Well, it looks like I am moving in to San Francisco proper. My new place is near Mission and Geneva. Little tiny in-law unit. I consider it temporary, until I can get better quarters. Along those lines, I am looking for a housemate to share an under $2k/month house somewhere in SF or environs. Enquire within, and know that I am much less of an ogre in person.
In other news, I just got my copy of Edward Tufte's new essay, 'The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint'. This 23-page screed lays out in excruciating detail just what makes PowerPoint presentations so uniformly awful.
It's a complex and nuanced argument, but it boils down to a few key points. First, PowerPoint emphasizes style over content. Tufte dubs the resulting tendency to plaster every slide with cute clip art and meaningless typographical flourishes 'PowerPoint Phluff', and adorns the margin with a drawing of a jar of Marshmallow Fluff with an appropriately doctored label.
Second, PP breaks all information into hierachical, disjointed bullet lists. This breaks up the flow of narrative and obscures even the simplest of non-hierachical relations. Tufte makes an apt comparison between the cognitive style of PP and the structure of totalitarian propoganda. Tufte, in typical fashion, drives the point home with a clever graphical flourish (on the front cover, natch).
This corruption of thought is the most serious problem that PowerPoint presents. Tufte reprints a brilliant parody of the Gettysburg Address ala Powerpoint (from Peter Norvig) as a prime example of the way in which PP is capable of corrupting even the best laid thoughts. It is not that the people who use PP are necessarily sloppy thinkers; often they are not. However, PP makes it very easy to do the wrong thing and very hard to do the right thing.
If you are interested, I suggest you spring for the $7 the essay costs and order it from Tufte's site.
In other news, I just got my copy of Edward Tufte's new essay, 'The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint'. This 23-page screed lays out in excruciating detail just what makes PowerPoint presentations so uniformly awful.
It's a complex and nuanced argument, but it boils down to a few key points. First, PowerPoint emphasizes style over content. Tufte dubs the resulting tendency to plaster every slide with cute clip art and meaningless typographical flourishes 'PowerPoint Phluff', and adorns the margin with a drawing of a jar of Marshmallow Fluff with an appropriately doctored label.
Second, PP breaks all information into hierachical, disjointed bullet lists. This breaks up the flow of narrative and obscures even the simplest of non-hierachical relations. Tufte makes an apt comparison between the cognitive style of PP and the structure of totalitarian propoganda. Tufte, in typical fashion, drives the point home with a clever graphical flourish (on the front cover, natch).
This corruption of thought is the most serious problem that PowerPoint presents. Tufte reprints a brilliant parody of the Gettysburg Address ala Powerpoint (from Peter Norvig) as a prime example of the way in which PP is capable of corrupting even the best laid thoughts. It is not that the people who use PP are necessarily sloppy thinkers; often they are not. However, PP makes it very easy to do the wrong thing and very hard to do the right thing.
If you are interested, I suggest you spring for the $7 the essay costs and order it from Tufte's site.
plonk:
Yes, and broadband has been hooked up at the new place. I will post a journal about it tonight, unless a certain buxom redhead shows up at my place tonight 
. I'll talk about her in the next entry too.
. I'll talk about her in the next entry too.
plonk:
Yes, and broadband has been hooked up at the new place. I will post a journal about it tonight, unless a certain buxom redhead shows up at my place tonight . I'll talk about her in the next entry too.
. I'll talk about her in the next entry too.