Discounted Cars Benefit Buyers, but May Spell Trouble for Industry - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/11/automobiles/wheels/car-dealers-discounts-price-cuts.html?ref=business <comment><USER2> Manufacturers need to get a clue that dealers are poison to their industry. Every time we've bought a new car in my family the experience has been a nightmare because of all the games the dealers play. The only new car I have any interest in buying today is a Tesla because their sales model is low stress and can be done from my office.

I will drink a toast to the day the last auto dealership goes out of business.

<comment><USER3> Recent car lessee here. Like most people, I'm not in a position to buy a Tesla, but I agree that I can't stand the games the others play. I recently leased a 2017 Hyundai Sonata. I go in telling them exactly what I want (base model, no money down, 12k miles/year). They come back with an offer for something like $290 month + $1300 down (so effectively $326/month over 36 months). After some very tough negotiating, I got it down to $200/month with nothing down except registration (~$400 for registration, so effectively ~$211/month all-in).

It's outrageous to me that the initial price they give bears no resemblance to reality. But I'm sure they do it because there are some people who just don't like negotiating and will pay it. Or they might even tell them "I'm gonna do you a big favor and knock $25/month off so that you remain a loyal customer" and then the customer comes away actually feeling like they got a deal even though they were actually ripped off.

In the old days (WAY before my time), you might have negotiated for everything (say eggs in a grocery store) so I wouldn't have had an issue with negotiating for cars. But seeing as cars are one of the only remaining things that you can negotiate on price, the dealerships take advantage of the fact that people today just aren't used to negotiating and therefore aren't very good at it.

If there were a car brand with affordable cars that didn't play these games, I'd buy from them happily.

<comment><USER4> > If there were a car brand with affordable cars that didn't play these games, > I'd buy from them happily.

No you wouldn't. You've already lost the affordable game by insisting on new cars. New car dealerships get away with this crap because their customer base is already not very price-rational. It doesn't matter whether they're discounting you $1000 or $3000 when you've already foregone $10,000 or more in exchange for the abstract feeling of newness. If you don't want to play price games, just get on craigslist, look for a car at a price you like, go check it out and have your mechanic inspect it, then don't negotiate, just pay the price. Or whatever, you can even be sloppy and get screwed by a private party and still probably end up way ahead compared to the stealership's prices.

New cars are a luxury product and it's very strange to see people discussing them as if they're anything else. Luxury products always have wacky economics, since their value is so untied to fundamentals.

<comment><USER3> > No you wouldn't.

Yes, I think I would. Or at least that a lot of others would. I understand that used cars are a better deal, but I've already decided that I want the "luxury" of a new car. But within that framework, I still want the best price, just as many others do. It's not illogical to say "I want a new car and I want to pay as little as possible for it without negotiating". In my case, I bought a used car before my current one and it turned out to be a dud. Let's say that you place a premium on having a car that doesn't break down frequently. With a leased car, I'm paying for that luxury. I understand that I can come out ahead with used cars, but I don't want to deal with the hassle of taking it to a mechanic, the possibility of things breaking when the car is out of warranty, and yes, not having the latest features. And as much as people hate negotiating for new cars, negotiating for used cars is even worse.

<comment><USER4> You're mistakenly legitimitizing the idea that there is some tangible "luxury" available from a truly new car (as opposed to a late model one, a year or two old, in impeccable condition and perhaps some aftermarket accessories).

However, that is a scam idea with no basis in the physical world, invented and maintained by those with a vested interest. Therefore, all a brand new car (as opposed to a good 1 year old car) gets you is a vague feeling of newness and false ideas in your head that the probability of failure is lower. As smart as you think you are, by buying into it you've already bought into their system. They're already selling you a bag of air, and already got you to agree that this has some value, so they have a lot of leverage on the price, since there's no objective way to value something that is useless except because people can be tricked into wanting it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I believe at least part of this is better quality cars that last longer. The 1980s started an era of crap cars that were junk after 100k miles. That's improved, over time, and not equally across all makes and models.

But, we finally seem to be at a point where there are fewer reasons to get rid of a 10 year old car.

Edit: some corraborating figures: [http://news.ihsmarkit.com/press- release/automotive/vehicles-...](http://news.ihsmarkit.com/press- release/automotive/vehicles-getting-older-average-age-light-cars-and-trucks- us-rises-again-201)

<comment><USER6> Most American cars fail after 10 years and look quite beaten up. Japanese cars used to last 20-30 years but I think Toyota and Honda are the only brands that have kept up this reputation, and even then not all that well.

All this has to do with the fact that people don't have money to upgrade to the latest lease.

<comment><USER7> My 1979 Honda CVCC is going as strong as ever. I swapped the engine/transmission out once, but the engine was still running fine, I just wanted the 5-speed. A cheap repaint in 2013, and AFAIC it's good for another 20.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Honda/comments/1q9tww/just_finished...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Honda/comments/1q9tww/just_finished_rebuilding_my_1979_honda_cvcc_pics/)

<comment><USER8> Wow. I'm impressed. There's something about completely ordinary old cars that look so pristine after a few decades. I saw a Datsun B210 the other day that was similarly cared for and it impresses me more than most classic muscle cars. Everyone expects a '68 Camaro to look awesome; nobody expects the same from a '79 Honda.

