It’s a cheap shot, I know, but it rather warms my soul to read this story in the WSJ about the high crimes & misdemeanors associated with PowerPoint.
It’s not a completely one-sided rant, because—after all—PPT basically a neutral tool for communication; it’s what you do with it that’s evil. PPT doesn’t kill people; people kill people.
Really, it is rather like having a Glock with a chambered round holstered under your Armani jacket: you’re standing up with the remote control & your 56 slides (the electronic equivalent of Arlo’s eight-by-ten-color-glossy-photos-with-circles-&-arrows-&-a-paragraph-on-the-back-of-each-one-explaining-what-each-one-is), reading every bullet point & then flogging it thoroughly into the ground before moving on. & the entire room has to do your bidding.
(I’m convinced this is partly responsible for people bringing their laptops & smartphones to meetings & tap-tap-tapping throughout the hour, occasionally raising their heads to bark, “I missed that last—what were you saying?”)
Web 2.0 & all-round guru Guy Kawasaki has a mantra governing PPT: 10/20/30. No more than ten slides; no more than 20 minutes; no smaller than 30-point font (meaning: no more than four bullet points per slide). Would that more business people learned from the master on this.
(Years ago I was told that a PPT presentation should be only the framework of what you’re going to talk about. If someone can pick up the preso & grasp your entire case without hearing your spiel, you’re doing it wrong. Most of the world is doing it wrong.)
In my own company, it’s infinitely worse: we use PPT for what should in all sanity be painstakingly built in documents: the one that just eats my lunch is the business plan. Our business plans are 98 slides long minimum. (What this also means is that management doesn’t have to read the biz plan; it’s presented to them in ephemeral form & they can pronounce judgment by shooting from the hip, not via thoughtful analysis.)
Well, really, it doesn’t matter what any of us says; PPT has taken over & resistance is futile.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Noticias del sud
So, word comes that the host of a “true crime” show in Brazil is under suspicion of having hired hit men to commit murders.
Evidently Wallace Souza was killing the proverbial two birds: knocking off rival drug dealers and jacking up the ratings for his “Canal Livre” show.
Both his TV competitors and the cops began to get suspicious when Souza’s crews kept showing up at murder scenes before anyone else. Sometimes even before the cops.
In addition to being a “reality” show host, Souza is an ex-cop and a state legislator. You just can’t make this stuff up.
And, lest you think this is just too whacky to happen here, I’m sure that FoxNews is even now trying to figure out how they can go Souza one (or five) better. Probably by knocking off NPR reporters.
Evidently Wallace Souza was killing the proverbial two birds: knocking off rival drug dealers and jacking up the ratings for his “Canal Livre” show.
Both his TV competitors and the cops began to get suspicious when Souza’s crews kept showing up at murder scenes before anyone else. Sometimes even before the cops.
In addition to being a “reality” show host, Souza is an ex-cop and a state legislator. You just can’t make this stuff up.
And, lest you think this is just too whacky to happen here, I’m sure that FoxNews is even now trying to figure out how they can go Souza one (or five) better. Probably by knocking off NPR reporters.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
This sporting life
You may or may not have followed the Michael Vick story—the football player for whom having 11 steroid-infused behemoths piling on him once a week wasn’t violent enough, & was running a dog fighting ring. The evidence of his criminality was so egregious that he didn’t have the chutzpah to plead not guilty; but by pleading guilty he was sentenced to only 23 months.
Released from prison he was reinstated by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. His home team, the Falcons, won’t touch him with a barge pole, but if he can prove himself able to throw a football, some team probably will and he’ll be back in the tall cotton.
Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen has a few comments on this travesty, which should enrage any person of sensibility. Which excludes any sports fan who thinks that the only thing that matters is that their team win, whatever the cost and however morally reprehensible the members of that team may be.
Here’s my vision of cosmic justice for this son of a bitch and all his dog-fighting pals (the ones who ran the business and the ones who paid for it): when they die (as soon and as painfully as possible), the ever-afterlife should be all the dogs they mangled and murdered tearing them apart again and again. Whenever the shreds of their miserable carcasses are scattered over the terrain of Hell, they are sucked back together like a motion picture special effect so another dog can rip them apart again.
Except that it would only extend the pain of the dogs’ existence. Maybe I’ll use mechanical dogs.
Released from prison he was reinstated by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. His home team, the Falcons, won’t touch him with a barge pole, but if he can prove himself able to throw a football, some team probably will and he’ll be back in the tall cotton.
Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen has a few comments on this travesty, which should enrage any person of sensibility. Which excludes any sports fan who thinks that the only thing that matters is that their team win, whatever the cost and however morally reprehensible the members of that team may be.
