http://www.virtualchaos.co.uk/blog I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf mutes ... or should I? Sat, 26 Jul 2008 12:27:25 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I went to watch the new Batman film earlier in the week with Amanda. I have to admit I was somewhat skeptical as to whether it would live up to all the hype in the media. few movies rarely live up to these kinds of expectations and can sadly ... http://www.virtualchaos.co.uk/blog/2008/07/26/batman-the-dark-knight/ Chris Abani tells stories of people: People standing up to soldiers. People being compassionate. People being human and reclaiming their humanity. It's "ubuntu," he says: the only way for me to be human is for you to reflect my humanity back at me. This is one of the most touching Ted ... http://www.virtualchaos.co.uk/blog/2008/07/26/truly-inspiring/ Had another great shoot this weekend, and arguably the hardest shoot I have had so far. The Forest of Arden shoot is actually just outside Birmingham so it was a doddle to get to for us, the entire club was represented and we split up into two groups. I shot ... http://www.virtualchaos.co.uk/blog/2008/07/21/archery-forest-of-arden/ Love's Secret Never seek to tell thy love, Love that never told can be; For the gentle wind doth move Silently, invisibly. I told my love, I told my love, I told her all my heart, Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears. Ah! she did depart! Soon after she was gone from me, A traveller came ... http://www.virtualchaos.co.uk/blog/2008/07/13/loves-secret/ Been doing a lot of thinking recently about network effects, participation and collaboration. This Ted talk by Clay Shirky, although three years old, was made available a few day's ago and might seem a bit dated to some, but Shirky demonstrates and explains how closed groups and companies will give ... http://www.virtualchaos.co.uk/blog/2008/07/13/institution-vs-collaboration/ Had fun last weekend on what was my first NFAS field shoot in a couple of months, wasn't too sure how i'd get on, but we did practise during the week leading up to the shoot at Audley Bowman's near Stoke. We also decided that since I'm competing in the ... http://www.virtualchaos.co.uk/blog/2008/07/13/archery-audley-bowman/ Pretty interesting talk by Prof. Abraham Bernstein. He suggests that the Semantic Web presents the vision of a distributed, dynamically growing knowledge base founded on formal logic, but this is inaccessible to casual users. Im still mulling over everything he covers ... but it's well worth watching. http://www.virtualchaos.co.uk/blog/2008/07/05/making-the-semantic-web-accessible-to-the-casual-user/ My friend/colleague Elliot recently did the exercise over on his blog and I thought I'd follow suit. The rules are: 1) Look at the list and bold those you have read. 2) Italicize those you intend to read. 3) Underline the books you LOVE. 4) Strike out the books you have no intention of ever ... http://www.virtualchaos.co.uk/blog/2008/07/01/book-thing/ Read this and couldn't help but smile ... the last six months has felt like a constant battle, like I'm constantly treading water ... The Fighter I fight a battle every day Against discouragement and fear; Some foe stands always in ... http://www.virtualchaos.co.uk/blog/2008/06/29/the-fighter/ Last weekend I met up with some of my team mates from {TWR} for one of our annual get-togethers. Rather embarrassingly I hadn't bothered to even find out where we were spending the weekend till the night before - several months ago when the plans were first made I think ... http://www.virtualchaos.co.uk/blog/2008/06/29/twr-meeting-in-knightcote/ Been feeling torn lately ... so I've been reflecting a lot on why that is ... was almost ironic that during my introspection I recalled a passage from one of Melville's old poems, I've transcribed the piece below in full ... The Conflict of Convictions ... http://www.virtualchaos.co.uk/blog/2008/06/19/the-conflict-of-convictions/ Earlier in the week we at Talis hosted a Research Day the theme for which was around what we refer to as Project Xiphos. Through Project Xiphos, we are exploring the impact of applying the latest Web scale technologies, including Web 2.0 and the Semantic Web, to the challenges of ... http://www.virtualchaos.co.uk/blog/2008/06/15/talis-xiphos-research-day/ Earlier this week I took one of those Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator tests ... and according to it ... I'm an INFP which stands for Introversion, iNtuition, Feeling, Perceiving. I wasn't quite sure how to react to that ... I didn't really think too much before taking the test, it ... http://www.virtualchaos.co.uk/blog/2008/06/08/im-an-infp-apparantly/ Susan Blackmore studies memes: ideas that replicate themselves from brain to brain like a virus. She makes a bold new argument: Humanity has spawned a new kind of meme, the teme, which spreads itself via technology -- and invents ways to keep itself alive A fascinating TED Talk, if we believe ... http://www.virtualchaos.co.uk/blog/2008/06/07/memes-and-temes/ Truly inspirational ... Nathan Myhrvold talks about a few of his latest fascinations -- animal photography, archeology, BBQ and generally being an eccentric genius multimillionaire. Listen for wild stories from the (somewhat raunchy) edge of the animal world. http://www.virtualchaos.co.uk/blog/2008/06/04/a-life-of-fascinations/ After months of development the