The m-factor

Sweet ride...all the way sweet ride

2010-04-07T18:29:00.003+01:00

Generic brand automobile of years gone by: 20 kNOK

Brutal snap-on plastic styling set in white and pink: 12 kNOK

Can of black spray-paint: 50 NOK

Swingin' sound system with CD changer and all the Absolute Hard Dance mania CDs: 120 kNOK

Wall-to-wall Wunderbaum: 450 NOK

Some people are burdened with an aesthetic sense. For everyone else, this car looks positively mackin'

TGIE - Thank God It's Easter.

2010-03-31T08:50:00.003+01:00

Just a few hours left before I'll have a couple of days off, so I thought I'll post a little funny bit. Actually, there are some really good bits in there about homoepathy/ pseudo-science and science ("Science know it doesn't know everything. Otherwise it would have stopped")

Have a nice Easter, everybody.

The Ballad of Harald and Jørgen

2010-03-20T18:10:00.013Z

When I was a kid, I read Superman comics up until the point where I found Marvel to be a much better, if not more realistic, purveyor of superhero tales. Much of the premise of the Superman comic depended on the Man of Steel's ability to uphold his "secret" Clark Kent identity. Even for a seven year old kid, this required more suspension of disbelief than I was willing to put up with. While tons of Marvel characters relied on the same premise, Spiderman at least wore a mask. With Superman, a pair of ordinary reading glasses was all that kept his peers from recognizing that Clark Kent and Superman were one and the same. Take this fact and add that Clark Kent was never seen together with Superman yet claimed to be his close friend, and it's pretty obvious that the journalistic talent and investigative qualities of the staff at whatever newspaper Kent worked at sucked worse than a toothless vampire.

Still, Jimmy Olsen might have claimed that Superman at least put on a pair of spectacles to conceal his true identity. In my book, that puts him one notch over the soft science schnucks currently lamenting how Harald Eia and the TV series "Hjernevask" make them look bad by showing viewers parts of interviews where the "scientists" are "tricked" into giving pretty much the exact same quotes as they have given in earlier interviews. Moreover, they agreed to appear on the show under the premise that it would be science journalism involved, and thus a serious show wherein they would bask in the glory of their doctorates in what asymptotically approaches science from below.

When the program was announced, some of the interviewees already started their public outcry of having been misled - some six months before the show was supposed to air. Not having seen any of the episodes, but having seen the teasers and followed the subsequent debates in other media, this still struck me as odd. From what I've seen in the teasers - which mirrors what I've read in the ensuing debates - an episode goes a li'l something like this:

Eia inerviews some Norwegian "scientist" and appears to ask some critical question.
Norwegian "scientist" inevitably provides aa absolute, definitive answer for which he or she has no scientific basis.
Eia appears sceptical.
Eia asks some foreign (preferably American) scientists the same question and presents them with the comments from the Norwegian soft-science schnuck.
Foreign scientist give a different answer, invariably in less bombastic and absolute terms than the Norwegian "scientists"
Eia nods in approval like a bobblehead doll in a car with bad suspension during an earthquake.
Repeat ad nauseam with different topic.

There's no doubt that Eia appears to be severely biased in his interviews, so that does warrant a fair deal of criticism. Favoritism aside, here's what I really don't get. Harald Eia is a very talented comedian, and has parlayed this into national celebrity and probably significant wealth. Eia's style of comedy can hardly be characterized as sophisticated, and to my knowledge, he has never displayed any public interest in science journalism until this show. Moreover, I notice from the teasers as well as from the ensuing public debate that Eia does the interviews himself, without any form of disguise. Not even a pair of glasses. This means that one out of two scenarios must have taken place prior to the interviews:

Scenario 1: Soft-science schnuck is contacted by Eia directly.
SSS: Yello?
Eia: Hello - this is Harald Eia calling. You might remember me as a TV-comedian famous for showing his private parts on television, for making fun of people from other parts of Norway than himself, and for having skits wherein dogs lick various food items off of Kristoffer Schau's balls. I'm currently working on a science journalism project where I endeavour to elucidate different aspects of human behavior based on nature versus nurture. Would you be interested in appearing on such a program to talk about things pertaining to your research?
SSS: So I'll be on TV, right?
Eia: You most certainly will.
SSS: Sign me up.

Scenario 2: Soft-science schnuck is contacted by some staffer assigned to Eia:
SSS: Yello?
Staffer: Hello there. My name is of no consequence and I am calling because NrK is planning a TV series based on the premise of elucidating different aspects of human behavior and determining whether certain traits can be more strongly linked to nature or to nurture. Being that you have been a vocal proponent for nurture over nature, that you have published several articles on the subject and that you own a sports jacket, we'd like to interview you for the program.
SSS: Who's gonna be doing the interview?
Staffer: Harald Eia.
SSS: The TV comedian famous for showing his private parts on television, for making fun of people with a different dialect than himself and for having skits wherein dogs lick various food items off of Kristoffer Schau's balls?
Staffer: That'd be the one.
SSS: Would I have to lick anything off of Schau's balls to be on TV? I'm allergic to nuts..
Staffer: You'll only be required to give an interview where you repeat the exact same inane statements you have gone on record giving earlier.
SSS: Sign me up.

So assuming the soft-science schnucks weren't contacted under the premise of making a science journalism spoof, where's the deception? At the end of the day, unless the interviews were edited to the level where words from different parts of the interview were combined to form quotes the interviewee never intended to give, they need to STFU. If they really thought that a program designed and executed by Harald Eia would be an unbiased piece of BBC-like science journalism, I've got a piece of land with a tower on it in central Paris to sell them real cheap.

