The Curious Engineer

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Gerry McGovern

gerrymcgovern.com

Society / politics / economyTech news / industry

’19’20’21’22’23’24’25’26
Posts
357 from 13 Jan 2019 to 13 Oct 2026
Posting
monthly (21 in the last year)
Kind
personal blog
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https://gerrymcgovern.com/feed/

2026 14

  1. Digital is physical but don’t make me think
  2. Good Ancestors
  3. The Dalles tries to keep water secrets for Google
  4. Data centers come for Swiss water
  5. Peak capitalism: draining water from a desert
  6. Capitalism is built on cheap water
  7. Science and industry have come for our oceans
  8. Devouring our oceans
  9. The toxic wastewater of tech
  10. World Water Day emergency
  11. We no longer respect water but water always wins
  12. Big Tech’s war for water
  13. Plague of techno-optimism will destroy us all
  14. 99th Day: A Warning About Men

2025 47

  1. How data centers fooled everyone for so many years
  2. The many hidden costs of solar
  3. Dirty nickel mining powering clean energy
  4. Why does AI devour so much water?
  5. Nature will recycle us
  6. Shredding and pulverizing e-waste
  7. Electronics recycling con
  8. E-waste is a moral problem
  9. Electronics are designed for the dump
  10. E-waste ships of doom and sacrifice zones
  11. Trafficking e-waste from Global North to Global South
  12. E-waste schoolchildren smash a printer cartridge against the ground
  13. Smartphones are mini-nuclear reactors of waste
  14. E-waste is Big Tech colonialism
  15. Silicon Valley e-waste invisibility trick
  16. Burning e-waste to stay alive
  17. Fake renewables and toxic batteries
  18. Wind turbines drive Green Colonialism
  19. Wind machines are not renewable
  20. Wind turbines kill birds—but what’s a few million birds for progress?
  21. Solar panels destroying deserts
  22. Solar power accelerating water crisis
  23. Solar panels are toxic
  24. You can’t get to clean energy through dirty mining.
  25. Solar is cheap for a reason
  26. Set the rivers free
  27. Dams are not green
  28. Killer dams
  29. Green Economy demands resource colonialism
  30. ‘Renewable’ energy vs fossil fuels: death by decapitation or bullet through the head?
  31. No ‘clean’, ‘green’, ‘sustainable’ or ‘renewable’ energy
  32. Data colonialism
  33. All that data that we’ll never use
  34. Data centers are really data dumps
  35. Data centers contain 90% crap data
  36. Extreme secrecy of data centers
  37. Data center jobs scam
  38. Data centers are noisy and smelly
  39. Data center energy surge
  40. Data center energy scam
  41. It’s not drought, it’s pillage: data centers take the water
  42. Big Tech’s water use is 100 times bigger than expected
  43. Big Tech lies about its water use
  44. Why do data centers love deserts?
  45. Data center water scam
  46. Anatomy of a data center
  47. Moore’s Law is breaking down

