How not to use PowerPoint

I suspect that everyone who has worked in a technical field has seen this kind of person. You know, the kind of clown who prepares a PowerPoint presentation, and then liberally reads the content of the slides out loud to the public. That's just sheer buffoonery, and it's an insult to the intelligence of one's listeners.

People like that typically lack common sense. They fail to realize that the audience is perfectly capable of reading the slides for themselves, thank you very much.

I would cut people slack when they're not college educated and haven't worked in industry before. After all, I understand that public speaking is an acquired skill. I also understand that some people are very uncomfortable when it comes to public speaking. If one is in the position of giving such talks on a regular basis though, then one should really know better.

This article might be beneficial to these folks. It talks about the reasons why PowerPoint is not a teleprompter.

What the...?

I swear, I do not understand how some people have so little energy. Lead them through a simple jitterbug basic, and they already get tired. It's one thing if you have a glandular disorder, but for a lot of people, simple exertion is enough to tax them heavily.

That's why a lot of people are obese. It's not simply that they move sluggishly because they're fat; after all, I know a lot of dancers who are significantly overweight, and who still move with energy. Rather, a lot of people are fat because they've gotten used to moving sluggishly. They don't want to put any effort into everyday motions, and so even simple dance moves are enough to wear them out. Ditto for simple things such as walking up two flights of stairs.

Allan, you were a jerk

I was reminded of Allan, a former schoolmate of mine who -- during an English class -- openly expressed his disgust toward the poor people in a park. Not a classy thing to say.

Allan, you were a jackass. That was admittedly a long time ago though, so hopefully you're a better person now.

Writing tip

Writing Tip of the Day: Avoid starting a sentence with "however." Try "nonetheless" instead.

Ranking the angels

This is how I would rank the classic Charlie's Angels.

1. Cheryl Ladd
2. Farrah Fawcett-Majors
3. Jacklyn Smith
4. Kate Jackson
5. Shelly Hack
6. Tanya Roberts

More costume thoughts

Sometimes, people don't have the time or inclination to make an interesting costume. They might not have the finances, either. I know one guy who wore his cook's uniform to a costume party, for example. That was reasonable, especially since he wasn't earning a lot of money.

However, it's usually lame when people take these costumes and actually enter a contest. For example, I attended a costume event once wherein one guy wore his taekwondo outfit. Nothing wrong with that, but then he entered himself into the costume contest. Predictably, people did not applaud for him. No offense to the guy, but it's not hard to see why. There's nothing clever about that kind of costume; instead, it speaks of someone who just used whatever he had lying around and using it uncreatively.

BO-RING.

Lame costumes

I like attending costume parties. Unfortunately, a lot of people simply have no creativity when it comes to costumes.

Consider this pre-Halloween dance that I attended recently. There was a costume contest at this dance, and three of the women who joined the contest were dressed up as witches. Get that? Witches. Plain old boring witches in black outfits. There is simply no way that a costume like that would win in any sort of honest contest.

Now if they had dressed as the witches of Eastwick, that'd be different. Or maybe Wendy the Good Little Witch. But your garden variety witches? Boring as all get out.

Costumes that are too obviously store bought are also extremely lame. Batman costumes, for example, are almost invariably lame, especially when they involve fake muscles. (Here's a hint, guys. Fake muscles on a costume are always a dumb idea.)

I know a guy who dressed up as Robin -- the classic Dick Grayson version. That's more original than dressing up as Batman. What's more, the costume looked very authentic, since it was homemade and had a lot of effort put into it. (Store-bought Bat-costumes invariably look cheesy.)

No more Traylor

Only two more episodes of "Monk" to go. I'm going to miss this wonderful cast I will miss Tony Shalhoub's comedic and dramatic talents, as well as the powerful performances from Ted Levine and Jason Gray-Stanford.

I will also miss Traylor Howard. What a gal. She makes Natalie Teeger very likable.

I would be tempted to get the complete DVD sets. However, since I've seen virtually every episode at least twice, that would be kinda excessive.

BioScience

BioScience is the wave of the future.

