8 ms·

On the Turing Completeness of MS PowerPoint [pdf]

160 points by gwern 9y ago

watersb 9y ago
Ig Nobel Prize in Computer Science It is now clear that Scott McNealy's banishment of PowerPoint required the creation of much less-capable systems, and thus to the demise of Sun.
raoulj 9y ago
The video accompanying this paper (recommend watching for a good laugh): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNjxe8ShM-8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNjxe8ShM-8
- JetSpiegel 9y ago
  Not that the paper lacks any chucklegoofs, but that video takes the cake.
Animats 9y ago
That's so Microsoft. Historically, Microsoft systems tended to execute anything that came within range of an execution engine. This formed the basis of many, many exploits. Gradually, they tightened up the defaults for AutoRun, Excel spreadsheets, and Word documents. Then came PowerShell and a whole new generation of exploits.
- conistonwater 9y ago
  I think that's not what this particular case is about, see the video for a demonstration of what the Turing machine looks like here. In particular, the Turing machine progresses one state at a time, advanced by user clicks (!). It uses AutoShapes and On Click Animations, the number of which depends on the number of states and the number of tape cells.
  - Animats 9y ago
    Writing an exploit in that would be a real challenge.
    - B1FF_PSUVM 9y ago
      Shh.
saurik 9y ago
This is literally the twentieth (!!) time in less than two months that this talk/paper has been submitted to Hacker News. The entire concept of this kind of website (Hacker News / reddit / etc.) really needs some major innovation to deal with this variability of response to content combined with repetition of material over time due to the rotation of readers (which eventually leads people to move to new communities of people with a different seed base of "stuff already seen"; a problem I call "the cohort problem" and have given talks about at times). (There is also something weird going on where Algolia claims this specific post appeared 19 hours ago while Hacker News itself claims it appeared only 3 hours ago. What's up with that?) As mentioned in another comment, I will argue the video is a much better way to experience this, due to a combination of the humor of the presenter and being able to watch it actually function. (After seeing it on Hacker News when it was posted six or seven weeks ago, I showed this video to the first day of a class I am teaching this quarter on the nature of programming languages.) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14016364 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14016364
- kyberias 9y ago
  Is the audience totally drunk or somehow mentally retarded? It's slightly funny yes, but laugh-out-loud funny?
  - saurik 9y ago
    FWIW, the first time this was linked on Hacker News it was to the copy of the video without the live audience audio track (in case the over-the-top laughter is distracting). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14012737 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14012737
- gwern 9y ago
  > This is literally the twentieth (!!) time in less than two months that this talk/paper has been submitted to Hacker News. It may be the twentieth time the talk has come up, but it's not for the paper; I check my submissions with hn.algolia.com usually. > (There is also something weird going on where Algolia claims this specific post appeared 19 hours ago while Hacker News itself claims it appeared only 3 hours ago. What's up with that?) Algolia is counting my original submission last night, not the boosted resubmission by dang or whichever HN mod decided to give it a second chance. Personally, I didn't find the video better than the paper.
tonmoy 9y ago
Next step, emulate powerpoint within powerpoint
- nom 9y ago
  imagine the number of clicks it will take :D
DanielLee5 9y ago
As for the Powerpoint, here are some great templates https://www.templatemonster.com/powerpoint-templates.php https://www.templatemonster.com/powerpoint-templates.php , may be will be useful for someone. I use these products at office, very good quality.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

160 points by gwern 9y ago

Ig Nobel Prize in Computer Science It is now clear that Scott McNealy's banishment of PowerPoint required the creation of much less-capable systems, and thus to the demise of Sun.

raoulj 9y ago

The video accompanying this paper (recommend watching for a good laugh): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNjxe8ShM-8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNjxe8ShM-8

JetSpiegel 9y ago
Not that the paper lacks any chucklegoofs, but that video takes the cake.

Animats 9y ago

That's so Microsoft. Historically, Microsoft systems tended to execute anything that came within range of an execution engine. This formed the basis of many, many exploits. Gradually, they tightened up the defaults for AutoRun, Excel spreadsheets, and Word documents. Then came PowerShell and a whole new generation of exploits.

conistonwater 9y ago
I think that's not what this particular case is about, see the video for a demonstration of what the Turing machine looks like here. In particular, the Turing machine progresses one state at a time, advanced by user clicks (!). It uses AutoShapes and On Click Animations, the number of which depends on the number of states and the number of tape cells.
- Animats 9y ago
  Writing an exploit in that would be a real challenge.
  - B1FF_PSUVM 9y ago
    Shh.

saurik 9y ago

This is literally the twentieth (!!) time in less than two months that this talk/paper has been submitted to Hacker News. The entire concept of this kind of website (Hacker News / reddit / etc.) really needs some major innovation to deal with this variability of response to content combined with repetition of material over time due to the rotation of readers (which eventually leads people to move to new communities of people with a different seed base of "stuff already seen"; a problem I call "the cohort problem" and have given talks about at times). (There is also something weird going on where Algolia claims this specific post appeared 19 hours ago while Hacker News itself claims it appeared only 3 hours ago. What's up with that?) As mentioned in another comment, I will argue the video is a much better way to experience this, due to a combination of the humor of the presenter and being able to watch it actually function. (After seeing it on Hacker News when it was posted six or seven weeks ago, I showed this video to the first day of a class I am teaching this quarter on the nature of programming languages.) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14016364 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14016364

kyberias 9y ago
Is the audience totally drunk or somehow mentally retarded? It's slightly funny yes, but laugh-out-loud funny?
- saurik 9y ago
  FWIW, the first time this was linked on Hacker News it was to the copy of the video without the live audience audio track (in case the over-the-top laughter is distracting). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14012737 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14012737
gwern 9y ago
> This is literally the twentieth (!!) time in less than two months that this talk/paper has been submitted to Hacker News. It may be the twentieth time the talk has come up, but it's not for the paper; I check my submissions with hn.algolia.com usually. > (There is also something weird going on where Algolia claims this specific post appeared 19 hours ago while Hacker News itself claims it appeared only 3 hours ago. What's up with that?) Algolia is counting my original submission last night, not the boosted resubmission by dang or whichever HN mod decided to give it a second chance. Personally, I didn't find the video better than the paper.

tonmoy 9y ago

Next step, emulate powerpoint within powerpoint

nom 9y ago
imagine the number of clicks it will take :D

DanielLee5 9y ago

As for the Powerpoint, here are some great templates https://www.templatemonster.com/powerpoint-templates.php https://www.templatemonster.com/powerpoint-templates.php , may be will be useful for someone. I use these products at office, very good quality.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]