RDF and SPARQL - Just Semantics

It’s amazing sometimes the rabbit holes one can find themselves when doing a simple web search.  I started looking for information on the data model used by the census bureau.  I thought it might be interesting to write about.   Instead, I found something more intriguing, at least for today.

Someone had been taking census information, and modeling the data in RDF.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Some estimate there are over 30 billion web pages on the internet.  One of the problems with all this information is that most of it is incomprehensible to a computer.  Not in regards to how to present the data, but in regards to what the data means, and how it relates to other data.

This brings us to the idea of a Semantic Web.  This won’t create artificial intelligence, but will allow computers to manipulate the available information for useful ends.  The idea is to relate and use data regardless of what application creates or maintains that data.

Take for example a simple culvert under a road.  One group may install the culvert, another inspects it for safety, another group cleans it, and yet another samples the water flowing through it to check for pollutants.  Each group may use a different software application, even a different database format.  But it would be quite useful to link all these facts to the original real world object.

So along comes the Resource Description Framework or RDF.  RDF is about representing knowledge in a distributed world.  The basic unit in RDF is something called a Triple.  It’s composed of a subject, predicate and object.   You can think of a Triple as a sentence.  The sentence has a thing being described (a web page for example), a specific property (the subject on the page), and the value (which might be tamales.  Mmmm…tamales).

While this seems simple, making it machine readable is the real purpose behind RDF.

RDF can be represented in many ways, with XML being just one of those representations.

And finally, we come to our final new term for the day - SPARQL (pronounced “sparkle”.)   SPARQL  is a quirky kind of SQL used to query RDF information stores.  As long as you’re familiar with SQL of any sort, SPARQL should make prefect sense.

RDF isn’t perfect, and doesn’t solve every problem.  But web searches of the future will need to be more intelligent, and meaningful.  With the proliferation of web sites, massive databases both governmental and private, and everyone under the sun adding content galore, we’ll need better ways to make sense of it all.  Perhaps RDF or it’s progeny will be the answer, perhaps not.

So, while looking for one thing, I found something else far more interesting, and potentially more useful.  Maybe tomorrow I’ll start looking for that Census data model.  Or maybe I’ll look up tamale recipes.  Who can say where the web will take them next.

Ship in a Bottle

I remember back in the 90’s a Star Trek episode called “Ship in a Bottle“, one of the Holmes related holodeck fantasies which, as usual, puts the ship in great peril at the hands of some holodeck character, and ends with the crew smartly fooling said villain with a holodeck trick of their own.   The Moriarity character flies off in an artificial shuttle craft living his artificial life in a world made up of no more than bits of data flowing through a glowing cube of plastic.

Now, aside from the fact that someone really needs to build a big OFF switch on the outside of the holodeck, or at least have it fused somewhere in the basement, the episode did have a thought provoking ending, in a Matrixy sort of fashion.   Picard surmises that perhaps they too are living in an artificial construct of a world, perhaps even running as a simulation on a box sitting on someone’s desk.

Later in the nineties, a movie came out by the name of The Thireenth Floor, which took this idea a bit further.  Enterprising techno geeks have created a simulation of 1930’s Los Angeles,  where they pop in and out of having numerous adventures.  (If you haven’t seen the movie, spoiler ahead here).  In the end, the hero learns that he is in fact a simulation as well, created by uber geeks from the 21st century.  A simulation running in a simulation.  And who knows how many shells there are.

So that brings us to 21st century now, where a team of a physicist and computer scientist have created a simulation of the United States.  So far, they “only” have about 100 million residents modeled.  Each “synthetic American” has a modest 163 variables assigned to them.  They are currently using the simulation to analyze the spread of disease or fads - I’m not sure what the difference between the two is actually - and hope to have all 300 million of us in there in the next six months.

Now, I’m sure they don’t have any fancy brain-to-computer interfaces just yet, but it does make one imagine a time when we can “jack in” to alternate realities of our own creation.  Already, people get lost in on line gaming, such as World of Warcraft, EVE OnLine, and alternate lives such as Second Life.  As these simulations become more and more realistic, many people will become lost, and may even forget their “true” selves, sitting on their comfy couches, until the cable company cuts of their broadband access.

And such visions of what is possible do make one wonder, if we are not in fact a simulation, running on some super computer in some kid’s room.  I just hope he remembers to pay the cable bill.

Microsoft’s Development Tools

Microsoft has continued to enhance their “Express” development tools.A few years back, while developing a workflow project, I had the need for SQL server on my laptop. Rather than go through the paper maze of doom that most corporations throw up to thwart anyone who might try to spend some precious corporate coin, I tried the express version.

The tool worked installed easily, worked great, and had better administration tools than paid for versions of SQL Server.

With their new tools for 2008, you can get the latest and greatest versions of Microsoft SQL Server, Visual Studio, C# , C++ or Visual Basic.

This is most helpful for consultants or any business who needs to stay current with their toolsets, but doesn’t feel like spending their dollars on costly upgrades.

They also offer an interesting tool called PopFly.  It seems to be the new web development tool for the Facebook generation. You can create little applications – called gadgets or mashups – that you can then add to your web site.

While all these new tools make web development even easier, it does tend to make people believe that developing anything that is on the web is equally easy, and that if their 15 year old can make a Facebook page in a day, well that inventory control application should be about the same.

It’s not always easy to explain the finer nuances of software development in this fast paced, ever changing culture. But at least Microsoft is making it a bit easier on developers to get the latest tools. And anything that lets you avoid the purchasing paper maze has got to be a good thing.