Here’s my vision of cosmic justice for this son of a bitch and all his dog-fighting pals (the ones who ran the business and the ones who paid for it): when they die (as soon and as painfully as possible), the ever-afterlife should be all the dogs they mangled and murdered tearing them apart again and again. Whenever the shreds of their miserable carcasses are scattered over the terrain of Hell, they are sucked back together like a motion picture special effect so another dog can rip them apart again.
Except that it would only extend the pain of the dogs’ existence. Maybe I’ll use mechanical dogs.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
The red-headed league
A friend sent me this story in the NY Times, reporting what I’ve known for some time. First hand.
Back in college I was having surgery under local anesthesia. I kept jumping on the table until the anesthesiologist squirted a wider area around the knife.
Then, a few years ago I was being prepped for arthroscopy on my right shoulder. After a series of nurses came through asking me each time that it was the right shoulder they were supposed to be cutting into, the anesthesiologist came in. She asked the usual questions about things that might choke me while I was under. Then she—a redhead herself—said that since I was part of the league, she would make sure to supersize my dose of anesthesia.
At that time she told me that (as reported in the Times) it had long been known anecdotally amongst the gas-passers that redheads needed more anesthesia than the rest of the populace. But she said that studies were starting to emerge supporting this.
Then, a few months after that, I was being prepped for laparoscopic surgery. When my anesthesiologist—another redhead (someone should do a study about the incidence of redheads specializing in anesthesiology)—came in to ask about the stuff that could choke me while under, I pointed to my hair and said, “It’s red…”
He knew exactly what I meant and was already planning to up the juice. (He also kindly threw in a prophylactic to prevent post-surgery nausea, which for me is the worst part of the whole ordeal.)
So it’s good to know the word is getting out and that my fellow flame-hairs need no longer suffer.
Back in college I was having surgery under local anesthesia. I kept jumping on the table until the anesthesiologist squirted a wider area around the knife.
Then, a few years ago I was being prepped for arthroscopy on my right shoulder. After a series of nurses came through asking me each time that it was the right shoulder they were supposed to be cutting into, the anesthesiologist came in. She asked the usual questions about things that might choke me while I was under. Then she—a redhead herself—said that since I was part of the league, she would make sure to supersize my dose of anesthesia.
At that time she told me that (as reported in the Times) it had long been known anecdotally amongst the gas-passers that redheads needed more anesthesia than the rest of the populace. But she said that studies were starting to emerge supporting this.
Then, a few months after that, I was being prepped for laparoscopic surgery. When my anesthesiologist—another redhead (someone should do a study about the incidence of redheads specializing in anesthesiology)—came in to ask about the stuff that could choke me while under, I pointed to my hair and said, “It’s red…”
He knew exactly what I meant and was already planning to up the juice. (He also kindly threw in a prophylactic to prevent post-surgery nausea, which for me is the worst part of the whole ordeal.)
So it’s good to know the word is getting out and that my fellow flame-hairs need no longer suffer.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Passing of an era
They’re dying off, now—almost gone, in fact—the veterans of World War I. Britain just lost its last two within a week of each other last month, Henry Allingham and Harry Patch. France has none left, there’s one in Australia, and our remaining veteran is Frank Buckles, 108, of West Virginia.
Patch’s funeral in Wells Cathedral was attended by soldiers of the Western Front combatants: Britain, France, Germany & Belgium. And ordinary Brits, for whom the First World War has vastly deeper meaning than for us, came to honor him—and his comrades.
(In fact, Radiohead just released a single, “Harry Patch, In Memory Of”, honoring Patch.”)
Patch went through most of his life without mentioning his experiences. It wasn’t until a few years ago that he was persuaded to recount them. And even after all that time they still disturbed him and he wished he hadn’t dredged them back up. His repeated statement was, “It wasn’t worth it. War wasn’t worth one life.”
Really, it’s a lesson I wish we’d learn, but not bloody likely.
Patch’s funeral in Wells Cathedral was attended by soldiers of the Western Front combatants: Britain, France, Germany & Belgium. And ordinary Brits, for whom the First World War has vastly deeper meaning than for us, came to honor him—and his comrades.
(In fact, Radiohead just released a single, “Harry Patch, In Memory Of”, honoring Patch.”)
Patch went through most of his life without mentioning his experiences. It wasn’t until a few years ago that he was persuaded to recount them. And even after all that time they still disturbed him and he wished he hadn’t dredged them back up. His repeated statement was, “It wasn’t worth it. War wasn’t worth one life.”
Really, it’s a lesson I wish we’d learn, but not bloody likely.
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