'Oh, you're so applied' 

Having grown up in a college town, worked for a couple colleges and hung out with academics for years, I've heard this a lot. It's meant to be kind of an insult.

It's true. I don't have a lot of time for anything that is or seems purely or mostly theoretical. I mentioned a while ago that I thought semantic web stuff tended to the theoretical, and Adam agreed.

So it was nice to see Danny Ayers mention a new initiative among semweb types to make some practical stuff as a showcase. Still though, personally, I'd take this statement a giant step further: "... we decided that an important part of spreading SW is to create useful applications that can make a difference to a lot of people ..."

In fact, my so appliedness would turn it right on its head and say that making useful things is not merely an important part of a development effort -- it's the whole raison d'etre.