Of all the soft-science schnucks getting their undies in a bunch over the resluting TV show, none have appeared more indignant than one Jørgen Lorentzen. Lorentzen appeared in a televised debate Thursday the 18th of March and claimed that the interview contained lots of footage of him putting over biology and biologists left and right, only that dastardly Eia cut those parts out, leaving him looking like a government-sponsored moron. He luv'd him sum biologists, but he also knew for a fact that the foreign expert Eia had used to counter his eloquent arguments in favor of nurture had done some critical error in his experiment design, thus invalidating the studies and any conclusions derived from it. Eia had actually done his homework and upon asking Lorentzen to state the flaws in the study, was able to counter and negate the two or three points made by Lorentzen. Following this, Lorentzen sulked and argued "well; there were several other critical flaws" before the host mercifully ended Lorentzen's self-burial. Moreover, the statements Lorentzen deemed to have been taken out of context, i.e., not being shown following Lorentzen putting over biology, were shown to have been given in earlier interviews with Lorentzen, where he apparently had no problems with Dagens Næringsliv printing such quotes. Or maybe the problem was that DN never put his quotes next to counterarguments by other experts, and so he only appeared to be caught in a cul-de-sac of his own self-righteousness. On Hjernevask, however, he appeared arrogant AND clueless. Not to mention that he got owned in a debate in a subject where he clearly considers himself an expert...by Harald Eia.

While I'm not saying that all the Norwegian soft-science schnucks interviewed by Eia only to have all kinds of issues later are idiots, there's no question that the quotes from the foreign scientists come across as more level-headed. This was especially clear for the Norwegian "expert" and waste of human flesh that on a direct question from Eia answered that each individual was free to choose his or her sexuality.

Tell that to a teenager from a strict religious background in rural Norway who would have to break any ties to family and friends and endure bullying and ridicule from peers if he or she chooses to come out of the closet.

Philip Morris lawsuit

2010-03-09T08:11:00.004Z

It seems that Philip Morris is taking Norway to court, due to the country's display ban of tobacco (an English article here). PMI claims that the ban has no health effect, and suing to lift the ban.

Since it's a well know fact that reduced smoking does have an health effect, we can safely equal PMI's claim with of "no health effect" to "no reduced sale". Which brings up the following question:

- If there are no reduced sale, why would PMI sue?

Seeing how PMI is taking Norway to court, I assume their sale is affected and thus the ban actaully work as planned. Tobacco companies does have a grim history of "research" on health effect, and this lawsuit and the "research" behind it proves to me that very little has changed.

The Haves and the Have Nots of Common Sense

2010-03-02T08:35:00.002Z

As a general rule of thumb, students are to be evaluated using portfolio assessment, wherein the final grade is determined by more more than a single performance so as to get a better measure of student performance, as well as to avoid "bad luck" singularities. The most common forms of portfolio assessment are either a midterm or mandatory hand-in assignments (typically pass/fail) in addition to a final exam.

If you were in charge of implementing a change in the way the portfolio assessments are being used, would you: a) Announce the changes in time for the new regime to be defined in the study catalogue, which is the binding document outlining what form the course will have. b) Announce the changes the semester prior to changes taking effect, thus enabling the subject teachers to make the changes necessary to make the (mandatory) portfolio assessment work. c) Announce the changes in mid-semester, just before the midterms, with a three working-day time limit to implement the necessary changes.

If you answered c) - congratulations. You just might possess the tridefecta of lack of common sense, inability to understand the linearity of time, and a sociopathic streak which would qualify you for a position in central university administration.

I just received an email the effects of which is that I need to convert from giving midterms to assigning mandatory problem sets. The midterm is Thursday. In order to comply with rules and regulations, these changes should have been announced (i) in the study catalogue and (ii) at the first day of class if any extraordinary events occurred which warrant changes to the course description. While my course does indeed use problem sets, they're not presently mandatory in that students don't have to hand them in and have them graded. Of course; if they want to actually pass the course, solving and understanding the problem sets is mandatory, but that's another can of worms. Being that this is March, we've already gone through three problem sets, and we've also gone through the solutions. As an added bonus, I don't have a TA in this course, owing to administration missing (their own) deadline for approval, leaving me high&dry also in this regard.

My choices are the following: 1) Skip midterm and let the "portfolio" consist only of the final exam, thus breaking the rules. 2) Change the portfolio assessment from midterm to mandatory problem sets, thereby breaking the rules and causing myself tons of hours of extra work. 3) Find a way to comply with the new rules for midterm and keep the system approximately as it stands.

Option 3) is the only one that technically is legal, and also the one which is the hardest to implement. Partly because the midterm is going to take place between 5 and 7 PM, a time frame where no administrators and thus official inspectors are at work. Also because this alternative requires me to bring student information I'm not privy to.

I'm really not a fan of the central university administration.

Guide to Group Workouts I: Midlife Crisis Edition

2010-02-22T18:40:00.004Z

If you have long since passed 40 and started to work out not too long ago under the illusion that you could still become a professional bodybuilder, fitness competitor or strongman, this simple 10-step guide can help you establish your reputation as a shitkicker as well as help you maximize attention while at the gym.

Step 1.
Before you set foot in the gym, it is important to groom. For men, this means adopting one of the two following regulation hairstyles, depending on your follicular density; 1) shaved head or 2) see-thru ponytail. If you opt for hairstyle 1), you need to follow up with a fake tan and various bracelets. From option 2) follows by necessity a scruffy, unkept beard and a complexion reminiscent of a hung-over vampire, save from a trucker's tan (optional), with a celtic cross necklace as the only allowed accessory. Irrespective of hairstyle, it is adamant that you get yourself tribal armband tattoos. And remember: "Obsession" by Calvin Klein, Axe or rancid sweat work for any occasion as far as fragrances. For women: Dry, peroxide-blond, jet-black or extra-fake red hair. The blond hairstyle requires lots of spray-tan, while the latter two also work with Caspar-the Friendly Ghost complexion. Regardless of hairstyle, apply copius amounts of make-up, lather up with fragrant body lotion and be sure to use at least half a bottle of perfume. Depending on the pay level of day job (hairdresser, cashier, waitress or kindergarten employee), get one of the following regulation tattoos: Shoulder blade dolphin, heart or "authentic" chinese characters, or tramp stamp and accessories: navel piercing or implants.