2024 49

  1. When does Silicon Valley begin?
  2. The future is bright green
  3. The anti-Nature Valley
  4. Silicon Valley: designing for invisibility
  5. The greenwashing of Silicon Valley
  6. It takes coal and charcoal to make silicon
  7. The three chip problem
  8. Cut the crap
  9. Digital will sink in its own crap
  10. Crap data everywhere
  11. Extreme secrecy of data centers
  12. Data centers are noisy as hell
  13. Data center surging electricity demand
  14. Data center energy scam
  15. Data center jobs scam
  16. Data centers are eating and drinking our environment
  17. We need morals to combat AI
  18. AI and the banality of evil
  19. The unknowability of AI
  20. The AI believers
  21. Big Tech scours distressed economies for slaves
  22. Workers cleaning up for AI magician
  23. AI is soaked in racism and misogyny
  24. Surviving in an AI world
  25. Racism and supremacy in the DNA of AI
  26. Scots Gaelic and the Great Big Lying Machine
  27. Great Big Lying Machine is Next Big Thing
  28. AI content production machine, advertising engine
  29. The efficiency scam from AI and Big Tech
  30. Web content has a maintenance problem
  31. AI is designed to lie
  32. One more con from Big Tech
  33. The AI bitcoin scams
  34. The red hot heat of AI
  35. AI: Fed on water, energy, hype, stolen and crap data
  36. AI is not your friend
  37. Killer app of AI is advertising
  38. Big Tech hates quality
  39. Big Tech’s great men
  40. Getting rid of crap data
  41. Communist networks are better for environment
  42. Designing waste out of networks
  43. The magically efficient oven
  44. Keeping information up to date
  45. When the tech bros come for me
  46. Vitaly Friedman: Cleaner Web design for a better environment (part 3)
  47. Vitaly Friedman: Cleaner Web design for a better environment (part 2)
  48. Vitaly Friedman chat: Cleaner Web design for a better environment
  49. Fairness and kindness are not weaknesses

2023 50

  1. Big Tech drives overconsumption (Part 3)
  2. Big Tech drives overconsumption (Part 2)
  3. Big Tech drives overconsumption (Part 1)
  4. AI is designed to lie
  5. The dangers of focusing only on CO2
  6. The nature of digital is environmentally destructive
  7. The Great Big Tech Technology Swindle
  8. Toxic data, waste: feeding AI’s voracious addiction
  9. Waste is the new gold
  10. Technology for bad
  11. 5G: A symptom of the Growth Death Cult
  12. The myth of infinite data growth
  13. Communities Against the Injustice of Data Centers
  14. The rise of data imperialism
  15. Water: we value least what matters most
  16. The tragedy of capitalism
  17. Big Tech’s negative impact on fresh water
  18. Chemicals and the Growth Death Cult
  19. Where are you from?
  20. Data can’t keep growing like this
  21. Greed Transition’s devouring of materials
  22. Digital is toxic
  23. Google search is a government risk
  24. Fragile digital products, durable waste
  25. Digital is not green
  26. Innovation and efficiency leading us to catastrophe
  27. Reducing waste in the digital design process
  28. Marketing vanity metrics are driving e-waste in data centers
  29. Efficiency and performance are environmentally destructive metrics
  30. Waste and destruction is how we mine the world
  31. No such thing as “green” transition
  32. No such thing as sustainable mining
  33. Tips for more sustainable smartphone use
  34. Toxic legacy of the smartphone
  35. Turning off, deleting: Tips for sustainable laptops, part 2
  36. Hold on to it! Tips for sustainable laptops
  37. Mining exploits rather than supports local communities
  38. Mining is a neo-colonialist activity
  39. How bauxite mining destroys Nature and communities
  40. How to solve e-waste: ultimate producer responsibility
  41. Modern economies are based on waste
  42. Global North e-waste colonialism, genocide, ecocide
  43. Be very careful what you feed AI
  44. Increasing complexity increases waste
  45. We think of information all wrong
  46. 99% of data has been produced in the last ten years
  47. Data growth is scary and unsustainable
  48. The environmental weight of data
  49. The toxic culture of the quick win
  50. Keeping all data is no longer an option

