tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33008233169901989442024-03-13T00:04:14.888+01:00Everything is a SubjectA subject centric blog about Topic Maps, pragmatic semantics and probably other interesting subjects like music, film, wine, life, the Universe and everything.
- Everything is a subject, - this too.Are Gulbrandsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11206231023062470816noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300823316990198944.post-50699700967030480122011-01-26T22:02:00.001+01:002011-01-26T22:10:50.733+01:00Emnekart 2011The Norwegian Topic Maps conference, <a href="http://www.dataforeningen.no/semantiske-loesninger-og-linked-data-med-emnekart.4860603-172830.html">Emnekart 2011</a>, is on february 10.<br />
<br />
This year it is a part of <a href="http://www.dataforeningen.no/software-2011.4829676-168724.html">Software 2011</a>, which is the main conference for The Norwegian Computer Society.<br />
<br />
Here's a few highlights from the english part of the program:<br />
<br />
<strong>Best Practices for Publishing Linked Open Data</strong><br />
<em><a href="http://www.topicmapslab.de/people/Graham_Moore?locale=en">Graham Moore</a>, <a href="http://www.networkedplanet.com/">Networked Planet</a></em><br />
<br />
<em><a href="http://www.networkedplanet.com/"></a></em>Many organizations and government initiatives are advocating and providing support for the publishing of 'Data on the Web'. This is a paradigm shift from publishing HTML pages for people to read, to publishing raw data that can be processed and interpreted by machines and people.<br />
<br />
While it may seem a trivial activity to put data on the web, the fact is that many organizations struggle to do this in a way which is useful for their community.<br />
<br />
The talk discuss and demonstrates the different levels in quality of publishing linked data on the web, ranging from simple files to complete Linked Data endpoints.<br />
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<div><br />
</div><div><br />
</div><div><div><b>Topic Maps applications for Android and Iphone</b></div><div><i><a href="http://www.topicmapslab.de/people/Jan_Schreiber?locale=en">Jan Schreiber</a>, <a href="http://www.ravn.no/">Ravn Webveveriet</a></i></div><div><br />
</div><div>Jan has written tmjs, - a Topic Maps engine in JavaScript. He will talk about how Javascript and HTML5 makes development of semantic applications independent of platform possible. He has some pretty exciting applications to show too. </div><div><br />
</div><div>He will show how to visualize geotagged Topic Maps with maps and in an augmented reality browser.</div><div>Augmented reality means that you look through your mobile camera and get an annotated view of the world around you on the screen.</div><div><br />
</div><div>Have you even considered how to present a topic map on a limited mobile screen? </div><div>- Jan has.</div><div><b><br />
</b></div><div><b><br />
</b></div><div><b>Semantic Repowering the Afghanistan War Diary</b></div><div><b></b><i><a href="http://www.topicmapslab.de/people/Benjamin_Bock?locale=en">Benjamin Bock</a> and <a href="http://www.topicmapslab.de/people/Thomas_Efer?locale=en">Thomas Efer</a>, <a href="http://www.topicmapslab.de/home">Topic Maps Lab</a> - University of Leipzig</i></div><div><i><br />
</i></div><div><i></i>In summer 2010 WikiLeaks released one of the largest classified military leaks in history: The Afghanistan war diary. In the news it was labeled a report, but for engineers it was merely a big and messy CSV file with largely unnormalized data. Publishers like Spiegel Online spent several months before the release, manually analyzing the data. With semantic tools this could have been much easier…</div></div><br />
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<div><br />
</div><div><br />
</div><div><b>Visualizing Topic Maps with Silverlight PivotViewer</b></div><div>I also look forward to the lightning talk where Graham Moore gives a demo of how to visualize Topic Maps with the <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/gary_flake_is_pivot_a_turning_point_for_web_exploration.html">Silverlight PivotViewer</a>.</div><div><br />
</div>Are Gulbrandsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11206231023062470816noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300823316990198944.post-47258529298886073032010-11-05T12:58:00.001+01:002010-11-05T13:00:02.452+01:00Semantic ambiguity and how human communication fails - except by accidentIt's been a busy week at the Topicmapmail-list, where <a href="http://www.infoloom.com/pipermail/topicmapmail/2010q4/thread.html">a +50 message thread</a> developed, starting off as<a href="http://www.infoloom.com/pipermail/topicmapmail/2010q4/008539.html"> an announcement of the Afghanistan War Diary as a topic map in Maiana</a> (made from WikiLeaks data).<br />
<br />
The discussion went off in several directions, and spun into a discussion of typing and the inherent messiness of trying to model the world.<br />
<br />
- We're kind of back at the start. In a messy semi-structured world with information overflow, - what kind of technology can help us find a way?<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.infoloom.com/pipermail/topicmapmail/2010q4/008618.html">Steve Pepper</a>:<br />
