the #threeRings development team at this week's #volunteering / #hackathon retreat, so I decided to take a #cooking shifts to have a go with the big wood-fired brick #pizzaOven in the garden! It went... pretty damn […] [Original post on danq.me]

There was no mixing bowl in the house large enough to make enough pizza dough to feed all of the Three Rings volunteers present at this year's 3Camp, so I just had to pour out all the ingredients onto the surface and work from there. #note #threeRings #volunteering […] [Original post on danq.me]

Some days, developing Three Rings is about being hunched over a keyboard alone in the middle of the night, swearing at Rubygem incompatibilities. But just ocassionally it's about getting together in beautiful places with some of the most dedicated geeks I know... to […] [Original post on danq.me]

Not even thanks to Daylight Saving but just because I felt energised and excited, I got up to watch the sunrise this morning... before starting work on a new Three Rings feature! #note #morning #threerings #volunteering Via: 🔗 https://danq.me/2026/03/29/28632/

Kicking off 3Camp 2026, our annual volunteering event, with the traditional "receive and sort a ludicrous amount of groceries" activity. #note #threerings #volunteering #shopping #supermarkets Via: 🔗 https://danq.me/2026/03/27/28621/

Most-often when a toaster has a 'cancel' button it's simply labelled 'cancel', 'stop', or with a cross. But this week, I discovered a toaster that uses the 'eject' icon - like you'd find on a VHS tape recorder - on its button. At first I thought this was an unusual […] [Original post on danq.me]

@dan It's not even really an English flag. It was borrowed from the Republic of Genoa as a flag of convenience for English ships in medieval times 🤔🤦‍♂️

Like many in the UK, I'm dismayed every time I see the plague of St. George's Cross (flag of England) that nationalists have been hanging on lamp posts on recent years. So it gave me great joy to see that this lamp post had recently acquired a (larger!) pride flag […] [Original post on danq.me]

It's 38 days since our house was damaged in a flash flood, and today's the first of our 'BER' assessment. BER stands for Beyond Economical Repair. It basically means that anything on the list is something that the insurance company intend to 'write off': to declare […] [Original post on danq.me]

Is it #cheating to solve a #Geocaching #puzzle in an unconventional way? E.g. if I'm uninterested in the puzzle itself, but I'm interested in whether a computer program can be written to solve it, and I solve it using that program, did I #cheat? 🔗 Context: https://danq.me/puzzle-cheating

It's F-Day plus 35, and I'm spending a few hours working in the habitable part of our flood-damaged house while I'm "between" two AirBnBs. The dog, who doesn't normally get to come upstairs, is sitting with me on the landing. Except she also wants to keep an eye on […] [Original post on danq.me]

A Random List of Silly Things I Hate: 1. Websites that are just blank pages if the #javascript doesn’t load from the #cdn. 2. The misunderstanding that LLMs can somehow be a route to #agi. 3. Computer systems that say my name is too short or my #password is too long. 4. People being […]

Somebody should make a tea cosy but to fit a cafetiere. That sounds like a great idea. #note #showerthoughts #coffee #caffeine Via: 🔗 https://danq.me/2026/03/19/28553/

#Samsung devices from today can no longer install custom ROMs. Odin is gone and the _Download Mode_ is also gone, which makes life hard also for repair services that want to restore a device. This is your daily reminder that #android#samsungis a liability, and major hardware manufacturers who ship […]

[Food] Wanted a quesadilla. Didn't have any tortillas, so substituted chapattis. It went... only okay. The earthiness of the chapatti pairs with mature cheese less-well than the cornflour-sweetness of a tortilla does. I tried it, so you don't have to! #note #food […] [Original post on danq.me]

[Food] A lot of things are hard right now. But I appreciate that Spring has come and I can enjoy a cheese & pickle sandwich and a fake beer for lunch in the sun. All to the sounds of the birds singing... and, sonewhere behind me, the dog excitedly demolishing a pile […] [Original post on danq.me]