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  • From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lfl@intrex.net>
  • To: pcplantdb <pcplantdb@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [pcplantdb] a few things...
  • Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2005 06:07:52 -0400

Stephanie Gerson wrote:

-Guess what, yalls. You'll never believe it. Yes. The rumors are true. I
switched to Firefox! Or shall I say, Bear switched me to Firefox. Which
means...I can access the issue tracker! (Which I'll be doing soon...)

-Wait, there's more. So I tried switching to Thunderbird. Or shall I say,
Bear tried switching me to Thunderbird. It didn't work for some reason. Hey
Bear, considering the technical expertise we gots here - could you please
explain why it didn't work in case someone can figure it out?

What about just using Mozilla which has browser, email client and news client all in one (like Dr. Bronner's soap). I use this as I like the browser better. Maybe this will install better.

-Chad asked an interesting question, "Ok, thinking more about relationships
and I've come to an interesting sticky place in my thinking. My question is,
are we talking about an object that has a relationship to one or more objects
or a set of objects that have a relationship with each other or is it

This is interesting. It suggests there may be a need for a relationships rating system (scale of 1 to 10 or something else, a loose or a tight relationship) for:

object to one or more objects that either make up a set (high rating) or
a group (lower rating). Ex. plants that live entirely and only in
water (this close relationship of lifeforms living in an identical
environment would have a high rating and would comprise a set)
Or: acid loving plants: ericaceae, conifers, hollies
Or: plants requiring symbiotic relationship with mycorhizal fungi
(oak)
Or: plants in both the above categories: pine which is acid loving and
requires the presence of fungi that provide it with iron in the soil

object to a set of objects
Ex. cattails, which have to be partly out of water but require a
constantly wet environment, would relate to a set of plants living
entirely in water because it is an aquatic plant meant for an
aquaculture system in a permaculture design (this relationship would
receive a lower rating because of lack of similarity of environment
required for survival). Maybe this rating system could express only a
negative value: on how many points is an object dissimilar to
another object or objects and/or set of objects. Ex. cattails,
semiaquatic, would receive a -1 value when matched in a relationship
with a set of plants living only and entirely in water because they
require an aquatic environment for survival.
In an aquaculture environment you have:
- plants that live completely submerged and float free in water but may
flower out of water
- plants that must float on the water's surface and extend roots that
float free underwater (azolla, water hyacinth)
- plants that extend foliage and flowers above or on water but have
roots that require a solid substrate (soil and/or detritus) under
water (cattails, water lillies)

These three groups would comprise sets with the highest relationship rating; each would receive a lower rating when matched with other set(s).

sometimes one and sometimes the other?" Could this be different levels of
zoom? 'Zoom in' on one object, and view all of the relationships it has with
other objects. But you could also 'zoom out' and view groups of objects
(companion plants <--> full guilds) and their relationships with other
objects/groups of objects. Does it have to be one or the other? Mimic Gaia.

Really excellent idea. Could this zoom feature be implemented? It would be vitally important to have this feature somewhere along the line.

-As far as search grammar, can't we just do the same as Google? As in, have
AND, OR, and "" capabilities? I know Johns wants to make this more like a
focused database search, but I agree that most people have (more) experience
with internet search engines - and I think Google works just swell. Default
AND is fine for advanced (or whatever was decided?). But would be nice to
have same capabilities as Google. We should have a "how to search"/FAQ page
regardless, and I'm willing to write it if someone (Chad?) explains how the
search grammer works.

Good plan.






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