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Tuesday May 16, 2006

Number 21!

Personal

Noel's age and my lucky charm! That's three free drinks at the bingo two weeks in a row! Will Rob go on and win the 750 euro jackpot later tonight? Or get laid? Stay tuned for more zany adventures from Rotterdam!

Photo tags

Software

A few weeks ago I added tags to my photography, but I never uploaded the new code. Well, this morning I did. Therefore it is now possible to quickly see all photos tagged cheap thrills, horrorpops, rob, rotterdam.. well, and so on, I'm sure you get the picture. (No pun intended.)

It's not unlikely that as a next step, I will add tags to journal entries (update: done). And then remove the category system I'm not entirely fond of anymore. And then possibly combine tags with my auto-linking which would basically mean not just a revival of the auto-tagging system I had on "Blog of Rob" in the past (called dynamic keywords), but indeed an improvement of it.

Rules are rules

European Union

Rules are rules, at least they are in the European Union. Dutch minister Rita Verdonk wants to get rid of Ayaan Hirsi Ali in what promises to be a nice little crisis for the Dutch parliament. Last Friday, Verdonk assured Hirsi Ali she need not worry about having lied about her past to get a passport, something she has admitted since 2002, while never causing a big scene. Until this week: Verdonk has announced that Hirsi Ali's Dutch citizenship should be declared null and void.

Hirsi Ali has now resigned her duties and will seek a new life in the US, while people in the Netherlands get in line to buy Arjan and Kay's precious anti-Verdonk t-shirts (already pre-ordered mine).

Update on auto-tags

Software

As a follow-up on my previous musings and site development updates on automatic tags and tag links embedded in journal entries, I have an admission to make: maybe auto-tags and auto-links aren't such a brilliant idea after all.

Sure, the system I have developed works wonderfully for tags which are narrowly defined terms and names. But that's not true for all words. I have a tag called "work" in my photo album, but it is simply undesirable to have every occurance of the word "work" link to the tag page when the noun (or verb) is used outside the contect of what the tag is supposed to represent. It simply wouldn't work (manually simulated example of why not). Some example of my current "dictWords" code which do work (hehe): , my photography, HorrorPops.

Not being able to use generic nouns and verbs narrows down the number of possible options for auto-tagging significantly:

  1. Don't auto-tag. I'd rather overcome the problems I encounter, but sometimes it's best not to try the impossible.
  2. Use capitalisation to identify text which acts as a tag. An easy solution, but not water-proof due to capitalisation rules embedded in the English language and it requires some consistency from the author, but that could actually be a benefit when it stimulates such consistency.
  3. Use tags to identify tags. Similar to capitalisation, but more robust and somewhat akin to Wikipedia's internal linking system. Somewhat undesirable as manually marking tags can barely be considered "auto-tagging".
  4. Manually ensure that tags are specific terms and names, and not generic words. This would basically mean that tags can not be nouns, verbs or other phrases that do not ensure a unique context.

I'm not sure yet which of these I will choose, although I'm most fond of the latter option as it limits user responsibility to defining proper tags while leaving alone the process of actually writing text. It's not without limitations of its own, but somehow I feel like it is the limitation I could best live with.

I insist that a proper auto-tagging engine can remove the border between fluid content (blog/journal entries) and static content (more permanent viewpoints and collections of information on any given topic) without resorting to hacks such as manually linked or sticky summary posts.

Feedback from people in the web and digital content industry is very welcome. So consider this a casual Request for Comments (RFC).

Considering the efforts of Microsoft (delayed filesystem originally intended for Longhorn), Google (desktop search), Beagle (desktop search) the concept of "personal information space" seems to catch on and it does then make sense to me that web sites also offer a way to integrate various types of content, such as journals, albums, poetry, external links, and so on.

Bitch fight in Dutch parliament

European Union

I'm listening to the live Ayaan Hirsi Ali debate on the radio and it's quite a crisis now. Femke Halsema is completely slapping Rita Verdonk across the Second Chamber, at least when it comes to words.

Something to watch in the next few days: Rita Verdonk claimed she did not know until Thursday Hirsi Ali lied about her name (making her citizenship null and void instantly). But Halsema argues Verdonk has e-mailed Hirsi Ali on her parliament address which has her true name, which Verdonk denies to ever have done. Someone at the government should scan their SMTP logs.

Halsema literally claimed she did not believe Verdonk and I very much expect this could lead to a motion of distrust, which might very well lead to the resignation of parliament.

The debate has continued in the meanwhile, focusing on different aspects of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's status and Verdonk's interpretation of law. But I do get a feeling Halsema might make this all about integrity.

Summary of Hirsi Ali parliamentary crisis

European Union

Maybe IM posts are a good way to give a summary of matters:

Message to Neil Stevens at 21:30:11
    there is an emergency debate in the chamber
Message to Neil Stevens at 21:30:37
    hirsi ali's citizenship is to be revoked
Message from Neil Stevens at 21:32:04
    really
Message from Neil Stevens at 21:32:11
    no wonder she's coming here then
Message to Neil Stevens at 21:32:20
    that's independent
Message from Neil Stevens at 21:32:20
    I hadn't heard that part though
Message to Neil Stevens at 21:32:36
    well the debate has been live on and radio for hours now
Message to Neil Stevens at 21:32:50
    there's a huge fight over the interpretation of law
Message to Neil Stevens at 21:33:01
    the taken actions, the reign of freedom of leadership
Message to Neil Stevens at 21:33:13
    the integrity of claims
Message from Neil Stevens at 21:33:15
    sounds exciting
Message to Neil Stevens at 21:33:28
    well if there's a motion of distrust
Message to Neil Stevens at 21:33:33
    the parliament could resign
Message from Neil Stevens at 21:33:45
    bring on Amidala
Message to Neil Stevens at 21:34:06
    heh
Message to Neil Stevens at 21:34:27
    padmé is fit, i'm all for it

Dutch parliaments have been falling like dominos the past few years. Kok III over Srebrenica, Balkenende I over the LPF coalition which was a mess lacking the leadership of murdered Pim Fortuyn and maybe now Balkenende II over Ayaan Hirsi Magan and Rita Verdonk.

Nice development: if Hirsi Ali cannot proof she rightfully carried the name Ali instead of Magan, apparently the chamber has for the past three years ruled unconstitutionally, having only 149 constitutional representatives. If it does turn out to be that the naturalisation has never taken place, we have had an illegal chamber member.

Message from Neil Stevens at 21:59:07
    what so this is all about her name?
Message to Neil Stevens at 21:59:35
    yes, because giving a false name at immigration can change your status to as if naturalisation had never taken place.
Message to Neil Stevens at 21:59:54
    in which case she is not dutch
Message to Neil Stevens at 22:00:01
    and illegally residing here
Message to Neil Stevens at 22:00:09
    illegally having been a chamber member
Message to Neil Stevens at 22:00:22
    creating an illegal government basically, as member of parliament
Message from Neil Stevens at 22:00:44
    yeah
Message from Neil Stevens at 22:00:51
    they have to leave that to brussels

Crisis!

Next day: Wednesday May 17, 2006 Previous day: Monday May 15, 2006

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