<comment><USER7> Thanks! And you're right. Many years ago, I used to feel a little silly about maintaining what was essentially an inexpensive economy car. But it was the first car I bought with my own money in college (for the princely sum of $500 in 1992), and I just really enjoy driving it around town. It's so small I can park anywhere, and it gets 30-40 MPG.

And nowadays, it gets lots of positive comments. Turns out the muscle car/classic car guys like seeing the old stuff no matter what it is.

<comment><USER9> Wow that car looks really really nice, with a stylish flat. It really tells me that the owner loves him/her/it :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So the tl;dr of this article is that lower prices are good for consumers, but manufacturers cannot sustain selling below cost (what a surprise).

I wonder what is driving demand lower. Has supply simply finally caught up to pent-up demand from the crisis? Is some other expenditure (housing, healthcare) sucking up discretionary spending that would otherwise go towards new cars? Is this a leading indicator of a drop in consumer confidence/spending that more traditional indicators haven't picked up on yet? Are people driving fewer miles (I don't know the exact numbers off-hand, but I believe the data doesn't support this)? Are longer-lasting cars hurting new car sales?

<comment><USER11> It seems the last sentence rings true for me an my social circle. I have a 15 year old car that costs me almost nothing because it's paid for and worth so little that I only carry liability insurance.

Sure, I could get an awesome new car, but there is absolutely no rational economic reason to do so.

Other than missing lane assist and adaptive cruise, I see no useful features that have emerged in cars for nearly 20 years.

Electric cars are about it, but the environmental impact of effectively throwing away a perfectly good car to get a new electric car defeats the purpose.

<comment><USER12> >Other than missing lane assist and adaptive cruise, I see no useful features that have emerged in cars for nearly 20 years.

You're forgetting fuel economy and crashworthiness. Fuel economy has improved greatly in the last 20 years; I drive a car that 20 years ago with this much power and weight would probably have gotten less than 30mpg on the highway, this one gets 40. Of course, gas prices are low so you might not care about this. But crash protection has also gotten far better in the last 15-20 years. You can walk away from a crash in a modern car that would have maimed or killed you in your 15yo one (even for a car of the same rough size).

>Electric cars are about it, but the environmental impact of effectively throwing away a perfectly good car to get a new electric car defeats the purpose.

Wrong. You're not "throwing away a perfectly good car", you're reselling that car on the used market to someone else, and in the end (assuming the market doesn't expand) this results eventually in some really old POS car somewhere being junked, which is good because it's pouring out emissions and wasting fuel. More people buying new cars increases the supply of newer cars on the used market, which helps push the oldest and crappiest cars out of usage. Of course, there's limits to this, but the point is: don't feel bad about getting rid of a "perfectly good car"; it's going to continue getting used, just not by you, and theoretically results in another car that really isn't "perfectly good" getting finally retired.

The thing that really sucks here is that, in some states at least, you're highly penalized for buying a new or newer car because of personal property taxes. They should just eliminate these taxes for all but luxury vehicles maybe, to encourage people to buy newer cars to improve safety and emissions. There's already a disincentive in higher insurance rates; we don't need to add to that with pointless taxes.

<comment><USER13> There was fuel economic cars 15-20 years ago, if you've forgotten. My car is 17 years old and gets 35 mpg mixed city/highway.

Some got even more (civic HX).

<comment><USER12> The Civic HX would be illegal to sell now because it won't meet crash safety standards. That's the point: you can get a car now that weighs quite a bit more than that HX, performs far better in a crash, has significantly lower emissions, has much more passenger space, and _still_ gets the same fuel economy roughly (i.e. a larger/heavier class of car is getting the same economy as an econocar that's now too small and unsafe to be sold).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> There was a real slowdown in car sales during the Great Recession. That shortage and the ripple effects are finally coming to an end.

Manufacturers are cranking out too many cars for the US market.

</comment><comment><USER15> "Automakers have also turned more heavily to leasing, and longer loans of 72 or 84 months, which keep the customer's monthly payment affordable."

This is how they will make money. You have to lower credit scores but extend the payment. That justifies the higher price on average.

Still... I guess it is not enough. And the people that take advantage of this at 0% keep the car longer..

<comment><USER16> Leasing is an absolutely horrible deal nowadays.

Almost every lease includes something along the lines of "we expect this car to be worth $X at the end of lease term, and, if it's not, we charge you for it".

At that point, why lease? The leasing payments are a significant chunk of the loan payments anyway.

You're better off just buying a used car.

<comment><USER17> Used car market is pretty great if you have weeks available to find a good one that has been used well and maintained properly.

Anectodal as it might be I drive a stupid unreliable car from 2004... that has been going faultless twelve years in my hands.

Luck is also involved, but some research into engine tech and model build quality goes a long way in restricting the research and it's way better than those statistic collecting websites that don't account, for example, years of mehanical abuse that some brand gets more than other because of the segment they appeal.

<comment><USER18> What's your information source for those sorts of specifics?

<comment><USER17> I'm kind of a petrolhead, but a friendly mechanic can give you the right tip if you feed him enough info about what needs you have. you need to be flexible tho, some good model are ugly or may not fit your personal style

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> it's because of the experience these dealerships offer. I was in the market for a car, I just moved to DMV area from Michigan. I've had nothing but terrible experiences. I ended up just putting the money into repairing my current 8 year old car.

</comment><comment><USER20> Over 400,000 Tesla Model 3 reservation holders who are putting off their next car purchase until the car is out - and industry expecting a ~300k decline in sales this year. Coincidence? I have to imagine 400k people committed to a car coming out in the next year is a bunch of people who might otherwise be in the market staying on the sidelines. I'm certainly one of them.

