Chris Nolan- Not the Batman Guy

Chris Nolan was kind enough to come and speak to us about searching effectively for things on the web. What was so exciting to me was that he had the same name as the director of Batman. In a close second was the versatility and complexity of the searches that Google allows. I always sort of thought Google was a "click and search" search engine, but never realized its capabilities for refining search, especially within an ".edu" or a specific website even, like youtube..

Power Point

Now, sometimes powerpoint presentations can be pretty much the best thing ever. I know that I would not have been able to pass biology without them. The problem is, most of the time powerpoint is horribly misused. Here are my little complaints.
1)  Don't put in snazzy music clips unless you're talking about the birth of jazz.
2) Under no circumstances does text need to swirl in, stop, turn backwards, jump up and down and turn three different colors. Make your point, do it succinctly. No fireworks.
3) Same goes for slide changes. If you want to have one of the subtle ones like this slide slides in from the left to replace the other slide, fine, but no bouncing it makes your audience's head hurt, and you lose credibility.
4) The point of powerpoint is to present an outline of your presentation, with charts and graphs. It is not supposed to be your whole conversation. A lot of the time people put so much information in their slides that their audience is overwhelmed and you override the purpose of a visual aid in the first place.
5) Finally, Presenters are often overshadowed by their powerpoints. If a presenter relies too much on their powerpoint, they lose the power of a live presentation. Be present, or just send an email.

However, if used properly, Powerpoint can be an invaluable tool. It can help you organize your thoughts and points in a presentation, present visual data like charts and graphs and if approached correctly, can turn out really good presentations that are attractive, to the point, and sure to maintain an audience's attention.

Prepare to be Amazed

So today in class we visited CLT. As I type this I am sitting in the awesome computer lab typing on a screen that is about twice as wide as my body is. I even scanned a self portrait of myself, which just might get me discovered and sent to RISD or Julliard or some fancy art school like that.

 Check out those mad artistic skills! In all seriousness, though, I'm really amazed at the amount of resources available in CLT. I'm pretty sure I knew about the video editing software, but I was shocked to learn that they have engineering and music composition software as well. I also think it's great that they make equipment available to check out. My dad has a digital video camera and a digital SLR and stuff like that, but as of right now I don't have any digital photographic devices. Furthermore, if Robert Chapman serves as an example, the staff seems really committed and I appreciate that.

Revisionist Reality

Ok, so this is just awesome. This is a hoax from a 1934 German April Fools edition of some crazy magazine, which somehow ended up traveling around the US as breaking international news. It is supposedly a new machine that ran solely on lung power, but it was always meant to be a hoax. Therefore, since it was never intended to fool the stupid Americans (Dumm Amerikaner, in German) I vote that it was in no way harmful.
However, as it was printed in 1934, I doubt it was photoshopped or otherwise digitally manipulated. Most likely they had the guy tied up by strings.


On an equally awesome note, What you can do with photoshop is amazing. I have never had a problem with altering your appearance, be it by plastic surgery or new make-up. When you can do it digitally its just even more acceptable. Check out this woman becoming 25 years younger: