Why the new title for my blog?

There are few reasons for going from "Reading Books" to "purl.org/net/sopek":

1) The blog is no longer only about books. There are a lot of of posts on various themes
2) I want to promote my global unique identifier "purl.org/net/sopek"
3) I want to promote the idea of global, persistent identifiers

What is this PURL than ?

It is an acronym for Persistent URL. PURL is a service, run by Online Computer Library Center, a non-profit international organization, committed to preserve created PURLs indefinitely and at no cost. There are about 800 thousands PURLs created so far. PURL never change. Once created they will exist as long as Internet will be up and running. On the technical side PURL is a resolution server. It means, that it can point to some real resource (For example purl.org/net/sopek points to this blog). Because of this nature PURLs are ideal as parts of URI for any semantic web need.


And last - but not least - I may decide to move to another blog platform. This means I may loose my sopekmir.blogspot.com address - but I will never loose purl.org/net/sopek !!!

Two applications of Wikipedia - one of Meaning, second of Printing

Wikipedia has two fantastic offspring ideas.

In the first we can see what size it would have if printed on paper. See http://www.rob-matthews.com/index.php?/project/wikipedia/ (via David Weinberger). Have fun :-)

In the second, which I get into closer at last ESWC conference, called dbPedia, we have huge extraction of structured data or, structured data. I specifically like the term "Meaning Minining" coined by David Weinberger. Sings in my ears nigh to my "Web full of Meaning" as I call Semantic Web...

XX years of freedom on this land

Yes - I was strong opponent of communist rule.



I took part in student strikes of 1980s, I was distributing political, anticommunism pamphlet during Marshal Law of 1981. Never went into political activity, though. Open science and free enterprise was were I imagined my role.

So, when 1989 June came - I decided to do with the freedom something long lasting. Almost exactly around June 4th and first free elections, I went to then “West” Berlin, bought my first PC and that was the start of my business. I was 30 at that time.




Finally, after 40 years we could not only tamper with unwilling authorities - we could really start doing normal, honest, open business.

I started in my kitchen and the first activity was to use DTP tools (I was also proud to have the first legal Ventura Publisher software in the town :-)) to typeset newspapers and books that started to mushroom after the elections.

Then years of hard work came, we embraced Internet, we were one of first small ISP in the city of Lodz, started to build first websites. Then I came to Canada and later to States to work and to learn about the real business... Started to understand the fundamental role of the Web, started to create real business applications - all via web oriented methods.

Today my company has 80 people, we went public 1,5 years ago, and we are working also on international scale, we are growing in an organic way ... We will also celebrate our XX years this year. We will have the formal celebrations in September at Arthur Rubinstein Philharmonic Hall in Lodz - feel invited :-) I will announce the exact day soon.

There is also a shadow part of the story. It is about how slow the path to freedom goes through the minds of people. During these XX years the most important problem we faced can be described by this very sentence: "We toppled the system but we still carry its genes" (Kapuscinski)

So, as we celebrate the freedom and better Poland, we still, from time to time feel this shadow, this "sediment" that still resides in minds of so many people. There is still a long path ahead of us...

We are still not fully the “society of citizens”. The demons of the past are still haunting many. Poland still did not came back to the ideas of multicultural, multiethnic society it was before II WW and for hundreds of years before.

I just have my 50 birthday – it is June 7th. I guess all these days I will have time to ponder on the history we witness, both private and public. And I will continue to dream about Poland of our forefathers, when so many different people, of different faith and ethnicity lived in peace and with open minds....

Ubik - the classic of philosophical sci-fi

Were it not for a recommendation from my son, I probably wouldn't have discovered Philip Dick’s novels and his most famous one - Ubik.

Popular ranking puts Ubik and most of his other books into the “Science-Fiction” category. On the surface it is true – the book describes events in then-future (was written in 1969) i.e. in 1992. The main plot revolves around a strange company (Runciters Inc.) whose principal business is to protect its clients from unwanted interference from some telepathic “criminals”, who by use of psychic field, may interfere with humans brains (There was no Internet then, but Dick’s imagination was like a prediction of spam. BTW - Dick, in some sense, predicted the web – as a customized source of information via a "pape machine").

Another pillar of the novel’s plot is the “half-life” – the state into which a person could go after death of her/his physical body. The idea of possible contact of real people and people physically dead, done via interception of residual brain activity – plays an important role.

However, that’s enough about the plot in my review. I’m not going to spoil it for the future readers. The whole point in the reading of the book is about surprise, about incredible interleaving of time and space in such a way, that reader is often totally lost as to where the plot happens and in what time. There are amazing descriptions of time going backward into the past – and descriptions that do leave us with total uncertainty about the temporal and spatial frames of the plot.

The book is also deeply philosophical, and in this aspects, Dicks style reminds me of Lem’s writings. As with Lem, Dick transmits deep philosophical thoughts about time, space and human will. However, he does so in a very sincere way - free from any pathos or elation. There is nothing like bombastic moralization – and if you do not buy his philosophy – you can just ignore it. The reading is still a thrilling experience.

