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Photo from GeekAustin Semantic Web Austin Launch party, courtesy of Michelle Greer. |
Over the next few months, Daniel and I will be focusing heavily on teaching the SQL and other classes that we’ll be offering. We wanted to host one last big event before we jumped headfirst into the new endeavor. We’ll be inviting everyone from all the GeekAustin lists. Last time we did this was 2003. The party will be at Union Park, so there will be plenty of room. I’ll be announcing the musical guests later this week. Expect a few other surprises. The details are below.
GeekAustin 8th Anniversary Party
Tuesday, September 30, 6PM - 11PM
Union Park, 612 W Sixth St (Next to Katz’s)
RSVP at Facebook (strongly encouraged)
Hope to see you there! - Linear
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Following our launch party for Semantic Web Austin, I’ve been wanting to do a follow up interview with the group’s founder, Juan Sequeda. This interview was conducted by GeekAustin’s resident ontologist, Jana Thompson. - Linear |
Jana Thompson: What are the benefits you see to the business community in adopting semantic technology?
Juan Sequeda: Semantic technologies will allow data to be related. It is about serendipity and data reusability. So if the business community is interested in discovering relationships of their data and being able to reuse it, they should consider starting looking into semantic technologies. One of the main examples is data integration. The business community is interested in seeing how this new technology can finally (hopefully) solve the data integration problem. In my opinion, semantic technologies are focused on 1) creating a web of data (aka. The Semantic Web) and 2) data integration in different domains (business, life science, geospatial, pharmaceutical)
Jana: Do you think these benefits are great enough for businesses to adopt the changes?
Juan: The web is always evolving, and semantic technologies are going to be part of the next step of the Web. Therefore, if companies want to be up-to-date with this evolution, they need to get on that boat. In a way, if companies do not start to look into semantic technologies, they will be in a disadvantage, and by the time they do start working on it, it may be too late. In addition, if they are still not satisfied in their data integration solutions, semantic technologies could be something attractive that business should start looking into.
Jana: How large do you think this impact will actually be?
Juan: Right now, I don’t know. We have to wait maybe a year till the research community makes stuff that is more accessible to normal users. Hopefully in the next year we will know.
Jana: I’m imagining a scenario like the dot-com era, when everyone was convinced that everyone would be shopping online, and so there were a plethora of start-up dot coms, offering everything for sale online, that of course eventually failed for the most part.
Juan: Once several apps have been developed, this era is going to come. The research that needs to be done is how to make this easy for the user. For example, the semantic web community is just starting to think about this. Check this: http://km.aifb.uni-karlsruhe.de/ws/insemtive2008/. It’s the first workshop on Incentives for the Semantic Web. So the community has realized that it does need to do something to incentivsie the world. Let’s see what happens in October at the International Semantic Web Conference.
Jana: I’ve heard, from contacts in the Bay Area, that they are skeptical of how large this impact of semantic technology will actually be on the web itself, but that the best uses of the technology are for fields such as medical information, or as you mentioned, geo-spatial data.
Juan: The Semantic web and semantic technologies is in a research era. Medicine fields and others have helped in this research process, therefore they are receiving the best and first benefits now. But most of the research is done in Europe and the Europeans do not have a commercial mind-like. Companies are skeptical of the impact, because they are not knowledgeable about it, and it is still not easy because it is still in a research phase. Hence, no semantic web killer app exist yet. Twine.com is a US company that is starting to expose what semantic technologies can do. Paul Allen’s company, Vulcan is investing in semantic web companies in the US and Europe.
Jana: Are semantic technologies going to be part of the web because of people championing the cause or because it is actually a necessary step?
Juan: People don’t realize that they have a problem. When they search in Google, they get results that work.. but they don’t know that there is more stuff out there that can be even better. people have so much social data, and have become social slaves of updating their profile everywhere. things like that… are problems that people don’t see them as problems. I believe it will be a common ground that will meet up somewhere in the middle. Where people are championing the cause, and half way through, users will realize that it is necessary.
