The U. S. national debt now is forty trillion dollars. What does that really mean?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As shown above, we can express forty billion by different factors of a thousand, as multiples of a trillion, billion, million, or thousand.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is an article by John Towfighi at CNN Business on August 23, 2026 titled The national debt just hit $40 trillion. But just how big is $40 trillion. He answers that question by asking What is my share? Divide that number by the population of the U.S. The Joint Economic Committee at the United States Congress has a Debt Dashboard with lots of statistics. As shown above, one of them is that the total gross national debt amounts to $116,480 per person.

 

And if we look at a web page from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis for Real Median Personal Income in the United States, we find that the latest number from 2024 was $45,140. So, the national debt per person is about 2.6 times the median income. Thus we are not able to quickly pay it off.

 

Back on August 17, 2011 I blogged about How to make a large number incomprehensible – or comprehensible. And on And on July 12, 2016 I blogged about How to make statistics understandable. More recently on December 23, 2024 I blogged about How should we present a huge number like the two billion dollars earned by the Taylor Swift Eras tour?

 

The cartoon bag of money came from OpenClipArt.

 

 

A succinct primer on delivering more effective medical presentations

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a succinct 5-page article by Adin Nelson et al. in the Journal of Hospital Medicine for April 15, 2026 pages 946 to 950 (Volume 21, Number 8) titled Developing, designing, and delivering more effective research and didactic presentations: A primer and recommendations. Their advice applies to presentations in general, not just medical ones.

 

The article has sections titled:

 

Introduction

Learning Objectives

Explicit Organization

Slide Design

Accessibility

Public Speaking Skills

Next Steps

 

The second paragraph in their section on Learning Objectives begins by stating that:

 

“Objectives should be outcome‐focused and learner‐centered. Outcome‐focused means describing what will happen after and because of (not during) the presentation. Learner‐centered means describing what will happen to or for learners, rather than describing what the speaker will do.”

 

The third paragraph begins:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Bloom's Taxonomy [Ref. 5] and the SMART framework are two useful tools that can help ensure objectives are learner‐centered, actionable, and achievable. Bloom's Taxonomy is a set of suggested keywords to use in learning objectives. The words are all action verbs (e.g., ‘list’, ‘plan’, or ‘contrast’), so using one of them ensures that the learning objective is outcome‐focused. Additionally, Bloom's Taxonomy divides the verbs into six categories, [as shown above] which are ranked in order of increasing cognitive challenge from Remembering (e.g., Recall, List, etc.) to Creating (e.g., Design, Construct, etc.). SMART is an acronym for five characteristics of effective learning objectives. They should be Specific (not overly‐broad or vague), Measurable (possible to objectively determine whether or not a learner meets them), Achievable (able to be accomplished by the targeted learners), Relevant (appropriate to the learners' needs), and Time‐bound (planned to be accomplished within a predetermined period, not open‐ended).”  

 

The second paragraph in their section on Slide Design states that:

 

“The Assertion‐Evidence framework is a more effective alternative to slide design. It consists of four core tenets: (1) Each slide should contain one key point, and multiple points should be divided across multiple slides. (2) Each slide's key point is expressed in a single declarative sentence - the assertion - in place of the slide title. (3) The remainder of the slide is devoted to visual evidence (ideally a picture or diagram) demonstrating or reinforcing the key point (see Figure 1). (4) Supporting details, background explanations, and additional context go in the oral presentation, not on the slide.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I blogged about it back on February 19, 2014 in a detailed post titled Assertion-Evidence PowerPoint slides are a visual alternative to bullet point lists. An example is shown above from a post on August 20, 2023 titled Reading a fracture surface like a road map – fractography in failure analysis.

 

Their final section on Next Steps says:

 

“Learning to be a more effective presenter can seem intimidating, but as with any new skill, practice makes progress. In this article, we explain core concepts and key first steps for planning goals and objectives, designing slides, and optimizing your public speaking for clear and effective presentations. If adopting all of these recommendations at once feels overwhelming, pick one - maybe using assertion sentences in place of slide titles - and incorporate that into your next presentation. Then solicit feedback and continue to iterate. Making one small change at a time, every hospitalist can improve their teaching skills and become a master educator.”

