Daniel Keep wrote:
> There's always S5: it lets you make slideshows in HTML.
> 
> http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/s5/

I’m partial to Slidy <http://www.w3.org/Talks/Tools/Slidy/> myself.

—Joel Salomon

Walter Bright wrote:
> ...
> 
> o pdf renders a lot better than html. Why that should be, I don't know, but it is obviously better.

I could be the old Mac "feature".  From what I recall, Apple is
fanatical about the on-screen display of something matching, as closely
as possible, the on-page display.  This means that when they render
text, they render it without adjusting the glyphs to fit the pixel grid.
 This tends to lead to slightly blurrier text on-screen.

Since PDF is for print output, it probably does the same thing.  Firefox would be using the system text libraries which fit glyphs to a pixel grid, and often don't antialias at low point sizes.

> ...
> 
> o Of course I miss the D source code highlighting that Ddoc does.

You should be able to copy+paste HTML with its formatting in-tact.

> o Impress doesn't seem to be able to do tables. Bummer.

I know that 3.0 does.  Just don't use too many of them, or Impress will start coughing up blood.

> ...

  -- Daniel

Sean Kelly Wrote:

> == Quote from Andrei Alexandrescu (SeeWebsiteForEmail@erdani.org)'s article
> >
> > I don't agree. I think there is much more at work here. Slides are limited in size and text content simply because there is so much information a person can absorb simultaneously by hearing and seeing. So the slide with text is simply an anchor, a high-level memento to rest one's eyes on, while the speaker gives some detail pertaining to the high-level points that the slide makes.
> 
> For lectures I basically have a choice between two options:
> 
> 1. Take notes and not remember a darn thing that was said. 2. Not take any notes and remember the lecture.
> 
> I've seen a few raised eyebrows at times, but this is why I never write anything down at a meeting or lecture I'm attending--it draws my focus away from the material being presented.

yeah da raised brow. fuck that shit. i took a pascal class at motherfuck memorial comm college in b'more. i'd take a front seat & not write shit. teach couldn't tell a lambda from da mole on his face anyway. at the finals i finish first. the mo'fucker is like, 'well giving up already?' gave him mah look "if i didn't need ur fucking grade my ankle would be up yer fucking asshole by now, asshole'. to his credit the mo'fucker had enough decency left to fuckin' apologize. so i tell him he had a bug in problem 4 & went mah way.

Sean Kelly wrote:
> == Quote from Georg Wrede (georg.wrede@iki.fi)'s article
>> The "presentation software format" is more restrictive than we usually
>> think. Everything has to be crunched to ridiculous screenfuls, mostly
>> containing a couple of bullet items. And if you want the audience to
>> follow the presentation "where you are" you have to do all kinds of
>> one-at-a-time appearing bullets. It's really pathetic. (And I, at least,
>> end up spending inordinate time figuring should they fly in from the
>> left or rignt, or should they "emerge", or whatever.) Instead of simply
>> scrolling them into view when needed.
> ...
>> PP is for M$ style sales pitches, not for disseminating serious content.
>> IMNSHO, of course. (And the less there's bread and butter, the more you
>> can decorate, having everybody exit, aahing and oohing all the way home.)
>> And how do you present conveniently a code snippet that exceeds a
>> screenful?
> 
> When I went back to finish my degree I was forced to take a Public Speaking
> course, and the course basically had one simple message:
> 
> The likelihood that an audience will either get lost or bored is an exponential
> function of the complexity of the presentation.  As much as I despise the PP-
> based presentation format, it does force the speaker to simplify things as
> much as possible.

That's certainly true with non-techie audiences. I wish we had had speaking classes when I went to school. The first time I gave a lecture at the university, my hands trembled visibly on the OH.

Sean Kelly wrote:
> For lectures I basically have a choice between two options:
> 
> 1. Take notes and not remember a darn thing that was said.
> 2. Not take any notes and remember the lecture.

Eh, I found that the physical act of taking notes tended to fix it in my brain. Furthermore, at Caltech there tended to be no textbook and no handouts, so you went by your notes. Exams were open-note, too. So taking good notes was indispensible.

Georg Wrede wrote:
> 
> That's certainly true with non-techie audiences. I wish we had had speaking classes when I went to school. The first time I gave a lecture at the university, my hands trembled visibly on the OH.

I'm fine if I can just sit down and talk, but if I have to stand in front of people I still get nervous and scattered.  I was told my talk at the D conference actually went reasonably well, but I forgot or missed about half the points I'd meant to cover out of sheer terror :-)

During a public speaking course in high school one of our lectures was supposed to be a published work of some sort, so I did the part of a evangelical preacher in a Steven King novel.  It was a breeze to do and I had a lot of fun with it, playing with pace and tone.  Something about the fact that I was "acting" instead of simply speaking as myself made all the difference in the world.  If I had to give talks regularly I'd probably prepare them pretty much word for word just to feel more like I was doing this, at least until I got more comfortable with speaking.

Sean Kelly wrote:
> Georg Wrede wrote:
>>
>> That's certainly true with non-techie audiences. I wish we had had speaking classes when I went to school. The first time I gave a lecture at the university, my hands trembled visibly on the OH.
> 
> I'm fine if I can just sit down and talk, but if I have to stand in front of people I still get nervous and scattered.  I was told my talk at the D conference actually went reasonably well, but I forgot or missed about half the points I'd meant to cover out of sheer terror :-)
> 
> During a public speaking course in high school one of our lectures was supposed to be a published work of some sort, so I did the part of a evangelical preacher in a Steven King novel.  It was a breeze to do and I had a lot of fun with it, playing with pace and tone.  Something about the fact that I was "acting" instead of simply speaking as myself made all the difference in the world.  If I had to give talks regularly I'd probably prepare them pretty much word for word just to feel more like I was doing this, at least until I got more comfortable with speaking.

Most of that is just repetition.  I used to be scared as hell.. just rushed through whatever I had to tell people and finish as fast as I could.  I've now done enough presentations that the terror has subsided and I can give a decent talk.  It took years and lots of terror though.

Later,
Brad

Sean Kelly wrote:
> I'm fine if I can just sit down and talk, but if I have to stand in front of people I still get nervous and scattered.  I was told my talk at the D conference actually went reasonably well, but I forgot or missed about half the points I'd meant to cover out of sheer terror :-)

Do a few more and the terror will pass. I promise!

Brad Roberts:
> I've now done enough presentations that the terror has subsided
> and I can give a decent talk.  It took years and lots of terror though.

That's why you have to start giving presentations of your ideas/stories from the age of about 6 or so :-)
I think in USA some schools use something named "show & tell" that also has the purpose to help children go past that terror very early...
Yep, Wikipedia confirms that:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Show_and_tell

Bye,
bearophile

On 2009-05-04 14:47:10 -0400, Sean Kelly <sean@invisibleduck.org> said:

> For lectures I basically have a choice between two options:
> 
> 1. Take notes and not remember a darn thing that was said.
> 2. Not take any notes and remember the lecture.
> 
> I've seen a few raised eyebrows at times, but this is why I never write
> anything down at a meeting or lecture I'm attending--it draws my focus
> away from the material being presented.
> 
> What I really like is when a lecturer provides pre-written notes for their
> presentation.  This way I can get everything out of the lecture itself, and
> still have material to review later if I want to be reminded of some detail.
> Other than a professor or two I've seen precious few people actually do
> this however.

Strangely enough, I was doing this most of the time during lectures at university. I was taking notes, but only scarcely, and often not at all in the many courses where there was enough supporting material.


-- 
Michel Fortin
michel.fortin@michelf.com
http://michelf.com/