Re: Hackers - Re: Schema.org considered helpful

On 6/18/11 1:24 PM, Henry Story wrote:
> On 18 Jun 2011, at 13:20, Kingsley Idehen wrote:
>
>> On 6/18/11 12:16 PM, Kingsley Idehen wrote:
>>> On 6/18/11 8:58 AM, Henry Story wrote:
>>>> The recent discussions on this list were very much about how to avoid making distinctions unless you have to (Just-In-Time Distinctions?) So why are the above distinctions needed? Particularly with regard to this conversation.
>>>>
>>> A root of these conversations lie confusion that results from conflating a variety of things. If we separate items into appropriate boxes we stand a chance of clarity en route to success.
>>>
>>> There are deep unresolved matters that will trigger threads likes these, repeatedly. My conflation list is in my last post :-)
>>>
>> *At* the root of these conversations lie confusion that results from conflating a variety of things. If we separate items into appropriate boxes we stand a chance of clarity en route to success.
> Every distinction comes at a cost. Say it takes 20 minutes to explain to someone that where they saw As there are in fact A1s, A2s and A3s . Now say you need to explain that to 1 billion people. That is 333 million hours of time taken to explain that distinction.

Come on! Why no earth would I seek that? Is that what you gleaned from 
my comments?

How did people learn "data access by reference" before the Web? 
Basically, would there even be an Internet let alone a WWW if people 
didn't find a way to grok these matters?

I am saying, one narrative doesn't cut it.

Inferring that RDF is the new solution to everything doesn't cut it.

Here is a break down that clarifies what I mean:

Web Information Space components:

1. URIs used to Name Resource Locations - use of URIs as Uniform 
Resource Locators (Addreses)
2. Resources -- coarse grained structured data in formats such as HTML, 
JPEG, PNG etc.. streamed from server to client via HTTP protocol

The above is about digital variation of real world publishing.


Data Space components:

1. URIs used to Name Anything
2. URIs Names may be generic or specific as in the case of Addresses 
i.e., Resource Locators (URLs)
3. URIs Resolve to actual Resource Locations (Addresses)
4. Resources -- fined grained structured data via directed graph 
pictorials comprised of triples (or 3-tuples) -- still streamed from 
server to client but via Name -> Address indirection as per #3
5. Triples -- expressible in a variety of syntaxes that include RDF 
family (RDF/XML, RDFa, Microdata, N-Triples, Turtle, N3, TriX etc..) and 
many others.
> Of course if there are 2 people, a teacher and a listener that is then 666 million hours taken to explain this at a cost to the economy of 7 billion dollars (if we take the low salary of $10 an hour).

Lost me, I am a little more confident about the inherent intelligence of 
all human beings. The variable that most overlook (IMHO) is attention. 
Attention is a critical factor re. perceived human intelligence. This 
fundamental misconception of human intelligence is something programmers 
have become dangerously intoxicated with. This is why programs start to 
fail when end-users become engaged i.e., that hit all the subject matter 
/ domain edge cases and to the programmer they are now become super 
intelligent in totally transcendant ways, basically a nightmare that 
typically leads to solution implosion.

> So the distinction would need to generate more value that that to be worth growing. Now of course in a computerised world, the teaching part can be automated, so that perhaps after covering engineering costs the whole cost to the general economy is 4 billion dollars. If the distinction then helps make the interactions between all those users more than 4 billion dollars more efficient, especially if this is distributed around to each individual, then the distinction has a chance of spreading that wide.

Now we're talking! You are describe value of the kind delivered by 
solutions. Yes, delivering useful solutions that leverage new frontiers, 
insights, or tweaks of what already exists == potent education 
mechanism. Users will be engaged and competitors alerted re. opportunity 
costs.


Er.. how about using URL when talking about addresses and data access? 
Speaking about URI in generic sense is problem #1 when speaking outside 
this community. Doing that is lazy, careless, and really unacceptable 
IMHO. This particular tendency just drives people nuts.
> So when people discuss if the distinction between a URI for an object and a URI for a page is worth making, it really depends to whom.

We are introducing a new aspect of the URI abstraction, but assume the 
audience groks the nuances. That saying a URL is a URI solves the 
problem whereas it does the complete opposite. Discarding URI for URL 
has the same effect, and is the biggest headache I see re. 
communications since it always veers down the: a Car is not a Document path.

