Daniel’s Blog

I am very pleased to announce that Beki and I are going to get married!!!!

I proposed to Beki at the Cardiff New Year Celebrations (Calennig) 2008/2009, just after midnight. I did indeed provide her with a ring (18ct White Gold and Cluster Diamond).

The wedding is starting to be planned, we have an initial idea of doing it in Summer 2011, but this may become 2010. Interestingly, and depending on whether the Church is happy to do so, we’re planning to have the service streamed over the web… but more on that later! (<– typical geeks!)

I know that all our friends and family who read this blog will be very happy for us both, and thank you to all those who have commented on our new status face-to-face or by phone, text-message, email, facebook-message and instant message.

Merry Christmas 2008 to every one of you.

For those of you who aren’t Christian, please take some time to think about 2008 and think about the forthcoming year 2009…. because Christmas is truly about the turning of the year, the beginnings of new things for you.

For those of you who are Christian, I hope you’ve had a good Midnight Mass/Eucharist/Communion/Service (if you celebrate that in your denomination). Let the symbolic birth of Jesus be a spiritual refreshment within us, and a time to think about new beginnings in our day-to-day life.

Merry Christmas, and Many Blessings. May the light shine on us all.

Daniel

(Let’s note that it’s also Sol Invictus Day, Yule (in some understandings) and the Feast of Saint Anastasia of Sirmium (on the Roman Catholic Calendar))

There exists such people who overly promote a certain religion, whether that be Christianity, Islam or something else. These are the Evangelicals of this religion. You’ll find them in the street advocating their religion, and saying that if you don’t share their faith then some nasty things will happen to you whether that’s in this life or some other. I think that if you want to believe that then fine, but you shouldn’t scare people into believing the same thing as you.

There also exists another kind of person, which is becoming increasingly more common in recent years. These people believe that there is no God (i.e. they are atheist), and they are sometimes pretty extreme about it… often saying things like “if you are religious, then that will eventually lead to pain”.

Surely, this kind of atheism is just as bad as the evangelical religious belief?

It’s really got to me recently, because…

If I see a Christian Street Preacher, then I sometimes stop and talk to him/her, and congratulate them on their spirituality… but then I’ll defend other peoples views (including the atheist and humanist point of view), as everybody has the right to believe in what they want to believe as long as it isn’t hurting themselves or anyone else. I personally have a different understanding of spirituality, religion and the universe to what the Christian Street Preacher has.

When I talk to an atheist extremist, I will also congratulate them on being firm in their understanding of the universe. But I will defend the spiritual and religious way of living, even the ones that I may not agree with. Once again, this is because I feel that everybody has the right to believe in what they want to as long as it isn’t hurting themselves or others.

This hatred is definitely not healthy, whether it’s from a “theist” or an “atheist”. The fact is we are all human, and we have some kind of connection with nature… so instead of arguing all the time, lets just get on with life and try not to hurt people (mentally, physically, spiritually or in any other way).

Bah, seriously irritates me….

(rant over… feel much better now)

I’m now, officially, half way through (ish) my Masters in Machine Learning and Data Mining at the University of Bristol… and I’ve got a decision to make very soon.

When I started my MSc I thought “yeah, I’ll do the MSc and then go straight onto a PhD“. It has now come to the time when I need to decide if I do want to go straight onto a PhD, and if so in which area. I’ve already seen one of my Professors about it, who would be happy to supervise me as long as I have an interesting idea to research and I get a reasonable grade for my MSc…. so that’s not an issue.

The problem that I am having is that, although I really really would love to do a PhD, I do really really want to have a normal and stable lifestyle… which is very hard to have while doing a PhD in addition to only getting the very minimalistic funding that a studentship provides. Which means that there is the proper full-time working again.

There are lots of options, and at the moment the more favourable one is working for one or two years (at least) after the MSc and then doing a PhD later on in life (for instance, if I start it in two years time I’ll be 26 and should still have finished it before I’m 30).

If I did start the PhD from next year, which isn’t necessarily favourable at this precise moment, I would be in one (or a couple) of the following fields:

• Logic Programming (particularly ILP).
• Semantics (Description Logic and/or the Semantic Web) and/or Pragmatics (potentially the Pragmatic Web).
• Natural Language Processing.
• Artificial Intelligence applied to the Study of the Humanities/Society and Liberal Arts.
• Computational Imagination.
• Can computers attain wisdom? Or tap into Sophia? (Artificial Wisdom / Artificial Spiritual Wisdom).

So much to think about. If you’d like to contact me about anything I’ve written in this blog post (or elsewhere), then please do get in touch. I’m always happy to hear from people, and discuss things in detail.

