Daniel’s Blog

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.

It’s absolutely fantastic that more and more people are taking up Semantic Web solutions and providing RDF.

Guys and Girls it’s time for the next step!

This is something that I’ve been thinking about for a while. People, although they are taking up the SemWeb, they don’t seem to understand the full power of it’s expressiveness. This isn’t a providing problem, this is a usage problem…. Yes it’s fantastic that we can interlink objects now, but what does it mean to be an object? What can we learn implicitly and explicitly from this highly-structured and highly-distributed web of data objects? and finally, what can we do with what we learn?

These questions are the real heart and real soul of the Semantic Web, and an area in which us Semantic Web advocates have really mentioned much before.

And please note, this shouldn’t *just* be an academic thing. Systems which embrace this, and which are in the wild, would greatly benefit. It’s breaking down the walled-garden and combining the intelligent systems which have previously been in websites like amazon.co.uk and google, and exposing those methods to the real semantic data.

The key to all of this is improvement of society. If your project improves society (or helps the environment in some way), then your project should be excellent. Whether or not it makes money!

Hope this all makes sense…. feel free to ask questions, or give your opinion.

Daniel

Rumours have it, that there will be another Bristol Knowledge Unconference.

The last one was a success… a good turn out, some interesting talks and discussions. So it’s only right to do another one.

This one coming up doesn’t have a date yet, or a location. It will, unlike the previous, have a “theme” which I’ll be trying to get speakers for…. and of course, it’ll be in Bristol somewhere.

So… I need some helpers. Please do get in contact with me if you can:

• help me find a location
• help do some general organisational/administrative assistance
• offer to do a talk about knowledge, set to a specific them
• give some money to pay for food and drink

I will strive to make this Unconference completely free for attendees, which does mean that we require the location to be free (or sponsored) and the food to be supplied (or paid for) by some organisation(s)/people.

So please do get in contact if you can help in any way by sending me an email ( danieljohnlewis at gmail dot com ). Else, I’ll keep you all up to date through my blog.

Thank you,

Daniel Lewis

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.

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 couldn’t agree more with Nadeem when he says:

It’s so easy to become disenchanted due, as a species, to our seemingly limitless apathy, yet what is truly regrettable is that because of that apathy it’s often hard for us to remember our achievements, and the limitless potential within us.

I’ve just done a blog post on “Linked Data is more important than the Large Hadron Collider“, and that got me thinking about the whole Holistic

and Reductionistic points of view.

Everything that we do has an effect on other people or things, and this is why it’s important to do everything with care. We can achieve care by looking at everything with:

• A holistic view and a reductionist view
• A liberal view and a conservative view
• A forward-thinking (futuristic) view and a now-thinking (contemporary) view and a backward-looking (historic) view
• An artistic view and a scientific view
• A rational view and what might seem as irrational

Some of these are really hard to achieve, but it’s incredibly important to try.

For example:

• If you are conservative, then try to think about what you believe in a liberal point of view. For instance, a lot of conservative Christians are against gay marriage, try to think about it from the liberal Christian perspective, that not all people are Christian let alone of the same tradition within Christianity. Marriage has taken on a more secular perspective, and it has legal benefits. Liberal Christians should also look on the at conservative Christianity, conservative Christians believe that the bible is entirely literal and free from error, and they achieve spirituality from that, then of course they would be against gay marriage. (This way of thinking also applies to Conservative and Liberal politics)
• In order to achieve an overall understanding of an experiment, it’s important to take in what has happened before, where we are now, and all possible outcomes of the experiment. (This way of thinking also applies to business ventures)
• Atheists (such as Richard Dawkins) tend to look at people like Charles Darwin with an entirely Rationalistic point of view…. this isn’t good. How about the Irrational point of view? Yep, thats a strange question for people who stick with a rationalist approach. The works of Darwin can actually be looked at from an Irrational point of view. Darwin took a big leap from what was generally believed during his time, but maybe it can be looked at from a spiritual point of view. This works from the other point of view, who work irrationally (e.g. those who believe that the earth is flat, or only 6000 years old), try to think about your beliefs rationally.

The key to all of this is the enhancement of belief and the enhancement of the outcome of certain things that we do and say. By appreciating other peoples perspective, you can achieve the whole perspective, which then assists in the minimalisation of bad-effects.

There is one final point which is important to try our best to live by, but we all (very) often fail:

• Altruism

Yeah, you heard me right:

Linked Data is more important than the Large Hadron Collider

My points:

• I feel that the Large Hadron Collider is a bit of a waste of time, money and a big waste of energy (think of all the carbon emissions!).
  • Why do we need to know the very very smallest parts of things?
  • Why do we need to know what happened microseconds after the big bang?
  • Why not just analyse what happened if the Higgs Boson was and wasn’t found (every possible aspect)?
  • Face it: It’s not going to cure Cancer, or prevent HIV
  • Face it: we’re still going to be here whether or not the Large Hadron Collider was successful
• Linked Data on the other hand is incredibly important
  • Everything in real life (conceptual/abstract and objective/physical) is interconnected with everything else
  • We have a lot of data about everything, but it’s not interconnected
  • Linked Data allows for the interconnectedness of data, and therefore true computation modelling of everything. Which then allows for a real and useful insight into scientific (and artistic and historic) data!
  • Just imagine a world where you can easily browse through the history of the atom, and then delve into the science found on the atom, and then go deeper into the subatomic level, and then browse back out into the historic realm, finding out about experiments that happened and whether it had any impact on society.
  • Thanks to Linked Data:
    • a lot of problems can be solved before they arise
    • new areas of research can be formed
    • “recreating the wheel” can be prevented
    • a really interesting browsing experience can be achieved

So there we go. That is why Linked Data is more important than the Large Hadron Collider….

Sorry to the physics-geeks, but maybe you can gain something useful from Linked Data if you aren’t already. I know that some Chemistry and Physics people already have some Semantic Web / Linked Data research & development going on, and hey Tim Berners-Lee did start the Web project at CERN.

I fear that a lot of people within science and even computer science forget to look at things with Holistic eyes, as a lot of science and mathematics is incredibly Reductionist.

We’re only one piece in a very very large interconnected puzzle

Watch “Pale Blue Dot“

In the past I’ve used the term “Universe of Discourse” in order to sum up the true meaning of Linked Data Spaces. Well, I’ve recently come across a great saying, which I believe is by the Sufi’s which goes like this:

From you I receive, to you I give;
Together we share, and from this we live.

Which I think is a wonderful quote, and something to certainly think about in order to analyse exactly how you do live your life. As this has a direct impact on life, it is a real bonus if we can take this into computer science also… the first part (”From you I receive, to you I give”) we see in Open Data Initiatives, but in order to pick up on the second part (”Together we share, and from this we live”) we have to look towards Linked Data (which together with the Open Data Initiative results in the Linking Open Data Project).

There is a lot of stuff in computer science which could take advantage of theories and practices within philosophy, psychology and even religion. The key is to be open minded!