<blockquote>The categories of human knowledge are better expressed using a prototype model than a criterial-attribute (or "Aristotelian") model. In such a model, roles and types are not sharply differentiated, but rather exist on a continuum.</blockquote><a href="http://www.infoloom.com/pipermail/topicmapmail/2010q4/008608.html">Alexander Johannesen questioned the basis of linked data and subject identification</a>:<br />
<blockquote>So the question becomes; can we still rely on our TM way of subject identification? I'm not so sure. Things change. And here's the catch; the more you describe that thing, the more you try to pin it down its definition, the less likely it is for that thing to fit whatever thing you need in what you're modelling. And the less likely it is that that model truly represents reality, so there's a whole scale of inherit dis-ambiguity that you need to have in mind when you knowingly have to make a million compromises while modelling.</blockquote><blockquote>To what degree do we need things to be correct vs. useful? And, in the end, is it useful that things aren't correct?</blockquote><a href="http://www.infoloom.com/pipermail/topicmapmail/2010q4/008612.html">Andrew S. Townley had thoughts on scalability and how this can work outside a controlled environment</a>:<br />
<blockquote>Again, once you start trying to correlate statements about things made by millions of people each with thousands of overlapping but inconsistent assumptions, this stuff matters. In a controlled environment or walled garden, you have a lot more leeway with "useful", but I don't think that's good enough in today's world with over 1 billion addressable pages added to the Web every day.</blockquote><div><blockquote>I think it's important to (continue to) talk about these issues now while there's still a chance of influencing how people try to deal with a world with that much data. The less retrofitting and rectifying that needs to be done, the easier it will make things for everyone. Most of the people churning out all that content have no idea these problems exist. After all, they have Google and the magic search box. All they need is just a little bit more link juice and social proof... ;)</blockquote></div><a href="http://tm.durusau.net/?p=3596">Patrick Durusau followed up with a blogpost about Semantic ambiguity</a>:<br />
<blockquote>Since we are trying to communicate with other people, there isn’t any escape from semantic ambiguity. Ever.</blockquote>It all led me back to <b>Wiio's laws</b>, which I have revisited many times before. - So here's some friday edutainment for those of you which haven't read Wiio's laws on<br />
<br />
<b>How all human communication fails, except by accident</b>:<br />
<ol><li>Communication usually fails, except by accident.</li>
<li>If a message can be interpreted in several ways, it will be interpreted in a manner that maximizes the damage</li>
<li>There is always someone who knows better than you what you meant with your message</li>
<li>The more we communicate, the worse communication succeeds</li>
</ol>I see the laws as both as a serious warning about how messy human communication is, and as black humor for people trying to do this for a living.<br />
<br />
Most of Wiio's work, and the information about his work is ironically in Finnish, which I think most people on this planet doesn't understand very well...<br />
<div><br />
</div>Jukka Korpela has however written an excellent <a href="http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/wiio.html">commentary of Wiio's laws</a><br />
<div><br />
</div><div><div><i>Professor Osmo A. Wiio</i> is a Finnish researcher of human communication. He studied, among other things, readability of texts, organizations and communication within them, and the general theory of communication. </div><div><br />
</div><div>In addition to his academic career, he has authored books, articles, and radio and TV programs on technology, the future, society, and politics. He formulated "Wiio's laws" when he was a member of the Finnish parliament.</div></div>Are Gulbrandsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11206231023062470816noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300823316990198944.post-61074131914192951912010-09-13T15:58:00.009+02:002010-09-13T21:43:23.165+02:00Food traceability system using RFID and Topic Maps<div><br />
</div><div>My Google alert found me an article about a food traceability system combining <a href="http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/RFID">RFID</a> and Topic Maps.</div><div><br />
</div><div>The system is for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jam%C3%B3n">Spanish ham</a> from the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teruel_(province)">Teruel province</a> (which is supposed to be excellent, and has a Denomination of Origin status):</div><div><br />
</div><div><i>Free Traceability Management Using RFID and Topic Maps</i></div><div><br />
</div><div>The article is from <a href="http://academic-conferences.org/ecime/ecime2010/ecime10-home.htm">ECIME 2010</a> (the 4th European Conference on Information Management and Evaluation), but I have not found any info besides conference <a href="http://www.academic-conferences.org/ecime/ecime2010/ecime10-timetable.htm">program</a> and <a href="http://www.academic-conferences.org/pdfs/ECIME10-booklet.pdf">abstract</a>.</div><div><br />
