Re: Censorship?

1) Mike - your messages are indeed going to list. :)

2) Gannon - Lat/Long has gone the way of the nautical mile - GIS changes 
the game and is far more accurate anyway - just pop your state name and 
coordinates in a controlled vocabulary or thesarus and away you go. GIS 
also moves beyond tieing physical borders to dry land as it is absolute 
positioning. (The classic example of use being a river as a border 
between two states. The two states have an agreement that one bank is 
the actual border (i.e - one state actually owns the river) - so what 
happens when the river floods? Does one state get larger and the other 
smaller?)

While the idea of creating the perfect system is indeed nice and 
interesting to discuss theoretically, it isn't realistic - there is just 
too much time and investment in the current model by states and business 
(and standards groups) to consider changing things. It doesn't matter 
whether US Government Data makes more semantic sense expressed as 
us.gov.data than data.gov - it won't change anytime soon. (That's not to 
say someone won't build a User Agent with some sort of in built semantic 
URI parser - which is a far more likely realisation of your suggestion 
Mike, and one I wouldn't mind seeing :) )

I think that Mikes' proposal raises a few interesting points that are 
well worth discussion by any modern e-government. Namely : In the world 
of today's internet, and the future semantic web, what does a URI look 
like? Or rather, what does your e-governments' online information 
architecture look like? Is there as consistent standard structure to 
your URI's that assist citizens in finding information quickly and 
semantically? And is there any actual benefit to this?

If I type "Data USA" into my browser address bar (which you can in the 
latest ones and it will work), does it matter if the result returned is 
data.gov, or if it is public.statistics.omb.gov/datasets (fake URI - 
example only)? Or is all that matters that the browser points you to 
http://209.251.180.38. Does the user care?

Would be curious to hear the opinions of list members as a sideline to 
the regular and less theoreticaly LOD work the group is doing, just 
because discussion is good.

Cheers

Chris



On 11/9/2010 7:44 AM, Gannon Dick wrote:
> I think there is an easier way ...
>
> Governments (maybe not in the US, at the moment, with the perverted 
> definition of Capitalism in use)  can move forward, if there is a firm 
> scientific basis, with or without Business.
>
> Do you know what an RDF List looks like ?  There is a "first" member, 
> then a "rest" member, then a "nil" member. The model for Countries 
> looks like this:
> <rdf:List>
> <rdf:first>High Seas</rdf:first>
> <rdf:rest>Andorra</rdf:rest>
> <rdf:rest> Australia etc.... </rdf:rest>
> <rdf:rest><rdf:nil /></rdf:rest>
> </rdf:List>
>
> This is the "Politics of RDF".  Only Governments (or a Nominet) can 
> hold Top Level Domains representing land, and the "whole world" is 
> covered.  There is nothing wrong with thinking that the space between 
> your ears has freedom, but your head is in some jurisdiction at all 
> times.  The Ocean is not "covered" because nobody lives there.  The 
> Latitude/Longitude Model is incompatible with the RDF model because of 
> 6 compass points (incl. up and down) only one is dry land- 
> Antarctica.  There is only one set of [wet], [dry],[dry],[dry] ... 
> (although there are many possible orderings).
>
> Chris, what do you think ?
>
> --- On *Mon, 11/8/10, Mike Norton /<xsideofparadise@yahoo.com>/* wrote:
>
>
>     From: Mike Norton <xsideofparadise@yahoo.com>
>     Subject: Re: Censorship?
>     To: "Gannon Dick" <gannon_dick@yahoo.com>
>     Date: Monday, November 8, 2010, 1:48 PM
>
>     Dystopia, yikes!  (I had to look that one up.:)   I think you are
>     right about the reality, that sustaining ignorant customers is a
>     whole benefit for the powers that be.  But am I at a loss to think
>     that such an online format would bring much more integrity to the
>     process of both governance and business?  I would think that the
>     "good" businesses and 'governors' would be wholly open to the idea....
>     Michael A. Norton
>
>
>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>     *From:* Gannon Dick <gannon_dick@yahoo.com>
>     *To:* Mike Norton <xsideofparadise@yahoo.com>
>     *Sent:* Mon, November 8, 2010 11:18:02 AM
>     *Subject:* Re: Censorship?
>
>     I don't know, Mike.
>
>     I think Sandro is out of the country.  But that shouldn't make a
>     difference.
>
>     That said, I do believe you need to re-think this whole concept. 
>     You are proposing exact syntax for a web content provider that
>     does not exist.  Neither the Government (because they would be
>     accused of Big Brotherism) nor Industry will go along.  The
>     reality is that ignorant customers (without sufficient
>     information) account for a lot of profits.  This is only because
>     money is fungible and NOTHING else in Nature is.  You can fool a
>     human into buying "food", but the nutritional value does not
>     depend on what money you paid, it depends on the nutritional value
>     the "food" already had.  I like to think out of the box too, but
>     in this case you are envisioning a dystopia, not a utopia.
>
>     --- On *Mon, 11/8/10, Mike Norton /<xsideofparadise@yahoo.com>/*
>     wrote:
>
>
>         From: Mike Norton <xsideofparadise@yahoo.com>
>         Subject: Censorship?
>         To: gannon_dick@yahoo.com
>         Date: Monday, November 8, 2010, 12:24 PM
>
>         Hi Gannon,
>         I sent this twice to the eGov IG list, and both times it
>         didn't go through.  Why do you think it failed to be delivered?
>         Michael A. Norton
>
>
>         ----- Forwarded Message ----
>         *From:* Mike Norton <xsideofparadise@yahoo.com>
>         *To:* Submit to W3C Egov IG <public-egov-ig@w3.org>
>         *Sent:* Mon, November 8, 2010 9:27:49 AM
>         *Subject:* Streamlining public data - 3 options
>
>         Hello all,
>
>         As a way to streamline business data repositories that are
>         publicly available into federally specified schemes, please
>         follow [1] and hit me a reply with which scenario you think
>         would do the most sufficient job.  Of course, if you have a
>         better one, by all means let me know.   Thanks!
>
>         [1] http://www.rustprivacy.org/norton/pub.xml
>
>         Cheers,
>         Michael A. Norton
>
>
>
>
>
>
>


-- 
/*Chris Beer* Invited Expert (Public Member) W3 eGovernment Interest 
Group & W3-WAI WCAG Working Group Coordinator - Better Practices in 
using Technology to Delivery Government Services Online - eGovernment IG 
Task Force EM: chris@e-beer.net.au <mailto:chris@e-beer.net.au> TW: 
@zBeer <http://www.twitter.com/zBeer> LI: http://au.linkedin.com/in/zbeer/

Received on Monday, 8 November 2010 21:27:53 UTC