Saturday, November 08, 2003


Source: WebLogs @ SqlJunkies.com

Originally posted by Vasanth Dharmaraj

Back in 1998 Microsoft made a big splash about the TerraServer - one of the first terabyte databases to be made available on the web. Now, a terabyte of storage can be purchased for £1000. Now Jim Gray (one of the founding fathers of modern database theory and Turing Award winner) and his research colleagues have been working on SkyServer, like TerraServer but looking the other way. http://skyserver.sdss.org. This is a digital sky survey of the northern 1/3rd of the universe, covering 10TB of pictures plus 1TB of catalog information and containing a total of 3 billion records inside a SQL Server database. http://skyserver.sdss.org/dr1/en/tools/chart/navi.asp shows an XML web service for accessing this information. You can even query the database using T-SQL here (http://skyserver.sdss.org/dr1/en/tools/chart/list.asp).

We've also built a virtual observatory at http://skyquery.net. This is a federated database that combines databases from about 10 separate observatories. This enables you to treat all these observatories as if they were just one giant database. Everything here is in the public domain: http://www.skyserver.org has everything you need to build your own Sky Server! The code itself is written in C# and ASP.NET.

[WebLogs @ SqlJunkies.com]
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Source: Marc's Voice

I really like David Weinberger and Dave Winer is clearly a leader in this area, but BOTH these guys have got to get specific.

Harping on about 'Open formats and protocols' and anything with the word 'future' in it - is a waste of time (IMHO) UNLESS: you get specific - you talk about exactly WHAT these new extensions are, HOW they work and WHO's going to create and help promote them.

Up until now we've been able to pigeon hole blocks of text into an RSS 2.0 feed, but the moment you start talking about 'writing for the web' - you're leaving out 95% of the people - who don't consider themselves 'literate', 'intellectual' or 'amateurs' at anything (except changing a TV channel or opening a beer.)

Writing for the Web to 'normal' people will mean the three R's: Resumes, Recipes and Reviews.  And Calendar Events as well.  For THESE new kind of micro-content stdnards to evolve, we need more than just token statements about 'open formats and protocols'.  We need specifics.

RVW and ENT are all examples of SPECIFIC open formats and protocols - but what I can't understand is why Dave Winer or David Weinberger don't openly support and help these RSS 2.0 extensions succeed?  Having OpenReviews or shared clouds of Topics - can move the blogosphere forward and 'down the pyramid - to a HELL of a lot of more people, then the current base of "literate' people.

The Shape of Blogging's Future.

The Shape of Blogging's Future

Dave writes:

Weblog software is going to be like mail servers. Lots of ways to deploy, every niche filled. For the masses, services like Yahoo, MSN and AOL. Blogging servers for corporations, inside and outside of the firewall. For schools, for the military, specialized systems for lawyers, librarians, professors, reporters, magazines, daily newspapers. The next President will have a blog. Writing for the Web, the prevailing form of publishing in the early 21st Century, will come in many sizes and shapes, flavors and styles. It won't be one-size-fits-all. Open formats and protocols will make this possible. I'd bet on the formats and protocols we're using now, RSS 2.0, OPML and the Blogger API.

Sounds right to me. (Well, the next president will have a blog but won't write it himself. [I'd say "or herself," but who are we kidding.]) Also, I don't know if Dave agrees that what we do with these blogging servers may not look all that much like blogging [Joho the Blog]

[Marc's Voice]
1:56:18 PM    trackback []     Articulate []