Aris Katsaris

There's so much happening right now in the world (Azerbaijan, Argentina, France, Ethiopia) that I don't even have the time to talk about them right now. Later today perhaps I'll have some more time. But until then...

I've spent some time a couple days ago, to go back and add "tags" to previous LJ posts of mine relating to their content: anime, books, global politics, greek politics, movies, etc, etc -- now I'll probably only have to change the look of my journal so that these tags are actually shown in its regular view! I don't understand why they don't have my current style also be able to show such.

Such clumsiness aside, I'm starting to wonder if this sort of tagging is really a sort of small, quite simple, largely unnoticed but really tremendous computer evolution: because it's actually not restricted to livejournals and blogs alone, but has also been introduced by GMail as its primary way to categorize received emails (as opposed to the use of folders) and seems likely to be also be one of the primary innovations to be used by Windows Vista (the new version of Windows currently under development) in its presentation of files.

Folders and Directories are a very... physical analogy -- and restrictive in the sense that the physical world itself is restrictive. Namely: when you have two boxes, they can either be one-inside-the-other or they can be independent of each other. So in the physical world, you could only put a file in one drawer or the other, not in both, not unless you made a copy.

But that's not the way the mathematical world works: and therefore it needn't have been the way that computers worked either. In mathematics you can have sets of object that are overlapping. I had emails that concerned university work, I had emails that came from friends, I had emails that were both -- but in e.g. Outlook Express I nonetheless needed to choose one specific folder to put them under: and if I saved it as a file I'd need to again choose one specific directory. Unless you used the clumsy (and space-wasting) way of making a copy, or the even clumsier way of using redirects to files.

That's no longer the way with emails under GMail. And that will no longer be exclusively the way with files under Windows Vista, because (from everything I hear) there the concept of the "Virtual Folder" will come into its own. You'll be able to assign keywords to files very much like "tagging" works in GMail or Livejournal (to some extent, ofcourse, similar functions already exist in Windows XP but they've less utility, preeminence, and thus use, I believe). "Virtual Folders" will now automatically search for files fulfilling certain criteria. To place a file into such a virtual folder connected with a keyword will be synonymous with tagging it with said keyword -- to remove it from the virtual keyword-folder will be synonymous with untagging it.

Not that folders don't have their own uses. And tagging could also use some finetuning, and the potential to allow for some hierarchical structure in it. But nonetheless the computer world has moved towards a new way to abstract and present information that's really a bit exciting to visualize -- especially when once contemplates the promise of WinFS (to be introduced a bit after than Windows Vista) and which seems to want to break down even further the traditional file-structure we're accustomed to.

Edit: Seems I could indeed use my old style with tags showing in my regular view -- hadn't searched it enough. That's cool. So, I just ended up tweaking the colors, playing with a blue variation this time. Had gotten a bit bored of the greens. :-)

For those who are interested (easier than mass email, this lj entry), current timeline for diploma:
15 October (or so) the last version of the text is expected to be handed in.
Sometime between 20-25 October (don't know the exact date), I'll have to give a presentation on it (Ugh, I hate presentations).
November, the oath.

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On less personal news, the Ansari-X prize has been awarded! Tier One: Praise them with great praise.

Those interested in the Bush-Kerry thing go here for comments from Adam Cadre -- someone whom I often like to read.

Recently on It's Walky, where almost every character, good or bad, including the title character, has recently met his demise, I was amused to see an afterlife with even the atheist viewpoint depicted.

Can't say that I've seen many fictional universes with the possibility of atheistic afterlifes. :-)

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Lastly, to the people I've not responded to either in email or in lj, or to whom I've otherwise been remiss -- I sincerely apologize. *g* Starting next month I'll be a better friend again, I promise you. :-)