Magic of a Good Presentation

After watching Hans Rosling's statistical experiment and presentation on TED, I certainly have found good examples and ideas to add into a presentation.
I had actually seen this video earlier this semester as it was used by my statistics teacher to show a really cool example of statistics.
The first thing I noticed Rosling doing was adding humor.  He joked with the audience that chimpanzees were smarter than his students, and that the professors were just as smart as them.  Adding humor keeps the audience attention, but it didn't distract from his presentation at all.

The most important thing that Rosling did was the visual representation of populations and statistics about them.  Everything was moving, visually appealing, easy to understand, etc.  It didn't stop there though;  Rosling was enthusiastic and that added a great deal to his ideas by removing boredom and monotony and replaced it with excitement.  What he does here is so much more interesting that any normal presentation.  It is truly a good example of a job well done.

I don't know how I would, but I certainly can take away that adding an interesting visual aspect can certainly make the presentation more than a bore.  Another thing that would be good to add would be asking the audience questions, and using those questions to show a point, as I think he did during his performance also.

Josh

The Kindle 2 and Copyrights

I have recently read into and watched some videos on Amazon's Kindle 2.  The handy reading device has taken some flack from the writer's guild for it' text to speech function, saying that it goes against audio copyrights.  I would have to disagree with this agrument totally at this point in time.  The Kindle may be able to read a book to you, but it lacks any human emotion, a good amount of clarity and an interesting voice.
After Watching the ad for it, I came to the thought that It was cooler before I saw it in action.  The video shows an example of text to speech and I can say it would drive me nuts having to listen to a book in that manner.  Currently I would say it offers no real competition to those who like their audio books and I would suggest not getting it for just that feature.  And since it offers no real competition at this point, thie Writer's Guild can back off.  Of course some day voice technology may become so real that it outdoes audio books, then I would imagine ppeople could make their money selling their voices as options to use in the readings, as I have seen in some GPS units.
Though I can say It would be interesting to have a Kindle but, since I do not read a whole lot, I think for the time being I would rather have a real book.

Josh

Obama Hope and Street Art

After reading multiple items about Shepard Fairey and his work, the Obama Hope poster, I have come to this conclusion.  I believe that Shepard is nothing better than a plagiarizer, and what we see done with plagairism often has terrible consequences.  People get expelled from schools, fired from jobs, lose lots of money, but he got away free.  This article from the AP website tells us that the photographer dropped charges, most liely because he was just tired of it all.  He deserves more credit than he got from taking the picture, and Fairey deserves a just punishment.
I think that Creative Commons is a reasonable idea for some things, but if they didn't want to put it there, then it doesn't belong there.  If it had been put there, then Fairey still could have been in a lawsuit depending on the type of license put on it.  He escaped with no real harm and that is what's wrong.

And no I am not putting up an Obamanated picture cause they are pretty generic nowadays.

Another topic in general is street art.  I think there is a fine line between street art and graffiti and this needs to be determind.  To me graffiti is simply writing ones name, a gang name, or something that really isn't something people would find attractive.  Street art is more like something that people put time, effort, and skill into.  Sometimes it is the best way to show the world your work, as many cannot get into an art galary, or another similar thing.  Of course some people would just be plain offended by it either way so, I suppose it could be annoying.  If someone was drawing on my building  would be pretty annoyed.

Josh

Amazing Pictures of the Smallest Kind

Looking through galleries of pictures taken on iPhones, I can say I am very impressed.
First looking through some pictures on Wired I started being amazed not buy the size, but by the way the pictures were took.  They are absolutely brilliant and portray the author's work, all with an iPhone camera.  I could never imagine that such a small, wimpy camera could be so amazing.
Next I was looking at Tony Stewart's iPhone pictures and was amazed.  No matter how small, they hold so much.  So much amazement in a little package, I cannot fathom how it was done.  It could be the filters placed over certain pictures that add just a little bit of style that perfects it.
However it is, the iPhone certainly has a lot of potential for being so small!  I can't wait to see what the future of phone cameras bring.

Josh

Creative Commons Thoughts

I was reading "What is Creative Commons" on RSS Specifications, and I would like to share my thoughts.
I think that it is a great thing for people to be able to access free content from Creative Commons.  This makes it easy to create something of your own, but with the help of others doing things that maybe you couldn't afford.
It is nice that there are different kinda of licenses available for someone to use.  This is good because you can choose how you want your works to be copyrighted, which is quite nice.
Though I personally would never actually put anything on Creative Commons, if I made something, I would want to profit from it.  I would not really like to just put it there for many people to use, even if I would get credit.   Though I see how that would be helpful when say I needed a picture to design a website.  It is a lot easier to find a free use picture than get sued.

Josh