Re: connections

>
> What I don't understand is that people have no problem understanding
> names of elements in an XML schema, and link that and its data content
> to records or fields in a database (which is a fuzzy undertaking when
> you get right down to it), but have huge problems taking a triplet or
> two and doing the same. There seem to be some cognitive mismatch
> happening when you introduce the tiniest third directional signifier.
> It's puzzling. Is the human brain too capable of doing one-to-one
> mapping that it fails our attempts at many-to-any?
>

Is this what is happening? I find this observation very interesting and
instructive.
First of all much that happens is filtered through existing and accepted
avenues that includes the relationship between middleware and back end, that
is software developers and their architects and DBAs and their architects.
My understanding is that the architecture of the DB has been far more stable
than that of middleware, but linked data is, essentially, a DB innovation.
The NoSQL solutions that are being used by the huge consumers of linked data
(google's BigTable and so on) speaks to this.
My point is that, in the quote above, the 'human brain' is that of people
following received wisdom across the application layers.
There may also be a 'cognitive mismatch' for individuals, which would make
advocating linked data all the more difficult. The 'cognitive mismatch'
would be along the lines of the third term being an unknown, that is it
draws in unknown data, because we are doing many-to-any. And thank you so
much for this description!
If you are dealing with databases it is OK to deal with many, because it is
many from a known table and the table classifies the type of the data it
holds. But the unpredictability of 'any' - that is any of a type across
multiple data stores - is a different mind set.
There are different levels of difficulty. One is just that as more of these
types of queries enter the DBA experience, so more will it be used. This
will filter through the application layers and will be taken up by
architects. Or the other way round, no matter.
This is acceptance in a business context. But this mailing list is focused
on a public semantic web?
This brings me to another series of points.

you have to take on good faith that the quality within is good enough for
> whatever killer app you're writing. And quite often you only discover
> lacks and poor data quality once you've gone down the path of
> development for a while, never a pleasant journey. Are you expecting
> killer apps based on data with faith-based quality control, and big
> hurdles for evaluation of value?
>

I think this point mixes in the idea of application with that of data
quality. They are related, but 'good enough for killer app' is just one.
Another relationship is killer app cleaver enough to game the results or
pass on polluted data to its (owners) advantage.
The public semantic web has a role here to offer a means of bench marking
quality. But the task of assuring quality beyond a bench mark exemplifying
it is not going to be possible.
I think that w3c is going to have a huge role to play in this area,
conceptually beyond NutchHadoop.
I personally do not find the idea of a public semantic web particularly
compelling. I am happy enough to look things up and ask people, e.g. locals
who know how to garden, what could be more pleasant?
But when you think about the industrial processing of data that will (is)
being done using these and related techniques, some of which having very
public profiles, I do find it compelling to think about w3c emulating some
of these uses, *in some way*, to provide the quality assurance I have
referred to.
Isn't this the series of 'killer apps' that should be discussed.

Adam

On 17 April 2010 11:30, Alexander Johannesen <alexander.johannesen@gmail.com
> wrote:

