kill -9 `/dev/cat` - "Trust me", the white-haired man said...

March Demotivator Posters

rho — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 18:53:26 +0000

Category Programming

High-Definition Semantic Maps (Part II)

rho — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 16:08:20 +0000

(continued from Part I)

One of the questions you might rightfully ask, is how much impact the semantic network information within the topic map has on producing visualisations like those below:

Or how much they should have, as this is a parameter which I must control.

High-Definition Semantic Maps (Part I)

rho — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 19:15:00 +0000

This is my first stab at a realistic data set (see the attachments for the original resolution):

It shows the landscape around the theme MapReduce, a cloud computing technology about which semantic web people may or may not have heard.

Topic Maps Semantic Meshup (Part I)

rho — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 11:12:33 +0000

Hi! CatBert here.

Gosh. Robert is soooo easy to play: I only had to show him how a web application can be expressed with my TM based language TempleScript. As expected, he first appeared to be all negative about it, but I just know him too well. Now he is hooked and off doing the conceptual footwork for me.

Which allows me to sleep more and dream up more ambitious things:

A Topic Maps based mashup infrastructure.

February Demotivator Posters

rho — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 16:21:46 +0000

Category Technology

TempleScript: Subject Locator Patterns

rho — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 10:04:23 +0000

Obviously I managed to send CatBert back into deep depression (he saw that coming, trust me).
While he sleeps in his favourite armchair, I can steal back my ideas and tuck them safely away into an academic paper. So maybe another RDFascist can entertain me with a negative review. As if a man with a vision would care.

Locator Patterns

Among the things I want to add to TempleScript are subject locator patterns. Here is the use case:

Post-Modern WebApp Development

rho — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 10:50:19 +0000

Life is full of coincidences: First I followed with interest the Ontopia web dev tutorial, then I had my more-or-less regular "TM brain storming pizza lunch appointment" with Robert (Cerny), keeping my head spinning with ideas for days. And just earlier I was passing by CatBert's office.

He was lazily typing on his CatBook:

Look what I have done with my language TempleScript!

Actually TempleScript was our idea, but CatBert had started to take ownership.

Eating Your Own CatFood

His screen showed:

index isa web:page

  = http://my.app.com/index

return  "Hello App!"

This is a complete web application written in TempleScript!

Amir Pnueli Memories

rho — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 09:41:39 +0000

A look into the January 2010 CACM issue tells me that Amir Pnueli has died end of last year.

He - or more precisely his work on Temporal Logic - had an huge influence on me, in particular when I wrote my Ph.D. thesis back in the early 90ies.

Abused By A Patent Troll

rho — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 09:34:07 +0000

How would you react when you learn that your name appears on a Microsoft filed US patent (7627600)?

No, not as inventor, but under "Other References" which cites an ancient journal paper (Syndication with JML) I had written in 1999 together with a friend.

The patent was filed 2006 and only end of last year (12/01/2009) it has been issued to Microsoft.

60 Seconds

rho — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 17:47:46 +0000

The dirty little man was nervously hopping from one leg to the other:

"If you touch me, I will kill you."

I tried to look right through him and smiled coldly.

"It is not ... a matter ... of violence. It ... never is."

It was the 1st of January, the day right after New Years' Eve. Sylvester itself, and the days before that were marked by constant explosions of fire crackers. Annoying and nerve-wrecking, especially when at 3:00 in the night.