One thing I've been wondering about lately is when should one write blog articles (short articles ranging from 250 to 1000 words) or articles (1000+ words) which would be updated (in)frequently but not be as easily consumable.
The main reason I've preferred articles over blog articles is that it makes it possible to keep articles "alive", while once a blog article has been published, it will not evolve over time. By the time it is posted, it is effectively dead and has very little reason to change.
Being a programmer, I've always enjoyed seeing software project evolve over the years. They start small and grow big and complex over time. I like the satisfaction of seeing something grow step by step, and because of that, I've liked the idea of writing about specific topics and seeing these topics and articles change over time.
The problem with articles however is that it is difficult for visitors to consume. Some articles might grow large and complex. Furthermore, it is difficult for visitors to notice any changes from the last time they've come onto the blog.
Another thing is that articles allow the author to "refactor" what he has written, or rewrite/rephrase/reword, such that the article itself improves over time. With a blog article, it is still possible to do so, but the expectation is that a visitor that has already seen the blog article will not re-read it. And here's the important difference between the two: I expect blog articles to be consumed once, but articles to be consumed multiple times. This expectation is likely wrong. The only person that is likely to consume the same article over and over is its author. Visitors may come to the blog many times, but they are unlikely to expect articles to change over time. An extreme example of this idea would be Wikipedia. People will consult the page of the topic they are interested in, but once they've read it, they aren't likely to come back to it again. The only reason they might do so is if they contribute to it.
What this means is that it is still acceptable to improve both blog articles and articles. The difference lies in how we expect our audience to consume each ones. Articles are likely to be seen as references while blog posts are likely to be perceived as an ephemeral observation. One should expect both to be consumed at best once by a visitor, and that the visitor will not come again to see if it has changed.
Thus, in the end, what matters is what we want to communicate with our audience. Do I want to tell you about a thought (a blog article) or do I want to tell you about some information that is likely to evolve over time (an article).
In the case of my machine learning and artificial general intelligence research, what makes sense is to communicate discoveries or shifts in approaches through blog articles while using articles as a location for thoughts to be worked on.
- Have a question
- Define the field that would best answer this question
- Search online
- Search for articles and books on the topic
- Determine the likelihood that this field has already been researched
- Read the table of contents
- Rapidly skim through the various sections of the book
- Determine what you want to get out of the book
- Ask yourself questions about what you briefly read
- What did you do this week/today?
- Do you want to talk about anything? (Not language related)
- Summarize tasks given during the exchange
- Plan next exchange
- Pronunciation
- Can you say ...?
- How do you say ...?
- Goal specific discussions
- What do you think of ...?
- What do you want ...?
Over the next year (and hopefully years), I plan on working on AI, but more particularly what is known as AGI, Artificial General Intelligence.
Since I am the kind of person that enjoys to overly plan, I've been thinking about the whole process for a while. Here's a brief overview of how I plan to construct my days as well as my work.
- Decide and plan on which projects I will work today
- Video log
- What will I be doing today?
- What might be blocking me or will be difficult and how do I plan to tackle that?
- Record my thoughts: Either through video logs or through written notes, which is the more likely option. This will allow me to search my thoughts as well as organize them as necessary. Furthermore, I hope I'll be able to optimize my thought flow through tools.
- Video log
- What have I done during the day?
- What are the key takeaway of the day?
- What didn't I do?
- Take notes (of interesting sections and ideas)
- Write down thoughts
- Write down questions related to what is being read (for further exploration)
- Explore right away a question I might have had
I plan on working on multiple mini projects in order to ensure diversity as well as to allow me to spot projects which have the potential to be interesting and rewarding. However all projects are valuable in their own and it is important to reflect on the project at the end in order to extract things we'll want to repeat in the future as well as things we'll want to avoid.
- Post mortem
- What went wrong
- What went right
- Update the status of all tracked activities
- Write a list of things that were done during the month regarding each activity that was done. The purpose is to review what was done as well as provide a way to determine how well a project may/may not be progressing. It is also a good time for me to look at each individual activity that was done during the month and evaluate if I want to keep doing it or not.
- Write a post-mortem of the month, describing the good/bad of my current process and progress, with a section suggesting improvements to try for the next few months.
- Plan the projects/activities I will be working on next month, as well as their time allocation.
I will be experimenting with this process in the next few weeks and will iterate on it as I see fit. I will thus be updating this post as changes occurs and I think of better ways to do my work.