Category: Culture

Categories
Connecting Technology Weblogging

Neighborly news

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

If you haven’t had a chance to check out Jerry’s electric car weblog, give it a glance. In the weblog, Jerry is chronicling the process of converting a gas burning Ford Probe into a sleek, clean, electric car.

Jeneane was on the radio today talking about blogging. Nifty Jeneane. Now, we gotta get you off of Blogspot.

Sheila Lennon writes about Sinead O’Connor’s new reggae focused album. I really like reggae, and I appreciate O’Connor’s conversion to the Rastafarian belief, but what she sings is not reggae. It may be the words, it may be the notes, but it isn’t reggae.

Sheila also mentions that Carly Simon–the lady in the gauzy, see-through hippy dress who sang the weblogging anthem decades before weblogging itself was invented–has turned 60 and released a new album. It is also a disappointing bust. I like the type of music, but she doesn’t have the voice to do it justice.

Carly Simon. Brings back memories. Decades ago she was an earth child/sex kitten with a sultry, folksy voice–not an easy combo of image and tone. I remember once buying a see-through dark green patterned gauzy peasant blouse to wear, trying to capture a little of that Simon persona. Every boy I knew back in the early 70’s was in love with Carly Simon. Yup, many a boy fantasized over one or the other of her album covers.

Why, one such boy might have been Dave Rogers, who just returned from a class reunion. Dave points out a the new anti-tech column at Wired. In it, the author, Tony Long, writes:

Anything that diminishes the value of a single human being poses a threat to a rational, humane society. When technology can cure a disease or help you with your homework or bring a little joy to a shut-in, that’s great. But when it costs you your job, or trashes the environment, or takes you out of the real world in favor of a virtual one, or drives your blood pressure through the roof, it’s a monster.

I can agree with the author, but I’d have to add a caveat that it isn’t the technology or even the technologists who are the monster. Follow the promises scattered like so many broken bits of white plastic until you bump up against those with a gleam of silver and gold in their eyes if you want to see the many headed hydra of tech. Still, this promises to be a very interesting column–if only it had a syndication feed, so that I could read it on my computer while I’m at the coffee shop talking on my cell, all the while eying the freaky poet chick and thinking I should get a picture of her for my blog.

Speaking of local hangouts, Karl has written a thoughtful piece about his hangout at PhillyFuture and what he’d like to see in the future for the publication, but he can’t do it alone. Community sites need community.

Well, you do unless you have an aggregator. Oh, and comments. Trackbacks, too. Wait a sec–don’t forget the wiki. And you’re not hip if you don’t do OPML. By the way, is that iPod of yours really six months old? And it still works?

Categories
Connecting

A habit of giving

As AKMA reminds us, new disasters have happened recently–Hurricane Stan and the earthquake in Pakistan–that seem to have fallen below the blogging radar. This is in addition to the longstanding disasters such as the continued mass starvation in Africa.

With environmental impacts due to global warming, and an increased population that is both more widely distributed and more dense, the events of this year are more likely to become the norm rather than the exception. We have seen thousands killed from earthquakes, flood, mudslides, and storms; these join those who die more slowly, less dramatically, from continuous warfare and starvation. Next year will, most likely, follow the patterns set this year and so on as a population grown too large for the world moves into areas vulnerable to natural events–not to mention unable to support the numbers.

No one is to ‘blame’ for being in the way of catastrophe, and as we know, any one of us could be the next victim. There are no safe spots where nothing is likely to happen; no places of invulnerability. To help others is to help ourselves; the days of geographical isolation are at an end and we have a responsibility to each other regardless of country, race, or religion.

But if we react to each event in a frenzy, soon we’ll burn out and truly catastrophic events will go by with barely a blink. We’re seeing this with Pakistan: it’s not that people aren’t caring; it’s that we’ve just been through one cycle of frantic giving following another a short 8 months ago. It may get to a point where a country would gain help for having an ‘early’ disaster, as compared to a country having a disaster later in the year. Perhaps these countries could stage their catastrophes close to Christmas.

Rather than react impulsively (and stop reacting just as impulsively), we need to establish a habit of giving that will hopefully provide enough support for organizations that meet the needs of people in stricken communities. We should budget in a monthly donation, even if it’s only a few dollars, and contribute consistently: both to international relief organizations and those that are domestic. We should also look at organizations that help in the long-term: with education, family planning, support of basic human rights, and other means to improve overall quality of life.

