Industry experts have been awakening recently to the exceptional power of the Web to integrate information systems, and how it should be applied within the enterprise. You've heard of Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise Mashups and the like. These are generally shallow attempts to translate Web concepts to traditional IT. It is important not to miss the key ingredient for successfully harnessing the power of Web architecture--semantic technology. We all know the power of the Web comes with chaos--wide-ranging workflow conventions, malware and more. Semantic technology adapts traditional business analysis and enterprise architecture to temper the chaos without losing the power.
This session connects the prevailing industry trend towards Semantic technology to the characteristics of enterprises, giving you tools for assessing your organization's readiness, and determining the best launch points. It's a practical guide using specific case studies to help you get started using semantic technology to finally reconcile information technology with business imperatives, and to save costs and avoid failures in architecture and integration projects.
I said earlier that I'm not really (yet) a deep blue Democrat, but that if Democrats under Obama and likely double-blue chambers ("bicyanocameral"?) of congress can pull off the miracle of recovery from the present crisis, while defusing the other ticking bombs of oversize New Deal entitlements, I'd be theirs. Tough assignment, sure, but hey, that would do it for me.
But it may not come to that. Republicans might just be poisoning themselves thoroughly enough that Dems can coast. One issue that makes me see a red mist is voter suppression. We have one of the lowest levels of voter participation in the world, and at best a mediocre history among democracies of giving our citizens the franchise. We should be doing everything we can to encourage voting, but there is a large and very sophisticated machinery that seeks the opposite. What's sad is that this machinery is almost entirely Republican, and deployed to protect Republican interest. Sometimes it comes through ugly legislation, such as the denial of voting rights to ex-convicts. One of the hallmarks of a civilization is that everyone has fundamental rights under the law, even criminals, and there really is no civic argument that an ex-convict, in addition to the sanction imposed by the courts, should also be stripped of the most basic right of citizenship, and you would think it's in the interest of society to encourage civic responsibility of ex-convicts. But Republicans work hard to get such laws into legislatures, and into state constitutional amendments. And they succeed all too often because that's not a demographic whom many are willing to regard. And maybe that's fair enough, except for the bit about "they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist". The next step is for Republicans to target those among likely Democratic voters who are not convicts, but are easy targets: poor people without driver's licenses, the elderly, legal immigrants. Republican legislators fight for laws to erect very high barriers to registration, and very low barriers to challenge of registration. They cite fear of voter fraud, which is a deeply cynical ploy, considering that numerous bipartisan studies have found no statistically significant likelihood of such fraud in US elections. Meanwhile local operatives increase the atmosphere of voter intimidation by posting false information wherever they can, whether posting the wrong polling locations or times, or warning people that those who show up at the polls will be scrutinized for overdue parking tickets. And after they come for the easily harassed, they come for college students, another group that tends Democratic. It's back to the usual weapon of disinformation--warning students, to take the trick used by Republicans in Virginia for example, that if they vote in the precinct where they go to school, they might lose their financial aid. And after they've disenfranchised all those other people we might not be ready to stand up for, they come for you and me. Last week Mike Coffman, our Republican Secretary of State in Colorado attempted to purge the rolls of 35,000 newly-registered voters, seizing on minor clerical errors as excuse to strip voters of their rights. New registrations in Colorado are running 4-1 in favor of the Democratic party, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Republicans pulled out the dirty tricks book. After a major outcry and threats of legal action, Coffman changed his tune to allow corrections of registrations by October 31st. This does hits home. My wife and I have been registered for ages, so we're not in danger, but Lori has helped a number of people register recently, and now, if she didn't follow obscure and poorly specified rules for checking one box in the "identification" section, that voter might be turned away from the polls. One practical matter is that everyone who cares about making sure voters can vote should check out projectvote2008.org, which provides a marvelous service by posting the (often depressingly long) list of registrations that have been invalidated in (so far) Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Missouri, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Nevada. They add information as they find it, so check back for added states and districts. All this cynical trickery is simply outrageous, and I hope that congress finally gets its act together to shore up the basis of our constitution. And no, this is not a matter for states, considering again that constitutional sensitivity of this issue. Meanwhile, until Republicans can bring themselves to stand up for the most basic tenet of American liberty: one person, one vote, it will be very, very hard for me to ever find common cause with them on any other issue. I know they are just afraid of the fact that many new voters will oppose them, but as many of their own pundits like to proclaim: "country first". For them to sabotaging the most precious right in our nation to serve personal interest is hypocritical as well as cowardly.
