Just to let all my friends, colleagues and clients know that I shall be away from my desk and out of my office:

• From: Thursday 25th August 2011
• Until: Tuesday 30th August 2011

During this time I shan’t be picking up any work-based emails. This is because I’ll be in the middle of Cheltenham Racecourse enjoying Greenbelt Festival 2011 - which is an annual Festival with Music, Christian-Worship, Christian-Talks, Economic Talks, Ecological Talks and various other bits and pieces - it is a very Liberal and very Progressive festival (in comparison to many other Christian Festivals out there)

Many of you know that I find August one of the most stressful times of the year, and Greenbelt is my form of “getting away from it all”… before busy September steps in.

I’ll respond to any emails I get once I am back. I apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

Many many thanks,

Daniel

For the true technologist there is a clear progression from Relational Databases to Objective Databases (OO or ORM) to Graph Databases (including Linked Data Triple/Quad Stores). It is possible to “automatically devolve” (for want of a better phrase) newer data structures into the old data structures… but that’s not what I am trying to get to today.

I’m coming across many technologists who are forming cliques, and their language is becoming restricted to their cliques. This is worrying, because it forms islands which don’t trade (to use business terminology). Not only this, but it also restricts access to the average person in the street, the technologies and tools that these islands create can become more and more distant from their potential users.

The idea of “Whirling Databases” is not to see “Databases” in terms of a specific data structure or data management system, but to see databases as a generic repository for information, capable of inputting and outputting data in different formats and frameworks. In a Linked Data system, data needs to “whirl” around the web using “links” as their travelling routes. We should work together, collaboratively and collectively to achieve this.

As some of you know, I’ve recently been working quite closely with OpenLink Software to help them help others learn about Linked Data. Linked Data, as a generic term, is an incredibly powerful tool - and a tool that should never get bogged down in frameworks (such as RDF) or formats (such as RDF/XML), it should be applicable to all frameworks and formats capable of providing outbound links, and capable of receiving inbound links. I’ve been working with Virtuoso Universal Server solidly for over a year now (not just with OpenLink Software, but with other businesses too), and I truly believe that allows for this travelling via “links” in Linked Data for a variety of frameworks and formats - this is powerful stuff!

A couple of months ago I wrote about “Professional Memberships“, and how I was considering leaving the BCS (British Computing Society). Well, I’ve got a few months left, and I have decided to definitely not renew my membership.

The 7 reasons for my leaving:

1. It costs quite a bit of money, which in this current economic period isn’t great. Granted its not as much as some societies, but there are more reasons.
2. The only thing that I really “get out” of my membership is the use of the “MBCS” letters after my name. Granted this does mean that other people can understand that I am at a certain level of professionalism, but I can be at that level of professionalism without the letters and without the membership.
3. The BCS is far far too business orientated, its audience is primarily involved with the running of computing businesses. Granted it does have some technology based articles, and many of its interest-groups are academic in nature, but it just doesn’t fit with my niche.
4. The BCS has no events that I’m particularly interested in, and nothing really happens in Bristol / North Somerset. Granted that its probably one of those societies that you only get things out of it if you can put stuff in, but putting stuff in seems incredibly strenuous.
5. What I was trying to find in the BCS, I have found in the WCIT. The WCIT is practical, it has a better framework for personal development, it is both business and technology focused, it has some rather interesting panels and it is easy to “put stuff in” and “take stuff out” - therefore I am pleased to be a WCIT Journeyman.
6. There are events out there which are no-membership required, that are more interesting and more suited to my (technical and non-technical) interests.
7. I can rejoin BCS in the future if I wish to.

Of course, my reasons for leaving are clear for the here and now, but I should say that I’m sure that the BCS is useful and interesting for many. I do believe that the reason for the existence of the BCS is pure, and I do hope that I don’t sway people to leave it, or put off people from joining it just because of my current dissatisfaction.

At this present time I’ll be focusing on my computing-society-related involvement with the WCIT, but I may explore other areas in the future.

Feel free to comment!

In the last couple of weeks I’ve been using a programming language (Python) that I’ve not used extensively in the past to work on a unit of a production website, increasing the simplicity of the unit and hopefully also increasing the efficiency (Occam’s Razor stylie?). I have been learning “as I go along”, and with a little help from a borrowed book[1]. It has been fun, and I’ve found myself liking Python a lot more than I was expecting (as I documented in my previous blog post about My Python Learning Curve).

