Kind: Notes
Short content: a post or status update with just plain content and typically without a title.
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The Lost Art of the Amusing WiFi Hotspot Name
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? Most residential SSIDs nowadays seem to just be the default one that comes with the basic router supplied by the ISP. Most commercial ones are just the name of the business. Sometimes you'll spot a phone configured for tethering but even that's usually just "Alice's iPhone" or similar.
I can't remember the last time I saw a "Chicken Crossed the Road to Steal Our Wifi" or a "Russian Hackers" or a "Routy McRouterface" or a "All Your Bandwidth Belong to Us" (okay, that last one's a bit dated). Has the art form died? -
The dog is concerned. Why, despite all her warnings, am I still letting these men take all of our (surviving) furniture?
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A French Bulldog sits on a lawn outside a house where a removals company is loading furniture into a van.
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F-Day plus 55
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.
Today, we make a change. Today โฆ -
Indian Food
On our last day out at our current AirBnB, we searched for a takeaway.
Google Maps found me a Chinese takeaway, but it had an unexpected suggestion when I asked for an Indian... -
It's my final day in the cute garden office of the AirBnB we're living in, this week, and every time I step through the door I catch a glimpse of our small, sandy-coloured dog squatting in the garden.
Except the dog isn't even here. My brain keeps getting tricked... by this statue of a pig:
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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").
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Two laptops on a glass desk in an attractive garden office/summer house, bathed in bright afternoon sunshine.
But man, I really like the "garden office" at our current one. So nice to work in the sun!
(I don't like the slow WiFi as much, but yeah... pros and cons!)
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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. ๐
![Full image of Photo of a self-checkout screen reading "Sorry, we don't recognise this Clubcard. Try again or call for assistnace." [sic]](https://bcdn.danq.me/_q26u/2026/04/1000134048-scaled.jpg)
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Photo of a self-checkout screen reading "Sorry, we don't recognise this Clubcard. Try again or call for assistnace." [sic]
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Today I had a Cadburys' Cream Egg... for breakfast.
I am a monster.
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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!
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Children play in a village green flanked by grey stone cottages and a pub.
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Predictions in a Hat
Two decades ago this month my friend Matt posted five predictions about the future of the world. I've revisited these predictions twice since: ten years later and twenty years later, and "scored" his predictions both times.
I love that the Web's memory (and the persistence of URLs) makes this kind of long-term conversation possible. -
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.
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Dan, a white man with a ponytail of blue hair and a goatee beard, uses his hands to gather a huge pile of flour on a marble worksurface in a spacious kitchen.
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Fools Mode
I'd completely forgotten that my website pranks visitors on April Fools' Day with a randomly-selected one of a selection of "features" until I went to it myself and got "party mode".
So yeah, this year I managed to April Fools' myself. -
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 swear about Rubygem incompatibilities.
Either way, a walk in the garden can lead to the insight that gets you to the solution.
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A beautiful country house with a huge garden.
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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!
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The sunrise as seen through the gates of a vineyard's courtyard.
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Kicking off 3Camp 2026, our annual volunteering event, with the traditional "receive and sort a ludicrous amount of groceries" activity.
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A large group of people stand around a pile of shopping in the centre of a nicely decorated kitchen.