Finally, here is part two of my three-part series on how to give presentations that don’t suck. If you missed part one, you can always go back. If you’re still hungry for more information after you’ve read this article, be sure to check out Dazzle 'em with Style (thanks go to Marc for the heads up).Surprise your audienceMost presentations are [...]
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Some advice on how to give a presentation that doesn't suck – part two
Nov 15, 18:48 PM by Kai JägerSo we're censoring the Web now?
The left-winged politician Lutz Heilmann has sued the German Wikipedia branch and has obtained an interim order that prohibits "Wikipedia Deutschland e. V." from forwarding the domain wikipedia.de to de.wikipedia.org which is under US jurisdiction. Apparently the Wikipedia article on Lutz Heilmann contains some statements (I assume regarding his involvement with the GDR secret police "Stasi" As it turns out, the lawsuit has nothing to do with his involvement with the "Stasi". It is about an incident where he allegly sent threats to an acquaintance via SMS.) that he deems slanderous.
IfMr. Heilmann really wasn't involved with the "Stasi" and if his Wikipedia article in fact contains slanderous remarks, then he has every reason to be mad, but suing Wikipedia is probably the worst thing he could have done. For one, the article wasn't written by a single individual but by a whole bunch of people who seem to agree that the information given in the article is factual and well-founded. In a sense, Wikipedia represents the voice of the masses and Mr. Heilmann as member of a left-winged party should know better than to just censor it. He could have started an open discourse, clarified things, heck he could have sent a letter to the Wikipedia foundation asking them to freeze the page until the issue is resolved. Instead he chose to sue a non-profit organisation that gives millions of people access to vast amounts of information. Secondly, as Wikipedia is an organisation that is well-regarded by the public, the whole incident is bound to create a stir and a good amount of negative publicity. Also, I suspect that since the notice that appears on wikipedia.de mentions Heilmann's name, more people are now going to look him up... on Wikipedia... and be exposed to the "slanderous" remarks about him.
While the whole thing may not end up having the effect that Heilmann is hoping for, it shows how easily the Web can be censored. Sure, the article on Heilmann is still available through the US domain, but the average "Hans Six-pack" may not know that. This is pretty scary, considering how imporant the Web has become as a source of unfiltered information.
Nov 06, 22:36 PM by Kai Jäger
If
While the whole thing may not end up having the effect that Heilmann is hoping for, it shows how easily the Web can be censored. Sure, the article on Heilmann is still available through the US domain, but the average "Hans Six-pack" may not know that. This is pretty scary, considering how imporant the Web has become as a source of unfiltered information.
Some advice on how to give a presentation that doesn't suck – part one
Presentations or talks are a lot like movies: most of the time they’re “okay”, sometimes they’re awful and every now and then a presentation comes along, that is so incredibly awesome, it will blow your mind. I have to sit through a lot of presentations these days and unfortunately so far, most of them have fallen into the awful-category. That’s [...]
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Oct 16, 19:42 PM by Kai Jäger
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Interweb, what would I do without thee?
When I was ten years old, I would listen to the radio all day. I didn't have a CD player and MP3 hadn't really taken off yet, so the radio was my only source of new music. Of course at ten year old, I didn't really have a fully developed taste in music, so the radio was just fine, at least most of the time. Then one day I hear this wonderfully catchy song and it bugs me that I can't listen to it again whenever I feel like it. So the next day, I put a blank cassette into my crappy 1980's ghetto blaster that I inherited from my brother and I wait. Sure as hell, the song comes on again and I record it. Of course I miss the first ten seconds or so, but it's a good start. For the next couple of days, I record hours and hours of radio programming but the song never comes on again. So I'm stuck with my half recording, but that doesn't bother me much. I make some half-hearted attempts to obtain a complete version of the song, but as I don't know the artist let alone the name of the song, I ultimately just stick with what I have. So I listen to this song again and again for at least a year until something better comes along.
Fifteen years later, just a few days ago, I remember that song again. I don't know why, I just do. I know as much about the song now as I did back then, but now I have the internet. Funny enough, I do rember chunks of the lyrics which is kinda strange, considering that I didn't know a word of English at ten. One of the chunks I remember is "like the one we have here". Sounds pretty generic, but just one internet search with "like the one we have here lyrics" leads me to Paul Bennet's "This is real love". But is that really the right song? I don't know that yet, but I think it's very likely. A search on YouTube gives me this abommination and it sounds strangely familiar. It's a lot like the early Backstreet Boys just, for the lack of a better word, "gayer" (no, I'm not a homophobe, give me a break).
So after fifteen years, I finally find out the name and artist of a song that I enjoyed as a ten year old. If that's not amazing, I don't know what is. Of course the downside of this discovery is, that I now also know that the ten year old me had a very poor taste in music.
