David Coveney

A personal blog transitioning into an exploration of the intersection of design, technology and ethics

Tag: media

  • Taller buildings let us design better towns

    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…

  • Don’t design in customer traps on your systems

    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…

  • A new manifesto for the web

    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…

  • Off-Cloud Backup for Heroku apps – a possible answer

    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…

  • Are VW in trouble with their electric car strategy?

    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…

  • Interesting times in the world of software

    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…

  • Wealth, income, and why that bloke on Question Time with £80k was wrong (and right)

    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…

  • Why learning to lose is the path to winning

    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…

  • Why political parties lose support by winning.

    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…

  • Staleys in the Isle of Man

    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…