Step 2:
Before you can arrange for yourself and at least two of your comrades-in-arms to arrive at the gym, you need to assemble the season-independent workout attire. For men, this means one of two acceptable looks: 1) Ca. 1976 Muscle Beach transplant, or 2) Badass biker wannabe. In either case, make sure that the tank top or XS Li'l Boys' tee is extra snug to show off that upper body, and that you're wearing extra baggy work/workout pants to hide those scrawny, never-exercised legs ('cause you've got bad knees and/or a bad back which prevents you from squats and leg presses...plus you've read that those exercises might hurt the knees or back and they're damn hard). The only allowed exception to this rule is if you belong to the subclass known as "Brightly colored bicycle shorts and tank top delusionites". As far as colors and design, you can never go wrong with camouflage-patterned tank tops, Ed Hardy tees, GASP wear or something featuring the Harley Davidson logo. For women, it can apparently not be tight, ill-fitting and small enough as far as workout attire. Preferably with an exposed belly button, irrespective of fitness level. Make sure that you've got a car that matches your look. For men, this means either a chopper or a truck (season-dependent) for the badass biker wannabe, or some type of horse-power abundant sports vehicle (alternatively a Hummer). For women, either a small black, red or pink sports car or a token BMW SUV.

Step 3.
You're now ready to assemble your crew and get to the gym. Remember: You've got to roll at least deuce deep - preferably three - so if you arrive before the pack is all there, hang out at the counter, talking loudly to the gym staff or in your cell phone. Make sure that the ringtone on your cell phone doesn't betray your physiological age, but rather something from the present top 40, alternatively gangsta' rap (for men only). As you enter the workout area, make sure to carry at least four invisible suitcases.

Step 4.
Did you remember to train, say your prayers and take your vitamins this morning? For the affluent middle-aged male, some hgh and ~600 mg/week of deca and test. For women: Clenbuterol.

Step 5.
Carry a workout bag (GASP) large enough to hold two weeks worth of clothing and shoes. Stock said workout bag with workout gloves, and belt, wraps for every joint on the body, water bottle, at least one shaker bottle containing protein powder for post-workout consumption, towel, amino acid and creatine tablets, little pink tablets, and Icy Hot.

Step 6.
As your crew gets ready to get swole, make sure to occupy approximately 47% of the gym area, including as many benches, dumbbells and machines you can get your hands on in order to mark your territory and make people understand that something big is gonna go down. Get really annoyed if people are trying to cramp your space.

Step 7.
Talk loudly amongst yourselves and shout in order to psyche up/garner attention for the monumental feats of brute force and athleticism to follow. If you can throw some punches in the air in the general direction of your invisible enemies and the mirror, it's a plus. Make sure to start the punch from your shoulder, dropping your guard and sticking your chin out as you menacingly deliver the knockout haymaker to your transparent nemesis. Wonder why that douchebag working out next to you is looking at you with a smirk.

Step 8.
Use 75% heavier weights than your one-rep max for every given exercise and loudly proclaim that you're "Gonna get 10 or 12". At this point, workout partners need to launch a barrage of motivational clichés including "Let's get SERIOUS", "Time to play the GAME", "LIGHT WEIGHT" and "Squeeeeeeze it!". Use full-body movements to complete the reps, no matter the intended muscle group or exercise. As the lifter completes his or her set, and consequently as the spotter completes a set of another exercise (i.e.; spotter does bent-over rows for most of the weight for bench press), make sure to give an "ALL YOU" shout of enthusiasm.

step 9
As you drop the weights to the floor/starting position thus generating maximum noise and resulting attention, walk angrily away from the equipment, shouting that it was easy, and that you could've at least done two more reps. Sometimes the acoustics make it difficult to reach absolutely every corner of the gym, but give it a try anyways. remember; how are people gonna know that you're buff and swole if you don't inform them of this fact? Flex biceps and chest in the mirror (irrespective of muscle groups worked that day). If you're working out with a woman in your crew, loudly remark how you're warming up with heavier weights than her maximum effort. If you're a woman hanging in this crew, it is customary to remark how the males use more weights to warm up with than your maximum effort. Exclaim your intent to use even more weight for the next set. Damn; that motherf*cker with the NC State hat working out next to you is looking at you and shaking his head again.

Step 10.
Smear Icy Hot on all your aching joints and hobble out of the gym while sipping a protein shake and hi-fiving.

The media noise pollution

2010-02-19T09:31:00.004Z

The media marked is in constant change, which is especially true for the news papers. News on paper is in steady declined compared to online news, even in a country like Norway with a strong tradition for reading papers. There are several good things about news online, like up-to-date news, live coverage, the use of sound and video, etc, etc.

However, I've seen some use of adverstising I'm not very keen on. As a general rule, I feel strongly that advertising and news should be clearly separated. I was just browsing different pages on e24.no, when I suddenly relized I was reading an ad. Take a look at it, it is marked at the top, but it's really easy to miss if you're just browsing.

I couldn't remember clicking on any ads, so I vent back to investigate further. On the right hand side of the webpage, there is a column. This column contains both ads and news articles. Check out the example on the left: How easy is it to spot that the top one is an ad and the bottom one is an e24.no produced news article? It may be legally valid, but ethically, I think it crosses the border to unacceptable.

"This is not a scientific poll..."

2010-02-11T09:00:00.005Z

Internet polls. If you just have the slightest knowledge about statistics, you know that internet polls are infamous for have large biases by itself. The design of the questions are often equally bad, with unbalanced wording and lacking of a "Don't Know" or similar option. And also where the poll is posted does matter (do you think a poll on gun legislation would yield the same result on the websites of Guns&Ammo and the Nobel Peace Price?). This has been discussed before, and not my point of this post. And this has been pointed out to the media several times.

