Sunday, August 10, 2003

Baltimore: 16-Year-Olds Are Eligible, May Register to Vote by Aug. 19 -- In large part because of a feud between Senator Miller of Prince George's County and city politicians over whether the mayoral election should be aligned with the presidential election cycle or the gubernatorial cycle, the original primary date - Sept. 9 this year - remained. That meant any city resident who would turn 18 by Nov. 2 next year is eligible to vote in this year's primary. The following month, city officials armed with calendars discovered this irrational arrangement allows some 16-year-olds to vote. -- They're 16, they're Baltimoreans, they can vote. Know any high schoolers in Baltimore? 10:10:38 PM

Good Whale Hunting The Whiteness of the Whale - the Semantic Web. Whenever I read about the Semantic Web, I am reminded of Herman Melville's classic novel Moby Dick. One of my favourite chapters of Moby Dick is chapter 42: The Whiteness of the Whale. Here's an excerpt: "Aside from those more obvious considerations touching Moby Dick, which could not but occasionally awaken in any man's soul some alarm, there was another thought, or rather vague, nameless horror concerning him, which at times by its intensity completely overpowered all the rest; and yet so mystical and well nigh ineffable was it, that I almost despair of putting it in a comprehensible form. It was the whiteness of the whale that above all things appalled me." The Semantic Web is, in the words of Tim Berners-Lee, "an extension of the current web in which information is given well-defined meaning". I've been following its progress in the context of the weblogging world (aka the blogosphere). With this bias in mind, I've decided there are 3 main types of activity for people who are developing the Semantic Web: Building the foundation. For example, defining what is a URI. This is a deep level of granularity and it is where the Architects of the Web are playing. It's not recommended you get involved at this level, unless your first name is Tim and your second name is Berners-Lee or Bray. Developing applications for the Semantic Web. This is where most of the tech blogging world is at. Unfortunately, it is riven with political and personal battles. On one side are the people who promote Simplicity and ease-of-use in web development - e.g. Dave Winer and Jon Udell. On the other side are those that prefer Complexity, so that they may build more abstract applications. Danny Ayers and Bill Kearney are good examples. NB: if you're looking for tech bloggers who can interpret both sides for you, you can't go past Marc Canter and Don Park. Describing the concepts of the Semantic Web. There are many magazine and website articles that wax poetical about the Semantic Web. It's at a high level of abstraction and essentially it's creating 'buy-in' for the Semantic Web. Examples range from an article in BusinessWeek, to a description of Chandler (an open source web application driven by Mitch Kapor), to the poetic but deeply granular essays of Shelley Powers. The Semantic Web is being gradually developed in the above 3 ways - laying the architectural foundation, building web applications, and defining it conceptually. So where does Moby Dick come into it? It's because, like the great Whale, the Semantic Web is an awe-inspiring vision that both attracts and repels people. Some people, like Tim Berners-Lee, see the Semantic Web as a logical and inevitable extension of the Web. Other people dismiss it as not practical and they reckon it never will be. Most people are just confused. What exactly is the Semantic Web? One way to describe it is that the Semantic Web must be meaningful for both humans and computers. As Shelley Powers' writes on Semantic Web for Poets: "To be a Semantic Web, it must be mechanical, and therefore precise, mathematical, and ultimately unambiguous. But to be a Semantic Web, it must also encapsulate meaning, context, and embrace ambiguity. Ignore the discontinuities, embrace the discontinuities." Semantic means "of or relating to meaning". But the problem is, we can't easily define what we mean by a Semantic Web! It's the semanticness of the Semantic Web that appalls me :-0 But what we do know is that the Semantic Web symbolises the future of the World Wide Web. It is our notion of what the Web can and should be, so we continue to hunt it. As Chapter 42 of Moby Dick concludes: "And of all these things the Albino whale was the symbol. Wonder ye then at the fiery hunt?"  [Read/Write Web] 7:05:37 PM

On AOL's Journals Forever September. So, I've been reading the various commentary around my announcement about being hired by AOL, and it seems generally positive, so that's nice. But I've noticed that people have some some reservations about the AOL Journal concept in a larger... [WHATEVER] 4:30:09 PM

An Entry Into 'The Web of Ideas' Web of Ideas. A lot of people are getting pretty excited about "social software". Bloggers like Joi Ito and Marc Canter are writing with gusto about social software. I'm hearing lots of trendy new acronyms and phrases - FOAF, MetaBlogs, Reputation systems, "web of trust", Moblogging, "micro-content", etc etc. It's all getting to be a blur. But these are heady times and everyone is out there hunting that White Whale, the Semantic Web. I'm going to add my own trendy phrase to the mix: Web of Ideas. Yes I know, Web of Ideas isn't a particularly original phrase. When I googled it, I found a number of old newspaper articles and school assignments that used it. But still I want to use it myself, because it succinctly states what I have always believed the World Wide Web is all about: dissemination of ideas. Ralph Waldo Emerson, a 19th century American writer, once said: "The ideas in every man's mind make him what he is." We're lucky to live in the 21st century. We have Web technologies such as weblogs and RSS to help us discover, create and share ideas. I'll write more about the Web of Ideas later. For now (it's getting late and I'm starting to ramble), I want to point to an interesting development at Erik Benson's weblog. Erik is developing an idea database. Hey, good idea Erik ;-) [Read/Write Web] 3:39:25 PM

BlogHunter.com Blog Hunter. Blog Hunter is a new directory and community that just started up. It's in it's baby stages right now, but it looks like it can become something much like the LA Blogs community. Membership is free. Members can add their blog to a public directory (you don't have to be a member to see the directory), make comments and post in a community blog. This site has pontential. By (sullivan40). [Metapop] 1:33:29 PM

Word on the Street It's funny now, because the campaign fundraising issue is over. Howard Dean has levelled the field. The internet surfers are now a key source for campaign money, just as long as the candidate is interesting. Maybe even more interesting for 2003 is the live, person to person effect of Meet-ups, rallies, poster campaigns, and word of mouth. White House for Sale Announcement. 08 Aug 03 his Web site [WhiteHouseForSale.org, a project of Public Citizen] will track the special-interest contributions to President Bush's 2004 re-election campaign and analyze the record of favoritism, conflicts-of-interest and influence peddling related to those contributions. This site will focus on Bush's fundraising because he is the only major candidate who has opted out of the public financing system during the primaries. Bush has done so because he believes he can collect at least $200 million during the primary season - nearly five times the amount a candidate who remains in the public financing system can raise and spend. Yet, the president is unopposed... [Read Full News Release (.pdf)] [WhiteHouseforSale.org] [KWSnet Radio Weblog] 12:44:42 PM