</div><div>According to the <a href="http://academic-conferences.org/ecime/ecime2010/ecime10-proceedings.htm">conference website</a> "The proceedings of the above conference are now available to purchase in CD-ROM format only". </div><div><br />
</div><div>However interesting, - I'm not that keen on spending £50 to get a CD-ROM in the mail.</div><div><br />
</div><div>Open Access publishing is the way, that's for sure...</div><div><br />
</div>Are Gulbrandsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11206231023062470816noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300823316990198944.post-68088629250509416322009-03-27T06:59:00.009+01:002009-03-27T09:14:35.697+01:00Wikipedia as a good PSI-source?I stumbled upon an interesting discussion in the blogpost <a href="http://www.thingsontop.com/wikipedia-democratic-gold-standard-topic-maps-568.html">Wikipedia - A Democratic Gold Standard for Topic Maps</a>, where <a href="http://www.thingsontop.com/author/vsandvold/">Vegard Sandvold</a> suggests that the Topic Maps community "should adopt <a href="http://www.wikipedia.org/">Wikipedia</a> as it’s democratic and user-generated repository of topic PSI’s". (<a href="http://www.garshol.priv.no/personal/me.html">Lars Marius Garshol</a> wrote <a href="http://www.garshol.priv.no/blog/91.html">a good blogpost about the general idea behind PSIs</a>)<div><br /></div><div><a href="http://psi.ontopedia.net/Steve_Pepper">Steve Pepper</a> disagrees, and argues that ideally the PSD (Published Subject Descriptor) should incude the minimum of information needed to unambiguously identify the subject.</div><br /><div><a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/esisnorge">Robert Engels</a> then enters the discussion and argues from the RDF point of view.</div><br /><div>My view is that I would currently use Wikipedia, because on some subjects it's the best source I got. I agree with Steve Pepper, but imagine that it could be useful in some contexts to be a bit fuzzy on purpose. A widely defined and a bit fuzzy subject might be exactly want we want, to be able to "start a conversation".</div>Are Gulbrandsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11206231023062470816noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300823316990198944.post-37566905725549156542009-03-13T22:40:00.010+01:002009-03-17T18:16:54.931+01:00Exploring Semantic Mashups in the Wandora Workshop at Topic Maps Norway 2009<p>I really look forward to the Wandora workshop at <a href="http://www.topicmaps.com/tmc/conference.jsp?conf=TM2009">Topic Maps Norway 2009</a> / <a href="http://dataforeningen.no/emnekart2009/">Emnekart 2009</a> on March 18, as I have wanted for some time to play a bit with Wandora.</p><p><a href="http://www.wandora.org/">Wandora</a> is an Open Source Java application made mainly for building and managing topic maps, but I think of it as a more general semantic toolbox, and think that exploring Wandora as a semantic extraction tool will be fun.</p><p>Wandora has a graphical user interface and several data storage options. Wandora both reads and exports the Topic Maps formats <a href="http://www.ontopia.net/download/ltm.html">LTM</a> and <a href="http://www.topicmapslab.de/glossary/XTM">XTM</a> along with the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/notation_3">N3 RDF-format</a>, which should make it a very useful toolbox.</p><p>The workshop will explore Wandora as a tool for extracting information from open web sources using some of the many built-in extractors to generate topic maps. It will demonstrate how to use Wandora to do semantic mashups. This is a hands-on workshop, which I imagine should be interesting both to TM developers, Semantic Web developers and developers who knows web 2.0 style mash-ups.</p><p>I have a dream of one day converting my well-tagged mp3-collection to a topic map, mash it up with open music information, and explore the new exciting possibilities for navigation and search, which would make iTunes look rather dull.</p><p>The workshop will focus on a few of the many interesting Wandora extractors to generate and merge topic maps. The list of available Wandora extractors is impressive, and keep on growing with every new release:</p><ul><li><a href="http://www.wandora.org/wandora/wiki/index.php?title=MP3_ID3v1_and_ID3v2_extractor">MP3 ID3 metadata</a></li><li>JPEG metadata</li><li>PDF metadata</li><li>FreeDB (music CD metadata)</li><li>Last.fm XML feeds</li><li>Internet Movie Database datafiles</li><li>Converts and imports any SQL database to a topic map</li><li>BibTeX</li><li>Flickr</li><li>YouTube</li><li>Digg and Del.icio.us</li><li>Geonames</li><li>Wikipedia extractor and a more general MediaWiki extractor</li><li>Wordnet</li><li>OpenCalais classifier</li><li>OpenCyc extractor</li><li>RSS 2.0 and Atom feeds</li><li>Convert emails and email repositories to a topic map</li><li>Convert file system structures to a topic map</li><li>Microformat extractors:<ul><li> Convert geo microformat snippets to topic maps</li><li>Convert hcalendar microformat snippets to topic maps</li><li>Convert hcard microformat snippets to topic maps</li></ul></li></ul><p></p>Are Gulbrandsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11206231023062470816noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300823316990198944.post-75961251974201370782009-03-13T00:36:00.005+01:002009-03-13T07:12:01.933+01:00A Vision for a Topic Maps World<p>Graham