By the way, Fresh Air today had a couple of story segments on voter suppression. Well worth a listen.
This all just gets crazier by the day. So Wall Street got their 700 Bill (MLK and Cesar Chavez streets should ever be so lucky), and we taxpayers sit, straight up gaffled. And that wasn't enough, so now the Fed is opening up a glad-hand window for commercial paper on top of that! It's like "Fat Cats, Bigger Fish". The real hustlers wear pinstripe suits on top their Air Jordans ("...ain't no hustler on the street can do a whole community...").
"Talking to a black man--who's he? confused, gee, Looking hella bougie Ass all tight and saditty Recognized him as the mayor of my city Who treats young black man like Frank Nitty Mr Coke said to Mr. Mayor you know we got a process like Ice T's hair We put up the fund for your election campaign And oh um waiter can you bring the champagne A real estate fronts as opportunities arousing To make some condos out of low income housing..."
And continuing along those lines, I can't put it better than the Wu-Tang. Shalon Raekwon the Chef: Yo! yo Meth, where my killer money market yield at? First of all, where the f--k is my yield at, man? Method man: Yo son, I don't got that yield, son Chef: How you ain't got no yield when I let you hold it man? Meth: Yo NGZ came over to have 40s and blunts, kid. The fund just broke the buck, son.. Chef: C'mon that ain't got nothing to do with my bond man, c'mon go head with that sh... Meth: C'mon Man I'll buy you four killer high-yield energy futures, man [urgent knocking on the door] Chef: Open the door man, what the f--- man? Yo what? What's up? Ghostface Killa: Yo, Yo god, word is bond, Yo! Bear Stearns just got busted in his head two times, god! Meth: Word to mother Ghostface: Word life god! You know f---ing Bear Stearns from f---ing 212, god! Meth: Yeah Ghostface: That NGH just got bucked! NGZ in the blackland god, word is bond, came through to the suburbs on zero down payment mortgages, god, from out of nowhere god! Word is bond, I'm coming to get my chop shop reserve, god. Word is bond, CRAZY sell orders just went the f--- off, god! Lehmann Bros laying there like a f---ing newborn f---ing baby, god! Word Up! Meth: Is he dead? Ghostface: Is he dead? What the f--- do you mean is he f---ing dead god? F--- you think?! The NGH laying there with his f---ing...all types of f---ing red ink coming out of his f---ing books U-God: EEZEE EEZEE EEZEE DEAD? Ghostface: Yo god, what's up god? Its the god, god! Word is bond, yo I'm ready to f---ing go open outcry. I'm ready to hit the hedge, god. What's up? Chef: Yo lets get out and do what we got to do, god. Yo. We out? Ghostface: Its the god, god f--k that, man. Meth: They probably sunk the money markets! Ghostface, Chef, U-God: What the f---? Ghostface: The f--k is he talking about man? Chef: F--k outta here B! Of course all we need to complete the picture is Paulson coming through like GZA to sing it for the top of the upcoming ballot. "Fed in da front: let your feet stomp. Traders on the left: rag sh-- to death. Hoods on the right: wild for the night..." "Obama's coming through. The outcome is critical. To dig us out this mess, 'd be sorta like a miracle on 34th street; outta deep Wassila came Palin; The b---h caught a fitz like Gerald-ine Ferraro, who's feeling sorrow 'Cause the ho didn't win but the sun will still come out tomorrow And shine shine shine like 409. Here comes the drunk Bush with a quart of Ballantine..." Umm, I guess it doesn't come more raw than the words of the Wu, and raw is just about right, right now. But for a much-needed laugh, check out Wu-Tang Office, an awesome derivation of the original skit I parodied.
