I use Google Slides as a lightweight notetaking format at work. This works great for me because it's super flexible, and has the added benefit that I can easily convert my notes to actual presentable slides during standups or other meetings. Usually these aren't actual polished slides such that you'd see in a corporate presentation, but talking points to keep meetings more focused and productive.
Dennis Austin, developer of PowerPoint, has died
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Re: Dennis Austin, developer of PowerPoint, has died
#72If you want to read about the development of PowerPoint by its visionary, you can checkout the book Sweating Bullets by Robert Gaskins:
Dennis Austin was the lead developer and Gaskins was the idea guy/manager.
Re: Dennis Austin, developer of PowerPoint, has died
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sounds like an amazing guy to work with.
The rest of the story was that he was hired at a startup that was founded by two non technical brothers. The brothers got funding and hired a consulting company to build the MVP and find product market fit. They brought him in to build out an internal team to remove their dependence on the consulting company. I was his second technical hire. He wanted to make everything “cloud native” for HA and scalability reasons.…
I also got my start in tech with an irrationally benevolent technical manager. He was a PhD research scientist who has built this incredible system and was quickly building a team out to scale it.
I was just getting out of the military, and trying to find what was next. I had no internships or previous engineering experience. The most I could speak to was some comp sci classes I was currently taking for my MS, and a background in excel. He didn’t grill me with leetcode. There wasn’t really even an interview. We just talked about big picture ideas for 45 minutes. And then he told me he wanted me on board. Keep in mind this was at a large, well known unicorn - hiring didn’t normally work like that was but somehow he just sort of made it happen.
The code base was in Java. I had never written Java, but he knew that and told me I’d probably figure it out. The team also didn’t have the bandwidth to upskill someone as junior as I was. I appreciated the opportunity to sink or swim and prove myself.
Re: Dennis Austin, developer of PowerPoint, has died
#74[dupe]
Re: Dennis Austin, developer of PowerPoint, has died
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
The rest of the story was that he was hired at a startup that was founded by two non technical brothers. The brothers got funding and hired a consulting company to build the MVP and find product market fit. They brought him in to build out an internal team to remove their dependence on the consulting company. I was his second technical hire. He wanted to make everything “cloud native” for HA and scalability reasons.…
I also got my start in tech with an irrationally benevolent technical manager. He was a PhD research scientist who has built this incredible system and was quickly building a team out to scale it. I was just getting out of the military, and trying to find what was next. I had no internships or previous engineering experience. The most I could speak to was some comp sci classes I was currently taking for my MS, and a…
I would usually just upvote you. But I love the term “irrationally benevolent”.
Unlike Amazon that is “irrationally malevolent”. But I knew that going in. I made my money. Learned what I could. Put it on my resume and let it open some doors.
I don’t mean to come off bitter. It was a completely transactional decision to go to AWS and it served its purpose.
Re: Dennis Austin, developer of PowerPoint, has died
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a tech weirdo I still think PPTs are the best way to convey concepts. You can mix bullet points with images and video and have everything be progressively revealed exactly when you explain it. I can‘t even think of an alternative to this other than adhoc whiteboard drawings which can‘t match PPTs on any axis except if you‘re just (collaboratively) developing an idea/concept
> I still think PPTs are the best way to convey concepts. Man I wonder how humanity was able to function with concepts before the PPT format was born. Surely this resulted in an explosion of productivity?
If you can't see, it may be that you're not a player /s
Re: Dennis Austin, developer of PowerPoint, has died
#77I work in a Corporate where we have lots of "strategy" teams and PPTs flying around. What I learned is that PPT are more than a presentation format in this culture, they are a signaling tool: • something that is "just" an email, or "just" something somebody said in a meeting doesn't carry much weight in Corporates • .. but if you put it in a PPT with some graphics, it signals you've thought about it, and probably had…
As a tech weirdo I still think PPTs are the best way to convey concepts. You can mix bullet points with images and video and have everything be progressively revealed exactly when you explain it. I can‘t even think of an alternative to this other than adhoc whiteboard drawings which can‘t match PPTs on any axis except if you‘re just (collaboratively) developing an idea/concept
Yep. I think things like Jupiter are really just imitating ppt. It’s generally the same concept, a linear series of information chunks, mixing text and graphics, the formality of written prose stripped away, just enough for one sitting. PPT are great, it’s the people who only use PowerPoint, often for nefarious ends, that I am distrustful of, not the modality itself.
Re: Dennis Austin, developer of PowerPoint, has died
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a tech weirdo I still think PPTs are the best way to convey concepts. You can mix bullet points with images and video and have everything be progressively revealed exactly when you explain it. I can‘t even think of an alternative to this other than adhoc whiteboard drawings which can‘t match PPTs on any axis except if you‘re just (collaboratively) developing an idea/concept
Video is usually more effective for asynchronous presentations. Powerpoint is great for spoken presentations where everyone is in the same room. But they generally suck as summary reports. For thinking and analysis word docs are superior. For asynchronous presentation video is superior. Video allows you to control the timing and framing in a way that a slide deck cannot. The main downside to videos is that they are h…
Most good video presentations include a ppt or the equivalent. A video is just a spoken presentation that’s recorded, like a live spoken presentation it can include visual aids or not, it’s still a spoken presentation. You may confusing categories of things, or maybe I’m too used to seeing ppt with slides containing embedded video.
Re: Dennis Austin, developer of PowerPoint, has died
#79A strange legacy. Most of the management in my company cannot digest even simple information if it’s not on PowerPoint slides. Even when it is on preparing PowerPoint slides, text heavy slides are a big no no. Some days, more time is spent on PowerPoint slides than writing code, or actually engineering. We jokingly call presentation prep work as getting ready to push the PowerPoint to prod.
I don’t see an issue with this. I had a very technical CTO at my n-2 job who was in his 50s and would often write POCs himself in C# or Python as research. When he wanted to see if data that we got had the information we needed he would upload it to S3 and run some Athena queries. But I still know when he asks me some questions he just wants a very high level overview and doesn’t want the details. I’m working with hi…
This is the way it should be. People get promoted being their knowledge and/or intelligence and thus the status quo.
Re: Dennis Austin, developer of PowerPoint, has died
#80I heard he was shot several times... ... died of too many bullet points (I'll see myself out)
Yes, just slide out and fade away. Don't transition back either :)