Clintons Law of Politics

It’s such a shame, there’s nothing wrong with supporting your wife but when it means leaving all those old ‘principles’ behind?

Presentations & Powerpoint, Part 1

Inevitably at work I give quite a few training sessions and although I don’t particularly like using powerpoint it can be an effective and easy way to present ideas/results. I’ve always thought my powerpoints lack a really nice design, I’ll come up with a few nice one-off slides but the overall effect usually lacks the visual harmony which you get with a really good presentation. I started looking into this the other night, beginning at Merlin Manns www.43folders.com. He wrote a nice presentation for the guys at Google about Inbox Zero. It’s a very simple presentation but very good (although long) and he starts with a great story about email….

I then found myself on one of those clicking journeys which can either go into a 3 hour rat-hole of discovery/learning or I could record the best bits so here it is. Some good tips and links to use when thinking about presentations.

Seth Godin wrote a really useful ebook called Really Bad Powerpoint. It’s a good place to start.

I then found Garr Reynolds who’s written a phenomenally popular blog and book on the subject both entitled Presentation Zen. He did a talk at Google on the subject which is worth watching (again long, take notes).

I’ll probably get it so will review when I’ve finished it. He also shares some nice visual slides displaying good/bad examples:

This is turning quite long so I’m gonna split it and add some more later.

Stars of the Lid play Arvo Parts Fratres

It doesn’t get much better than this….

from www.last.fm posted with vodpod

The Sounds of Silence

I haven’t even seen it yet but this just makes me want to go more than ever…. “What is unusual about “No Country for Old Men” is not simply the level of audio detail but that it is a critical part of the storytelling. Skip Lievsay, the sound editor who has worked with the Coen brothers since their first feature, “Blood Simple” (1984), called “No Country” “quite a remarkable experiment” from a sonic standpoint. “Suspense thrillers in Hollywood are traditionally done almost entirely with music,” he said. “The idea here was to remove the safety net that lets the audience feel like they know what’s going to happen. I think it makes the movie much more suspenseful. You’re not guided by the score and so you lose that comfort zone”Here’s the rest. 

Nutty Tom Cruise Scientology Video

The Hollywood actor is clearly a fanatic so it’s interesting to see him talk about his faith. The video’s clearly meant for scientologists as he uses quite a bit of jargon (ksw – keep scientology working and sp’s – suppresive people) which makes sense as he comes across as a total nut-job. They’ve had most of the versions taken off youtube but hopefully this one’ll last a bit longer. If Cruise jumping on Oprahs couch was 8 on a weird scale of 1 to 10 then this is definitely a 10. “When you’re a Scientologist, and you drive by an accident, you know you have to do something about it, because you know you’re the only one who can really help…. We are the way to happiness. We can bring peace and unite cultures.” Course you can Tom, course you can.

   

Here’s the inevitable response….

Apple News

Being the eternal mac nerd I am I was pretty excited about the new announcements on Tuesday at Macworld (Time Capsule, Macbook Air, Apple TV, iPod Touch update). Although I’m still holding out on an iPhone, once the 3rd party apps start appearing that’ll probably tip me over the edge. Most of the iPhone owners I know rave about them as laptop replacements. I get that but I do alot of typing and presentations so not for that but anything’s gotta be better than my N95 (tries to do everything, does nothing particularly well). This leaves me thinking about a new lighter laptop which I can take on the bike without breaking my back. The Macbook Air looks good but for £1199? Brilliantly designed but massively underspecc’d machine? No thanks. Below is what I consider exciting…. £189 on ebuyer. Yes that’s right. £189. I had a go the other day, seriously cute. Performance isn’t great and you’d probably have to run linux or XP but for that price at that size? People have hacked OS X onto it but it’s slow. What would be better is if someone could hack the iPhone OS to stick on it. Yeah I know there’d be interface problems but some form of Mac OS X lite? That would very very cool…… My favourite feature of Leopard is Back to my Mac. With this I can use my laptop to control my desktop at home remotely via wireless. This is where Apple is heading and it’s an amazing idea. Why should I worry about the speed and hard drive size when all it is is a remote for my Mac at home? Anyway, as per normal I’ll probably sit like a transfixed rabbit staring into car headlights for a few months and then realise that actually I don’t need any of the above…… Hopefully. One last point. Apple TV 2. I like it. I want one. $219 or £199 in the UK and no movie downloads in the UK. Hmmmm.

How to Make a Magic Fireball

How To Make Fire Balls – video powered by Metacafe

The Feltron Report

Amazing summary of a year in the life….. magnificent,  beautiful and unlike anything else you’re likely to see in this fiscal quarter.

Pirates and Rappers – A Mix

I generally start new years with a mix and imagine that I’ll do one every month or so. If past performance is anything to go by that’s less than likely but here it is anyway, a blend of krs-one, commix, cypress hill, ghostface, kool keith, dangermouse with some dirty drum n bass at the back. Not much new stuff but I quite like it and besides I had to do something to counter the fact that my lifelong hatred of opera seems to be evaporating. shit. Anyway, click on the pic, prove you’re no robot, ignore the poker ad and it’s all yours….

Monome

If anyone’s still wondering what to get me for my birthday then this should solve that. Since the invention of the keyboard and the theremin it drives me mad that there haven’t been any interesting, tactile interfaces for electronic music production. This is hooked up to a fender rhodes and I want one lots.