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The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster and the over-reliance on PowerPoint (2019)

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Re: The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster and the over-reliance on PowerPoint (2019)

#141

Post by phasetransition »

jacquesm wrote: post #117
dclowd9901 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny how the thankless jobs of quality assurance become so critical so quickly. And I mean that ironically of course. To folks out there: do the important work, not the glamorous work, and you'll not only sleep well, but you might actually matter as well.

Yes, but first it has to go horribly wrong. Same for security. After the breach there is plenty of budget.

We had a meaningful amount of {industrial accident happened} added to the pipeline every year. We made outdoor lighting.

Serious injuries or deaths is a terrible feeling, even if the end result was better safety for the rest of the workers.

Re: The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster and the over-reliance on PowerPoint (2019)

#142

Post by ubermonkey »

lupusreal wrote: post #122
mhh__ wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If nothing else it's quite hard/uncommon to print out a PowerPoint and read it carefully in a quiet room by yourself, I do this with written stuff all the time.

The whole point of PowerPoint is to pander to people who can't or don't want to sit down and carefully read a report. They want to sit back and passively consume information like they were watching TV. The problem then isn't so much PowerPoint itself, but rather these quasi illiterate people being in decision making positions. That's the real problem, and PowerPoint is just a symptom.

That's not really true.

Speaking in a meeting, or delivering a talk in a larger context, often works better with visuals. Delivering information in this way is not "pandering" to people who don't or won't read a detailed paper. They're different contexts with different goals.

Before Powerpoint, having any kind of visual aid to a talk was incredibly onerous. You had to print up transparancies, or literally have SLIDES made, and the whole thing was just an enormous pain in the ass.

The PROBLEM here isn't Powerpoint, or the existence of visuals during a talk. It's that humans are bad at communicating generally, and that the use of slides during a talk is something many folks absolutely do NOT understand or do well.

You've been to a talk where the speaker basically just reads the slides, right? That's pointless. What you want is slides that compliment and amplify what's actually being said, not duplicate it. You also want slides that "scan" well -- if your audience has to pause and read a 150 words on a slide, you've fucked up. (DoD and defense industry presentations are INFAMOUS for this, btw.)

Re: The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster and the over-reliance on PowerPoint (2019)

#143

Post by lupusreal »

ubermonkey wrote: post #142
lupusreal wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole point of PowerPoint is to pander to people who can't or don't want to sit down and carefully read a report. They want to sit back and passively consume information like they were watching TV. The problem then isn't so much PowerPoint itself, but rather these quasi illiterate people being in decision making positions. That's the real problem, and PowerPoint is just a symptom.

That's not really true. Speaking in a meeting, or delivering a talk in a larger context, often works better with visuals. Delivering information in this way is not "pandering" to people who don't or won't read a detailed paper. They're different contexts with different goals. Before Powerpoint, having any kind of visual aid to a talk was incredibly onerous. You had to print up transparancies, or literally have SLIDES…

Technical papers convey technical information more effectively than PowerPoint presentations, period. The only edge PowerPoint has comes from managers refusing to read technical papers, making the PowerPoint literally better than nothing.

Re: The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster and the over-reliance on PowerPoint (2019)

#144

Post by bitwize »

stinkbeetle wrote: post #49
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #44

I don't see how this has anything to do with PowerPoint. There wasn't clear communication; the medium was completely incidental to that. They could have been writing on a chalkboard and had a communication failure, does that mean that chalkboards should be blamed in that case?

Because the medium is not conducive to dense amount of technical information that readers are expected to use to make or understand decisions. Other similar mediums like a chalkboard were not singled out because the problem was identified with PowerPoint specifically. And it wasn't a choice of mediums all with similar problems, but slides vs papers. From the article, > “The Board views the endemic use of PowerPoint b…

Feynman communicated the problem with the Challenger disaster using a rubber band and a glass of ice water.

I don't think PowerPoint is the problem in and of itself, but rather its use as a crutch to compensate for poor communication. Of course, even among scientists, few can count themselves at Feynman's level in terms of communication skills. Maybe this is a skill that NASA scientists need to brush up on, perhaps with Pluralsight courses or something? lol

Re: The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster and the over-reliance on PowerPoint (2019)

#145

Post by GiorgioG »

arethuza wrote: post #125
jacquesm wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but first it has to go horribly wrong. Same for security. After the breach there is plenty of budget.

Many years ago I had a fascination with security and fancied becoming the CISO for the multinational I was working for at the time - my boss at the time, the CIO, said the role would really have no power and would be there as a sacrificial lamb should there actually be a serious security breach. This rather put me off the idea.

On the flip side, some companies have gone to extremes. I now have to MFA and provide a pin-code to authenticate. I have to do this several times a day. It's fucking mind-boggling how I can get anything done in a day when I spend so much time verifying who I am. I'm waiting for the next innovation...require a drop of my blood to log in.