Okay, that's a bit of hype; after all, there are all sorts of technologies with tremendous promise for the future, and these are often complementary. The greatest innovations often occur when you have cross-fertilization between disciplines. Still, bioscience is a tremendously promising field, so it's no surprise that some organizations are actively trying to promote it.

Good for them.

Windows Vista still sucks

Windows Vista sucks to high heavens. Talk about a resource hog.

I've got 4GB of memory and a pretty fast processor. When switching from one application to another, I should not have to wait several seconds.

Heck, I'm even using Google Chrome, which is much faster than Internet Explorer, and it's still slow. I click on the Chrome entry in the task bar, and it still takes several seconds for Chrome to respond.

This doesn't happen all the time, mind you. When it does happen though, it's bloody annoying.

One to ten

nueng: 1
song: 2
sarm: 3
see: 4
ha: 5
hok: 6
dedt: 7
baedt: 8
know: 9
sib: 10

The language of Muay Thai

andap: vrating
bat: block
champ: champion
dtae: to kick
dtae kao: knee kick
dtae wiang: roundhouse kicking
dtee: to hit
dtoi: to box
dtoi lom: shadow boxing
gamagan: referee
garsawb: punching
gawn welaa: novice bout
hua: head
kai boxing: camp
kao: knee
kradot: jump
kradot dtae: jumping kick
kru: instructor
kwaa: right
lop: to duck
mat at: uppercut
mat drong: straight punch
muay sakon: international boxing
na kaen: shin
nak muay: boxer
nuam: gloves
saai: left
sawing: swing
sawk (or sok): elbow
ting: throw
weh tee: ring
yaek: break

Those darned lyrics

Here is a snippet of the lyrics that I mentioned earlier.

Blue canary in the outlet by the light switch
Who watches over you
Make a little birdhouse in your soul
Not to put too fine a point on it
Say I'm the only bee in your bonnet
Make a little birdhouse in your soul


Here's another little excerpt.

There's a picture opposite me
Of my primitive ancestry
Which stood on rocky shores and kept the beaches shipwreck free
Though I respect that a lot
I'd be fired if that were my job
After killing Jason off and countless screaming Argonauts
Bluebird of friendliness
Like guardian angels its always near


"Countless screaming Argonauts." Now that cracks me up.

Birdhouse in your Soul

I've been listening to "Birdhouse in Your Soul" by They Might Be Giants. Now that's a catchy song. A total earworm.

The lyrics are kinda nonsensical, though. There was some clear reference to a lighthouse, but much of the remaining lyrics were kinda oblique. As it turns out though, the song was written from the viewpoint of a blue canary-shaped night light. It referenced a painting or photograph of a lighthouse, which the night light apparently considered to be its predecessor.

Good to know that it wasn't purely nonsense. Some of the lyrics were kinda shoehorned in and didn't make much sense, but the song was still great.

More rantings

Here are some disjointed thoughts.

One of my Zumba instructors is cute. She's not pretty in any classical sense, but she's physically fit and quite friendly. She's also very intelligent, which makes her very attractive. She can also dance, and I've found that to be appealing. A few years ago, I would never have said such a thing.

I like geeky jokes. That's one reason why I enjoy watching "The Big Bang Theory." I especially like the scene where Penny made a Star Trek reference without even realizing it.

I also like the PharmiWeb website. They've got a lot of really helpful resources. Great stuff.

Oh, and I miss the old Riptide TV series. I loved that show.

I wish I had more hours in the day with which to work out. Sigh. I'd love that.

Swing dance during Zumba! I love it!

I loved it!

I attended a Zumba exercise class tonight. I don't normally do that, but I felt that I needed more variety in my exercise routine. Besides, I strained an Achilles tendon a few weeks ago, so I need something less demanding than my usual Monday night plyometrics. That's where having some variety in one's exercise routine can really help.

During the cool down segment, our instructor started playing "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" and she did some east coast swing moves. I loved it! I love swing dancing, and inwardly, I was screaming, "Ah! I wish I had a good swing dance partner right now. We could really show these people some fun stuff."

Yeah, I like to show off now and then. I do it more than I should.

