Raw

I've got even more of a backlog of email than usual (way too many interesting things) but one I just got is a good prompt for me to respond to an earlier question. The question was: what breed of cat is Sparql?

I started reading around the breeding sites, and as far as I can tell, she's a plain old domestic shorthair with tabby colouring. But given that none of our mogs are purebreeds, it was fun looking into the different breed characteristics and individual traits (there's a big distinction, see purebred faq). I definitely want to expand on this some more, but I sketched some notes below.

Anyhow the mail that's pulled the earlier question back off the to-do list was a pointer from Monica Castiglioni to her " Esempi di una Semplice Ontologia - il Dizionario dei Gatti" (she'd stumbled on my Pet Profile stuff). It's a cat breed ontology, with a version in HTML and XML, with a table view of the data styled using XSLT. RDF hasn't been used, but the XML is pretty cleanly structured, I'd suggest a pass through Make your XML RDF-Friendly

I'm indebted to Monica for reminding me what a proper traditional homepage can look like (brava!), and for demonstrating that some things work better in Italian than others: pet ontology becomes "ontologia sugli animali da compagnia", whereas Monica's coined "ontogattologia".

Oh, now hang on - I can't actually clear this mail from my to-do list, but a reference here would be highly appropriate. Luca Mascaro (who was at SWAP 2004), pointed me towards Pasquale Popolizio's Web:Semantico, which features translations of various key docs into Italian, e.g. L'estensione del Web Semantico, DC Terms and of course RDF e Web Semantico attraverso N3. Pasquale's looking for fresh docs, so if anyone's up for a new RDF Tutorial (or anything related), there's an Italian translation in the offing too. (I'm keen on contributing somehow, but I'd better get some € in first).

Ok, random cat notes -

Sparql has eyes like dinner plates & long tail.

Sambuca's eyes are remarkable in colour, and her head and upper body are very elegant, nearest in that description I could find was Abyssinian, thought to be a direct descendant of the ancient Egyptian sacred mogs. She gets a little less elegant further down, with an underhang like baggy pyjamas and a short tail that looks something of an afterthought, only there because cats are supposed to have tails.

Tri-color cats: Calico (blocks of colour), Tortoiseshell; Bi-Color: usually big blocks of colour, though may include 'Tuxedo' - heh, "less esoterically described as white feet"; Points: usually darker ears, muzzle, tail, and feet;

Frumpy is bi-colour, more jumble sale cardigan than tuxedo.

[Danny]