Tales of the City

At the moment I'm working on a speech about Web 3.0 for the course "Semantic Technologies".

And this is one of the most amazing things I've seen. Web 3.0, you could also say "The Semantic Web", the Web with meaning, is just around the corner. Only a few years and we might be able to do an online search and actually find at once just what we are searching for. The Semantic Web connects data of every form with one another and thus makes finding everything so much easier.
And that is not just a phrase. At the moment search is being carried out by searching for words, words without meaning. The semantic search engine (test Swoogle for example, but read the manual first) searches for meaning. So you don't have to think about all kinds of synonyms if you are searching for something but the search engine already "knows" those synonyms (and antonyms, hypernyms, hyponyms, ...). Of course that implies that all data is connected, and that's the main problem at the moment. One has to develop a tool that reads out documents and automatically connects the data in there with one another. Until then this has to be done manually or with insufficient tools.

Today there are some web applications that start to use semantic technologies.

One of them is the interest network Twine. An "interest network" is similar to a "social network". It's just not about connecting people but about connecting and sharing interests.
Twine is in it's beta and only slowly evolving to a true semantic network. If you want to join, tell me and I'll send you an invitation.

Another totally different service is Freebase. Freebase is a free database, just like Wikipedia. But it has an semantic back end. Everybody can join there and help making the database grow.

Those are the two applications that I've seen while doing research that can be used by everybody without special background knowledge about semantic technologies. There are other projects that are developed right now that can only be accessed with knowledge of SPARQL or at least some technical background.

For me that's so exciting, seeing the web evolve into something even greater. And I just hope that my speech will be some good. It's difficult to explain something that doesn't even exist right now.

Auffällig, dass ich mittlerweile fast nur noch "friends only"-Einträge schreibe. Dahin scheint wohl doch die Entwicklung meines Blogs zu gehen. Wer also künftig mitlesen möchte, der muss sich halt hier bei Livejournal registrieren.

Mal sehen, vielleicht ändert sich das auch wieder.

My hands are tainted with the blood of hundreds of scales (dt. Schildläuse) who had occupied my sweet, sweet Sally Nightingale, my oleander. I killed them all for the sake of my dear plant. At least, I hope that I killed them all. I got her a suppository to put the rest of them over the edge. And now I pray that this is enough to let her regain strength and make her live!
Pray with me, my friends of LJ, to whatever God[dess(e]s) you believe in!
I pray to the Goddess of Oleanders and to the Timelords (who are a sort of short-living Gods).

Das 10.000. Bild auf meiner kleinen Ixi hat pinguintante am Walberla gemacht. Ein würdiges 10.000. Bild =) auch wenn ich leider bei der Entstehung nicht dabei sein konnte.

The very best sentence by far in the last two Doctor Who Episodes "04x04 The Sontaran Stratagem" and "04x05 The Poison Sky" was:

Are you my mommy?

Letztes Jahr im Februar hatte ich den Plan den Volkspark Marienberg zu suchen um dort spazieren zu gehen. Ich hab ihn nicht gefunden. Was ich sehr seltsam fand, denn das ist ein RIESENGROßER Park hier in Nürnberg. Seitdem bin ich der Meinung, dieser Park existiert eigentlich gar nicht und ist nur ein Mythos, der entstanden ist um die Bewohner Nürnbergs glauben zu machen, dass sie einen großen Park besitzen.
Tja, pinguintante hat heute diesen Mythos entzaubert.

( Fotos vom Mythos-Park )

Yesterday we tried out a Screenreader for our Web Project. And the one thing I took out of it, - listening for more than half an hour to that unnerving voice - not or insufficiently being able to access daily websites, is that I never ever want to lose my eye-sight!

Am Donnerstag marschieren die Nazis durch unsere Straße. Tolle Sache -.-

an firefly_sunny!!!! Viel Glück, alles Gute, viel Freude, leckeren Kuchen, tolle Geschenke, und auch sonst noch so alles Mögliche, wünsch ich dir zum Geburtstag! *knuddel*

♪ I said I wasn't gonna lose my head, but then Pop! goes my heart ♪

Had a busy week, well, not really. But it feels like it's been a busy week.
Everything's fine, life is beautiful. The Doctor is back ♥
I heard that some people wondered, with the Ninth Doctor's favourite word being "Fantastic", if the Tenth Doctor also had a favourite word. I think it's "beautiful". He thinks everything is beautiful, and amazing, but beautiful more often.

