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Queer Books for Pride – 2026 Edition

Another year another set of queer books to celebrate Pride! Here are 30 books that include a queer protagonist, strong queer secondary character, or where queers are just a natural, accepted part of the world. Many of them are scifi/fantasy because I read to escape, but there s a smattering of non-SFF as well. Included in Continue reading Queer Books for Pride – 2026 Edition

Removing “unpackaged” pg_trgm artifacts

PostgreSQL has long had support for the trigram extension, pg_trgm, which is often used for searching for similar strings. If you are in the incredibly unfortunate scenario of having installed the pg_trgm extension before postgres 9.1, then upgraded past postgres 12 without upgrading the extension you re left in a bit of a quandary. Originally, PostgreSQL Continue reading Removing unpackaged…

MySQL’s OLD_PASSWORD() uses bytes, not characters

This is all ancient history, but sometimes you have to deal with ancient systems. Way back in MySQL 4.x, MySQL had a PASSWORD() function that was used to set MySQL-managed user credentials. You gave it a string and it returned a hex string. It was never intended to be used by clients to hash passwords Continue reading MySQL s OLD_PASSWORD() uses bytes, not characters

Steps for successfully migrating email for a domain

I recently moved 8 mailboxes across 4 domains from Rackspace to Runbox after the former jacked up their mailbox prices by 3x. Here are the steps I used with great success in hopes that it helps others. This post assumes that you are moving providers for emails that use a custom domain. This won t work Continue reading Steps for successfully migrating email for a domain

Plex and Garmin watches: SubMusic for Plex

The music support available on Garmin watches is horribly lacking. Spotify, Deezer, and Amazon Music no Tidal or Quobuz. But if you have your own music library in Plex, there s SubMusic for Plex which makes syncing music to your watch (mostly) a breeze. It s a paid app and I know a lot of people Continue reading Plex and Garmin watches: SubMusic for Plex

Casey’s 2025 Playlist

Another year, another playlist 14 years and still going! I collect songs throughout the year that speak to me into a playlist then massage them into an order that feels good. I think of it as an audio journal for the year. These started as sharing songs with friends at an annual holiday party Continue reading Casey’s 2025 Playlist

Queer Books for Pride – 2025 Edition

What better way to celebrate Pride for readers than sharing a book a day that features queers? This year s #queerBooksForPride has 30 books, mostly but not exclusively scifi/ fantasy because that s my jam, that either include a queer protagonist, strong queer secondary character, or where queers are just a natural, accepted part of the world Continue reading Queer Books for Pride – 2025 Edition

Faster clamav scans for archives

clamav got much slower in 0.105 which we discovered at DProofreaders after upgrading from Ubuntu 20.04 to 24.04. It became so slow that the scans for our new content uploads and post-processing artifacts all zip files timed out resulting in failed uploads as the AV check is a gate. No amount of futzing Continue reading Faster clamav scans for archives

Cooling the house with outside, filtered air

My husband Daniel and I live in the US Pacific Northwest which in the summer has warm days but cool nights. Indeed many places do not have AC. But I have terrible allergies so just opening up the windows at night to cool the house off makes me miserable. So last year my brilliant husband Continue reading Cooling the house with outside, filtered air

PHP tunings in the age of AI scrapers

Distributed Proofreaders (pgdp.net) is a PHP-based site that has been around since 2000. And while we ve had our fair share of high traffic days including a Slashdotting and a huge influx during the start of the pandemic the increased traffic from scrapers over the past year has been unbelievable. These are some things Continue reading PHP tunings in the age of AI scrapers