Lindy moves

Here is my new list of the lindy moves that I've learned recently:

Swingout from the open position
Swingout from the closed position
Lindy circle
She goes
He goes
Outside turn
Rollaway
RJ
RJ with a turn
RJ with follow-through
Texas tommy
8-count tuck turn
Reverse swingout
"Mark's pretzel"
Basic dip
Dip with a turn
Dip wherein woman almost sits on the guy's lap
Handpress with no turn
Handpress with a single turn
Handpress with a double turn
Hip catch

The Lovely Bones

Emily Deschanel really makes the TV series [em]Bones[/em] sizzle. She does a great job of making her character seem highly intelligent, despite her statuesque beauty. Supposedly, this is because the actress herself is quite intelligent and was cast with that purpose in mind.

The TV show sometimes stretches credibility to the breaking point, such as when it uses its magical holographic technology or makes wild inferences. Most recently, it played up the leprechaun angle in last week's storyline, requiring one coincidence after another. The show itself is still fun though, due largely to the interactions between the two leads.

The Mythbusters got it right!

I was absolutely thrilled at the Mythbusters last night. This week's episode touched on the subject of rocket-powered flight. They mentioned a certain Renaissance master, and they referred to him as "Leonardo."

Why is this special? Because most buffoons would have called him "da Vinci," which is completely incorrect. His name was Leonardo. "Da Vinci" was simply Italian for "from Vinci," and it was not his proper name.

"But that's how people call him!" some people complain. That's true, but those people are incorrect. Let's not foster inaccuracy and ignorance, folks.

A clever title makes all the difference

When writing an article, a clever title can make all the difference. For example, I once wrote an article titled, "The Sad State of Science Education" and submitted it to a few magazines. One magazine editor realized that this title wasn't very catchy, so he changed it to "Science: The Forgotten Subject." Now that was clever.

Consider the following article as well: "When Is A Software Engineer Not A Software Engineer?" That's a great example of how to drive a point home using clever wordplay. It also gets the reader's attention.

Someone once told me about an article titled "Anorexia Wrecks Ya." I would have loved to read that one.

Very clever indeed.

IBPA

Consider this to be a free plug for the IBPA, the International Biopharmaceutical Association Alliance. To paraphrase its own literature, the IBPA brings together biopharmaceutical and clinical research institutions and organizations from across the world for reflection and action on common concerns and collaborates with various regional, national and international bodies active in biopharmaceutical industry and clinical research. The IBPA's services are available to organizations, institutions, and authorities concerned with biopharmaceutical industry and clinical research, and to individual policy and decision-makers, specialists, administrators, researchers, educators and students.

Aquagirl

I had read about Tula, aka Aquagirl, in some old Adventure comic books. Then in an issue of New Teen Titans, Marv Wolfman retconned her into being a member of that distinguished team of teens, presumably in some untold adventure.

I more recently learned that there was another Aquagirl, a blonde lady named Lisa Morel who appeared in Adventure #266. She predated Tula by several years. She was an Atlantean whose powers had been dormant and were reawakened. She lost her powers by the end of the story though, and she has not reappeared since then.

Supposedly, there was also an Aqua-Girl named Serena who appeared in one issue of World's Finest Comics. I've never read the story, though.

There is a new Aquagirl named Lorena Marquez. She was initially depicted as having developed water-breathing capabilities, but is now shown as having extraordinary strength as well.

On Batman Beyond, there was another Aquagirl played by Jodi Benson. Since Jodi provides the voice of Disney's Little Mermaid, this was strangely appropriate.

Michelle Nicastro

I discovered that Michelle Nicastro is on Facebook. I don't know if she's still performing or not, but apparently, she's doing some charity work nowadays.

She was great as the voice of the Swan Princess, and she did a wonderful job on the very first Unsung Musicals CD. I love to hear her sing.

Randy Disher

Did you catch last night's episode of "Monk"? The buffoonish Randy Disher demonstrated his worth as a police officer by protecting three young boys from a pair of gunmen in the woods. This was without a firearm on his person. He waited for the gunmen to pass, then using a piece of wood, he knocked one of them out, grabbed his shotgun, and trained it on the other fella. Randy for the win!

I've always felt that the writers went overboard in portraying Randy as an incompetent buffoon. Moments like this demonstrate how useful he is as a police officer.