But how does the paper deals with this? VG does this by adding a disclaimer under their polls: "This is not an scientific poll. It only reflects the view of those internet users that has chosen to participate." They also refer to it as "Just an assessment of the opinions, not a scientific survey".

Well, guess what, VG. "Not scientific" is not a property like the color of a car. Being "not scientific" means your results says s¤%t about the general opinion, especially on a biased question hidden in an online article where it's possible to vote as many times as you like...

Unexpected Presentation Zen Design fail

2010-02-10T19:16:00.004Z

..so; I was fixin' to start making a ten-minute sales pitch for my research to potential collaborators at a seminar next Friday. I had a few good ideas on how to structure the talk Presentation Zen-style, and I was going to start off fresh by using some new font combinations. After cracking open Presentation Zen Design to the section on fonts and typesetting, I was ready to carve out a new font identity for myself. Comic Sans and Tahoma before that have served me well, but surely there are other fonts which better suit my needs and profile.

As I opened up PowerPoint and started browsing the ocean of available fonts, it dawned on me that the ocean was but a shallow puddle. Of all the "basic" fonts that "everyone should have at their disposal", only a measly two - TWO - were available in my university edition of Office. Garamond and freakin' Helvetica. No Futura, Gill Sans or any of the other cool fonts.

Bummer.

So I checked shareware on the faculty folder to see if there was a Holy Grail of fonts waiting to be unleashed on the wide open canvases of my slides. Not a freakin' thing.

Relatively undeterred, I opened the "Help" menu under "Where in the blue hell can I find me some more goddamn fonts." Windows directed me to a few websites, some of which were offering up some fonts for free. On the other hand, the fonts they offered were 100%, grade A, guaran-damn-teed useless and butt fugly to boot.

As I went down the list of websites suggested to me by Windows, I came across some which sold all kinds of fonts - including the entire Gill family. With my last shred of optimism I selected this package for pricing information.

1,400 NOK for the Gill family of fonts.

The hell with that - Comic Sans just rose like freakin' phoenix from the ashes.

Selecting a new car is serious business

2010-02-04T07:20:00.003Z

With an eight months old baby boy, it's a definite limit to how much time one can spend roaming around car dealerships. Not to mention that there is a definite limit to how much time one can stand being around slime-drippin', "Obsession" by Calvin Klein-reeking, polyester-wrapped weasels trying to convince you that purchasing THIS model NOW is the best decision you'll ever make.

Hence, it makes a lot of sense to do a lot of research before you actually enter a dealership. There are many things you have to consider, like what fuel source would you like your vehicle to run on (diesel, since the diesel process is thermodynamically more efficient than gasoline, hydrogen fuel cars won't be launched until 2012 and there is as of today not a single hybrid car of sufficient size on the market), station wagon vs. minivan or SUV (station wagon, since European market minivans typically are shorter, and since the SUV caste is a club I'd prefer not to have a membership in, douchebag-laden as it is), and the key decision; which BRANDS are relevant. Once you pick the brand, there is typically only one car model (with many variables, but still) to choose from, so this seems like a good place to start.

Using a process derived from available statistics and personal bias, my wife and I managed to eliminate most car brands before we ever even looked at their models online. Like:

Brands that are way more expensive than their performance and breakdown-statistics can justify. So long, Mercedes, Audi and BMW.
Brands that suck at fuel efficiency, which may be problematic getting decent service on, parts to, and aren't made to withstand winter. Sadly, so long every traditional American brand.
Brands that are soon to be extinct. Buh-bye, Saab.
Brands where the local service providers have given us plenty of reason to distrust their service. See ya, Ford.
Brands that are trying to shed their past history of making substandard (in every way imaginable) products, whether or not their new cars are decent (yeah, right). Lo siento, FIAT, SEAT and Skoda.
Brands we've had bad experience with as rental cars (a.k.a. the "Just say NO to french cars" clause). Au revoir, Renault, Citroen and Peugot.
Brands that don't really have models in the class you're looking for. Sayonara, Honda and Nissan.
Brands which have designs which lessen the available trunk volume.
Brands that have no business making automobiles. We're not really brand-obsessed, but if the car manufacturer made nothing but vibrators and electric nose hair trimmers up until five years ago, then I won't be caught dead in one of your wannabe vehicles. For one thing, new brands are impossible to compare with traditional brands with respect to for example odds of their ricockulous, cheap-looking, pre-rusted hulks breaking down or spontaneously combusting in shame. So of course the brand offers 36-year warranties, because the manufacturing and material cost is comparable to that of a small stove. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out, KIA, Huyndai, Daewoo and other brand names sounding suspiciously like FookHue.

So in the end, there were only two...

Epic justification of own actions...

2010-02-02T09:23:00.002Z

Two weeks ago I received an invitation to write (and submit) a review article from a journal which thematically is very relevant for my research. Getting invitations to submit review articles don't happen every day - especially not for academics relatively new to the game. The person inviting me did so because she really enjoyed an article we published last year on the very subject we're asked to write a review article on.

Long sentence bonanza right thurr.

Anyhoo; I've actually had to think long and hard about whether we should do it, for three reasons:

The deadline is March 1st, and considering that I'm on 50% leave, and that pretty much my entire reduced workload stems from not having time to do research or write articles, I'm not sure this is feasible. Sure; there'd be three other authors, but they've also got plenty of schtuff to do before March 1st. Including writing articles and teaching.
The impact factor of the journal in question is significantly lower than what we usually aim for with our work. Of course, a review article is more likely to get cited than a "regular" research article, but I'm not overly enthusiastic about the impact factor-dealie. We'd work just as hard writing this review as we would if the IF had been four times higher, so realistically speaking, this is time we could've spent getting manuscripts ready for high-impact journals.
A colleague and good friend of mine has had some "issues" with the publisher of said journal, as has his boss. The publishing house in question charges quite a lot for teh "privilege" of publishing articles there, despite their journals not exactly being PNAS. I am definitely not desperate enough to pay in order for an article to get published in a journal with an unimpressive impact factor.