Within the past week I’ve also picked up a small project (almost finished), which was essentially “Web Design“. Those of you who know me, probably know that I’m not really a “designer” but a “developer”. So this has been a bit of a learning curve for me too, actual practical - production level use of CSS (both 2.1 and 3 - focusing on getting it working for Chrome, Webkit, Firefox and IE >= 8), and also some graphical work using the GIMP.

Being freelance means that I’ve been able to focus on learning new things, and doing it quickly - its something that I love. I may, or may not, use the new Python and Design skills in the future - but hopefully it helps me to become a more well-rounded freelancer. Variety is also a spice, and so it has been nice to step away from the PHP/MySQL and Semantic Web stuff that I’ve been doing for quite a while.

The next step is progression. Next week is the beginning of a new tax-year here in the United Kingdom, and I hope that I will be able to progress using some variety (as indicated above), some reuse of my existing skill set, some hard work, some networking and a bit of luck!

Where am I going (i.e. where am I progressing to)? Who knows where the path may take us? but travel it nonetheless in good faith taking decisions when needed.

I have figured out that at any one time I have:

• A favoured set of skills (skills that I already have, some of which might be rusty)
• A set of skills that I’ve recently been using or learning (skills that I have and are refreshed in my mind)
• A set of skills that I want to acquire
• A set of interests which I wish to apply my skills to

So I look for freelance work that will combine as many of the above as possible (so if you can help then please let me know!).

As I am becoming a Journeyman of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists, I shall be “paired up” with a mentor (someone who has many many more years in industry than I - although I do have quite a few already to be honest). This mentor will hopefully help to guide me on my career path, hopefully help me to avoid pitfalls that I have made in the past and choose good choices to make. I always hope that I can get more involved with the British Computer Society, but haven’t yet found their events particularly interesting (and when they do seem interesting, then they are usually somewhere else at some strange time).

So, time to plan combining skills and interests for the new tax year then!

Footnotes:

1. Learning Python by Mark Lutz

A quick lunchtime post…

I believe that each Christmas and New Year begins a fresh start. For me, I tend to truly look at the previous year and analyse it and calculate what I want to do in the future year and beyond. 2010 and was an interesting year, it saw my marriage, my transition between being employed to self-employed and me moving two times within 7 months! This was in addition to a few other interesting bits and pieces.

Now the general plan is to continue to improve myself, particularly being a freelancer/contractor. I want to get better at being organised, get better at communication and get better at estimating how long things will take. Its all about learning from mistakes, and learning fast! That’s my plan for 2011, and I hope to prepare for 2012 in some way too.

You should see some output from me being self-employed very soon. You’ve possibly seen a little already, but there is one particular “biggy” which shall be released very soon. I also have a couple of things I’ve been working on in my spare time, just for my own amusement/interest which will be released soon too.

So please do keep in touch all of you. If you live outside of Bristol (England), and happen to be passing through then give us a nudge as we may be able to have a quick catch-up.

Hope you all had a lovely Christmas and New Years Celebration, and hope to talk to you all soon. I’ve included some contact points at the bottom of this post if you do wish to get in touch.

Daniel
—
Daniel Lewis
- Location: Bristol, England
* Skype: daniel.lewis
* GTalk/Jabber/XMPP: danieljohnlewis {.at.} gmail {.dot.} com
* Twitter: danieljohnlewis
* Facebook: danieljohnlewis
* LinkedIn: danieljohnlewis

The International Knowledge Expo 2011: https://www.knowledge-expo.com/

It will be in mid-late 2011 in Bristol, UK. More details available on the website, please register your interest on the site to stay up to date.

I’ll be posting some informal information on this blog from time-to-time, but all formal information will be on the official website.

Here are some informal give-aways:
Slogan:

• “Building Knowledge Bridges”

Mission Statement:

• To bring together far reaching communities in order to share knowledge about working with knowledge.

We hope to have:

• Stalls
• Talks (including Keynotes)
• Job Advertising Areas
• Socialising Areas

So yes, please do keep up-to-date on: The International Knowledge Expo 2011 website: https://www.knowledge-expo.com/

Hi all,

I’ve slotted this into both the vanirsystems category (as it is a article written by me, Daniel Lewis), and the interesting category (as it is something other than technology - namely spirituality/theology).