Moore is giving a presentation at <a href="http://www.topicmaps.com/tmc/conference.jsp?conf=TM2009">Topic Maps Norway 2009</a> / <a href="http://dataforeningen.no/emnekart2009">Emnekart 2009</a> next week, which is not to be missed:</p><p><strong>A Vision for a Topic Maps World</strong><br /><br />Graham Moore, <a href="http://www.networkedplanet.com/">NetworkedPlanet</a></p><p>Topic Maps has been successful in delivering value in the context of content management, intranets and web publishing. In these contexts it has provided value in terms of improved navigation and findability of content. However, the scope of these projects has been limited, and it could be argued that Topic Maps has simply created better managed, and more useful silos of content. This talk presents a vision and concept for enabling Topic Maps in a global context.<br /></p><p>We describe how the fundamental concept of Topic Maps, the separation of identity from addressing, can be taken and utilised in a global scale. This vision includes how people, who have invested in Topic Maps in the small, can contribute and benefit from this step change in the scope of Topic Maps usage.</p>Are Gulbrandsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11206231023062470816noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300823316990198944.post-34386971982815666892008-05-17T00:41:00.013+02:002008-05-22T14:14:48.329+02:00Published Subjects and global identifiers<div>Dataforeningen arrangerer et <a href="http://dataforeningen.no/-mwJvSXO.ips">møte om Published Subjects og globale identifikatorer</a> i universitetsbiblioteket tirsdag 27. mai kl 16-18.<br /></div><br />English translation:<br /><br />The Norwegian Computer Society is planning a meeting about Published Subjects and global identifiers from 16 to 18 on May 27th. The program is quite exciting with four lightning talks, but the presentations are planned to be in norwegian. (We would probably be able to reconsider this and talk english if somebody not understanding norwegian would like to join us).<br /><br />The meeting will be held in the electronic classroom at the University Library in Oslo.<br /><p><a href="http://psi.ontopedia.net/Steve_Pepper" target="_blank" title="PSID used as an identifier reolving to a PSD">Steve Pepper</a> (<a href="http://www.ontopedia.net/" target="_blank" title="URLused as an identifier">Ontopedia</a>) starts with a quick introduction of the need for shared global identifiers and an introduction to Published Subjects, where he also explains the terminology (PSI, PSD, ...)</p><p><a href="http://psi.ontopedia.net/Are_Gulbrandsen">Are Gulbrandsen</a> (<a href="http://www.usit.uio.no/" title="A URL for the website is used as an identifier">USIT</a>) presents known published PSI sets and a few unresolved publication and discovery issues. He also discusses potentional sources of PSIs (for instance GREP, ISBN, Wikipedia, LinkedIn and excisting thesauruses).</p><p><a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/shelterit" target="_blank" title="A LinkedIn-URL used as an identifier. This is a potential PSI-source for persons.">Alexander Johannesen</a> (<a target="_blank" href="http://www.bekk.no/ombekk/BEKK-pa-60-sekunder/">Bekk</a>) continues were he left off at Topic Maps 2008, <a href="http://www.topicmaps.com/tmc/presentation.jsp?conf=TM2008&id=TM2008%7EAlexander_Johannesen%7EVisions_for_a_Topic_Mapped_Library" target="_blank">Visions for a Topic Mapped Library</a>, and wants to discuss the use of PSIs from a library perspective. (He has also promised to give us a quick overview over what they have manged to do at <a href="http://www.topicmaps.com/tmc/presentation.jsp?conf=TM2008&id=TM2008%7EConal_Tuohy%7ETopic_Maps_for_Cultural_Heritage_Collections">The New Zealand Electronic Text Centre</a> (NZETC), Victoria University of Wellington. (NZETC got the Topic Maps Project of the Year 2008 award).</p><p><a href="http://psi.ontopedia.net/Stian_Danenbarger">Stian Danenbarger</a> (<a href="http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouvet_%28selskap%29" target="_blank" title="URL to Wikipedia article about Bouvet used as an identifie, this is a potential PSI-source.">Bouvet</a>) also continues from his Topic Maps 2008 presentation: <a href="http://www.topicmaps.com/tmc/presentation.jsp?conf=TM2008&id=TM2008%7EStian_Danenbarger%7EPublished_Subjects">Published Subjects: Small Pieces, Meaningfully Joined</a>, and wants to focus on how we can add context to the discovery of PSI sets. - Who is using a PSI set, and how is it used?</p><p><a href="http://dataforeningen.no/-mwJvSXO.ips">More info in Norwegian</a><br /></p>Are Gulbrandsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11206231023062470816noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300823316990198944.post-40996737935106856102008-05-06T17:06:00.066+02:002008-05-06T22:07:18.281+02:00Amazon.com recommends Lutz Maicher and american football<p>I got a recommendation from Amazon.com today, that first got me a bit puzzled. I think it's a good example of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homonymy">homonym</a> problem and some of the challenges Topic Maps and semantic search try to solve.