And I have another music-related internet story I would like to share with you: A few weeks ago, a colleague of mine all of a sudden started to whistle a familiar melody. I told him "I know that song, in fact I think I have it on CD, what is it?". He didn't recall. He had heard it played by a street musician but didn't know what it was. Things like that tend to drive me nuts, so the same day I went through a substantial part of my music collection but couldn't find it. As I whistled it myself, I remembered more of the melody and even some of the instrumentation. It was clearly a piece of classical music and it most definitely was a waltz, but beyond that, I had no clue what it could be. So after going through my classical music collection once more without success, I decided to record the parts of the melody I had remembered with my MIDI keyboard (yes I have a MIDI keyboard and no, I don't play the piano). So I uploaded my recording to watzatsong.com and just three minutes later, someone comes up with the composer (Dimitri Shostakovich) and the name of the piece (Waltz No. 2). So I looked through my classical music collection again and of course the piece has been sitting there all along.
So thank you internet. You are truly awesome. And if there's anything I can ever do for you, just let me know. Okay?
Oct 11, 09:13 AM by Kai Jäger
Fifteen years later, just a few days ago, I remember that song again. I don't know why, I just do. I know as much about the song now as I did back then, but now I have the internet. Funny enough, I do rember chunks of the lyrics which is kinda strange, considering that I didn't know a word of English at ten. One of the chunks I remember is "like the one we have here". Sounds pretty generic, but just one internet search with "like the one we have here lyrics" leads me to Paul Bennet's "This is real love". But is that really the right song? I don't know that yet, but I think it's very likely. A search on YouTube gives me this abommination and it sounds strangely familiar. It's a lot like the early Backstreet Boys just, for the lack of a better word, "gayer" (no, I'm not a homophobe, give me a break).
So after fifteen years, I finally find out the name and artist of a song that I enjoyed as a ten year old. If that's not amazing, I don't know what is. Of course the downside of this discovery is, that I now also know that the ten year old me had a very poor taste in music.
And I have another music-related internet story I would like to share with you: A few weeks ago, a colleague of mine all of a sudden started to whistle a familiar melody. I told him "I know that song, in fact I think I have it on CD, what is it?". He didn't recall. He had heard it played by a street musician but didn't know what it was. Things like that tend to drive me nuts, so the same day I went through a substantial part of my music collection but couldn't find it. As I whistled it myself, I remembered more of the melody and even some of the instrumentation. It was clearly a piece of classical music and it most definitely was a waltz, but beyond that, I had no clue what it could be. So after going through my classical music collection once more without success, I decided to record the parts of the melody I had remembered with my MIDI keyboard (yes I have a MIDI keyboard and no, I don't play the piano). So I uploaded my recording to watzatsong.com and just three minutes later, someone comes up with the composer (Dimitri Shostakovich) and the name of the piece (Waltz No. 2). So I looked through my classical music collection again and of course the piece has been sitting there all along.
So thank you internet. You are truly awesome. And if there's anything I can ever do for you, just let me know. Okay?
Broken Sword 2.5 is pretty good
What’s Broken Sword you say? Only one of the best point-and-click adventure game series ever made (I never made it past the second game in the series, but the first two were awesome). Broken Sword tells the story of a young American George Stobbart who as a tourist in Paris becomes involved in a conspiracy involving the Templars, a french photo journalist named Nicole Collard and a clown. That’s all I’m going to reveal about the story of the first game, because if you haven’t played it yet, you should (It’s on ScummVM, so it will run on a modern PC) and I don’t want to spoil it for you.
The appeal of the first two games, besides their great story, was their incredible production value. The games featured beautifully hand-drawn backgrounds as well as cel-animated characters and cut-scenes (made possible by Philippine labor). Also, the first Broken Sword game released in 1996 was the first game I recall playing that featured an orchestral soundtrack (composed by the Australian-born Barrington Pheloung).
After the release of “The Smoking Mirror”, the second game in the series, Revolution Software departed from the point-and-click formula and made the switch to 3D. That was in 2003 when 2D was already dead as a doornail. While the third and fourth installment of the series might have been worthy successors, I kinda felt betrayed when I realized it no longer had the cel-animations that I admired the first two parts of the series for. So I never played them and I probably never will.
So why am I talking about Broken Sword now? A few years ago I found a website talking about a fan-made successor to “The Smoking Mirror” that showed a good amount of promise. What I didn’t realize however was how far away that game was from being released. For some reason however, I kept visiting their website and I closely followed the progress. Then, just a few weeks ago the unthinkable happened: the game – Broken Sword 2.5 – was released! I downloaded it three days ago, and completed it just now.
