Categories
Stuff

Looking for solid foundations

Peter Merholz writes an exceptionally good response to Clay Shirky’s Ontology is Overrated.

Clay’s whole argument predicates a black-and-white distinction between evil hierarchy on one side and good tags on the other… And while Clay is right to question hierarchy, and, particularly, Yahoo’s less-than-optimal use of it, he neglects to distinguish truly useful forms of professionally-created classification and categorization, which undermines his argument. (He continues to set tags against folders-and-hierarchies, as if there are no other ways of classifying information. Sigh.)

Excellent secondary commentary based on this essay from Jamie Pitts and Mark Bernstein.

I will no longer respond to a Shirky essay, regardless of the topic. I will, though, highlight those who do, and do such a good job of it.

(Thanks to Dave for the heads up to Mark’s entry.)

Categories
Semantics Web

Snapshot in semantic time

Danny AyersI’m guessing Shelley’s comment was where the ‘lower-case semantic web’ thing originated.

You betcha. And I’m going after royalties, baby. I figure a dime for every mention, and my taxes will be paid and groceries bought. For a month.

Yup, I just hope that Technorati has lots of money. Lots and lots of money. Corante, too. And Marc Canter! He oughta be worth a car payment, at least. HeYAH. In the dough now, children. In the dough.

I also wish more folk would take the time to pull together the threads in a meaningful way like Peter Van Dicjk did with the early semantic web discussions. Creating a tool to make it simple to create this type of page would be an excellent programming project. A project that could be used to… generate even more money!

money money money…MONEY. money money money…MONEY!

Nobody can’t say I ain’t got my priorities straight. No siree Bob.

update

The links to my writings in the paper haven’t survived the many weblog tools moves I’ve made. I’ve since found the posts, published below:

A Semantic Conversation

Deconstructing the Syllogistic Shirky

Categories
Critters People

Shout out to the squid people

Let’s hear it for the Squid People! Fans of all things invertebrate!

Martin Wisse is a squid fan or at least a family member is.

And PZ Meyers at Pharyngula, my favorite BioMan, points to a great video that gives one pause when expressing a wish to meet a live Architeuthis Dux or Architeuthis Colossal in person someday.