</p><hr /><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Dear Amazon.com Customer,<br /></span></span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">We've noticed that customers who have purchased or rated books by Lutz Maicher have also purchased <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Ohio State University Football Vault</span> by Jack Park. For this reason, you might like to know that <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Ohio State University Football Vault</span> will be released on May 20, 2008. You can pre-order yours by following the link below.</span></span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> </span></span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/r.html?R=1VQ5NOD30UVRA&C=2ZXEBKHI1LKCA&H=849mVAvzBnktDn6yQlEC8SASAwUA&T=C&U=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fgp%2Fproduct%2F0794824234%2Fref%3Dpe_5050_8926850_pe_snp_234"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Ohio State University Football Vault</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /> Jack Park</span></span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /> Price: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">$49.95</span></span></span></b></p><p><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> Release Date:</span></span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> May 20, 2008</span></span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Product Description</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br />In the Ohio State University® Football VaultTM: The History of the Buckeyes®, Ohio State Football Radio Network commentator and football speaker Jack Park takes you on a memorable journey through more than 100 years of Buckeye football. The detailed scrapbook narrative contains neverbefore- published vintage photographs, artwork and memorabilia drawn from OSU s extensive campus archives. Tucked into dozens of sleeves and pockets, fans will find reproductions of old game programs, historic tickets, bumper stickers and more. These fascinating replicas include a formation diagram for the band s famous Script Ohio, a letter from President Gerald Ford to Woody Hayes and those classic Buckeye helmet stickers. No Ohio State fan should be without this home archive of OSU s long and illustrious history. Illustrated; Hardcover; 144 Pages.</span></span></p><hr /><br /><br /><p>It's correct that I like to read books by <a href="http://www.informatik.uni-leipzig.de/~maicher/">Lutz Maicher</a>. I would also be interested if <a href="http://www.ai.sri.com/people/park/">Jack Park</a> published a book. I am however not interested in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url?%5Fencoding=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books&field-author=Jack%20Park">mixing in what the other Jack Parks have written</a>.</p><p>I have always had very high thoughts about Amazons system, and sometimes their recommendations work incredibly well. How could they be so wrong this time?</p><p>It seems like a deeper problem. Amazon doesn't appear to have any concept of the author apart from a text string. There doesn't seem to be any unique id. And it gets worse...</p><p>Clicking the author-link on a book-page (or the corresponding links on a record- or DVD-page) must be one of the most used navigational aids in Amazon:</p><p> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp3.blogger.com/_QVoWTm5KPNQ/SCCfpM2VGJI/AAAAAAAAABU/xbT25FXwxSE/s1600-h/Amazon-JackPark-link.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_QVoWTm5KPNQ/SCCfpM2VGJI/AAAAAAAAABU/xbT25FXwxSE/s400/Amazon-JackPark-link.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5197329500158105746" /></a></p><p>These were the top ranked hits when clicking <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url?%5Fencoding=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books&field-author=Jack%20Park">Jack Park</a> on a book page:</p><ol><li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/XML-Topic-Maps-Creating-Using/dp/0201749602/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210092165&sr=1-1">XML Topic Maps: Creating and Using Topic Maps for the Web</a> by Jack Park and Sam Hunting (Paperback - Jul 26, 2002)</li><br /><li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Watchmen-Wall-Miriam-Rodyn-Park/dp/0966583167/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210092165&sr=1-2">Watchmen on the Wall</a> by Miriam Rodyn Park, Jack W. Hayford, and Robert Stearns (Spiral-bound - Aug 1, 2007)</li><br /><li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Official-Ohio-State-Football-Encyclopedia/dp/1582616957/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210092165&sr=1-3">The Official Ohio State Football Encyclopedia</a> by Jack Park (Hardcover - April 20, 2003)</li><br /><li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Home-Wind-Power-Jack-Park/dp/088266252X/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210092165&sr=1-4">Home Wind Power</a> by Jack Park (Paperback - Jun 1981)</li><br /><li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sport-Exercise-Science-HISTORY-MEDICINE/dp/0252018966/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210092165&sr=1-5">Sport and Exercise Science: ESSAYS IN THE HISTORY OF SPORTS MEDICINE (Sport and Society)</a> by Jack W Berryman and Roberta J Park (Hardcover - Jul 1, 1992)</li><br /><li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Wind-Power-Book-Jack-Park/dp/091735205X/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210092165&sr=1-6">Wind