Stealth footage recorded a builder with his tiny minion placing stakes:
The minion is extra stealthy and wasn't caught on camera, but you can see his detritus...the paint can.
Wednesday, June 26, 2019
The Builder Has Landed
Apparently, there will be some construction at my place this summer.
Stealth footage recorded a builder with his tiny minion placing stakes:
The minion is extra stealthy and wasn't caught on camera, but you can see his detritus...the paint can.
Stealth footage recorded a builder with his tiny minion placing stakes:
The minion is extra stealthy and wasn't caught on camera, but you can see his detritus...the paint can.
Saturday, June 8, 2019
If Only "TED" Were Indeed X
As in an ex-thing. A thing which is no more. Deceased. Dead. A thing of the past.
I LOATHE the TEDtalk style. The lesser TEDtalk, the TED-X offshootery that happens in every venue that can host a bunch of pompous pseudo-intellectuals in a single room with theater seats and a stage, is even worse.
It isn't always the info. Once in a while the information is fine. But mostly it's crap.
Still, it's the signature TED style. The late 1980s Janet Jackson/ Madonna face mounted microphone. The faux set dressing: fake living room, fake vintage PBS interview show complete with 2 chairs, coffee table and a fern, fake college lecture with a podium. The giant ass screen for the sad power point presentation is truly the worst.
I've seen people speak in real life, like Joel Salatin, who are interesting and fun and very informative. Then I've seen them on a TED, or worse TEDX, and they conform to the style and are crap.
When did bad meeting presentations become public infotainment?
There is no doubt a real answer but I don't care. I want it to stop.
Here, in the order they occur to me, are things I find annoying:
1) Cramming exactly 1 soundbite of information into 6-11 minutes. Apparently there is a rule that only one single tiny bit of info can be shared. This has several bad consequences
2) Fluffing the info with personal, or more likely fake personal, stories illustrating that one tiny point. How your mother had too much TP around the house so now you buy it one square at a time. How you had a dog which proved dogs are awesome. Jesus.
3) The shitty power point. Also used to fill visual and temporal space. The speaker stops for each slide so you can read it or look at it. Or, worse, laugh at their lame lame lame visual joke.
4) S l o w t a l k i n g. To fill the time with a tiny tiny tiny individual bit of info, the speaker speaks so damn slowly I'm afraid my heart will stop. Jesus. Speak at your normal pace.
5) BROAD range of tone to show emotion and connect (say each word with special emphasis in your head while YOU rrreeeaaaddd this!). Cripes. I remember seeing a professional storyteller when I was about 4 years old, before I started school, at the local library. I'm in my 50s now and I'm still pissed about wasting my time with that woman emphasizing and physically miming every thing she said. You'll see the same style in TED/X talks.
6) The physical miming of anything remotely mime-able in the talk. Using hands to show those piles of TP your mom had, and then crunching your whole body down like a clown college drop out to show the hilariously small amount of TP you now keep at the house.
7) Waiting for the laugh which often never comes. The speakers are clearly over rehearsed and think they know when the laugh will come. I still watch the occasional TED talk if someone recommends it and secretly, or openly, enjoy the moment where the talker realizes that they are not funny or their power point slid is not funny.
8) Walking around the stage/faux-set for no reason. It's like they have the list of crap my 8th grade speech teacher handed out...or their pageant coach told them. ...13--connect with each audience member individually by looking them in the eye. Yeah, don't. Mick Jagger and James Brown needed to use the whole stage, you don't. Al Gore was a popularizer of this with his lift showing how the environment is dying. Cute once...not very cute but I appreciated his effort...not cute now. You are telling me how you buy a square of toilet paper and are therefore better than your mother and better than anyone who stupidly buys it by the roll. You don't need to walk to the far corner of the stage and lean over and look down on me. The metaphorical down looking is plenty.
9) Hubris. I don't care that you buy a single square of toilet paper and I don't believe it makes you better than rollers, as those of us who buy it by the roll are called. You still need to wipe your butt like the rest of us and we now suspect that we don't want to shake your hand.
10) Inventing labels. TED talkers like to invent or promote labels. They don't lead with them. They lead with a question. They sneak the label into the middle or end of the talk so that we, the stupider people in the listening audience, can come to the two most important conclusions: 1) the speaker is right; 2) the speaker is super smart and better than everyone else.
11) Leading with a question. Why? Do you think it makes you smart to set up a straw man and then very slowly knock it down one lame joke/slide/mime/walk/lean/label at a time with your own answer to the fake question that was on NO ONE's mind? Because I think that. Hence, I am smart and right and you are stupid.
