Year: 2004

Categories
Weblogging

We be cooking now

I just created the IT Kitchen Wiki and the first of the IT Kitchen’s weblogs. The Wiki is built using MediaWiki the same software as used for Wikipedia. The weblog is WordPress 1.3.

Elaine is helping with CSS and design, though all input and help is welcome. At this time, I’m using the default style of the Wiki, including the default image. We’ll probably continue with the default style, though I might change the image. Might not, too, because I rather like the sunflower.

(I think the sunflower should be designated the official weblogger flower, we all seem to like it so much. Besides, like the sunflower, we tend to face that which burns brightest.)

I’m using the new WordPress 1.3 theme switcher, and downloaded the Odyssey theme pack created by Root. His was the first working installation of a 1.3 theme I found, and it’s a good solid design on which to base further design modifications. At this time, I think we’re looking at going with a basic two column design, with header, footer, and background. I’m currently using Joni Mueller’s Arthurium Mix variation of root’s Gemini because it has a nice warm kitchen feel to it.

We’ll be having different color schemes and images for different categories, and apply the same across all of the different language versions. Each language version will have it’s own separate weblog, and it’s own domain, such as italian.itkitchen.info and so on.

My hope is that not only will we get help translating the English language essays to the other languages, but that non-English speaking people will write original essays in the non-English weblogs, and that we’ll get help translating from those languages back to English for the English weblog. (Did you all understand that? Care to translate for me?)

At this time the default page points to the English weblog, but I may add an english.itkitchen.info domain, and then have the main page point to the different language versions as well as the wiki. This prevents this whole site from being English centric, even if the dominate language of the site will most likely still be English.

As for the wiki, it is going to be English, but I believe we can either create variations of the wiki for the different languages, or people can just generate different language pages as branches. I wouldn’t mind advice from wiki experienced folks about best direction for this.

The wiki and the weblog are brand new and don’t have anything in them, but we’ll be adding material to the wiki this weekend. And this is an open environment – you’re all invited to dig in and help once I get that first page up and running to set the purpose of the site. Or if you don’t want to wait, you can get a feel for the purpose by reading the original IT Kitchen announcement.

The wiki will also have a signup page for people volunteering to translate and/or write essays for the weblog, as well as wiki topic and sub-topic headings. I’ll be generating weblogs and weblog users based on these sign-up pages.

(Those who have already volunteered, I’ll be sending you usernames and passwords as soon as we have the weblog look and feel finalized. Feel free to do the wiki thing now, though. A how-to on editing the wiki can be found here.)

As for weblogging softare, I decided to stay with WordPress primarily because it’s the one I’m most familiar with, and it’s GPL licensed, which means I can package the data and the delivery mechanism without worry about license. If other folks want to install other weblogs, we’ll find a way to tie them in, but you’ll have to do the installation work and manage the style settings to match the other site’s contents.

Well, finally off to a start, and a fast start too, as we’re heading into this a bit late. I think this is going to be a great deal of fun, as well as a fascinating look at how this open site will grow and mature. Just a note that we still need help in addition to those willing to write and translate, including graphics that we can provide to people to put on their weblogs and sites to promote IT Kitchen.

And we need help promoting the site –the success of IT Kitchen is going to be dependent on people wanting to become involved. People is the operative word, here. That’s people like you.

Categories
RDF

Semanticweb meet Slashdot

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Interesting Slashdot thread about how Lehigh University is going to build the Semantic Web all by itself.

Computer scientist Jeff Heflin and others are building the Semantic Web, which they hope will handle more data, resolve contradictions and draw inferences from users’ queries. The new improved Web will also combine pieces of information from multiple sites in order to find answers to questions.

My reaction on reading this? Anyone that writes something like …are building _the_ Semantic Web, like it’s an object you can buy from Amazon, with easy to follow instructions doesn’t know beans about the ’small s, small w’ semantic web. It’s more than just the ontologies and the syntax, and more than technology. It’s about how to get people to buy into all of this. It’s about taking that same low cost to entry that allowed web pages to explode, and applying it to meaning as well as content. It’s about getting just plain Joe and Jane to go ‘cool’ and want to be a part of it–not just the geeks and science studs.

I do agree with the good doctor that we need to find a way to resolve contradictory ontologies, though I think we have the method for merging ontologies (i.e. RDF and OWL). But none of this matters if we can’t get buy-in to annotate data with meaning. So far, we’re not reaching beyond the science of the tech, to the people. And it’s more than the fact that all of this effort is young – it’s as if we see the non-tech as passive users of the semantic web, rather than active participants.