 

 

A blog post from Seth Godin about having or doing a good job

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A simple graphic like a 2x2 table can explain something more clearly than lots of words. There is a post by Seth Godin on July 21, 2026 at Seth’s Blog titled The Having/Doing job gap. His six-paragraph post is neither concise nor clear. I have described things more clearly, as shown above, via a 2x2 table with four quadrants. On January 19, 2024 I blogged about The joy of 2x2 tables, or charts, or matrixes.

 

At the upper left is when you don’t have a good job but still do a good job, which is better than expected and thus is a gap. At the lower right is another gap when you have a good job but don’t do a good job, and need to improve.

 

At the lower left is when you neither have nor do a good job, which is the worst situation. Finally, at the upper right, is when you both have a good job and do a good job, which is the very best situation and a success.

 

Seth’s long, full post is as follows:

 

“It’s a dance between workers, bosses, and the market.

 

The most stable quadrant happens when a thoughtful and consistent boss hires the right person, pays them fairly, creates positive working conditions and useful training. In return, the company gets extraordinary performance. That’s someone doing a good job who also has a good job.

 

A particularly unstable quadrant is the worker who gets all of the above, but because of culture, choice, or lack of enrollment doesn’t do a good job. That mismatch could last for a while, but it’s shaky.

 

Consider for a moment the boss who takes advantage of people (and the system) by creating lousy conditions and paying too little but still manages to enforce output that they consider acceptable. Once workers realize that they don’t have a good job, they leave, if the culture and economy permit it. Government is critical in helping people doing a good job get unstuck once they realize they don’t have a good job.

 

And the last quadrant is all too common: you don’t have a good job and you don’t do a good job. It’s not clear which came first, but they often go together.

 

Everyone deserves to have a good job. And smart bosses show up to help make that possible.”

 

 

Effective Scientific Presentations Across Formats - A Modern Guide for Science Trainees, Researchers, and Others

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a very detailed 17-page pdf article by Steven C. Grambow and Kevin P. Weinfurt at Advances in Social Science Research on September 19, 2024 (Volume 11, number 9, pages 42 to 55) titled Effective Scientific Presentations Across Formats: A Modern Guide for Science Trainees and Researchers.

 

The abstract says:

 

“This paper presents a comprehensive tutorial on delivering effective scientific presentations in the modern era, addressing a landscape altered by the COVID-19 pandemic. The shift to virtual and hybrid formats has fundamentally changed the norms of how scientific findings are shared, creating new challenges and opportunities for presenters.

 

Drawing from over a decade of experience teaching and refining presentation skills, we address a soft-skill gap in clinical and translational science training. The tutorial outlines four key topics: (1) identifying your scientific story, (2) using effective slide design, (3) presenting data, and (4) delivering your presentation. These lessons, developed through extensive seminars and individual coaching at various academic institutions, enable researchers to enhance communication and audience engagement across presentation formats.

 

Our approach, informed by cognitive processing and data visualization principles, has adapted to the new reality of virtual and hybrid presentations. This work contributes practical insights for optimizing presentation skills in this changed communication landscape. By offering actionable recommendations derived from real-world experience, this tutorial provides valuable guidance for science trainees, junior faculty, and established researchers across disciplines. It aims to equip readers with the necessary tools to deliver compelling scientific presentations in any format, advancing effective academic discourse in an era where virtual and hybrid presentations have become the norm.”

 

This article is useful for most presenters, not just scientists. There are four particularly useful figures that are shown by individual images:

 

Figure 1. Comparison of a Slide with More (top) versus Fewer (bottom) Words

 

Figure 2. Directing the Audience’s Attention Through Outlined Shapes or Highlighted Boxes

 

Figure 3. Elements of an Effective Presentation Palette

 

Figure 4. Presenting a Complex Figure in Steps to Support Your Storytelling

 

Back on January 7, 2019 I blogged about A good (but not great) article on how to give a scientific talk. And on February 19, 2014 I blogged about how Assertion-Evidence PowerPoint slides are a visual alternative to bullet point lists.

 

The 2013 image of Edward C. Stone came from Wikimedia Commons.

