Dear all-

I would like to encourage you to start reaching out in whatever medium you feel comfortable with in the next month before the hackathon. Although BONSAI has been around for a while, we have more interested people bringing more ideas and more energy than ever right now. The hackathon is our best chance to finally turn these principles into an actual product, which in turn could lead to a huge increase in engagement and data provision. So even if it feels a bit awkward or arrogant, you have the right to celebrate being part of a movement in the right direction. Share your passion, and you will inspire passion in others! Or, as one of the leading lights in modern philosophy said: "Just do it!"

Personally, I am making an open commitment to writing a blog post a week for the next five weeks (I am mostly announcing this in public so that I have to actually do it :). The first post is "What would a modern Industrial Ecology database look like?" The topic next week will be the management structure of BONSAI, both currently and possibilities for the future.

Yours,
Chris

Hi Chris,

Happy to share infos and blog posts on my twitter (https://twitter.com/kst_stadler) and can probably cross-post on the NTNU  IndEcol twitter account (if of general interest).
Specifically for the hackathon - are you still looking for participants; or should I rather post something general regarding Bonsai?
best
kst

I think we are more or less complete, unless someone comes with special expertise relevant to the specific deliverables.

I was thinking more about reaching out on the general purpose and philosophy behind BONSAI, and how this is a chance to build the future that most of us want.

ok,
https://twitter.com/kst_stadler/status/1100379225373245440

just started the hashtag #BONSAI , hitch-hiking small trees...

Weekly post #2: Governance structure of BONSAI, with specific suggestions for changes. Comments and critiques are welcome.

It seems that not all the hackathon participants have filled up the doodle pool yet. We should have a date soon so please fill the doodle :)

I welcome Chris' suggestions about the management of the BONSAI organization. 
Perhaps, we also should define the criteria for waiving the membership fee to contributors (i.e. define "participants in BONSAI activities"). I wonder whether this would require changes to the statute.

Hi Michele,

sorry for not filling up the doodle.
I was not actually planning to participate in the GA...
I'm not 100% sure about what is its scope actually.

Thanks,
Matteo

On Wed, 6 Mar 2019 at 13:41, Matteo Lissandrini (AAU) <matteo@cs.aau.dk> wrote:

sorry for not filling up the doodle.
I was not actually planning to participate in the GA...
I'm not 100% sure about what is its scope actually.

The general assembly is the annual meeting of the BONSAI non-profit
organization. There is no fixed agenda, nor any proposed agenda yet;
you can read the minutes from previous meetings and the BONSAI
statutes here: https://bonsai.uno/organisation/. We will have more
specifics after the next board meeting. Currently, participation is
limited to BONSAI members; details on membership here:
https://bonsai.uno/contribute/.

BTW, this will be in May, not March :)

Thanks,
Matteo

--
############################
Chris Mutel
Technology Assessment Group, LEA
Paul Scherrer Institut
OHSA D22
5232 Villigen PSI
Switzerland
http://chris.mutel.org
Telefon: +41 56 310 5787
############################

Weekly post #3: Modular BONSAI components. Comments and critiques are welcome.

On Tue, 12 Mar 2019 at 10:45, Matteo Lissandrini (AAU) <matteo@cs.aau.dk> wrote:

Hi Chris,

I've taken a look at your post, very interesting!

One thing is odd to me, you have all these modules that describe their functionality/values, and then you have "Jena database instance".

It is like you were describing how a car is made and said "A car as an engine, a steering wheel, brakes, and wheels with Michelin(r) tires"

(Complete aside, and not important, but: as a private person, you
never need to use someone else copyright/trademark/whatever symbols.
You aren't selling anything, there is no question over IP. People do
this in published papers and it drives me crazy!)

I think you can safely write there something like "RDF triplestore" or "Semantic Aware DBMS" or "Linked Data Platform" depending on what you really need. Is it just store and query RDF, for instance? Do you need first order logic reasoning? etc..

This is an excellent question! We chose (and Bo has an installed
version at Aalborg of) Jena based on a small survey that we did a few
years ago. For the time being, we are envisioning this as a dumb
triple store, where actual data processing happens externally.
However, this is mostly because I and the other people I have talked
to are much more comfortable writing Python than trying to express
ourselves in SPARQL.

Depending on your actual needs then, Jena may or may not be the tool you need.\

Let's talk about it at the hackathon!

Cheers,
Matteo






________________________________
From: main@bonsai.groups.io [main@bonsai.groups.io] on behalf of Chris Mutel via Groups.Io [cmutel=gmail.com@groups.io]
Sent: Monday, March 11, 2019 10:37 PM
To: main@bonsai.groups.io
Subject: Re: [bonsai] Outreach in the buildup to the hackathon

Weekly post #3: Modular BONSAI components. Comments and critiques are welcome.

--
############################
Chris Mutel
Technology Assessment Group, LEA
Paul Scherrer Institut
OHSA D22
5232 Villigen PSI
Switzerland
http://chris.mutel.org
Telefon: +41 56 310 5787
############################

It is like you were describing how a car is made and said "A car as an engine, a steering wheel, brakes, and wheels with Michelin(r) tires"

(Complete aside, and not important, but: as a private person, you
never need to use someone else copyright/trademark/whatever symbols.
You aren't selling anything, there is no question over IP. People do
this in published papers and it drives me crazy!)

Agreed, I wrote it for stressing the point not for IP concerns :)

I think you can safely write there something like "RDF triplestore" or "Semantic Aware DBMS" or "Linked Data Platform" depending on what you really need. Is it just store and query RDF, for instance? Do you need first order logic reasoning? etc..

This is an excellent question! We chose (and Bo has an installed
version at Aalborg of) Jena based on a small survey that we did a few
years ago. For the time being, we are envisioning this as a dumb
triple store, where actual data processing happens externally.
However, this is mostly because I and the other people I have talked
to are much more comfortable writing Python than trying to express
ourselves in SPARQL.

I'm not questioning here the technical choice re the software.
My point is that you are "masking" the functionality you need with the name of a technology that should implement it.
This has 2 effects (i) you commit yourself to a specific software in a place where such decision is not necessary
(ii) your model is missing important information (which is assumed implicitly but it is not so): what functionality you need there.

Depending on your actual needs then, Jena may or may not be the tool you need.\

Let's talk about it at the hackathon!

Sure :)

Btw. Not sure what the relation is between Jena&Python