</comment><comment><USER21> This entire comments section is like reading a news article and realizing the journalist is running on nothing but conjecture and stereotypes.

</comment><comment><USER22> Keeping my 140k mi Subaru alive til I can get my hands on a Tesla 3 v 1.1

<comment><USER23> I can't afford a Tesla so I'm buying their stock instead :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> So, start of a recession? Is housing next?

</comment><comment><USER25> Millions of good vehicles were taken off the road after the 2008 fiasco (program to trade in). This left the used car market decimated. You could practically buy a new car for the price of a used car since there was no used inventory to speak of. Leasing was also hit very hard.

What we are seeing now is the used car and leasing markets recover back to where they were pre 2008. This has created some much needed competition in the Auto market.

Vehicles are lasting longer these days. In the 80's most vehicles already had rust on them from the factory (inside doors, pillars, etc). Since the very late 80's they started waxing and using galvanized metals. Engine tolerances were improved along with Fluid technology (Oil, Coolants, Grease, etc).

My advice is never buy new. Buy something either coming off lease or something about 5 + years old. If it is a Toyota there is still at least 10 years left in the vehicle. Honda's quality over the last 5 years has really suffered in my opinion. German cars should only be leased, stay away from used German cars unless you have a lot of money or can repair them yourself. Korean cars are throwaways after a few years. If you're someone who keeps a car for a long time make sure you do a lot of research because these days a lot of newer models have some serious problems like DI and CVT Transmissions that will cost more to fix or replace in a few years than the vehicle is worth.

<comment><USER26> There's no evidence for anything in your first paragraph.. I know it was a popular conspiracy theory on the auto forums but it doesn't remotely pass the sniff test.. Cash for clunkers only turned in 690k cars, not 'millions' and they had to get terrible mileage to qualify in the first place so the list of trade-in was almost entirely 90s era SUVs. In any case, in the preceding 15 years there were something like 200 million vehicles sold in the US. Removing under half a percent of those couldn't possibly have had a half-decade impact on the used car market.</comment></comment>


The Small Batches Principle - <AUTHOR> http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2945077 <comment><USER2> also a good example of trade-offs. sometimes small batches are better, sometimes a big batch is better. depends on the situation and your priorities.

</comment><comment><USER3> tl;dr Reprinted excerpt from "The Practice of System and Network Administration" v1 ed3 . Do work in small batches for better feedback, lower stress, etc. Devops focussed anecdotes.</comment>


Show HN: Test tech job specs for issues with sexism and others recruiter fails - <AUTHOR> http://lint.jobbox.io/

<comment><USER2> An example posting (maybe even pulled from some popular companies/job sites) would be great...

I wanted to poke around the app, then I went to the page, and didn't really want to make up a spec to test</comment>


Rising NoSQL Star: Aerospike, Cassandra, Couchbase or Redis? - <AUTHOR> https://redislabs.com/blog/nosql-performance-aerospike-cassandra-datastax-couchbase-redis

<comment><USER2> Is this comparing 4 database engines to a Redis hosting service instead of Redis itself?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not at all - Redis Labs Enterprise Cluster is a downloadable software that makes running Redis clusters a breeze. It is by no means a managed service like Redis Cloud, although much of the underlying tech is the same :)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you discover and apply to jobs without dealing with recruiters - <AUTHOR> Most of the recruiter emails I am getting and most of the job postings are added by again, recruiters. Dealing with them takes too many phone calls and ultimately not enough value. <comment><USER2> Networking and cold calling is one way to do so. Find the companies that you would like to work in. Then find someone who's doing a job similar to what you would like to do (on linkedin). Call the main phone number for that company, ask to be transferred to that person and then proceed to do an informational interview. Ask them questions about the industry, how to get in, what their job is like and if they can recommend other people that could help you. Once you've gotten a good feel for company/industry, look for the hiring managers on linkedin - not talking about human resources. If you want to work as a sales man talk to Sales Manager. This is where you do your sales pitch and tell them about your skills and ask them "when would be a good time to talk about opportunities in your company". Don't ask "yes or no" questions.

<comment><USER3> Does this really work? I'd freak out if my phone would ring and some random person is asking me questions about my job and the company I work for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You can apply directly through company websites, or online job postings. I would argue that recruiters short cut the process, by finding candidates that match with required qualifications or skills. I think you have a higher likelihood of getting a call back from a recruiter communicating your skills and resume to a hiring manager, than you do by being thrown into a massive online pool of candidates.

</comment><comment><USER5> Its a good skill to learn to deal with agents - you can get a good idea of your local market, who is hiring, what skills are paying what.

