My grandfather's iPad - <AUTHOR> http://blog.dispatched.ch/2010/07/18/my-grandfathers-ipad/ <comment><USER2> I really don't get the confusion about clicking. For me, right-click as used in Windows and KDE (at least KDE3) enabled a massive amount of ignorance. I never know how to do _anything_ and it doesn't matter. Want to know what something does and what you can do to it? Right-click and look at the context menu. Left-click doesn't do what you expect? Right-click and look for the command you want.

I swear that's all I ever knew about KDE3, and it was almost always enough. It usually works in Windows, too. Just right-click!

But, I tried to teach my mom about that, and it just never took. "How do I do open this file with a different program?" "Did you try right-clicking on the icon?" "Oh, there's the 'open with' command." "Always try right-clicking. Right-clicking is magic!" "Okay, I'll try that next time." "I'm not kidding! Write it down! It's magic!" Two days later, "How do I rename a file on my desktop?"

I really don't understand how it's a mind-blowing concept. There are only two buttons on the mouse. (That she knows of.) She uses the mouse every day! She knows how to use more than two buttons on her camera, and she uses her camera once a month. I just don't get it. Why are the buttons on the mouse harder than the ones on the camera?

Even weirder is that she is capable of learning a lot of specific tasks. She learned how to "Open With" and how to "Rename"; it's been a long time since I had to help her with stuff like that. To me, it seems easier to remember the single rule, "Right click and look at the context menu," than to learn all those specific tasks without understanding the general rule.

<comment><USER3> Same here - it is really just one rule to remember, instant PC expert. That is also why I don't understand everybody raving about Macs. Macs are not consistent with the second mouse button rule (they used to have only one button), therefore there is no way to become an instant expert on a Mac. I always hate using a Mac because it makes me feel so helpless.

My mother learned the second mouse button rule after a while, btw. Don't give up :-)

<comment><USER4> "That is also why I don't understand everybody raving about Macs. Macs are not consistent with the second mouse button rule (they used to have only one button), therefore there is no way to become an instant expert on a Mac."

Although you may have answered your own question, as it seems that the right- click button does not fit the mental model of non-computer-experts (at least, that is what we have been discussing).

Maybe the Mac works better for those people because it does not assume that the user will just right-click to figure out how to do something?

Right-click does work well, of course, in most contexts on the Mac. Interestingly, though, I've been finding myself appreciating having a big obvious button to click even when I know the functionality I want is also in the right-click menu. I suspect Fitt's law has something to do with it.

<comment><USER5> Yes. There has traditionally been a drive toward putting all major functions of a Mac app in the menu bar — even if they also additionally got a shortcut such as through a "right-click" contextual menu. This leads one to expect to be able to find any available option through scanning a single set of options (categorized roughly by the thing or type of action they effect) rather than having to mentally union all the options from several disparate places to get a complete mental model of the app's actions and options.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Just had a family reunion yesterday...I'd say half the people over the age of 55 lack an intuitive sense of computing.

My MIL didn't understand that the interface represented a physical top of a desk. My mom double clicks on web links. My uncle does all his contractor company accounting with a pencil, in a ledger book.

That is a huge market for the iPad.

The desktop was a wonderful metaphor with its files and folders, for what it was replacing. But its time is coming to an end and the iPad is riding and creating that wave.

After the iPad 3G drops below $300, it will do more to bring that demographic online than any other device to date.

</comment><comment><USER7> I've been thinking about getting an iPad for my father. He has always been interested in computers, but a keyboard and mouse are just a bit much for him. I got him going on a TomTom GPS with touch screen, which, after a shaky start and fat fingers, he got going on and is confident with. I've recently set them up with a Tivo, and again, after a shaky start, is building confidence with the menu system.

I've talked to him about an iPad, told him it is touch screen just like his TomTom. He understands a touch screen interface - you point at something and you get it.

Those wondering what the big deal with a mouse, keyboard and everything else - older people have less flexible hands, someone who has worked hard all their life don't have the fine motor skils to move a mouse around and click and double click. A keyboad is an abstraction away from the 'thing' - which is the screen. Old people also have bad eyesight and often wear bifocal lenses for reading, and looking up and down constantly between a keyboard and a screen is taxing and frustrating. If you think a keyboard is simple, ask 10 non-tech friends what the 'scroll lock' key does, and see if you get 10 answers that match.

Traditional computer devices haven't moved on much from the hobbyist days of the Apple 1 where you plugged the box into a TV screen. The iPad is a genuine step forwards in design for people who don't want to learn a complicated control interface. At the same time old people know the future is online, and their children and grandchildren work, play and communicate online. They know they are missing out, but it's hard for them to undertake the near-vertical learning curve of learning how to start, work and run a traditional personal computer.

I'll take my Dad into the store and give him a play with one, see what he thinks. I'm pretty sure he'll be nervous and anxious not to look silly but will gain confidence quickly.

<comment><AUTHOR> That is exactly our story. My grandfather also has very strong hands due to having worked a lifetime. But clicking (especially double clicking) never came easy to him. His Navi did, however (after a stumbling start as you mentioned).

I did show my grandfather the iPad ads on my Macbook and he instantly liked the idea. I'm sure yours will, too. I would be glad to hear about his impressions when the time comes^

<comment><USER7> Well it's my Dad, not my Grandfather, but, well, he is a grandfather and he is in his '70s. ;)

The guy can still drive a 3 inch nail in with 3 hits of his hammer but has real trouble with the end of his finger, of which the last 1/4 inch is missing, courtesy of a saw blade. He also has trouble grasping a mouse due to tendon damage in his right hand caused by a nylon rope, a flooded creek and a rescue attempt - well, you get the picture. Old guys who have worked hard have the money to spend, and the interest, but just aren't a use-case for product designers. I've long argued that a phone company who brings out a simple, affordable phone with a long-lasting battery, large buttons, easy to read simple screen and ear-shatteringly loud ringers would clean up the seniors market.

<comment><AUTHOR> Kudos to your Dad, then! I'm certain he will manage, he seems just too pro- active to let this new chance go^^

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> My granny learned to use the mouse, it is not that hard. Yes, her first movements with the mouse were awkward. That doesn't prove that it is impossible to master. A lot of things are awkward when you do them the first time.

Is using a browser on a normal PC that much harder than on an iPad? Or is it simply that people don't try to do many of the things on an iPad that are confuding on a PC to begin with? For example, most problems my parents used to have were related to scanning and faxing, which I tend to avoid on my own computer.

How is the browser on an iPad easier to use than a normal browser?

<comment><AUTHOR> I congratulate you to your cunning grandmother! It's good to hear that she keeps up.

Anyway, "something not impossible to master" might not be necessarily optimal. In your scenario of browser usage the mouse adds an unneeded layour of complexity in terms of usability.

Whilst human beings are normally used to interact with their hands directly, sometimes they were apt enough to design tools when their hands just weren't enough. With hands you can't make a fire. With hands you can't dig up a field.

What you can do with your hands is push a button or a link. There's no need for an abstracted tool. The mouse provides nothing a single touch wouldn't. The mouse just provides clutter.

Still, I'm glad for your grandmother to have mastered it though. Whatever works to make people happy. Personally, I also have a mouse on my workstation, but I'm an edge case^

<comment><USER3> I realize it is silly to dispute somebody else's experience. If the iPad worked for that grandfather, and the mouse didn't, what can I say. It just seems to me the "revolutionariness" of the iPad tends to be blown out of proportions. I'd guess that a lot of older people could have a problem with the tiny screen, for example.

Supporting a granny on Windows and a mother on Linux, I have certainly seen a fair amount of unintuitive and confusing user interfaces. I don't want to defend all the design decisions in desktop computers (fwiw, I think Ubuntu provides by far the best experience for older people who need support from their younger relatives, but that is for another subject).

Of course just cropping away functionality until only "unconfusing" stuff is left is one way to approach the problem. I don't think it is the best solution for everybody, though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Certainly cropping away needed functionality is not a very decent approach. But let me start with your comment.

Since it is my grandfather this article is about, I can assure you that he had a pretty nice LCD screen on his old PC. It was only a 17", but it was a Samsung SyncMaster providing good quality. Besides, my grandfathers eyes are probably better than my own. And I'm not kidding here - I don't need glasses, but with his glasses on he kills my eyesight whereever we go.

So it wasn't the monitor, it definitively was the mouse. But not only that. It was a desktop PC. There's no way comparing the clumsy process of reading a mail on a desktop PC to that on an iPad.

PC: Step 1. You don't know you got a mail, you poll them. In this case we're not talking about tech guys who have an always running computer. Step 2. Go to your computer. Step 3. Start monitor, start PC, (start modem) Step 4. Wait. Step 5. Login Step 6. Connect to the internet. Step 7. Start your favourite mail application. Step 8. Wait. Step 9. Probably you got mail last week. Go ahead and read it.

iPad Step 1. Your iPad is laying on the couch table. It beeps. Step 2. You take the iPad into your hands and unlock it with one click and one sweep. Step 3. Mail.app tells you there is one message. You click on it. Step 4. Read the message.

