Dan Q - The Podcast

Based on an original blog post at: https://danq.me/2026/01/09/why-i-am-so-tired/

After dusting off and modernising a joke I first read in a chain email from 1996, I can tell you conclusively that the reason that I'm tired is because I'm overworked.

00:00 Intro
00:32 Why I'm So Tired
01:59 That leaves...
02:14 History of the joke

Based on an original blog post at: https://danq.me/2025/12/18/actually-yes/

There's a certain kind of person who, upon hearing my unusual name, immediately asks whether that's what's on my birth certificate (with an underlying implication that it's not my 'real' name, whatever that means, if it isn't). Well: as of this week, thanks to a quirk in Scottish law, the name I've used every day for almost two decades DOES appear my birth certificate. Fuck the haters.

00:00 Intro
00:26 Actually, Yes! (that IS what my birth certificate says)
04:59 Outro

Based on an original blog post at: https://danq.me/2025/09/04/the-beer-token/

Thanks to the success of The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy, we can never forget quite how much beer you used to be able to get for a fiver (plus an exceptionally-generous tip). Nowadays, it'll get you one pint, if you're lucky... and that offers us an exciting opportunity...

00:00 Intro
00:37 The Beer Token
01:17 Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy, extract from Chapter 2
03:17 1979: The price of a pint of beer
05:12 1990: The price of a pint of beer
06:17 1998: The £2 Coin, or Original Beer T...

Based on an original blog post at: https://danq.me/2025/08/28/hexagonal-cheese-scones/

A poem about the shape of a scone.

00:00 Intro
00:30 Hexagonal Cheese Scones
01:13 Outro

Based on an original blog post at: https://danq.me/2025/05/21/google-shared-my-phone-number/

When people started calling my personal mobile number with questions about a voluntary organisation I'm involved with, I was confused: we weren't sharing that number. It turns out that Google had decided to take the number I used to verify my identity for Google Business some years prior and start putting it in Google Search results. WTF, Google?

00:00 Intro
00:31 Google shared my phone number!
00:53 [Self-ad!] Plug for volunteering opportunities at Three Rings CIC
01:08 Unexpected phone calls
02:06 "Where did you find this...

Based on an original blog post at: https://danq.me/2025/03/29/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...

00:00 Intro
00:20 Ice cream vans
01:14 Water, propane, and vegetables
03:37 Other delivery services?
06:34 Outro

Based on an original blog post at: https://danq.me/2025/03/14/work-slippers/

Last month, the dog ate my slippers, and in the week it took me to replace them my work productivity took a dip. Coincidence? Nope! They were my 'work slippers', and it turns out I needed them!

00:00 Intro
00:21 Work Slippers
00:58 Routines are important
02:19 Work slippers as part of my routine
04:10 A new pair of slippers
04:28 My 100th blog post of this year!
05:07 Outro

Based on an original blog post at: https://danq.me/2025/02/28/ai-vs-the-expert/

Inspired by an 11-year old comedy sketch, I asked a GenAI to solve an unsolvable programming problem... and (for at least some models) it failed in exactly the way I anticipated: claiming to be able to solve it and delivering code that just... didn't. What does this teach us about AI trustworthiness for problems that might be solvable, but for which the human operator doesn't have sufficient comprehension to verify?

00:00 Intro
00:21 AI versus The Expert
02:45 gpt-4o's attempt
04:52 Claude 2.7 Sonnet's attempt
06:25...

Based on an original blog post at: https://danq.me/2025/02/27/a-psalm-for-the-wild-built-by-becky-chambers/

While I've been ill I read A Psalm for the Wild-built by Becky Chambers, which had been on my reading list for a while. It's a comforting and compelling story about purpose and identity in an environmentally-conscious utopia, and it's flipping awesome.

00:00 Intro
00:25 Micro-review of A Psalm for The Wild-Built
05:20 Outro

Based on an original blog post at: https://danq.me/2025/02/06/gods-adviser/

When I was a young child I took part in a school nativity play, and was so insistent about picking holes in the theological inconsistencies implied by the script that I had to be expelled from the classroom. Here's how it went down.

00:00 Intro
00:23 Nativity Plays
01:51 Adorable or Unbearable
02:48 A Different Spin on The First Christmas
04:17 The Meteor Strike of Bethlehem
04:27 Adviser #1
05:09 Theological Absurdity
06:17 Biting on and not letting go
06:51 Thrown out of class
07:09 Outro

Based on an original blog post at: https://danq.me/2024/12/05/ivd-2024/

It's International Volunteer Day, and thanks to being on sabbatical I got to spend most of the day volunteering with Three Rings. I liveblogged everything I got up to in a series of notes to try to shine a light on what volunteering (in a developer/devops role) with Three Rings can look like; this post is a summary of all that liveblogging, plus a few extra thoughts.

00:00 Intro
00:31 International Volunteer Day
02:31 Bugfixing mail merges
04:08 Code reviews
04:45 New server infrastructure
06:16...

Based on an original blog post at: https://danq.me/2024/11/29/stuck/

About twenty years ago, I spent three hours playing I-Spy in a broken-down elevator. And in doing so, I learned two things about my friend Fiona.

00:00 Intro
00:25 Stuck In A Lift
01:36 How to break/brake a lift
02:08 Getting stuck in a lift with my friend Fiona
03:35 What reminded me of this anecdote?
04:03 A four hour wait...
04:28 Discovering that Fiona is mildly claustrophobic
04:51 "...something beginning with N."
05:34 "...something beginning with S."
07:03 Three hours later, and the arrival...

