iamcal.com Since May 2000

If you use mod_rewrite and you've started getting random errors in your logs that look like "rewritten query string contains control characters or spaces", it's because of a security patch that breaks using backrefs as query params if they contain spaces (and certain other special characters). For example:

RewriteRule ^foo/([^/]+)$ foo.php?page=$1 [L,QSA]

This will still work for foo/bar but break for foo/bar%3Abaz. You need to add the B flag as follows:

RewriteRule ^foo/([^/]+)$ foo.php?page=$1 [L,QSA,B]

I've updated my 2022 reading list with all the 112 books I read in the year.

Highlights were Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin and A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine.

A convergence of two of my interests: Tuble is a Worlde-style game where you guess Tube Stations.

AWS pro-tip: take a look through cost explorer every now and then, just in case you can reduce your bill by 65%, just by disabling unused services. And switch from Cloudfront to Cloudflare for anything simple that uses a lot of egress bandwidth.

Wordle got super popular and was then sold to the NYT. There have been a ton of interesting variations on the core mechanics:

• Wordle for Netscape - Wordle, but works in Netscape 1.0
• WorDOS - Wordle, but for DOS
• Worldle - Guess the country, once per day, based on outline
• Globle - Guess the country, once per day, with warmer/colder hints
• Passwordle - Guess the SHA-256 password hash (parody)
• DuoMoji - Emoji matching, once per day
• DNDle - Guess the D&D monster based on core stats
• Mathler - Guess the math equation (with a known target)
• Nerdle - Guess the math equation (including the equals)
• Mumberle - Guess the math equation (including the equals)
• Summle - Guess the (very simple) math equation
• Quordle - Guess four words at once
• Octordle - Guess eight words at once
• Semantle - Guess the semantically-similar word
• Lewdle - Guess the offensive word