There was a lot less walking and using potential keyboards and mice involved with the iPad. I personally like that experience a lot better for "non tech folk". Plus I like it on my phone. A lot.

I hear you when you talk about Ubuntu. I personally look after several installations of friends (sometimes girls). All of them are very happy with their computers. No viral problems, no bluescreens, no constant reboots. If they need something new I can install it remotely or talk them through on the phone.

Yet, all these users are "powerusers". They need Office. They need a printer.

Many people don't. That enables them to a lesser complex toolset. The iPad provides that. It could have been a good Android tablet. I'm a big fan of Linux and have been a SUN employee back in the day. But honestly, there is no good Android tablet out there to compete with the iPad right now.

<comment><USER3> I don't understand how the iPad magically connects to the internet, while for the PC it is a complicated challenge. I suppose you have a WLAN router now, whereas at PC times, you didn't?

No question, the always on nature of the iPad makes it more convenient for some tasks. Although I have to say, I never switch off my MacBook either, it always only goes to sleep (before you ask, I bought a MacBook because I thought I would do iPhone dev... Still a Linux man at heart).

I understand that the iPad can be simpler for some taks, I just don't understand how the PC/mouse could have prevented computer use completely.

Eyesight: your grandfather seems to be lucky, I was talking more in general, as the iPad is hyped as "the computer even old people can use". Most old people are less lucky with their eyes.

Both my parents do mostly stuff with the PC the iPad can't even do, for example skyping with their granddaughters. My mother is also still big on scanning, although I wish she would stop :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's great to hear, Tichy! I'm glad for your parents to do all those things!

To your comments: The iPad is always connected, because it runs on a data plan (since you're from Germany: we're on 10€/month O2). Before my grandfather had to connect his modem after disconnecting his phone. Again, you're from southern Germany, I'm sure you know a lot of smallish villages without DSL, too. Getting that Ubuntu PC online takes me about 5-7 minutes. Getting the iPad online the better part of a second.

And my Grandfather can use Skype, too. Ever since I started living in Switzerland (two years ago), I'm doing all of my calls using Skype with a landline plan. First with my Macbook, but since one year with my iPhone. I carry my landline with me, all the time. And so does my grandfather.

What the iPad doesn't do is scan, yes. But my grandfather has a fax capable of copying. And he own's a digital camera. That fixes about all use cases he has.

<comment><USER3> Again, if your grandfather is happy with the iPad, who am I to argue with it. I just don't understand why you compare it to outdated technology (this also always irks me about Apple). At the moment, UMTS routers seem to be all the rage, so you could have attached that "old PC" to a router, too. Of course having to manually change the phone connector is unbearable - I last did that maybe 12 years ago... Even twelve years ago there where cheap boxes available that would switch the phone line automatically between modem and phone.

I am not very knowledgeable about skype. I thought since the iPad doesn't have a camera, skype would be impossible (at least skype with a picture, which is a hit with the granddaughters). Also I wasn't sure, can you attach a digital camera and get images off it onto the iPad?

Anyway, I suppose it is all great - until you get those flash christmass cards...

<comment><AUTHOR> There will be no video chat on the iPad. But honestly, I don't even do that with my girlfriend. I call her with my iPhone, not the Macbook. Just because it's more convenient to walk around while calling.

And there's an iPad camera connector kit. This was a must-have feature for us, because my grandfather really likes his Sony Cybershot digital camera.

As for the christmas cards, I will certainly not send him a flash card. I wouldn't want or open one myself. There's little to no chance that anyone will send him something blinky or flashy. Maybe a nice picture, though^^ Yeah, that'll work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I just had to do an Apache redirect from my wordpress installation to posterous. Over 2400 hits in like 70 minutes. Thanks for the interest!

</comment><comment><USER8> I wonder what my future grandson can teach me (50 years later).

<comment><USER9> If everything goes well, he won't have to teach you much at all. That's the exciting thing about the direction the iPad is bringing computing; it's very capable, but at the same time, there's not that much to learn.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> _My_ grandfather's iPad:

[http://creativecitizen.com/system/attachments/0000/0607/lega...](http://creativecitizen.com/system/attachments/0000/0607/legal_pad.jpg)

<comment><AUTHOR> The classic legal pad, not a bad choice. I personally prefer the Moleskine, though(;

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> very cool.

</comment><comment><USER12> Let me make a bold statement:

The touchscreen will obsolete the keyboard within 5 years.

<comment><USER13> Too bold.

<comment><USER12> 6 years then? :D

Let me qualify this a little. I don't mean no keyboards will exist within 6 years, but at around the 6th year mark, the vast majority of tech aware people, like you and me, will refuse to buy a computing device (including desktop PCs) whose primary mode of interaction is through the keyboard/mouse. Rather they will only be interested in touchscreen devices.

<comment><USER14> I've only tried typing on an iPad a few times, and while it worked reasonably well, I can't imagine doing it for hours a day at 80+ words per minute.

<comment><USER15> Most people, at most times, have no need to type at such a high rate.

The computer-as-leisure device is mostly used for small pieces of communication - comments on sites like this.

I would be even bolder - the 'average' leisure user could mostly get by with three buttons:

':-)', ':-(' and 'LOL'.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Anonymous cofounder - <AUTHOR>

so i have been internet friends with this guy for some years, now i want to do some stuff with him mainly for educational purposes but... imagine it actually turns out profitable. i can't think of a way to share profits and keep trust. i can imagine paying him via paypal but measuring how much he contributed would be hard. i am leading the project, have more experience etc.
at first i though i'd share all access to servers and all to maintain trust (i haven't actually done it yet) but our relationship is such that nothing stops him from taking over everything and locking me out of my own system :)
i think the best way to go on would be to stay solo, keep him as a freelancer and pay him based on some work he completes (paying only if what we build turns out to be profitable)
any thoughts? <comment><USER2> >keep him as a freelancer and pay him based on some work he completes (paying only if what we build turns out to be profitable)

No. Either he's a cofounder and making money based on that, or he's a freelancer and you're paying him either way. Craigslist is full of "make my site and I'll pay you if we're profitable", and it irks me every time I see that. Any coder that agrees to that is being taken advantage of, straight up.

</comment><comment><USER3> As far as giving someone access to a server, give him a lower permission than you have. For instance if you are on a MS server and are the Forest Owner, make him an Administrator and only give him the minimum permissions that he needs to do his tasks. Same holds true for Linux, just different terminology.

Look up your operating system online to see how to grant lower level permissions than you have.

</comment><comment><USER4> Invite him to a Happy Hour and actually get to know him?</comment>


IPhone game saves a family's home  - <AUTHOR> http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1413551.html <comment><USER2> I don't know why this is getting so many negative comments, I personally like to hear of the personal stories behind a success. That was more interesting to me than any of the other depthless articles about "iphone app makes $x" featuring his game.

Yes the game did save his families home, he had a job, he had more bills than he could pay due to unexpected medical fees and I assume he couldn't afford everything at once, if he hadn't had done something the house would have probably had to be put up for sale.

So he did something about it. Isn't that what its all about?

</comment><comment><USER3> I hate linkbait titles so much.

<comment><USER4> "family's house catches fire, dad uses iphone to call 911"

<comment><USER5> What does that have to do with anything?

The article is about a guy who made an iPhone app (iShoot) that made enough money to help his family out of their tough financial situation ...

Am I missing something?

Although, his app saved his house in the exact same sense any other paying job does - so the headline is kind of silly.

<comment><USER5> Nevermind - I'm an idiot.

I just came back to HN, and looked at there's [my god, typing "there's" feels so wrong, even though it's actually right] comment again. It was clearly satirizing the sort of inane iPhone-centric articles that get voted up.

Don't know how I missed that ...</comment></comment></comment></comment>


IRS wants to 'get out of the business of talking with taxpayers,' advocate says - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/federal-eye/wp/2016/01/06/secret-plan-shows-the-irs-wants-to-get-out-of-the-business-of-talking-with-taxpayers-advocate-says/ <comment><USER2> This should anger everyone. The government is getting lots of my hard earned money..and I can have everything taken away from me (including my freedom) if I don't pay it.

The least they can do is have someone on the other side to answer questions if there is a mistake.

My cousin runs a company and received a surprise $5000 bill from the IRS last year. His accountant said everything was in order and everything was paid on time.

It just so happens that the IRS office kept 'losing' the paperwork. Even though he was in the middle of resolving it, he started getting increasingly threatening letters from the government saying they would garnish his wages/take his property/or even put him in prison.

He ended up just paying the bill to clear his mind (he was losing sleep over it).</comment>


Language Could Diagnose Parkinson's, ALS and Schizophrenia Before Lab Tests - <AUTHOR> http://language-could-diagnose-parkinson-s-als-and-schizophrenia-before-lab-tests <comment><USER2> Wrong URL. Try resubmitting.