Power Book</a> by Jack Park (Hardcover - Jun 1982)</li><br /><li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Ohio-State-Football-Encyclopedia/dp/1582610061/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210092165&sr=1-7">The Ohio State Football Encyclopedia</a> by Jack L Park (Hardcover - Oct 8, 2001)</li><br /><li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/52-Fishing-Hotspots-Compiled-Outdoors/dp/0859262618/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210092165&sr=1-8">52 Fishing Hotspots: A Guide to Angling Every Week of the Year: Compiled By the Editors of Western Outdoors</a> by Kevin Dawson, Terry Rudnick, Dave Hughes, and Mike Sawyers (Paperback - 1985)</li><br /><li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Company/dp/B000O03CCE/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210092165&sr=1-9">Hunter</a> by George Dickerson, Tony Epper, Sonny Gibson, and Harriet Medin (Video Download - Feb 5, 2008)</li><br /><li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Beats-Anthology-Beat-Writing/dp/B000M4PMGG/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210092165&sr=1-10">The Beats : An Anthology of 'Beat' Writing</a> by Park Honan, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti (Paperback - 1987)</li><br /><li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Charting-Topic-Research-Applications-Landscape/dp/3540325271/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210092165&sr=1-11">Charting the Topic Maps Research and Applications Landscape: First International Workshop on Topic Map Research and Applications, TMRA 2005, Leipzig, Germany, ... Papers (Lecture Notes in Computer Science)</a> by Lutz Maicher and Jack Park (Paperback - April 11, 2006)</li></ol><p><br /></p><p>Hit number 2 doesn't even match the string "Jack Park", but Amazon is returning this book as the second most relevant hit because of the authors <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Miriam Rodyn Park</span> and <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Jack W. Hayford</span>.</p><p>I didn't understand why a search for the author "Jack Park" would return book 8, until I had a closer look, and saw that the book had around 40 authors and other contributors, a couple named <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Jack</span> and one named <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Park</span>.</p><p>As for why Amazon returned the video download of <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">season 1 of Hunter</span>, I'm still clueless...</p><p>After this I'm not surprised that <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">The Beats : An Anthology of 'Beat' Writing</span> is on the list. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Park Honan</span> is the editor, and <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Jack Kerouac</span> is one of the authors.</p><p>Now lets go back to the beginning. Amazon recommended <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Ohio State University Football Vault</span> because I have given <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Lutz Maichers</span> book a high rating.</p><p>Amazon claims to have "noticed that customers who have purchased or rated books by <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Lutz Maicher</span> have also purchased <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Ohio State University Football Vault</span> by <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Jack Park</span>". </p><p>- Is this bullshit, or have actually one of you Topic Mappers out there got both the TMRA 2005 proceedings and the <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Ohio State University Football Vault?</span></p><p>The source of my Amazon recommendation is book number 11, and the recommended book doesn't even appear on the list. I wonder when I will get recommendations for all of the other more relevant books on the list.</p>Are Gulbrandsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11206231023062470816noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300823316990198944.post-72485271455969811582008-04-09T14:42:00.033+02:002008-04-09T17:25:24.362+02:00Travelling to Bergen - a metapragmatic digression with semantic underpinningsIn this blog everything is a subject, - remember? And as a Topic Mapper I sometimes get some weird associations that need more than one sentence explaining. Everything is about context, and semantics often needs some context to be understood (ref <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatics">pragmatics</a>).<br /><br />When writing another blogpost I desperately wanted to digress a little and tell some stories related to the city of Bergen.<br /><br />If you ever go to Bergen I can recommend listening to Michael Jackson. <br /><br />Be sure to sample the fantastic variety of local <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer">beer</a>. You can safely leave out the most popular beer, which tastes almost, but not quite, entirely unlike good beer. (You have probably tasted something very similar in most other cities you have visited, - that is if you like beer. I mean if you <span style="font-style:italic;">really</span> like beer it's <a href="http://www.garshol.priv.no/blog/beer/">another story</a>, but you would probably start to see where I am going with this.)