Based on an original blog post at: https://danq.me/2024/11/16/fiction/

There's a short story that I tried on-and-off to write, but I've now given up on it. The concepts it makes light of all feel a bit too close-to-home, as conspiracy theorists increasingly migrate from the 'harmless nutjob' to the 'dangerous political leader' category.

00:00 Intro
00:43 Sadder Than Fiction
01:38 My never-completed short story
03:50 My influences
04:37 My intentions
05:05 How conspiracy theorists ruined my concept by making it not-funny-anymore
06:52 Outro

Based on an original blog post at: https://danq.me/2024/10/24/munch/

I like pickled onions. And I like the vinegar flavouring and the onion flavouring from salt & vinegar and cheese & onion crisps, respectively. So I ought to like pickled onion crisps too. So why don't I... and can I rationally persuade my brain that it's wrong?

00:00 Introduction
00:26 I ought to enjoy Pickled Onion Monster Munch already, right?
02:36 Restating the Theory
03:23 Worst ASMR Audio You Ever Heard
03:50 Results
04:10 Outro
04:31 Post-outro sounds of Dan continuing to eat a packet of crisps

Based on an original blog post at: https://danq.me/2024/10/14/firsts-and-lasts/

I was listening to the bats flying silently above me while I watched the Perseids, the other month. When was the last time I was actually capable of hearing their echolocation? I simply can't remember, because it didn't feel significant at the time.

00:00 Intro
00:24 Firsts and Lasts
03:47 Outro

Based on an original blog post at: https://danq.me/2024/09/26/wp-engine/

Matt Mullenweg kicked off a battle of words between Automattic and the WordPress Foundation and hosting company WP Engine. Without weighing in on the legal aspects (IANAL), I've written up my thoughts.

00:00 Intro
00:23 WP Engine & WordPress drama
01:58 The three arguments against WP Engine: moral, ethical, legal
02:27 Moral: don't take without giving back
04:21 Ethical: don't exploit open source's liberties as weaknesses
07:46 Legal: trademarks have value; don't steal them
09:50 Summary of my opinion
10:40 Outro

Based on an original blog post at: https://danq.me/2024/08/27/2024-in-videogames/

With my busy schedule, I appreciate a video game that I can pick-up-and-drop at will and a prefer depth rather than quantity of content. This year, I've played and can recommend three games in particular - Horizon: Forbidden West, Thank Goodness You're Here!, and Tactical Breach Wizards.

Post: https://danq.link/2024

00:00 Intro
00:26 What I (now) look for in a videogame
02:30 Horizon: Forbidden West
06:29 Thank Goodness You're Here!
08:25 Tactical Breach Wizards
11:33 Summary & Outro

Based on an original blog post at: https://danq.me/2024/08/22/dan-q-the-podcast/

As you might have already noticed, I started a podcast. Let's take a look (or listen!) into how and why I adapted my WordPress installation to double as a podcast host, and discuss what kind of content you're likely to find on it...

Original post: https://danq.link/podcast
Source code: https://danq.link/podcastcode

00:00 Intro
00:28 Soo... I'm a podcast?
00:54 Why? (are you doing this, Dan!)
02:24 How? (does WordPress become a podcasting platform)
07:52 What? (to podcast about)
09:39...

Based on an original blog post at: https://danq.me/2024/07/21/ascii/

ASCII, a standard whose legacy defines to this day how most of the letters and numbers in your computer get encoded into ones and zeroes, is elegant and beautiful. Via lessons in computer history, punched tape, and typewriters, I'd love to share some of its logic with you.

00:00 Introduction
00:23 The Elegance of the ASCII Table
02:03 History of ASCII
03:36 ASCII Table Layouts
03:54 Control Codes
08:27 Space
09:37 Numbers
10:44 Shifted Numbers
11:54 Uppercase Letters
12:55 Lowercase Letters
14:02 The Beauty of the...

Based on an original blog post at: https://danq.me/2024/07/09/tea-pressure/

I'm told that black tea brewed at 90℃ is bad, but brewed at 100℃ is good. What if we built a specialised pressure cooker that released tea into superheated water at, say, 110℃? Could that be... even better?

00:00 Intro
00:23 A Pressure Cooker... for Tea
00:52 The importance of water temperature
02:13 Let's invent something!
03:09 It's not just for high-altitude tea
03:32 What IS the ideal temperature for brewing black tea?
04:52 Outro

Based on an original blog post at: https://danq.me/2024/06/28/elephant-joke/

It was too hot to sleep, so I learned about how to differentiate species' of elephant from one another instead. And then I thought of a really, really stupid joke, which you now get to experience too...

Based on an original blog post at: https://danq.me/2024/06/20/special-roads/

Today I learned why some British roads have seemingly-unnecessary speed limit signs, e.g. "70" signs on something that appears to be a motorway.

Based on an original blog post at: https://danq.me/2024/04/28/window-tax/

Britain and the Netherlands both had window taxes at various times. But the social and architectural effects were quite different.

Based on an original blog post at: https://danq.me/2022/12/01/automation/

A friend of mine used to do railway station announcements and was so good that he could do it from memory. That job now belongs to a computer. And that's fine.

Based on an original blog post at: https://danq.me/2022/10/02/my-first-mp3/

I ripped my first MP3 file back in 1995. Where could it be now? I'd recognise it if I found it!

Based on an original blog post at: https://danq.me/2021/07/05/goose-language/

Geese seem to work their way all over our language. Let's take a look at the etymology of some goosey terminology.