I have written a new article for the company TRCB, it is about specific forms of Mysticism/Philosophy which have been inspired by Christianity. They are namely Theosophy, Anthroposophy and Swedenborgianism. The article attempts to compare them, their societies and their attached churches.

Heres the summary:

Theosophy, Anthroposophy and Swedenborgianism have had a reasonable amount of influence on modern day life: Theosophy brought many Buddhist and Hindu texts to the west, Anthroposophy brought new forms of teaching and mystical elements of Christianity to the mainstream, and Swedenborgianism has influences on philosophy and poetry. This article explores all three schools, and their respective societies and churches.

Heres the link to the full article:
Theosophy, Anthroposophy and Swedenborgianism - Their Societies and Churches (on TRCB)

Please do have a read, give me a good rating, and comment (either comment on here, or via a share on twitter or facebook or something like that). It is of course quite a concise article, its a topic which could definitely fill at least one book! So please keep that in mind. I’m happy to describe things in further detail if people need/want me to. One thing I forgot to mention is that Gandhi was involved with the Theosophical Society.

Many thanks, and the Brightest Blessings to all,

Daniel

Back in the office

First of all, I’d just like to say that I am back in the home-office after the honeymoon, and working hard! So I am now picking up emails, having meetings and doing work as usual… so do feel free to get in touch.

Language Processing

Secondly… Beki and I went to Sicily (a town called Cefalu’) on our honeymoon, and before we went I decided that it would probably be a good idea to learn some of the basics of Italian. I know a bit of Spanish, and a tiny bit of French and a very tiny bit of Swedish, so picking up the basics of another language could potentially be a bit easier than learning a language from scratch. While learning Italian it came to me that Italian, and the other Latin-based languages are incredibly “rules-based“, they follow quite strict grammar rules which are almost followed, even the shortening of sentences follow a certain rule. This differs from English, which I would call “lexicon-based“, where words have set meanings with a very subtle grammatical influence and are strung together using very liberal grammar rules.

The question then comes then, that, maybe it would be easier (i.e. more semantically viable) to do computational language processing - in its logical form rather than its statistical form - on a language such as Italian, or even Latin.

This is relevant for my research and development in Natural Language Processing, which I have always favoured the symbolic processing over the connectionist or statistical approaches. Maybe it is something I need to look into in more detail, and maybe there is some research about it elsewhere (if my readers know of any then please do let me know, either by a comment or by sending me an email!).

I’ve decided that this will be my last blog post until after we’re back from our honeymoon holiday on the 5th September.

So if you would like to get in touch, then please do so before the 20th August 2010. After then Beki and I will be getting married (21st August) and going on honeymoon (22nd August - 5th September). I shall be picking up calls and receiving emails again from the 6th September 2010. Of course, you can send me an email during the time that I’m away, but I shan’t answer until I’m back.

Into married-life! It is a very exciting time for me! :-)

Welcome to the New Vanir Systems Blog.

It is true that I used to have a blog called “Daniels Blog“. I hadn’t posted for a while, and it seemed to become a bit redundant. It will still continue to run in the background, but I’m treating it a bit like an archive now. It will be replaced with this blog, the Vanir Systems Blog.

The mission of this blog is:

1. To update everybody interested with the work done by Vanir Systems, this will be using the “vanirsystems” category.
2. To highlight interesting bits of technical news, along with my opinion, using the “technical” category. This may be on the topic of the Semantic Web / Linked Data, or Artificial Intelligence, Programming or Web Development.
3. To highlight interesting bits of general news, along with my opinion, using the “interesting” category. This may be on the topic of religion, spirituality, theology, philosophy, psychology, or a mixture of science and technology.
4. To provide code snippets in various programming languages, using the “codesnippets” category.
5. To provide reviews or previews of products (hardware, software, etc), using the “reviews” category. If you have anything that you would like me to (p)review then please to get in touch, and I am sure that we may be able to work out a deal.

It will attempt to:

1. Use relevant inbound tags
2. Use outbound links to relevant information
3. Be 100% valid XHTML that is reasonably POSH - wish me luck ;-) (maybe with sneaky bits of RDFa or Microformats)

Thank you for reading, and I hope you join me here again soon.

Daniel