Nick Gibbins

Waiting for the stain that never comes

and I are hoping that carpet stains, unlike bad luck, do not come in threes. I got back from a gaming weekend in Derbyshire with , and others at lunchtime (sorry – I was one of the people trying to persuade to stay another day). , on the other hand, had spent all morning manning the picket lines as part of the industrial dispute between the universities and the AUT. Either last night or this morning, some darling little shit of a student had lobbed a pair of eggs into the kitchen, possibly through the catflap, possibly through a small… Read More »Waiting for the stain that never comes

OWL becomes a W3C Recommendation

For the last two and a bit years, I’ve been a member of the Web Ontology Working Group at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). This WG has produced a language called OWL for defining ontologies (formal data models) for use on the Semantic Web. Today, that language became a Recommendation, the final stage in the W3C’s standardisation process.

Picocon redux

After what I reckon must be some 9ish years of nagging by both and , I finally managed to get to a Picocon. and I drove up from London (well, she drove and I read Howard Waldrop’s Heart of Whitenesse to her), she to go to various exhibitions and I to the con. Picocon was fun, and I’m rather annoyed with myself that this was only the first one I’d gone to. More importantly, met up with quite a few people who I hadn’t seen for YEARS (, , and a surprise appearance by ex-CUSFS demigod ) as well as… Read More »Picocon redux

Train grumble

I’ve been on trains that were late and cancelled before. Until last night, I had never been on a train that was late and cancelled and smoking ominously because the brakes on one carriage had come on unexpectedly. We stopped at Winchester so that the driver and guard could get out and admire the way that the brakes were glowing. The downside was that this was the last train, so a bus took us on from Eastleigh and there were no taxis about. To add insult to injury, the bus didn’t actually stop at the station nearest to me, but… Read More »Train grumble

Tunnage tonight

and I will both at t’Tun this evening. Go us! Jen, are you likely to be there? We owe you for the videos (plus a couple of pints for late payment).