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I'm sure you say the same thing about politicians, too! Unless you have a law degree and a decade or more of experience, you have NO RIGHT to criticize any politician. Logic and reason be damned, it's all about the degrees a person has achieved. Einstein was spot-on when he responded to the 100 authors opposed to him; it would only take one to prove him wrong, there is no "strength in numbers".

And as far as climate science goes, 95% of the models say that the data is wrong; however, as Richard Feynman so succinctly stated, if your theory (guess) disagrees with experiments/data - your theory is wrong. And in this case, the theories are pretty much wrong - at least 95% of them.

http://www.presentationzen.com...

Obligatory:

http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/2010/08/a-long-time-ago-before-death-by-powerpoint.html

read Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds and you'll (almost) never use a bullet list again.

My friend, I fear you do not see the point. Have we not said that hardware based encryption is far superior to software based encryption? Does this chart tell you nothing?

Indeed, our thumb drives utilize gold connectors to ensure the fidelity and privacy of your porn collection. Other thumb drives use cheap, base metals. These are highly susceptible to corruption and thus are insecure. Don't take the risk and go cheap; after all, do you really want the whole world to see your midget clown photo sets?

As a CEO of a major software company, part of his job was to make comments in public that would try to influence the industry to move in the direction that would align with what his own company was doing (or at least attempting) already.

To me, that implies vision.

Two excellent comparisons between billg and steve jobs are http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/200 5/11/the_zen_estheti.html and http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/200 5/11/it_was_one_of_t.html .

As a CEO of a major software company, part of his job was to make comments in public that would try to influence the industry to move in the direction that would align with what his own company was doing (or at least attempting) already.

To me, that implies vision.

Two excellent comparisons between billg and steve jobs are http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/200 5/11/the_zen_estheti.html and http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/200 5/11/it_was_one_of_t.html .

...And through this all, what bothers me most, is the focus is on the sideline(.ppt) as opposed to the actual core of the research, which hints to the human brain having a sort of swap-file, as well as gauging the approximate capacity of that swap-file.

As far as presentations go, I suggest http://www.presentationzen.com/ as a valuable resource. That's where I first learned about the Takahashi method, which to this day I consider the leading pres system with regards to information-effectiveness and aesthetics.

Is it PowerPoint's fault, or the fault of the Powerpoint creator?

Totally agreed. I had a math instructor during my last degree who was a Power Point master. His formulas flowed, his animations were understated and tasteful, and everything focused your attention on what he wanted you to understand. This was in 2001, when hardly anyone was using Power Point in the classroom.

Today, I have lecturers who fill every slide with long 10-pt bullet points, and simply read from the slides--that's their "lecture". Handouts consist of what is on the screen, without even changing colored slides that turn into uniform gray blobs on paper.

But probably the worst offender was my Technical Presentations instructor, whose presentations consisted of bright yellow and green text on saturated blue backgrounds, rife with the most tacky, irrelevant, distracting clip-art you can imagine. He seemed to think one of the fundamental goals of a presentation was to use as many different animations and bullets as possible on a single slide.

The worst part: He showed us a presentation he had bought (well, the school had) after paying $2000 to attend. It turns out he based his presentation style on this "professional" presentation on how to give effective presentations. One of the most hilarious slides was intended to show how to focus your viewers' attention where you want. Under the usual bullet points (with multiple bullet styles), there was a globe with a big red dot on South America. Fine so far. There was also a big red arrow pointing to the big red dot. A bit overstated, but it does the job. Then there was a clip-art image of two women who were apparently supposed to be looking along the line of the arrow.

But when that slide appeared, my classmate beside me leaned over and said "Hey, I think those two chicks are checking each other out." Sure enough, if you looked at their eye lines, these two clip-art women were definitely not focused on South America, but were gazing fondly into each other's eyes, with telling Mona-Lisa smiles. We missed most of what our instructor said about that slide, perfectly illustrating how it completely failed to achieve what it was trying to teach you how to do.

The presentation was called "1,2,3..." something or other. It's supposedly a famous how-to seminar. Don't waste your money. Go to Presentation Zen instead. You'll learn a lot more.

Presentation Zen. Definitely read their contrast of presentations given by Gates and Jobs. On a personal note, I can proudly say I have never given a presentation with bullet points. I tried hard to give up that crutch and the result has always been commendation afterwards. My audiences have described my presentations as fluid, participatory, and engaging. Avoiding bullet points at least proves you know your material. Also remember that your presentation is there to enhance what you have to say, and not the other way around.