Week 4 Readings

The article on databases was interesting in that I hadn't known before that there were so many different ways of organizing data: according to the hierarchical, network, and relational models, at the least. It makes perfect sense that not every block of data can be organized in the same way as every other, since there are so many ways that data can relate to one another.
I also didn't realize how many applications there are for metadata. It's somehow odd to think that every time I tag a picture online or write a caption, I'm providing information about information, even though that's a fairly straightforward description of what I'm doing. The fact that some metadata actually exists from the time of certain data's creation is noteworthy.
The Dublin Core Data Model article reminded me of some of my readings in the philosophy of language over the past few years. It really is difficult to try to invent a natural way of naming and connecting every thing in the world. And that task just gets more difficult when you realize that you have to somehow leave room for speakers of other languages to insert their own names and make their own connections. It's scary to consider!