first version of Bibliographic Ontology was published today. This represents an incredibly important milestone for this project, it's been discussed, developed and evolved over a number of months in order to make sure that this ontology was expressive enough to handle all kind of scenarios ... http://www.virtualchaos.co.uk/blog/2008/06/04/bibliographic-ontology-10-released/ The Dream Called Life A dream it was in which I found myself. And you that hail me now, then hailed me king, In a brave palace that was all my own, Within, and all without it, mine; until, Drunk with excess of majesty and pride, Methought I towered ... http://www.virtualchaos.co.uk/blog/2008/06/01/the-dream-called-life/ The last few days have been quite enlightening. Our offices at Talis were closed on Thursday and Friday as the entire company took part in a two day internal conference for all employees which was held at Warwick University. I've never worked for an organisation before that shut down shop ... http://www.virtualchaos.co.uk/blog/2008/06/01/something-inside-so-strong/ This talk begins with an overview of software development at Adobe and a look at industry trends towards systems built around object oriented frameworks; why they "work", and why they ultimately fail to deliver quality, scalable, software. We'll look at a possible alternative to this future, combining generic programming with ... http://www.virtualchaos.co.uk/blog/2008/05/26/a-possible-future-of-software-development/ A number of us at Talis have been thinking and talking a lot about DataPortablity, my colleague Danny even went as far as recording the YouTube video above, which I think is excellent. When Google recently launched their Friend Connect service earlier this month, it seemed like a step in ... http://www.virtualchaos.co.uk/blog/2008/05/17/is-facebook-really-a-black-hole/ The second issue of our Nodalities Magazine is out today. It's free to subscribe to if you want a printed version, or you can view it online by clicking on the image below or download the pdf here: Blue Oceans - Ian Davis and Zach Beauvais discuss the 'Blue ... http://www.virtualchaos.co.uk/blog/2008/05/17/nodalities-magazine-issue-2/ As the Internet is being overrun with video traffic, many wonder if it can survive. With challenges being thrown down over the imbalances that have been created and their impact on the viability of monopolistic business models, the Internet is under constant scrutiny. Will it survive? Or will it succumb ... http://www.virtualchaos.co.uk/blog/2008/05/17/does-the-net-need-an-upgrade/ The new interfaces are winning people over because they are based on usage patterns instead of choices. The key thing about new UIs is that they are contextual - presenting the user with minimal components and then changing in reaction to user gestures. Thanks to Apple, we have seen a ... http://www.virtualchaos.co.uk/blog/2008/05/16/contextual-user-interfaces-and-beyond/ | View | Upload your own The BBC is opening up and making its data accessible to development teams outside the beeb - they are also following the Linked Data approach ... We have been following the Linked Data approach - namely thinking of URIs as more than just locations for ... http://www.virtualchaos.co.uk/blog/2008/05/15/bbc-opening-up/ Hacker and writer Joshua Klein is fascinated by crows. (Notice the gleam of intelligence in their little black eyes?) After a long amateur study of corvid behavior, he's come up with an elegant machine that may form a new bond between animal and human. I was amazed watching this fascinating Ted ... http://www.virtualchaos.co.uk/blog/2008/05/13/the-amazing-intelligence-of-crows/ I've been playing around with Powerset, a new Semantic Search Engine, which uses natural language search technology that is based on patents licensed exclusively from Palo Alto Research Center (formerly Xerox) and its own proprietary indexing. Instead of being limited to keywords, Powerset allows you to enter keywords, phrases, or questions. ... http://www.virtualchaos.co.uk/blog/2008/05/12/powerset/ A Dream Within a Dream Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you now, Thus much let me avow -- You are not wrong, who deem That my days have been a dream; Yet if hope has flown away In a night, or in a day, In a ... http://www.virtualchaos.co.uk/blog/2008/05/11/a-dream-within-a-dream/ Processing is a Open Source data visualization programming language. I first played around with it about a year ago. I was recently reminded of it by Rob, and have started playing with it again. However, I just discovered that earlier in the week John Resig released his JavaScript Port, Processing.js. ... http://www.virtualchaos.co.uk/blog/2008/05/10/processingjs/ 1913 A Boy's Will Revelation WE make ourselves a place apart Behind light words that tease and flout, But oh, the agitated heart Till someone find us really out. 'Tis pity if the case require (Or so we say) that in the end We speak the literal ... http://www.virtualchaos.co.uk/blog/2008/05/07/revelation/ In clear, nontechnical language, string theorist Brian Greene explains how our understanding of the universe has evolved from Einstein's notions of gravity and space-time to Superstring Theory, where minuscule strands of energy vibrating in 11 dimensions create every particle and force in the universe. This is a wonderfully visual and ... http://www.virtualchaos.co.uk/blog/2008/05/04/the-universe-on-a-string/