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boakes.org » Semantic Computing

Semantic Computing: the extension of the Semantic Web to the point where its methods and standards are pervasive in all computing. If you don’t believe this will happen, you might as well go the whole hog and say that the wheel will never catch on.

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Viva Voce

June 1st, 2007, by Rich, in Nice Things, Semantic Computing, Tech.


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Viva Voce

In Britain, the process of finishing a PhD involves the submission of a written thesis, followed by an oral examination called a viva voce (the literal Latin translation is “live voice”). The “viva”, as it’s commonly known, is an in-depth discussion into all aspects of the thesis which typically lasts between 90 and 180 minutes. It is conducted by a specially convened examination board, with both internal and external examiners, who typically have have four weeks to digest the thesis beforehand. In the viva, the PhD candidate must defend their thesis: if the defence is successful, the candidate is awarded the degree More…

Wanted: SVG Rendering Timer

December 4th, 2006, by Rich, in SVG, Semantic Computing, Tech.


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Wanted: SVG Rendering Timer

I’m doing a lot of work with SVG at the moment, and something that would be very useful to understand is exactly which parts of a diagram are taking the longest to process and render. More…

WebCast - TimBL in Ox - Future of the Web

March 27th, 2006, by Rich, in Semantic Computing.


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WebCast - TimBL in Ox - Future of the Web

Two weeks ago TimBL gave a public lecture, organized by the Oxford Internet Institute. We were fortunate enough to get on the list so we went along. More…

Never mind the technology, feel the community.

August 17th, 2005, by Rich, in Semantic Computing.


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Never mind the technology, feel the community.

This is a bit of a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend quote, but since it’s semantic web related, I guess FOAFesque quoting is allowable. Danny Ayers just commented on Phil Wilson’s comment regarding Nick Lothian’s comment that “Every time anyone dares to question RDF the RDFites assume they don’t know how it works.” More…

Not a new data model for the web

July 27th, 2005, by Rich, in Semantic Computing, Slashdot.


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Not a new data model for the web

I think the recent presentation by Adam Bosworth at the MySQL User’s Conference has been a little over-interpreted. It’s certainly interesting and presents some useful perspectives, but it’s not the “seminal lecture” that today’s slashdot story describes. More…

Italian English

December 13th, 2004, by Rich, in RDFX.

SWAP LogoI’ve just returned from the First Italian Workshop on the Semantic Web (SWAP 2004), organised by long time chat-buddy and RDFIG lurker GiovanniT. More…

RDF Content Negotiation (Apache and Java)

September 23rd, 2004, by Rich, in RDFX, Semantic Computing.

I notice that several folk are arriving at the rdf namespace oddness page which describes the slightly opaque problem of understanding RDF Schema URI’s and how to go about loading them.

I’ve long since found a solution, following a discussion on #rdfig a long time back. That solution is content negotiation, so for the record, here’s how I’ve done it. More…

when is an rdf schema complete?

September 20th, 2004, by Rich, in Semantic Computing.

something on #foaf a couple of days ago got me thinking…

*. term_status describes “the status of a vocabulary term, one of stable, unstable [or] testing“, so at some point, an unstable or untested term may mature and become stable - it can thus be documented as such and thereafter may become relied upon by third party authorsMore…

Mixing RDF with XML

September 10th, 2004, by Rich, in RDFX, Semantic Computing.

The pages discussed here concern the representation of XML within RDF (a very different concept to that of the serialization of RDF in XML). More…

Meta-Meta-Data

May 21st, 2004, by Rich, in Semantic Computing.

I recently read an interesting article about metadata (called “MetaCrap“) which opens with what appears to be a debunking, but closes with confirmation of what I firmly believe - that metadata can be authored by humans and machines and that regardless of the author, it’s down to the end user to decide whose data and services should be trusted.

More…