I know it is already two days after Thanksgiving, but I want to take some time from all the studying and eating (we have a lot of leftovers!) to thank all of the readers of my blog. An even bigger thanks goes to the readers who go as far as to comment. Reading new comments always makes my day (or at least my hour). I hope you all had a fun and tasty Thanksgiving day.
As a blogger, one of the questions I ask myself more often is, "Who is reading my blog?". Google Analytics gives me some idea of where visitors come from, but it's just not enough for me. So please, take a moment to let me know you're reading. Leave a comment below or join my blog network on Facebook. I really enjoy getting to know my readers!
There is one phenomenon out there in the web that I don't clearly understand. It happens mainly in blogs or content-sharing sites where people can comment. I've seen many sites plagued by this.
People race to be the first to comment on a post or video with the very thoughtful comment "First comment". That is all they write. Sometimes, they might even just leave it at "first".
I just have to wonder, what is the point? Comments are supposed to contribute to the discussion. These types of irrelevant comments don't really say anything. Except maybe the fact that the commenter is either in the third grade or has no other way of feeding his ego.
What then is so satisfying about being the first to comment, regardless of the quality of the comment?
One year ago today, I wrote my first post for this blog, titled I Think I'm Addicted to Google Reader. Since then I have written 165 blog posts (166 if you count this one) and have received more than 6000 visits.
When I started this blog I wanted to see if I was going to be able to keep a blog which was in English (not my first language) and which was updated frequently. I believe I have met both goals.
Now, what goals should I have for my second year of blogging? Drawing more comic strips? More themed weeks? More deep, long, thoughtful posts? More posts about grad school? Funnier posts? What do you think I should aim for?
Just to let you know, I did not make an error in this post's title. I'm talking about a blog named Visit the Coqui.
If you're a regular reader of this blog (or of my Twitter feed), you'll know that one of my favorite off-topic topics is Puerto Rico, my home country. I'd love it if everyone visited that tiny little island at least once in their lifetimes. That's where Visit the Coqui comes in. This blog is a great source for anyone planning or even just dreaming of visiting Puerto Rico some day. I sometimes find activities to do in Puerto Rico that I never even knew could be done there.
If you want to know where to start, I recommend this post, which has a collection of some of the top articles in the blog. Go ahead. Take a look. You'll want to book your vacation right now. (Especially after looking at the mouth-watering picture form my last visit to Puerto Rico below.)
Yesterday I got to 5,000 blog visits. That's more than 1,000 visits in the last month alone. Thank you all for reading!
This is it. Tomorrow a new themed week starts. So what will it be this time? Remember that class I took last semester? Well, I've picked some of my favorite or the most interesting research papers and will present one each day. Now, "How can research papers be interesting at all?", you might be asking. Well, I might argue that HCI papers are generally awesome and that I've picked some even cooler ones. But I won't try to convince you. What I'm going to do is that each day of the week, besides presenting one research paper, I'll post a comic strip related to the paper. That's right. One comic strip per day for a whole week. Let's see if I can keep up!
In the Google Apps post, did anybody notice the captions I put on the images when you hover over them? Nobody commented about it, so I guess I hid those "easter eggs" well. If you didn't notice them, go take a look and, while you're at it, go download Firefox 3!
Unfortunately, I did not make it to the third round of Imagine Cup's Algorithm Competition. I must admit, I did not dedicate as much time to it as I would have wanted (mostly due to my HCI project). But still, I tried and I had fun. Hopefully next year I will do better. I certainly did a lot better this year than last year. And now that I have taken an advanced algorithms class, I will feel a lot more prepared.
Going a little off-topic, some comments have been getting tagged automatically as junk comments. I have no idea why this has happened with comments that seem normal enough and from people who have commented many times before. So I'm sorry if your comment did not appear right after you submitted it. I will be on the lookout for any other comments that get sent to the junk folder.
About eight months ago I decided I wanted to start a blog and actually keep it alive. So far, I've been able to manage that. In less than eight months, I have published 100 posts. And I'm very excited about it. So excited in fact that I decided to celebrate with a review of some of my favorite posts, a new comic strip, and a totally new design. I have been working on this design for a while and I'm happy with the end result. Let me know what you think!
