Daniel’s Blog

Today, in the Christian calendar, it is John the Baptist day. Every Christian will known the story of John’s birth, John’s baptisms and John’s death as explained in the canonical bible. We celebrate this day as a remembrance of the wonderful life of John the Baptist.

However!!! Little does the average Christian know (and those of other spiritual paths) that John the Baptist is not just a Christian Character!

John the Baptist appears in Mandaeanism, Islam and Bahaism.

In Mandaeanism, John the Baptist is a key figure in scripture. His Mandaean name is Yahya/Yahia. Mandaeanism has quite different theology to Judeo-Christianity, but it does actually detail the baptism of Jesus. Here is one of the fantastic quotes from Mandaean Scripture:

“Bring fire and burn me; bring sword and hew me in pieces.” But the priests in Jerusalem answered to Yahy?: “Fire does not burn thee, O Yahy?, for Life’s Name has been uttered o’er thee. A sword does not hew thee in pieces, O Yahy?, for Life’s Son rests here upon thee.”  -

Mandaean John the Baptiser
John the Baptist can be found in Islam too. His Islamic name is also Yahya. Here is one quote from the Koran:

“O Yahya! take hold of the Book with strength, and We granted him wisdom while yet a child” -

The Koran
And also (but not finally) he is mentioned in the Baha’i faith. John is one of the prophets, and is mentioned here:

“As to the list of the prophets with whom Bahá’u'lláh identified Himself in the passage found on pages 26 and 27 of ‘The Dispensation of Bahá’u'lláh’, their names are as follows: Abraham, Moses, Joseph, John the Baptist, Jesus, Imam Husayn, on whom Bahá’u'lláh has conferred an exceptionally exalted station, (and) the Bab.” -

Lights of Guidance
There are also various other spiritual reference to John the Baptist in various Gnostic and Apocryphal-Christian writings.
But it doesn’t stop there… if you dig deep enough you’ll find references to John the Baptist in writings about Anthroposophy, Theosophy and even Freemasonry. But maybe that’s a topic for another time.

So I hope you all have a joyous John the Baptist Day! Christian, Mandaean, Muslim, Baha’i, Gnostic, Anthroposophic, Masonic and otherwise!

ok, so the next book by Dan Brown is titled “The Lost Symbol” (even though it had the code-name through writing of “The Solomon Key”), and will be released in September 2009.

All of the Dan Brown fans seem to be excited to get their hands on it. But many Freemasons are worried…. the reason… because The Lost Symbol is rumoured to be about Freemasonry (but as of yet we don’t have full evidence of this). Dan Brown is very well known to make very tenuous links between things, and merge fiction with non-fiction… so as a warning, please don’t believe everything that he says, and remember that he is a fiction writer.

However, there is some clever marketing going on at the Random House which involves the new “The Lost Symbol Website“, as well as a @lostsymbolbook twitter feed.

The twitter feed of which has the first post of:

Codes of ethics? T 10 C; 6 P O T SOD; 12 S O T Z

Which I know what it means

Yep, thats right… I’ve published my own poetry book.

It is a very high quality print which contains 25 of my poems spanning the years 2002 to 2009. My poetry, if you don’t already know, is very Spiritually, Philosophically and Society orientated.

You can buy it from lulu here: http://www.lulu.com/content/7291647 (See the Light and See the Dark by Daniel Lewis)

Here is the description: “A collection of poetry written by Daniel Lewis between 2002 and 2009. His poetry is inspired by life, and more specifically spirituality, philosophy and society. This very high quality book will compliment any household. It is a must have!”

Hi all,

One of my last blog posts was about trying to find a job here in/around Bristol. Well the good news is that I’ve found something to do

From today (Wednesday 10th June 2009), I have a two week contract at nameless. A lovely web design/development agency in the heart of Bristol. They really are a lovely company, who know practically everything about nice user interfaces coupled with strict observance of web standards. It’s going to be good to work as a Content Analyst (a task which is usually assigned to Information Architects) for them for two weeks - particularly as I know some of their staff quite well.