The last pages of the book, with an invocation of some ironically biblical tone, and the very last sentence of the book says something fundamental of humans condition – about freedom and almost Machiavellian will to exist, to survive, to prevail.

And last – but not least – the language of the novel. There are sentences and figures of speech of unprecedented beauty and wit. Read this:

“The chill debased the surfaces of objects; it warped, expanded, showed itself as bulblike swellings that sighed audibly and popped. Into the manifold open wounds the cold drifted, all the way down into the heart of things, the core which made them live. What he saw now seemed to be a desert of ice from which stark boulders jutted. A wind spewed across the plain which reality had become; the wind congealed into deeper ice, and the boulders disappeared for the most part. And darkness presented itself off at the edges of his vision; he caught only a meager glimpse of it.”

If you like good sci-fi – read it, if you do not like – read it anyway. Dick’s writership transcends any attempt to pigeonhole it.

Semantic Web on Greek Island. Conclusion

ESWC 2009 - European Semantic Web Conference.

It was great conference and amazing experience. Not only I could understand and grasp where the world is today when it comes to Semantic Web, but also we witnessed deep and hot discussion about its philosophical implications. After these 5 intensive days one can really feel the big change that will soon shake the web and the way we use it.

I think, instead of long review, I rather point readers to two web resources about the conference:

1) Its website: http://www.eswc2009.org/
2) The recordings of key lectures will be soon available on http://www.videolectures.net/

Finally, it was also right choice to organize it in such amazing nature...

See just two pictures:

Today’s dummies – Tomorrow’s génies

„Making Everything Easier” is the well known motto of the „For Dummies” series of books. The series has a good track of bringing even the most difficult technologies and skills to the level of a layman. Looking into the past, we can track that in most cases soon after a book „X for Dummies” was published, X became really important.

So I was extremely happy to find “Semantic Web for Dummies” by Jeffrey T. Pollock (http://www.semanticwebfordummies.com/). First, Jeffrey T. Pollock is really a personage of the Semantic Web. Software industry veteran for many years, now with Oracle, where he is a true trailblazer for Semantic Web technologies at the most advanced database and business software vendor. Second - so far, Semantic Web was the domain of highly sophisticated academic discourses and abstract papers far from reality.

“Semantic Web for Dummies” breaks from this tradition and shows its very practical applications. For example in Chapters “The Semantic Web in Your Life” the author shows the importance of Semantic Web for social Web2.0 experience. As he goes through solutions like Twine, TripIt, ZoomInfo or Dapper – he demonstrates that, somehow unconsciously, we are already using it! Then he switches to business use cases and writes about semantic applications, databases, policies and shows how important it can be for data integration – the most critical of today’s business systems challanges.

The book has nice parts like “A Quick Semantic Web Primer” or “Using the Resource Description Framework” aimed at teaching RDF, and “Speaking the Web Ontology Language” – aimed at OWL. In “Exploring Semantic Web Enablers” Pollock goes through all important components of Semantic Web. I was, however, a bit disappointed that the sub-chapter about SPARQL – such important part of SW was only 1,5 page long – certainly too short !!!

The best parts of the book are part IV “Putting the Semantic Web to Work” and V “The Parts of Tens”. The former for its practical attitude and lots of existing examples (e.g. I was amazed by “Harpers Magazine” experience), the later is quite philosophical, nevertheless it defends SW using the same “Ten Myths” method – once used by emerging XML technology.
By rebuking these myths Pollock truly answers all important doubts and hesitations about Semantic Web technologies.

The book concludes by a series of very practical suggestions – “Ten Next Steps” – where the reader gets practical advises what to check, train or contact, if she/he wants to participate in the growing tide of Semantic Webs :-)

I strongly recommend the book – it is the best introduction into Semantic Web I found on the market, so far.

Post written on beautiful Crete:

Semantic Web on Greek Island

I participate in the 6th European Semantic Web Conference. The conference is organized on the Crete Island - one of the cradles of ancient Greek civilizations of Minoan, and later - Hellenistic civilization.

To organize the conference about the emerging "ecosystem" of Semantic Web in the place of the emergence of civilization - is a spectacular idea on its own.

I will write more during or after the conference. The first day was full of workshops and tutorials.
I participated in an excellent tutorial presented by Matin Hepp and Michael Hausenblas.

It was about application of Semantic Web ideas for e-commerce, and in particular about GoodRelations ontology. What has impressed me - was how much work and real achievement is already in place.

During this tutorial we also learned about Yahoo's SearchMonkey and latest Google announcement that it will use RDFa and Microformats - I believe these events will enable the real jump start of Semantic Web ...

To be continued ....

O Jerusalem - a review and reminiscences

Some books about history and places, and their true hidden gist can be grasped only after you touch the stones, breath the air, toddle through its streets.

That was my experience about "O Jerusalem !" by Dominique Lapierre and Larry Colins.



As I wrote in the previous post, it was my second reading. However now, after two recent visits to this Holy City - the impression and impact of the book on me is much greater.

