Taxonomy at The Economist

I am always on the lookout for good articles on taxonomy, because of my interest in the taxonomies of Information Architecture and classic linnean classification of birds. Here are a couple of features from Feb 9 Economist:

Names for sale
Feb 9th 2006
From The Economist print edition
The ancient science of taxonomy might benefit from a little modern marketing
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=5494618

Today we have naming of parts
Feb 9th 2006
From The Economist print edition
A global registry of animal species could shake up taxonomy
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=5492016

AIfIA sponsors metadata practices conference

From aifia.org:

AIfIA sponsors conferences and events helping to build the practice of
information architecture. Learn more about AIfIA’s sponsorship program
at http://aifia.org/pg/ia_events_sponsorship.php#000247

***********
September 30, 2004 — AIfIA will sponsor Metadata for Interoperability
in the Global Corporate Environment, a pre-conference for the DC-2004
International Conference on Dublin Core and Metadata Applications.

The one-day pre-conference program takes place on October 10, 2004 in
Shanghai, China, and is expected to attract around 100 people. The
pre-conference workshop addresses the metadata lifecycle — creation,
management, and use — as it applies to enterprise applications and
activities, with focus on interoperability enabling international
business. Experts will present case studies about interesting
applications of metadata, and then discuss issues related to metadata
creation, management, and use in the enterprise.

“This pre-conference program will help participants learn how to
optimize the early stages of a metadata program for international and
cross-cultural deployments,”said Makx Dekkers, DCMI Managing Director.
“Support from AIfIA underscores the vital role of information
architecture in developing a metadata program.”

“We are pleased to support this important initiative,” said AIfIA
President Victor Lombardi. “We believe that information architecture
can help inform the process for aligning business goals to a metadata
initiative.”

More details about this event are available at the DCMI conference
website at http://dc2004.library.sh.cn/.

Some things I am looking for:

Program that takes XML tree data and displays them in a pretty tree diagram. It would be great if I could control what part of the tree it shows by collapsing/expanding nodes, allow me to color code the display of the lines, nodes & terminus labels to metadata coded for each node, etc. Is there code for taking XML data and importing to Flash? That would also be great. Would it be hard?

Examples of interactive mapping on government/community-focus websites.

An easy recipe for Turkish smoked eggplant/baba ganouj. I’m having this really BIG craving….

If you come across any of these things, email me!