Choosing a topic Part 1 of ?

I’m back to square one. I don’t know what I want to do for a project. The semantic web looks good but boring, Machine Vision seems pretty awesome but wont allow me to find a good long term career path since I have most of my career built on top of 10 year of web expertise. Data-Mining looks promising as well though since I can apply my A.I. skills and DB skills to good use. And finally do something in the Ruby or PHP field.

I’ve compiled a list of pros and cons to further my attempt to a solution on what to focus on. Here they go..

1. Semantic Web Pro:
A. Fairly new technology compared to other fields.
B. Involves AI and the web.
C. Possibly the wave of the future
(like I haven’t heard that before..lol)

2. Semantic Web Con:
A. Looks pretty stupid.
B. Glorified XML, don’t see why we can just use XML.
C. How can I make money off this???

1. Machine Vision Pro
A. Solid research field.
B. Very challenging from what I’ve seen so far.
C. Possibly write a QuickCam API for Ruby?

2. Machine Vision Con:
A. How will this make a name for me?
B. How will this move me up in the web fields? It
wont.

1. Data-Mining Pro:
A. Enjoy using the machine learning algorithms used in
CS 461 to display data.
B. Looks like a lot of open areas to improve on.
C. Deals with the web and web technologies.
D. Possibly do a comparison between AI algorithms.

2. Data-Mining Cons:
A. Don’t see myself getting into DBA
B. In the long run wont it be boring?

1. PHP/Ruby Project Pro:
A. Get my name out there for developing X.
B. Allow me to move up in my career.
C. Help out community with new tools.

2. PHP/Ruby Project Cons:
A. 10 years isn’t that enough?
B. ….

I want to create something that will impact humanity not another lame ass project written by another lame ass grad student.

The quest continues!
Armando Padilla