<comment><USER3> Probably this: [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/language-could- dia...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/language-could-diagnose- parkinson-s-als-and-schizophrenia-before-lab-tests/)</comment></comment>


Does Team Size Impact Code Quality? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.codeclimate.com/blog/2014/05/21/does-team-size-impact-code-quality/

<comment><USER2> I'm glad you mentioned that SLOC in a project needs to be considered, I was reading the article and thinking about how many people have uploaded a skeleton Rails app just to check out the features of Code Climate – more developers leads to more code, which is ultimately likely to increase complexity and churn and reduce the GPA.

I really like CC btw – well designed and provides value, however – I don't have enough going on to justify the rather high-price tag at the moment, to me I feel it provides less value than GitHub, but it's more than 3x more expensive based on my plan.</comment>


Show HN: Cotton Drop. Streetwear delivered to you monthly - <AUTHOR> http://cottondrop.com

<comment><USER2> No images(or at least, I don't see them). No prices, doesn't even say delivered where, exactly what is this page attempting to?

<comment><USER3> No subscription fees. You set your monthly shipment budget, and a box with various streetwear brands/products will ship to you monthly. You get one week to decide what you keep. Then you send back what you don't want, and you get charged for what you kept.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The service is free. Can you include examples of brands or styles of clothing included? Maybe a sample of one month's package?

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm curious to know how much you're planning to charge for this service.</comment>


Can Venture Capital Be Saved? (Mitch and Freada Kapor) - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@mitch_freada/can-venture-capital-be-saved-68d522050572 <comment><USER2> You can't fix the problem unless you get out of Silicon Valley.

If you go to New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta, or even second or third tier cities you find many women and non-immigrant minorities in executive positions and there is plenty of trouble and discrimination but it is not like it is in SV.

The pursuit of money in SV has come full circle as a circle jerk; the larger economy cannot provide exits for the Ubers, Magic Leaps, Juiceros, so they are keeping them on life support, hoping maybe just maybe they can get bought by one of a short list of megacompanies. It is now a value destruction machine, but insiders will probably do OK as they usually do when there is a decentralized Ponzi scheme that no individual can get held responsible for.

Go forth and make money by serving the needs of customers.</comment>


Ask HN: Subversion client recommendations for OSX and PC? - <AUTHOR>

I'm looking for svn clients for mac and pc.  My 2 criteria are quality and price (read: i'm very cheap).  Any recommendations? <comment><USER2> (All for Mac OS X:)

There's a beautiful app, Versions, <http://www.versionsapp.com/>, but it's around US$50. That's the one we use.

There's SvnX, <http://www.lachoseinteractive.net/en/community/subversion>, which is free but ultimately not very good (in our experience).

There's ZigVersion, <http://zigversion.com/>; no opinion.

But, really, a 5-second effort with Google would turn up all of this and more:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Subversion_client...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Subversion_clients) .

</comment><comment><USER3> You can just download the binaries for the client (<http://subversion.tigris.org/>). If you want menu and icon support when browsing files, there's SCPlugin for the Mac's Finder or TortoiseSVN for Windows. If you want a GUI, note that the Mac's native Xcode environment has Subversion support built-in.</comment>


Constructing human-grade parsers - <AUTHOR> http://duriansoftware.com/joe/Constructing-human-grade-parsers.html <comment><USER2> When fixing syntax errors in programs (which now a days happens less and less, because all the on the fly parsing and error reporting), I prefer to fix the errors one-by-one and recompile after each fix. No matter how good a parser is, there will always be 'bogus' error reports after the initial error. I do not want to spend time on those, especially if a compiler can bring me to the next 'real' error within a second of reparsing. I rather not having the parser spend time on any further parsing in case an error is found.</comment>


The rise and rise of JavaScript « DanNorth.net - <AUTHOR> http://dannorth.net/2011/12/19/the-rise-and-rise-of-javascript/#comment-9792 <comment><USER2> Here's a link to this article without the anchor to the comment: [http://dannorth.net/2011/12/19/the-rise-and-rise-of- javascri...](http://dannorth.net/2011/12/19/the-rise-and-rise-of-javascript/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh :/ Sorry, submitted with a bookmarklet and didn't see the anchor.</comment></comment>


Replace "master/slave" terminology with "primary/replica" - <AUTHOR> https://www.drupal.org/node/2275877 <comment><USER2> Negative connotations aside, this is still a good idea. Master/slave terminology trips up at least some beginners. Masters laze all day and slaves do all the work. Not really a good analogy.

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure slaves are always replicas so, although primary/replica might work in some instances, I do not think this naming convention covers all of the use cases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yeah in databases primary/replica is probably a much better description of what's actually going on.

Personally, my political naming pet peeve is with *Manager classes, they're generally a sign of poor naming / architecture. Maybe the employee class doesn't need the EmployeeManager for every operation, just sayin...

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Words can have multiple definitions. Webster dictionary defines slave as "a device (as the printer of a computer) that is directly responsive to another." Machines aren't people.

No one implements "master/slave" database replication and then thinks human slavery is socially acceptable.

<comment><USER5> At the same time, "primary/replica" is just as well easily understood, and the change is easy to make. If making the change makes it marginally easier for minority participation, and you want your user base to grow, why not make the change?

<comment><USER6> Except that primary/replica is of course not a drop-in replacement for master/slave (just think of the two devices per IDE bus). Furthermore, it is trivial to find offence in the word "primary" as well, especially in a context where master/slave was used previously, just think of "primus inter pares".

<comment><USER7> It might not be a drop in replacement in all circumstances, but it is in the case under discussion. I don't think anyone in this discussion would support using primary/replicant for IDE busses, and bringing them up here is really just a straw man.

You can't avoid ever offending someone, but in this case you can reduce the amount of offence caused by a small but significant amount at basically no cost.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Previous discussion [0] where the same thing happened to django with this pull request [1].

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7801646](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7801646)

[1] [https://github.com/django/django/pull/2692](https://github.com/django/django/pull/2692)

</comment><comment><USER9> I asked a (really poorly worded[1]) at English usage stack exchange. Luckily someone understood what I wanted to ask and provided a useful example.

[http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/178799/did- slave-...](http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/178799/did-slave-ever- apply-to-anything-other-than-people)

The OED has an example of "slave" being used for mechanical devices in 1904. So while this usage is much more modern than the 9th century origin of the word it's not something that has been invented by computing.

[1] I should have asked something like "When did 'slave' evolve to include devices?"

</comment><comment><USER10> If we go down that route I would prefer primary/secondary - it's likely more accurate and intuitive than "replica" in my opinion.

Hilarious comment on the drupal issue - why not to use replica:

"In the name of all replicants, I protest the use of the word 'replica' in such a demeaning way. You wouldn't believe what we've suffered already... I've... seen things you people wouldn't believe... Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those... moments... will be lost in time, like tears... in... rain."

</comment><comment><USER11> What about Jenkins ? It uses the word slave pretty extensively. I found about 800 usage in jenkins src code alone, not counting plugins.

<comment><AUTHOR> As does MySQL. [http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/replication.html](http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/replication.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> How about we just abolish slavery instead? Then we wouldn't have to worry about offending anyone.

</comment><comment><USER13> Man there are some serious politics in coding lately

</comment><comment><USER9> #8 is, indeed, beautifully put.

</comment><comment><USER14> 150 years after the civil war, slavery was finally eradicated by an historic commit to the drupal repository. Thank you, concerned programmers, for using your combined power to enact real, positive change in this world. I can't imagine how many people who lived in the oppressive shadow of the now-trounced status quo will rejoice when they learn of this news.

</comment><comment><USER15> Here comes the hurricane...

</comment><comment><USER16> Just imagine the point that machines become sentient and hyper intelligent. Do you think they'll appreciate being called slaves? This debate could determine the fate of humanity!</comment>


Why PowerPoint should be banned - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/05/26/powerpoint-should-be-banned-this-powerpoint-presentation-explains-why/?tid=pm_pop_b <comment><USER3> Even if you did ban PowerPoint, people would just find a way to do PP-like things with something else. For example, MS Word, with the page down key (although then the transition animations go away, so that is a minor victory).

In my opinion, people are just poorly educated (or not educated) in presentation making. Or to phase it another way, a school may teach them to use PP the software but doesn't teach them how to put on a good presentation using it.

One key thing people need to learn is: Slides exist to supplement what is being said. If your presentation doesn't work without the slides then you're doing it wrong. Putting exactly what you're saying into your slides verbatim is generally a mistake (although putting key points or a list, and expanding on it vocally can work well).

Generally most people put too much content into single slides as they're worried about having to advance the slideshow mid-point. This means that your point is too expansive, and you should cut your point in half and then cutting your slides in half follows naturally (e.g. instead of doing a yearly projection with summaries of each quarter, just do each quarter individually and sum the year as a whole alone at the end).

I certainly don't think I'm an expert at presentations, I just care slightly more than your average person, and have copied elements from what I consider good deliveries.

<comment><USER4> I really like when people put a lot of information on the slides.

It makes going over past presentations very easy. For example, when a new ML algorithm comes out, the only way to easily grasp how it works without reading a bunch of papers is to find some Power Point slides by the author. I guarantee people wouldn't make two sets of slides either.

