Matt's announced a re-organisation we've been doing in Automattic. I like it, because it reaffirms our commitment to doing the most good for our users (whether they're paying us, or not, or even our competitors). But I don't understand how we persuade the world how committed we a … | Continue reading
You already know what I'd do if I won the lottery: the same things I do now, just with more of the ones that don't pay. But before we talk about that, let me talk introduce you to game that's much more-satisfying to play than the lottery. | Continue reading
At this kind of time of year, I've got a long reading list already. But when I'm done with that, maybe it's time for me to re-read Antkind, and see what I see in it the second time around. | Continue reading
By virtue, perhaps, of being a three-parent family, we draw family traditions from a wider array of sources than many. And then we supplement those with even more that we've adopted from elsewhere or invented for ourselves. Want to hear about some of them? | Continue reading
Today's Bloganuary prompt... just sucks a bit, alright? So instead, I'm going to answer last year's prompt from the same date and tell you about one of the most meaningful songs I can think of. | Continue reading
I see it several times a week, but I've never yet had the opportunity to go inside Harcourt Manor, the ancestral home of the English branch of the Harcourt family, who came over with William the Conquerer and whose name may forever survive in place names around this area. | Continue reading
This checkin to GC9EXXX Church Micro 14129...Sutton reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs. Cache removed and temporarily disabled. The council have just started installing new signage to advise of a new 20mph speed limit around here. 🎉 When the … | Continue reading
Five things I do for fun: code, magic, piano, play, learn. Let's dig into those a little... | Continue reading
I wish I could explain to my dog that the workmen who come by on a daily basis are not going to steal her toys or cause her harm, but I'm not sure she'd believe me. | Continue reading
My name is Dan. But it wasn't always. For today's Bloganuary, let's look at the history, significance, and meaning of my name (and how I've changed it over the years!). | Continue reading
I might already be doing my dream job. It's not perfect, but it more than makes up for its imperfections by allowing me to pay my mortgage. If money was no object, I'd still do my voluntary work with Three Rings... so maybe THAT'S my dream job?? | Continue reading
I feel like I've talked about what makes a good leader before. Except last time I did it, it was only for RSS subscribers. Now, it's for everybody. | Continue reading
Just when I thought I’d already seen the best imaginable television series to star Ali Wong and Steven Yeun in the form of Tuca & Bertie… suddenly BEEF comes out of nowhere and it’s flipping amazing. | Continue reading
Wouldn't it be nice if we could just... "uninvent" cryptocurrencies. Also, if people could stop assuming I want anything to do with "crypto trading" that'd be cool, ta. | Continue reading
If you want to feel loved as often as possible, with the least possible effort, get a dog. It may not be a sophisticated love. It may not be a deep love. But it's instantly and constantly available. | Continue reading
Where could I reduce clutter in my life? Oh, basically everywhere! But perhaps most-especially within my head, where the mental clutter can be an unwelcome distraction. | Continue reading
Magpies are the best bird, nay, the best animal. Fight me. | Continue reading
How do I communicate online? It varies depending on whether you mean publicly, or privately! | Continue reading
When I was younger, stupider, and poorer, I'd go to amazing lengths to get to and from places without having to wrangle accommodation at the other end, leading to frankly ludicrous road trips. Here's an example. | Continue reading
Would I like a snack? I certainly would. Can it be pizza, please? | Continue reading
Brainfart moment this morning when my password safe prompted me to unlock it with a password, and for a moment I thought to myself "Why am I having to manually type in a password? Don't I have a password safe to do this for me?" 🤦 | Continue reading
Social networking plus scent analysis/synthesis provides for the possibility of... social networking for dogs. As definitely-not-seen on Dragon's Den. | Continue reading
Matt's birthday wish is for people to blog more. So here's a blog post, which being my 14th so far this year certainly qualifies as "more"! | Continue reading
Many children have a comfort toy, blanket or similar that they're incredibly attached to. But I never had anything like that: I wonder why? | Continue reading
My mission is to make cool shit on the Internet, and to periodically remind people about how awesome Monty Python is. | Continue reading
This checkin to GC2WTGE 8~ NUDDSY MEGA RAMBLE reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs. A challenging and courageous scramble by the eldest (who turned 10 yesterday!) and I (who turned 43 today!) up the slippery wet leaves to reach the GZ. I stopped to do … | Continue reading
This checkin to GC2WTGN 9~NUDDSY MEGA RAMBLE reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs. An extended search by three adults, two children, and a dog failed to find this cache. We found what we think might have once been its camouflage near the obvious hidin … | Continue reading
This checkin to GC5TF25 Mystic Abbey reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs. Out for a walk on my 43rd birthday, left the kids playing with their other parents in the (beautiful) ruins of the abbey or I hacked my way around to the GZ. Started searching … | Continue reading
I'd love to live as long as I can do so in reasonable health, and I'm happy for that to be longer than I'm predicted to. But if everybody lived longer, what would that mean for the world? | Continue reading
I periodically aspire to veganism, or at least something slightly-closer to it than where I stand right now. From an environmental/sustainability perspective, that is. | Continue reading
If I had an enormous billboard sitting around, I'd print something like "this space intentionally left blank" on it. | Continue reading
Do I spend longer thinking about the future or the past? Honestly, I think it's about equal... | Continue reading
The best gifts I've ever received have been those that take me out of my routine (or give me the time and space to do so for myself!). | Continue reading
Bloganuary wants to know what colleges I've attended. Let's take a tour of my experience of further education. | Continue reading
Do I get to "play" in my daily life? Absolutely. For this Bloganuary prompt, I'm looking at the ways in which I play. | Continue reading
What's the biggest challenge on my horizon as I come into the New Year? Right now, it feels like it's Bloganuary! But there's an underlying challenge of winter motivation and procrastination that makes Bloganuary seem so hard. | Continue reading
I first played Wonder Boy on an arcade machine 35 years ago, and have played on-and-off ever since. Until today, when I finally beat it for the first time. | Continue reading
The programmers at British Gas are among the many who don't believe that a surname can be only a single character, and their customer service agents have clearly worked around their validations (or just left a note for themselves in the problematic field!)... leading to hilarious … | Continue reading
Inspired by Tracy Durnell, I've for the first time since 2008 started publishing a 'blogroll' of people I follow (now, dynamically-produced from my feed reader!). | Continue reading
Chris McLeod's started a blog that's ONLY available via a feed reader. How cool is that? | Continue reading
Because I work somewhere hip enough to let people tweak their job titles, mine is "Code Magician". LinkedIn isn't as hip as Automattic, though, because they keep emailing me sector updates... for the "Magician" sector... | Continue reading
I finally got around to automating the generation of statistics about my blogging frequency. Now with interactive graphs! | Continue reading
An image lightbox overlay with no JavaScript whatsoever? Absolutely. Here's how I do it. | Continue reading
Christmas Jumper Day at the kids' school. Because I'm the "embarrassing parent", I joined in for the school run too. (Also for my meetings today, obviously.) | Continue reading
Manu doesn't want your data, and I don't either. | Continue reading
A Birmingham-based punky trio, Luxury Nan Smell, have released a song named "freedeedpoll.org.uk", in reference to my website of the same name. This was just the kind of uplifting thing I needed to hear about. | Continue reading
Gorgeous freezing fog over the fields on the school run this morning. | Continue reading
This is a video version of my blog post, Length Extension Attack. In it, I talk through the theory of length extension attacks and demonstrate an SHA-1 length extension attack against an (imaginary) website. The video can also be found on: YouTube | Continue reading