Champernowne’s Constant

Whilst reading von Baeyers 'Information' recently, I came across the following fun mathematical tidbit which I thought was worth sharing. Mainly because I couldn't find many references to it elsewhere on the 'net. In the chapter on "Randomness", von Baeyer introduces several definitions of the term "random", iteratively showing how each is slightly flawed. Considering … Continue reading Champernowne’s Constant →

We’re All Harmonies

Attempting to bring the teetering pile of books in my "to read" pile under control I've banned myself from Waterstones and the local library so I don't get tempted to buy any others. So far it's been mostly successful: I've strayed in, but not actually bought anything. In typically anal retentive fashion I've adopted a … Continue reading We’re All Harmonies →

Sounds of Sunlight

I went to the Festival of Gardens at Westonbirt Arboretum last weekend. Definitely worth a visit if you're in the area. Being a complete idiot and having forgot my camera I don't have any photos, so you'll have to look at the designs on the website for some impression of what's there. Essentially its an … Continue reading Sounds of Sunlight →

How Big Is Your Store?

I've just kicked off a project to explore changing our main content repository to an RDF triple store. The main issue at the top of my list is scalability. The repository will end up holding metadata about more than 16 million articles (plus their associated authors, affiliations, publications, etc) and as you'd imagine thats going … Continue reading How Big Is Your Store? →

Lessons Learned By An XML Hacker

I'm going to be speaking at XMLOpen in September, and I notice that my (late) abstract has now made it into the conference programme, The talk is titled "Understanding RDF: Lessons Learned by an XML Hacker" and will be an attempt to synthesize the things I've learnt about RDF, the semantic web, etc over the … Continue reading Lessons Learned By An XML Hacker →

Big Chill 2004…

...is unfortunately over. That's where I was this weekend, making my annual pilgrimage to my favourite summer festival. Cracking tunes, cracking company, and cracking weather. We had a logistical nightmare getting to the festival (don't ask) which but a dampener on the beginning but we soon got back into swing of things. Highlights for me, … Continue reading Big Chill 2004… →

XML Hacks

I see by the fact that my complementary copy arrived today that XML Hacks has hit the stores. This makes me incredibly pleased as my two contributed hacks mean that this is the most I've ever had in print, and that's like, proper writing, not this new-fangled web malarkey. My two hacks are #64 ("Identify … Continue reading XML Hacks →