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PowerPoint is a fantastic tool when used as designed - to create slide decks to provide assistive material for an in person presentation, or longer report. The

by Aloha 9y ago

PowerPoint is a fantastic tool when used as designed - to create slide decks to provide assistive material for an in person presentation, or longer report. The issue is, most people don't use PowerPoint like that, rather than being assistive, it becomes the end result, so you end up with very complex material distilled down to a single slide, loosing much of its value and context - or worse, inscrutable diagrams and charts crammed with so much detail no one could understand them, and again, often lacking in context. I once worked for a large telecom - everything came 'round in a slide deck; Need an account for this service? PowerPoint Need to understand this complex technical issue? PowerPoint Need directions to configure some software? PowerPoint Need some common links for services? PowerPoint It was absurd - I joked that if PowerPoint suddenly disappeared, no one at the office would know how to get anything done.

badsectoracula 9y ago
On the other hand, the slides i see from places like GDC and Siggraph are by themselves almost always good enough to be self contained (the presentations are certainly better but by making the slides usable by themselves you make them useful for a lot more people). As an example the main reason the last game i worked at had screen space decals was that i randomly read Pope Kim's SSD SIGGRAPH 2012 slides [1] which had enough detail for me to create a quick prototype in the editor and toss around the artists. Considering how much the artists used SSDs all over the place, the slides being self contained certainly made a difference. Personally, as someone who doesn't tend to visit conferences and instead prefers to read things from his computer (and watch on youtube too, but i still prefer to read than watch), i'd hate it if slides were reduced to just assistive material :-P. [1] https://www.slideshare.net/blindrenderer/screen-space-decals-in-warhammer-40000-space-marine-14699854 https://www.slideshare.net/blindrenderer/screen-space-decals...
- ghaff 9y ago
  That’s the rub. Pretty much none of the external decks I create are intended to be self-contained. They’re whatever I thought was best to support my talk. Now ideally there are speaker notes or a separate doocument that serves as backup. Of course, there often isn’t.
- ci5er 9y ago
  Agreed. Some of the old SIGGRAPH course material like Baraff's PBM stuff[0] was simple/clear and stood on its own legs. He didn't use the Notes section of PPT to print leave behinds (like my lazy own self does) - but took the time to interleave his talking points with his slides for the "leave-behind". Karl Sims ... Same thing. I still use some of the old SIGGRAPH material to teach/tutor my now university age kids how to create interesting projects (like the old x-springies) around numerical methods and creating little toy beginner physics engines. [0] https://graphics.stanford.edu/courses/cs448b-00-winter/papers/phys_model.pdf https://graphics.stanford.edu/courses/cs448b-00-winter/paper... (slides - including Witkin's are after the whitepaper-ish looking stuff at the front of the file)
knolan 9y ago
I currently work at a large telecommunications corporation. This is exactly the situation, PowerPoint all the things. It’s infuriating. I wonder is it the same place. Ring a Bell? I recently had a colleague, who fancies himself the master hacker, ask me how to edit a file on ‘this Linux thing’. I went over to his desk and he was copying shell commands from a PowerPoint presentation into PuTTY running on a Windows VM on his Mac. The mind boggles.
- Aloha 9y ago
  I worked for \\\ - we were doing network support and deployment for the yellow cell carrier, I in particular worked on network gear made by a Korean company. Surprisingly I'd love to work for a large telecom again, I enjoy the work, and surprisingly even the large corporate environment, plus, I'm in the PNW right now, and I'd like to relocate to 'not here' (Ideally DFW, but I'm not picky, just someplace warmer).

by Aloha 9y ago

badsectoracula 9y ago

On the other hand, the slides i see from places like GDC and Siggraph are by themselves almost always good enough to be self contained (the presentations are certainly better but by making the slides usable by themselves you make them useful for a lot more people). As an example the main reason the last game i worked at had screen space decals was that i randomly read Pope Kim's SSD SIGGRAPH 2012 slides [1] which had enough detail for me to create a quick prototype in the editor and toss around the artists. Considering how much the artists used SSDs all over the place, the slides being self contained certainly made a difference. Personally, as someone who doesn't tend to visit conferences and instead prefers to read things from his computer (and watch on youtube too, but i still prefer to read than watch), i'd hate it if slides were reduced to just assistive material :-P. [1] https://www.slideshare.net/blindrenderer/screen-space-decals-in-warhammer-40000-space-marine-14699854 https://www.slideshare.net/blindrenderer/screen-space-decals...

ghaff 9y ago
That’s the rub. Pretty much none of the external decks I create are intended to be self-contained. They’re whatever I thought was best to support my talk. Now ideally there are speaker notes or a separate doocument that serves as backup. Of course, there often isn’t.
ci5er 9y ago
Agreed. Some of the old SIGGRAPH course material like Baraff's PBM stuff[0] was simple/clear and stood on its own legs. He didn't use the Notes section of PPT to print leave behinds (like my lazy own self does) - but took the time to interleave his talking points with his slides for the "leave-behind". Karl Sims ... Same thing. I still use some of the old SIGGRAPH material to teach/tutor my now university age kids how to create interesting projects (like the old x-springies) around numerical methods and creating little toy beginner physics engines. [0] https://graphics.stanford.edu/courses/cs448b-00-winter/papers/phys_model.pdf https://graphics.stanford.edu/courses/cs448b-00-winter/paper... (slides - including Witkin's are after the whitepaper-ish looking stuff at the front of the file)

knolan 9y ago

I currently work at a large telecommunications corporation. This is exactly the situation, PowerPoint all the things. It’s infuriating. I wonder is it the same place. Ring a Bell? I recently had a colleague, who fancies himself the master hacker, ask me how to edit a file on ‘this Linux thing’. I went over to his desk and he was copying shell commands from a PowerPoint presentation into PuTTY running on a Windows VM on his Mac. The mind boggles.

Aloha 9y ago
I worked for \\\ - we were doing network support and deployment for the yellow cell carrier, I in particular worked on network gear made by a Korean company. Surprisingly I'd love to work for a large telecom again, I enjoy the work, and surprisingly even the large corporate environment, plus, I'm in the PNW right now, and I'd like to relocate to 'not here' (Ideally DFW, but I'm not picky, just someplace warmer).