Re: call to arms

On 30 March 2010 13:03, Graham Klyne <GK-lists@ninebynine.org> wrote:
> Are we really mired?  I'm not sure I'd agree.
>
> The semantic web and web of data succeed when they are invisible, as
> possibly suggested by "Connoly's bane":
> [[
> The bane of my existence is doing things that I know the computer could do
> for me.
> ]]
> -- http://www.nature.com/nature/webmatters/xml/xml.html

Probably the most important quote from the last century, in my
opinion. Nutshell.

> What people notice, where we are mired, is in my view all those places where
> the Semantic Web has not yet reached.  Which, granted, is still most aspects
> of information handling.  But I also think a good deal of progress has been
> made. It's not always called "Semantic Web" or "Web of Data", but there are
> increasingly ways in which information can flow between applications.

True.

> So if we judge success by the new things that we can do, then I suspect this
> sense of mire will be with us for some time.  But if our touchstone is the
> old tedious things we no longer have to do, then a different perspective is
> offered.  Trouble is, work is a gas (*) and expands to fill available
> capacity ... I think an awful lot of the old things have to go away before
> "ordinary people" really start to notice.

Some people see a glass half full of water, others see a glass half full of gas.

Sorry Graham.

 (damn, hope that hasn't been said before!)