The Pragmatic Idealist

"My father [President Franklin D. Roosevelt] gave me these hints on speech making: be sincere . . . be brief . . . be seated." - James Roosevelt   God, Darwin and my College Biology Class Police Unleash Tear Gas in Hong Kong Protests FCC Chairman Ponders Net Neutrality The Great Firewall Gets Bigger

"The greatest danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short, but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark." - Michelangelo   Wall St. Bankrolls Ex-Executive as he Sues over AIG Bailout Europe's Antisemitism Comes out of the Shadows Anomalous Events that can Shake One's Skepticism to the Core Some iPhone 6 Plus Users find an Unwanted Feature: It Bends #Gamergate Controversy Fuels Debate on Women and Video Games

"Always be a little kinder than necessary" - Sir James Matthew Barrie U.S. Aims to Curb Peril of Antibiotic Resistance Why is Our Sci-Fi so Glum about A.I.? China Clamps Down on Web, Pinching Companies Like Google Best not to Sweat the Small Stuff -- Because it can Kill you From Pole to Pulpit, a Club and a Church do Battle

"You are not entitled to your opinion.  You are entitled to your informed opinion.  No one is entitled to be ignorant." - Harlan Ellison   Restaurant Flips off Yelp in the Funniest Way Possible Chinese Tourists Find a Moveable Feast Best left Behind Art Made from Single Celled Organisms Under a Microscope The Paleo Lifestyle: the Way, Way, Way Back The Berlin Wall Comes Down, Again

"One should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything." - William of Occam   Lessons from the Past in the Future of Smart Cars Professor's Angry Tweets on Gaza Cost him his Job Smartphones: the Corporate Personality Test Sun and Wind Alter Global Landscape, Leaving Utilities Behind Poor Color Choice for Cycling Outfits

“Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road.”  - Voltaire World's Thinnest Tablet, With Amazing Camera Success of Apple's Watch may Depend on Healthcare Partnerships In a Study, Text Messages Add up to a Sum of Everyday Morality Training Dogs to Sniff Out Cancer

"The greatest thing in life is to die young - but delay it as long as possible." - George Bernard Shaw Two Cities With Blazing Internet Speed Search for a Killer App   72 Year Old Pamplin Challenges Lewis and Clark Students   Watch Clarkson be a Perv then Race a Hurdler in a Nissan GT-R   Gorgeous Deep Sea Footage of an Unusually Large Dumbo Octopus

"One meets his destiny often on the road he takes to avoid it" - French Proverb Tech, Meet Fashion In E-Sports, Video Gamers Draw Real Crowds and Big Money Argentine Dinosaur was Estimated 130,000 Pounds and Still Growing US Confirms Al Shabab Leader Killed The Girl with Three Biological Parents

"Never mistake motion for action." -Ernest Hemingway Loyal to the Royals, Hoping for a Renaissance Google's Anti-Aging Company Opens a New Facility Star Still has Astronomers' Heads Exploding

"A great memory is never made synonymous with wisdom, any more than a dictionary would be called a treatise." - John Henry Newman A call for a Low-Carb Diet  An unqualified win for low carb over low fat. If Two New Yorkers Shared a Cab . . . Drone Developers Consider Problems That Cannot be Flown Around Questions for IBM's Watson   Jennifer Lawrence Naked Photos Leaked After iCloud Hack At some point, this is going to have a real effect on cloud services.