Some snappy explanation.
- Use URIs to identify things
- Use HTTP URIs so that people can locate and look up these things
- Provide useful information about the thing when it's looked up
- Include links to other, related things in the exposed data as a means of improving information discovery on the Web
Meme Time
Despite what I said the other day about Dawkins, his coining of the word ‘meme’ deserves respect.
Today’s meme is “Do what you love“. With all due respect, I’m gonna bitch.
this attitude is fine from a wealthy western white perspective…oops, I caught the meme off of a Kashmiri guy
Rob Styles posted some very good commentary on the memetics in response to a vid by Gary Vaynerchuk, Nad has written very thoughtful words, but I confess to my sympathies are closest to Rhys’ quasi-materiastic viewpoint. Toys are good.
I want a prefix the meme line so it says: “if you can, then do what you love”. Now I could throw a tedious lecture about how the people reading blog posts like this are a select privileged few on the planet, but I think there’s a more interesting angle (er, for the select privileged few reading). Assuming you are in a position to do what you love, it’s still bloody difficult. Culture will try to talk you out of it.
My ex-partner Caroline felt obliged to do rubbish teaching jobs, even though she wanted to do arty things. No amount of persuasion (or available $$$) made any difference. But she could/should have - Nad’s “life is too short” applies only too well, and in that I agree with the meme. Also worth mentioning, unlike Nad or Rob, Caro was (relatively) religion-free, no motivation from on high.
Don’t forget how things like peer pressure and odd beliefs can lead to strange life choices - I’m thinking dynamite waistcoats here.
However, some people don’t have a choice for reasons other than these. Now I’m onto meself - ego & personal drivel on blog, surprise, surprise. So on paper I’m not remarkably insane (at worst alcoholic with elective bipolarity, teensy bit Aspergian maybe), but I do things because they need to be done, IMHO. Might be slow at getting them done, but the compulsion’s there. No grand plan either. I can explain why I think the Semantic Web can help mankind save itself, but that’s not the motivation. I do this, I do that, almost hand to mouth but on projects…that last years. Love never really comes into it, just some arbitrary compulsion (it certainly don’t get you laid). In the past I traced an idiotic path professionally, spent many, many years on the dole, got no formal qualifications to speak of. I used to like to think /*cider days*/ the world wasn’t ready for me yet, and strangely it turns out there was a speck of truth in that - it was the Web got me on my feet again. But now proper experts in the field(s) that interest me consider me an expert too. How weird is that. Do what you love, 15 or so years later and things start clicking…
Seriously, you simply gotta do stuff that works for you. Love will follow, before long.
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Hi Danny,
You wrote “I think the Semantic Web can help mankind save itself”. This could not be the motivation to work on that but it’s my idea too. It’s not something I thought on enough to say clearly how, but the way the Semantic Web put people to interact with the help of the machines can bring as a gift more mutual understanding. Ontologies, also the simple ones, can be successful, only if the meaning of the terms is accepted by a community of users in a social space. Users of what? Users of the planet for instance. It can be very interesting exploring how the Semantic Web could help save the planet (and be at home for tea
Luigi
[…] then… the venerable (yet completely unqualified, apparently) Danny Ayers joins in, also titling his post with the meme word. Danny leaves me unsure of whether he is agreeing or […]
Elective bipolarity, you say? And do you think that condition tends to run in families? I’m feeling the need to find a rubbish teaching job, knowing that I can’t do my new art project at the same time… So there it is.
Very sorry to hear about Neo.
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