Project Announcement – Examensarbete
Are you a M.Sc. science/engineering student in Sweden? Yes? Keep reading.
The Nanotechnology & Functional Materials group at Uppsala University is offering an examensarbete (masters thesis project) this fall on the topic of buckypapers. This project builds on the work reported in the 2010 Carbon and 2009 Chemical Communications articles listed here. (A more “pop science” take on this work can be found here.)
A Short Film on Life in Uppsala, Sweden
After 3+ years of owning a Mac, I finally decided to tinker with the preloaded iMovie software. I’ve learned that preparing a film is like preparing any other presentation, but with a lot more moving parts. For my first effort, I wanted to share with you some of the things I see in Uppsala. Bear in mind that this is, by no means, all-encompassing. Let’s see how I did. (Hm, a couple of the map images don’t appear as intended… something happened during Vimeo’s conversion. Oh well.)
Marriage in Sweden
Form your own conclusions.
gift = married
ogift = single (unmarried)
*
*
*
avgift = fee
*
*
*
*
*
giftig = toxic
Design Your Own Burgers? Sign me up.
I love fast food so I had to mention this new burger restaurant opening next month in Manhattan called 4food. Besides the “green” materials and wireless internet everywhere, the coolest aspects will be the extensive and customizable menu and that
4food encourages customers to save their favorite burger combinations in the 4food system, give them catchy names … every time a custom burger is ordered, the creator receives 25 cents in 4food store credit. (CNET)
Read more here. I hope this place manages to turn a profit and remain open until the next time I visit New York.
If anyone tries it, I’d like to hear how it is.
A Real-Life “Dos Equis Most Interesting Man” – minus the beard
If you have seen the Dos Equis “Most Interesting Man in the World” ads, like the one above, you might have thought at some point, “It would be pretty cool if this guy actually existed.” Well, stay thirsty, my friends: thanks to random Wikipedia-ing, I have found one such man existed in real life.
His biography…
Porfirio Rubirosa Ariza , (January 22, 1909 – July 5, 1965) was a Dominican diplomat, polo player and race car driver who competed in the 1950 and 1954 24 Hours of Le Mans, but was best known as an international playboy for his jet setting lifestyle and legendary prowess with women.
Replete with an outlandish “Chuck Norris” style fact… Read the rest of this entry »
Ditch the laser pointer for good.
If you’re giving a slide presentation (typically, with PowerPoint), never again use a laser pointer. I will offer a solution/alternative later in this post, but first, let me explain why laser pointers are bad:
- To use the pointer, you have to look at your slide to ensure that it is hitting the correct spot. As you describe the item you’re pointing at, you end up speaking at the wall rather than to the audience.
- If one hand is committed to the laser pointer, you are forced into an awkward posture and can’t gesture naturally with your hands.
- The “transition” between speaking to the audience, turning to point, and then turning back is inherently choppy. And on top of that, someone in the audience likely fails to see the laser pointer (gets distracted, too much glare, etc) and misses the point of the slide entirely.
I was inspired to write this post after I attended a talk where the speaker was turned 90 degrees away from the audience the entire time he spoke, even when there weren’t slides to point at with the laser pointer. He had turned to use the laser pointer, and never turned back to face the audience!
First, this should be the Zeroth Law of PowerPoint…
If you feel that you need to use a laser pointer, I am guessing that you have TOO MUCH CONTENT on that slide. So, declutter. Cut through the auxiliary info and figure out what your most important message is, and focus on that one message on that slide. Plenty of people who write about how to make effective presentations have advice on how to declutter your slides (fyi, each of those links is to a different guide). With apologies to thermodynamics…
- Zeroth Law of PowerPoint: If Slide A and Slide C are each in equilibrium with just one message, then audience will B happy.
Two alternative solutions to the laser pointer
Even after you’ve decluttered your slides, you might have some important idea that requires the audience to consider multiple graphics at once. Here are two approaches to use that will allow you to remain engaged with and facing the audience. Read the rest of this entry »
It Will Cost You [VIDEO]
This piece is brilliant but evokes sadness for a future that may yet come to pass.
Fabian Brunsing’s public art installation “Pay & Sit: The Private Bench” imagines a dystopian tomorrow in which even the most quotidian of conveniences — resting a moment on a park bench — have become soulless objects of enterprise. (from The Daily What via Andrew Sullivan)
Here in Sweden, such conveniences have already been monetized: at the Stockholm and Göteborg train stations, access to individual restrooms requires depositing 10 kr into the coin slot.