<comment><AUTHOR> what do you mean? from my experience, agents/recruitment agencies trade meat for money - they don't really care for anything than placing a candidate into a position and cash in.</comment></comment>


Squaring Venture Capital Valuations with Reality - <AUTHOR> https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2955455 <comment><AUTHOR> tl;dr by Laura Norén (@digitalFlaneuse on twitter):

Stanford professor, Ilya Strebulaev, and Will Gornall of the University of British Columbia recalculated the valuation of 100+ companies known as unicorns (startups valued at $1bn +) and showed many aren't worth nearly as much as they claim. Why? Because math. Startups typically issue different classes of stock in each fundraising round but their valuations are oversimplified by applying the price of the most recent round to all outstanding shares. _Every_ company they looked at was overvalued, 53 lost their $1bn unicorn status, and 13 were overvalued by more than 100 percent. ... "Some unicorns have made such generous promises to their preferred shareholders that their common shares are nearly worthless," the two professors wrote. In my opinion, this is an example of two things 1) lots of people cannot apply their math skillz and 2) the ethos of finance contains much magical thinking. The entire industry is obsessed with unicorns. According to Scottish myth, unicorns were ruthlessly hounded by clamoring hoards, simultaneously scapegoated for being the aberrant creatures they are and loved to death (e.g. abused, fatally) for their magical powers. Lesson: it's clear that many in finance are not good at applying their history and culture skillz, either.</comment>


LHC Physics Center bans Powerpoint, switches to whiteboard-only forums - <AUTHOR> http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/march-2014/physics-by-hand <comment><USER2> Here is a perfect example: John Carmack does a great job of rocking the white- board in this wonderful presentation. He starts out with a tablet, and uses that to track his discussion points, then hits a deep-dive on the white-board at approximately 00:18:45.

I find this style absolutely engaging. Presentation software like PowerPoint has its place, but can make it all-too-easy to move through material too quickly. On the other hand, actually drawing and writing things out while discussing the topic slows things down a bit, allowing the audience to engage and understand the topic at a more learning-friendly pace. I personally find this "show me don't tell me" style of white-board presentation refreshing and conducive to my understanding of the topic.

 _The Physics of Light and Rendering_

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MG4QuTe8aUw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MG4QuTe8aUw)

<comment><USER3> Agreed, a thousand times over. I lived through the transition from chalkboard + transparency classrooms (high school) to whiteboard classrooms (college) to powerpoint classrooms (grad school). I've also taught with all three.

The real shock for me came later in grad school, when the undergrads (these were all upperclassmen) all basically _expected_ that you'd provide them with the printouts of your slides, and therefore did nothing in class. They'd sit there, diddle on their laptops or phones, and then get cranky and exasperated when you'd tell them, "no, sorry...there are no slides. you have to take notes."

Learning is simply _better_ when you have to write things down. You're engaging your eyes, your ears and your brain...and you're well aware when you're goofing off. I wish colleges would ban powerpoint in the classroom, but since powerpoint is an epic crutch for the lecturer as well, I have my doubts that it will ever happen....

<comment><USER4> > Learning is simply better when you have to write things down.

I disagree. Learning _is_ better when you aren't able to diddle on your laptop or phone, and having to write things down strongly encourages you not to do those things, but the actual act of writing things down forces you to focus on quickly copying text, which hugely impairs your ability to internalize what was said.

Some people's learning styles might make that less of a problem (i.e. so- called auditory learners might be able to internalize what's being said nearly at the speed it's spoken), but for those of us who need to translate what we hear into our own mental language, constant note-taking substantially hampers the learning process.

The ideal for me is to preview the notes of a lecture before it's given a la Khan Academy, pay full attention during the lecture, occasionally jot down a keyword to trigger the memory of a thought I had during the lecture, and if I didn't have the opportunity to preview the lecture notes then I'll want to be able to access them afterwards to look up anything I don't remember.

Edit: Corrective upvote because you didn't say anything that harms the discussion.

<comment><USER5> > Some people's learning styles might make that less of a problem (i.e. so- > called auditory learners might be able to internalize what's being said > nearly at the speed it's spoken), but for those of us who need to translate > what we hear into our own mental language, constant note-taking > substantially hampers the learning process.

Learning styles is more or less discredited. IIRC, research indicated that most students respond similarly to the same learning styles. The main difference between students tends to be whether or not they understand previous material.

I'm not saying that different mediums is a bad idea - most students _do_ respond well to diagrams, explanations, examples, practice, etc.

Research supports note taking, so it's probably a good thing for most students. However, it might not be good for all subjects - math and programming requires a lot less memorisation of facts, and a lot more thinking. If you want to understand dynamic programming, simply memorising the key points won't help you much. If you want to learn a new API, then writing down important methods might.

<comment><USER6> Speaking only for myself, taking copious notes in class always substantially hampered my ability to keep up. The only times I took such notes were in a couple of mathematics courses which moved at a blistering pace and had no textbook or other provided material: in those, it was essential to write everything down so that it could be studied and learned later, after class. But the act of writing during those classes made it quite a bit harder to follow the lectures while they were happening.

I would have much preferred to receive hand-outs with the same definitions/theorems on it a day or two before the lecture, so that I could have put my full attention on the professor and the material.

In basically all other courses, I only wrote notes when struck by particularly insightful thoughts I wanted to remember later, and my notes as often were about my own reactions as about what the professors were saying. But because I find it easy to focus and pay close attention in lectures, I generally had better recall afterward than most of my peers, even the ones who spent much more time "studying" their notes later.

* * *

By contrast, I had several friends who could only follow lectures by writing notes while in class, because otherwise they found lectures hard to focus on, and because they found that the physical act of writing what they heard to enormously help their later recall (not to mention they had a physical artifact they could refer to afterward).

* * *

I would like to see your sources for the statement "learning styles is more or less discredited", as it does not align with my experience either as a student, as an observer of other students, or as the son of a school teacher. It seems completely obvious and non-controversial to me that some people have an easier time following verbal conversation than others, that some have an easier time reading/writing, that some people are more attuned to pictures/graphic elements, etc.