There are many reasons why I've never understood coverage of presidential races in the US. There seems to be a concerted effort to focus on everything that doesn't matter--specifically broad national polls. As we all know, it's the electoral college that determines the president. We all know how problematic this system is--it effectively disenfranchises Republicans in deep blue states such as CA and NY, and Democrats in deep red states such as TX and GA, but that's a complaint for another day. Right now the EC bears forth the crown.
I really thought McCain would pick a running mate based on the EC maths that meant he had to wrest back one or two midwestern Kerry states. When he picked Sarah Palin, I pretty much wrote off his chances. I've had a lot of other Obama supporters think I'm crazy. "But did you see how much people ate up Palin's convention speech? etc. etc." I responded: how is Palin going to win McCain MI or PA? The shallow assessment is that she would deliver the Hillary Clinton contingent of working-class women and blue-collar men, which completely ignores the depth of the policy differences between Clinton and Palin. Sure, Palin will help turn Texas an even deeper red this year. big whoop. It was always going red, anyway. This is why undifferentiated national polls are not much use.
What is useful are the sites that detail polling along EC lines. My first favorite is Electoral-vote.com, run by the renowned comp sci professor Andrew Tannenbaum a.k.a. the Votemaster (who unveiled his identity to great interest soon after the 2004 election). Its commentary has an avowedly Democratic bent, but it uses irreproachable methods of poll analysis for its statistics. Here is today's map: Earlier this year I learned about another such site, FiveThirtyEight (the number referring to the total number of EC votes available). Electoral-vote.com is more streamlined, using the main map as a gateway to much more detail on subsidiary pages. FiveThirtyEight takes the opposite approach of information explosion on the front page. Sometimes that suits me, and sometimes it doesn't, so I've been in the habit of using both sites for ongoing reference. Here is today's FiveThirtyEight map: The two sites also use different criteria for poll vetting and statistical analysis, which provides alternate perspectives. Both sites today have Obama in the 330 vote range, which would be a big win, but nowhere near as notable as I'd at first thought. Nixon and Reagan have had truly eye-popping EC margins of victory the likes of which we may never see again. But I do think Obama's margin will be higher than most current estimates. Both the above sites point out the systematic under-counting of the youth vote. True, voting reliability comes with age, but many of those 18 year olds who were never polled in 2004 because they had no land lines still don't have land lines at 22. All indications are that they are much more likely to vote this year than in 2004. Balancing that might be some manifestation of the Bradley effect, where polls fail to reflect a reluctance to vote for a minority candidate. In the end the only EC maths that really matters is what the boards show November 5th. Assuming, of course that it doesn't once again take Supreme Court action to settle matters (oh perish the very vestige of thought!).
I was at a hotel this week and flipped on the TV in the morning, catching at random a morning talk show segment with an author of a kids' book on Robert Smalls (I see now that it was Robert F. Kennedy). I hadn't even heard of him, and shame on me. What a story. I do mean: what a story! And that's just based on the Wikipedia article. I'll have to get the book to share with the kids for the richer story. Had you heard of Robert Smalls? Shame on you?
My pipu, how you dey now. O di kwa mma? Happy happy independence day. Our great and graceful Nigeria dey turn 48. Na time to celebrate. Nigeria, we hail thee!
Hmm, make we add small, small style. Wey that akata version? Ah, you no see? That one na trial version. The girl try well well, sha. But today na for the real omo Naija:
OK, I sabi say na aje-butta (like me, sha) but e sweet, eh? "If you Naija and you know it and you really wanna show it, if you Naija and you know it jump and shout 'Naija!'".
And what if you no be Naija? Na small thing, sha. You still fit find something for appreciate. See 13:18 for Jon Stewart wey them bring old people watch Obama/McCain debate.
