In 2018 only you can prevent bad presentations

Once again at the New Year it is time to resolve to make good rather than bad presentations. You can prevent producing a bad presentation by doing a better job of planning to tell a coherent story, illustrating with useful graphics, and rehearsing sufficiently.

This is the fourth in my series of illustrations continuing those from 2015, 2016, and 2017. The finger pointing at you came from Wikimedia Commons. The image of Theodore Roosevelt from around 1913 was adapted from one at the Library of Congress. The finger pointing lady and pointing hat man are from Openclipart.

Recent rituals for New Year’s Eve

Some people are content to celebrate time-honored holiday rituals. Others like Dylan Cline have a new vision. Back in 2009 I blogged about Seeing what is not there – but should be. This year is the Fifth annual Idaho Potato Drop in front of the state capitol building in downtown Boise. Look at the detailed Recap from last year and a YouTube video from the Idaho Statesman (shown above) to see how big and mainstream this event has become. The Glowtato is back!  

Up in Emmett they have a smaller scale event – their third annual Cherry Rise. KBOI TV had a story about it last year.

Happy Holidays? from DirecTV

Three years ago I blogged about receiving an ad disguised as A phony greeting card from DirecTV. They just tried again. I recognized the return address, so I shredded the envelope without even opening it.  

Communicating just with flags or other signals

 

If you think that words are clumsy for communicating, try using only signal flags. Zach Weinersmith recently had a Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal cartoon on communication using signal flags where a single flag (or a pair) can carry a message. There are not really single rectangular red (anger), blue (sorrow) or green (happy?) flags in the maritime International Code of Signals. And a yellow flag isn’t stress - it means “My vessel is ‘healthy’ and I request free pratique (license to enter port)“ or it can be the letter Q (Quebec). But the white rectangle on a blue background can mean “my fishing nets are caught on an obstruction.”

 

A chart shows the letters and numerals in the International Code of Signals. These aren’t the only ways to signal. There was a sketch in the old Monty Python’s Flying Circus TV comedy show about The Semaphore Version of Wuthering Heights (which also included Julius Caesar on an Aldis Lamp, Gunfight at O.K. Corral in Morse Code, and the Smoke-Signal version of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes).

Literally blowing smoke

Until last month I had assumed that the phrase “blowing smoke up your behind” was figurative (meaning insincere compliments) rather than literal. Then on the new books shelf at my friendly local public library I found a book by Lydia King and Nate Pedersen titled Quackery: A brief history of the worst ways to cure everything. On pages 88 and 89 was a section titled Blowing Smoke Up Your Arse which described how in 18th century London tobacco smoke enemas were used to try and resuscitate drowned people. The article was illustrated by a photograph of a kit from the Wellcome Collection (with a bellows as shown above) and a captioned diagram showing the parts and how they were assembled. I have added another Wellcome Collection illustration of the assembled device (which coyly omits the nozzle). There was an organization known as The Institution for Affording Immediate Relief to Persons Apparently Dead from Drowning (which later became the Royal Humane Society). There even is a four-minute YouTube video titled Tobacco resuscitation kit: a smoke enema to save your life? It describes the theoretical basis of four humours.

There also was a magazine article by Sterling Haynes on Tobacco Smoke Enemas in the December 2012 issue of the BC Medical Journal (on pages 496 and 497). He said that in 1811 English scientist Ben Brodie discovered that nicotine was toxic to the heart, so smoke enemas soon became unfashionable. Via PubMed I found another article titled A history of the medicinal use of tobacco 1492 – 1860 by Grace G. Stewart in the July 1967 issue of Medical History (pages 228 to 268) with a better description (page 244) of how blowing smoke went from literal to figurative:

“Dr. (Daniel) Legare put the final touch upon the practice of injecting smoke into a patient’s intestinal canal to resuscitate the apparently drowned, when he presented his inaugural dissertation at the University of Pennsylvania in 1805, recording the results of his experiments upon animals with the rectal insufflation of tobacco smoke and demonstrating thereby that this mode of procedure was of no value as a means of resuscitation. The discontinuance of the practice of using tobacco smoke for this particular purpose did not mean that physicians abandoned the practice for other purposes, however, for it was continued until 1860 and possibly later.”

Get sedated at the Anesthesia Lounge

Reportedly the most popular Uber destination in Idaho is the downtown Boise Cactus Bar. Other bars downtown include Dirty Little Roddy’s, Humpin’ Hannah’s and Liquid Lounge (and Solid Grill & Bar).  

Inspiration for naming a drinking establishment can come from almost anywhere. Down the hall from the cafeteria in the Central Tower of the Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center here in Boise I saw a room sign for the Anesthesia Lounge.

That name has already been used for a bar in St. Louis, a bar in Hialeah, Florida, and another in Panama City, Florida.

Curiously it also has been filed on August 1, 2017 (based on first use on January 1, 2016) as a trademark for:

"Computer software for use in enabling the delivery, distribution and transmission of digital music and entertainment material on the Internet; Digital media, namely, downloadable recordings featuring music for purchase, download, broadcast or streaming."

Over two decades ago, when I lived in Columbus, Ohio, there was a bar on High Street called The Library. When parents called a dorm room at Ohio State University, a roommate could truthfully state that the child they wanted to talk with was away at The Library.   

How to build a bad presentation – describe a problem but not a good solution

 

On December 21st at Jane Genova’s Speechwriter-Ghostwriter blog she posted about The Atlantic – Return of Paywall. She linked to a Wall Street Journal article which told how, as of January 2018, that magazine is going back to requiring a subscription if you want to read more than the complimentary ten article a month.

But there is no good reason to pay for a subscription. That magazine is included in the EBSCO MasterFILE Premier online database which is widely available via public libraries – including where Jane lives in Mahoning County, Ohio (and where I live in Ada County, Idaho).  

Your library card number is all you need to get at a lot of great magazines from your personal computer. I’ve discussed Jane’s whining before on July 30, 2016 in a post titled Going around pesky periodical paywalls by using databases from your friendly local public library and on February 25, 2017 in another post titled How to research: If you can’t get in by the front door, then use the side door.

Rather hilariously in yet another post on December 21st she told us to Show, Don’t Tell.