Maybe "learning styles" is a bad name for this, and I personally believe that it's mostly the result of practice and acculturation rather than anything genetic/inherent, but it still remains obviously (to me) true that different students find different modalities and teaching/learning methods more effective.

<comment><USER5> There's evidence for note taking, as I previously said. The main difference may have been that you had a good grounding in the subject, so taking basic notes would have been a waste of time.

As for learning styles being discredited ...

Treat education like alternative medicine, and ask for evidence _for_ teaching methods, rather than evidence against. The amount of puffery some educators believe in is amazing. Education researchers are often even worse. Yes, other industries can be just as bad (software included), but that's no excuse. Especially when there _is_ a lot of research on teaching methods, it's just routinely ignored by the theorists.

For a review on learning styles, see [http://steinhardtapps.es.its.nyu.edu/create/courses/2174/rea...](http://steinhardtapps.es.its.nyu.edu/create/courses/2174/reading/Pashler_et_al_PSPI_9_3.pdf)

There's a huge body of literature concerning learning styles, but the actual evidence often tends to contradict the hypothesis.

If you pick any popular teaching method, and search for it and the word "evidence", it's often pretty dire.

Yes, some students say they _prefer_ one learning style, especially if you ask them (which is kind of a loaded question). But they don't seem to individually benefit more than other students. There's exceptions, I guess. Students with visual impairments.

You could probably find evidence supporting the use of mixed mediums (show 'em, tell 'em, make 'em do it themselves), but that's different to saying "show some students, and tell others".

<comment><USER7> As yet another individual who is hampered by copying down the lecture I'd like to provide some more anecdotal evidence.

> There's evidence for note taking, as I previously said. The main difference > may have been that you had a good grounding in the subject, so taking basic > notes would have been a waste of time.

I guess we are talking about different kind of lectures. My experience comes from 5 years of mathematical courses with very dense material. Just taking "basic notes" doesn't cut it there, because only an approximation of a definition is mostly worthless. And regarding proofs, if I understand the subject good enough that I can boil down the essential steps of a proof while seeing it for the first time then I don't really need to take notes at all. So I'm actually always forced to copy everything from the blackboard (if there are no official lecture notes).

And in these situations my brain is blocked with drawing characters instead of processing what is actually happening behind those characters. Yet, I do have friends that copy everything down, even if there are official lecture notes, because according to them it helps them processing the content. Whether a classification in auditory, etc. types is reasonable or not I don't know, but from this experience alone I find it obvious that people learn in different ways.

<comment><USER8> I had a realization in around 3rd year of my first degree that when I was copying down notes I wasn't actually hearing anything the lecturer said.

I basically got a page of text, but I had no idea what it meant - worse for mathematics.

Since I'm back at uni again, I've been trying various lecturer absorption styles, and trying to keep detailed notes still has the same problem - I can't actually follow what's being said. To an extent I don't even _hear_ it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Phew. Finally the reign of powerpoint begins to fade.

If non-technical speakers spent less time faffing around before the session making awful looking powerpoints, and more time learning how to speak engagingly, the world would be a much better place.

This said as an Audio/Visual Operator who has spent hundreds of hours at a sound-desk watching technically inept speakers fail to impress - no matter how flashy the animations.

The worse thing over the last few years is 'Prezi'. It's a powerpoint alternative which ostensibly makes it easier to make awesome looking graphics.

The 2 problems with it are that it's a hell of a lot harder to actually present on a second screen, so you end up having to drag windows around, and that speakers are still under the impression that because you have swooshes and zooms and text folding inside other text, suddenly it's more likely for people to find the presentation content interesting.

The trouble with BAD technology, is how do you fight it? The normal way is by competition - making _better_ tech. But when the concept itself is wrong, but somehow culturely accepted...? Any ideas?

<comment><USER10> One of the biggest problems with PowerPoint presentations is their linearity (i.e. one-dimensional). Most topics, stories, etc. are not linear.

We need technology that makes it easy to build non-linear presentations.

A good start that I've tried was to make a 10-foot-by-10-foot drawing on GoogleDocs, and then arrange all my content within that one slide. Since it's a two-dimensional canvas, there's plenty of opportunities for putting related topics close to each other, even if you talk about them at separate times. It's also effective to put loops in your procession, so that you return to a topic that you covered earlier, reiterating its significance and reminding the audience of it. (Another advantage is that you can save it as a PDF. Then open it in a program, such as Chrome, which lets you zoom in as far as you want. You'll never have to worry about text being too small to read again!)

<comment><USER11> It's funny, but overhead projectors were great for that. You could easily throw random foils on it as needed. You could draw on foils in real time with a marker. Hell, you could throw on a blank foil and draw on that if you wanted. We need a modern replacement for the overhead, and PowerPoint ain't it.

<comment><USER12> Maybe we just need overhead projectors back.

There were a few things wrong with them (painful to look at while operating, and the bulbs tended to burn out if you moved them around while turned on) but fundamentally I don't think they were broken technology. Overhead projectors would be well _complimented_ by computer projectors, but computer projectors make a poor _replacement_ for them. Attempts to replicate the advantages of overhead projectors on computer projectors always fall flat, as far as I have seen.

I think the demise of overhead projectors is an example of a _regression_ caused by our tendency to have rose-tinted glasses whenever considering more technological alternatives to existing technology.

<comment><USER13> In university we have cameras over some parts of the professors table which are directly projected on the screen. Works great without the the drawbacks of an overhead projector.