Sometimes I think that most people who work on the Semantic Web (the big letter fellow), don’t have a clue what it’s all about. It leads to wonder how much respect these folks have for those outside of their circles.

(This attitude, of course, being why I’m not on anyone’s Christmas Card list.)

The slashdotters get it:

The whole reason the web is popular is because it’s trivially simple to create content for it. Maybe the web would be more useful if it was like a giant encyclopedia but it’s just an exercise in futility unless everyone gets on board.

Categories
Political

Debate Winner

Recovered from the Wayback Machine

From the hits I’m getting, I just found out that I own the Google phrase winner of the debate.

By the way, I lied and did watch the debate tonight. Well, the domestic part towards the end. I’m not going to address each issue because I don’t get paid to do this, and spent too much time jumping up and down going, “He’s an idiot! He’s an idiot”. Hard to effectively report in these circumstances.

(My roommate has sworn never to watch another debate with me. Ever. Again.)

My respect for John Kerry has increased with this debate, considerably; that for Bush lowered even further when the only mistake he would admit to is who he has appointed, but he can’t divulge the names, so as to not hurt feelings. And I’m sorry, but tort reform will not magically create health care insurance for 45+ million people currently without any coverage; nor will it significantly lower the cost of drugs. And Bush, your forest initiatives are going to kill the last virgin forests left in this country.

For those who see no difference between the two candidates, you’re not looking hard enough. George Bush sees the world in black and white, right or wrong, with us or against us. He appeals to people who want the world to live in black and white, right or wrong, or to be with us or against us. Kerry, on the other hand, can see the gray, and this isn’t necessarily reassuring to some folk.

But I want my President to see the gray, as well as the black and white. And I want a president who is willing to admit when he’s made a mistake, and learn from it. Bush never will.

Categories
Photography

Did I happen to mention

how much I like my new camera?

I was reading Randal Schwartz’s review of the Canon 20D DSLR, especially his exhultation about the effects one can manage with the 1/8000 shutter speed in combination with the high ISO (1600). I was tempted to go get my turkey baster and have my roommate squirt streams of water into the air so I could attempt his stop-water action shots; instead, I thought I would find a really bad light shot and just see how the ISO 1600 photos look.

The ISO 1600 on my 995 is quite similar to 1600 film in that it was grainy. Very grainy. And the color would usually be a bit off – having an orange cast that couldn’t be corrected. But there many conditions when you need this speed, and it would be nice to have relatively decent photos.

As luck would have it, today was cloudy and dark, and I just happened to find a magazine laying on my desk – the magazine containing my recent photo essay, as a matter of fact. Fancy that. I decided that a great test of the higher ISO would be to take photos of the essay pages without using any other light than ambient room light.

I plopped the magazine on my bed, opened the page, focused, and snapped pictures of all the pages. I used NEF (RAW) mode, and adjusted the exposure up slightly and sharpened slightly, but other than that – no changes. As you can see from the photos below, the ISO 1600 with the D70 provides beautiful pictures, with nary a grainy or color cast look in the bunch.

Even a larger photo 800 pixels wide doesn’t show significant degradation of image quality, and this without much tweaking of the photo in Photoshop.

Did I happen to mention how much I like this camera?

Categories
Political

You might as well fire me

You might as well fire me, right now. Yup, just give me my marching orders and strip me of my feeds.

The candidates are in town tonight and I’m not going down to take pictures. Not only that, but I’m also not going to the DNC party, to see John Kerry make an appearance and take more pictures. I won’t be there to fact check that yes, Kerry is 6′ 4″, white, male, and speaks English.

In fact, I doubt I’ll even watch the debate tonight. I know, I know. There is no excuse. How can I provide my analysis, or point out any of the many gotchas that Bush, or Kerry, is sure to commit if I don’t watch?

I’m not sure what’s come over me. Flu? West Nile Virus? Too much interesting experimentation with drugs earlier in my life?

Personally, I think it was turning on the TV today to get a feel for the traffic problems and watching political ad after political ad, and not one was positive; every single one was a negative ad aimed at a candidate for one office or another, with largely unsubstantiated attacks that made each person seem like the Devil incarnate.

It was like watching snippets from political weblogs come alive on TV. I’m going to have nightmares for a week.