Steve Bowbrick
Steve Bowbrick
@bowbrick@bowblog.com
1,333 posts
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  • Computing in a (really big) box

    Sun’s big black shipping container is the most exciting thing to happen in computer hardware since they stopped shipping them with casters.. I remember sitting around rapping with my friends (my less fashionable friends, obviously) ten years ago about how, one day, you’d be able to rent computing power like you rent a skip or…

  • Inkjet wheeze

    The Epson R220 is a nifty (and cheap) photo inkjet but it takes six inks and costs a fortune to feed (over £70 if you buy inks singly, £50 if you buy a six-pack). We’ve tried remanufactured cartridges before but they were rubbish. Now, I notice, you can buy 100% compatible own-brand cartridges at Asda…

  • Reuters arrives. Cool departs.

    I guess the warbloggers who’ve convinced themselves that hyper-objective, scrupulously neutral Reuters is an arm of the giant global liberal conspiracy will be sending their avatars to picket the news agency’s latest bureau – a virtual one covering… erm… ‘events’ in the SecondLife RPG. Can I be the only one who thinks Reuters’ bid for…

  • The veil and social capital

    The niqab makes social solidarity harder to achieve. Is that a bad thing? Robert “Bowling Alone” Putnam would say that the veil is a source of ‘bonding capital’ – the kind of social capital that strengthens connections within a community – but that it erodes ‘bridging capital’ – the kind that hooks communities together. So…

  • Punks?

    The young women adopting the niqab in Britain may be religious fanatics but they’re more like punks than nuns or hermits. What Jack Straw did, one way or the other, was move the debate on – get the debate started, in fact. I think that’s interesting. We really can’t be afraid to talk about the…

  • Intelligent, just not very interesting

    Is it just me or is there something paralysingly boring about these ‘cars of the future‘ presented at this week’s grandly titled but presumably equally boring World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems and Services in London? They can… er… park themselves and… well… follow the car in front. Oh, and one of them will wake…

  • Geotagging primer

    I was talking with a friend of mine about geotagging. He runs digital for a publishing group and I thought it might be helpful to write him a two page primer. Here it is.

  • If you have no policies are you still a political party?

    Political parties are developing an aversion to policy. David Cameron’s refusal to provide anything more than mood music in Bournemouth is only the latest tock in the unstoppable tick tock that’s moving politics into line with the other branches of marketing. Don’t mention the product, focus on the brand, communicate the feeling. Mars Bars became…

  • Voices from the Battle of Cable Street

    Small historic treat from yesterday’s Today programme. Aubrey Morris, an anti-fascist who was present on the day and Nicholas Mosley, son of the British blackshirt leader, talking to John Humphrys about the Battle of Cable Street, seventy years ago yesterday.

  • Excellent New Scientist podcast

    If you’re interested in this evolutionary biology stuff you’re going to want to get over to New Scientist and subscribe to their excellent podcast. This week’s double issue is devoted to a brilliant interview (by podcast anchor Ivan Semeniuk) with E.O. Wilson who’s got a new book out. In The Creation he bravely reaches out…