<comment><USER12> I think that is probably the solution. I've seen somewhat similar systems that tried to be more technically advanced than that, but they always made things worse. Just a straight-up camera-feed to the projector would work great though.

The advantage of these over overhead projectors would still be pretty small though (really only the being blinded and replacement bulbs issue), so you would need to ensure that the system is rock-solid reliable. If not, then you've just made it worse by making it more advanced.

<comment><USER14> Document cameras like this work very nicely, but there _is_ one small downside I've noticed: their framerate tends not to be very good. That's usually not a problem at all, but I have a couple of physics demos where I roll things around on an overhead projector, and the document camera often can't keep up with quick motion. Simple analog light and shadows obviously have no issues with that at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Just as the determined Real Programmer can write FORTRAN programs in any language[0], the truly inept presenter can produce bad talks with any tools.

[0] [http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~elf/hack/realmen.html](http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~elf/hack/realmen.html) \- see [1] for context.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Programmers_Don%27t_Use_Pa...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Programmers_Don%27t_Use_Pascal) \- see [2] for an alternative viewpoint.

[2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_Mel](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_Mel)

<comment><USER16> A real programmer can build their slide deck in code. Not that this fixes the problem, but I was greatly inspired when I saw Matthew Flatt present with SlideShow [1] for the first time.

[1] [http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1166020](http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1166020)

<comment><USER17> A non-paywalled version of it (unless I missed the download link on that site):

[http://www.cs.utah.edu/plt/publications/jfp05-ff.pdf](http://www.cs.utah.edu/plt/publications/jfp05-ff.pdf) [PDF]

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> PowerPoint isn't the enemy. Poor use of PowerPoint is the problem. Bad presenters is the problem. People switching over to white boards won't make them better presenters, now they'll be communicating poorly in a messy unshareable medium.

The solution isn't no PowerPoint. The solution is teach people how to communicate. How to present to both technical and nontechnical audience. How to write an executive summary / elevator pitch.

<comment><USER19> PowerPoint encourages and rewards a particular style of communication (the "pitch") which is unsuitable for most uses. It also actively discourages many more effective forms of communication. As such most of the time using it does degrade the quality of communication and not using it is an easy route to improving the quality of communication.

That doesn't mean it's impossible to use powerpoint well. Hell, it's possible to write world class code in Perl. It's possible to build skyscrapers in a swamp. That doesn't mean you should force yourself to do so. It's always smarter to stack the odds in your favor as much as possible.

<comment><USER20> People who are being presented to know when they are and aren't absorbing the material being presented. Its rather easy give your opinion on the cases where it doesn't work. It would be far more helpful if you had suggested specific alternatives..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> On the topic, I love Tufte's "The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint": [http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/powerpoint](http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/powerpoint)

</comment><comment><USER22> I prefer Powerpoint over white/blackboard because:

1\. People make mistakes on the whiteboard

2\. You can't save it and review later

3\. Even if you write everything down, it would still be less information than what someone could add in the Powerpoint

4\. Powerpoint is much more legible

5\. It is easier to go at your own pace during and after the presentation if someone is using a Powerpoint. If someone is using a white/blackboard they are going to erase the last part very quickly after they finished writing it down.

<comment><USER23> Suggest you look at interactive whiteboards or similar. Best of both worlds _potentially_. See my comment up the page.

<comment><USER24> The core issue is preparation and this is something spontaneous whiteboard lecture can't beat a well-preapred powerpoint presentation.

<comment><USER25> completely disagree. my calculus and algebra professors never used powerpoint on any lecture and they were extremely well prepared. those were the best classes on the whole uni.

<comment><USER24> Your disagreement is not very convincing IMHO. How do you know other teachers didn't use whiteboard? Maybe your professors are articulate, experienced instructors.

Also, your teachers probably teach the same course over and over. They don't do spontaneous, once-in-a-life-time lecture to you. They know what they have to teach today and tomorrow. They know exactly what proof to use. Unlike university lecture, the discussion forum at LHC in the article are probably one-time open brownbag. They raise an interesting question, they talk and they leave the room.

<comment><USER23> _" They don't do spontaneous, once-in-a-life-time lecture to you."_

True, but you do vary presentation to allow for audience. I use 'room temperature' questions early on; rows of confused faces and I go into the slow siding; rapid fire answers and extensions and I shift into the express route. Mixed reactions and I have been known to split the whiteboard down the middle.

So less a linear video tape and more a series of responses deployed depending on feedback from the class

I am teaching _below_ University level though, and smaller classes (15 to 25 people).

<comment><USER24> True, completely agree. But that's a skill :) you could have a teacher writing on the whiteboard for 45 minutes and zero interaction. A similar analogy would be kids abuse the right to start out an introduction paragraph with a quote or a question.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I've heard that writing equations on a whiteboard paces the talk and give the audience time to digest. With a slideshow most presenters will go at a pace comfortable for them, but that typically ends up being too fast for the audience.

</comment><comment><USER27> I don't understand this. Most of my teachers use blackboards and it's really annoying to follow a presentation like that, you have to wait for the person to write, you have no slides later on to support your notes, and since you have no slides online you have to write everything they write, so you can't even listen properly to the talk.

And some stuff are just clearer on slides... I don't really see a lot of benefits in whiteboard-only lectures. Combination of whiteboard and slides are best.

I can still think of some great people who don't use slides but it's rare and a few people do it well (Gilbert Strang comes to my mind[1]).

