Good Example of a Bad Slide

good-example-of-a-bad-slide
(If you are not able to read the content, rest be assured, it is not due to the photo quality, thanks to Harshit for the photo)
The title says it all, do not dump so much text on a slide that it becomes unreadable to the readers. If the purpose of the slide is to show enabling text to the readers (and supporting/cueing text to the presenter) then this goal is lost in most of the presentations that you will see. People tend to cram as much text as possible on a given slide,
“I have only 15 slides!”
But the person doesn’t mention that 8 of those slides have texts which are not readable with 10 bullet points. A particular feature in slide creating softwares (both Free and proprietary) further aids in this by automatically reducing the text size if it exceeds its standard text box. LaTeX based Beamer will just make your text go below the slide, warning you that this might not be readable, use another slide.
Be responsible, keep less text on each slide, make more slides instead.

Normal

“What should I do now?”

“I’m the prisoner,” the biologist said to him from her cot, facing the wall. “Why should I tell you anything?”

“Because I’m trying to help you.”

“Are you? Or are you just trying to help yourself?”

He had no answer to that.

“A normal person might give up. That would be very normal.”

“Would you?” he asked.

“No. But I’m not normal.”

“Neither am I.”

“Where does that leave us?”

“Where we’ve always been.”

from Authority by Jeff VanderMeer
 

On Virtue

Virtue is entirely without character. There are not two races of men on the surface of the earth who are virtuous in the same way. Therefore virtue is not real and has no intrinsic good. It does not deserve our respect. It must be used as a support, and one must adopt in a politic way the virtue of the country where one lives, so that those who practise virtue out of taste, or who are obliged to do so because of their social position, will leave you in peace. Also, the virtue which is respected where you live can protect you by the preponderance or its convention from all attacks of those who practise vice. But once again, all this is, a matter of circumstance and nothing of this can endow virtue with any real merit. Also, some type of virtue are impossible for certain men. Therefore, how can you persuade me that virtue, which opposes or contradicts the passions can be any part of nature?

–  Justine – Marquis De Sade

The Textbook League

I came across this site while reading an article, there are interesting reviews of textbooks used in schools. And some of these reviews are gory, splitting out the blood and guts of the textbooks and their inaneness. Hopefully, many people will find it useful, though the latest book that is reviewed is from about 2002. Perhaps one should do a similar thing for books in the Indian context, basically performing a post-mortem on the zombiesque textbooks that flood our schools.

The Web site of The Textbook League is a resource for middle-school and high-school educators. It provides commentaries on some 200 items, including textbooks, curriculum manuals, videos and reference books. Most of the commentaries appeared originally in the League’s bulletin, The Textbook Letter.
http://www.textbookleague.org/ttlindex.htm