http://www.practicalist.com/mt/ Practicalist is a blog by Ben Clemens. Its interest in ideas is to treat them as though they are people, with complex emotional, spiritual, and intellectual needs. It follows Richard Rorty in avoiding the attempt "to unite 'beauty and justice' in some kind of seamlessly perceived whole ... the consequence of such an attempt is to harden political aspirations into rigid ideologies and to distort reality by ... aestheticizing it." The logo is a stylized number '7' from the 700 year-old Indian Gujarati alphabet, because most people can easily hold about seven things in their mind at once. Separately it's also a beautiful shape. en-us ben.clemens@yahoo.com 2010-02-24T00:56:03-08:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 http://www.practicalist.com/mt/archives/000525.html David Foster Wallace, giving the commencement address at Kenyon College in 2005, among many other things, said: I submit that this is what the real, no-bullshit value of your liberal-arts education is supposed to be about: How to keep from... 525@http://www.practicalist.com/mt/ beauty 2010-02-24T00:56:03-08:00 http://www.practicalist.com/mt/archives/000524.html New methods for managing people making Web sites are big these days, with the most popular being Agile. Basically it boils down to making a small team of builders completely responsible for a project, and enforcing constant communication as people... 524@http://www.practicalist.com/mt/ hypotheses 2009-10-06T15:15:39-08:00 http://www.practicalist.com/mt/archives/000523.html Shown are U.S. House districts (average population of 650,000 people), red for Republican and blue for Democrats, with districts that emitted more carbon per capita last year shown in darker colors. I discovered project "Vulcan" at Purdue University, which is... 523@http://www.practicalist.com/mt/ hypotheses 2009-08-26T21:44:46-08:00 http://www.practicalist.com/mt/archives/000522.html Palin posted her beliefs about the health care bill. The only one that's available is the House bill HR 3200, so that's what she must be referring to. Below is her text's assertions (minus the characterizations and other material that... 522@http://www.practicalist.com/mt/ hypotheses 2009-08-07T21:40:41-08:00 http://www.practicalist.com/mt/archives/000521.html I believe that there are two kinds of ideas in the world: those that divide things into two types, and those that don't... and then there's a third, which tries to wriggle out of either. This is one of those.... 521@http://www.practicalist.com/mt/ hypotheses 2009-07-16T23:31:47-08:00 http://www.practicalist.com/mt/archives/000520.html The below is my attempt to remove the frothy and breathless tone from "Generation M manifesto" by Umair Haque, because I liked it in many ways. It is definitely more boring, but I hope more real as well. I don't... 520@http://www.practicalist.com/mt/ humility 2009-07-14T10:44:33-08:00 http://www.practicalist.com/mt/archives/000519.html Twitter, Friendfeed, and Facebook have seemingly converged on what has become the major reason to be connected to others on a social network: sharing short updates, links, photos, etc. A concept for mozilla's Firefox also looks similar, and lifts ideas... 519@http://www.practicalist.com/mt/ social design 2009-04-21T09:38:25-08:00 http://www.practicalist.com/mt/archives/000518.html Douglas Bowman had to quit Google, and Valleywag explains it all for you (to hell with Owen!). I had a similar experience at Yahoo, so I'm only surprised Douglas lasted this long. The comments on Valleywag are really sad though;... 518@http://www.practicalist.com/mt/ beauty 2009-03-21T20:17:25-08:00 http://www.practicalist.com/mt/archives/000517.html Our house gets calls at least once a week on behalf of several different charities, each with familiar-sounding names:Breast Cancer SocietyCancer Fund of AmericaChildren's Cancer Fund Of AmericaChildren's Charitable FoundationDetectives Benevolent AssociationDisabled Veterans ServicesFirefighters Assistance FundFoundation For American VeteransLaw Enforcement... 517@http://www.practicalist.com/mt/ motives 2009-03-15T18:20:16-08:00 http://www.practicalist.com/mt/archives/000515.html Google has created a slew of innovative products, born from original thinking and supporting experimentation and new ideas, and Marissa Mayer has been a large part of the company's success. Google's success was not built on design however; it was... 515@http://www.practicalist.com/mt/ humility 2009-03-01T19:47:58-08:00 http://www.practicalist.com/mt/archives/000514.html It seems like there is a fairly straightforward deal possible to save the business of putting out newspapers (the news is fine, doesn't need to change!). Make it a much cheaper version of the cable business, where subscribers buy into... 514@http://www.practicalist.com/mt/ hypotheses 2009-02-26T11:52:00-08:00 http://www.practicalist.com/mt/archives/000513.html Walter Kirn's review of David Denby's book Snark is pretty fun reading: He wants to correct and restrain, using scholarship and logic, perhaps the keenest, most reflexive, prehistoric and anarchic of simple human pleasures, short of eating or achieving orgasm.... 513@http://www.practicalist.com/mt/ hypotheses 2009-02-22T11:24:49-08:00 http://www.practicalist.com/mt/archives/000512.html A schooI's technology plan I read is mostly about computers for students and teachers, other equipment, and goals for integrating equipment use into the classrooms and professional development plans, without describing what students would do with the computers. Some feedback... 512@http://www.practicalist.com/mt/ technology 2009-02-18T23:45:32-08:00 http://www.practicalist.com/mt/archives/000511.html Recently I've found myself having very unpleasant conversations with people about work. Often, both of us are in a bad situation, and there is no easy way to make the project better, only 'least bad' answers. It's a negative... 511@http://www.practicalist.com/mt/ humility 2009-02-18T20:19:21-08:00 http://www.practicalist.com/mt/archives/000510.html I liked this post from Caterina Fake so much that I made myself a small leaflet version with these and other singletasking axioms to post by my desk (download PDF). I am kicking the interrupt-driven lifestyle!... 510@http://www.practicalist.com/mt/ humility 2009-02-11T16:57:51-08:00