Tuesday 16 December 2008

Blogging

I finally decided to start a blog!. It had actually been decided for quite a while, but I hadn't had time to start writing. That, and I was waiting to build my own (perfect) blog website. Anyway, I gave up and decided give blogger a try at least for the time being.

why blogging?
Well, there are many reasons. In the first place there is an awful lot of (smart) people telling you "
you should write blogs" (the link is just one example, check google for more) and their reasons seem to quite convincing. But thinking about it, I didn't need them to tell me to write a blog. There's a much more compeling reason to do so: iThink.
No, I'ts not a new apple product. I just tend to think (and imagine) stuff all the time (seriously, *all* the time). But the problem with being thinking all the time is that thought is ephemeral. I've always wanted to carry around one of these old style recording devices that journalists used to carry with them and use it to record the interesting ideas I had. But even if I did, I wouldn't get much value of it cuz the recorded ideas have two main problems:
First, they are messy. Even if I could have them organized it would be just endless rants that wont make much sense (I'm not claiming my blog wont be like that, it probably will =p ).
And second, they would only reach me. I am not expecting to have much readers, none actually. But who knows.
I could also do a vlog (video log) using something like seesmic but, seriously, who wants to spend their time looking at somebody's face while he talks?. Also to make a good video I'd have to write it first. I wouldn't be able to fix my mistakes and it would be hard to skip to a specific part of the post.
Writting, on the other hand, has many advantages. Sure, it's not as dynamic as talking and it's a lot slower, but it helps you (forces you to) organize your ideas to create a (semi) readable text. It is also persistent and can evolve over time. I would love it if blogs could have version control almost as much as I would love it if textareas could have emacs bindings (these are some of the things that would exist in my perfect blogging website), but for now I'm happy with the ability to edit the things I wrote in the past.

But the most important advantage of writing is, for me, that it helps me get things done (tm). One of the problems of this "iThink" property of mine that I mentioned earlier is that I think of so many different stuff every day, and add so many things to my in-brain to-do list, that I hardly ever have time to do any of them. So this blog is for me a way of organizing what I think and forcing myself to actually doing or expressing it. Think of it as a place for my finished projects, essays or ideas I'd like to get feedback on (plus any random stuff I come up with).

So, What will I write about?
Pretty much anything. I believe I'll mostly write about computer science related stuff, but you could expect anything from sorting algorithms trough compiler technics trough movies to politics.

Why in english?
English is a nice language. A great part of the world can speak it, or at least understand it to some extent. Also I could use some english writting skills. I might do a post in spanish every so often, but don't expect it to be the rule.

Why /random/thoughts ?
I know, it is probably the most un-original blog name out there. Google shows 28,100 pages with the phrase "random thoughts" and the world blog in the title. But as it turns out it is not that easy to pick a blog name. I thought of a few different names but this blog is basically about me writting down random thoughts. Also it has just the right amount of geekyness; it is easy enough for anyone to read and slightly interesting for those *nix minded. Plus, "cat /dev/c3po > /mnt/blog" was already taken. Just kidding, I'm not actually *that* geeky =)

Oficial Comment:
After writting my first post I've decided that blogger's wysiwyg editor sucks-a-lot. From now on I'm posting from Emacs.




2 comments:

  1. "cat /dev/c3po > /mnt/blog" xD jajaja! or i should say hahaha? :P

    Definitely is a great idea you have decided open a blog! Specially for the surprising amount of random knowledge that i know you're able to share!
    Maybe it's a little bizarre to hear, or read this time, your ideas in english, but it's gonna be quite interesting :P
    Wish you luck, and specially patiente and constancy, there's no doubt that the worst, more terrifying and ill-intentioned enemy of a blog is the inactivity! :P

    ReplyDelete
  2. Congrats on your new blog!

    OK, I know it's been a while since this post, but I just started to seriously read your blog.

    I liked this post so much and I have confidence in your unique ideas that I'm adding it to the links of my blog... actually, you'll be inaugurating that section (-;

    ReplyDelete