Author Archives: Candidasa dasa, UK

I was really sick this morning. I felt horrible. My body seemed to reject everything I ate the previous day. No wonder really considering what it was. I’ve come to the conclusion that people in the UK can’t cook vegetables (except potatoes) without tur…

I was really sick this morning. I felt horrible. My body seemed to reject everything I ate the previous day. No wonder really considering what it was. I’ve come to the conclusion that people in the UK can’t cook vegetables (except potatoes) without tur…

I somehow managed to read an hour of the Nectar of Devotion throughout the day. Wow. Amazing book. It gets better every time I read it. Reading it makes me ecstatic, even if I don’t understand what it is talking about. The other conference attendees mu…

I somehow managed to read an hour of the Nectar of Devotion throughout the day. Wow. Amazing book. It gets better every time I read it. Reading it makes me ecstatic, even if I don’t understand what it is talking about. The other conference attendees mu…

The conference started today. The first few days are workshops and tutorials. The actual conference comes later.
So, today I attend a tutorial on “Automated Reasoning in First-Order Logic”. Professor Andrei Voronkov from the University of Manchester ta…

The conference started today. The first few days are workshops and tutorials. The actual conference comes later.
So, today I attend a tutorial on “Automated Reasoning in First-Order Logic”. Professor Andrei Voronkov from the University of Manchester ta…

IJCAI, the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, is probably the most important conference in the area of AI in the world (another important one is AAAI). This year’s IJCAI is in Edinburgh, Scotland. The conference will be in Hyder…

IJCAI, the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, is probably the most important conference in the area of AI in the world (another important one is AAAI). This year’s IJCAI is in Edinburgh, Scotland. The conference will be in Hyder…

In my line of research I?m very much involved with ontology development. I?m not going to beat around the bush: developing ontologies is hard. Really hard. The more logically rigorous they get, the more difficult they become to construct.

So, you might ask, how is the vision of the great and wonderful ?semantic web? ever going to work? After all, ontologies are the framework that is meant to undergrid the Internet of tomorrow.

Take a look at del.icio.us, flickr.com and technorati. They all use an up-and-coming (craze of the moment) idea of tagging. You allow people to add any word to their content and collect all these tags up into a large list. The larger the font, the more frequently used the tag. The obvious problems are synoyms and homonyms. However: who cares?! It kind of works, anyone can understand the idea, so wa-hey: let?s go tag crazy.

Ontologies however are much more powerful and dangerous. They exactly and unambiously define terms and formally capture relationships between terms. You get transitivity, inheritance and other great stuff like that. Moreover, computers can automatically navigate these data structures and use them to answer almost any question you can you throw at them. Feel the power!

What to do? The general populus is never going to be able to author ontologies, but could possibility be induced to use them, given a simple enough interface. So, if the subject area we are describing is sufficiently limited that we can construct an ontology to cover it (no one is going to be able to create an ontology of ?everything??), then we can allow people to tag their content with our ontologies terms. The result: we can have our computers sort, manage, slice and dice their tagged content any which way, take advantage of all the advanced features and the world is a better place. Amen.

 

In my line of research I?m very much involved with ontology development. I?m not going to beat around the bush: developing ontologies is hard. Really hard. The more logically rigorous they get, the more difficult they become to construct.
So, you might…

God,
Give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.
(The Serenity Prayer is generally thought to have been written by…

God,
Give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.
(The Serenity Prayer is generally thought to have been written by…

I was listening to an excellent talk with Jonathan Schwartz, president and COO of Sun Microsystems. One of the many interesting things Jonathan said was that a blog is a great tool for leaders. Ever leader should have one. He uses his blog to communica…

I was listening to an excellent talk with Jonathan Schwartz, president and COO of Sun Microsystems. One of the many interesting things Jonathan said was that a blog is a great tool for leaders. Ever leader should have one. He uses his blog to communica…

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised — Democracy, The Internet, and the Overthrow of Everything is a book on the story of Howard Dean’s presidential campaign. He was a candidate with no chance whatsoever of winning, who, out of nowhere, almost won the…

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised — Democracy, The Internet, and the Overthrow of Everything is a book on the story of Howard Dean’s presidential campaign. He was a candidate with no chance whatsoever of winning, who, out of nowhere, almost won the…

Wired magazine has an article about Vlogging, or video blogging, or video world wide web logging (to expand the shorthand complete). Short 3-5 minute videos of Vedic philosophy delivered in a fun way by devotees with interesting personalities have so m…

Wired magazine has an article about Vlogging, or video blogging, or video world wide web logging (to expand the shorthand complete). Short 3-5 minute videos of Vedic philosophy delivered in a fun way by devotees with interesting personalities have so m…

