What makes good guidelines?

Choosing a name for your computer

In order to easily distinguish between multiple computers, we give them names. Experience has taught us that it is as easy to choose bad names as it is to choose good ones. This essay presents guidelines for deciding what makes a name good or bad.

What People Really Want in Life and Why It Matters: Contributions from Research on Folk Theories of the Good Life

At the heart of social progress is the human capacity to notice a discrepancy between how things are and how they might be. Certainly, such progress requires more than simply this realization. It requires the belief that change is possible and right. It requires social cooperation and work by groups for the common good. But these activities would never occur without someone at some point notici...

Polymeric Gas Separation Membranes: What Makes them Industrially more Attractive?

What makes a good process?

So what makes a “good process”? This is a question that I am often asked. Usually the person asking is looking for a simple answer: “One that has no more than 10 task boxes” or “only has two handovers” or “one that looks long and thin.” Of course, things are not that simple, and there is a difference between what makes a good process and what makes a good process model. It is often the latter t...

A Note on Logic and Information Retrieval

What is that makes a “good” logical model of IR? What are the guidelines that we should follow when we want to build one, and how much can we depart from these guidelines and still claim to have a logical model of IR? We have been motivated to write this note from our dissatisfaction with the fact that there seem to be many competing, incompatible views of what a logical model of IR should cons...