[1]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZK3O402wf1c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZK3O402wf1c)

<comment><USER28> You don't need slides to support your notes. There are two kind of classes: those that bring you up to speed; all the stuff there is found in textbooks or review papers.

And those that present wholly new ideas (research seminars, conferences,) where you can just read the paper or the preprint for details.

The only time I've seen something on the board that I really had to copy down to keep an copy of was exercises and their solutions.

<comment><USER27> if your teacher has a textbook that he follows okay, but here in France most teachers don't and you have to copy everything they write. And even if they have a course online, they will waste so much time just writing it...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I can see why scientists like whiteboard. In the old days, if you watch old clips from the 30s, 40s you would see scientists talking to their fellow peer with chalk and cardboard. They could start by saying "okay so we know this gas law from 1800s and then we saw this new behavior and we started investigating blah blah and then we came up with this new equation and here is the proof blah blah." That was the old days. Whiteboard worked fine.

But was it fine? If you are delivering to five people, probably. What about 10, 20, 30, 100, 300?

These are the things to consider when giving a presentation:

1\. your target audience

2\. time constraint

3\. technology and tools available

4\. scope of your presentation (is this a lecture, a short 15-minute progress report, or a workshop)

 _"Without slides, the participants go further off-script, with more interaction and curiosity," says Andrew Askew, an assistant professor of physics at Florida State University and a co-organizer of the forum. "We wanted to draw out the importance of the audience."_

You see, if you are giving a two-hour workshop to a small group of scientists which everyone knows each other, the discussion can become interesting. But if you are giving a 30-minute workshop, a 30-minute talk to a larger group of people, whiteboard-free-style presentation breaks down.

The main problem is that only a handful of people will fully comprehend what the speaker is up to regardless of which method. Some people are slower at picking up new ideas. It could be experience, language barrier (and sometimes it's the speaker's accent) or misunderstanding. People fear of asking dumb questions in front of a large group of experts so in the end it's just an interaction of the speaker with a handful of experts. The rest will just nod and follow on.

Neither powerpoint nor whiteboard could solve the main problem entirely. But with powerpoint, one could traverse back and forth and audience does not have to suffer illegible handwriting (and in large group people could be sitting in the far back). This is something whiteboard-only discussion can't.

So if they run a small group discussion, chalkboard is fine. But if they run a large group discussion, I argue start with slides and supplement with whiteboard. Slides should be there to deliver textual information, graphical information which are hard to explain or to follow on a whiteboard.

<comment><USER29> What I see as pretty good is the usage of touchscreens. Thinkpad tablets are very popular, but also huge (24 inch and bigger) monitors installed permanently. The presenter than can display a powerpoint presentation (usually it's actually Beamer and consists of mostly white pages) and write directly into it. There is some structure given (and displaying Images and video is much better), and yet the advantages of the cardboard remain. It's even possible to flip back and forth.

<comment><USER24> I agree. It's nice to have both. Coursea/Udacity style. A lot of courses have formal lecture in ppt/pdf and then instructor writes over the presentation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Now that's a great experiment! I think the use of Powerpoint is useful and mandated under certain circumstances (e.g. if you want to show experimental data), but when discussing a concept with your peers, working on a whiteboard is better for various reasons:

1\. It forces you to think more about what you want to say and how you're going to write it down beforehand.

2\. It sets a uniform pace for your presentation (writing stuff down is harder than advancing slides)

3\. It lets your audience follow the train of thought that lead you to the results your presenting and allows your content to unfold before their eyes.

4\. It invites participation and allows for easy modification and adaption of your content during your presentation (try that with Powerpoint).

That said, structuring a good whiteboard talk/presentation is hard work too and I've seen many people (including professors) fail at it.

</comment><comment><USER31> As a particle physicist, I wholeheartedly welcome this. Our meetings, of which we tend to have 4-5 a week, are usually Powerpoint* orgies. Because of the intensly dense slides, its often hard to follow, and people don't listen to the reader but read the slides. Even worse, they think "I'll read the slides later" and work on their laptops in meetings. It's not rare to see 2/3 of a meeting work like sheep on their laptops (especially in larger meetings and talks), and only a small fraction is actually doing something talk related like viewing the slides, or doing actually urgent work. As a consequence, we have banned the use of laptops during talks in our group. What is completely normal everywhere else was a small sensation in our group, but I think everybody agreed that it is better now.

We can't realistically ban Powerpoint, since as experimentalists we have to discuss lots of graphics and plots. What we did try once was to use our lab books instead. Every (PhD, Masters) student would write a summary of their week's progress in their lab books, including printed out plots, and we would project it with one of these old-fashioned book-projectors. It was nice because you could also go back and look at the details in the lab book, and it would give you an incentive to keep your books correctly. Unfortunately, it became unpractical as our group grew, and also because we have a lot of collaborators from other groups who are connected via video.

\----

* Or Libreoffice, Keynote or Latex Beamer

<comment><USER32> What we do in our group is to put all plots and images into a wiki and at the meetings each person in turn would then just tell the person behind the laptop what page to navigate to, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> This is dumb; my handwriting sucks. I'd hate to give a hand-written talk.

<comment><USER34> I don't think this is a good attitude. It similar to saying "Give presentations? This sucks. My presentation skills suck. I'd have to give a talk." Both presentation skills and handwriting are attributes you can improve and if they are part of your job, you should improve them. People seem to think handwriting as something not worth working on, as the last time it was on the table was when we were children. Or maybe they see it as fixed and unmalleable.

