Tom Morris: 2007-10-16

2007.10.16

Danny Ayers has boxed up poor Mr. Foafy inside a scary SemWeb box (or, rather, a gladiator helmet). This is based on the new policy that the W3C have put in place on logo usage. Basically, you can't use the new Semantic Web logo in most circumstances. Which is kind of silly, since it's trying to promote a community project. 2007-10-16T19:59:57Z

In today's creationist antics, Sweden good, Alberta, Canada bad. And, of course, the Catholics now think that Karol Wojtyla is a ghost. Does stupidity know no end? Evidently not. 2007-10-16T10:34:10Z

Rich Jelliffe has a post about how ACORD - the XML format for the insurance industries - is using Schematron. I'm stunned by the whole 3,000 page documentation thing. If your specification documents get that long, you should recognise that you have a problem. Just glad I'm not the one having to turn that specification into some kind of headfuck XSD file. Surely, the only sensible way we have to go forward is to make modular schemas. That's the best practice for RDF. XML should follow. Come up with an XML representation for each thing, then piece them together into domain specific use cases. 3,000 page specifications have to stop. 2007-10-16T10:28:25Z

Greta Christina: "So when you tell an atheist (or for that matter, a woman or a queer or a person of color or whatever) not to be so angry, you are, in essence, telling us to disempower ourselves. You're telling us to lay down one of the single most powerful tools we have at our disposal. You're telling us to lay down a tool that no social change movement has ever been able to do without. You're telling us to be polite and diplomatic, when history shows that polite diplomacy in a social change movement works far, far better when it's coupled with passionate anger." Anger is a positive emotion if coupled with something useful. If you aren't angry a lot of the time, you haven't started using your brain properly. 2007-10-16T09:49:50Z

The first wave disappeared in just twelve minutes. 2007-10-16T09:42:42Z

Google has released a new version of their Java mobile Gmail application. Full details and screenshots. 2007-10-16T09:29:10Z

BarCamp London 3 registration is currently open. Quick, get yourself a ticket now before it gets packed out with marketing types and other assorted Internet lowlife! If you miss your chance to get a ticket this very minute, you can get one in one of the next "waves" of registration. Follow Ian Forrester on Twitter if you want to know when that is. 2007-10-16T09:24:45Z

Bob Lory has the full jazz on family mission statements. Going forward, they could suggest that the family executives reorganise the children's room in to more of a cubicle layout, and then maybe making a pie chart to describe stakeholder's holiday experience. Fun or what? 2007-10-16T02:38:15Z

Austin Cline is optimistic, which is something I usually can't be when faced with the continuing existence of Bill Donohue: "There is still a lot of backlash against criticism of Christianity, but such criticism is also easier than ever. Many Christians, though, have not yet managed to come to terms with this situation and regard such criticism as a violation of their rights. In their ideal world, no one would challenge Christianity, question Christian institutions, or suggest that perhaps we'd be better off if we gave up religious theism altogether. No amount of kicking and screaming - or protests - will lead us back to a time when Christians were specially privileged in society." 2007-10-16T02:29:59Z

BBC\'s Ashley Highfield in using-\"Web 2.0\"-non-sarcastically-shocker! 2007-10-16T02:23:54Z

Good news, fellow subjects of the Crown! The BBC are going to be rolling out the pointless iPlayer service on Mac and Linux. Not on my box they aren't. I don't do DRM. No negotiation. No compromise.

But if downloading time limited, digitally encumbered chunks of television you've already paid for through the TV License, it's great news. The rest of us will find... ahem... other methods.

Adobe Flash is at least marginally closer to open, widely-available standards than the current, bitter-tasting cocktail of Windows Media.

But, of course, this is a big step into the Web 2.0 world. Good for the BBC. I'm sure we'll be see Mark Thompson getting shit-faced on tequila at one of Mike Arrington's pool parties soon! Keep checking the Flickr, folks.

I wonder, though, would "it's encrypted, DRMed iPlayer content" be a valid defence for a section 39 notice under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act? Worth a try. I mean, "I'm sorry, sir, but I cannot decrypt this file, because if I do, I will implicate myself in my EULA conditions with the British Broadcasting Corporation" could be a possible get out from letting PC Plod read your e-mails. This Web 2.0 thing might be okay after all.

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Tom Morris tom@tommorris.org

Currently in: East Sussex, England

Usually in: East Sussex, United Kingdom

AIM: tommorris
YIM: tom.morris

I am a vegetarian, an atheist, like to code in Ruby and Scala (and Java, but let’s not talk about that), and noodle about with microformats and the Semantic Web.

I have an MA in philosophy from Heythrop College, University of London. My philosophical interests are in analytic metaphysics, ontology, modality, the work of Armstrong, Lewis, Kripke, Russell and Plato. I have a strange, unfulfilled interest in Gadamer’s hermeneutics. I’ve been influenced by Gadamer, by Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Rawls and Nozick.

Musically, I like jazz fusion, soul and P-Funk. My musical nirvana would be a mixture of Beethoven, Miles Davis and George Clinton topped with a side-serving of Erykah, Jill and Angie.

I also write for the Citizendium, an online encyclopedia project. If you know about stuff, you should join in. I occasionally produce audio recordings for The Pod Delusion.

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