<br /><br />When we're talking about local beer, Brussels is definitely worth a trip, especially if you find yourself in Bergen. <a href="http://www.cantillon.be/">The Cantillon brewery beer museum</a> there is one of the few places in the universe where they still believe in spontaneous fermentation. This is also a good reason that it's improbable that the museum will ever relocate or that the top floor will be redecorated. The mash is exposed to the wild yeasts and bacteria that are said to be native to the Senne valley, in which Brussels lies. This is the historic way of making beers, and <a href="http://www.garshol.priv.no/blog/4.html">all the beer in the world before 1800</a> was really <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambic">lambic</a>. (Be aware that Brussels and Belgium have more beer museums. Some people joke that Belgium has <a href="http://www.belgian-beers.eu/">more beer types</a> than people).<br /><br />It is however not trivial to find your way there, and that's one of the reasons for this blogpost. Now when I think about it, The way I have started It's probably better to describe the journey the other way, - from Brussels to Bergen.<br /><br />The best way to travel from Brussels to Bergen is by car (you will miss all the fun by going on the train). From the centre you start following E19 southwest. Then after a while you will see highway signs for 'Bergen'. Then after a while there are suddenly no more signs for 'Bergen'. - You have entered the french-speaking part of Belgium, the province of Hainaut, of which <a href="http://www.trabel.com/mons/mons.htm">Mons</a> is the capital. The city got it's name because it was located on a hill, and in Belgium any hill is large, so they decided to call it a mountain (context again I suppose). Mons is latin for Mountain.<br /><br />Mons is the location of the museum where <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Otlet">Paul Otlets</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mundaneum">Mundaneum</a> is kept. After listening to <a href="http://www.alexwright.org/about/">Alex Wrights</a> <a href="http://www.topicmaps.com/tmc/presentation.jsp?conf=TM2008&id=Alex_Wright~TM2008~The_Web_That_Wasnt">keynote at Topic Maps 2008</a> I have an excuse for going back to Mons, - apart from the beer of course. Which reiminds me of <a href="http://www.beerhunter.com/documents/19133-000213.html">what Michael Jackson has to say on the subject</a>. Bergen is also a very nice city however, so there's several good reasons for going there.<br /><br />Calling the hills of Mons for mountains is however to strech it too far, - it's actually an insult to Bergen. (I won't even mention the fjords which makes quite a difference).<br /><br />The fun part of this is looking up <a href="http://www.travelpost.com/EU/Belgium/Hainaut/Bergen/5010083">some webpages for the city of Bergen</a> where you get all kinds of offers for traveling to and staying in hotels in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergen">Bergen</a>.Are Gulbrandsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11206231023062470816noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300823316990198944.post-21543572703610123962008-04-09T13:17:00.028+02:002008-04-10T00:42:28.011+02:00Information History and Early Visions of the Web<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp0.blogger.com/_QVoWTm5KPNQ/R_02aBQ9fBI/AAAAAAAAAAs/VOGk0ZuJKqk/s1600-h/glut.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_QVoWTm5KPNQ/R_02aBQ9fBI/AAAAAAAAAAs/VOGk0ZuJKqk/s200/glut.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5187362166444751890" /></a>I had the pleasure of listening to the starting keynote of the <a href="http://www.topicmaps.com/tmc/day.jsp?conf=TM2008&day=TM2008~Day_1">Topic Maps 2008 conference:</a><br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Hierarchies, Networks, and the Web that Wasn't </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="">by</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"> <a href="http://www.alexwright.org/about/">Alex Wright</a></span><br /><br />I think the keynote was fantastic, giving us some perspective and food for thought discussing the history leading up to hypertext and the World Wide Web. </div><div><br /></div><div>He talked about visions of hypertext pioneers (and earlier ideas) that predated the web. In the end he summed up some of the fantastic features that didn't make it into the web, like typed links and multi-directional links. Features we actually can use in a topic map. He also cited <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Nelson">Ted Nelson</a> saying "The Web isn't hypertext, it's decorated directories!"</div><br /><div><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Weinberger">David Weinberger</a> continued this discussion in his own keynote the day after, and argued that one of the reasons the web succeeded was precisely that it left out these complex features. David is a marketing guy (and philosopher among other things) and I think he is right. The web succeeded because it was simplistic. Easy to understand and easy for anybody to just start using. (Which Implications might this have for the Topic Maps standards?)<br /><br />I think both Wright and Weinberger have a point. Weinbergers perspective is that the "center of the web should be empty", but he also says that the web is extendable. I think it's possible that we will get closer to Ted Nelsons visions, but probably not all the way.