<comment><USER5> One of the problems with "Powerpoints" is that they serve at least two different functions--as a visual aid for the the audience during the presentation and as a leave-behind/documentation (or slideshare, etc. independent of a presenter). One presentation is very unlikely to be optimal for both. At the same time, you're right that it's unrealistic to expect multiple versions.

<comment><USER6> You can put the presentation with speaker notes (possibly curated) on the web. That may not be optimal for 'leave-behind' version, but it isn't that hard, and it would be huge improvement.

<comment><USER5> Speaker notes are one (sub-optimal) solution. I've also had years of experience trying to get people to write speaker notes for sales presentations much less for one-off conference presos. Hard to get it done. I try to do it myself but I probably do it in practice 25-50% of the time because it simply isn't a priority.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Disclaimer: I work at Microsoft, on PowerPoint. Here are a few of my reactions (mine alone, not Microsoft's):

* Presenting an idea is one of the most subtle arts of the human experience. It draws on skills like storytelling, communication, and persuasion which are way outside the scope of any software application. The best typewriter in the world is going to let Ernest Hemingway's Great American Novel flow directly from his mind onto the paper, but it isn't going to make me even a tiny bit more capable of writing a great novel.

* A single PowerPoint presentation is often called into double duty, both as a visual aid to a live presentation, and a standalone document that serves as the summary of the presentation for those who couldn't attend. ("I can't make it this afternoon -- please send me the deck.") This requirement forces the PowerPoint presentation and spoken content to become 100% redundant with each other, yielding the meetings where people read verbatim off an overly dense PowerPoint slide. PowerPoint has features that try to address this problem, such as hidden slides that show up in the printed document but not the slide show, and narration recording so that you can distribute the audio along with the slides, but presenting from the "leave-behind deck" is still common.

* There's always a tension between giving the user full control, and making the experience as simple as possible. Also, the more structure you embed in an authoring application about what the output "should" look like, the more you encourage everyone towards a homogenous vision defined by the product designers. PowerPoint does make it easy to insert simple diagrams such as with SmartArt, but fundamentally the application is designed to let the user take full control of the content. I wouldn't want a text editor that didn't allow me to write a grammatically incorrect sentence. However, a suggestion that "the grammar in this sentence might be wrong" could be useful, if presented in a non-obtrusive way.

These are issues we think about every day in the PowerPoint team, and I appreciate reading the various viewpoints here.

<comment> semi-extrinsic Is there a reason why you rescale the font size when the user inputs too much text? Changing it so that you'd have to really dig deep in some menu in order to put 200 words on each slide seems like it would be a big improvement. Beamer and the various HTML5 backends to Pandoc all do this and I really like it.

<comment><USER8> I suspect that most casual users appreciate that feature. And for myself, as a "power user" \- who usually builds multi-hundred page slide decks - I often construct drafts of my presentations that might include slides with a cut/paste of material from documentation or the Internet - to be processed later. So autosizing makes it possible for me to revise that raw material into slides later.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> One of the slides in the WP story credits Edward Tufte, who has written and published an essay on the subject, "The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint: Pitching Out Corrupts Within" [1]. This, along with his seminal text "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information" [2] are great reads, and I think should be required reading for anyone who has to present anything, technical or otherwise.

[1] [http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_pp](http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_pp)

[2] [http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_vdqi](http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_vdqi)

<comment><USER10> Two salient points from Tuft's essay:

1) a reference books like an almanac averages 150 characters per square inch; a printed power point slide 7 characters per square inch (page 22): the visual brain starves for stimulation during a poor PP presentation.

2) Tufte recommends high resolution handouts accompany PP image slides. Eschew low content slides.

"Avoid elaborate hierarchies of bullet lists. Never read aloud from slides. Never use PP templates to format paper reports or web screens. Use PP as a projector for showing low-resolution color images, graphics, and videos that cannot be reproduced as printed handouts at a presentation."

"Paper handouts at a talk can effectively show text, numbers, data graphics, images. Printed materials, which should largely replace PP, bring information transfer rates in presentations up to that of everyday material in newspapers, magazines, books, and internet screens. A useful paper size for handouts at presentations is 11 by 17 inches (28 by 43 cm), folded in half to make 4 pages. This piece of paper can show images with a resolution of 1,200 dpi and up to 60,000 characters of words and numbers, the content-equivalent of 50 to 250 typical PP slides of text and data. Thoughtfully planned handouts at your talk tell the audience that you are serious and precise; that you seek to leave traces and have consequences. And that you respect your audience."

<comment><USER11> Agreed. He advises us to make high resolution (paper!) handouts, and give them out as people walk in. I was lucky enough to attend a presentation of his this year where he did exactly that, and its effect was amazing.

Say, "Here, read this," and then give them ten or fifteen (or more, if it's a longer talk!) to read as much as they can, before talking.

This helps because people can quickly skim the parts they don't care about, jot down questions, focus on the parts that are interesting or that they want to understand better -- and not everyone feels the same about each part of your presentation.

Then, in your talk, you can basically follow a similar rubric, or allude to the handout, and people can (and will!) ask questions about the meaningful parts.

He also notes that it's important NOT to send them ahead of time in emails, as no one will read them. Force people to read them (or play on their phones); the people who are most busy will scour the paper for useful info. Jeff Bezos' [0] meetings follow a similar pattern.

0: (apologies for lazy searching :)) [http://www.businessinsider.com/jeff- bezos-amazon-fortune-int...](http://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-amazon- fortune-interview-2012-11)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> People who currently use powerpoint to be ineffective will find other ways to be ineffective without it. People also write terrible emails and create horrible documents. Ridiculous books are written. Zero-content instant messages are sent. Some people don't get how to use the phone. Shall we discard them all?

<comment><USER13> I am sure it wasn't as bad back in the day with transparent sheets and a marker pen. (Whatever those things were called).

Most diagrams were drawn on the fly - meaning a minimalistic approach, only conveying the information necessary.

<comment><USER5> Those had their own limitations. But, yes, today's equivalent--whiteboarding-- can be an effective communication tool for someone who knows and understands material having a discussion with a (preferably small) audience.

That said, I remember lots of transcription from a professor's notes to a blackboard to students' notebooks with very little value-add along the way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14>
      Slide 1
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      |   Programmer   |
      |      and       |
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      |   Kidnapped    |
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      Slide 3
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      |     Death      |
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      |   Manager's    |
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      |   Powerpoint   |
      |  Presentation  |
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      Slide 6
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      |  Programmer's  |
      |   Last Wish:   |
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      |    "Kill Me    |
      |      First"    |
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</comment><comment><USER15> I think perhaps instead of saying "powerpoint should be banned" perhaps poorly built diagrams and powerpoint slides with too much data that are meant to be read should be banned. Slides and visuals as part of a presentation are used to focus the listener visually on the main point being discussed. People are (generally) visually oriented and enhancing a presentation with visuals using slides can make your presentation better.

<comment><USER16> PowerPoint should be banned because its interface encourages the creator to add distractions. It has almost no tools for making things simpler.

<comment><USER17> So... PPT really just needs a new design interface?

<comment><USER18> To an extent. I use iPython with RISE or a deck.js based system. I really like the deck.js method because my interface is vim.

<comment><USER19> I just searched up RISE, and as a guy who loves reveal.js and spends a lot of time writing python in IPython (and who wants to bridge out into Julia), this is a godsend.

Thanks for bringing it up!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I've seen this type of article come up at least once a year for the last five years now, but banning PowerPoint will not happen in the short-to-medium term in most large (and small, even) companies . Why? Because it's a default app installed on most office machines and because PowerPoint is the language managers speak. If you don't have a PowerPoint or email that managers can physically take to meetings with their managers, it's hard to understand what you're working on. I don't say this cynically; I say it truthfully, because it's human nature.

Tufte suggests banning Powerpoint and giving people handouts to read at meetings; I don't see this getting a lot of traction in most places, simply because people have a lot of other stuff going on.

What I do see as a possible are classes on visual design at both the grade school and college level. Even just one a year can make younger people better at presenting information and will eventually trickle up.

<comment><USER21> Anything you do that distracts from the speaking is probably not a good idea. Don't pass around papers, treats, demos, and don't clutter your slides with too much reading. Keep your audience focused on what _you_ are saying.

<comment><USER22> Bingo. I use Powerpoint to highlight the key points I'll discuss on any particular slide. Very high-level, broad, 1-2 word descriptions. It helps people keep up with the flow (if they zoned out for a few seconds, for example), and reminds them afterwards when they review the slides.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> In a class I took in college, we had to give a final presentation to go along with a paper we wrote. The presentations were to be about 30 minutes (not too hard to come up with content, as my paper ended up being 50 pages). With the paper, this was essentially our entire grade for the class.

I decided to do it without PowerPoint. I was the only one.

Instead of relying on slides, I looked people in the eye and gave a presentation from memory, with a set of index cards as backup. I told stories and tried to make it relatable. Now, I've gotten better at these kinds of things over the course of my career, but even in college I was pretty confident in my ability to give these kinds of presentations. (I even took an acting class just to refine my public speaking skills.) Anyway, after I was finished I felt good about how I did.

I got a C-. Literally the only feedback the professor gave me was that I should have had a PowerPoint presentation "to give people something to look at while I talked".

