1st International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC2002)

ISWC2002 had a strong theme of web services. Conference organizers attempted to bring the Grid community together with the RDF community, with limited success. The semantic web crowd was largely the RDF subscribers, not the XPath semantic web subscribers.

Grid discussions

Carl Kesselman presented the keynote talk for the conference. The talk focused on . Following this, he and I discussed situations where, with a modicum of effort and proselytizing, the semantic web might be able to help the Grid. We discussed a current Grid metadata project to track resources. I was supposed to bug him about this later. We also briefly discussed Topic Maps. I discribed Topic Maps and their relation to RDF and gave him a pointer to some work mapping the two.

follow-ups

  1. email to Carl asking for pointers to metadata activity within the Grid.

RuleML discussions

I met with folks from the RuleML community to discuss their plans for standardization. Harold Boley has approached me in the past to discuss a possible RuleML activity at W3. Confronted with a likely lack or resources at W3 and priority within the AC, Benjamin Grossoff proposed a note at W3 and some vertical work to go on at OASIS.

There was a RuleML workshop on the following two days. I was unable to attend due to a previous engagement in NYC. During this workshop, Harold Boley presented a talk I had given in Dagstuhl. Attempts to get me on the phone during this talk failed as, to quote Said Tabet, "The Italian phone system is from another age." Harold reported that the talk went well and he was able to address all the questions so my presence would have not been a great boon.

team discussions

Follow-up:

I will be posting the results of follow-ups here.

infrastructure woes

hilights from this distopic trip:

Couldn't check my baggage through to Sardinia, only to Rome.
Don't split an itinerary over airlines that don't cooperate.
Air France lost my baggage in Paris
Don't go through Chuck D'Gaul when France is in the World Cup.
Spent four hours in the Rome Fiumicino Airport lost baggage claim line.
Don't claim baggage in Rome (Italy?).
Reformed claim process by bullying manager into giving me paper to make forms and information to put on them.
Don't try to make the trains run on time in Italy.
Arrived at Alghero Airport -- nearest was Cagliari Airport.
Don't assume islands are small.
Drove 3.5 hours to Cagliari and another .5 hours to Conference, in the pouring rain, in the dark, in a county, nay, continent that deprecates the use of road numbers for navigation.
Don't stay awake for 40 hours before driving in adverse conditions.
Tried to use cell phone for directions to the conference, but it wasn't, despite explicit instructions, set up for international roaming.
Don't trust anyone.
Spent four days in the same clothes, along with half the other conference attendees.
Don't take baggage through Italy.
Attempted check out at 2am to begin trip back to Alghero, not permitted to check out until 4am.
Don't do anything out of the ordinary.
Got lost in Cagliari and drive 120km in the wrong direction.
Don't look for English speakers on the street in Cagliari at 4am.
Drove back to Cagliari and returned car to Avis-looking parking space - stuck keys in Avis-looking key slot. Bought new ticket to Rome.
Don't try too hard to follow instructions.
Requested Air France upgrade my Fiumicino to Chuck D'Gaul trip to compensate my inconvenience. Told there were no seats. Got on plane. Kicked out of nearly empty First Class section.
Don't trust anyone, ever.
Told it was too late to check into my Paris to Boston flight -- apparently Air France Fiumicino failed to check me through. Countered famous French "you must have made a mistake somewhere, stop bothering me" attitude with an expressed desire to take this to the most senior Air France officer in the city.
Don't take any more sh*t from anyone.
Eric Prud'hommeaux