Still; I can't believe I turned down an offer to write a review article.

Time to play The Game

2010-02-02T09:06:00.003Z

Being that I'm on 50% paternity leave, and that apart from research, the other tasks have not been reduced accordingly, I told myself that I'd cruise through the teaching of my main subject. In the sense that I would rely on last year's slides, that is, not in ay other sense. Normally I spend a lot of time revamping the slides material each semester the course is taught, because one always discovers ways to make it better (like Presentation Zen), and because each set of new students helps highlight areas where I need to work on my lectures.

It's called progress.

As it often does, however, reality struck in a big way when the supposedly parent-friendly administration dealt me a bum hand with respect to lecture hours.

Thursdays from 5-7 PM and Fridays from 3-4 PM. Snake eyes.

What this entails, is that I have to work a lot harder to retain the same percentage of students in the lecture hall. Consequently, I'm spending at least as much time as before updating slides and coming up with all kinds of things to make the course appealing to the (thankfully large) percentage of students who opt to be there for my lectures.

I might as well start bringing my own intro music and a video entrance package.

Book review: Presentation Zen Design

2010-01-27T07:08:00.003Z

By none other than Garr Reynolds, of course.

This follow-up to the brilliant Presentation Zen (if you haven't bought it by now - what the hell are ya waiting for?) deals more with the practical aspect of making presentations, and so touches on a bit of design principles such as effective use of white space. The book is a veritable treasure trove of helpful sections, including effective use of fonts (brilliant), which I personally found to be very enlightening. Any version of Office is going to be loaded with 4.5 gajillion fonts, so a primer and a set of matching fonts for different occasions sure helps out a lot. Mucho props.

There's also a section of working with colors and selecting color schemes. While Nancy Duarte's Slide:ology contains more material on the nuts and bolts of color schemes, Garr's book more than makes up for it by detailing how you can extract color schemes from photographs, thereby taking advantage of the master colorist - Mother Nature. This is followed up by describing how to incorporate pictures - and video - in your presentation in order to more effectively communicate your story - including some photography tips by Scott Kelby.

Towards the end of the book, there are also some sample slides from various designers (Duarte Design being strongly represented) to show the reader how this can be incorporated in real life. This even includes some slides from a field not too distant from what I'm doing.

Overall, this is a great book and a worthy follow-up to Presentation Zen. I've only got two minor complaints; one being that the book appears at times to be somewhat on the heavy side with respect to Zen lessons. The other complaint is that it would've been great with an expanded section on how to use animation. Then again - that's where Nancy Duarte's book really shines.

Buy two copies - one for the office and one to keep around the house.

They sure saw me comin'...

2010-01-18T18:53:00.003Z

At the moment, I'm on 50% paternity leave, which in theory means that my expected workload is cut in half. However, on Friday I finally realized that this is not true at all. A quick&dirty breakdown of my overall duties would look something like this: 50% teaching, 50% research.

Right. Back from fairytale-land. A more accurate description would have to include various administrative duties, very few of which are easily boxed into either category. In theory, the 50% reduction of duties should be spread equally across all categories. Let's see if it does:

Teaching: During the Spring semester, I am the course responsible for one 4th year topic. I also teach 1/3 of another 4th year course, plus perhaps one or two PhD specialization topics. Out of these, I am only relieved of the 1/3 - which rules, as my first and only choice as replacement accepted the position - which makes my teaching load for the semester significantly larger than 50%.
Administration: No reduction in workload at all.
Research: ...pretty much where my "workload" is reduced.

In other words; the only area where I feel a reduction in my workload is the area that I actually get credit for in the dept. annual reports.

They sure saw me coming.....

Air Quality in Bergen charts

2010-01-16T12:49:00.011Z

Well, here is a graph I found at luftkvalitet.info, and it's a report over the air quality in Bergen. There are two automatic air-samplers in Bergen, one at Danmarksplass and one by the old town hall. The NO2 level and concentration of particles in two different sizes are measured. Each of the components is classified into four different categories, depending on the concentration (as shown in the chart below). The (total) air quality is the reported as one of the categories, depending on the most polluted of the three components. The chart below is from month of November 2009.

Some interesting data can be extracted from this graph. Like that November 2009 where approximately 30 hours longer at Rådhuset compared to Danmarksplass, but on average the years 2003 and 2009 where longer on Danmarksplass.

What I'm getting at here, is (again) that this isn't a very good graph. Personally, I think that they are missing a "no data" category or something, since November has a total of 720 hours, which none of the bars have. And, as I understand the data, the total of all categories isn't interesting, since they are all the same (only depending on how many days in the month). In fact, the interesting data here is the hours with elevated level of air pollution. And due to the large size of the normal (green) bars, the graph does not do a good job in presenting these data. So, here is my suggestion of a redesigned graph, focusing on comparing the data with elevated level of pollution. I opted for a three panel vertical Trellis chart:

To even better compare the individual values, a 1x4 vertical Trellis chart could also been used, wiyh panels Rådhuset Nov 2009, Rådhuset average 2003-2009, Danmarksplass Nov 2009 and Danmarksplass average 2003-2009. Each panel with three horizontal bars with each of the different level of pollution.

Another option would be to include a bar for the total hours with elevated pollution (sum of some, much og severely polluted categories).

Slidescapes and slideoramas

2010-01-15T17:49:00.003Z

So I attempted some of the animation techniques I found in Slide:ology by Nancy Duarte. Specifically, I experimented with animating slide transitions to create the illusion of the slides being part of a panoramic view, or what Duarte calls slidescapes or slideoramas. I battle-tested it in my "sales pitch", first lecture of the semester, to show some connections and big-picture things, and let me tell you; I thought it was really cool. It beat the ever-loving crap of my old way of presenting timelines and connections.

Yes; Slide:ology is worth the samoleans you have to plunk down to get your grubby hands on the book.