For example, in the venture weekend that took place at UT couple months ago, came up with a better search experience for live music in austin (turn2live). Believe it or not, call it semantic web or not…. its a problem that people are realizing that they have and Google is not solving it. So problems exist, but people just live with it.
Jana: In the early days of the web, there was an explosion of new websites, due to the ease of learning HTML, from a business to a person to some crackpot talking about aliens. Even today, CSS and XHTML are not so difficult to learn that a determined person can’t learn them from W3C or other tutorials easily. If OWL becomes the norm for websites, what do you think the effects will be on the web? Do you think it is easy enough to learn that it will be readily adopted as part of the standard toolkit for web developers for businesses?
Juan: OWL is an ontology language, and one of the important principals of the Semantic Web is that data should be reused. Furthermore, ontologies need to be reused. Why would you want to reinvent the wheel? For normal programmers and designers, the use of OWL is not necessary, to a certain point. For example, if you want to add microformats and RDFa to describe your website, all you need is to learn some specific options that goes into HTML tags. These options are actually part of the FOAF (Friend Of A Friend) ontology. Therefore, nobody had to create their own ontology, they are reusing FOAF. On the other hand, the knowledge of specific W3C standards like OWL is necessary if you want to do data integration. If your database data describes a specific domain, where an ontology already exist, you may use that. But most commonly, you would want to create your own ontology. This ontology is the semantic layer that describes the content of different databases schemas that share the same domain. So it would be necessary to know OWL to get this done. My personal research work is to automate this process.
Jana: Following the same theme, do you think this will lead to an internet full of corporate-controlled websites, with sites only written by developers rather than individuals?
Juan: It may seem like this right now, because these are new technologies. RDF is less than 10 years old. OWL became a recommendation 4 years ago. SPARQL became a recommendation this year. These semantic technologies are just starting. In my opinion, the semantic web community needs to start creating easy and attractive ways for individuals to be part of the semantic web. This includes creating cool UI’s to navigate data, easy ways to create linked data, etc.
Jana: So, you are imagining technologies such as Drupal or Wordpress, that allow users to manage sites without a great deal of knowledge of the nuts and bolts of current web technologies?
Juan: Drupal and Wordpress are not technologies, they are applications. And these applications will offer stuff that will make users life easier. And they have already started. They do have RDFa and microformats!
Jana: Given all of the buzz, and my own familiarity with ontology, I am just very curious if the semantic web is truly necessary?
Juan: Check this video: http://juansequeda.blogspot.com/2008/08/predicting-next-5000-days-of-web-ted.html
Yahoo, Reuters, New York Times.. they are all doing semantic web stuff. The web is evolving that way. Is it THE solution? I don;t know. Nobody can solve all problems and save the universe. Right now we give stuff to the web (web 2.0.. user content generation) next generation is that the web will give stuff to us.
Jana: Will it be worth it to most people to go away from the web in its current form, with keyword searches on sites like Google, to a richer and more interconnected internet with potentially better search technology?
Juan: Semantic Web and semantic technologies is not only about making a better search engine. It may be that adding semantic technologies to current search engines won’t better search results. But what it will do is allow serendipity. It will allow users to discover relationships, things they didn’t know that existed. Search engines like Google will connect users with documents. The Semantic Web will connect users with data. That is what it is all about: a web of data.
Jana: For our more technical readers, I have a few additional questions: If no standardization comes about for mapping relational databases to domain ontologies, how do you see that as influencing the decisions about adoption of semantic technology by businesses? After all, the success of technology often lives or dies on its ease of adoption.
Juan: It would mean that several different solutions will be offered. It will become a business race to see who can offer the best solution.
Jana: Do you have any specific thoughts on a potential solution for the two initiatives of RDB2RDF - any rough ideas that you care to share on sketching out a solution beyond what you discussed in the Nodalities article?
Juan: I presented two aspects: Database and Ontology mapping and Direct Mapping. Both solutions are needed. The case where you have a company that can invest in a person who can be specialized in semantic technologies, who know OWL and knows the mapping languages. That company can make specific mappings. But you also may have the case that you want a simple automated system because you can’t invest in creating personalized mappings.