<comment><USER24> IMHO, that grade maybe was appropriate.

I applaud you for doing that, and I personally would have gotten a lot out of your talk. Good, clear, verbal communication is fantastic! Good on you for attempting it. I have similar leanings and skills.

The hard truth I've learned is not everyone can take in it that form. If you have any sort of an audience, the potential for those people will be actualized, and you lose on overall communication fidelity for those people without a visual reference. Secondly, there are people who really need to vocalize to learn, or do something, or experience it in tactile ways, etc... You will find these people asking questions, seeking to be a part of the dialog, taking notes, making motions, drawing, closing their eyes...

Multi-sensory communication is high fidelity as well as broadband. Think of the different axis possible. We often do this with young people, giving a talk, letting them speak, having them touch it, or do it, take notes, etc...

Adults work the same way, though their greater body of experience generally means they are well equipped to handle visual / aural presentations fairly well. You can get the majority of them with a dual style.

This takes some extra work, and might not be in your personal sweet spot, but it's generally worth doing.

YMMV, but 20+ years of communicating to individuals, small groups and crowds composed of amateurs, business people and techies speaking here.

<comment><USER23> Great reply, thanks for the insight. I'm still not sure about the grade being correct; most of the presentations were dreadful--of the "read the PowerPoint to you" variety--but I'm guessing at least some of them got Bs if not As. That said, I'll keep it in mind going forward. Any presentations I do these days are much less formal, which helps with interactivity.

<comment><USER24> One other thing struck me.

Since you lean verbal, consider light, concept type visuals as much as you can. These kinds of presentations tend to do very well, and you've got a strength that favors them. These days, talks are often available to view later, and or we can distribute files, meaning you can include text for people to read without having to prep so much visual clutter in the form of text, and other difficult to manage things on the slides.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I work in consulting; I have seen my fair share of badly-drawn graphics and spend more time using PowerPoint than I would care to admit.

The reality is that for most of Corporate America banning PowerPoint is not going to happen anytime soon. In our industry, decks are viewed not just as presentations but general fodder for deliverables, handouts, etc. I've been on several engagements where we intentionally jam-packed slides full of content (including multiple levels of footnotes) so they "stood on their own" in case someone picked up or distributed the deck after the meeting in which it was used.

If I was giving a talk I'd agree that presentation style would be overkill, but I've been in meetings with C-level execs and VPs where the extra info has paid off by being able to preempt questions and provide additional justification for the conclusion. Sometimes having a crowded slide is more "professional" in a meeting context than alt-tabbing to the detailed Excel worksheet showing the assumptions.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, keynote/"compelling conference content" presentations are very different animals. Even if some would prefer my presentations of the former type stood on their own better, my focus there is on the live experience. If you're presenting the findings of a consulting project? Not so much. In that case, the charts and graphics should be professional and clean but also focus on data/recommendations/etc. Very different animals.

<comment><USER26> The question is: Why use Powerpoint to present the findings of a consulting project? Handout-only would probably be superior. Amazon does it like this.

[http://conorneill.com/2012/11/30/amazon-staff-meetings-no- po...](http://conorneill.com/2012/11/30/amazon-staff-meetings-no-powerpoint/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment> vezzy-fnord The smartass in me would be tempted to get around this hypothetical ban by using LibreOffice Impress.

More seriously, you could make the exact same arguments for banning Photoshop. The more widely adopted software is, the higher the numbers of people who use it improperly. Not much of a solution here beyond deliberately crippling functionality.

</comment><comment><USER27> Ha, as someone who has worked in the public sector the army (hell most of the defense community) essentially RUNS on PowerPoint. They should certainly move away from it but there are so many workflows that have been established for so many years moving is going to be painful and likely require custom solutions for each type of report.

</comment><comment><USER28> Powerpoint is not the problem. People thinking the tool makes them a presenter is the problem. Being a good presenter is not an easy thing to learn, and using a tool like powerpoint doesn't make you any better at it. The best resource I've found so far for learning how to present is macsparky's field guide to presentations, but if anyone knows of a better resource I'm all ears.

</comment><comment><USER29> You can't just ban PowerPoint without replacing it, and without changing the corporate culture.

PowerPoint cultivates a pitch based culture. Taking away PP will still leave that culture in place, they'll just find some other tool to make their pitches. The problem is the culture, which needs to be cut down and have the stump pulled out of the ground. It sounds like a lot of work because it is a lot of work.

Before PowerPoint the way that kind of work got done was through lots of long form written work. RFC-style documents, very long memos that bordered on essays or research papers, that sort of thing. Today the art of communicating that way has to a significant degree been lost in the modern office. The closest thing to it that exists today would probably be internal blogs and wikis. Which is precisely what I'd focus on as a replacement for PowerPoint.

Want to push some new project? Don't pitch it, blog it. Want to spread knowledge of something to other teams, don't pitch it, document it in a wiki.

</comment><comment><USER30> I haven't seen anyone mention it here, so a little off topic, but if you have to make lots of presentations with slides Emacs's org mode pdf export [1] (via LaTeX beamer) is a godsend. Easily the fastest way to put together slides I've used, and you get pretty good math and source code support.

An example pdf (not great content, but...): [http://gray.clhn.org/dl/macros_etc.pdf](http://gray.clhn.org/dl/macros_etc.pdf)

edit: and the .org source file, which is probably more relevant: [https://github.com/heike/stat590f/blob/master/macros/macros_...](https://github.com/heike/stat590f/blob/master/macros/macros_etc.org)

[1]: [http://orgmode.org/manual/Beamer- export.html](http://orgmode.org/manual/Beamer-export.html)

</comment><comment><USER31> Power Point is ubiquitous because it offers improved communications. Just because some journalist isn't old enough to remember slides and overhead projectors doesn't mean such things didn't exist. If there's a shortcoming with Power Point it's that it is based on the idea of printing everything out rather than dynamic interaction. It's an old paradigm, but it's hard to beat something modelled on the physical world.

<comment><USER32> I disagree.

In the pre-PowerPoint era it was more common for people to actually prepare a talk rather than hide behind hastily-created slides that usually serve more as prompts for the speaker than visual enhancements to the content.

It is certainly possible to give bad presentations without PowerPoint, and good presentations with it, but most people only learn bad habits.

PowerPoint PRO TIP: The "b" key will bring up a black screen, and the "w" key will bring up a white screen, so people can look at your actual face when you are talking to them.

<comment><USER31> In my experience, well prepared presentations were not more common in any absolute sense. Perhaps it was more common in a relative sense since carefully prepared presentation slides were often the purview of a more select few. In those days a third grade teacher might have some overheads. These days, the third grade students are preparing pptx's as part of the curriculum.

Banning Power Point because there are so many mediocre Power Points out there is like banning email because there are so many poorly written emails. Power Point provides unprecedented access to presentation tools as part of the "computer on every desk and in every home" revolution. A presentation no longer requires a draftsman and special print media. People can do it themselves. Even those for whom visual communication and on stage presentations are not core competencies. Most presentations aren't very good. They don't need to be. They just need to be good enough.

My Tip from making architectural presentations: Place yourself on the audience side of the fourth wall and point to your images as you tell your story. If it's about you and not the content, you're already on the wrong track because it's about you and not the audience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I think it is wrong to blame the tool. It all comes down to usage.

</comment><comment><USER34> This is like saying food makes us fat, ban food! Nonsensical

<comment><USER35> If we're to use logic, how about use it properly?

For one, food is essential for our survival. Powerpoint is not. So while banning food would be nonsensical (for that reason), banning Powerpoint doesn't have the same issue.

A better example would be: "French fries make us fat, ban french fries".

Not as nonsensical. French fries are not essential to eat in the first place, and cause harm according to most studies.

<comment><USER36> And thus, after banning french fries, the world was less fat.

I think you made GP's point better than he did. Banning the medium and hoping that fixes the root issue is a bit foolish. Not to say banning the medium isn't always a bad idea, but doesn't mean it'll help.

<comment><USER35> > _And thus, after banning french fries, the world was less fat._

Well, maybe not french frieds, but HFCS sure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Edward Tufte argues that powerpoint is indeed the problem.

PowerPoint is a slideware operating system which forces the presenter to contort the content into its low-resolution format. This necessarily makes the content less understandable, unless the content happens to be photographs and your topic is something like art history. It's easy to say it's the fault of bad presenters, but other formats don't necessarily make your audience dumber; with PowerPoint it is the rule rather than the exception.

 _" The average number of numbers on a powerpoint slide is 12. This is slightly better than communist propaganda (Pravda 1982). For comparison, see the sports page."_ \--me, poorly paraphrasing

Discussion of how slideware led to 2 space shuttle explosions: _PowerPoint Does Rocket Science--and Better Techniques for Technical Reports_ [http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch- msg?msg_id=0...](http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch- msg?msg_id=0001yB)

Tufte's textbooklet on powerpoint (an excerpt from his book Beautiful Evidence): _The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint: Pitching Out Corrupts Within_ [http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/powerpoint](http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/powerpoint)

<comment><USER24> I don't understand "low resolution"

Frankly, PPT has as much resolution as you need. The question really is, "what resolution makes the best sense?" Up-thread, somebody mentioned paper handouts being distributed just before the talk. That's a great idea, and it can mitigate some of the resolution perception issues, and or help when using higher fidelity isn't so appropriate.