Slideworld.net experiment

2010-01-13T18:18:00.002Z

I recently received an invitation to put one of my articles on slideworld.net due to the inviter's claim that the contents in said article is of general interest to researchers in medical sciences. The page looks like a lo-rent TED.org, but what teh hell - I think I'm gonna give it a try and see if I can adapt Presentation Zen to this format. If it works, I massively increase my odds of getting citations for my work, and if it doesn't work, this might just count as "Popularization of Science", in which case it counts towards my standing on the department publication list. So it's all good.

I'll get in touch with my coauthors and see if we can make things happen.

Book review: The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs

2010-01-13T10:29:00.005Z

Yeah, yeah, yeah - Jobs is the head honcho of Apple, but he's also widely renowned as one of the most charismatic presenters ever. Garr Reynolds says so, as do enough other people to ensure that at least a fraction of the cheerleaders are from outside of the Jonestown/messianic cult of Apple fanatics and Jobs kool-aid drinkers.

And credit where credit is due - Jobs IS a fantastic presenter and public speaker with a distinctive style. That's not really something worth debating - dude's good.

The author of this book - one Carmine Gallo - claims to have distilled what makes a Steve Jobs presentation great and is offering this to the reader in "A three-part framework to wow your audience". Steve Jobs on a bottle, if ya will. That's a tall order for a book. What are the three parts - or acts as Gallo calls it - you might ask?

Act 1: Create the story. Plan in analog, focus on the audience and why they should care about your presentation, make simple, clutter-free slides and create twitter-like headlines.
Act 2: Deliver the experience. Put numbers into some kind of context for easier visualization of impact, use cool lingo and memorable catchphrases in order to stand out, and feel free to use props in order to give a physical demonstration if applicable.
Act 3: Refine and Rehearse. No further explanation required.

Those familiar with Presentation Zen know at this point that one-third of the book is snagged directly from Garr Reynolds, and at least 1/3 of what Gallo makes off of this book by right ought to end up in Reynolds's pockets. The only semi-original part of the first act is the twitter-headline thingy, which actually is a stroke of pure genious. By spending lots and lots of time creating twitter-like headlines, journalists just use the pre-digested headline provided by Jobs, essentially leaving Jobs in charge of his own media appearance. Admittedly very clever. As for act 2, Gallo "borrows" liberally from Presentation Zen once again, and the third act, with its riveting tales of how Steve Jobs makes his presentations look spontaneous and effortless, but how this is actually a byproduct of intense and long rehearsal hours....well gosh now......what's next? Do musicians rehearse before gigs?

By and large I don't really recommend this book although there are some cool parts, like the "make your own press" bit. Garr Reynolds has become the ABBA of presentation design in that everybody and their mother have jacked material from him without necessarily bothering to cite the source. This, plus the fact that Gallo spends way too much time plugging Apple products rather than the underlying principles of the Jobs presentations that launch them, makes this book at least a second-tier manual.

Another thing is that if you opt to buy this book rather than - repeated ad infinitum - Presentation Zen, and you actually follow the advice, you're probably screwed. What Steve Jobs can get away with, you can't, and while there's a section in the book on how you should dress (odd, I know), Gallo fails to mention that Steve Jobs comes off as quite smug and sometimes arrogant in his presentations. Moreover, he is constantly badmouthing the competition. Steve Jobs can do this because of who he is - given his track record and all - you can't. Especially in academia, where odds are that your brilliant solution/theorem/method is more likely to be a step further than the final answer. In order to get away with Steve Jobs' method of badmouthing the competition and - quite literally - introducing some opposition product as the antagonist (rather than simply as the competition), you need to have an enormous credibility, and an h-index approaching Nobel laureate status. Otherwise you'll just come off as a know-it-all douchebag. And if you're thinking of buying a book like this to model your presentation technique after, odds are that you're not of sufficient academic standing to get away with smugness, so just don't.

Plenty of books you'd be better off buying.

Deja vu all over again aftermath

2010-01-12T13:40:00.002Z

Still stuck with the undesirable time frames for my lectures this semester despite a few more attempts to improve the odds of filling the seats. What's new however, is that the administration asshat never updated the course info on the central university web pages, resulting in quite a few emails from students that showed up to an empty classroom, wondering why I didn't show up. Now; it should be mentioned that had these students checked out the course page on it's learning, they'd have seen the message I posted a while ago with the new updated schedule, but the admin guy still absolutely sucks.

Amateur crap like that really should be beneath the institution of higher learning I'm a tenured faculty member of.

Design tip: Custom colors in Excel (97-2003)

2010-01-12T13:14:00.013Z

As metioned in the comments section on the Slide:ology review, I've made myself a custom palette in Excel (2003, that is). Since this is the version available at work, I've become more and more frustrated by the colors available in Excel and spent too much time editing colors (see end of this post for "how-to" change colors in Excel).

Anyway, below is my current palette (left) and the standard Excel 2003 palette:

Let me explain the background for this. You can see that the top right colomns are identical in both paletts. The reasons for that is that shades of greys are cool, but mainly because I couldn't think of any useful colors to replace them with. Above the line, you see that the rest of my palett is of different shades of grey, red, blue, orange and greens in the rows. Good to have the options of different shades of one color, but also note how well the colors in each colomn goes together.

Now for the bottom two rows. You can see that the rows consist of pairs of colors, one deep, saturated and one lighter shade. The thing is that all the rich colors goes well together and all the light colors goes well together, if you need multiple colors in a chart. (On a sidenote: The observant reader might have notice the odd couple out, the two colors on the bottom right. I initially made a deep/light color pair there as well, but later figured I needed the strong red. And that orange there is one of my favorite colors, which I also missed a bit). But here is the smart part: As a default, Excel starts choosing colors in charts from the bottom row. Hence, I get some useful colors by default, and saves work! Let me illustrate this with an example. First off, there is my palette (yes, I've removed the grey background and formated the axis, but the series colors are by default):

This is actually a set of good colors, good contrast without overpowering each other. Also the deep colors makes a good contrast to the background, and both lines and text is easy to see. Now, the same graph, with the same formate on the axis, but with the colors choosen by Excel with the default palette:
Quite a difference, no? The deep blue color on "East" is fine by itself, but the colors doesn't go well with each other and makes the graph look tacky. The "West" series is very muted compared to the others and the text is hard to read. The "East" and "South" series stand out more then the two other series.