Juan: I really liked your questions. I understand that is may all sound a bit evangelist (which is what I proclaim what I do)… but its nice to actually get the correct words and reality out of me.
Jana: Juan, Thanks so much for taking the time.
For more info on the Semantic Web in Austin:
Juan’s SemanticWebAustin blog
SemanticWebAustin on LinkedIn
SemanticWebAustin onFaceBook
Daniel and I have been planning this for a while, and are finally ready to launch. Beginning in September, GeekAustin will be hosting a series of free classes on various core skill sets for beginning tech pros. The classes will be held downtown, and will be free. The classes will vary in length, and will cover topics such as SQL, Java certification, and basic object-oriented design.
The first class will be on basic SQL, and will be team-taught by Daniel and myself. This is the same evening class that we taught at Data Junction and Pervasive. The SQL class will begin early in September, and will tentatively consist of one session a week, each Wednesday night, for eight weeks. All materials needed for the class, including sample database, will be supplied. So that attendees will not have to waste time on things they already know, we have a pre-class evaluation test to determine the right session at which to enter.
For more information, or to request a place in the class, send a note to linearb@gmail.com
This is a presentation and party co-hosted by GeekAustin and OWASP-Austin. In the front room at Union Park, we’ll have the usual drinks and shenanigans. In the boom boom room, Mando and whurley will have a presentation and discussion on openSIMS. Although openSIMS has a lot of complicated things going on under the hood, Mando and whurley have a knack for expressing it in layman’s terms. The recruiters probably won’t understand it, but they’ll be up front buying drinks for anyone who says they know Java.
openSIMS
If you have any friends/colleagues who do high-level security work, and tell you the tales, you’ve probably heard statistics to the effect that banks and similar institutions are cyber-attacked millions of times each week. You may also have heard that thousands of those attacks are successful. With the growth of hacking and phishing from bored teenager to organized crime groups, this is the reality.
An institution can have teams of the best IT security, firewall, intrusion detection, and forensics experts. They can employ a range of tools: snort, nessus, nmap, nagios, as well as costly enterprise tools. However, when attacked by an army of bots, it frequently isn’t enough. Some attacks succeed.
openSIMS provides a way to integrate Nmap, Snort, Nagios, and Nessus into a common event correlation framework. More importantly, it provides a way for enterprises to selectively share network threat data realtime. Most importantly, openSIMS is an open-source project that is free to install and implement.
OWASP-Austin
The Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) is a worldwide free and open community focused on improving the security of application software. Our mission is to make application security “visible,” so that people and organizations can make informed decisions about application security risks. Everyone is free to participate in OWASP and all of our materials are available under a free and open software license. The Austin group meets monthly for a lunch talk. http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Austin
If you are interested in hearing about the state of network security (what the folks who hold your online information don’t tell you), and the emergence of the “Community Centric Security” model, I think you will find this an interesting discussion.
Then again, you can also just hang out up front and toss down drinks. Either way, I hope you can make it.
Rebirth of openSIMS - party and presentation
Tuesday, August 19th, 6PM-10PM
presentation at 7PM in the BoomBoom Room
Union Park, 612 W Sixth St.
RSVP (not necessary) at Facebook or Upcoming.
I launched GeekAustin, as an independent website, shortly after closing Desert Books in 1999. My intent was provide a place to keep in touch with all the programmers/admins/techies/hackers/crackers/wireheads who I had gotten to know over the 10 years that I ran bookstores along the drag. The original GeekAustin site ran on Slashcode, and was more or less an Austin version of Slashdot. Half a dozen people were involved in setting up and contributing to the original site. _fool and The Mighty Robbo helped configure the original server and schooled me on system administration. Orion helped configure Slash, set up the mail server, and contributed many of the original stories. Following the first dot.bust, many of the original crew left the velvet rut of Austin for higher pay and better opportunities. By 2003, I was more or less the sole contributor. In early 2008, because of security vulnerabilities in the ancient version of Slashcode I was running, I converted the site to WordPress. Most of the older stories are offline, but are archived.