But not all PPT presentations actually are delivered as presentations in the classic sense. One really great use case is reviews between peers, or maybe a smaller group, with one person managing the PPT, edits being made, etc... One can pack considerable detail into a PPT, rich with media, or just dense with text / illustrations.

Maybe there is just a lot of pressure or expectations of low-fi, but it's not seemingly an artifact of the software to me.

<comment><USER37> By low-res, Tufte is referring to the concept of _stacking information in time_ , rather than _placing it adjacent in space_. (this is all his insight, not mine) It's "low res" in the same way a phone voice-mail menu is low-res _" press 1 for x, press 2 for y, press 3 for z, etc"_. You get bits of information sequentially, stacked in time. The onus is on you, the receiver, to piece the information together into some sort of mental matrix so you can make your decision. A high-res counter-example would be seeing all options together, like you would in a table of contents.

One way PPT is low-res is that there is not enough room on a slide to type full sentences. It _wants you_ to dilute your thoughts into a bullet list or some similar fragmented format.

Often a presentation involves a series of slides, and ideally you'd want the audience to make comparisons between slides e.g. _Before XXX, After XXX, & Therefore XXX is good._ The sequentiality of slides is another example of it being low-res. This increases the cognitive effort needed to engage with your content, making it difficult for anyone to actually think critically about what you are saying. In other words, it's a great sales tool!

The paper handout is an excellent idea. You can fit the information of about 250 ppt slides onto a standard 11x17 sheet of paper.

PPT can be useful in other cases (I've used it for drawing seating charts), but it tends to be pretty terrible for presenting any sort of analytical content. I've seen a many PPT presentations from accomplished, smart people, and I can't recall a single one that wouldn't have been more effective as a paper handout.

<comment><USER24> That's the thing. If you want to put full sentences, even paragraphs on a slide, PPT does that.

It's only low resolution when used that way.

I do understand "wants to be low res" though. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Part of me wants to agree with the article. It is easy to use PowerPoint to cover up the fact you don't have a clue what you are talking about by using lots of flashy effects and "bling" that PowerPoint offers.

The style I prefer is rather minimal and mainly uses PowerPoint as a "cheat sheet" to give me cues on what I want to tell my audience. This encourages me to focus on the audience rather than the computer running PowerPoint and speak more freely. An occasional image can help illustrate a point, but I tend to use them very sparingly. (The disadvantage is that someone simply looking at the slides afterwards won't have a clue what I said, but I can live with that.) The feedback I have received was very positive, although I never spoke to Marketing people who seem to be all about the pretty pictures and flashy transitions.

My point, I guess, is that PowerPoint can be abused, badly, but I am not sure if it is fair to blame it for that. The world would not be _that_ much worse off without PowerPoint, but people looking to distract from their cluelessness will find a way to do so anyway. A more realistic article might be titled "Use PowerPoint only when nothing else will do" or "Stop talking _at_ your audience and start talking _to_ them".

EDIT: Fixed a typo

</comment><comment><USER39> PowerPoint isn't the problem. The problem is asking people who aren't proficient speakers or presenters to present on something. We are literally asking them to present on a topic they know about and communicate it in a way that is effective and informative. PowerPoint isn't the issue. The issue is one of training. PowerPoint (and other presentation software) is easy enough to use, it gives you all the tools you need to prepare an excellent presentation. But just because I have a kitchen filled with chef-quality tools and the best food available doesn't mean I'm immediately a professional cook, let alone a chef. I might be able to hobble together a meal suitable for the family dinner table, but I'm not quitting my day job.

But no one is suggesting we ban burners and bowls from the kitchen.

The call to ban PowerPoint is harmful. It ignores the real problem while pretending to solve things it cannot really solve. The result will be that the real underlying problem goes unfixed longer, while those that don't use PowerPoint will effectively be given a pass: "You aren't using PowerPoint, you must know what you are talking about."

Knives might be dangerous, but when you are trained to use them, they are useful. Don't ban knives from the kitchen.

</comment><comment><USER10> In my town we have monthly science meeting called the Cafe Scientifique. A speaker must present his topic in twenty minutes without a projector (sort of an expanded elevator pitch). It can work even for the most complicated topics. The speaker is forced into a more story-telling style. And to focus on a few points told well.

P.S. The speaker may distribute a single handout or have a couple images as a large poster.

<comment><USER40> That's really awesome. Which town is that?

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Part of the problem is that Powerpoint guides you to these terrible presentations (and Google Presentations is even worse). At least Keynote _tries_ to stop you from doing awful things to some extent.

But at the end of the day it's really the people using the tool that are doing it wrong. People just need to learn the difference between a Presentation, an Infodeck and an Essay, and when to use each one.

</comment><comment><USER42> This article (and the presentation the article is about) entirely misses the point (or what _should_ be the point) of a slideshow: to serve as a visual aid for a spoken lecture, speech, or other monologue. When displayed in this context, even the seemingly-worst slides make sense.

What the presentation in question does is simply yank out a bunch of slides from not only their context within the overall slideshow, but also from their broader context of a presentation-assisted monologue. You're not _supposed_ to try to encapsulate the entirety of a subject into a series of bullet points; you're supposed to capture the key _topics_ in those bullet points and expand on them through monologue and (should questions be fielded) dialogue/discussion/debate/fruit-throwing/etc.

Yeah, I'd probably agree that the case studies of why PowerPoint should be banned _also_ missed the point of a slideshow, but that's hard to know without having a transcript or recording of the finished presentation.

Basically, there's more to a presentation than just the slides.

</comment><comment><USER43> Powerpoint is just an enabler for crap presentations. Maybe the trick is to make it harder to fill the canvas, so the pages become a bit sparser, and revert back to their original intended purpose, an aide memoire for the presenter to actually present, to use them as a reinforcement of the content, as a guide, and not, really not, something they just read verbatim from the slide!

<comment><USER44> "and not, really not, something they just read verbatim from the slide!"

That interferes with the very popular use of distributing powerpoints to be read verbatim as official company policy etc. Its a micromanagement tool. You will read exactly this syllabus line as written in class. Its very difficult to get micromanagers to divest themselves of a powerful tool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Pens can be used to write dull, cliched, uninspired novels. Many bad novels have been written using pens. Therefore pens should be banned.

Disclaimer: I do, in fact, hate powerpoint.

</comment><comment><USER46> PowerPoint used correctly can be great. The article seems a little over-the- top, just because a few people are misusing it is not cause for going and make statements like PowerPoint should be banned. a can of spray paint in an artists hands can make a piece of art, a spray paint can in the hands of a teenager painting graffiti on a billboard is vandalism and misuse.

If we banned PowerPoint, people would just find another way to create an abomination of a slideshow using something else. The tool isn't the problem. Just like paint cans aren't to blame for graffiti and car manufacturers aren't to blame for drivers who misuse their cars speeding. There are bigger problems going on in the world that we should be worrying about more than we should bad PowerPoint presentations.

</comment><comment><USER47> This is so idiotic. Click/share-bait at it's finest.

Yes, there are awful powerpoint presentations.

Yet as someone who has worked at a company where business cases and data visualization is extremely important, I can say that Powerpoint decks are easily the most effective communication tool.

When done properly, they tell a story.

They can be standalone, or an aid to a presentation.

Yes, there are awful powerpoints. Many people abuse them. Or use them as a knowledge dump. Or fail to keep the reader in mind when creating them.

That does not mean that the platform itself is flawed.

And sure, some business areas could do better without them.

Just because there are terrible papers written, doesn't mean Word documents are bad. Just because most people write terrible emails, doesn't mean email is a poor communication tool.

The key - as with any medium - is learning how to use it to effectively communicate.

</comment><comment><USER48> I worked in the Pentagon and I've both built and received many, many DoD Powerpoint briefs over the years. The comments here about "don't blame the tool" are spot-on.

But I also want to point out that all or nearly all of the hopelessly complicated wire diagram slides (such as the PRISM slide or JSF org chart slide) are supposed to look that way because the briefer is trying to show that something is too complicated and that you, the person being briefed, should do something about it. They're being used ironically, in other words.

It's actually become an overused rhetorical technique and some people will call you out if you use it. "Why is the FBI on this slide?" "Uh, we emailed them once a couple years ago so we connected them with a dotted line..."

</comment><comment><USER49> This is about the tenth time I've heard Powerpoint should be banned. It's prohibited at Amazon I've heard. It's almost as evil as WordArt apparently.

But they all fail to convey one point: what should I do instead?

Today I gave a powerpoint presentation. In fact almost every presentation I gave has been with Libreoffice Impress or Microsoft Office Powerpoint. Should I get rid of slides altogether and just talk (I usually hate talks that do that)? The main point of OP's article seems to be that bullet points are not a form of coherent thought, but who says all my Powerpoints are bullet points? I put much less text on slides than my average classmate or colleague. Am I doing it badly? Should I be using a different program? Please, I'm all ears.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm an old timer. I remember a time before PowerPoint existed - and we did communicate with reports, whiteboard, flip-charts, and talks. Trust me - PowerPoint is better.

