@dan@danq.me
@dan@danq.me avatar

dan

@dan@danq.me

Magician Automattician on a Geoposition Mission. Blogs at https://danq.me. Founded https://threerings.org.uk. Based between Oxford and Witney, UK. Queerer than the average bear.

Blog auto-syndicates to @blog.

:heart_pride: :bisexual_flag: :polyamory_flag: :europe: :automattic: :wordpress: :firefoxnew:

#IndieWeb #WordPress #InfoSec #Magic #Geohashing #Geocaching #DnD #Pizza #WebDev #IndieWeb #Queer #Polyamory #Bisexual #Automattic #Volunteer #Volunteering #Oxford #Witney #UK

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tomw, to random
@tomw@mastodon.social avatar

Once again I have put an apology between the <noscript> tags

Sorry friends, I would have made this work without Javascript, but I didn't have time and at this point, seriously, most websites don't work for you, do they?

(That isn't what I wrote, I just said sorry)

dan,
@dan@danq.me avatar

@tomw I have third-party JS disabled-by-default.

Yeah, I occasionally see completely blank pages. At that point it's usually about 50/50 whether I just go elsewhere or I enable (some) third-party JS sources for the site. And that's fine; that's my choice.

Inconsiderately-implemented CAPTCHAs are a little annoying: I'm talking about the one where the CAPCTHA is completely invisible unless it gets to run, and the form validation says something unhelpful like "Validation failed" or no error at all (maybe the hidden field is highlighted!) rather than "CAPTCHA failed" which at least gives me a clue what went wrong.

Building pages that fail gracefully isn't specifically about non-JS users, but it helps everybody. The gold standard might be progressive enhancement. But sometimes it just means showing a friendlier message to people who're missing out on something.

aardrian, to random
@aardrian@toot.cafe avatar

Apparently IRC spam is still a thing?

dan,
@dan@danq.me avatar

@aardrian It turns out that once spam reaches a medium, it never leaves, even when there's nobody left who'll respond to it. There's still spam on Usenet, too.

dan, to random
@dan@danq.me avatar

I just published my 5,000th blog post! 🙌

It only took me... /checks/ two and a half decades! 🫨

https://danq.me/5k

Edent, (edited ) to random
@Edent@mastodon.social avatar

From an artist's point of view, is there any difference between you buying a donated CD from a charity shop and downloading pirated music from a torrent site?

Neither gives the artists, songwriters, producers, publishers, or distributors any money.

Neither reports to a charts authority to show popularity.

Both have the same impact on secondary revenue like gig tickets & merchandise.

Vote now - and please show your workings.

dan,
@dan@danq.me avatar

@Edent charity is better because

(a) even from a solely economic standpoint, you're increasing the value of the artist's work and theoretically increasing the chance that somebody, deprived of the bargain, will hit it first hand,

(b) the money goes, in theory at least, to a worthy cause rather than nowhere,

(c) assuming that the donator is playing fair, which is a civikized society's assumption, they don't retain a backup copy of the contents of the CD and so the total number of copies in circulation and/or available for simultaneous play is unchanged, much like library books,

(d) charity shop music purchases are, because they're cheap, more likely to be impulsive/less specific and therefore introduce you to a corpus of work you might not otherwise have fully explored, creating the potential to make you a fan in future,

(e) also, you get to rip it with the encoding settings you want, not what some dweeb half way across the Internet thinks is best 😎

stefan, (edited ) to internet
@stefan@stefanbohacek.online avatar

The web can be such a small world sometimes. Has this ever happened to you?

You look up an answer to a question you have, or come across someone's fun side project, look at the author, and -- hey, that's a friend of mine!

dan,
@dan@danq.me avatar

@stefan More-embarrassing is the number of times I've gone looking for an answer on the Web, found a likely source, and while reading it gradually comes to realise that the author is... Past Me.

You spend enough time on the Internet, eventually you meet yourself as a stranger.