 

A xkcd cartoon about holes we have drilled in the earth

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An xkcd cartoon by Randall Munroe on July 1, 2026 (shown above) is simply titled Holes. Its vertical scale extends from 4,000 meters above sea level to 12,000 meters below it. Details shown on it are discussed at Explain Xkcd.

 

The Bingham Canyon open-pit copper mine near Salt Lake City is shown at the upper left. I blogged about it on July 15, 2011 in a post titled What can we say about a really big hole in the ground?

 

At the lower right Randall shows the two deepest holes, at almost 12,000 meters (or 12 km). How far have we gone relative to the center of the earth? The radius of the earth averages 6,371 km. So we have drilled 0.19% of the way to the center – barely scratching the surface.

 

 

A thoughtful book by Marcus Buckingham on how to design love into business

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a thoughtful 2026 book by Marcus Buckingham titled Design Love In: How to unleash the most powerful force in business. Google Books has a preview through page 38. Marcus discusses it in a ChangeThis manifesto on April 8, 2026 titled The Business Case for Love. DLI is his acronym for Design Love In.

 

On page 11 he says:

 

“For leaders to create reliable, repeatable changes in behavior, they must focus on the experience that creates the forces that create the behavior. This means leaders must understand their real job. Leadership is not fundamentally about clarifying expectations or motivating teams or cascading strategies. Leadership is the craft of shaping the experiences that shape human behavior. Leaders – the most effective ones – are experience-makers.

 

This insight reframes leadership entirely. Every moment between a leader and a colleague or a leader and a customer is an experience. The first day on the job is an experience. The weekly check-in is an experience. Sending an email is an experience. Presenting work is an experience. Being recognized, being challenged, being supported – or conversely, being dismissed or ignored – are all experience. What we measure on employee and customer surveys are felt experiences. What we label ‘culture’ is really just the aggregated experiences of the employees. When we say we want to build a strong culture, what we actually mean is that we want to design every touchpoint so carefully that each person has a similar experience. (And culture building is so hard precisely because there are so many touchpoints that have to be designed).

 

Always remember that because leaders create experiences in every moment, they are always shaping the internal forces that shape behavior. The question is not whether you, as a leader, are an experience-maker. You are. The question is whether you’re a skilled one.

 

So to help you build this skill, in part one of the book you’ll learn that love isn’t purely mysterious – that instead, love, when deconstructed, reveals itself to comprise five distinct feelings. These five feelings are sequential. You start with number one and end with number five. The leader with the DLI skill knows how to use this sequence as their blueprint for designing love in to [sic] anything - from onboarding to a team meeting to a customer interaction with a brand.

 

….In part two of the book, you’ll take these insights, this data and these perspectives, and put them into practice. Specifically, you’ll learn the playbook for how to design love in to [sic] the experiences of those you lead and of those you serve.”

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A table of mine, shown above, summarizes the five feelings of love.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marcus has a series of nine graphics starting on page 17  (which I have summarized above in another table) which compare the Current mindSET with the corresponding DLI mindMOVE.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But, as shown above, his curious choice of graphics put the Current mindSET at the upper left.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For Cartesian coordinates we would expect that to be at the lower left (Quadrant III) and the DLI mindMOVE at the upper right (Quadrant I), as is shown in my revision.

 

The falling in love cartoon came from OpenClipArt.

 

 

A pie cartogram is less useful than a pie chart

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am not a fan of pie charts. But there is an even less useful one called a pie cartogram, as shown above. For a pie chart each wedge has a cut beginning at the center of the circle and extending to the rim. The cartogram removes that requirement so comparisons cannot be easily made via angles. All we have is areas.

 

Pie cartograms are described by eric at Stories & Stats on August 18, 2023 in an article titled Pie cartograms. An article at TYWKIWDBI on August 10, 2024 titled How do you slice a pie… chart? has another example.

 

 

I think that a bar chart, as shown above, is better for comparisons than a pie chart.

An xkcd cartoon shows a hilariously overloaded flag design

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Randall Munroe’s xkcd comic for May 25, 2026 (which I colorized to yellow) has an awful flag design. Apparently all dozen ideas from the flag design committee were included. The worst is the bottom fringes that remind me of a for sale notice thumbtacked to an office bulletin board. The flag is analyzed at Explain xkcd. 

