Author: Dan Q
Dan Q is a software engineer, a director of a voluntary organisation, a trainee counsellor, a keen geocacher, and an amateur magician. He lives with his partner and her husband in a polyamorous triad, and occasionally finds time to blog.
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LiveJournal-To-Google Reader Back Up
BREAKING NEWS: On 1st October 2009, LiveJournal blocked the Feed Proxy bot. I don't know when they'll unblock it and it'll come back up: see the latest here.
The LiveJournal-To-Google Reader service is back up again, rebranded as Feed Proxy. It's pretty much bare-bones right now, but I've got a meaningful framework that I can add … -
LiveJournal-to-Google Reader Down
Apologies to anybody using my LiveJournal-to-Google Reader service: it's suffering some temporary downtime. I'll have it up again within the next couple of days, and I'll announce it on this blog (feel free to subscribe if you want to be notified). Sorry!
UPDATE: It's back up again! -
Open-Source Shaving
Recently I saw a Basic Instructions comic in which the author/protagonist, Scott, weighs up his shaving options. You can read the full comic here, assuming you don't read Basic Instructions already (and you should).
As the folks leaving comments on that comic quite rightly note, the comic covers only two of a number of different … -
Waiting For The Bus
If there still exists anybody on Earth to whom I haven't shown the Cyanide & Happiness short film, Waiting For The Bus, you should go and watch it now, because it's the funniest thing that has ever existed.
In other news, did you see that Sian's getting media coverage about her upcoming participation in One & … -
Keeping Me Up
Had another strange dream a few nights ago (my blog posts are being published with a bit of a delay on them, at the moment, for reasons I might discuss in another blog post!) that I thought I'd share, before waking up early and being unable to get back to sleep.
Dream - Putting a Cap … -
Four Things That Evolution Isn't
I read this Chick Tract comic, recently. I'd seen them before, but for some reason it was this week, and this particular article, that riled me so much. I can honestly say I don't think I've ever before been quite so agitated by something as harmless as a comic.
In the comic, an arrogant and obnoxious … -
jQuery Is Awesome. Yet Again.
I know that this probably isn't news to any of you who care about such things and follow the world of web development even a little... it's not even news to me, really - I've been an advocate of this particular programming library for a while now. But today in particular, I just felt so …
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My New Pet Hate
I have a new pet hate.
A personal pet hate of mine for a long while has been that often, when I ask somebody for a screenshot to show me what's going wrong with some software they're using, they'll take a screenshot or two, then paste them into a Microsoft Word document, and then e-mail me … -
Uncommon Occurances
I didn't sleep well; I woke up several times throughout the night. On the upside, I have a strong recollection of three distinct yet inter-related dreams:
Dream I: Alex and the Accident
I came into work as normal and spoke to Alex, my co-worker. He'd been in some sort of car accident in which he'd hit … -
Foods That Begin With The Letter Q
To mark the second anniversary of QParty, I thought I'd cook Claire and I a meal consisting of foods that begin with the letter Q. How hard can it be, right? Turns out it's more difficult than you might first expect.
My first thought was quails with qvark dumplings, but, would you believe it, both of … -
My Mum's Partner Slept With Sarah Michelle Gellar
I've got your attention now.
It's true, but it's not like you'd think. My mum's partner, otherwise known as Andy - or, sometimes, as Slightly Weaseldump - was working in the USA last week and when he was due to fly back his 'plane was cancelled by bad weather. The alternative flight offered would take him … -
Fry's Dog
Remember Jurassic Bark, Futurama series four, episode seven? It's the one in which Fry's dog, Seymour, left in the present-day when Fry gets cryogenically frozen and wakes up in the far future, sits outside the pizza parlour where Fry had worked, waiting for him to return. Turns out it's based on a true (sad) story, … -
Post-BiCon Disasters
It's not all fun and games, though. In fact, it feels like it's going to be one of those weeks.
When I got back from BiCon, I discovered that somehow, in my absence, my fridge/freezer has gotten turned down to the lowest setting, turning it from a chilled box into a room-temperature cupboard, and … -
BiCon 2009
This weekend, I was at BiCon 2009 (my third BiCon - I guess that makes it a tradition), and it was awesome. Here's a short summary of the highs and lows:
Travel
Worcester's closer than I remembered, and - once Claire'd gotten used to the Vauxhall Astra we'd rented - we made good time there and back. … -
Paul Isn't A Murderer
Much thanks to Ruth and Paul for running an awesome murder mystery party last night, and to Rory for snapping some great photos. We played Death By Chocolate, in which American tycoon Billy Bonka had been murdered, but by whom?
[warning: contains spoilers for the Death By Chocolate murder mystery pack]
Most remarkably, it wasn't Paul's …