Old Jewish bint: "She's a big horse, that Michelle" Old Jewish bobo: "You mean she has a big tuchas?" Old Jewish bint: "Well, yeah, I said she's a big horse" Old Jewish bobo: "Well many black women have big tuchases" Old Jewish bint: "Not all of them; just ones from certain tribes"
I no tell you? I no tell you? Michelle na Naija! Na which tribe women get ikebe like Naija tribes? Ask Beyoncé. She fit tell una. Obama na Kenya, but Michelle na Naija! Happy Independence day to the next first lady of the U.S.
Then the other day I was actually trying to use a core file for the gdb strack trace and I forgot where they go. I came across this article. Check it out:
$ sudo du -s /cores/16712928 /cores/
Yow. 16GB worth of core files. That's a lot of disk space to misplace. Of course core files are disabled by default, but if you're a developer like me you might have enabled it in your ~/.profile by adding the following:
#Allow core filesulimit -c unlimited
And if you're a scatterbrain like me you might have forgotten you did that.
I'm wondering whether my survey of XML standards was placed on a library science class reading list, because I happened to notice some traces in my vanity search feed (yes, I have one, what of it, thou false modestus?):
And much more along this vein. Doesn't look like splog droppings. Anyway, I hope they're learning something from the articles, which are getting a bit long in the tooth.
More importantly, some of the students seemed to expect from these a general introduction to XML. Bad choice of article for that. The above are detailed references for folks well into the swing of things XML. My publisher's (IBM developerWorks's) "New to XML" page is a good starting point for XML n00bs. After that, it's worth checking out my updated index of XML standards, which is based on the above four articles, but updated and differently organized.
http://www.youtube.com/experiencewii An ad video? Yawn! So imagine my surprise when a few seconds later my jaw dropped, and then a few more seconds later I was PMSL. So I called Osita over and before you know it we were both POSL. I've always thought Nintendo is far and away the most creative gaming company on Earth. All they do is keep on proving it.
The lady called from a mobile phone, so apparently a phone bank operation. That's OK, Lori does the same for the Obama campaign. The lady said "we're polling today with three just questions regarding ballot measures 47, 56 and 57."
"On any such political measure do you discuss the matter with no one outside your home, with two or three others, or with 20 or more?" "Does support or opposition by labor and teacher unions affect your likely voting on such measures?" "Amendment 47 only benefits out of state businesses, and hurts Colorado workers, while 56 and 57 support workers rights. Can we count on you to vode against 47 and for 56 and 57?" I told her "there's a chance, but you only hurt that chance by calling me up claiming to ask me questions rather than just getting straight to your point." Then I hung up. For the record, On amendment 47, I dislike mandatory union membership, but this is a matter for legislation, not constitution. I plan to vote no. On 56 and 57, these are even more flagrantly short on constitutional gravity, and I'd probably even oppose them in legislation . Quality of provided health care should be a matter of competition among employers, and the law provides plenty of requirement for safety, and plenty of sanction for willfully dangerous conditions. I plan to vote no on both. Of course I'm amazed there hasn't been much more calls and shenanigans on ballot measures. "Colorado voters haven’t faced a ballot this long since 1912, the first year citizens were able to initiate laws in the state." Our state motto, "Nil sine numine" (nothing without divine will) seems rather un-Coloradan, and we'd have more properly cribbed "Consule cunctis" (do what you deem benefits all the people) or something like that. We're fiercely independent, so we enjoy building fences of demotic law around our neighbors. As you can probably tell, my default position on ballot measures is "no" because I dislike their inequitable tendencies. They tend to be promoted or opposed by narrow interests, and thus have effects that do not represent the majority of voters (and so are not very democratic in re), and even in the best case, direct democracy is a dangerous thing. Having a body of professional legislators does provide some screening against impulse and prejudice. The barrier to the sledgehammer of constitutional amendment should be very high, considering how dramatically they can bind the hands of legislators. Even though I think the government should be very careful to raise taxes, I think the TABOR amendment is an unmitigated disaster. It can make it near impossible for a government to govern its way through difficulty. If the people are so against taxes, they should elect legislators who are unlikely to raise them. I'll write up my personal, informal analysis of ballot measures a bit later on.