<br /><br />One highlight of the presentation was about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos">The Mother of All Demos:</a></div><br /><span style="font-style:italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">On December 9, 1968, Douglas C. Engelbart and the group of 17 researchers working with him in the Augmentation Research Center at Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, CA, presented a 90-minute live public demonstration of the online system, NLS, they had been working on since 1962. The public presentation was a session in the of the Fall Joint Computer Conference held at the Convention Center in San Francisco, and it was attended by about 1,000 computer professionals. This was the public debut of the computer mouse. But the mouse was only one of many innovations demonstrated that day, including hypertext, object addressing and dynamic file linking, as well as shared-screen collaboration involving two persons at different sites communicating over a network with audio and video interface</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> [</span><a href="http://sloan.stanford.edu/mousesite/1968Demo.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">1</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">].<br /></span><div><br />This demo in december 1968 and the moon landing in july 1969. - Must have been quite a year!</div><div><br /></div><div>Another highlight of the keynote was the story of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Otlet">Paul Otlet</a>, an almost forgotten Belgian forefather of the web. He somehow managed to get funding from the Belgian government and set off to build something resembling an analog web in the 1920s. According to the Wikipedia article his <span style="font-style:italic;">Permanent Encyclopedia</span> grew from 400,000 entries in 1895 to over 15 million in 1934. The museum hosting his collection is located in the city of Mons, in Belgium. (I have actually been there. Good beer! - And this gives me <a href="http://everythingisasubject.blogspot.com/2008/04/traveling-to-bergen-metapragmatic.html">some strange and digressing associations, that I spin off in another blogpost</a>).<br /><br />I can really recommend his book too. <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=X9qWAAAACAAJ&dq=glut">Glut - Mastering Information Through The Ages</a><br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Through the ages</span> is an understatement. - Alex Wright goes way back:<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">The information age started not with microchips or movable type, but with the first flowering of complex life. To approach the the history of information systems from a purely human-centered perspective is to overlook the lessons of billions of years' worth of evolutionary history. Just as our brains carry around some very old reptilian equipment, so our collective strategies for managing information bear the traces of patterns that took shape a long time ago.</span></span></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">He then goes on to discuss the transformation from singe cell organisms to the first multicellular organisms.</div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">You can read his Boxes and Arrows article <a href="http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/the_sociobiology_of_information_architecture">The Sociobiology of Information Architecture</a> as a good sample.</div><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">This is only the first chapter of 12, where chapter 11 is <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">The Web That Wasn't</span>.</div>Are Gulbrandsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11206231023062470816noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300823316990198944.post-28022344991559792652008-04-08T20:41:00.005+02:002008-04-09T17:17:47.817+02:00First postSome people have asked me over the years why I didn't have a blog. My response have been that with all the blogs out there, I didn't believe that anybody would bother to read my blogposts. - Too much competition.<br /><br />Another issue has been that I didn't want to commit to writing regularly. At certain periods I will be busy with other things to do, be away on a long holiday, or have lost interest.<br /><br />Feed aggregation and semantic blogging has changed all that.<br /><br />Nowadays a good blog have a lot of comments on interesting published articles, websites, music, video and other blogposts. A reference is both a vote and a help for others to find interesting content. <br /><br />It's also more about having a conversation, a debate, - communication.<br /><br />I found myself leaving comments on peoples blogsposts quite often, and found that the whole blogging concept is built around links as references, pointers and votes. The links are weaving the blogs together and add a lot of context. The blogging world have actually implemented two-way linking with backlinks, which I think is is one of the important features missing from the earlier web.<br /><br />So this is it, I'll have a go, - hope you'll enjoy!Are Gulbrandsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11206231023062470816noreply@blogger.com2