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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Scots Fire Brigade Union demand new legal protections for people with more than one romantic partner
Scotland's Fire Brigade Union is calling for legal protections for the polyamorous. Wait, what?
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Found GC1DH7W Knipe Scar - On the Edge
A swift uphill scramble for my friend and fellow volunteer John and I, before dinner. We're staying in a nearby farmhouse for a week if volunteer work, writing software to help charities. Beautiful view from the summit this evening! SL, TNLN, TFTC!
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I'm off for a week of full-time volunteering with Three Rings at 3Camp, our annual volunteer hack week: bringing together our distributed team for some intensive in-person time, working to make life better for charities around the world.
And if there's one good thing to come out of me being suddenly and unexpectedly laid-off two days ago, it's that I've got a shiny new laptop to do my voluntary work on (Automattic have said that I can keep it).
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Black Macbook Pro whose screen shows a locally-hosted copy of the Three Rings web application, overlaid with a terminal running lazygit.
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Found GC97N3H Lodge Hill C & D
QEF as a cache-and-dash. This afternoon, owing to Some Plot, I needed to go speak to a lawyer in Abingdon, and rewarded myself on a successful mission by visiting this cache on my way home. TFTC!
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Apparently Automattic are laying off around one in six of their workforce. And I'm one of the unlucky ones.
Anybody remote hiring for a UK-based full-stack web developer (in a world that doesn't seem to believe that full-stack developers exist anymore) with 25+ years professional experience, specialising in PHP, Ruby, JS, HTML, CSS, devops, and about 50% of CMSes you've ever heard of (and probably some you haven't)... with a flair for security, accessibility, standards-compliance, performance, and DexEx?
CV at: https://danq.me/cv
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Change Your Star Sign
The star sign associated with my birthday is Capricorn, and I really don't embody any of the typical Capricorn characteristics, so I changed my star sign to Aquarius. And today, I've launched a website to help others change their star signs, too. What will you change yours to?
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My on-again-off-again relationship with AI assistants
Like me, Sean McPherson finds AI agents sometimes useful... but struggles with whether they're actually as useful as some folks seem to claim.
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8-year-old, angry: Give me that fucking thing right now!
Me: [Child's name]! That's not an acceptable way to ask for something!
8-year-old, calmer: Sorry. PLEASE can you give me that fucking thing?
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Bored of it
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Every article glorifying it.
Every article vilifying it.
Every pub conversation winding up talking about it.
People incessantly telling you how they use it.
I feel dirty using it.
You know what Iโm talking about, even though Iโve not mentioned it.
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Paul โฆ -
Sometimes the kids need to leave your pub dinner before you finish your drink, and you need to take a "to-go" pint.
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Dan, grinning, holding a quarter pint of beer in few rear passenger seat of a moving car.
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For a little while I got to lie in the sunshine and read my book in quiet solitude. But before long I found I was sharing it with a small child and his noisy games console.
Still delightful, though, and it feels wonderfully Spring-like out there today.
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Dan, seen from his 'head' end, lies in a hammock with a green book, 'Bored Gay Werewolf' on his belly. At the other end of the hammock a boy plays on a Nintendo Switch. Around them is a garden containing a climbing frame and a washing line full of white shirts and sheets.
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It wasn't until I made time for myself to get out into the countryside near my home and take the dog for a walk that I realised how much stress I'd been putting myself under during my team meetup, this week.
Istanbul was enjoyable and fascinating, and I love my team, but I always forget until after the fact how much a few days worth of city crowds can make me feel anxious and trapped.
It's good to get a mile or two from the nearest other human and decompress!
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Dan, a red leash hung across his shoulders, gives a half-shrug as he smiles for a selfie on a grassy trail between a hedgerow and a field. Behind him, near a weathered old-fashioned footpath sign, his French Bulldog looks at him expectantly.
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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...
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Found GC7B9C6 Heykel&Boฤaz/Sculpture & Bosphorus- Virtual Reward
As others have observed, this is a bit challenging right now owing to the hoardings that have been erected in the way. But like others, I found a gap in the fence through which I was able to photograph the sculpture. TFTC!
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Found GC6JQAX Rainbow Stairs
Whether or not this piece of art is or was an act of political defiance, it might need to be one once again. Brought my own rainbow so I could be part of it, too. ๐โ