Dan Q - The Podcast

Based on an original blog post at: https://danq.me/2026/05/14/wp25-wesley-merritt/

Wikipedia is celebrating its 25th birthday, and somehow as a result I ended up reading about Wesley Merritt, who was the shortest-lived Governor-General of the Philippines!

00:00 Intro

00:25 Wikipedia's 25th Birthday

01:24 Colonial History of the Philippines

02:55 Wesley Merritt

03:57 Prelude to the Spanish-American War

05:09 What caused the USS Maine to sink?

06:26 Declaration of War

07:13 The (Mock) Battle of Manilla

09:00 Aftermath

10:03 Outro

Based on an original blog post at: https://danq.me/2026/01/15/nostalgia-music-and-computers/

It turns out that I get nostalgic about technology in the same way as I get nostalgic about music. Here's some things that take me right back to being nine, eleven, thirteen and fifteen years old.

00:00 Intro

00:24 Nostalgia, Music, and Computers

00:46 When I hear "Dawnbreaker", I feel like I'm nine years old...

05:13 When I start a new Ruby project, I feel like I'm eleven years old...

07:45 When I hear "In Yer Face", I feel like I'm thirteen years old...

13:23 When I see a personal Web page, I feel like I'm fifteen years old...

17:34 Wrapup and reflection

18:02 Outro

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 Token

08:00 2023: Beer now more likely to be £5 than £4

08:30 An opportunity

09:10 The £5 Coin, or a New Beer Token?

10:20 Would a politician support this?

10:45 Outro

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 number?"

02:33 Finding myself on Google

03:25 How Google first got my phone number

04:47 The second time this month a company leaked my PII!

05:02 "Did I click the wrong button on a popup?" and sarcasm

05:42 Outro

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 What's the point of all this?

08:16 Outro