A URL conveys specific meaning, and has an established sense with Web 
users and developers. Thus, why not build on that as part of the 
narrative that explains the new Web dimension that puts the full URI 
abstraction to use?

> Initially it may not be worth trying to teach such a distinction to a very large crowd.

Fatal mistake, hence the 12 year odyssey. IMHO

Many critical players grok the distinction, but for reasons unbeknown to 
me we've decided they don't. They just don't understand W3C parlance. I 
know this from serious field testing with various profiles (novice to 
guru). W3C specs are written in a language that many programmers truly 
do not grasp. Do you know how a typical (non Web or pre. Web) programmer 
feels when they come to realize that Linked Data is all about exploiting 
de-reference (indirection) and address-of operations via hyperlinks? I 
am talking about folks that have developed serious applications solving 
serious problems pre WWW explosion. These folks are the ones that can 
easily deliver powerful Linked Data applications, with ease, if they 
understand what its about.  They'll build applications that trump those 
built by developers discovering and learning the art of programming 
while within the confines of a new slant on an old pattern.

> If one can get their behaviour to be in tune with the distinction without them needing to be immediately aware of it, one can save oneself a lot of money. It is a question of knowing who needs to be tought what, and in what order.

In many cases, the teaching == translation by making connections between 
new terminology and established terminology. Being provincial doesn't 
make ones technology established. I laugh each time I am accused of 
introducing new terminology when in fact I am actually using terminology 
from realms and times pre WWW explosion. Or terminology outside of W3C 
specs and WWW realm.

>   Human beings have managed to get very far on the back of mass ignorance of most things. It is only with the developing technical civilisation that mass literacy had to be brought into place at a huge cost to the state, for clearly even greater benefit. The cost of thinking is great, but most people do learn to use their head, as the advantages provided by it are dramatic. Most people don't know how they think though. So they can think without knowing that much about how they do it.

People need to be stimulated. That's all.

Steve Jobs figured that out, and Apple continues to take profitable 
advantage of that.

> So when creating an ontology one could try to design it in such a way that users of those relations would not need many distinctions to get going. "Like" is a good example of something that simple. It builds on the ability of humans to work out what the appropriate object of a "like" is. When we get to computers reasoning in a low contextual space such as the web we need tools such as those provided by the semantic web. Of all possible ontologies (all possible distinctions) some are going to be more valuable to a larger crowd. Then there may be ways even there of reducing the distinctions needed to teach such a crowd. Using DocumentObject ontologies with relations that reduce the distinctions needed by a user of the ontology to get it right, might if done right not reduce the inferential ability of the system that much whilst reducing the need to teach many people some distinctions.
>
> It may be that the subject worth developing is such a psychosocial economics of ontology development, which takes the cost of distinctions into account.
>

Ultimately, it boils down to solutions and adaptable narratives. What we 
can do is issue edicts about the evolution of the WWW. There is a nuance 
laced evolution taking place re. the Web. The real Web 2.0 is the Data 
Space dimension, it precedes the Knowledge Space dimension's broader and 
clearer manifestation.

If we just understand that solutions stimulate end-users and that a 
stimulated end-user is an engaged agent, our narratives will be more 
flexible and ultimately more productive.

Nobody is going to win the: best Linked Data or Semantic Web definition 
contest.

There are some who will score big re. best of class solutions for 
exploiting prowess inherent in InterWeb scale Linked Data and the 
inevitable InterWeb of Semantically Linked Data :-)



Excuse typos etc.. I type fast, kids yelling, I am also in transit with 
family across southern UK :-) Off for another walk in quiet Devon!


Kingsley
> Henry
>
>> There are deep unresolved matters that will trigger threads likes these, repeatedly. My conflation list is in my last post :-)
>>
>> -- 
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Kingsley Idehen	
>> President&   CEO
>> OpenLink Software
>> Web: http://www.openlinksw.com
>> Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen
>> Twitter/Identi.ca: kidehen
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
> Social Web Architect
> http://bblfish.net/
>
>
>


-- 

Regards,

Kingsley Idehen	
President&  CEO
OpenLink Software
Web: http://www.openlinksw.com
Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen
Twitter/Identi.ca: kidehen

Received on Saturday, 18 June 2011 13:54:54 UTC