thesis

Piggy Bank is an interesting little concept as it tries to bring together ideas about what the semantic web could be into a user-friendly Firefox plugin. There is also a server component for sharing your 'semantic banks' with others. The concept seems quite nice but I have really struggled with the user-interface. If anything the interface is too transparent and gives a view of the information that feels too raw for the casual user. For somebody that understands RDF schema some of the attributes are probably very useful but for the general user these things just confuse matters.

After a bit of tinkering I have a FeedBurner (RSS & Atom) feed for this subject online. It can be subscribed to here. The issue was my content management system (Mambo 4.5.1) only natively supporting feeds of the site frontpage. Fortunately there is an add-on that supports multiple site feeds but setting this up is far from intuitive. Oh well, its up now I guess.

It's actually interesting to see the development of the different RSS/Atom standards. RSS begun development as a group project but then a difference of opinion between Dave Winer and a number of other members split the project in two. Dave Winer produced RSS 0.91 whilst a little while later the working group came out with RSS 1.0.

It has been a while since much movement has occurred with this PhD. Ironically during this time I have been doing a lot of movement physically. This is not to say I have not been doing a lot of reading and listening, but as far as moving the ball forward the opposition has been entrenched firmly in my 22 so to speak. So lets recap where I was, where I am and more importantly, where exactly am I going?

What is wrong with this picture?

Firstly lets touch on the style of this writing. Part of my hesitation (some may say procrastination) has been tied up in the thought of formalising things into an academic paper or something of equal banality. As the subject matter of the study deals closely with the deficit of recorded informal communication within the process of architecture, it just seemed a little weird to start off by formalising the concept in a rigid paper. That is not say there is not a place for formal coalition of these musings into a concise body of work, it is just that I feel this process needs to happen once the concepts are out there and the concrete has begun to harden.

Achieving meaningful digital communication in today's AEC environment

Introduction

The technology of the Internet has not impacted the tools and processes of the Architecture, Construction and Engineering (AEC) Industry as much as other industries or modern culture in general. In some respects this observation is unusual considering the architecture process is one of the complex communication. From a neural standpoint it would have been logical to assume Internet technologies would have been quickly adopted given their theoretical ability to enhance communication. However from a professional viewpoint inside the Industry it is not surprising AEC digital processes are still very isolated.