<comment><USER33> You try explaining that to 250 students that can't read what you write. "It'll be ok, my handwriting will improve over time," doesn't exactly fly too well.

Also note that it's pretty hard to give numerical results to a computation on the blackboard. A plot generated by a computer program and embedded on a Beamer slide is optimal in this case.

My handwriting is improving, and I do try to improve. The fact you didn't glean that from my, albeit curt, response is hardly cause for putting words into my mouth. I appreciate the feedback though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I would hope they also ban whiteboards. Very difficult to see, and the markers become translucent after about 1cm of chalk-equivalent use.

</comment><comment><USER36> Banning powerpoint is a stupid reaction to some anti-powerpoint movement. Professors trapped in a college system that does not reward actual teaching is the problem. The powerpoints are just a symptom

<comment><USER28> The academic system main goal isn't teaching, but research. You need to teach to train new researches, but teaching isn't an end goal.

<comment><USER36> People are taking out 6 figure loans to be taught not to further a universities research goals.

<comment><USER37> You mean 5 figure loans right? Five figures are quite common (I am paying one off myself) but I think 6 is really quite rare.

In any case, with few exceptions tuition money does not get used to conduct any kind of research. Most of it will go towards some combination of paying for administration, facilities, and teaching fees for non-tenured lecturers (in the parlance of the US system). In fact, at most Tier I research institutions research grants are actually subsidizing educational expenses with various mechanisms built in to most awards requiring expenditures to this effect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Interesting fact - the usage Powerpoint-like presentations was one of the communication weaknesses that led to the Columbia shuttle disaster. A very good read about that here - [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)

More here - [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_shuttle_disaster](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_shuttle_disaster)

</comment><comment><USER39> Having the speaker write out things on a board also has the advantage of giving the listeners time to think through what has gone before. In my experience this leads to more interesting discussion.

I'm a teacher of economics and the only time I use slides is when I have to present a lot of data or literal text like the statements of theorems. Even in these situations I think distributing printed handouts works much better. But that involves logistics and expense.

</comment><comment><USER40> It is probably not centred around encouraging discussion but it reminds me of a beautiful piece from Peter Norvig: [http://norvig.com/Gettysburg/index.htm](http://norvig.com/Gettysburg/index.htm)

</comment><comment><USER41> Somethings are better without powerpoint-like presentation, but is possible to use it correctly.

I have used the ideas behind [http://www.presentationzen.com/](http://www.presentationzen.com/) with good results.

Based on that, my mom setup a service to build that kind of presentations at [http://www.emilypresenta.com/](http://www.emilypresenta.com/) (the site is in spanish for now), including finding, buying the photos/icons and the provide a basic layout for the talking part.

</comment><comment><USER42> Reminds me of the Anti-PowerPoint Party[1] (which was linked to on HN at some point). I would also like to say that I personally find whiteboard presentation much easier to follow. I taught a little bit too, but used slides, because it was easier. Maybe banning computer slides isn't such a bad idea...

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti- PowerPoint_Party](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-PowerPoint_Party)

</comment><comment><USER43> I don't mean to be a naysayer, but it's not like the entire LHC international organization banned Powerpoint. This is one forum at one arm of one project at the LHC.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's great, but this is quite a small group we're talking about. I guess this is what the meetings look like:

[http://i.imgur.com/kNJOySY.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/kNJOySY.jpg)

<comment><USER44> It's not even at the LHC, it's at Fermilab, half a world away...

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Good for them, but the truth is that every analysis group at CERN uses Beamer, Keynote or even Powerpoint for the almost everyday meetings via pdfs submitted to Indico (coupled with Vidyo). There's no reasonable alternative. Another completely different scenario are lectures or theoretical talks, there it never made much sense/it's a waste of time.

</comment><comment><USER46> Awesome awesome awesome! Physics classes at the LHC turned from nap-time for all to nap-time for some :D

</comment><comment><USER47> I'd say it makes sense for equation-heavy fields. The biophysics stuff I did during my Phd, however, worked very well with Powerpoint. I'd always have the images-and-diagrams-only presentation without text as my goal, which I usualy managed to almost-achieve.

<comment><USER48> In my view, nothing is more debilitating than trying to use PowerPoint for equations. I end up with severe eyestrain headaches and neck fatigue after an hour or so. For this reason I've given up on typeset equation altogether.

I attend occasional academic talks at the nearby university, and am seeing a growing trend towards simply pasting equations into PowerPoint in whatever their original format, such as MatLab or some programming language.

But I work in a business setting right now, and I've learned that equations in a presentation are taboo. A lot of non technical people assume if they see an equation, that the work is incomplete, otherwise you'd give an answer instead of an equation.

<comment><USER49> > A lot of non technical people assume if they see an equation, that the work > is incomplete, otherwise you'd give an answer instead of an equation.

Jeez. I mean, I agree that it's poor form to stuff a presentation full of equations, but what a dumb reason that is... :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> reminds me of my old philosophy professor, he never used slides or anything. Just transparencies and "a magic lantern" hahaha -- he didn't even call'em projectors!

</comment><comment><USER51> well word has long since ceased to be relevant (in the code literate world) Markdown, wiki mark up or similar has taken its place (and LaTeX always was close to ending it ) Now PowerPoint will join it as S5 and the like take over.

just wondering if the spreadsheet will be the only survivor</comment>