But that’s only a temporary thing. After the two weeks with nameless, I shall be going into permanent full-time work at another web agency in Bristol called Sift Media, which is a publishing company specialising in professional (B2B) online communities (those in Accounting may know of AccountingWEB, those into Knowledge Management may know of KnowledgeBoard…. both of these are projects by Sift Media). I shall be working in the technical team at Sift Media as a Web Developer and probably will offer my various other skills (such as Technical Writing, Knowledge Engineering, Semantic Web etc) when they are needed. Sift Media is part of a larger organisation called The Sift Group, which is a more general web organisation providing the Collaboration and Social Networking platform called Sift Unity.

I’m very excited at being able to work for both nameless and Sift Media, as both are incredibly professionally and socially reputable organisations.

This is the next part of my journey!

Thank you to all of those who have helped me in my job search, and to those who have sent me their best wishes. I really appreciate it.

Cheers,

Daniel

A recent article by the BBC (titled “Hi-tech aims to improve lifestyle“) got me thinking about technology over history. I mean beyond my previous articles about the web, and actually about technology in general.

Historically, technology has been developed for one of the following purposes:

• To automate what would have been done by (costly) human hands
• To provide more information
• To make things easier, and hopefully making money along the way

But has sometimes left us with these side effects:

• Information overload
• Extreme amounts of advertising
• Job loss and bizarre positions
• Extreme energy consumption
• Procrastination

It is about time that technology started to work in the favour of the natural human being, as well as nature in general. I’d like to see technology which is able to work out methods which create more energy than it actually uses. I’d like to see technology which allows human society get fitter. I’d like to see technology which helps humans use telephones instead of relying on web-based/textual communication. I’d like to see technology which removes us from the screen. I’d like to see technology which gives us worldwide freedom.

Maybe we’re on the way there…. or maybe my dream is only possible by devolving technology and going back to basics by working the land with our hands. Let us hope it is the first, because it is probably too late for the latter.

Hello All,

I’ve decided to go public again! It worked last time, and it was a lovely job, so I thought I’d try it again - going public about my job hunting.

I’m looking for a job in/around/near Bristol. Here are the facts:

• I’ve spent a while (since October 2008) doing postgraduate study at the University of Bristol, in which the greatest thing that I’ve learnt is actually more about myself - rather than any of the course subjects. I’ve also found out that the course itself isn’t actually going to be of any benefit to my career (unless something magical comes up), which is very very disappointing - but at least it was an interesting experience.
• My undergraduate degree was from Oxford Brookes University (2003-2007) and was a BSc(Hons) Intelligent Systems and Software Engineering. I received a 2:1 honours classification.
• I can do software engineering, web development (Web 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0), general computer science research, computer science teaching/tutoring, or technical writing (including Documentation). I particularly enjoy the writing side, and being able to explain/help and attempt to problem solve.
• I just want to help out society. I’m now personally fed up with hiding myself behind education. I want to do real work, working with people, working for a better society. If I can apply my skills and/or interests to tasks then I’ll be happy.
• I would consider work from home, but would much prefer to work with people (e.g. in an office).

The locations I’ll look for:

• Perfect: Bristol (including all suburbs and outside villages)
• Happy to commute / move to: Bath, Wells, Weston-super-Mare, Portishead, Cheltenham, Newport, Cardiff…. or anywhere around/between.
• Would consider: any where in the South-West or possibly the Chilterns area.

You’ll be able to tell my skills from my main site. But they include programming (inc. languages such as Java, Ruby and PHP), databases and knowledgebases (including RDBMS with SQL, and RDF with SPARQL), web development (including XHTML, CSS, XML and Model-View-Controller pattern), technical writing (fluent in English (would be willing to learn others - I know basic Spanish and a tiny bit of Swedish), including the use of TeX), knowledge management (roughly equivalent to Information Architecture), events organising and presentation giving. I’ve got a few other random skills (including being a meditation and reiki practitioner, and I have a strong interest in religion/spirituality), and would be happy to apply those skills to a job if required.