Edent, to Cybersecurity
@Edent@mastodon.social avatar

🆕 blog! “Bank scammers using genuine push notifications to trick their victims”

You receive a call on your phone. The polite call centre worker on the line asks for you by name, and gives the name of your bank. They say they're calling from your bank's fraud department. "Yeah, right!" You think. Obvious scam, isn't it?…

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/05/bank-scammers-using-genuine-push-notifications-to-trick-their-victims/
⸻
#bank #CyberSecurity #phishing #scam #security

dan,
@dan@danq.me avatar

@Edent Yet another reminder about why one should (and I do) always, always call your bank back if you get a call from them. Never "go through security" with anybody who calls you.

It's funny, when I started doing that in ~2000, most banks were pissed-off when I did it. Nowadays, they all "get it".

Makes me wonder if I'm ahead of the inevitable curve in other ways. You'll all be browsing with JS disabled-by-default in 20 years! (maybe not)

dan, to random
@dan@danq.me avatar

In response to @adactio's provocation "A blog post doesn't need a title", @Edent argues that, as a HTML document, it necessarily does (even if it's blank).

But does a blog have to be HTML? I'd say: no - https://danq.me/does-a-blog-have-to-be-html

dan,
@dan@danq.me avatar

@adactio @Edent Now I'm wondering whether I could have implemented textplain.blog as a theme. 🤔

molly0xfff, to web
@molly0xfff@hachyderm.io avatar

If you've ever found yourself missing the "good old days" of the , what is it that you miss? (Interpret "it" broadly: specific websites? types of activities? feelings? etc.) And approximately when were those good old days?

No wrong answers — I'm working on an article and wanted to get some outside thoughts.

dan,
@dan@danq.me avatar

@JasonW @molly0xfff This. You wanted to identify a song? Type some of the lyrics into a search engine and hope that somebody transcribed the same lyrics onto their fansite. You needed to know a fact? Better hope some guru had taken the time to share it, or it'd be time for a trip to the library

Not having information instantly easy to find meant that you really treasured your online discoveries. You'd bookmark the best sites on whatever topics you cared about and feel no awkwardness about emailing a fellow netizen (or signing their guestbook to tell them) about a resource they might like. And then you'd check back, manually, from time to time to see what was new.

The young Web was still magical and powerful, but the effort to payoff ratio was harder, and that made you appreciate your own and other people's efforts more.

dan, to wordpress
@dan@danq.me avatar

Reduced the total size of my blog homepage from 481kb to 234kb to get myself up a "grade" in @kev's 512kb Club.

Here's how: https://danq.me/234kb

(Whoever said can't be lean?)

dan, to web
@dan@danq.me avatar

Back in 1996, Netscape announced the imminent launch of Webstories, a column showcasing the best in Web development. Over the next two years, they kept pushing the launch date back and back before quietly forgetting the whole thing.

With the help of the Wayback Machine, let's take a look at this never-launched column, and learn a little about late 90s Web culture and technology along the way: https://danq.me/netscapes-untold-webstories

dan, to random
@dan@danq.me avatar

Magpies are the best bird. No, the best animal. Smart, curious, sociable, and ever-so pretty, this commonplace puzzle-solving thief is just awesome.

But do you know where their (English-language) name comes from? 'Cos that's almost the coolest thing about them! 🧵

dan,
@dan@danq.me avatar

In Medieval Latin, magpies were "pica". It probably comes from Greek "kitta", meaning "false appetite" (possibly related to their propensity for theft), and/or from a presumed PIE root meaning "pointed" (referring to its beak shape).

In Old French, "pica" became "pie". They're still called la pie in French today. From there "pie" was adopted into Old English.

By the 17th century, there came a fashion in English slang to give birds common names.

Sometimes the common name died out, like with Old English "wrenna". This became "wren", which got extended to "Jenny wren". You still hear that sometimes today, but mostly people just say "wren".

Sometimes the original name disappeared, like with Old English "ruddock". This became "redbreast", which got extended to "Robin redbreast". That's where w e get the modern name "robin" (you'll still sometimes hear "robin reabreast").

Magpie, though, retains both parts! Mag in this case is short for Margaret, a name historically associated with idle chatter and probably chosen with reference to magpies' "kcha-kcha-kcha-kcha-kcha-" call.

So we get "pica" > "pie" > "Maggie pie" > "Mag pie" > "magpie"!

Amazing!

dan, (edited ) to random
@dan@danq.me avatar

British Gas's programmers don't believe that a surname can be only a single character.