Anyway, this is a continious experiment for me, and the palette on the top may not be the one I'm ending up with. But I sure gonna make my own palette, because it is so much better then the default one. So, here are my pro's and con's of the current palette:

Pro:
Good selection of shades of each color. Great for tables, lines, etc.
Almost all the colors in the palette goes well together (as long as I choose the same level of saturation)
Better default colors in charts, at least to some extend.

Cons:
I really would like some more yellow shades.
The reds aren't shades of reds. They are pink, and makes my chart look like a three year old girls coloring book.
I would love to be able to replace the default grey background in charts with white, but I'm afraid changing a grey to white would affect something else that needs to be grey.

It's worth noting that from Excel 2007 this is not as big issue, since Microsoft changes the whole color tool in that version.

How to change the default palette in Excel.
From the Tools meny, click Options and select the color tab. Select a color, click modify, and change it to whatever you like (bonus tip: On the bottom, you can import the palette of any open Excel-fil). Our palette will be saved for that Excel file and all the sheets in it. Any of the old colors you've used in that file, will be replace with the new you've defined. But once you open a new Excel file, it will still have the standard palette.

If you want to save a custom palette, and have it as default in new Excel files, you have to make it the default woorkbook. Save it as an Excel template file, with the name "bookxlt" (or "bok.xlt" in Norwegian) in the xlstart folder. The folder is usually located at C:\Documents and Settings\USER\Application Data\Microsoft\Excel\XLStart, where USER is you login.

Book review: Slide:ology by Nancy Duarte

2010-01-12T10:23:00.005Z

This book comes with recommendations from such luminaries as Garr Reynolds and Jerry Weissman, and I've considered buying it for quite a while now. In teh very likely case that the name Nancy Duarte doesn't ring a bell, Duarte design - headed by the very same Nancy Duarte - is the design company that can be credited for Al Gore's recent success and even (arguably) him now being a Nobel laureate. Gore has been talking about global warming and environmental issues for years and years, but it wasn't before he hired Duarte Design to make "An Inconvenient truth" as well as some actual presentation technique coaches that he went from a mumbling black hole of charisma to one of the highest paid and most sought after on the international lecture circuit.

It should be mentioned that this book was published AFTER Presentation Zen, so be warned: The first six chapters mostly deal with regurgitating Reynolds' book, as well as numerous references to Tufte and Weissman. At several points during these chapters I seriously found myself thinking that if there really was a market for a cliff notes version of already condensed books on presentation technique, I'd like a piece of that action. The references are many, the puns and clever catchphrases are abundant, and the amount of new information is scarce. Moreover, the accompanying slide examples look pedestrian and - dare I say it - cheap considering the credentials of the author.

However, the book really picks up after the sixth chapter. The sections on how to select color schemes (consciously rather than by happy accident), typesetting and animation alone make the book well worth buying. Really cool, and I'm gonna get right to applying those lessons. There's also a chapter on making templates which is really informative. Still, seeing as how I've just made the plunge from six years of lab-specific templates (one of which was of my own design) to wide open slides, I'm not yet ready to creep back into the template cage again. The amount of info you can fit on each slide really dwindles when templates are applied. While I admit that this can sometimes (or even often) be a good thing, I often find that building schematics or figures that span the entire slide really works within hard science - often the alternative is repeating the same image with slightly different areas highlighted over lots of slides.

If you're looking for efficient ways to implement animation and color schemes, then this book is definitely worth buying. If you're after a book on designing and delivering good presentations, look elsewhere.

The academic year 2009 in review

2010-01-11T20:33:00.002Z

Being that the birth of my son completely overshadowed anything else in 2009, I'll roll with a summary of how things went academically. Starting with the mother of all academic yardsticks:

Publications: Very happy with the 2009 results in this category - only one publication short of my all-time high. Still, a personal best is there either to reminisce about or to beat, and since I've only just began my academic career, I'll do my very best to beat this number in 2010. We even managed to sneak one manuscript past the nefarious third reviewer in a fairly flashy journal - although that technically happened this year. 2009 is also the year where I surpassed my MSc advisor with respect to number of published articles, and matched her h-index.
Public speaking: Especially during the Fall semester, I really did my part of public speaking at conferences and such, which I really enjoy. If only it wasn't for the effing going-to-conference part of it, this would be a good full-time profession for me. I enjoy the making of presentations, the talking bit and the discussions, but I abhor the travel, I detest the sitting through of days worth of potentially interesting talks ruined by poor presentation technique, and I loathe the small-talk during lunches like: "So you're in Norway, huh? That's pretty cold, isn't it? And the roads are bad?"
Presentation technique: Alternatively put; before and after Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds (buy the damn book already). This book really changed my outlook on how to prepare presentations, and I've seen how it can be applied to others as well - this stuff really works. Still; the limitation is how it can be implemented into teaching, seeing as how students expect to have slides available as handouts, which is sort of what Presentation Zen strives to avoid: the presentation as document syndrome. The solution might be to make additional handouts with the material from the slide written out, but that is a project which is going to take time (more time than what I've got available this semester), plus this already exists - it's called the freakin' textbook.
Funding: Not such a banner year - gov't funding has gone WAY down, especially for fundamental science. Within the fundamental science programs, only about 7-8% of the applications get funded, which is laughable compared to other countries without petroleum reserves and our strong economy. In an effort not to come off as too bitter, I'll cut it short..

Here's to 2010 bringing bigger and better things.

