So
Apparently this site (open.bbc.co.uk) contains 75 years worth of information about every program that the BBC has aired over the years in a searchable format using semantic web technologies under the covers.
I wanted to try this out and write about it a bit, but apparently the site is not responding. Is this a server problem or a Ruby problem? Either way it probably has to due with enormous demand at the rollout of this new tool. I guess we will find out later...
So
Today Google has released Sketchup, a 3D drawing desktop application. From the little demo animation that they have on the linked page, this looks like the rare combination of a very powerful, yet easy to use tool for creating 3D renderings. Renderings can also be used in conjunction with Google Earth, presumably as some sort of a layer or overlay.
Unfortunately, the Mac version of it is 'coming soon' even though the pre-Google acquisition product already ran on OS X. I'll have to wait for the Mac release to get into this any further. I hope that the delay is something a simple as switching over the branding and a few other minor tasks it truly will be available RSN.
...Once the pleasantries were out of the way, he started the first lecture, which was about the composition of the atmosphere. Everyone started taking copious notes. He told us that Nitrogen was 78% of the air we breath, with Oxygen accounting for 21% and the remainder taken up by Argon, Carbon Dioxide, and other gases.
He then proceeded to explain that Nitrogen had a pink color and a slightly sweet smell. Like good students, we continued to record this valuable information into our study notes. After several more minutes of lecture he stopped, and then exclaimed “are you students morons??!!”. Needless to say, this caught our attention and we instantly brought our heads out of our books.
He continued: “If Nitrogen was pink and formed 78% of the air, the classroom would look pink! Are your brains even turned on right now?!” He proceeded to berate us for being so gullible, and then used the situation to segue into a discussion of the ingredients of science; observation, theory, and rigorous testing.
So
As always, a compelling and insightful commentary by IBM's Irving Wladawsky-Berger (via AlwaysOn); this time discussing the effect that technology standards are having (or will have) on IT Strategy. One of the points that he makes is that standards aren't just about software leverage; hardware and web services standards are going to allow enterprises to grow and share in ways they couldn't easily before.
Now, what we have seen is the continuing emergence of standards as we keep going up the stack. In this world of grid computing, what you're really trying to do is share all kinds of IT resources—computing capacity, storage, files, applications, and so on—all built around the common standards that everybody uses. So you can essentially begin to virtualize the system so that people can access your resource without having to know precisely where that resource is. A very difficult example that must have been used in let's say supercomputing systems is that you can form a grid out of multiple supercomputers in a location or in a country, and when somebody submits a job they submit it to the grid. And then the systems themselves get their act together, find where they have capacity, and make sure they can access everything, but you're essentially sharing all the extreme capacity that wasn't there before.
So
In what feels like a return to the heady 'spinning logo, flaming logo' days of early web design, Yusuke Kawasaki has created a way to produce cube image rotations in Javascript. While this is wonderful eyecandy and some pretty deft Javascript programming, I'm not entirely sure how useful this might be in practical terms. via Ajaxian
So
I found this posting by Danny Weitzner on Privacy, practical obscurity and the power of the Semantic Web to be very thought provoking. It does an excellent job of summarizing the legal concept of 'practical obscurity' and provides some food for thought on what this might mean as more and more information can be joined together and made available through Semantic Web activities.
So
I have tried several times today to add this new blog URL to my technorati profile. The profile update appears to just be broken — it doesn't give any error message; nor does it update my profile. If I try to add a new URL it adds two new blank sites instead.
I don't suppose anyone is paying too much attention because it is Easter weekend.
Perhaps this will get fixed sometime in the coming week.
UPDATE: 20.APR.2006 — Appears to be working now; I was able to add this blog and have it update properly.
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I thought that this was very creative — coloring Easter eggs using onioin skins and ferns. The results are pretty unique and part of the fun is figuring out what combination of things will produce interesting results.
So
Welcome to all who have made the transition from the old Blogger-based site to this shiny new Wordpress site. There may be a few glitches as I learn my way around Wordpress (and the new hosting service that I am using).
If you were subscribed to the previous site, please update your feed reader with the links to the right or manually update the feed URL to http://mobrec.com/feed .