One of the intriguing aspects of the (chemical) Internet is its interaction
with the computer (operating systems) used to access it. I
have long considered this coupling to be far weaker than it should be.
So it was with interest that I noted some announcements by Apple
Computer and their forthcoming next version OS (which also presages
the Windows "Longhorn"). The two aspects that caught my eye
are at
http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/searchtechnology.html
which is a) adding rich metadata to the basic file system to make
finding files easier and b) coupling RSS into its browser (and hence
possibly the underlying OS itself).
The thought struck me that this has the potential for solving one
problem which seems to have struck like a pernicious virus these
last few years, and which I have noted on this forum previously,
namely a profusion of "shrink wrapped" scientific content in the
form of PDF (Acrobat) files increasingly littering our computers,
about which the only thing we know for certain is the often inscrutable
file name (we dont even really know if any given file contains "chemistry").
The theory is that e.g. RSS would deliver the metadata, including bibliographic
information (using eg PRISM-RSS), chemical information (CMLRSS),
Math information (MathML-RSS) etc, and that any "shrink wrapped"
PDF file would be associated with this information by the OS.
Thereafter, a "search" on one's computer would immediately reveal
this associated information, and one could then find eg "all Acrobat files
authored by A on chemical topic B written in 2004 and containing
a chemcal substructure C. Well, that is a bit off, but it would mean
that one's computer could finally become a proper scientific instrument,
rather than a depository of confusion as it often is nowadays.
A pipe dream perhaps! If anyone else has any other ideas on how
to couple science with the instrument almost invariably now used to
retrieve it, do let this forum know.
--
Henry Rzepa. Imperial College, Chemistry Dept.
+44 0778 626 8220 +44 020 7594 5804 (Fax)
This represents an interesting collection of RSS feeds
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~CYBERSTACKS/RSS.htm
Curiously, its not itself available as an RSS feed (apparently).
--
Henry Rzepa.
+44 (020) 7594 5774 (Voice); +44 (0870) 132 3747 (eFax)
http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/rzepa/ Dept. Chemistry, Imperial College London, SW7 2AZ, UK.
(Voracious anti-spam filter in operation for received email.
If expected reply not received, please phone/fax).
Hi,
June's Molecule of the Month is the notorious 'date rape' drug
Flunitrazepam (rohypnol). It was written by a pupil at the English
language school, King's College in Madrid, Spain. Four interactive
versions of the page are available at:
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/Depts/Chemistry/MOTM/motm.htm#june2004
Regards,
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Dr Paul May, School of Chemistry, University of Bristol, UK
tel: +44 (0)117 928-9927 fax: +44 (0)117 925-1295
<mailto:paul.may@bris.ac.uk> Mobile: 07811371539
Home URL: <http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/Chemistry/staff/pwm.htm>
Molecule of the Month: <http://www.bristol.ac.uk/Depts/Chemistry/MOTM/motm.htm
"Ah, a chemist, eh? Do we get to blow something up, then?"
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
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