Wednesday, November 9, 2005

Presentation synchronicity Speaking of PowerPoint. . . also in today's mail was the new issue of Technical Communication, the quarterly journal of STC. And right up front is an article entitled "Rethinking the Design of Presentation Slides: A Case for Sentence Headlines and Visual Evidence." The authors—Michael Alley, Virginia Tech, and Kathryn A. Neeley, U. of Virginia—propose that we replace headings and bullet points with complete sentences and photographs, diagrams, charts, tables, and other visual/graphical illustrations of the topic at hand. They make a compelling case. If you're not an STC member (for shame!), you can buy a copy of the article for $10 after registering online with Ingenta, the online purveyor of TC; or find your friendly local STC member and borrow their copy. Just be a good neighbor and return it! 6:44:03 PM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

Bugs that kill Linkage to a Wired News article listing the top ten all-time software bugs and their aftermaths: Worst software bugs in history. Cory Doctorow: Simson Garfinkel rounds up the ten worst software bugs in the history of the world. A surpsiting number of these resulted in human deaths. Link [Boing Boing] Next, it would be interesting to see a similar list of the worst software documentation errors. I'm sure some of them have killed, too. 4:36:07 PM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

Indexing hell As a disservice to my readers (but more because I'm lazy. . .), I include a search function on this blog, courtesy of Atomz. I thought that I had configured the service to index once a week many moons ago. Apparently not. I reset it today, as well as running a new index, so there's a slightly better chance that you'll get results when you search for something I've written. But I do not guarantee that you'll ever find what you're looking for. 4:27:59 PM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

I got mine! Cthulhu be praised! My very own "Cthulhu Fhtagn" wristband arrived in today's mail. It is indeed most wondrous to behold. And a big wet sloppy "thank you" to Laura for alerting me to this "wristband of rubbery doom"! Get yours, before it's too late. . . 4:24:12 PM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

Morville interview Yet another interview (or is this the same one, again?) with Peter Morville about Ambient Findability. I'm only on chapter 3, but I've found the book fascinating: I now know more about Moore, Mooers, Pareto, and Zipf than I ever did before. Findability is ambient: Interview with Peter Morville. "Intelligence is moving to the edges, flowing through wireless devices, empowering individuals and distributed teams. Ideas spread like wildfire, and information is in the air, literally. And yet with this wealth of instantly accessible information, we still experience disorientation. We still wander off the map." - (Liz Danzico - AIGA Voice) [InfoDesign: Understanding by Design] 4:05:00 PM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

QOTD "The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgement of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist." Winston Churchill, November 21, 1943, quoted by Andrew Sullivan via Crooks and Liars. 4:01:01 PM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

DUX pix on Flickr I noticed that DUX 2005 photos are being tagged as dux05 or dux2005 (or both) on Flickr. In any case, there are many of them, which I find rather delightful. Hint: there is one photo of me there. And about a half-dozen of my new best friend. See if you can guess. . . 3:38:47 PM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

Compare and contrast: PA vs. KS What's the difference between Pennsylvania and Kansas? School Board: Evolution Slate Outpolls Rivals. All eight members of the Pennsylvania school board that introduced intelligent design as an alternative to evolution in biology class were swept out of office. By LAURIE GOODSTEIN. [NYT > Science] Kansas Board Approves Challenges to Evolution. The board adopted new science standards that are the most far-reaching in the nation in challenging Darwin's theory of evolution. By JODI WILGOREN. [NYT > Science] 3:31:12 PM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

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