Standardize the problems before standardizing the solutions

I am currently attending the Adaptive Hypermedia 2008 conference which is being held in Hannover, Germany.
Today i participated in the User Model Integration Workshop where some interesting presentations and discussion took place.

The main theme around all presentations was the argument of centralised vs distributed user models. Which one should we adopt and why? pros and cons of each one were presented as speakers took turns in supporting one or the other.
What i found interesting was the presentation of Peter Brusilovsky who emphasized, as it stands now, how long is the road on achieving interoperability across the entire web. He made it clear that among peer systems, the centralised approach works perfectly, by having a common ontology and keeping universal common models. But he concluded that the big picture requires a decentralised approach, since various models for every user are located in systems with different data models among them.

The workshop concluded with a discussion where some interesting opinions were heard.
The participants agreed that re-usability of ontologies must be preferred instead of every one creating his/her own every time. Altough, we understand, agreeing on ONE universal ontology is far from realistic, up to 3-4 ontologies should be something we could achieve in order to accomplish a desired Lingua Franca state among the user modelling community.
Furthermore, user modelling standards, like LOM, LIP and PAPI, appear to fade away, since developers just don't care any more how they gather user information as long they manage it and keep their users happy while doing it.

Something that i really found interesting is the lack of consideration for scrutability and privacy issues from most of the workshop presenters. Only one student, whose supervisor is Judy Kay, the driving force for scrutability in user modelling, presented a scrutable solution which allows users to inspect and alter the way they are being modelled. I am glad that my PhD is not only focusing on interoperability, but also shows how we can add a 'scrutable touch' on our implementations while keeping in mind privacy of user information as well.

Another point that worths mentioning, is the fact that no-one is thinking outside the educational domain. All presented solutions were for achieving interoperability inside the educational domain only...But how about the social networking domain, e.g. Facebook, MySpace, etc.? How about the e-business domain, e.g. Amazon, eBay, etc.? That is another contribution that i think my PhD is bringing to the community.

Finally, every single one implementation presented was following a common (popular) approach: RDF or OWL to describe ontologies, which i agree, and Web Services for systems to communicate and exchange user information between them, which i don't fully agree. Why use such an 'advance solution' when a simpler one that fits the same purpose is available. The RESTful approach is covering its ground against SOAP-based implementations. Facebook, Google's OpenSocial, Amazon and eBay are all providing RESTful APIs. So why don't we as well?

I think the right questions were being asked today and a common understanding of various existing problems which we are facing has been developed. So why don't we build an ontology to map all these identified problems before every one of us goes away and attempts to solve them in their own diverse way? I mean...where we all agree is when identifying these problems; where we disagree is how we should go about solving these problems. Maybe what we should do, is standardize the problems before wondering why we don't have standardized solutions...

NBA Player Movement 2008-2009

As with every year, NBA teams are looking to become stronger, faster and smarter before the start of the next season with additions of free-agent players or by trading key players with other teams.
Although the summer and the pre-season is still long, some significant trades and free agents' signing has tricked me into thinking, as it stands now, who can win it next season.

3: Toronto Raptors obtaining Jermaine O'Neal has to be in number 3 spot in this year's player movements. O'Neal will add value and strength to Toronto's front line and along with Chris Bosh will hope to take the Raptors a step further in this year's playoffs.

2: Although, it can not be considered as a trade or a new signing, the debut of Greg Oden with the Portland TrailBlazers can be seen as an introduction of a new player in the team, therefore i think it fits in this discussion. Furthermore, the rookie Jerryd Bayless who won this year's best summer league player award makes the Blazers a significant force to be reckoned with.

1: Without a doubt, the signing of free-agent James Posey by the New Orleans Hornets has been the highlight of this year's movements! The two-time champion with Miami and Boston can bring an eclectic range of options to the Hornets. If Byron Scott lets him do what he does best, coming off the bench and shutting down the opposite team's star-player, while continuing to shoot high percentage 3s, the Hornets will be West conference champions this year.

The Dark Night

Yesterday i watched the latest Batman movie called The Dark Night.
I was waiting for this movie since i first saw the trailer some months ago..
Some exciting news also made it more attractive compared to all previous Batman movies...

First it was the reaction of Jack Nicholson when found out that another actor was selected to play the role of Joker. As revealed, Jack was furious when Heath Ledger was given the role of the famous villain, the Joker, in the new Batman movie.

Secondly, it was the tragic news of Ledger found dead in his appartment before the movie was released, caused from a possible drug overdose...

Surely, that initiated some reactions from the public. How is it possible, with such a huge success waiting around the corner, the actor to commit suicide in such a 'stupid' way?

Well i got my answer yesterday!

A brilliant performance from Ledger, overshadowing Christian Bale who played the Batman role. Ledger brought a new level in the villains category offering a range of emotions to the audience. An outsdanding, hate-to-love or love-to-hate (which one are you?), performance that, i am sure, has marked the Batman era!
I wouldn't be suprised if Ledger gets an Oscar nomination, or even win an award, especially when, rumour has it, his death was caused due to his 'deep-acting' commitment to the role of Joker.
You can see it in the big screen, Ledger was turned to something else...He wasn't Casanova anyomore nor that confused guy in Brokeback Mountain. He was something else...Fear, pitty, admiration, anger, you name the emotion, Ledger delivers it in the movie!

A 9/10 from me and definetely added on my list of best movies ever, along with Seven, The Devil's Advocate, Forrest Gump and Two for the Money