September 24, 2004

From RDF Browsers to RDF Controllers

Leo Sauermann explained that a generic RDF browser needs a different display definition for each RDF-schema. This makes a lot of sense. I would add that browser-style applications which truly take advantage of RDF out there will also require something along the lines of a "useage template" for each useage scenario.

Describing how an application interacts with multiple RDF stores can be accomplished with a simplified WSCDL or WSFL. What should definitely be included is how the data sources / aggregators are used and queried against in the application's data model.

My own applications accomplish this sort of data definition in 100 or 200 lines of text. At Boingo, I develop frameworks in perl which allow developers to quickly assemble internal database applications. My development style is to use data structures to describe what the Model, View, and Controller are to do (in response to an action called by the client).

Once the structure of the data store is known to an application, it is not very difficult to have entire applications defined in data.

September 14, 2004

Reducing the Tragedy of the RDF Commons

I am working on a nightowl project to harvest, process, and provide useful financial RDF to the public, free of charge. How do I allow others to query this data and, more importantly, refer to nodes in this data in a way that is reliable... without saturating my server with requests?

Some resources I have been checking out:

Distributed querying on the semantic web
Detailed discussion on the www-rdf-interest list.

RDF Peers [PDF]
A continuation of ISI's MAAN [PDF] concept.

Edutella Project
Uses JXTA to distribute RDF data and queries.

RDF Query, distributed...
Search Mesh Topology
Dan Brickley's early discussions.

FeedMesh
For blog update notification, hopefully relieving us of the regular RSS pounding in the near-future. Spotted today by Danny Ayers and others.

September 8, 2004

Password Generator Bookmarklet

Nic Wolff wrote a convenient bookmarklet for those who maintain more web site accounts than is healthy or even normal. It accepts a master password and a host name to generate a password with PAJ's Javascript MD5. View the source on this page to take a closer look.

Spotter: Simon Willison.

September 3, 2004

Search the Commons

Creative Commons has announced an update to their search engine, now powered by Nutch. This is going to be great for those of us who would like to find images and other media for legal incorporation in our creative works.

Spotter: Anil Dash.

September 1, 2004

Analysis of an Artificial Meme

Greg Tyrelle has posted his analysis of Nova Spivak's first meme propagation test: GoMeme 1.0. More interesting than the graphical depiction of the meme spread was his discussion of the problem of isolation and identification of instances.

After reading this paper, I am even more convinced that a large, naturally occurring meme would be a better candidate for study than one of Spivak's GoMemes. A natural meme's content, its ability to propagate, and the nature of its mutations will reveal much more information about a community than a restricted, artificial meme.

Today's huge Fired for Blogging meme is an excellent study. The propagation of Park's post about being fired from Friendster was assisted by Zawodny's mutation: Fired for Blogging. The wide propagation of the original and the development and propagation of its mutations were all powered how each appealed to individual posters. The content of a meme, as difficult as it is to analyze, is crucial to understanding how it mutates and spreads.

Requesting that artificial memes be formatted or left untouched in propagation destroys the wealth of information that "mutation through commentary" provides. Any meme propagation analysis in the blogosphere should take into consideration its content and the nature of its mutations, which are fundamentally intertwined.

By way of Jeremy Zawodny. Countless other instances can be found in Technorati.