> Hola,
>
> Danny Ayers <danny.ayers@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>> If we had compelling enough applications of the *data*, wouldn't we
> build
> >>> the tools we need?
> >>
> >> Why?
> >
> > Because I want to know where the nearest kennels are, and when will be
> > best to plant tomatoes.
>
> No, no; why is there some automatic notion that if our data is
> compelling enough, the tools we need will be created? I'm not
> questioning the need nor want for compelling applications, only the
> assumption that once we get to stage 1, stage 2 will automatically
> follow. We're all looking for that killer application, but perhaps
> we're mistaking the killer app for techies for the killer app for the
> real-world?
>
> > Google do seem to have noticed that the hocus pocus (whether or not
> > they call it RDF) has its place.
>
> I was more pointing to RDF being the culprit. When Google wants to buy
> a few million bibliographic records, do they embrace MARC, MARC XML,
> MODS, MADS, or RDF versions of the same? Nope, they create some simple
> XML to represent the very basics they feel they need, and use that.
> Same with most of the RDF data; silo mentality of the value of
> datasets are incredibly hard to evaluate in the Linked Data world; you
> have to take on good faith that the quality within is good enough for
> whatever killer app you're writing. And quite often you only discover
> lacks and poor data quality once you've gone down the path of
> development for a while, never a pleasant journey. Are you expecting
> killer apps based on data with faith-based quality control, and big
> hurdles for evaluation of value?
>
> >> The Semantic Web was crafted on the potential of fixing problems a tad
> >> bit better than what we already had that already fixed the problems,
> >
> > I disagree somewhat - would take me a while to find the exact quote,
> > but Tim has stated words to the effect that the semweb can make
> > problems previously considered impossible become a bit obvious. (A
> > point with which I agree strongly).
>
> You are of course right, but all of that is theory. In practise we are
> rehashing old problems in new ways. I guess what you're longing for is
> the tipping point of going from solving those problems to solving new
> ones.
>
> >> so basically fixing a non-existent problem. It was also built on the
> >> promise of reusable ontologies on top of data, and even though the
> >> promise wasn't held the potential is still there, for sure. But we
> >> haven't got the tools to deal with that part of it all that took us
> >> (speaking in generic fuzzy terms here) by surprise;
> >
> > But we (in the affluent West at least) each have the hardware,
> > software and connectivity to put us in the zone of making real use of
> > this stuff. I still don't understand why we are so slow at making it
> > so.
>
> Because we suck at coming up with good ideas, and even worse at
> throwing something together to prove a point. If this stuff was easy,
> we probably would see tons of it. But we don't, and I suspect that the
> tooling sucks in a sense that it is hard for people in the real-world
> to wrap their heads around them. SGML was brilliant, but hard to fully
> grasp. And we know who's your generic markup daddy.
>
> > "informolasses" goes straight into my vocab, thanks.
>
> You heard it here first. :)
>
> > I suspect you're right about domain-specific tools, that reflects the
> > human issues, the need to solve specific problems.
> > While the Web of docs can be very generalist, I'm not so sure the Web
> > of (linked) data will be useful in the same way, at least in the near
> > term.
> > For example, when I'm in gardening mode, I want a gardening
> > application - that uses global data but within a locale filter.
>
> I have tons of similar problems. Even online tools I know how to use
> and hack and exploit can sometimes draw up a blank. Like finding a
> Guinea Pig breeder on the south coast of Sydney when you need one; 1)
> there might not actually be any, or 2) there is no information about
> them on the web to be crawled. The problem is not that they haven't
> published their details in glorious Turtle.
>
> But is this stuff really the same problem as the Linked Data and lack
> of killer apps, though?
>
> >> All this data and their weak relationships are great to play with,
> >> though, and it might shape things to come, but to get the masses to do
> >> something interesting with it you need to convince them that
> >> "ontology" is even a word that deserves a place in our daily
> >> languages. (And don't tell me linked data doesn't need ontologies; a
> >> kick in the shin if you do) Tough call, I'd say. If you say to them
> >> "model", they immediately reach for Toad or some RDBMS thingy. If you
> >> say "triplet" or, even worse, "tuple", they might think you're talking
> >> about raising kids.
> >
> > Kick me in the shin - ontologies are no more and no less than shared
> > vocabularies through which we can communicate.
>
> I can't kick you in the shin based on faulty reasoning or
> understanding of what I admittedly poorly wrote. :) The point was that
> Linked Data uses ontologies because, like you say, they're shared
> vocabularies. Not the most complex vocabularies, of course, but
> vocabularies or ontologies nevertheless. I doubt interchanging
> "vocabulary" with "ontology" has the slightest effect on people's
> understanding of how these things fit together, and *especially* not
> the potential therein.
>
> What I don't understand is that people have no problem understanding
> names of elements in an XML schema, and link that and its data content
> to records or fields in a database (which is a fuzzy undertaking when
> you get right down to it), but have huge problems taking a triplet or
> two and doing the same. There seem to be some cognitive mismatch
> happening when you introduce the tiniest third directional signifier.
> It's puzzling. Is the human brain too capable of doing one-to-one
> mapping that it fails our attempts at many-to-any?
>
> >> In other words, the technology, its promises and potential means
> >> *nothing* when a small paradigm shift is needed.
> >
> > Despite my negative comments recently, I do think that paradigm shift
> > is happening.
>
> Where and how?
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Alex
> --
>  Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchemist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic Maps
> --- http://shelter.nu/blog/ ----------------------------------------------
> ------------------ http://www.google.com/profiles/alexander.johannesen ---
>
>