Archive for May, 2008

It’s Boring

Saturday, May 31st, 2008

I’m reading a book called Presentation Zen. It is highly regarded, well-reviewed, and recommended by lots of people. So far it’s boring. Now to be fair I am only about 30 pages in to it. But I’m having trouble continuing. Now last night I read a novel of about 360 pages in just over 4 hours so it’s not like I have a reading attention span problem. It’s just that I want more from a book.
I have no doubt that the author gives a great presentation. I really don’t doubt that I can learn a lot from the book. But I wonder if I could learn more faster from listening to the author give a talk on the subject. Just because someone is good at doing something doesn’t mean they are good at writing about it. Different skills are involved. A book is not just a talk written down. There is a different art to telling a story in written form from spoken.
Oh well. I’m going to read the book – its really for work – but I’ll do it is small chunks.
Speaking of books. A good book that is closely related to presentations that gives ideas that work for written work as well as spoken is Made To Stick. That one held my interest and I really learned a lot from it.

Starch and Hangers

Monday, May 19th, 2008

A couple of years ago I started taking my shirts to be professionally laundered. Mainly I was trying to avoid having to iron them myself. It gets more expensive every couple of months which is annoying. Still I hate to iron so I pay it.

The other thing is that I started having them use starch. It makes the shirts feel so crisp and clean that I really like it. They are not so stiff as to be uncomfortable but more they feel like shirts right out of the store. They also feel clean longer. At the end of the day they are usually still sharp and crisp looking. It makes me feel more professional. It’s one less thing I need to think about.

I started taking my pants in recently. Not my jeans of course but my khakis and other pants that I wear to work events. Not quite as crisp as starched shirts but still a better job than I can do myself. It’s a bit of luxury.

I’ve never been a real clothing person. I wear what the circumstances call for and I don’t get too hung up on who is wearing what. But I have decided that if a dress shirt is called for having it look as sharp as possible makes me feel good.

BTW if you are interviewing you may want to splurge on having a couple of dress shirts professionally cleaned and pressed. For me it is a confidence boost as much as anything else.

Caffeine

Saturday, May 10th, 2008

I don’t get this “caffeine keeps you awake” stuff I keep hearing. I just finished a nice warm cup of hot tea (Dunkin Donuts LARGE) which should be enough caffeine to keep one awake right? And yet all I want to do is take a nap. The same thing happened to me the other day.

I don’t drink coffee (yuck!!) but I drink cold beverages with caffeine and they never keep me awake either. Is this a myth or is my system just different?

Photosynth on CSI:NY

Sunday, May 4th, 2008

Normally one sees a lot of mocked up or otherwise faked “computer technology” on TV shows. Recently on CSI:NY they used some real tech from Microsoft Research – Photosynth – on the show. You can read about it and see the clip on the Virtual Earth blog. Pretty cool stuff. I can’t wait until this stuff makes it out of the labs so more people can use it for real.