The book describes the most contested part of Jerusalem history - the time of War in 1948 - the war launched by Arabs on the news of United Nations creation of Jewish State.
It is very detailed, 600 pages book (about 18 hours of listening). And it is great experience. You get deep into the individual people emotions, but you also get very good account of the global and regional history of the time.



Authors are really very objective. They did not write only black & white adoration of Jewish heroes of the time. They write about the dark sides as well. This dark sides resonated in my heart with the words and thoughts of my orthodox Jewish friend - though not in a direct simple way....

But above all it shows how incredibly difficult time Jerusalem had between 1947 and 1967, until it was reunited as a consequence of another war started by Arab countries.

It shows how precious is every stone, every inch of its streets. It weeps over all the victims of the tragedies...

It also tells a lot of amazing and incredible stories about the Jerusalem area - about Hebron and its Kfar Etzion, about Latrun and the heavy fights for this fortress, about famous Burma road and Tomb of Salomon....



It describes in a fascinating, almost like a thriller, the stories of arm purchases for young Israel in Europe, about Golda Meir fund rising for the new born state and so many other fascinating stories.



When it comes to the mood - it has a kind of melancholic-epic character, but - in a very positive sense of the world - it reflects the feelings you have there.



I recommend the book to everybody who plans to go to Jerusalem. I promise - you will look at its stone from a different perspective....

I can't sleep in Jerusalem. If I can I always walk through its streets...

Wolfram Alpha - success or misfire ?

Wolfram Research has just launched its long awaited project: Wolfram Alfa.

My impression of it is however that of mixed feelings.I found some simple queries working well, but some other totally wrong - with no indication why.

I tried some chemistry on it (having PhD in theoretical chemistry I could:-) ).
Simple molecules expressed via simple query like C2H5OH are superb, including nice 3D models (try), but when you take something more complicated but perfectly well known (like La2(CO3)3) it shows something that has almost nothing of any knowledge of value.

Moreover, when I typed an absurd formula H9O – the answer was unnoticeably similar to some other perfectly sound molecules !!!

I tried some concepts form neuroscience – I always got simple: “WolframAlpha isn’t sure what to do with your input.”

And what bothers me the most: that mysterious source reference: “WolframAlpha curated Data 2009” – with no real explanation what it is, how it was build etc…

As for the only real value I got from WolframAlpha - it did some funny deciphering of my first name: Mirek. Try it – it’s fun and you will understand my "aka" signature below :-)

Well, that was a joke – there are some areas in which it operates well. Almost all math formulas I entered were produced superb, nice plots, formulas etc. So, as Wolfram Mathematica web extension it is perfect. I’m not sure about other fields.

Perhaphs it is as David Winberger wrote: “WA is like roomful of idiot savants”

I hope it will improve. There is something in me, like a small voice, telling me: there is some huge value in Wolfram Alpha, though I still cannot see it clearly...

Mirek (aka 1K^-1)

Unheard yet unheard-of

Mahler did not live up even to listen his IX. For him, it existed in his imagination only. Yet, it is one of the most incredible of his composition. Very intense, deep and thick - moves on a brink of tonality and so-called "classical" sonority, getting close to atonality of new-music-to-come. Mahler must have been in a difficult part of his life when writing it. We must remember, that formally his "Das Lied Von Der Erde" is his 9th Symphony. However, in addition of his attempt to avoid "The curse of the 9th" with "Das Liede..." it was also such different from all his other symphonies, that the real "Symphony No 9" deserves to be his true IXth.

Mahler drives us from slow Andante Comodo, where joy & sorrow of the music is tightly linked, through grotesque Scherzo and very intense, very "mahlerian" Rondo to incredible Adagio (Finale). In this last part we witness a thick, intense, almost "stony", music that , at the end, recedes into sorrowful slow tones that finalize the Symphony. It is in this last part, we hear the low tones of basses and - separated by several octaves - violins. The effect is incredible - one can feel goose bumps...

If you want to hear this passage go to minute 4 of the following recording:




The very fact that Mahler did not listen to his IX is remarkable. This great music, truly unheard-of, was also really unheard by the composer.

After listening to IX, it is natural to listen to the parts of unfinished Xth. However, Bernastein only performed Adagio from that, last of Mahler's compositions.
It is also very "Mahlerian" in its sonorities - in some parts it's so intense that it gets quite close to dissonances of atonality. However, the ultimate meaning of Xth is for me - the mature joyfulness, the appreciation of life and readiness for death - death with which Mahler seems to be finally reconciled. Needless to say, I, with many "Mahler lovers" await with great hope the finalization of years-long project of Yoel Gamzou, aimed in complete restoration and recreation of missing parts of Mahler's Xth... Read this.

O Jerusalem !

My second reading of amazing book "O Jerusalem !" by Dominique Lapierre and Larry Colins overlapped with my second visit to Jerusalem. I read it couple of years ago, but after my last two visits to this eternal city, the reading of it is an entirely different experience...

I will write more when I finish it.


Jerusalem from the highest point above it - The Samuel Tomb.

It is interesting to see that the book has finally gave rise to a movie
"O Jerusalem"


The post written in London.