Many many thanks for reading, and so many thanks for those who have and will be supporting me through my decisions.

Daniel

Well I’ve done it. Upgraded to 2.7, which was easy because my Fantastico panel allowed me to do it quicker than the stuff I was playing about with yesterday!

Anyways, am just trying out the new post editor. Quite nice!

I’m thinking about upgrading this blog. It’s currently running using the Wordpress 2.3.3 engine, and so I’m finally thinking about upgrading it to the latest Wordpress (version 2.7).

I’m in the process of updating a test blog to 2.7, in order to test that my theme doesn’t break. If I do update this blog then it’ll probably be this weekend or next week, I’ll let you know how it goes! (But there may be some down time if something goes wrong, so if you come back and see the blog down then you know why )

Cheers,

Daniel

Random thought:

If the Google Docs system interfaced directly with your hard drive (but still through the browser, potentially running locally) would you use it over OpenOffice / Microsoft Office?

I think it might be quite good. I’ve used Google Docs quite a lot recently, but find it a bit of a nuisance the files aren’t directly on my hard drive.

I’d be interested in hearing other peoples views.

Good News!

My second article through IBM developerWorks has been published! (there are one or two things wrong with this article, I won’t say anything about it for now and will try to rectify it asap!)

It’s titled “Building Semantic Web CRUD operations using PHP” (<– click the title to go read it). It’s essentially about showing:

• The similarities and differences between the Relational Database Model and the Resource Description Framework model.
• The similarities and differences between SQL and SPARQL.
• How to implement SPARQL calls for Creation, Reading, Updation and Deletion (CRUD) operations using PHP.

After a bit of toying with it (keep at it, because it will be challenging but worth it!), you should be able to build your Web Application with RDF and SPARQL manipualtion.

If anyone has any questions about it (or about my previous developerWorks article which was titled “Intelligent Agents and the Semantic Web“) then please do let me know.

Oh yeah, by the way… both of my articles so far have been “featured” articles on the IBM developerWorks front page

Daniel

A random musing….

Spirituality and Religion are different. Basically, Religion is Spirituality but with dogma and creeds attached. I think everybody has spirituality, and it’s their choice whether to acknowledge that. If they do acknowledge that then they should be free to choose whether or not to explore that through formal means (e.g. at a Church or a Temple etc)… that’s when that person becomes religious.

The problem is spirituality is attached to us, and we (as individuals) grow in person physically and mentally. This kind of growth, or evolution if you like, filters through into the spiritual us. Unfortunately, religion is a collective thing, and so if one person evolves their spirituality, it’s unlikely that the rest of that religious group evolves with him/her. Therefore, that religion may become more of a degrading religion than an upgrading religion to that person… and for fulfilment that person may develop better using other techniques which that group may not be providing.

Unfortunately, the people within religious institutions are sometimes too conservative in their beliefs. Therefore, if you are not in their group, then you have the opposite of their beliefs and become some kind of “nemesis” to them. This is pretty unfair if you take the fact that we’re constantly evolving into consideration, and that we, as humans, are completely equal (no matter of gender, culture or race).

From a personal point of view, I class myself as Christian and I go to a Church of England (Anglican/Episcopal) Church. But I acknowledge my Spirituality, I don’t follow the crowds and I try to make my own mind up on things when I have the knowledge and intellect to do so. This has lead to conversations with other Christians which seem to prove that I have completely different views to them. I was even talking to a atheist (who acknowledges his spirituality) the other day, and he actually related my belief system most similar to Atheism, Humanism or Buddhism…. stating that everything I said even Richard Dawkins would not disagree with (see his online article “Atheists for Jesus“). But this is my current state of spirituality, I feel certain things about the world and I apply them to my understanding of things. I therefore decide to interpret Christian scripture in what may seem like a Humanist/Buddhist fashion, because that is what Christianity speaks to me… and on the other hand I am completely happy to talk to another Christian who thinks otherwise.

I feel that it’s not going to be religion that makes peace on this world, but it’ll be the acknowledgement of spirituality. We are all spiritual people, we are all humans (brothers and sisters if you like), it is very natural to be spiritual, but it doesn’t always fit to be religious.

Yes, I feel like we’re entering a third era which will eventually unite all peoples through acknowledgement of spirituality.

Comments welcome,

Daniel

I’ve just taken this shot out of my window:

It’s a bit blurry because my digital camera is getting old now (it’s a 2 Megapixel Nikon Coolpix 2500). It was taken from my flat on Whiteladies Road, Clifton, Bristol, England.

Now, who said that Bristol isn’t a lovely place to live! Look it’s so beautiful!