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Category Archives: Uncategorized

Dreaming — what will the subject wikis look like in 2015?

18-Apr-11

By 2015, the world will probably look pretty different from what it looks now (although the more things change …). Particularly in the computing and Internet connectivity side, things will be different: touch interfaces, ubiquitous social networking, and all kinds of other forms of interactivity and intelligence will be embedded into web browsing. I hope […]

Platform versus content, and the knowledge domain

18-Apr-11

There’s an interesting distinction between things that serve the role of a platform/utility and things that serve the role of content. A platform is something relatively neutral on top of which content is put (by one or many people). For instance, an operating system (such as Linux, Windows, Mac OS) serves as a platform, and […]

Magazine format versus computable data format

22-Dec-10

These are somewhat unstructured ruminations about the role and nature of the subject wikis. I’ll draw here a contrast between two alternative formats: the magazine/blog format and the computable data format. In the magazine/blog format, time plays a key role, and the units of production are individual articles/blog posts/ideas posted at specific times. The interaction […]

Language issues

12-Apr-09

This is just a few quick notes about some of the issues of language and conventions that come up when dealing with subject wikis. One of the most basic questions is what language to use. English is the only language I know where all the requisite terminology and ideas have been developed sufficiently, so that’s […]

Beginning of the subject wikis blog

29-Jan-09

This is a welcome post to the subject wikis blog.

The broad idea behind subject wikis is as follows: separate wikis on individual subjects/topics, with a reference guide that points to entries in each of them. The rationale behind having different wikis for each subject is that the individual wikis can be organized based on paradigms that are best suited for that subject.

So far, the subject wikis have been largely my work, but others have contributed useful content as well as insights to some of the wikis, particularly the one on group theory. For the subject wikis project to grow more will require participation, involvement, and feedback from more people. I hope that this blog will attract comments and feedback from readers, including those who may not want to get actively involved.

In the coming blog posts, I will post specific ideas on subject wikis, how to make them more useful to readers and viewers. Comments on these specific ideas, as well as others, are most welcome.