12) Dressing the part. Poor Joel Salatin had to wear a sports coat. He's a farmer and part of his brand/schtick is to dress like one. He has excellent voice projecting and is a naturally appealing and LOUD speaker. On his TED talk he looked uncomfortable and stilted. The minimalist I watched and am using as a model for the TP talker work a dress a bit too short and in one color with little black flats. A "minimalist" formal look I suppose. I was distracted by the obviously maximal hair product consumption. I don't know if she and Joel were peer pressured into this or if there is a code to get on the stage and they don't let you out if you show up with actual farmer clothes or minimal hair products. I wonder what would happen if someone refused the face-mic.
I want to get on a TED or even TEDX talk so I can go on stage and then NOT do the "style" and see what happens?
Would the audience risk wrinkling their khakis and sensible shoes to run up on the stage beat me? Would they throw their brand name decaf lattes at me?
Would they get confused about what was going on and quietly slip out to see if the real talk with just a single digestible and currently fashionable bit of info was being given in the next auditorium over?
What if I gave 2 points of info or told an actually funny story? Would chaos ensue? The zombie apocalypse? What if I kept talking while they actually laughed rather than courtesy laughed?
What if I didn't even TRY to act out what I was saying and what if I didn't wait for them to read the 3 (it's always 3) bullet points on the power point slide? Oh MY GOD! What if I didn't use power point????? No. I take it back. Heresy. I would be burned as a witch.
But at least I wouldn't have anyone email me another f'ing TED talk.
That said, I have looked up TED talkers and gotten their real information elsewhere. I suspect it is a way to promote their real work. I hope there is SOME legitimate reason for it.
In conclusion a HaiTED (Like a haiku, but TEDcentric)
All TED talks are bad.
Not all TED talkers are bad
TED makes you look bad
I LOATHE the TEDtalk style. The lesser TEDtalk, the TED-X offshootery that happens in every venue that can host a bunch of pompous pseudo-intellectuals in a single room with theater seats and a stage, is even worse.
It isn't always the info. Once in a while the information is fine. But mostly it's crap.
Still, it's the signature TED style. The late 1980s Janet Jackson/ Madonna face mounted microphone. The faux set dressing: fake living room, fake vintage PBS interview show complete with 2 chairs, coffee table and a fern, fake college lecture with a podium. The giant ass screen for the sad power point presentation is truly the worst.
I've seen people speak in real life, like Joel Salatin, who are interesting and fun and very informative. Then I've seen them on a TED, or worse TEDX, and they conform to the style and are crap.
When did bad meeting presentations become public infotainment?
There is no doubt a real answer but I don't care. I want it to stop.
Here, in the order they occur to me, are things I find annoying:
1) Cramming exactly 1 soundbite of information into 6-11 minutes. Apparently there is a rule that only one single tiny bit of info can be shared. This has several bad consequences
2) Fluffing the info with personal, or more likely fake personal, stories illustrating that one tiny point. How your mother had too much TP around the house so now you buy it one square at a time. How you had a dog which proved dogs are awesome. Jesus.
3) The shitty power point. Also used to fill visual and temporal space. The speaker stops for each slide so you can read it or look at it. Or, worse, laugh at their lame lame lame visual joke.
4) S l o w t a l k i n g. To fill the time with a tiny tiny tiny individual bit of info, the speaker speaks so damn slowly I'm afraid my heart will stop. Jesus. Speak at your normal pace.
5) BROAD range of tone to show emotion and connect (say each word with special emphasis in your head while YOU rrreeeaaaddd this!). Cripes. I remember seeing a professional storyteller when I was about 4 years old, before I started school, at the local library. I'm in my 50s now and I'm still pissed about wasting my time with that woman emphasizing and physically miming every thing she said. You'll see the same style in TED/X talks.
6) The physical miming of anything remotely mime-able in the talk. Using hands to show those piles of TP your mom had, and then crunching your whole body down like a clown college drop out to show the hilariously small amount of TP you now keep at the house.
7) Waiting for the laugh which often never comes. The speakers are clearly over rehearsed and think they know when the laugh will come. I still watch the occasional TED talk if someone recommends it and secretly, or openly, enjoy the moment where the talker realizes that they are not funny or their power point slid is not funny.
8) Walking around the stage/faux-set for no reason. It's like they have the list of crap my 8th grade speech teacher handed out...or their pageant coach told them. ...13--connect with each audience member individually by looking them in the eye. Yeah, don't. Mick Jagger and James Brown needed to use the whole stage, you don't. Al Gore was a popularizer of this with his lift showing how the environment is dying. Cute once...not very cute but I appreciated his effort...not cute now. You are telling me how you buy a square of toilet paper and are therefore better than your mother and better than anyone who stupidly buys it by the roll. You don't need to walk to the far corner of the stage and lean over and look down on me. The metaphorical down looking is plenty.