It's also great that both he and Monk noticed a vital clue -- namely, how one of the gunmen would twist peanut shells open instead of opening them along the seam. I remember one previous episode in which he solved this mystery at the same time that Monk did. And of course, one of his shining moments was when he and Monk needed evidence to put a bad guy away, and Randy was the one who realized that they could get his fingerprint off of a truck's ignition key.

Loving it.

V, the new TV series

So, in order to appreciate the new V television series, do I need to first watch I through IV?

And do I need to watch the first twelve movies in order to appreciate Apollo 13?

That's not science!

I've encountered an amazing number of people who pride themselves on being "scientific," and yet have a very poor idea what science is all about.

Consider the fellas who insist that science is the only way that we can know truth. If you think about it though, that's a self-refuting statement; after all, what manner of scientific test can possibly show that science is the only possible path to truth?

Another fella said (and I paraphrase only slightly),

"There are many people who would have better lives if they used the scientific method in relationships. 'Your girlfriend loves you' is the hypothesis. If she does indeed love you, then she will say so, she will want to be around you, and she will treat you reasonably well. If she seldom comes home until 5 am, we might falsify the hypothesis that she loves you, right?"

A few people pointed out that this was NOT an example of the scientific method, and that the conclusions did not logically follow from the tests. Among other things, the results are subjective and not replicable. I like what one fella said (again, paraphrased slightly):

"If we say that any scientific results must objective (that is, all researchers get the same results), replicable (i.e., the experiment produce the same results every time), and quantifiable (i.e., the results are precise measurements rather than vague assessments), then none of the approaches that you're describing involve the scientific method. In fact, they fail on all three counts.

"To take the girlfriend example, your description shows exactly why the scientific method won't work in that situation. You say: 'If she does love you, she will say it, she will want to be around you, and she will treat you reasonably well.' But it's wrong it both directions. Firstly, a woman could say she loves a man, spend time around him, treat him reasonably well, and yet not love him. Second, a woman might love a man but not do any of those things if circumstances intervened, or if they had the kind of relationship which didn't center on those things. The point is that the experience of the love between two people cannot be quantified, cannot be replicated, and cannot be objectively assessed by outsiders. In other words, it is not subject to the scientific method. It is a unique experience between just those two people, and it may be vastly different from what any other two people in love experience. Anybody who searched for love by trying to exactly replicate some sort of average of what others did would be setting him/herself up for failure."

Still so very, very tired

I am still so utterly tired. I wish there was a place here where I could stretch out and just relax for a while -- maybe catch a nap.

I'm sitting in a rocking chair in a busy building. Where? Let's just say that it's a public place of commerce and leave it at that.

I am very, very, very tired. I know that this is getting repetitive, but the bottom line is that my brain isn't working very well right now. I could use some Zs. I'd take a nap right here, except that i need to watch over my stuff.

German

I've often wished that I understood German. That way, I could make sense of pages such as this one. German is a very logical language, or so I've been told. It might be nice to learn.

BTW, in my younger days, I received a bit of ridicule for wanting to learn a foreign language. My classmates were relatively bright, so they understood, and my parents were very supportive. A lot of other people just couldn't understand why anyone would want to do such a thing, though.

I don't think I'll ever really learn German, though. I just don't have the time. Heck, I'd love to learn Latin, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.

TBBT

I recently discovered The Big Bang Theory on TV and DVD. This show cracks me up! Howard's vocal expressions are hi-larious, and even Penny, the least cartoonish character on the show, is still very funny.

I loved that bit where the four geeks were dressed up as the Flash, and where Raj suggested that they walk right behind each other in order to simulate the Flash's after-images. Wow.

I won't go into the Christmas episode, the key scene of which is an extremely popular YouTube video. Let's just say that it's also extremely funny.

I hope that this show remains on the air for a long, long time to come.

So tired. So very, very tired.

I am so groggy. I had to get up very early in the morning in order to get together with someone. Ugh. I am exhausted as a result, and I could use a nice long nap.

I've been pushing myself so hard to do stuff -- work, yard work, housework, exercise and so forth. I could use a long vacation.