2022 51

  1. 90% of data is crap
  2. We don’t have data centers. We have data dumps
  3. The true and total cost of free
  4. The crypto double scam
  5. Data is out of control: the story of COVID and airborne transmission
  6. Pat and Nuala Geoghegan’s farm
  7. ‘Clean’ and ‘green’ aluminum
  8. Our brains are energy-expensive—we should use them more
  9. Heavy websites are a tax on poor and environment
  10. Material complexity hurts reusability, repairability and recyclability
  11. Measuring the total cost of a smartphone
  12. Design for the materials, design for reuse
  13. E-waste recycling should be a last resort
  14. Citizen activism for more sustainable tech
  15. Smartphones and laptops are chemical reactors
  16. No such thing as ‘green’ mining
  17. Data centers and the Irish government
  18. Enormous, toxic waste in digital design
  19. Pernicious myth of digital-as-ethereal
  20. The many flaws of Big Data
  21. Data centers: greenwashing par excellence
  22. It is the ore above everything and everyone
  23. Waste that lasts 10,000 years in dumps designed to last 50 years
  24. Tailings: mining’s toxic legacy
  25. Water-mad digital devices
  26. Data centers help drive the water scarcity crisis
  27. Why is water such a low priority for data centers?
  28. Thirsty, secretive data centers
  29. Chip-making gulps water
  30. Water: respect Earth’s materials
  31. Digital’s role in the water scarcity crisis
  32. Poorest of the poor recycle our e-waste
  33. Cheap electronics costs the Earth
  34. Toxic waste is the business model of Big Tech
  35. We don’t have an energy production problem. We do have an energy consumption problem.
  36. We must consume less energy
  37. Digital’s hidden cost to the Earth is in its manufacturing
  38. Calculating true and total cost of digital to the Earth
  39. Solve deep needs, not superficial wants
  40. Need for long-term thinking
  41. Is it worth it?
  42. Ethical, fair working conditions
  43. How much CO2 does creating a 1,000-word piece of content cause?
  44. Technology is destroying Nature
  45. The elements of Earth experience
  46. Earth Experience Design survey results overview
  47. Bicycle thinking: car lobby goes to war on bicycles
  48. Bicycle thinking: fewer cars, less technology, more walking, more cycling
  49. Bicycle thinking: finding a balance between technology and life
  50. More than 1,000 substances go into one smartphone
  51. Invisible, immaterial Internet not what it seems

2021 48

  1. Sustainable digital design principles
  2. CO2 caused by developing a software feature
  3. Choosing least CO2-emitting form of digital communication
  4. Frugal data: Heavy data is a heavy polluter
  5. Designing sustainable websites
  6. Moving into the future at walking pace
  7. Fix the basics before you buy the new technology
  8. Humans are the solution; technology is the problem
  9. Chatbots and the cult of technology
  10. E-waste and the Scandinavian lifestyle
  11. People’s perception of waste has changed
  12. Let’s talk about digital hygiene
  13. The environmental cost of iPhone updates
  14. Making visible the CO2 in iPhone updates
  15. Principles for designing sustainable, environmentally friendly websites
  16. The environmental cost of search
  17. Designing digital to last
  18. In a climate crisis, text should be default option for communication
  19. The tech cult of collecting and hoarding data
  20. Making digital waste visible
  21. Hidden role of data in climate crisis
  22. Data center planned obsolescence (part 2)
  23. Data center planned obsolescence (part 1)
  24. How to reduce digital waste
  25. CO2 for Irish councils, government departments, political parties
  26. CO2 footprint of data
  27. Do not track
  28. The Cloud is on the ground
  29. Digital: the great accelerator of the climate emergency
  30. Transferring data: convenience versus saving energy
  31. Reducing digital energy waste
  32. Launch and leave culture created climate crisis
  33. Publish the website you can maintain
  34. Content is critical so why do we launch and forget?
  35. Content is critical (Part 1)
  36. The more you remove, the more you can remove
  37. The price of free is waste
  38. Reducing website weight
  39. From digital unsustainability to digital sustainability
  40. Moving beyond the Cult of Volume (Part 3)
  41. Moving beyond the Cult of Volume (Part 2)
  42. Moving beyond the Cult of Volume (Part 1)
  43. Let’s green the Web
  44. Change has become an excuse for lazy design
  45. Technology is part of the problem
  46. Embracing sustainable digital design (Part 3)
  47. Embracing sustainable digital design (Part 2)
  48. Embracing sustainable digital design