I wish you a happy birthday, my dear adopted brother the_magician! Also a very happy birthday to vaurien! And happy belated birthday to robert_zenz. I hope you all have a wonderful day today! =)

Gestern haben wir mal eine ganz klassische Geschlechtertrennung gehabt: pinguintante und ich sind zu Bollywood - The Show gegangen, während unsere Jungs zum Waffentraining sind.

( Bollywood Outfit )

Die Show war sehr schön, wenn auch "zu wenig Liebe" (O-Ton Kamen) drin war und "alles sehr modern" (O-Ton Shae) war. Die Tänze waren supertoll, die Musik wunderbar, wie erwartet. Die Story war oft jedoch nur zu erahnen. Lustig war, dass sich Bollywood oft selbst auf die Schippe genommen hat. Saugeil war, dass sie "Rang De Basanti" gespielt haben. Und bei "Shava Shava" gings im Publikum so richtig ab. Am Ende kam "It's The Time To Disco" in einer sehr schrägen Remix-Version. Dazu gabs dann traditionelle Tänze gemischt mit modernem Rumgehopse. Irgendwie ja schon cool. Und bei den Standing Ovations wurde natürlich mitgetanzt.
Im Vergleich gesehen war Bharati qualitativ um einiges hochwertiger und anspruchsvoller, aber dennoch hat uns die Bollywood-Show einen sehr schönen und entspannten Abend bereitet =)

I finished the sixth and last book of Erin Hunter's Warriors series right now.

It is about the young kittypet Rusty who leaves his home to join the wild cats in the forest and become a warrior.
In the forest there are four clans, ThunderClan, RiverClan, WindClan and ShadowClan. Rusty becomes Firepaw, a warrior apprentice of ThunderClan. Those four Clans are rivals most of the time. The food in the forest is often scarce and other threats make them fight each other. But they all believe in StarClan and the warrior code.
StarClan is the fifth Clan in the forest, their ancestors represented by the stars in the sky, who send them dreams and visions. The leader of each Clan recieves nine lives from StarClan.
From the beginning it is not easy for Firepaw, because other cats taunt him for his kittypet past. But he proves to be worthy as a warrior and soon recieves his Clan name Fireheart.
There are a lot of adventures to be passed, a lot of fights to be won and lost, love to be found, friendships to be broken and mended. It is about honour and trust and standing together.

Actually those are children's books, but nonetheless I loved them a lot. And I'm looking forward to reading Warriors: The New Prophecy.

Actually, not only one, but two! Happy birthday to katyhh and ohiblather! Wish you a lot of fun on that special day!

Congratulations to pinguintante and myself, who have been (with a one-year-break last year) roommates for 3 years now!

Rückblick auf das Wochenende vom 7. - 9. März 2008

( Viele Bilder und auch ein wenig Text )

Liebe feleya, ich wünsch dir alles Gute und viel Glück zum Geburtstag! *knuddel*

This day was totally dedicated to Magic - The Gathering. My sweetheart infected me with his obsession for this trading card game and so we got up really early today to go shopping.
We left the house at 10.20 a.m. and got back at 4.30 p.m. In the meantime we each bought a deck (I got "Morningtide - Going Rogue"), tested it, sorted out the cards we didn't like and looked through thousands of Magic cards to find the ones we wanted. The salesman really needed a lot of patience with us, but in the end we got at least part of the cards we wanted.
That is my very first Magic Deck and I think it's pretty cool, with a lot of Faeries and Goblins, all of them Rogues. Yay!

Kurzfassung auf deutsch:
Wir haben Magic-Karten gekauft! Zieht euch warm an, Schnien und Reini! ;)

Gestern haben Manu und ich den großen DWS1iN-Test gemacht. Im Klartext heißt das: wir haben geschaut, in welchen Geschäften der Nürnberger Innenstadt rechtzeitig zum Erscheinen (am 13. März) die 1. Staffel der neuen Doctor Who Serie angeboten wird. Alleiniger Testsieger war der Karstadt (kostet jedoch mehr als bei Amazon). Durchgefallen sind Saturn, Galeria Kaufhof und Müller. Beim Müller geht es sogar so weit, dass die Staffel nicht mal bestellbar ist - bis Juli!

Ganz viele Geburtstagsgrüße ans zaerteltier_moe!!! Lass dich ganz wunderbar toll feiern! *drück*