Superficial Intelligence

I am taking a very interesting class this semester called User Interface Design. Two thirds of the class grade consist of a semester-long team project. For this project, we get to design or redesign a user interface for an application that we think needs improvement or for a new application. My team is working on a quiz maker that focuses on quizzes that use images. Our goal is to make image quiz making as smooth and easy as possible. We decided to name the application Quiz Kong, as a reference to the popular but heavily spammed quiz-making website Quizilla. This time, we're rooting for the Kong to win.

Posted by Fernando Torre at 11:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

That is the theme of this year's Imagine Cup, an international competition hosted by Microsoft. This extremely fun and competitive competition has nine categories in which any student can compete. They are Software Design, Embedded Development, Game Development, Project Hoshimi Programming Battle, IT Challenge, Algorithm, Photography, Short Film, and Interface Design. Of course, this is all a way for Microsoft to get students to use their products and programming languages, but I must say it is very effective. Even I, a heavy Java user, want to try and at least get to the finals, which they always host at a different country. Last year they went to South Korea. This year the destination is Paris, France. I will try my luck once more in the Algorithm category and maybe try the Interface Design competition. So, if you are a student, have an idea for a program or game that could help the environment in any way, and want to try and win some very nice prizes, don't miss out on this opportunity. Register now! It's completely free! I will be sure to post on my progress in the competition and write about my experience this year. Wish me luck!

Posted by Fernando Torre at 12:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is one movie I would love to see. They did a great job with this trailer. It makes me think. How much of our social life do we put on stake on the web? Somebody stealing your identity on Facebook could actually get you into a whole lot of trouble. That is the irony of the Internet these days. We are demanding better security and more privacy, but at the same time putting all our information on display. Where is the happy medium?

Posted by Fernando Torre at 11:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Here is my second comic strip. This time it is about search, one very important and broad topic in artificial intelligence. It took me some time to get the character to look good enough sideways. I hate having to draw them sideways, but if they're using a computer, the characters usually look better that way. Enjoy!

Posted by Fernando Torre at 11:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

English is a fun language to speak, but it can sometimes be frustrating. Especially if it is not your native language. One thing I like about Spanish is how easy it is to know how to pronounce a word by just looking at it. In English, it seems to be more about making intelligent guesses and hoping you don't sound too much like a foreigner. Here is a little poem I wrote that illustrates one of my frustrations with English pronunciation:

Posted by Fernando Torre at 11:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

A few days ago, the TechCrunch40 Conference took place. Of course, I wasn't there. But I've been keeping track through the TechCrunch blog. One of the most interesting sessions I believe was a panel titled "Humble Beginnings". It featured Marc Andreesen, co-founder of Netscape, David Filo, co-founder of Yahoo, and Chad Hurley, co-founder of YouTube. This article gives a summary (almost a transcript actually) of the session. It's great to know how the big guys worked their way from simple ideas to greatly successful companies. It gives hope to the rest of us.

Posted by Fernando Torre at 1:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I just finished writing my first two programs in LISP for my Artificial Intelligence class. The same functions would have taken me probably about an hour in Java. But instead, it took me a few days and whole lot of hours to get them working in LISP. The problem isn't that LISP is a bad language, but that my knowledge of it was horrible. I say "was" because I believe I have improved with this assignment. LISP is actually a very flexible and powerful language. And a very good one to know if you are interested in Artificial Intelligence. But if you are used to procedural languages like I am, your first few tries with the language may probably be filled with confusion and frustration. I wish good luck to all of those who dare embark in the journey of LISP.

Posted by Fernando Torre at 12:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Here is my attempt at a comic strip. If you haven't heard of Turing's test, it is a very famous test in Artificial Intelligence where a user has to be able to tell if the other user he is chatting with is a computer or a human. If a computer can fool the user into believing it's a human, then that computer (i.e., the A.I. algorithm) passes the test. Let me know what you think of the comic strip.

Posted by Fernando Torre at 1:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I came upon this video today that embodies many of the internet crazes that have been so popular in the past few years. Try to see how many you can recognize and then check out the cheat sheet here (at the bottom of the page). I already have the song stuck in my head.

Posted by Fernando Torre at 12:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My father left Cuba when he was around 9 years old. He, his brother, and his parents had to leave everything behind: family, toys, and even photographs. I am sure it must have been hard for them. After years of effort, they had to start over from scratch. Not an easy thing to do.

A couple of decades later, my father and his brother have been able to go through college and even graduate school, have traveled all over the world, and have given their parents a total of six grandchildren. His brother has actually become one of the top managers at the company he works for.

When I think of this, I just have to wonder: would they have been able to accomplish so much if they had stayed in Cuba? Would they have been able to get so far if their parents had been afraid of starting over? Sometimes, we are so bound to what we already know and enjoy, that we are afraid of change. We must, of course, treasure the blessings we have. But we must be careful not to let them cloud the far better blessings just waiting for us to find them.

I have come to Minnesota to complete a PhD in Computer Science, leaving all of my family (except for my wife of course) and friends in Puerto Rico. I am certainly beginning to miss their company, but when I look ahead at all the opportunities that await for me here, I am encouraged to go on. I am reminded of how my father's family decided to go for something new, took the risk, and reaped the benefits.

Posted by Fernando Torre at 10:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I think I may have become addicted to the popular feed aggregator Google Reader. I have gotten to the point where I cannot keep up with new entries and have to start deciding which ones to skip. Of course, I am nothing like the geniuses who can handle hundreds of new entries a day. But I have read enough to start feeling compelled to share my own perspective about many of the topics I read daily.

That is why I have started this new blog. It is my first experiment with a blog in English, so I don't expect to see any fancy words often (except maybe "quixotic" simply because it sounds cool). This blog may also prove to be an interesting insight to the life and mind of a PhD student (check the About Me page!).

To start off with something interesting, I will give a list of some of my favorite blogs to read, because everyone loves lists:

Read/WriteWeb - One of my favorites. It's an awesome source of information for web 2.0 development news.

Smashing Magazine - Lots of great tips on web design and development.

TechCrunch - More internet-related news!

WebbAlert - Great videocast with the latest tech news hosted by Morgan Webb (also a host of X-Play).

Worse Than Failure - A fun blog for programmers to read featuring many of those not-so-proud moments in the programming world.

The Dilbert Blog - I may not agree with everything he writes, but definitely worth a read. He is funny and does not simply conform with the way the rest of the world thinks.

Basic Instructions - One of my favorite comic strips (I will probably write one of these days about the other four or five).

Seth's Blog - I have not been able to read any of his books yet, but I have seen some of his seminars on the web (which are excellent) and his blog posts are always interesting and thought-provoking.

Of course, these are not the only blogs I read, but are among the best and worth the look. Enjoy!

Posted by Fernando Torre at 12:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)