Mulgara on the Cloud

Chris Wilper reportedly put a Mulgara instance on Amazon EC2 and loaded a quarter-billion triples into it, just for fun. The data he used was generated from Paul Gearon's numbers RDF generator. The generator creates facts about numbers and keeps creating RDF until you stop it.

Chris was using the new XA version 1.1 storage layer for Mulgara. The quarter-billion triples loaded in about a day, which is about the same loading performance that Paul has seen on his laptop. The size of the indexes were about 4.6 gigs compressed and 51 gigs uncompressed. Paul notes that the XA version 2 storage layer will store strings and URIs much more efficiently and thus reduce the index sizes considerably.

Way to go, guys! We can't wait for XA2!

New PURL Code in the Wild

Several PURL installations have been seen on the 'net using the new code base:

1. NeuroCommons
2. The National Center for Biomedical Ontology (NCBO)
3. Semantic Report
4. Zepheira (naturally)

Others include at least one startup that doesn't have a Web site yet (GRACE Research Corporation) and a couple of others still in stealth. Not bad for a project that never had an official launch. Keep 'em coming, folks. I have some hope that OCLC will join that list soon, as well as a couple more startup companies.

PURL Server v1.2 Released

I released the new Persistent URL (PURL) server, version 1.2 over the weekend. This release fixes a major bug in version 1.1 whereby PURLs would not resolve for those not having a cookie set. Minor upgrades include better error reporting and URL handling.

All users of earlier PURL servers are encouraged to upgrade immediately.

Binary (JAR) and source code downloads are available from purlz.org.

The Perfect 11-year-old Boy Birthday Party

4:00 PM: Archery (supervised, of course)

4:45 PM: A few minutes free time on a trampoline

5:00 PM: Fencing lesson (even more stringently supervised, with cardboard boxes as opponents)

6:15 PM: Make your own pizza for dinner

7:15 PM: Communal game of Crossfire on a map created by the birthday boy himself

8:30 PM: Cookies

8:35 PM: Pass-the-parcel (an Aussie game for our Aussie son)

8:40 PM: Open presents

8:50 PM: Movie night (The Princess Bride)

10:30 PM: Sleep over

8:00 AM: Breakfast of chocolate-chip pancakes

9:00 AM: Pickup by parents

My Last Degree

Tonight, I passed the oral defense for my Ph.D., having submitted my thesis in July. It's all administration from here :)