In these eight months, I have been trying to define what this blog is actually about. Why is it called Superficial Intelligence? I don't think I'm there yet, since I am still at the beginning of this growth process, but it's starting to come into focus. And I think the new subtitle is a part of this. I have recollected some of my favorite posts and some which I believe are representative of what this blog is about (whatever that may be). Here are my 10 picks (in chronological order):
Leaving Cuba
A.I. Comic Strip - Search
My Experience as an Intern at IBM
Never Eat More Than One Fortune Cookie
Quiz Kong Paper Prototype
Vending Machines and User Interfaces
Celebrating Six Months
Old Drawings: Dinosaurs
Old Drawings: Copying Other Drawings
On Which Side of the Sidewalk Do You Walk?
Finally, here is a long due new Superficial Intelligence comic strip. Enjoy! (Click on the picture to view a larger image)
Thanks to everyone who reads my blog! Let's hope these first 100 posts are just the beginning. Thanks!
I am happy to say that this blog has reached two milestones today. It has received its 100th comment. Thank you, Lidia! Also, as of right now, it has received exactly 2000 visits! The blog has been steadily growing at a nice rate. It took more than four months to get the first 1000 visits. Now, a little less than three months later, it has received another 1000 visits. The last month alone has seen almost 450 visits. Thanks to all of you for reading!
Last month, Scott Adams, author of Dilbert, asked readers of his blog to write random lyrics that almost seemed to make sense. A band in Germany later combined many of those lyrics and turned them into a song. I must say, the resulting song is quite catchy. It almost seems to make sense. And I'm sure you can come up with some weird interpretation if you try hard enough. Here is a video that another reader of Scott Adam's blog put on Youtube with the song:
I believe this stands as proof that you don't really need much writing skills to come up with a hit song. Just luck and good music. My compliments to all those writers out there who actually put their minds into writing good songs. (I still don't mind the nonsensical songs with good music though!)
First week of February will be another themed week similar to the Comic Strip Week I ran back in December. I'm pretty excited about this one, so I hope you enjoy it! Meanwhile, I have also been trying to think of a new design and subtitle for the blog. Any ideas?
This blog reached its first landmark yesterday. After a little more than 4 months, it finally reached the 1000th visit. That's not bad at all given the scarce promotion I have given to the blog and the steep decline in visits during Christmas break. Thanks to all of you who drop by often!
I will be back in Minnesota on Monday and hope to resume my normal blogging schedule. I hope all of you have enjoyed your holidays!
Today I have a funny video from Prangstgrüp. For some reason, I just laugh every time I see it. By the way, I am going to try something new for the blog. Beginning in December, I will designate one special week each month which will be dedicated to a particular theme. The first such week will begin this Saturday, December 1st. Since I have been trying to draw comic strips lately, I will dedicate the week to comic strips. Each day during that week I plan to blog about one of the many comic strips I read online. Time permitting, I will upload a new Superficial Intelligence comic strip the last day. Now, enjoy the video!
It seems the domain name I originally wanted was only held for about a week. Thanks to a tip from a college friend, I found that the domain name was once again free and immediately registered it. I now have "www.superficialintelligence.com" and "www.superficialintelligence.net" under my name. Now the interesting part will be moving over. I don't think I'll be doing that just yet though. I'll just be brainstorming in my head for now.
A few weeks ago, I was looking into registering "www.superficialintelligence.com". At the time I wasn't so sure, so I decided to leave it for later. Bad idea. When I looked into it again this week, it had already been registered, probably by these people who register pages searched by others so they can sell them at higher prices. Luckily, "www.superficialintelligence.net" was still available. Without hesitation, I registered it. I may not use it for now, until I become more consistent at posting, but at least it's mine in case I want to use it.
By the way, I already have an idea for the next comic strip. I haven't been able to draw it because I have been using my spare time to write the three essays required to apply for an NSF graduate research fellowship. Wish me luck in that!
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:
One day on my computer
I started to read,
But something wasn’t right
With the words I read.
While searching the net
For a musical bass,
I came upon a fisherman
Who had caught a bass.
He offered the fish
To a hungry little dove
To eat its food
Into his hands it dove.
Then he started to babble
About his sinker made of lead
And I started to wonder
To where this would lead.
“Besides going fishing
I like arrow and bow�,
He said to the reporter
While on the ship’s bow.
By this time I was cranky
On my eye there was a tear,
I wished the web was paper
So these words I could tear.
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!