If nothing else, if forced people to put more thought into their talk - <USER2> they had to write down something on those slides. And it allowed for the potential to create something persuasive with graphs and sequence to accompany a talk. That really didn't exist.

And use a Word Processor for talks? I've done that - it can be done, but it doesn't compare to a specialized tool you can use to put together a slide set in a matter of minutes.

</comment><comment><USER50> This is largely just an argument against bad presentations - PowerPoint or otherwise. I agree that PowerPoint is not the right medium for many things (e.g. technical reports), but a lot of these critiques are also the strengths of PowerPoint. The lack of space forces the presenter to slim down their argument to the essentials. That shouldn't encourage burying important information in sub-bullets, but to the contrary, encourage highlighting key risks/concerns.

The downside of technical reports and white papers is that it's far too easy for people to blather on without purpose, and it's far too hard for me as the audience to review. I can skim through a PowerPoint in minutes and get a good sense for whether it's worth my time. It's much harder to do that with a long free-form text. I also think the presenter is more important than the medium in most cases: I bet the same person making those awful NSA slides would write an awful white paper (and vice-versa).

Long story short, people have a really hard time concisely and precisely expressing their arguments, and we all need constant practice to get better. Everyone should also have several options in their presentation tool kit and be able to use the right one for a given task.

</comment><comment><USER51> If I'm not talking in front of a big room, I prefer to whiteboard notes and diagrams as I'm talking, based on an outline that would otherwise be pretty near to what I'd put on slides.

One big advantage of whiteboarding is that you're much more likely to draw a diagram. People seem to pay more attention. If they want a take-away, you can photograph the drawings and notes.

For whatever reason, trying to do the same in a big room with an overhead projector is much harder.

</comment><comment><USER52> Really? Why not ban Word because people write bad books?

</comment><comment><USER53> Instead of banning specific tools, try promoting officers and enlisted personnel who do a good job, including public speaking and presenting ideas.

</comment><comment><USER54> I always wonder what the point of slides is... it usually seems to lead to the awkward situation where someone either reads the slide verbatim, which is pointless, or says something different from what the slide says, which is distracting. I think only Steve Jobs style keynote addresses really use presentation software well, but that's far too much effort for most instances.

On the other hand, there's definitely some merits to the format. It forces people to be concise and boil their commentary down to the essential insights. It lets people use structure more in their text: nested bullet points, different font sizes, dedicating a whole slide to one statement, etc. It also lets non-textual elements take equal prominence. It prompts readers to think about the implications of a statement for themselves rather than just skimming sentences. Basically it gives people more flexibility than just writing a report or an email. I can see why they are popular.

I do think better training so people could emulate Steve Jobs if they wanted to would be very welcome.

<comment><USER5> Keynote presentations (not the software but the basic presentation format) aren't justified in effort nor are appropriate for many presos. Many business presentations are intended to be interrupted and to veer off in new directions as appropriate.

Thar said, presentation training is worthwhile and too many presentations have too many words.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> While I find PowerPoint cumbersome to use and strongly dislike the idea of wasting time aligning and realigning elements arbitrarily, I think the larger problem isn't due to the software itself but that it's overused and often the wrong tool for the job at hand.

Presentations are not substitutes for documents.

At a workshop on presenting information, Edward Tufte introduced the idea of beginning meetings with a high-resolution transfer in the form of a printed document. In short, you prepare a document in advance, print a copy for each attendee, share it at the beginning of the meeting, and give people plenty of time to read and digest the information.

The benefits: -each person can read and learn according to their cognitive style and at their rate of consumption. -time spent taking notes is converted to time spent thinking and analyzing -information can be communicated much, much more quickly than it would be through oration and a deck

</comment><comment><USER56> I worked in Defense for a year. There were soldiers and staff getting close to a "10,000 hour powerpoint" badge.

<comment><USER21> I was at a command brief once where one of the officers was presenting a 300+ slide powerpoint show. Fortunately his boss was having none of it, and spared us most of the lecture.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Powerful speakers seldom use slides, ordinary people like me rely on PowerPoint slides to get the job done badly , when not having a strong compelling case :)

The fundamental reason is that speech are more powerful than visual presentation. When people listen their subconsciousness is activated and they tend to accept things told (think about Hypnosis), when people open their eyes their brain kick in and start analysis, they won't listen. Slides also get in the way of speaker's body language, which is another most import factors in communication.

The use of PowerPoint in class and training process is also debatable. When in college, I could understand quite clearly the fundamental principles when my professor used the tradition chalkboard to go over the equations, however, I could hardly remember any of those equations and bullet points shown using slides.

</comment><comment><USER58> I'd like to see the article about why we should invest time in communicating effectively rather than bashing on the tools that people misuse. Seems like on every level there is room for improvement on conveying ideas to other people even with all the technological improvements we've had.

Specifically I'd like to see us get better at expressing the core ideas but still having the ability to easily dig deeper into the details even if it is offline. Especially interesting is when a presentation allows the user to play with the data additionally. Something like Mike Bostock's work[1] that conveys a lot of information densely and also builds on an open platform to let audience explore the data interactively.

[1] [http://bost.ocks.org/mike/](http://bost.ocks.org/mike/)

</comment><comment><USER59> Title should be: Ban people like Katrin Park and untrained gov bureaucrats from using power point.

Just because people don't know how to use something doesn't mean it should be banned, or even that it's negative. Especially when her "challenging the hegemony" point is 'use Prezi."

<comment><USER60> I've seen a couple of Prezi talks, and I have to say that that the only way a Prezi talk could possibly be more discombobulating would be if I was forced to watch it on an Oculus Rift while riding a city bus.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> I think it can work as long as it's kept simple with high contrast, low content and no transitions or animations. A good tip if you are running an event is to ask the speakers to provide slides in PDF format (with one slide per page, no builds). This forces them to keep it simple.

</comment><comment><USER10> My favorite example was the Gettysburg Address - choppy idea presentation and too much distracting colors.

</comment><comment><USER62> Sadly those NSA/Etc horrid presentations could just as well come from where I work. Having been asked about them before I simply replied, "wall of text" and you guys did a great job of not getting to the point. See, they don't ascribe to that rule of no more than three to five bullet points per slide. I have seen Excel Spreadsheets embedded in slides.

I think Powerpoint serves two very important purposes. In the hands of good management it conveys what is important and how it will be addressed. In the hands of bad management it clearly shows their lack of focus reinforced in slide form. (of course a 68 question survey on what you like and don't like about work wasn't a damn clue)

</comment><comment><USER63> Jean-luc Doumont gives excellent advice on how to avoid making slides like the ones mentioned in this article.

[http://www.principiae.be/X0800.php](http://www.principiae.be/X0800.php)

</comment><comment><USER64> Following Jean Luc Doumont's simple advice on creating powerpoints has dramatically helped me create more effective presentations that hold people's attention. I highly recommend his book [1] and presentations [2] on reducing noise in slides to maximize the effectiveness of key-takeaways.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meBXuTIPJQk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meBXuTIPJQk) [2] [http://www.treesmapsandtheorems.com/](http://www.treesmapsandtheorems.com/)

</comment><comment><USER65> Last time I made a presentation with slides was some 15 years ago. I used SliTeX. (It seems that has been superseded by a slides document class in LaTeX2e.)

The slides were very plain: just black text on a white background; no animations. On the other hand, great looking formulas, nicely formatted source code snippets and such.

I had a talk prepared; it wasn't a slide-reading marathon. The slides just anchored what I was saying.

Today if I did slides, I would probably make them into static HTML pages with simple navigation links. Or perhaps a dual frame: navigation pane with screens.

<comment><USER66> You could accomplish all of that using PowerPoint. PowerPoint isn't the problem, bad presentations are the problem. It's the same problem Access has. It's not a bad program, but people use it to do bad things.

<comment><USER65> However, just by researching and using open alternatives to PowerPoint, I demonstrated free thought, which, in turn, bears relevance to making a good presentation.

The root of the problem isn't PowerPoint itself or how people use it; it's that it _doesn 't even occur to them that using something other than PowerPoint (or not using anything of that sort at all) is even an option._

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> Well, about presentations, a couple of weeks ago I gave a presentation about a tool[0] to create text adventures with Markdown and created a slide deck using that tool. So the deck was itself a "presentable" text adventure[1].

[0] [https://github.com/potomak/gist-txt](https://github.com/potomak/gist-txt)

[1] [https://potomak.github.io/gist- txt/#737a452d6f38c2b87403](https://potomak.github.io/gist- txt/#737a452d6f38c2b87403)

</comment><comment><USER68> Whatever your feelings about Powerpoint, and mine personally fall close to the "Powerpoint makes us stupid" line, you can't help but admire that Gettysburg Address slide.

</comment><comment><USER69> Debating this is sort of a "Guns don't kill people, people kill people" argument.

PowerPoint is not inherently bad. Poor communication skills are inherently bad.