My verdict: It’s pretty darn impressive. To pull off a project of that scope is simply amazing and the quality of the final product is beyond what anybody could have hoped for. This is mostly thanks to the incredible voice actors which give the whole production a level of professionalism that is not commonly found in a fan-made game. Similarly, the soundtrack is very well done and compares favorably to the soundtracks found in commercial games. Now the artwork, that’s a different story. While there are some backgrounds that are extremely well done, the overall art style is very inconsistent. Some backgrounds are rendered, some are clearly made from heavily edited and filtered photos and others have a more or less hand-drawn look. The majority of the backgrounds are however really well-done, but some are also quite bad (and I’m only saying that because they stand out in an otherwise very polished product). In a similar fashion, the characters in the game lack consistency. For the most part, they’re really well-done (kudos to my fellow student Isolde Scheurer who I’m told drew most of them), but some of them are also “sub-par”. The game also features a number of 3D animated cut-scenes which are reasonably well-done, but sort of put me off with their rendered look. I don’t know if the makers of the game tried cel-shading at any point, but I think I might have preferred that (that’s just my two cents though). What did I forget? Oh, right, the story! It’s good but not great. It has some interesting twists but at some point drifts into absurdity. There are also a few plot holes and the quality of the dialogue varies greatly. But then again, a good voice actor (and the game has plenty of those) can read pretty much anything and make it sound good. What else? Oh, the riddles! The game is pretty easy and most riddles involve objects that you’ll find in the immediate proximity of one another. This has the obvious benefit that the game never becomes frustrating, but it also significantly reduces play time.
None of those minor flaws however can take away from my admiration for this project. So if you have nothing better to do (and since you’re reading this, I assume you don’t), download Broken Sword 2.5 now and be prepared to spend the next six hours or so of your life playing it. Be warned though that you can’t just “check out the game real quick”. I tried that and ended up playing it for the next two days.
The appeal of the first two games, besides their great story, was their incredible production value. The games featured beautifully hand-drawn backgrounds as well as cel-animated characters and cut-scenes (made possible by Philippine labor). Also, the first Broken Sword game released in 1996 was the first game I recall playing that featured an orchestral soundtrack (composed by the Australian-born Barrington Pheloung).
After the release of “The Smoking Mirror”, the second game in the series, Revolution Software departed from the point-and-click formula and made the switch to 3D. That was in 2003 when 2D was already dead as a doornail. While the third and fourth installment of the series might have been worthy successors, I kinda felt betrayed when I realized it no longer had the cel-animations that I admired the first two parts of the series for. So I never played them and I probably never will.
So why am I talking about Broken Sword now? A few years ago I found a website talking about a fan-made successor to “The Smoking Mirror” that showed a good amount of promise. What I didn’t realize however was how far away that game was from being released. For some reason however, I kept visiting their website and I closely followed the progress. Then, just a few weeks ago the unthinkable happened: the game – Broken Sword 2.5 – was released! I downloaded it three days ago, and completed it just now.
My verdict: It’s pretty darn impressive. To pull off a project of that scope is simply amazing and the quality of the final product is beyond what anybody could have hoped for. This is mostly thanks to the incredible voice actors which give the whole production a level of professionalism that is not commonly found in a fan-made game. Similarly, the soundtrack is very well done and compares favorably to the soundtracks found in commercial games. Now the artwork, that’s a different story. While there are some backgrounds that are extremely well done, the overall art style is very inconsistent. Some backgrounds are rendered, some are clearly made from heavily edited and filtered photos and others have a more or less hand-drawn look. The majority of the backgrounds are however really well-done, but some are also quite bad (and I’m only saying that because they stand out in an otherwise very polished product). In a similar fashion, the characters in the game lack consistency. For the most part, they’re really well-done (kudos to my fellow student Isolde Scheurer who I’m told drew most of them), but some of them are also “sub-par”. The game also features a number of 3D animated cut-scenes which are reasonably well-done, but sort of put me off with their rendered look. I don’t know if the makers of the game tried cel-shading at any point, but I think I might have preferred that (that’s just my two cents though). What did I forget? Oh, right, the story! It’s good but not great. It has some interesting twists but at some point drifts into absurdity. There are also a few plot holes and the quality of the dialogue varies greatly. But then again, a good voice actor (and the game has plenty of those) can read pretty much anything and make it sound good. What else? Oh, the riddles! The game is pretty easy and most riddles involve objects that you’ll find in the immediate proximity of one another. This has the obvious benefit that the game never becomes frustrating, but it also significantly reduces play time.
None of those minor flaws however can take away from my admiration for this project. So if you have nothing better to do (and since you’re reading this, I assume you don’t), download Broken Sword 2.5 now and be prepared to spend the next six hours or so of your life playing it. Be warned though that you can’t just “check out the game real quick”. I tried that and ended up playing it for the next two days.