9) Hubris. I don't care that you buy a single square of toilet paper and I don't believe it makes you better than rollers, as those of us who buy it by the roll are called. You still need to wipe your butt like the rest of us and we now suspect that we don't want to shake your hand.
10) Inventing labels. TED talkers like to invent or promote labels. They don't lead with them. They lead with a question. They sneak the label into the middle or end of the talk so that we, the stupider people in the listening audience, can come to the two most important conclusions: 1) the speaker is right; 2) the speaker is super smart and better than everyone else.
11) Leading with a question. Why? Do you think it makes you smart to set up a straw man and then very slowly knock it down one lame joke/slide/mime/walk/lean/label at a time with your own answer to the fake question that was on NO ONE's mind? Because I think that. Hence, I am smart and right and you are stupid.
12) Dressing the part. Poor Joel Salatin had to wear a sports coat. He's a farmer and part of his brand/schtick is to dress like one. He has excellent voice projecting and is a naturally appealing and LOUD speaker. On his TED talk he looked uncomfortable and stilted. The minimalist I watched and am using as a model for the TP talker work a dress a bit too short and in one color with little black flats. A "minimalist" formal look I suppose. I was distracted by the obviously maximal hair product consumption. I don't know if she and Joel were peer pressured into this or if there is a code to get on the stage and they don't let you out if you show up with actual farmer clothes or minimal hair products. I wonder what would happen if someone refused the face-mic.
I want to get on a TED or even TEDX talk so I can go on stage and then NOT do the "style" and see what happens?
Would the audience risk wrinkling their khakis and sensible shoes to run up on the stage beat me? Would they throw their brand name decaf lattes at me?
Would they get confused about what was going on and quietly slip out to see if the real talk with just a single digestible and currently fashionable bit of info was being given in the next auditorium over?
What if I gave 2 points of info or told an actually funny story? Would chaos ensue? The zombie apocalypse? What if I kept talking while they actually laughed rather than courtesy laughed?
What if I didn't even TRY to act out what I was saying and what if I didn't wait for them to read the 3 (it's always 3) bullet points on the power point slide? Oh MY GOD! What if I didn't use power point????? No. I take it back. Heresy. I would be burned as a witch.
But at least I wouldn't have anyone email me another f'ing TED talk.
That said, I have looked up TED talkers and gotten their real information elsewhere. I suspect it is a way to promote their real work. I hope there is SOME legitimate reason for it.
In conclusion a HaiTED (Like a haiku, but TEDcentric)
All TED talks are bad.
Not all TED talkers are bad
TED makes you look bad
Wednesday, June 5, 2019
The Spork Is Dead. Long Live the Spork
There is a frugal method called "putting out the word." If you are looking for something, you mention it to people.
Recently it worked twice. I'll blog about the inadvertent word putting outage here.
The post about my lost spork. A friend (HI ANGELA!) read it and sent me a set of stainless steel sporks as a gift! SO NICE!!! I have used one for 2 meals a day every work day since I got them. They are perfect. Actually, it's a model I was looking at on line and thinking I would order them after I thought about it for a month (thrifty tip: if you think you want something, wait a month and see if you still want it). Part of the hesitation was that they came in a set of 6 rather than individual sporks and really...I've only got one gullet to shove food down, how many sporks do I need?
But, there they were! I love them. Use them. I passed 2 on to colleagues and one of those dudes is threatening to ditch his set of silverware and just get enough of these for his family to eat with.
I didn't mean to put the word out, but rather was whining into the void. But it worked and is much appreciated.
Having a nice spork makes me eat more meals in my office or at a picnic table in a park when I'm on a road trip. It also cuts WAY down on the use of plastic utensils which I also much appreciate.
Here it is in action...
Recently it worked twice. I'll blog about the inadvertent word putting outage here.
The post about my lost spork. A friend (HI ANGELA!) read it and sent me a set of stainless steel sporks as a gift! SO NICE!!! I have used one for 2 meals a day every work day since I got them. They are perfect. Actually, it's a model I was looking at on line and thinking I would order them after I thought about it for a month (thrifty tip: if you think you want something, wait a month and see if you still want it). Part of the hesitation was that they came in a set of 6 rather than individual sporks and really...I've only got one gullet to shove food down, how many sporks do I need?
But, there they were! I love them. Use them. I passed 2 on to colleagues and one of those dudes is threatening to ditch his set of silverware and just get enough of these for his family to eat with.
I didn't mean to put the word out, but rather was whining into the void. But it worked and is much appreciated.
Having a nice spork makes me eat more meals in my office or at a picnic table in a park when I'm on a road trip. It also cuts WAY down on the use of plastic utensils which I also much appreciate.
Here it is in action...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)