layout: post title: Experimenting with Freebase created: 1178145889 categories:

• Freebase
• metadata
• Nova Spivack
• Radar Networks
• Semantic Web
• Web 3.0
• Drupal
• Web 2.0
• Web Development

No, it's not a drug, it's the Semantic Web :P

Freebase is sort of like a structured wiki. In that, anyone can add content to the system. What's different, is that you can also add and define your own "Type" which are a collection of metadata. User generated content is quite common, and Freebase actually sucks in a ton of information from Wikipedia which gives it a huge base of content to start with, but this concept of being able to add/edit/organize higher level structures and metadata is new (tagging aside…).

I had great fun fleshing out entries for Drupal and the Drupal Association, figuring out Company, Software, and People types in the process.

OK, OK, I admit — filling in the Beer entries for Hacker-Pschorr Weisse and the Hacker-Pschorr Brewery were actually more fun :P

A couple of pieces of feedback on Freebase:

• A bit slow: some of the actions/dropdowns don't seem as snappy as they could be
• URLs are ugly as sin: there is no perfect way to do this, but the URLs simply aren't "friendly" at all
• Feature request - extend types: I couldn't figure out how to extend an existing type with extra metadata 

I can certainly understand Tim O'Reilly's great praising of Freebase (and, of course, similar concepts like my old "blog friend" Nova Spivack's company, Radar Networks) — it's how the entire web *should* work.

So, when I link to a page, the page that I link to should show a link back to my post (it's called a referrer or trackback…except we can't use them in practice because of spam). And that "link" is a structured piece of content, that may have extra metadata and values associated with it (e.g. if it's been on Digg, how many Diggs it has, if it's a spam domain, a link to another "owner" person, etc.).

Spam aside, we still have these "static" web pages that can't fully participate in this more interactive web. Some of the smarts are migrating to individual pages themselves. I've always believed this, and have long predicted the "death of static pages".

But enough pontificating. Go experiment with Freebase, and the first person to mention Web 3.0 *will* get a slap.

Update: so, yeah, I'm sorry that I don't have any invites to give out yet. I didn't realize that Freebase was, um, as closed as it is still. Leave a note in the comments if you want an invite, and I'll hand them out as I get some. 

Update 2: OK, I've got invites. Leave a comment in this thread or email me if you want one. 

• The agora is getting rather large so maybe it’s time for a databse?
• I’ve been experimenting with different implementations of building the database at [[garden downloader]]
  • each of them downloads the git files and builds a [[sqlite]] database
• I also have a fork of [[agora server]] that uses the database
  • https://github.com/codegod100/agora-server/blob/db-docker/app/db.py
    • this is very alpha quality, please be kind

<%% name: new database description: new description columns: file: key: "file" input: "markdown" label: "File" accessorKey: "file" isMetadata: true skipPersist: false isDragDisabled: false csvCandidate: true isHidden: false config: enable_media_view: true media_width: 100 media_height: 100 isInline: true task_hide_completed: true Author: input: "text" key: "Author" accessorKey: "Author" label: "Author" position: 0 skipPersist: false isHidden: false config: enable_media_view: true media_width: 100 media_height: 100 isInline: false task_hide_completed: true config: remove_field_when_delete_column: "false" cell_size: "normal" sticky_first_column: "false" group_folder_column: "" show_metadata_created: "false" show_metadata_modified: "false" show_metadata_tasks: "false" source_data: "current_folder" source_form_result: "root" frontmatter_quote_wrap: "false" row_templates_folder: "/" current_row_template: "" filters: enabled: false conditions: %%>

• [[smallcircles@social.coop]] https://social.coop/@smallcircles/109897632684817274 pull

• [[jonny]] https://social.coop/@jonny/108499314740858740 pull

git rebase§

• an alternative to [[merge]]

• it squashes history

• from https://strongbox.github.io/developer-guide/git/rebase-vs-merge.html, the [[golden rule of rebasing]]:

The Golden rule of Rebasing
So, before you run git rebase, always ask yourself, “Is anyone else looking at this branch?”. If the answer is yes, take your hands off the keyboard and start thinking about a non-destructive way to make your changes. Otherwise, you’re safe to re-write history as much as you like.