Because the original purpose of GeekAustin was to stay in touch with the tech community around Europa/Desert Books, parties were always a big deal. Any significant event in the tech world was sufficient reason for a GeekAustin party: whether it was the release 1.0 of Mozilla, the one billionth second of Unix, or Donald Knuth’s birthday. We hosted a somewhat infamous Adult Webmasters’ Party at SXSW (Does anyone have pictures?), and before Brad sold it to SixApart, we hosted an annual SXSW Live Journal party each year, where Brad would fly out to be the guest of honor. We also had the pleasure of co-sponsoring Symbiot’s Linux Top Gun events — which gathered the largest group of network hackers ever seen in Austin.
My fondness for throwing tech parties actually pre-date GeekAustin by about a decade. It can pretty much be traced back to Bruce Sterling’s first visit to Europa Books in 1990. Soon after his visit, Bruce began telling his friends about the store, and over the next few years, Bruce introduced me to Paco Nathan, Steven Levy, Bill Gibson, Lebkowsky, Mark Frauenfelder, the staff at Wired… and the list goes on. Whenever one of these folks came to town, we’d have a booksigning/party/whatever at the store. We hosted events for Boing Boing (when it was a print magazine) and the EFF, among others. It wasn’t until this week, while on my morning walk, that it occurred to me what a huge effect Bruce had upon the direction of the store, as well as my migration into the tech sphere.
The early GeekAustin parties were attended by a pretty hardcore tech crowd. There was a nice mix of brilliant and crazy folks along with the expected zealots, misfits, and CTOs. I did have to ban numerous males who didn’t know how to act around women. I also had to ban the recruiters whose vocabulary consisted only of “Do you know Java?”. But if you knew how to navigate the crowd, you could always count on fascinating conversations.
I’m making a conscious effort to move the GeekAustin website, and the event themes, back into a more tech heavy direction. Call me selfish, but I would rather have a discussion about grid/cloud computing with someone who understands parallel algorithms, than have a conversation about the Semantic Web with a group of advertising/PR people who have no concept of the difference between relational and hierarchical data models.
The next GeekAustin event is a return to roots.
On Tuesday, August 19th, GeekAustin be hosting, along with OWASP-Austin, a presentation on openSIMS — a radical new way to deal with network security threats. Presenting will be Mando Escamilla and whurley of the openSIMS project. Although some extremely complicated things go on under the hood, Mando and whurley have a knack for explaining it at the street-level. The event will be held at Union Park. Presentation in the boom boom room, and drinks in the main room. Details will be on GeekAustin Monday. For Facebook users, the facebook page is here.
It is good to be excited.
-Linear
I don’t normally do job posts on GeekAustin anymore. However, I make exceptions. Chris Bernard, (blog) (geekaustin interview), one of the sharpest guys I know, just sent me this job rec:
I know, it sounds like a joke right? But think about it, who needs it more than Microsoft? Think how boring this gig would be at a place like Apple, it would be like being the Maytag repairmen. At Microsoft you’ll be challenged everyday and get a chance to play a role in events like our global PhizzPop Design Challenge, SxSW and support local groups that support the design community in the US, like Refresh and the IxDA.
You’ll meet some of the best Web shops, design agencies, designers, user interaction designers, experience architects and technologists in world all from the comfy headquarters of Austin, TX. You’ll have to do some traveling for this job but mostly in the US and in the Midwest with the occasional cool trip overseas.
If you’re passionate about UX, tinkering, building, and teaching folks about rich technology formats such as AJAX and Flash and have an interest in things like Silverlight and want to work at a place where you can have tremendous influence around design, the standards-based Web and simply making cool stuff this is a GREAT opportunity for those that are passionate about design and technology.
In addition to Austin we’ve got opportunities in LA, DC and NYC too. We’re moving fast so give me a shout at chris.bernard@microsoft.com if you are interested and you can check out www.designthinkingdigest.com to learn more about my own experiences in this role.
I have the pleasure of knowing and working with several of the regional UX folks at Microsoft. This is an exceptional gig for an exceptional person. Chris told me that they will be acting fast on the position. So if you think you are what they are looking for, take a look at the job post and send a note to Chris (chris.bernard@microsoft.com) today.