We should also learn to apply filters when listening to much of the news. Stories from New Orleans match stories from Pakistan where the number of dead leaps by tens of thousands by the minute, and people searching for food in stores become tales of rampant crime and looting. The news emphasizes the worst in all matters, and it’s easy to either develop a sense of despair or disappointment. What’s important is getting help to people, and providing what support we can–facts will fall out later.

After careful consideration, these are the organizations I’ve decided to support: international and national, immediate need and long-term. I am in the process of putting together sidebar images to link to the donation page for each:

International:

The International Red Cross: This organization helps supplement local Red Cross chapters in case these are overwhelmed. I see the Red Cross as an ‘immediate need’ organization.

Oxfam: Oxfam helps not only in the immediate need, but also long-term.

Doctors without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)): Whether the problem is natural or political, this organization has never held back from helping regardless of risk to themselves.

World Wildlife Foundation and Rainforest Consevation, sometimes Green Peace: ecological

National:

The National Red Cross: As per above

Habitat for Humanity: I think this organization’s program to provide decent housing for those who may not be able to afford to buy a house is one of the most efficient and best run; as long as religious beliefs are not a part of the decision process about who gets a home, that is.

United Way and Planned Parenthood: Long-term efforts primarily. The United Way supports neighborhood efforts, including programs for kids and the arts. The Planned Parenthood is an organization too long under attack considering what it provides: pre-natal care, examinations for female-related cancers, counseling, and safe birth control. Abortion is only a small, albeit essential, part of what it provides; yet it is consistently penalized because of its unwillingness to give up serving all of a community’s needs. Considering that overpopulation is the number one disease in the world, I consider Planned Parenthood’s efforts to be essential.

The Sierra Club and the HSUS: Care for the environment and critters.

Amnesty International: I consider this local, because when human rights are at stake, we’re all close neighbors.

I also give individually to local organizations with memberships, such as the Botanical Gardens.

Again, I’m making what I call a ‘giving ribbon bar’ to put into my sidebar for permanent display. I suggest you do the same, as well as establish your own policy of giving.

Categories
Connecting RDF Technology

Portable data

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

In addition to being on a panel at SxSW next year, I’m also giving a full day tutorial on RDF at XML 2005 on November 18th. Which also happens to be my birthday.

This is not going to be a passive exercise. I won’t be putting up slide after Powerpoint slide. There will be no hand waving and promises of Big Things to come. We’ll hit the ground running at the start of the session with a scenario that takes us from understanding the basic structures of the model (demonstrated via modeling tools); to using various tools to build an underlying data structure and application to meet specific needs; to consuming, querying, and re-using the data in various applications.

Those attending will have no time to read or respond to their weblog entries; no time to start a backchannel, because I have every intention of keeping attendees too busy and hopefully interested to be distracted. I’m assuming that the only reason why a person would stay the extra day after the conference is because they’re truly interested. Well, I aim to misbehave.

Oh, wait–wrong event. I am to provide.

The session is going to focus on incorporating RDF into our everyday activities, as I am heavily incorporating RDF into my weblog use. We’ll be exploring how one doesn’t have to use every last aspect of RDF in order to gain advantage from its use. In particular, I plan on exploring the use of RDF as an almost ideal portable data structure that doesn’t require a more formal database in order to operate (though we’ll look at how the two can coincide).

In the last several months, I’ve been experimenting with RDF stored in MySQL, as compared to RDF stored in files. When one considers that all applications eventually hit the file system, including databases, there is something to be said for using direct file-based storage for small, discrete models that may or may not be cached in memory for quick access. About the only time I really need the power of a centralized data store with RDF is querying across models–and heck, I have Piggy-bank on my Windows machine for that. More, I can easily and relatively quickly load all my little individual data stores into the database if I so decide.

This is the true power of RDF over relational: relational doesn’t work well with isolated, discrete objects, while RDF does. It is a truly portable database. Anyone can drop the data in at their sites without worry about having to create a database, or manage it. As for portability: how easy can you copy files?

Of course, since the data stored in RDF is meant to be exposed, then anyone can come along and grab the data and store it, using Piggy-Bank or other means. Combine it with their data, query the hell out of it, and use it as they will. As I can do the same with their RDF-based data.

But to return to the requisite hand waving and star-eyed pronouncements: my use of RDF isn’t Web 1.0 or Web 2.0; Semantic Web or semantic web. This is just the Web, stu…stupendous persons who are reading this.

Now, someone give me a million dollars so I can continue creating small stuff, usefully joined.