Snippet of advice: “Make the best Krishna conscious decision at the moment. Who knows what is going to happen in the future?”
CD: It is difficult dealing with people’s packed schedule of engaging their senses in so many ways.
DS: Keep trying. The mode …

Snippet of advice: “Make the best Krishna conscious decision at the moment. Who knows what is going to happen in the future?”
CD: It is difficult dealing with people’s packed schedule of engaging their senses in so many ways.
DS: Keep trying. The mode …

Today he met with Hitesh and his mother. He also met with two youth workers who work to better the lives of 14 – 25 year-olds using a holistic 6-angled view. A recording of the conversation is available in the audio downloads section.
Lunch:
Drink: App…

Today he met with Hitesh and his mother. He also met with two youth workers who work to better the lives of 14 – 25 year-olds using a holistic 6-angled view. A recording of the conversation is available in the audio downloads section.
Lunch:
Drink: App…

My spiritual master is staying with me for a few days. Hare Krishna!
He arrived from Russia via Finland, tried and hungry. The UK is very, very different from Russia, he said.
Shilpa and I prepared his lunch:
Drink: Apple and Ginger juice (revived him …

My spiritual master is staying with me for a few days. Hare Krishna!
He arrived from Russia via Finland, tried and hungry. The UK is very, very different from Russia, he said.
Shilpa and I prepared his lunch:
Drink: Apple and Ginger juice (revived him …

Prominent blogger John Gruber has posted a very good article on his “Daring Fireball” blog about what Apple is doing to support podcasting on the Macintosh. Among other things he comments on how quickly Apple has picked up on this very new phenomenon a…

Prominent blogger John Gruber has posted a very good article on his “Daring Fireball” blog about what Apple is doing to support podcasting on the Macintosh. Among other things he comments on how quickly Apple has picked up on this very new phenomenon a…

Here is an interesting take on the RSS phenomenon. The author’s basic point: RSS is too complicated for most people, so provide them with an email delivery mechanism in addition to RSS.
A “top-10 blog postings of the week” type email newsletter could,…

Here is an interesting take on the RSS phenomenon. The author’s basic point: RSS is too complicated for most people, so provide them with an email delivery mechanism in addition to RSS.
A “top-10 blog postings of the week” type email newsletter could,…

Compassion is like a lotus flower. Did you know that a lotus flower has a brilliant self cleaning mechanism? Its leaves’ surfaces are not smooth, as one might expect, but very rough. The roughness somehow causes any dirt on a leaf to attach itself to w…

Compassion is like a lotus flower. Did you know that a lotus flower has a brilliant self cleaning mechanism? Its leaves’ surfaces are not smooth, as one might expect, but very rough. The roughness somehow causes any dirt on a leaf to attach itself to w…

After reading the official ISKCON statement on the 7th of July London bombing I was a bit disappointed. It’s very politically correct and reads just like it could have come from any other religion. Even Krishan Dharma Dasa’s opinion piece is safe, wate…

After reading the official ISKCON statement on the 7th of July London bombing I was a bit disappointed. It’s very politically correct and reads just like it could have come from any other religion. Even Krishan Dharma Dasa’s opinion piece is safe, wate…

Today’s entry in Indradyumna Swami’s traveling preacher diary is well worth reading. The story brilliantly encourages devotees to write/blog.

Today’s entry in Indradyumna Swami’s traveling preacher diary is well worth reading. The story brilliantly encourages devotees to write/blog.

I was listening to Adam Curry’s podcast “the daily source code” today. Adam Curry is a former MTV host who has a daily podcast about other podcasts (and other useless stuff that is on his mind) and is considered to be one of the pioneers of podcasting….

I was listening to Adam Curry’s podcast “the daily source code” today. Adam Curry is a former MTV host who has a daily podcast about other podcasts (and other useless stuff that is on his mind) and is considered to be one of the pioneers of podcasting….

Attention spans are decreasing. Mine too.
When reading blogs I tend to skip those huge monster essays that some bloggers write unless I??(TM)m really, really, really interested in the subject matter. 500 words should be the limit. If a blog posting is …

Attention spans are decreasing. Mine too.
When reading blogs I tend to skip those huge monster essays that some bloggers write unless I??(TM)m really, really, really interested in the subject matter. 500 words should be the limit. If a blog posting is …

I found this very good article about the semantic web. In short, the semantic web is:
“A giant, distributed, machine-readable database that allows computerized intelligent agents to process knowledge and invoke web services, while also enabling better …

I found this very good article about the semantic web. In short, the semantic web is:
“A giant, distributed, machine-readable database that allows computerized intelligent agents to process knowledge and invoke web services, while also enabling better …