http://www.paulgraham.com/taste.html Mathematicians call good work “beautiful,” and so have scientists, engineers, musicians, architects, designers, writers, and painters. Is it just a coincidence that they used the same word, or is there some overlap in what they meant? If there is an overlap, can we use one field’s discoveries about beauty to help us in another? For those of us who design things, these are not just theoretical questions. If there is such a thing as beauty, we need to be able to recognize it. We need good taste to make good things. Instead of treating beauty as an airy abstraction, to be either blathered about or avoided depending on how one feels about airy abstractions, let’s try considering it as a practical question: how do you make good stuff? If you mention taste nowadays, a lot of people will tell you that “taste is subjective.” They believe this because it really feels that way to them. When they like something, they have no idea why. It could be because it’s beautiful, or because their mother had one, or because they saw a movie star with one in a magazine, or because they know it’s expensive. Their thoughts are a tangle of unexamined impulses. https://solar.itu.dk/pad/s/xXB3uvW-d https://hedgedoc.unfug.hs-furtwangen.de/s/fscGuyHeC https://hackmd.iscpif.fr/s/SkI0B3X0ge https://hedgedoc.private.coffee/s/aWXRk-e6f https://codimd.blacklocos.com/s/Me8DH78LD https://md.studibla.ch/s/ZrlRLGzZX https://omoffice.de/s/BJxbeT7Rle https://codi.sevenvm.de/s/wYg466Iha https://doc.neutrinet.be/s/wDLuOhjiI https://tutos.cemea.org/s/13eq9UdCp https://md.nolog.cz/s/eTtyzp1JO https://www.notizen.kita.bayern/s/P_vFFhly1 https://md.gafert.org/s/9OfB9pcHG