MishMash

Chandler UI

I just posted a comment on Michael Toy's weblog. Why I didn't put it here, and trackback ping his piece, I don't know. Because I should be eating, not sitting at the computer, perhaps.

Here's what I wrote, so I have it in the future:

Bootsrapping the semantic community

Paul Everitt:

The problem, of course, isn't the software. It's the use of the software and the process of organization. First, the world of Zope falls into the same trap as the rest of content management. It thinks we are back in the days of mainframes. Most content management approaches an application by forcing everything to come live in one place, with few meaningful connections to information lying elsewhere.For the problem isn't lack of content.

…

Boy, there's lots of good content on all the sites in the world of Zope. Unfortunately, we rely on a center that is in decline. I've become curious about the opportunity: could we "practice RDF" to bootstrap a semantic community and avert the problems of a cathedral-approach to community information?

Problems I have with the FloodRiskNet web site, built on Zope and Plone. We try to build a community around a centre, but the members of the would-be community are also members of other communities, thriving or would-be, with different centres.

Added to which, the support for information management in Zope -- and all other content management system which I have come across -- suck.

I'll try in future posts to put some specifics behind the meaning of both "semantic community" and "bootstrapping". Both are terms that I've written lots of notes about and talked about with others. As with everything regarding the Semantic Web, getting from stratosphere to terra firma is the challenge.

I wait with baited breath …

Filling in metadata

Earl Mardle comments on David Weinberger's blogging of the "TTI Vanguard conference" (I can't see where it's called that on the linked page, looks like "Knowledge Management Comes of Age" to me).

Sez Weinberger:

Bobby Kishore of Microsoft is explaining how to create a KM system without relying on explicit metadata. People don't like filling out forms and entering metadata explicitly. So, a KM system ought to mine content for metadata.

One aspect of the environmental modelling tool vision that Jim Hall and I have been developing in conversations over the last few months has two facets.

E-paper, and real e-books

Now, I described this to Dad a week or so ago, and I went and didn't blog it. Hey ho, this idea wasn't going to make me rich. Earl Mardle:

I think most of all that we will end up with something that loooks, and feels, like a small paperback book. These were developed because they are an excellent way to carry and consume information. Retaining their form, including their flexibility, will make sense, but they will have a wireless connection to download and update your personal news service, receive your mail, and your marked and graded essay, your liesure library and you textbooks, all of them, stored in the spine and available at instantly.

It needs to go a step further. I need to be able to annotate the things in that e-book, to drop them into categories, and all with a "pen", not with a keyboard. At the very least I need to be able to run through incoming news, and mark the few things that I actually want to do something with so that when I sit down at a "real" computer they, and only they, are all there.

I suppose you could build touch screens into oversized covers, so whichever page you turn to, you have virtual scholars margins to write in.

Michael Moore responds

Pete & Mieke recently got me to watch Bowling for Columbine, which I did for the most part in open-mouthed incredulity. Michael Moore now has a section on his web site where he replies to attacks.

Via Kuro5hin.

Chio: Common Lisp support for string processing

Via Lemonodor: Chio: Common Lisp support for string processing. Looks interesting.

RDF/XML syntax debate, and graph structures

Shelley Powers has a piece on RDF/XML syntax, making some concessions to the anti- brigade.

The biggest concern I see with RDF/XML from an XML perspective is its flexibility. One can use two different XML syntaxes and still arrive at the same RDF model, and this must just play havoc with the souls of XML folks.

…

However, compatibility between the RDF/XML and XML versions of RSS is much thinner than my previous essay might lead one to believe. In fact, looking at RSS as a demonstration of the "XMLness" of RDF/XML causes you to miss the bigger picture, which is that RSS is basically a very simple, hierarchical syndication format that's quite natural for XML; its very nature tends to drive out the inherent XML behavior within RDF/XML, creating a great deal of compability between the two formats. Compatibility that can be busted in a blink of an eye.

However, as Shelley observes, RSS doesn't make a good case study of why the graph structure of RDF is needed over the XML tree in some applications.

RSS is basically a very simple, hierarchical syndication format that's quite natural for XML

There's simply no graph there, unless you are massaging the RDF into a rather more comprehensive data store a la Haystack.

Smalltalk Report back issues available

Back issues of the Smalltalk Report are online. Require Acrobat reader for its link following ability.

Can't remember where the link came from.

Qi

Qi, a new functional programming language designed to run under Common Lisp. Qi provides type security and extra clarity to your Lisp application programs without heavy cost to portability or performance. It is particularly suited to the development of distributed reasoning programs or intelligent agents.

Linked from Lambda the Ultimate.

EU Patent law debate rumbles on

The European Parliament has voted in favour of a legislative resolution on the patenting of "computer implemented inventions", but with amendments which the Commission have already said are unacceptable.

Question: If, as is so often stated, this legislation is only about clarification, what is the Commission's objection to the additional clarification which the Parliament requests be included?

Note: Spanish and Irish MEPs are among those quoted as making the point that legislation to halt the tendency to issue too many patents. Countries with a particular interest in the little guy getting a fair deal.