2020 50

  1. Top Tasks and COVID-19
  2. Google’s increasingly dark shadow
  3. The data pollution problem
  4. How science let us down during the pandemic
  5. We need to do more about electronic waste
  6. Moving fast breaks things
  7. Reducing energy waste in digital
  8. Use your brain
  9. Web, we have a problem
  10. Reclaiming our lives from the machine
  11. Burn your own energy
  12. Delete 90%: Principles of Digital Earth Experience Design
  13. Principles of Digital Earth Experience Design
  14. Focus on the waste: Developing an earth experience culture in digital
  15. Protecting the digital public space
  16. Calculating the pollution cost of website analytics (Part 4)
  17. Calculating the pollution cost of website analytics (Part 3)
  18. Calculating the pollution cost of website analytics (Part 2)
  19. Calculating the pollution cost of website analytics (Part 1)
  20. Skills of a great digital designer
  21. Print culture is holding organizations back
  22. Why Web content is badly managed
  23. Wisdom of the crowds, stupidity of organizations
  24. A week is a year for COVID-19 content
  25. Visualizing the digital experience with Simon at Toyota
  26. Top Tasks at Toyota (Part 2)
  27. Embracing top tasks at Toyota (Part 1)
  28. Social media’s dirty secret
  29. The dangers of exceptionalism
  30. Website performance is getting worse
  31. Finalizing a classification for COVID-19
  32. Testing a COVID-19 classification
  33. The big sort: designing a classification for COVID-19
  34. Creating clear menus and links
  35. Mapping the ‘information’ genome for COVID-19
  36. Digital divides: it doesn’t have to
  37. Fighting coronavirus with data
  38. Why do we copy and paste so much?
  39. The smartphone and the coronavirus
  40. Our obsession with speed is killing the Earth
  41. Calculating the pollution effect of data
  42. The hidden pollution cost of online meetings
  43. State of intranets 2020
  44. Designing without the packaging
  45. From user experience to Earth experience
  46. We need more editors
  47. Data expands to fill the space available (Part 2)
  48. Data expands to fill the space available (Part 1)
  49. Rapid evolution of AI
  50. Why does so much software suck?

2019 48

  1. What are you going to remove today?
  2. Dark side of customer obsession
  3. The great personalization con
  4. If advertising was a parent
  5. Google: from ‘Don’t Be Evil’ to ‘Be Evil’
  6. Static or database? Our love of complexity
  7. The Department of Useless Images
  8. Are your Web metrics reliable?
  9. Governments’ key competitor is complexity
  10. Branding doesn’t have to be propaganda
  11. UX without the user
  12. Major usability problems require less people to identify
  13. The psychology of cheap
  14. Digital is garbage
  15. The Technology God is fake
  16. Understanding digital speed
  17. Survey Monkey: when support overcomes poor design decisions
  18. The patterns evident in Top Tasks research
  19. Fallible data
  20. The three elements in understanding your customers
  21. Are your customers low or high information?
  22. Mental strain of delivering excellent service
  23. As the Web matures, search behavior changes
  24. Shortlisting
  25. Words still matter (even in IT)
  26. Net Promoter Score (NPS) metrics are not enough
  27. Content is service, service is content
  28. Poor customer experience is not an accident
  29. Too many managers
  30. Making the customer part of the culture
  31. Digital contributing to climate crisis
  32. Competition versus collaboration
  33. Service for some, slavery for others
  34. Is the Internet hollowing out the middle class?
  35. Interactions and complexity
  36. Digital speeds up evolutionary design
  37. Digital dehumanizes work
  38. Humility in the age of complexity
  39. Diversity, polarization and connectivity
  40. Digital needs physical representation
  41. Interface as luxury
  42. FANG is coming for you!
  43. Traditional communications reflects a feudal mindset
  44. Perverse incentives create perverse behavior
  45. Use and convenience replace trust and security
  46. The changing nature of trust
  47. The Web is a pattern of human behavior
  48. Top tasks are the invisible gorilla