Introduction I’ve often wondered where our statesmen choose to go once they have retired. Cecil John Rhodes, for example, died at 49 in a modest cottage at 246 Main road (Q20617285), on the way to Vishoek. Poor bloke. His Groote Schuur Mansion had burnt down about 10 years before. Today, Rhodes Cottage is a thatched …
Category archives: Unfiled
A post about lamp posts
🌞 💡 Streetlight Watch Introduction: Streetlights – it seems like there are far more pressing things to be irked about. But poorly maintained public lighting is a very visible instance of failing infrastructure and the opportunity to show that city management responds to reports and addresses them. An app to the rescue? That is magical …
Open Education Week
This post is over a year late. Sorry peeps. It took a visit to Wikipedia 25 to pep me up. It was GREAT! 3 – 7 March 2025 was Open Education Week 2025 and I took part in one of the OEWeek Live conversational webcasts . Clockwise (from at top left), Bryan, Gracie from Visual …
Sharing your Credentials
Spatial Lens (part 2)
Maps permit you “…to write the subjective back into the supposedly objective, to take something that’s meant to be neutral, and make it personal again.” Gerald Marx quoted in https://currencynews.co.za/art-of-the-week-gerhard-marxs-landscape-would-be-the-wrong-word/ Maps (see part 1) are more than the distance between places or way to find something. They are also are a vehicles for stories. Making …
About You – in pictures
Have you been asked to write a “speaker bio” or “author profile”? My reaction is …. Writing about oneself objectively and neutrally (especially in the third person) can be an uncomfortable task. I know about a “Goldilocks profile” (not too hot, not too cold, but just right). But… if I’m frank, I’ve never found that perfect bio …
Pluriverse – Lens 1 (personal)
Blog post to accompany my submission 26-29 /04/ 1994 marked a key date in our country’s temporal knowledge graph (TKG). Nelson Mandela {{Q|8023}} chose to cast his vote at Ohlange High School {{Q|7081074}} located in Natal {{Q|917867}} This rural educational institution was founded in 1901 by John Langalibele Dube {{Q|1700787}} with his wife, Nokutela Dube …
Pluriverse – Lens 2 (collegial)
Blog post to accompany my submission Organizing and classifying information appeals to me. I appreciate a good set of WordPress tags. But I’ve never managed to get a system that works. Wikipedia’s “Categories” are used to group or cluster pages on similar subjects together. Categories help the reader to find more information about a topic area. Categories …
Families on Wikidata
Kate (Q1252986310)and Ravi (Q135189340) are good friends with Dr Susan (0000-0001-9554-4948), who is our next-door neighbour here in Richmond (Q61359147). Our lives occasionally intersect at birthday parties or tea. Their two gals also went to Parktown High School for Girls (Q7138735), like my two. None of these identifiers are as memorable as that of Q1001 …
Family Charts & SPARQL Queries
I’ve use the word “Wikidata” repeatedly in blog posts over the last few months. SPARQL is the way in which you can query Wikidata. I’ve found the easiest way to learn how to “Sparkle” is by experimenting. I have deleted the rest of this blog post. Weird technical glitches.