I currently have a couple of job applications which I am waiting to hear back from, and will let you all know if I accept a position.

If you may be able to help, or know someone who can then please do get in touch by email or telephone. I’ll be happy to answer any questions, or even meet up with you for an informal/formal chat. I can also provide a CV/Resume if you request one by email.

Many Thanks,

Daniel

—

• Email: danieljohnlewis [-a-t-] gmail [-d-o-t-] com
• UK Tel: 07834355516
• (other communication details are on my main site: http://vanirsystems.com/ )

There is Hope

Look around,
The worlds gone crazy,
People walking,
People are not acknowledging,
Abysmal ignorance.

Economic problems,
Environmental issues are advancing,
Developing disease,
We have a problem,
Abysmal misery.

There's hope,
But unfortunately seeming radical,
Through knowledge,
Through understanding the world,
It's tough.

Sophia, Wisdom,
Shine us your light,
Ruha d-Qudsha,
Our world needs you,
Bless us.

Now, People,
Listen closely to it,
Through you,
There is inner light,
Know Thyself.

Inner Knowledge,
For knowing your inside,
Betters Yourself,
Better Yourself; Better Society,
Clean, Clear.

Help Society,
With Sophia's Bright Blessings,
Know Thyself,
Be part of society,
New World.

by Daniel Lewis - Friday 3rd April 2009

As more and more time goes by,
I'm realising that my life is constantly changing,
constantly evolving, like the wind or the rain;
speed, direction, pressure and temperature.

Life does continually change,
Sometimes better,
Sometimes we see it as worse,
but we must ride on wind.

Three years before writing this,
I wasn't in a good situation,
I was trapped, but somehow,
Maybe that developed me.
Strength from turbulence.

Now, I am happy,
Consistently learning and evolving spiritually,
Constantly in love,
Always trying my best for society.

This is me. A poem called “Evolution of Myself” written by Daniel Lewis on the 2nd March 2009 at about 6:30pm.

I’ve started using the following setting for my university report writings, and I highly recommend it!:

• For finding articles and books: Google Books, Google Scholar and CiteseerX
• Zotero, a firefox plugin for Bibliography Management. Which includes the ability to sponge bibliographic data from all of the above and many of the article repositories on the web (and Amazon.co.uk books category ).
• BibTeX, which is a bibliographic format that can be exported from Zotero.
• LaTeX, which is a document markup language which is reasonably similar (although in some ways simpler, in other ways more complex than) HTML. LaTeX can also work with BibTeX, by using unique identifiers, LaTeX has the ability to give a code, pull data out of the BibTeX file and provide precise styling for the document that you are referencing.

Absolutely amazing. I highly suggest using all of the above. I also use something called Kile which is an “Integrated LaTeX Environment” for Linux (it was made specifically for KDE, but I use it through Gnome).

I’ve dabbled with LaTeX in the past, but it just didn’t really work for me until recently. So please, if you do write articles, then try out LaTeX if you haven’t already!

UPDATE - Friday 20th February 2009

I’ve given up on Kile, as it doesn’t seem to work on my Laptop. I’m now using Texmaker. Which is cross-platform, and seems a lot more responsive than Kile.

Yep, another SPARQL query. This time listing all UK Prime Ministers and their religions (in order of party). The results are here: “UK Prime Ministers and their Religions“, and here is the SPARQL for it:

SELECT ?PresidentName ?PartyName ?ReligionName
WHERE
{
?president
dbpprop:party ?Party;
dbpprop:order dbpedia:Prime_Minister_of_the_United_Kingdom;
<http://dbpedia.org/ontology/religion> ?Religion;
rdfs:label ?PresidentName.
FILTER (lang(?PresidentName) = "" || langMatches(lang(?PresidentName), "en")).
?Religion rdfs:label ?ReligionName.
FILTER (lang(?ReligionName) = "" || langMatches(lang(?ReligionName), "en")).
?Party rdfs:label ?PartyName.
FILTER (lang(?PartyName) = "" || langMatches(lang(?PartyName), "en"))
} ORDER BY ?PartyName