Re: space and time

In my opinion, the W3C Time Ontology is "Surveillance Society" junk which ought to be sent to the Archives forthwith.  The contributors did a very good job of writing a technical standard and well deserve an accessible reference for their CV.  The work was excellent, unfortunately the project had pre-existing inconsistancies.

The conceptual basis problem is the nature of deadlines.  This business case will illustrate:  If you get home late, the unfed cat is mad at you and perhaps the unwatered plants are just a little annoyed too.  Local Time is a relative phase angle, date is an absolute phase angle - effectively a Time Zone with worldwide effect. Who needs this vision ?  Not hungry cats, certainly.  Bankers need it so that interest earned on overnight deposits on the otherside of the globe are realized as earnings.  There is no "something for nothing/something for no time" problem here because the overnight deposit can be fetched back in less than 24 hours Local Time and the day does not increment.

Analysis as follows:
>From the cat's point of view (Philosophers, Theologians, Mathematicians, Geographers and Astronomers agree) your watch is an emblem of Authority.  However, the emblem can not be run backwards to explain holding the Authority because if it did, the argument would hold in perpetuity.  It is a Chicken/Egg thing and a logical contradiction. You can not prove the existence of "Boss" from the currect state of affairs.

Side note: Astronomers were quite clever about "perpetuity".  They backed up the calendar (extended the scale) 700 years further into pre-history.  This protects the Julian Day against centenial year mischief (Y3k is far away).  The discovery of dinosaurs was a big "oops" however.

Another Side Note: If you are the Boss of a large Commercial Entity do not show up late at the Annual Meeting and say "I had to stop and feed the cat, so we lost money last year".

Yet Another: The connection with the "Surveillance Society" is this ... the legitimacy of the "Old Boss" is indeterminate and your cat wants a "New Boss".  Enlightened cats might agree to a new watch.  “The difference between treason and patriotism is only a matter of dates.” ― Alexandre Dumas's Cat (c.f. "Another Side Note" above).

The way out of this entanglement, I think, is the recognition that the UNIX style time increments have a continuous scale (+ 1 year 1 minute) etc., however, a reasonable (as in reason-able) calendar has a quantum scale which can only be partitioned one way, but can be extended out as much as necessary.  Missed deadlines are not "time plus accumulated random mistakes".  GPS certainly needs Leap Seconds but calendars do not. I worked out the appropriate "Standard" increments here:  http://www.rustprivacy.org/2014/balance/gts/ But PHP hides this array so I'll have to unhide it.

One last thought:  The consequences of exposure to the elements are often irrreversible and can be fatal in a very short time. A Government's Human Resources, their Citizenry and their Civil Service are no exception. There is no slack.  Natural or man made disasters have no slack. Scarcity of resources can not be left to chance.
"Dans les champs de l'observation le hasard ne favorise que les esprits préparés."
 In the fields of observation chance favors only the prepared mind.
--Louis Pasteur

--Gannon


--------------------------------------------
On Fri, 5/23/14, Andrea Perego <andrea.perego@jrc.ec.europa.eu> wrote:

 Subject: Re: space and time
 To: "Bart van Leeuwen" <bart_van_leeuwen@netage.nl>
 Cc: "Frans Knibbe | Geodan" <frans.knibbe@geodan.nl>, "LocAdd W3C CG Public Mailing list" <public-locadd@w3.org>
 Date: Friday, May 23, 2014, 7:28 PM
 
 Frans, Bart,
 
 I tend to agree with your position.
 
 By (tentatively) including the "temporal" dimension in the
 draft on
 the proposed metadata extension [1], I was not assuming that
 we
 necessarily need a specific way of expressing "time" for
 geo
 meta/data.
 
 My purpose was more to raise the question on whether we
 should deal or
 not with this topic. Your work, Frans, on the Dutch registry
 of
 building and addresses [2], raised for me an issue on
 whether the LOCN
 voc, or its extensions, should take into account also the
 temporal
 context of location information. Moreover, the
 representation of
 "time" was identified during the LGD'14 barcamp session
 proposed by
 Jeremy [3] as one of the key issues to be addressed for the
 representation of geo data through RDF/OWL. And, also based
 on that,
 there was some discussion on the possibility of moving the
 W3C Time
 Ontology into the recommendation track.
 
 I would be very interested to know the opinions of the group
 on this.
 
 Cheers,
 
 Andrea
 
 ----
 [1]https://www.w3.org/community/locadd/wiki/LOCN_extension:_Metadata
 [2]http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-locadd/2014May/0001.html
 [3]http://www.w3.org/2014/03/06-lgd-minutes.html#tandyBarCamp
 
 
 On Fri, May 23, 2014 at 11:08 PM, Bart van Leeuwen
 <bart_van_leeuwen@netage.nl>
 wrote:
 > Frans Knibbe | Geodan <frans.knibbe@geodan.nl>
 wrote on 23-05-2014 12:39:37:
 >
 >> From: Frans Knibbe | Geodan <frans.knibbe@geodan.nl>
 >> To: "public-locadd@w3.org
 Mailing list" <public-locadd@w3.org>
 >> Date: 23-05-2014 12:40
 >> Subject: space and time
 >>
 >> Hello,
 >> When reading and talking about geographical Linked
 Data I sometimes
 >> come across the term 'spatiotemporal data', meaning
 that data are
 >> dependent on both space and time. I wonder if
 temporal aspects of
 >> data should be considered when we are thinking
 about how to express
 >> location data in the Semantic Web.
 >> I understand that for many spatial data the
 temporal aspects are
 >> really important, but I think temporal aspects
 could be equally
 >> important to data about postage stamps or model
 trains or beer, or
 >> whichever other topics one can have data about. In
 all cases, I
 >> don't think it is necessary to think of special
 ways of expressing
 >> the time dimension in the data. It seems to me that
 general
 >> vocabularies and/or data types for expressing time
 should suffice.
 >> In other words, I think that time and space are
 orthogonal subjects
 >> and that vocabularies about space (location) can be
 kept separate
 >> from vocabularies about time (For normal everyday
 data, that is.
 >> Cosmological data are another matter).
 >> What do you think about this?
 >
 > +1
 >
 > This way tools that understand the temporal structure
 of your data are able
 > to tell if the data is valid for a given period or not
 without understanding
 > the actual contents ( geo ) of the data. IMHO that is
 the strength of linked
 > data / semantic web
 >
 >
 >
 >> Regards,
 >> Frans
 >>
 >> Frans Knibbe
 >> Geodan
 >> President Kennedylaan 1
 >> 1079 MB Amsterdam (NL)
 >>
 >> T +31 (0)20 - 5711 347
 >> E frans.knibbe@geodan.nl
 >> www.geodan.nl | disclaimer
 
 
 
 -- 
 Andrea Perego, Ph.D.
 European Commission DG JRC
 Institute for Environment & Sustainability
 Unit H06 - Digital Earth & Reference Data
 Via E. Fermi, 2749 - TP 262
 21027 Ispra VA, Italy
 
 https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/
 
 ----
 The views expressed are purely those of the writer and may
 not in any circumstances be regarded as stating an official
 position of the European Commission.

Received on Saturday, 24 May 2014 19:29:58 UTC