30 May, 2024
Taller buildings let us design better towns
I lived in a range of places as a kid, partly because my father was a bit of an itinerant who didn’t know what he wanted in life, other than that I mustn’t live with my mother. Go figure. Eventually I got to settle down with my grandmother, but in the process I learned a […]
26 May, 2024
Don’t design in customer traps on your systems
You know that friend, the one who always promises to help you move flat, or help you fix your mower, but then doesn’t turn up? Yes. Or the guy who goes on a date and pays for the meal and somehow that comes with access to your body? Or the airline that makes you think […]
20 May, 2024
A new manifesto for the web
This blog post has now been re-arranged with the manifesto at the top, and the reasoning that led up to it beneath. Because, after all, placing the important content six or seven hundred words in is hardly being pure, is it? Web Dogma 24. By me. Content First. All articles, images, and graphics must be […]
16 November, 2023
Off-Cloud Backup for Heroku apps – a possible answer
The Heroku platform is an absolutely fantastic way to have to not bother with devops within a small development company. We’ve been using it at interconnect for years now, and whilst it’s not entirely perfect, it takes away one set of headaches and does so at a reasonable cost. All the services offer backups, and […]
28 November, 2022
Are VW in trouble with their electric car strategy?
Could VW really be in trouble, if they’re cancelling a factory and pushing back a car launch? I don’t think so, but they’re not entirely in the clear…
15 February, 2022
Interesting times in the world of software
About a decade ago, I was at a conference and talking to a fellow developer (I still call myself one, even though I don’t code so much these days) when he giddily told me about the funding he’d got for building a new piece of software he was hoping would make it big. It was […]
23 November, 2019
Wealth, income, and why that bloke on Question Time with £80k was wrong (and right)
There’s a bloke who’s been on Question Time who makes £80k a year and claimed he’s not in the top 5%. Which clearly makes him a moron and a subject of derision, right? Sock it to the wealthy! They’re all bastards who need putting in their place! Well actually, he’s not. A lot of people […]
12 October, 2018
Why learning to lose is the path to winning
Last night was the count for the local by-election, in which I stood as a Liberal Democrat candidate. I lost. I came third. And I’m OK with that. But this isn’t a political blog, at all, even though I’m involved in it. So if you want the results, they’re here. Once upon a time, I […]
17 December, 2017
Why political parties lose support by winning.
People do like to look back angrily, don’t they? Yet many a time, their anger today doesn’t reflect how they really felt back then. If you look at the Iraq War, and the UK’s involvement in it, most people supported the action. For sure, an awful lot of people today don’t think it was right […]
25 February, 2016
Staleys in the Isle of Man
One of the funny things about children and their memories is just how fallible they are. Full of false memories and forgotten realities. I lived, for a while, somewhere on the outskirts of Douglas on the Isle of Man, when I was about nine years old. The family I stayed in had a boy about […]
2 April, 2013
Twitter is about to die. Here’s why.
Something odd has started to happen on Twitter for me, and it’s cutting my usage of it down quite dramatically. Why? It’s because it seems the spammers are winning… @majorie6474 @davecoveney haha you bite so easy Toye :P Actually my mac is arriving tomorrow :P — Nick Hanson (@nrhansonp) April 2, 2013 @prestonrupemo @davecoveney haha […]
10 July, 2011
Blog “Reboot”
Hello – here’s the refreshed blog. I’ve decided to revert to a more typical blog format, after many months of soul searching on the issue. I previously had a layout based on a framework we used at interconnect/it for a couple of clients But not only have I opted to switch to a blog layout, […]
28 August, 2010
The Story of Juanito
Here’s something… a smiling, happy and charming man who knew my father in Arica, lives just around the corner from the hotel I’m staying at. He actually lives in the cabin that guards a car park. Just him. He’s been married twice, I believe, but that’s all I know. So how can I tell his […]
25 August, 2010
Arica – Day 1 – Arrangements
Phew… so what a day. It started off with a cold shower and a blandly unsatisfying breakfast of a cheese sandwich, juice and tea. But whilst eating a man came up to me and introduced himself as Joaquin Alvarez… the Honorary British Consul in Arica! It was an unexpected surprise… I thought I was meeting […]
19 July, 2010
WordCamp UK – Great Stuff + a Little Controversy
I went to WordCamp UK 2010 in Manchester… this is my write-up of the event, and its controversies along with my presentations…
20 July, 2009
What it’s Like to Present and Attend at WordCamp UK
Over the weekend just gone I made two planned presentations at WordCamp UK 2009 down in Cardiff. I also threw in a quick 45 minutes of show and tell on the Caribou Theme that runs this site and is available for download from Spectacula.
31 December, 2008
Speed Limiting in Cars
As part one of my campaign to introduce the concept of actually thinking to UK media, pundits and government, I’m covering the nasty little idea of automatic speed limiters being introduced to cars – so that people can, basically, stop thinking about the speed they drive at. That’ll work…
20 October, 2007
Are Muslims the New Jews?
A lot of the Middle East is progressive, modern and sophisticated. You have freedoms and rights, life is good and so on. Yet some selective reporting does a fair bit of damage to the image we have of them. If you saw such selective views of the West, we wouldn’t look good either.I was a […]