• https://heptabase.com/

Keybase§

• [[pull]] [[keybase.io]]
• [[go]] keybase.io
• https://twitter.com/nickarmstronggr/status/1348326770962030594 pull
• https://book.keybase.io/docs/cli looks amazing.
• Unfortunately the server is not open source :(

• [[2022-05-14 08:14:01]] [[@vera:fairydust.space]] (link):
  • speaking of which I cryptographically signed my [[contract]] with [[keybase]]

knowledge base§

Core idea§

structured repository of information, data, or documentation

Links§

Related to: [[snippets]] [[articles]] [[categories]] [[metadata]] [[search]] [[technical writing]]

• [[Binder@petrous.vislae.town]] https://petrous.vislae.town/@Binder/110657621430098165 pull

merge vs rebase§

• [[go]] https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/merging-vs-rebasing
• [[pull]] [[golden rule of rebasing]]

Metabase§

• https://www.metabase.com/

We use Metabase for ad-hoc business analytics.

It’s open-source and very handy.

Always worth evaluating alternatives though:

• Metabase Limitations and Top 4 Alternatives (BI)

• [[codexeditor]] https://twitter.com/codexeditor/status/1537771416040636416 pull

• [[infovestigacion]] https://twitter.com/infovestigacion/status/1523828443384745984 pull

• At Unitierra, people avoid trying to “pull from the future” by declaring in advance an imagined idea of where they want to go. Instead they try to “push from the base and from the past,” by drawing upon everyone’s experiences and motivations.

• [[flancian]] https://social.coop/@flancian/107977466579885374 pull

• [[flancian]] https://twitter.com/flancian/status/1504792891679551496 pull

• [[2023-07-29 13:35:37]] [[@flancian:matrix.org]] (link):
  • V 🍄: are you running [[supabase]] in [[hypatia]]?

• [[Binder@petrous.vislae.town]] https://petrous.vislae.town/@Binder/110477004847449640 pull

Torta Base§

• [[ingredientes]]
  • 2 tazas harina = 315g
  • 1 taza de azúcar = 240g
  • 3 huevos (4 claras la última vez)
  • Leche 250cc (antes 200)
  • 15gr polvo de hornear
  • 100gs de manteca
  • Esencia de vainilla y/ o ralladura de limón( yo le ponía de las dos)
  • Pizca de sal
  • Opcional: nueces 20 medias, o avellana
• [[procedimiento]]
  • Encender el horno a 200 grados. Poner manteca y azúcar en un bowl a calentarse a temperatura ambiente. Separar yemas y claras, agregar una pizca de sal a las claras y batir a punto de nieve.
  • Batir la manteca y azúcar hasta una mezcla homogénea. Agregar yemas. Agregar harina con polvo de hornear y leche en tandas, batiendo todo el tiempo. Al final agregar la nuez, y después incorporar las claras a punto de nieve con movimientos envolventes.
  • Hornear a 200 grados por 40’

• [[2025-12-10T19:35:53.333Z]] @[[flancia.org]]: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:xu4fhdxwmrptiwfvq5ymbkxx/post/3m7nslhbo4e2d pull

• [[kvistgaard]] https://twitter.com/kvistgaard/status/1523526130153582592 pull

WordPress: Error connecting to database§

Since moving my [[WordPress]] site to [[DigitalOcean]], I started receiving "Error connecting to database" pretty regularly.

It seems to be [[MySQL]] going down for some reason. Restarting MySQL will sort it out.

service mysql restart

Never had it on my previous VPS.

Don’t know why it would be Digital Ocean specific.

But anyway. One common issue seems to be xmlrpc attacks.

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-protect-wordpress-from-xml-rpc-attacks-on-ubuntu-14-04

You can check in your logs for it:

grep xmlrpc /var/log/apache2/access.log

I don’t use Jetpack, so more than happy to disable xmlrpc.

<files xmlrpc.php>
  order allow,deny
  deny from all
</files>

Once this is set up, any access attempts you see in your logs should now be 403s.

The error still seems to happen though periodically. It seems Apache makes MySQL fall over?

Quick and dirty cron job to restart MySQL regularly:

*/20 * * * * /usr/sbin/service mysql restart

A better one is a script to check if MySQL is down, and restart it if so.

There’s also some tweaks you can make to Apache and MySQL conf.