 

On May 14, 2016 I blogged about how Looking at flag design will change how you make PowerPoint slides. And on September 23, 2017 I posted about an example - A new, simpler, better flag for the city of Pocatello, Idaho. On June 30, 2020 I blogged about how Mississippi is going to change its state flag.

 

 

Images generated by artificial intelligence tools may be inaccurate

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a post by Dan Russell on his SearchReSearch blog for April 22, 2026 titled SearchResearch (4/23/26): AI image gen tools are great, as long as you don’t ask for accuracy. One of his examples is an electric kettle. Two images are shown, one from ChatGPT and another from Gemini. Both are missing the important bimetallic thermostat that cuts off the current when the water boils.

 

An 11-minute explanatory YouTube video by Quasar-Ed from November 4, 2024 is titled The Engineering behind Electric Kettles.

 

An image of a boiling kettle came from Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

A botched bar chart about conspiracy beliefs from a discussion of the 2025 Chapman Survey of American Fears

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On May 20, 2026 I blogged about A botched pie chart about homelessness from a discussion of the 2025 Chapman Survey of American Fears. It was in an article titled Chapman Survey of American Fears 2025 Key Findings.

 

That article has another section titled Conspiracy Theories with a horizontal bar chart created by Gabriella Bartsch, shown above, which I have annotated (in green) based on the data presented in the Methods Report for Q22 on pages 72 to 74. All seven percentages she listed for the sum Agree + Strongly Agree are wrong. They are too low by an average of 3.6%, which is much more than the web blank percentage (Don’t Know) that is 0.6% or less.

 

This graphic should have been edited by a professor to check the math before it was put into an article.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I previously discussed this chart in a post on October 24, 2025 titled An article about key findings from the 11th Chapman Survey of American Fears for 2025 has stumbling student graphics with significant errors, with another bar chart of mine, as shown above.

 

 

A botched pie chart about homelessness from a discussion of the 2025 Chapman Survey of American Fears

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On October 23, 2025 I blogged about how In the eleventh Chapman Survey of American Fears for 2025, public speaking only was ranked #46 of 67 fears at 33.7%. That survey had some additional questions with four possible agreement levels of Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree, or Strongly Disagree. Six of them, Q20 in their Methods Report, asked about homeless people. For example, Q20A was:

 

“Please indicate your level of agreement with the following statements – Homeless people should be allowed to live on the streets or in tents.”

 

There was an article titled Chapman Survey of American Fears 2025 Key Findings, which has a section on Homelessness that included a miscaptioned pie chart (by Emma Boyd) titled OPINIONS OF HOMLESSNESS POLICY which I have shown above with added annotations.

 

The chart caption claims to show the percent who Strongly Agree or Agree, but really does not. I added the correct percent in green. The sum for all six questions is 372.3%, and the percents she shows were rescaled to add to a hundred - divided by a factor of 3.72. The largest percent, which she placed at the lower left, really is 92.4%, but she instead shows 24.8%.  

 

Also, for pie charts the usual layout is to start with the largest wedge beginning at 12 o’clock and then go clockwise in decreasing order. More careful editing could have caught these problems.

 

 

Clip art of meshed or locked gears

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On November 17, 2020 I blogged about Smoothly meshing gears or jammed gears. Meshed gears describe graphically how individuals or parts of an organization can work together smoothly (as is shown above via an image modified from OpenClipArt).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jammed gears describe the opposite. At OpenClipArt there is a set of three gears locked together, shown above.

 

There is a long article by Bartoz Ciechanowski on February 12, 2020 titled Gears with discussions, animations, multiple gears, and three jammed ones at the very end.

 

 

We can sometimes see more than really is there

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Wikipedia page says:

 

“Pareidolia is the tendency for perception to impose a meaningful interpretation on a nebulous stimulus, usually visual, so that one detects an object, pattern, or meaning where there is none.”

 

There is a brief article by Dr. Alice Pailhes on April 21, 2025 titled Why We See Faces in Random Places: How our brain turns randomness into meaning. And another article by Phil Plait at Scientific American on June 28, 2024 is titled The Face on Mars and Other Cases of Cosmic Pareidolia.