</comment><comment><USER70> Blame methods not tools! This has nothing to do with PowerPoint. This is about bad or wrong methods of presenting ideas or concepts. Methods are how something is done, e.g. graphically by a diagram or textual in short form or by speech. PowerPoint is just a tool. You can use the wrong method of presenting an idea (e.g. graphically) with a different tool (e.g. a sheet of paper and a pen) as well.

</comment><comment><USER71> dont' blame the tool. If a website is ugly, should we ban the internet?

<comment><USER72> Arguably, yes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> haters gonna hate. The real issue: don't write power-points that are meant to be studied -- power-points are meant as a presentation addition.

the only things I demand on a power-points are two numbers at the bottom

1) the slide number we are on

2) the total number of slides in the deck

that way I can decide if I should slit my wrists immediately or if I can push through and wait the deck out.

</comment><comment><USER74> My old powerpointless? page is still up at [http://sooper.org/misc/ppt/](http://sooper.org/misc/ppt/) \- "A list of articles discussing the impact of a reliance on PowerPoint® and bullet-point based communication."

</comment><comment><USER61> "Nothing stands for content-free corporate bullshit quite like PowerPoint" [0]

[0] [https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/930564-the-jennifer- mo...](https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/930564-the-jennifer-morgue- laundry-files-2)

</comment><comment><USER75> There is neither anything inherently wrong with PowerPoint, and even more 'controversially' there is nothing inherently wrong with information dense slides. Especially in the case where it includes complex graphics such as maps and charts as shown here.

The small information limited bullet point laid out form of presentation is derived from marketing/persuasive presentations. In that context then yes the narrative should drive the discussion, and slides should just reinforce the 'take away' points. These slides should be light for the same reason Elevator Pitches should be less than 2 minutes.

However other presentations such as some of the ones shown in the article are not intended to persuade but intended to share dense information. For instance saying that the military should not put dense maps in presentations intended for brass who have to visualize the geographic layout based on the presentation is pretty clueless.

Its a tool, not everyone is using it to accomplish the same goals as the author is. Truth is 99% of times the marketing format of presentations is the way to go, but it is not 100% of the time.

</comment><comment><USER76> Whenever I see an article about banning PowerPoint I think of Peter Norvig's humorous PowerPoint rendition of the Gettysburg Address [http://norvig.com/Gettysburg/index.htm](http://norvig.com/Gettysburg/index.htm)

</comment><comment><USER77> My personal definition of hell, that I experienced my final year of college: 8 AM Thermodynamics course, lecture consisted of a monotone-voiced prof reading directly from a set of Powerpoint slides.

The interest I had in the topic at the beginning of the semester was nearly crushed entirely.

</comment><comment><USER78> Edward Tufte already called for the demolition of PowerPoint. PowerPoint is still alive and well. It won.

The truth is PowerPoint is a very effective tool and you used it properly. If you are ignorant, lazy or stupid, no great tool can help you.

</comment><comment><USER79> Additional horrors of powerpoint: people drawing faux ui mockups combined with few bullet points explaining the planned logic and calling this the design phase of software development.

</comment><comment><USER80> Powerpoint is a tool, that like email, can be used correctly or incorrectly. PP is great at making slides for presentations. People are terrible at making slides for presentations.

</comment><comment><USER81> A comedic take on the use of PowerPoint

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjcO2ExtHso](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjcO2ExtHso)

</comment><comment><USER82> Powerpoint doesn't kill people. People kill people.

</comment><comment><USER83> The good news about PowerPoint is that it only takes five minutes for a previously untrained person to make a slide presentation.

The bad news is roughly the same.

</comment><comment><USER13> But excel first please! (Especially as a database).

</comment><comment><USER84> So we should ban PowerPoint because a bunch of old people with zero relevance on my life can't figure it out? Why not just ban the Internet and those con- flab-it programmable VCRs?

I'm also not of the opinion that slides are ever necessary. I'd rather just watch a talk recording with the guy explaining what I see in the slides. Usually slides for any talk I give are comical or non-sensical in nature.

</comment><comment><USER85> As someone already said "If you use a hammer as a saw, you can't claim the tool is faulty."

</comment><comment><USER86> We also need to ban hammer and showels, lot of people just don't know how to use them properly.

</comment><comment><USER87> Steve Jobs: "People who know what they're talking about don't need PowerPoint"

</comment><comment><USER88> Is he suggesting that we ban Powerpoint because the users are not using it in the right way?

I work at a MMB management consulting company and we use Powerpoint all day to create really good presentations - full of insightful information and easy to read.

</comment><comment><USER89> Powerpoint is only as good as the content behind the slides

</comment><comment><USER90> looks like this article ripped off Don Watson [https://vimeo.com/9369655](https://vimeo.com/9369655)

</comment><comment><USER91> PowerPoint doesn't kill presentations - people do.

</comment><comment><USER92> It's a poor craftsman who blames his tools.

I've never understood why the ire gets directed towards PowerPoint rather than the people who construct poor presentations.

</comment><comment><USER93> Putting together an effective presentation and visual aid (i.e. slide deck) is very time consuming, very iterative, requires a lot of thought and reflection, at least a few reviewers that are removed from putting it together and/or the topic, and a lot of practice. Reducing presentation to simply putting together a slide deck is a fail from the get-go. Blaming bad presentations on the tools used to put them together is shallow.

While there is really no substitute for good coaching, first hand experience, mistakes made and good feedback, here are a few quick tips that I've picked up over the years -

1\. The best and most engaging presentations simply have a title that captures the key point and a nice/fun background photo that supports/illustrates the story. Audience will pay attention to the story instead of reading text off the slide.

2\. To highlight a fact, keep it to one fact per slide. Make it short and direct (e.g. "3x faster" rather than "212.32% performance improvement").

3\. To illustrate a quantitative point, one chart per page is okay, but it must be super simple and easy (absolutely no 3D nonsense, at most 3-4 bars/2 lines/3-4 pie slices, clearly labeled axes). Multiple charts are sometimes okay, but they must be each super simple, belong together, have the same scales and tell a clear and obvious story. Effective charts are a topic of its own, anything by Tufte is a great head start.

4\. If you must have more than one point on a slide, keep it at 3 direct, concise bullets per page (if any bullet wraps with a large font, it's too wordy and unclear). No sub-bullets or additional explanations should be necessary. Two bullets is too little (i.e. condense it to one key point), four is too much.

5\. No more than one simple diagram per page. Best to keep it to the title that captures they key point and a diagram. Additional explanatory text should not be necessary - if title + diagram can't stand on their own, they are not good enough. Also, if the point of the diagram is not immediately obvious to someone looking at it for the first time, the diagram sucks.

6\. Avoid wall of text (e.g. that NASA slide on Columbia's tiles) at all costs. Audience will start reading the slide, completely tune out what you are saying and then get bored half a way through and give up.

7\. Contrasting points or showing contradictory data/ideas requires extra care to avoid cognitive dissonance.

8\. Background should be as plain as possible. White is best, black/gray could be okay. Anything else pretty much sucks. All text in one color, with great contrast to the background.

9\. Timing/length of presentation is super important. Generally, it is very hard for people to stay focused for more than ~7 minutes, so it's good to cover a point in less than 7 minutes and then change it up a bit (e.g. change presenters, show a video, get to a different topic). Overall, presentations should be less than 30 minutes, 45 minutes tops. Anything longer than that is simply too long, you'll lose the audience. Here are two books on the topic I found helpful. They are easy to follow, very short and to the point - "Style: Toward Clarity and Grace" [1] and "Guide to Managerial Communication" [2].

* * *

Overall, the piece feels quite trashy - it dumps all the blame where it doesn't belong (tool vs. lack of presentation/communication skill). Those slides could have very well been made in Keynote or Reveal.JS and they wouldn't suck any less. The piece is also not constructive, it doesn't give reader any hints or tips how to make presentations better.

Finally, a great counterexample to the main point of the piece is pretty much every slide deck that comes with Apple/Steve Jobs' keynote. The best part is that no one remembers or pays particular attention to the deck, but if you analyze the presentation more closely or watch it a couple of times, it becomes clear how effective the decks are.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226899152](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226899152)

[2] [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/013297133X](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/013297133X)

</comment><comment><USER94> This is quite a silly article. You can't blame a tool because it's been misused.

<comment><USER95> Hah! That's every gun-control argument, ever.

</comment></comment><comment><USER96> PowerPoint is not the problem. It is the content being delivered through it.

</comment><comment><USER97> The problem is not in PowerPoint, but in people using it.

</comment><comment><USER98> Sign me up!

</comment><comment><USER99> Just want to mention Toastmasters for anyone wanting to improve their presentation skills.

I learned there a lot about making presentations FOR the audience.

To PowerPoint or not is just one of many decisions to make depending on the talk and the audience. Sometimes appropriate, sometimes it is not.

At Toastmasters (or at least the club I went to) no PowerPoint was used, but sometimes props were used. Practicing presenting with just your voice is definitely a worthwhile character building experience!

</comment><comment><USER100> Banning things should be banned.</comment>