Their customer service agents worked around this by adding a parenthetical note to my record.

The result is hilarious postal mail that tries to reassure me that my surname really is what it is:

EDIT: Well this blew up. FAQ etc. at https://danq.me/it-is-only-q

dan,
@dan@danq.me avatar

@simonzerafa

Long version: https://danq.me/q

tl;dr version: back in 2007 my then-partner (@esk) and I - who'd not wanted to marry but who wanted the same surname for a while but been too indecisive to choose one - decided to cut the choices down by selecting a single-character name. We later broke up and they married (and changed their name) but I'm quite attached to mine so I kept it.

Fun bonus fact: approximately since my name change I've run https://freedeedpoll.org.uk to help British citizens change their names for free without a solicitor.

dan,
@dan@danq.me avatar

@hj Folks have sometimes asked me - and which they choose says quite a lot about them, I find - "Q? Is that like Q from Star Trek, or Q from James Bond?"

My response: "No, it's like Q, the set of all rational numbers."

Source: https://danq.me/q

dan, to security
@dan@danq.me avatar

Finally fully grok hash length extension/padding attacks. So I wrote a play-along guide, in case it helps others get their head around this gnarly cybersecurity concept:

https://danq.me/2023/11/30/length-extension-attack/

#cyber #security #hash #hacking

dan, to random
@dan@danq.me avatar

Almost the very-first question in this year's Community Life Survey has the option to say I "don't have any friends". 😭

dan, to random
@dan@danq.me avatar

How did I never think of accessing Gemini (the protocol) on my Gemini (portable computer) before today?

Of course, I recently rehomed my Gemini so instead I had to access Gemini on my Cosmo (Gemini's successor), which isn't nearly as cool.*

  • Still pretty cool though. Reminds me of using Lynx on my Psion 5mx last millenium...

dan, to wordpress
@dan@danq.me avatar

There are lots of guides to "making WordPress fast the easy way". So I wrote a guide to making WordPress fast the HARD way: https://danq.me/2023/11/04/fast-wordpress-the-hard-way/

Key takeaway: WordPress can be at least as fast as a static site generator (but still retain the value-added features of a CMS), so long as you're willing to put the work in.

dan, to opensource
@dan@danq.me avatar

Finally got around to consolidiating, tidying, and slapping an license on my to / / gateway: CapsulePress!

Naturally, you can read more over your choice of protocol:

ZachWeinersmith, to random
@ZachWeinersmith@mastodon.social avatar

I realized all my French stereotypes are vintage 1940s. I'd like to remain xenophobic, but could y'all recommend some more up to date prejudiced generalizations?

dan,
@dan@danq.me avatar

@ZachWeinersmith

Updating your French stereotypes from the 1940s to 2020s, a guide:

  • Less striped shirts and strings of onions.
  • Same amount of ennui and cigarettes.
  • More rioting in response to the hint that you might have to retire 12 months later that you planned.

You're welcome.

dan, to Geocaching
@dan@danq.me avatar

Are log entries getting shorter? It feels like they are.

So naturally, I extracted 134,000 of them and made Excel cry/drew some graphs: https://danq.me/short-cache-logs

Turns out - yes, yes they are. Now I'm wondering why?

dan, to random
@dan@danq.me avatar

Idea: .well-known/feeds should provide an OPML file containing a list of some of the feeds associated with a website, as a lightweight, centralised, and "doesn't need to appear on every page" alternative/supplement to <link> tags. Convenient for both publishers and feed readers.

More: https://danq.me/well-known-feeds
Example: https://danq.me/.well-known/feeds
Draft spec: https://github.com/Dan-Q/well-known-feeds

What do you think, @davew?

Chrishallbeck, to random
@Chrishallbeck@mastodon.social avatar

stranger motions towards my dog

Stranger: Is she friendly?
Me: Well her bark is worse than her bite.

Stranger: Aww, aren't you just the cutest-
My dog: bites

Stranger: Ow! I thought you said-
My dog: barks, shooting wasps into their face

dan,
@dan@danq.me avatar

@Chrishallbeck
Stranger: Does your dog bite?
Me: No, she's very friendly.

Stranger pets dog.
*Dog bites stranger."

Me: This isn't my dog.

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