 

The happy potato face by Andy Mabbett came from Wikimedia Commons.   

 

 

Does your vehicle have too many bumper stickers?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Pearls Before Swine cartoon by Stephan Pastis on February 18, 2026 has the following dialogue:

 

Rat: Well, Carrie looks like you and me can

   be friends. Mind if I go check your car?

 

Carrie: What – you judge people

   by the kind of car they drive?

 

Rat: The number of bumper stickers.

 

Rat (holding sign):

0 = IDEAL

1 = FINE

2 = RED FLAG

3 or More = CERTIFIED NUT JOB

 

Rat: She had eleven.

 

As shown above, some vehicles even have more.  

 

 

Four portmanteau words with less and more; never and ever

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wikipedia says that:

 

“In linguistics, a portmanteau (also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or simply blend) is a word formed by combining the meanings and parts of the sounds of two or more words.”

 

The 2x2 table shown above lists those for combinations of less and more; and never and ever. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary says that nevertheless is an adverb meaning “in spite of that; however”, nevermore is an adverb meaning “never again,” and evermore is an adverb meaning “forever, always.” Everless isn’t in the dictionary; but instead is the title for a 2018 book by Sara Holland: Everless: A New York Times Bestselling YA Fantasy Romance of Time and Dangerous Secrets.

 

On January 19, 2024 I blogged about The Joy of 2x2 tables, or charts, or matrixes.

 

 

More about mind mapping for presentations and in education

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Way back on August 4, 2009 I blogged about Mind mapping and idea mapping for planning speeches. More recently there is an article on SpeakerHUB at Medium from August 25, 2023 titled How to use mind maps for public speaking. They list the following ten steps:

 

  1] Choose your main concept

  2] Create your branches

  3] Fill out each branch

  4] Structure your presentation

  5] Create your presentation (branch by branch)

  6] Check your presentation against the mind map

  7] Practice the presentation

  8] Make any changes that are required

  9] Perform the presentation

10] Review your performance

 

There is a more general article by Sejla Hajric at CRM.org on May 27, 2025 titled All 10 Different Types of Mind Map You Need to Know About. Only the last one is specifically for a presentation. Those are:

 

 1) Tree map (hierarchical, tree-like structure)

 2) Flow map (flow chart with a sequence of steps)

 3) Dialogue map (visual representation of a discussion)

 4) Spider map (radiating out to subtopics)

 5) Multi-flow map (multiple flows representing causes or effects)

 6) Bubble map (describing a topic with adjectives)

 7) Double bubble map (two central bubbles rather than one)

 8) Tunnel timeline map (representing processes linearly over time)

 9) Circle map (where topic information radiates from a center)

10) Presentation map (used for topics in public speaking)

 

And there is a very detailed (10-page .pdf) article by Atiyeh Sadat Sajadi et al in the Journal of Education and Health Promotion on December 28, 2024 titled Using the mind map method in medical education, its advantages and challenges: A systematic review. Their Figure 2 is shown above.  

 

The third and fourth paragraph in their Introduction state:

 

“The mind map is an innovative learning method that increases student participation and consequently leads to meaningful learning. For the first time in the mid-1970s, Tony Buzan introduced the mind map method. In this learning method, a graphical image can be designed with the help of words, images, colors, and symbols, so that the student can remember the material more easily. In fact, the mind map is a visual educational method in which the main topic is in the middle of the page and ideas, words, pictures, symbols, etc. are placed around it in a branching and free-form manner. In the mind map, long texts are removed, which allows the user to synthesize, creates the best arrangement of information, increases the level of cooperation and participation within and between groups, and ultimately promotes ideation and critical thinking.

 

The mind map actually expresses the relationship between attitudes and ideas that are described visually. The use of this method has caused medical students to memorize a large amount of information for a longer period of time and accelerate the learning process. As a result, the success of students increases. The hemispheres of the brain have different functions, and these functions can be implemented in a unified way. Employing mind maps results in an elevated degree of cerebral hemisphere functionality. This approach arranges thoughts, establishes connections between ideas and perspectives, and offers a means to uncover novel subjects that can fortify existing notions and concepts. In essence, this method hinges on connecting a central idea to multiple sub-ideas.”