"I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I'm not absolutely sure of anything..." (Richard Feynman)
From October 16-17 my group co-organized and hostend the DSpace Usergroup meeting 2007. (https://www.aepic.it/conf/index.php?cf=11) My colleague Imma Subirats was one of the pillars of the entire organization. I got quite excited about DSpace and the possibilities to adapt it to Agricultural Open Archives.
I was also intrigued by the connections between DSpace and the MIT Simile project that brings a "semantic dimension" into the DSpace development. https://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=1660131278&size=m
The fan club around Richard Dawkins has become somewhat nervous about Sam Harris contribution at the "Atheist Alliance Conference" in Washington (see link from this post). The link shows also the discussion.
Attached you will find the speech of Bundespraesidend Koehler for the German National Day 2007. I like it. What I most like is the title. I also agree that we have the tackle the problem that the globalization creates dispartment within the countries more than between the countries. We have tobe careful that the globalization loosers in the rich countries do not turn against globalization (see https://johanneskeizer.com/node/293) .
During the e-agriculture week at FAO Headquarter, I participated in a CGIAR workshop on "opening Access to Agricultural research. I think there is big confusion among various stakeholders about the linkings between research, technology deployment and Extension. It seems to me that there is a tendency to apply criteria, which have value for extension and technology deployment (relating to the end users i.e) also on research. I still think that research should be as much as possible independent from application szenario, but should resolve scientific problems.
September 23 and 24I took part in the organization of the second expert consultation on Information Systems in Agricultural Science and Technology was hold in Rome at FAO HQ.
A very interesting part of the conference were country reports from (among others) Egypt, Peru, Madagascar and Thailand.
On the 21st and 22nd of September the 8th Agricultural Ontology Service workshop took place in Rome at FAO HQ. This workshop was particularly aimed to shape the AOS community and to outline the future of the Initiative. More than 40 people from more than 10 countries participated.
I am just back from visiting the "terracotta soldiers" at the tomb of Qin Shi Huan, the first emperor and representative of the Quin dynasty. As generally known he was buried with more than 7000 Terracotta soldiers to be mighty also in the afterlife. He was also buried with 100 s of acrobats, chefs and all the other people that were necessary to assure the used lifestyle of the emperor. I am not knowledgeable enough for being sure if at the end really only the terracotta duplicates have been buried or also the living people who had that function.
...and I should also have many girlfriends :-). I bought a big black Dragonhorse at the museum of the city wall of Xi'an. As I bought the big black one (for the office), I got also the smaller white one (for home) and I got also the little pink one for having many concubines. So I should be completely settled. At least if I would believe in Feng Shui theories; if it does not work out I will surely have failed to put the Dragonhorse in the right ankle to the sun, the moon, or the star in a specific day or some other site settings were wrong.
I am at the moment in Singapore at the DC2007 meeting. I delivered a keynote in the first session after the introduction by Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, Singapore's Minister for Community Development, Youth & Sports and Second Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts.
