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Larsblog

Typed data in tolog

We've known for a long time that sooner or later we'd have to start supporting data types (numbers, dates, ...) in tolog, but so far we haven't done it. At the moment, the only way you can produce numeric data, for example, is through the count() aggregate function (almost true). All information retrieved from the topic map is either topic map objects or strings. The ironic thing is that the language (and implementation) actually supports typed data; it's the underlying Topic Maps implementation that doesn't support it. ...

Read | 2006-05-10 23:17 | 2 comment(s)

A review of Norwegian brewers

I've been reviewing beers on RateBeer.com for a while now, especially Norwegian beers, and thought it might be interesting to take a look at how the different Norwegian brewers have fared in my ratings. RateBeer allows premium subscribers to download a CSV file containing all their ratings, and so producing a table of Norwegian brewers ranked by average rating was a simple matter of a little Python programming. ...

Read | 2006-05-02 20:50 | 11 comment(s)

Tags/folksonomies and Topic Maps

Tagging is an interesting and useful technique, but the way it's currently used lacks a lot, and I think Topic Maps are the perfect way to fill the gap between what tagging is and what it should be. ...

Read | 2006-04-06 21:37 | 4 comment(s)

Gildet på Solhaug

A week ago or so I received an email from my girlfriend about a play she wanted to see at the National Theatre: Gildet på Solhaug, or The Feast at Solhaug, by Ibsen. The play was to be performed in the restaurant at the theatre, accompanied by medieval food (the play takes place in, well, it's not entirely clear when, but it sounds as though it might be around 1300), and three kinds of beer from Nøgne Ø. I of course said yes at once, and so we went tonight. ...

Read | 2006-04-02 21:10 | 0 comment(s)

TMRA'05 proceedings have arrived

I finally got my copy of the TMRA'05 proceedings on Friday, and have been reading my way through them ever since. So far I've gotten to page 77, and I've enjoyed the trip thus far. What the book contains is the papers accepted at the conference, revised based on comments from the editors (Lutz Maicher and Jack Park) and on feedback received at the conference. In addition comes a 10-page report on the open space sessions written by Alexander Sigel. ...

Read | 2006-04-02 13:31 | 0 comment(s)

The supertype-subtype association

Lots of people think that the hierarchical association type used in taxonomies is the supertype-subtype association, but this is, unfortunately, wrong. After running into three instances of this misunderstanding this week, I decided to do my bit to clear this up once and for all. ...

Read | 2006-03-31 16:17 | 1 comment(s)

Emnekart 2006

This was the fourth Norwegian Topic Maps conference (emnekart is Norwegian for Topic Maps), and for the first time it was not entirely in Norwegian, as this year there was an English track through the whole conference. It was also the first year the conference sold out. ...

Read | 2006-03-30 20:59 | 9 comment(s)

Emnekart 2006 sold out

It's now official. The Emnekart 2006 conference (the Norwegian Topic Maps conference) passed 220 registered attendees today, which means that it's full. There is more room for people in the restaurant, and on the stairs in the lecture halls, but the venue says it's inadvisable to go above this number because of general comfort, air quality, etc ...

Read | 2006-03-23 17:46 | 0 comment(s)

Topic Maps seminar in western Norway

HØYKOM, a Norwegian research funding agency, arranged a seminar about Topic Maps in Leikanger, a village in western Norway. To get there from Oslo you have to fly turboprop for 40 minutes to Sogndal airport, then drive for another 40 minutes out along the fjord. The place itself has maybe 1000 inhabitants, but is the location for norge.no (Norway.no; central Norwegian governmental web portal), which is why the seminar was held here. ...

Read | 2006-03-09 21:55 | 3 comment(s)

Life at 60 degrees north

It's been snowing in Oslo more or less continuously since the early hours of Monday, and it's now late Wednesday evening. We had a lot of snow here from before, so the result is a snow record: the last time we had this much snow in Oslo was 1968. Altogether it's about two feet. ...

Read | 2006-03-01 21:39 | 2 comment(s)

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