Raven's realm » Life

Happy Easter 2010

Sat, 03 Apr 2010 08:31:24 +0000

Guess this is a pretty special Easter holiday this year; at least for me …

Two months ago I’ve published as a book my PhD Thesis on usability of information discovery in Semantic Digital Libraries; few days ago I received my copy of the hardcover version.

This is also the iPad weekend, and my book is also published in the ePUB format, which makes it iPad-ready.

There also other things on the horizon, of which I will let you know pretty soon…

Therefore, I would like to wish you all a very Happy Easter.

(Psst, there is 25% discount on my recent book as an Easter gift)

Mac vs PC (by Umberto Eco)

Sun, 18 Nov 2007 12:31:00 +0000

…Insufficient consideration has been given to the new underground religious war which is modifying the modern world. It’s an old idea of mine, but I find that whenever I tell people about it they immediately agree with me.
The fact is that the world is divided between users of the Macintosh computer and users of MS-DOS compatible computers. I am firmly of the opinion that the Macintosh is Catholic and that DOS is Protestant. Indeed, the Macintosh is counter-reformist and has been influenced by the ‘ratio studiorum’ of the Jesuits. It is cheerful, friendly, conciliatory, it tells the faithful how they must proceed step by step to reach–if not the Kingdom of Heaven–the moment in which their document is printed. It is catechistic: the essence of revelation is dealt with via simple formulae and sumptuous icons. Everyone has a right to salvation.
DOS is Protestant, or even Calvinistic. It allows free interpretation of scripture, demands difficult personal decisions, imposes a subtle hermeneutics upon the user, and takes for granted the idea that not all can reach salvation. To make the system work you need to interpret the program yourself: a long way from the baroque community of revellers, the user is closed within the loneliness of his own inner torment.
You may object that, with the passage to Windows, the DOS universe has come to resemble more closely the counter-reformist tolerance of the Macintosh. It’s true: Windows represents an Anglican-style schism, big ceremonies in the cathedral, but there is always the possibility of a return to DOS to change things in accordance with bizarre decisions; when it comes down to it, you can decide to allow women and gays to be ministers if you want to…..
And machine code, which lies beneath both systems (or environments, if you prefer)? Ah, that is to do with the Old Testament, and is talmudic and cabalistic…
[ Being a Mac user and a Catholic - I leave no comments to that ]

Unofficial Anthem of Polish Community in Ireland

Sat, 07 Jul 2007 13:51:00 +0000

Well, it is surely unofficial, but I must admit that this is the only song that came with us, 3 years ago, to Ireland: Kowalski “A Irlandia jest taka zielona” (“But Ireland is so green”).

Sebciok sent it to us when we were packing for Ireland. Now, Szymon pointed, on his blog, to the movie clip for this song.

Be careful when google-ing for LaTeX

Mon, 25 Jun 2007 21:37:00 +0000

I know LaTeX is cool, and I cannot imagine publishing my research with out it.
But from time to time, I am getting caught in a trap of non-personal enough and case insensitive search in Google.

Today I was trying to find how to insert a ^TM symbol in LaTeX (\texttrademark). A simple query “LaTeX trademark” occurred to be too simple … (you can imagine what I mean, or check it yourself).

When will be the times where the search engine will actually know what I mean?!

Technorati Tags:
LaTeX, Google, meaning

Hello word from MacBook Pro

Thu, 07 Jun 2007 17:12:00 +0000

OK, I have finally made it.
If you read this post – it means that I am now 100% MacSkruk [or at least this is how my Mac is called].
There were several reasons to switch; I cannot event try to rank them. But believe me – it was for the best

Recreational computing

Fri, 27 Oct 2006 16:06:00 +0000

There is so much going on recently in DERI/eLITE/Corrib – so many things I would like to write about … but I can’t. At least until all those strange IP policies will get firm borders stating what we researchers can tell and what we should not tell.

Until then, trying to avoid any NUIG IP policies land mines I might stuble upon, I can only tell that I came back to unlimited-fun-generating activities: research & developement. I have managed attract a group of skillfull researchers to take care about each of the projects I set up some time ago: JeromeDL (Tomasz), FOAFRealm and HyperCuP (Sławek), MarcOnt and a very new one S3B (Adam).

Now I can relax slightly from some the management responsibilities and spend some time on “recreational computing“. For me it is a combination of all the I really like: maths, user interface design, web programming/prototyping, and … inventing.

I hope I will be allowed to publish some of my recent ideas and prototypes. Untill that time, unless you are from NUIG/DERI, sorry … you got to trust me – I am having great fun (although it employs working 10-12h/day)