For better or worse I always tried to keep this blog fairly empty of personal content and as short and straight to the point as I can muster. This post breaks both rules. I know this because I wrote this paragraph last and all secrets of this post have already been revealed to me. So if you don't enjoy reading long tracts of personal thoughts, you better stop now.

Brad Neuberg recently published
a post
that really got to me. I am not a computer scientist and I don't pretend to be one. I do enjoy the act of programming, but unlike many programmers I know, it's not enough to make me feel fulfilled. My work needs to have a meaning I can relate to and challenges I want to solve.

He writes about a need to set your own Personal Research Agenda and I couldn't agree more. Making the list puts in perspective what you're doing and where you actually want to go. Even if you can't always work towards your goals, and I guess most of us have to compromise, it's good if we are at least zigzagging in the right direction.

Hence I've been thinking of my list since and while I haven't come as far as Brad in postulating problems I would like to work on, I do have a general sense of what I want to do and how close I am to doing it. I'm not surprised by my slow progress, since I was always inept at deciding what I want to do with my life apart from remaining
green
. So how am I doing these days, if I take everything I've said so far into an account?

I'm not doing that great.

As those who have tried to contact me in the last few months already know, I am very busy these days. However, having a lot of work isn't the same as having challenging work and I can't really say that my work is challenging. This will change, probably even fairly soon, but it looks unlikely I'll deal with challenges I want to solve. So that's strike one in baseball lingo.

Am I working on problems that have meaning to me?

I loved books since I have learned to read and through the years have only become more fascinated with the medium and what was being done with it. When I look at web, I feel we're only at mere beginning and I would like to explore more of what can be done with it. Probably because of my fairly reclusive nature I care more about malleability of published content than currently more fashionable explorations of ways to discover it.

I am also similarly intrigued by mobile internet. As most people these days I own a programmable mobile phone and unlike most I also
own
a tablet. I don't often find time to think about what I could do with them, but when I do, I just get flooded with ideas I'd like to try.

I can't talk about my work yet, but I can safely say that last two paragraphs don't describe it. Strike two.

What's left is learning new things. I can't honestly say I haven't learned anything lately. I've certainly spent plenty of time doing it. Sadly I have remarkably little to show for it. Thinking about the discrepancy between effort and time put in and results, I came to the conclusion that I've simply spent too much time dealing with transient problems of tools used that produce little residual knowledge. I gained most by exploring subjects I won't work on.

That's strike three and out.