Categories
Diversity

SxSW Panel

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I’m participating in a panel titled, Women and Visibility: Whose Butts Should We be Kicking? at SxSW with Dori Smith, Kathy Sierra, and Virginia DeBolt.

I’m looking forward to SxSW, and I’ll have more on the event later. In the meantime, should be a most interesting panel.

Categories
Diversity Technology

Maids, Mommies, and Mistresses

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Kathy Sierra writes on how to speak at Tech conferences. Some of her advice is good, but I disagree, and strongly, on a couple of assertions she makes. Specifically Kathy believes that if women aren’t represented well in this industry, it’s our own damn fault.

One of her tips for getting invited to speak is attend a lot of conferences:

This is by far the best strategy for getting a talk accepted. The more you know what works and what doesn’t, the better you’ll be at both proposing and especially delivering the talk. However, many of us can’t afford the conferences which is precisely why we want to land a speaker slot–Free Pass! Still, I have a hard time listening to complaints about the lack of diversity from people who aren’t motivated enough to find a way to attend a professional conference. There are always clever ways to get into a conference if one wants it badly enough… (as a master at finagling entry to conferences, and being a conference junkie myself, I’ll do a whole separate post on that some day).

I suppose this will work for those women who happen to live where conferences are held, but for the rest of the country, showing up on the door and begging admittance doesn’t hack it. More, this implies having connection into the insider group in order to get in the door. If you don’t have connection to the insider group, it’s harder to get in.

To get an idea of what the insider groups consist of, pick a topic related directly or indirectly to technology and see how often women webloggers who write on it get referenced as compared to the men.

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

I have a hard time listening to complaints about the lack of diversity from people who aren’t motivated enough to find…–pick one: a job, an education, free passes to a conference, an opportunity for advancement, a ride out of a flooded city. This goes back to that old excuse of the priviledged: those who don’t have opportunity choose not to have opportunity.

Kathy also writes:

It’s tempting to think your proposal wasn’t accepted because…

B) I’m [insert your favorite: female/non-white/too old/too young/unknown/not Web 2.0-ish]

There’s been a LOT of complaining about the lack of women at the conferences, and lot of finger pointing at the conference organizers for having an all-male committe that clearly favored the male proposals. WRONG! From O’Reilly, for instance, these are the stats for the last ETech:
“We received 223 proposals, 15 of them from women, for 6% of the total. Of the women who submitted proposals, 46% were selected; for men, the acceptance rate was 32%.”

In other words, women were MORE likely to have etheir proposals accepted than men. The lack of diversity in conferences — at least the O’Reilly conferences — is because they do NOT get enough proposals from non-white,non-male speakers.

I like Kathy, I really do. I think she’s a hell of a good writer, and I admire her skills: both as a technologist and a marketer. But if she says we’re wrong, I answer back, as emphatically: WRONG.

Let’s look more closely at O’Reilly, shall we?

The invitation list for Foo Camp consists of what? Ten percent women? Less? How about the recent Web 2.0? Doesn’t matter if this was a joint conference or not: the O’Reilly name was on the door. As for the ETech conference, the statistic mentions how many of the proposals submitted by women were accepted. I’m curious: how many of the people invited to speak outside of the proposal system were women? How many women as compared to men were specifically invited by O’Reilly folk to submit proposals?

I took graduate level classes in statistics in college: tell me the point you want to make and I can tell you how you can package your numbers to make it. So let’s walk away from these numbers for a minute…

How many conferences has O’Reilly put on that have had a woman in charge of speakers? How many conferences has the organization even had women on the selection committee? I’m not talking about the women involved in administrating the conference–I’m talking about those directly involved in choosing speakers.

Let’s go even further: how many times do you see women referenced in the O’Reilly weblogs? Even when the topic of conversation is social software, which does have a significant number of women? Good lord, look at the O’Reilly sites and the writers and people: we can only hope that some of the critters represented in the colophons are female.

Too few women submitting proposals to O’Reilly conferences. It would seem the same could be said in regards to books and articles, too. There was a Wired article on Tim O’Reilly recently, hinted that he’s a bit of a country hippy. If so, then he’ll understand the phrase, “You have to prime the pump first”.

I could go on, but the point is mute, and the problem isn’t specific to O’Reilly and I don’t want this to turn into a “Let’s kick the shit out of Tim O’Reilly, shall we?” session. The issue comes down to this: do you believe that the reason women don’t have the opportunities at technical conferences is because we’re not trying? If so, why stop there: the same could be asked of women in technology, and even women in society.