Re: The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster and the over-reliance on PowerPoint (2019)

#146

Post by stinkbeetle »

andrewflnr wrote: post #85
stinkbeetle wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the medium is not conducive to dense amount of technical information that readers are expected to use to make or understand decisions. Other similar mediums like a chalkboard were not singled out because the problem was identified with PowerPoint specifically. And it wasn't a choice of mediums all with similar problems, but slides vs papers. From the article, > “The Board views the endemic use of PowerPoint b…

But the problem, if anything, was that too much dense information was conveyed at all . Based on the analysis in the post, of the engineers had replaced that slide with one that said "Don't go forward with reentry", that might have saved lives better than any change in medium. To be clear, I'm in favor of abolishing PowerPoint for any non-ephemeral use, but the problem here was focus and framing of the info.

The person I was replying to said they had no idea how it had anything to do with PowerPoint. The article quotes the report as identifying over-use of it as one of the problems that contributed to the communication break down.

I'm not making the argument and I'm not interested in engaging with this quibbling, I'm just explaining how the article said the expert who conducted the investigation found a problem with their use of PowerPoint. If you have a problem with that conclusion, then take it up with the investigation report, not me. I would be fascinated to see you provide a rebuttal of it.

Re: The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster and the over-reliance on PowerPoint (2019)

#147

Post by stinkbeetle »

breadwinner wrote: post #52
stinkbeetle wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the medium is not conducive to dense amount of technical information that readers are expected to use to make or understand decisions. Other similar mediums like a chalkboard were not singled out because the problem was identified with PowerPoint specifically. And it wasn't a choice of mediums all with similar problems, but slides vs papers. From the article, > “The Board views the endemic use of PowerPoint b…

Would it be better if you sent them a PDF document instead? There seems to be an assumption here that if you send the stakeholders a larger volume of information they will take the time to read it. Is that a valid assumption?

Are you asking me what I (a layperson having no knowledge of the organizations or projects) think, or are you asking me to look up the recommendations in the report that found over use of PowerPoint to have contributed to the communication problems at NASA for you?

Re: The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster and the over-reliance on PowerPoint (2019)

#148

Post by jacquesm »

GiorgioG wrote: post #145
arethuza wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many years ago I had a fascination with security and fancied becoming the CISO for the multinational I was working for at the time - my boss at the time, the CIO, said the role would really have no power and would be there as a sacrificial lamb should there actually be a serious security breach. This rather put me off the idea.

On the flip side, some companies have gone to extremes. I now have to MFA and provide a pin-code to authenticate. I have to do this several times a day. It's fucking mind-boggling how I can get anything done in a day when I spend so much time verifying who I am. I'm waiting for the next innovation...require a drop of my blood to log in.

Why is that extreme? I have to provide a pin code using MFA to my bank to authenticate, and their sessions are a lot shorter than your average developer or operator session.

And their actions impact far more than just my own account. Is it inconvenient? Yes. Does it work? Yes. Is it perfect? No, absolutely not but it is a useful layer in the cake.

Re: The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster and the over-reliance on PowerPoint (2019)

#149

Post by bell-cot »

poulpy123 wrote: post #136
bell-cot wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source? It would be solid water ice, mostly surrounded by shuttle wing structure, in a low-g reentry. Not an "ice & volatiles & etc." meteor in a high-g situation.

the sources are the pressure and temperature conditions at reentry and the water phase diagram

Ablative heat shields work very reliably, even though their material has no substantial liquid phase between solid and vapor.

The function of the ice would be to act as an ersatz ablative heat shield.

Also a famous ex-NASA engineer analyzed a similar situation (water + protein) -

https://what-if.xkcd.com/28/

- and noted no possibility of explosion, except in the case of a hypersonic tumble. A hypersonic tumble would shred the shuttle orbiter anyway, due to the extreme aerodynamic forces.

Re: The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster and the over-reliance on PowerPoint (2019)

#150

Post by Jgrubb »

somat wrote: post #91
quacked wrote: post #55

This isn't a failure of PowerPoint. I work for NASA and we still use it all the time, and I'll assure anyone that the communication errors are rife regardless of what medium we're working in. The issue is differences in the way that in-the-weeds engineers and managers interpret technical information, which is alluded to in the article but the author still focuses on the bullets and the PowerPoint, as if rewriting sim…

I love it when some company gets one of the engineers to do a demonstration, you know you got an actual engineer because it will be the worst sales pitch you ever received. They will tell you in excruciating detail all the problems with their product. Recognize and cherish these moments for what they are worth, despite the terrible presentation it is infinitely more valuable than yet another sales rat making untenabl…

As a former sales engineer - it's more about setting expectations correctly. If the customer knows the shortcomings (as well as the benefits) and signs anyway it's usually a good partnership. If the customer finds them out after the contract, then it's the opposite.
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