Return of the Broski

2010-01-11T10:22:00.002Z

Oh lawdi-lawd - there's a sequel to My New Haircut - the best thing on the internetz:

There's even a blooper reel + outtakes:

The scene with the two broskis checking out and comparing abs in the gym mirror is ex-'effing-actly like a couple of teh doucheclowns at pretty much every gym I've ever been at.

Don't hate da playa' - hate da game.

Deja vu all over again

2010-01-06T08:20:00.003Z

Well now; it wouldn't be January if I wasn't struggling with the powers that be at the administration trying to wrangle up decent lecture facilities for the Spring semester. See e.g. my post from last year. Every freakin' year since I started here, I've gone through the same process:

Submit a list of requirements for teaching facilities the preceding semester, including expected number of students and if there are any timeframes that absolutely and legitimately don't work.
Check timetables for the course and realize that I've been given ungodly hours in a room with room for like 6 students, no projector, no blackboard and probably no electricity.
Contact the central admin in charge and point out that I've been given insufficient facilities, both with respect to seating capacity and amenities - like blackboard, projector and - I don't know; walls?
Get a reply saying that they have not registered any such requirements; they've still operating with the 1995 (or so) numbers, and the problem must obviously be on my end. Still, the dude in charge graciously agrees to look into the situation, however I must be warned that the time tables have been all but set in stone at this point.
After a few rounds back and forth and a lot of diplomacy on my part, I end up with adequate teaching facilities.
Repeat ad infinitum

This year - or rather before Christmas -I started the process early, hoping to get a smoother ride duringthe whole administrative debacle. As an added complication, I have just started my paternity leave, which leaves some days of the week inaccessible to teaching in order for my wife and I both to get the work-week puzzle to work out.

As I pleaded with the commaf*cking bastard in charge of room allocation, I argued that I was on partial paternity leave throughout the semester.

End result after going through a few cycles of non-usable facilities: I now teach Thursdays from 5-7 PM and Fridays from 3-4 PM.

That's gonna put lots of asses in the seats. Prime time, babee.

Fluorine related (health) problems...

2009-12-21T09:58:00.008Z

I just came across an article in Dagbladet, about possible negative health effects of some ski waxes. Specifically, after checking the orginal source, it's about perfluorinated carboxylic acids, which some waxes contains and STAMI has found accumulates in the body, and their concern for the working enviroment for professional ski waxers. In itself, it's interesting to see the medias spin on these findings, but I'll leave that for now.

More interesting, the first comment when I check was titled "Er vi utsatt for fluor?" ("Are vi exposed for Fluorine?") by Erik Nissen. For some reason, he manage to link this article to tooth paste, and explains how Pottasium Fluoride (he really means Calcium Fluoride, more on that later) is the good, healthy Fluoride that was intended for dental products and that Sodium Flouride is bad, and explains how the aluminum industry has used tooth paste to get rid of their toxic waste, Sodium Fluoride. First of all, a person would even the most basic chemistry knowledge would understand that if there was a different in health effect between KF and NaF, the most likely culprit is the Sodium, since the Flouride is the same in both.

But wait! Unlike most others, mr. Nissen provides links to highly prestigious journals to back up his claims. More spesifically, the Wise Up Journal. You can't argue with that name, even if you're not a scientist, you just know this is top notch material! And btw, it's in this journal the highly skilled chemist and physican Dr. Nissen translates Calcium into kalium (Pottasium). The article is written by a Johnnie Aysgarth. I couldn't find a single publication on web of science from this guy, but he's in the Wise Up Journal, for crying out loud! Who needs more than that?

I must admit, I'm still surprised with all the little things that people can make conspiracy theories from and, even more important, actually believe. How come it's so hard to believe scientific research, but even the most nut-case theory presented by somebody how has added a couple of random google searches into a theory, that must be the end all truth in the matter at hand? Even if it would take just a couple of minutes to check the most basic facts in those theories and find them completely false? Personally, I blame it on the subconscious messages embedded in the Disney cartoons and the mind controlling nano-bots in the vaccines (Hey, who made me write that?).

Oh, and the Norwegian Institute of public Health is a private owned company, in the hands of the Rockefeller family. But we all knew that.

Remember, just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not out to get you...

TGIF global warming edition

2009-12-11T18:38:00.002Z

It's in the form of an actual graph, so it must be true. Pirates are cool!

Oh and Anders: Please disregard the crappy figure design :-)

Democracy FAIL: mexican flu vaccination

2009-12-10T08:36:00.004Z

There's a famous quote by President Thomas Jefferson that goes approximately like this: "Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government." President Jefferson, by the way, was the guy that more or less drafted the Declaration of Independence, and a vocal spokesperson for human rights in a time when slavery was the norm.

With how the mexican flu vaccine fiesta has played out in Norway, I'm on board with Jefferson's statement. 'Cause so far, the story has played out something like this:

Flu strand is discovered and identified as potential pandemic, being that it's essentially the mutated bird flu version 2.0. Lots of "We're all gonna die of the mexican flu" headlines and general uproar.
The mexican flu is identified as mostly resulting in mild influenza symtoms. According to media, we're still all gonna die from this pandemic.
The Norwegian government buys vaccines to the tune of more than two inoculations per citizen. All of a sudden the media outlets are filled with angry citizens decrying the government for spending money on vaccines against what's essentially a mild flu anyways. Surely we could use the tax money better, like lowering prices on gasoline and alcohol or improving the roads. And won't somebody please think of the CHILDREN. To the surprise on noone, a veritable line-up of losers gets free media time by claiming that a) vaccines in general are dangerous and will kill you and b) this vaccine in particular will kill you like you won't believe it. Citizens are enraged.
The first mexican flu casualties start to occur in Norway. Death tolls are all over the media. Mob mood shifts. All of a sudden, it's "When can we get the vaccine"?
Vaccines start to arrive, and the high-risk population starts to get inoculations. Death count now reaches into the double digits. Citizens are absolutely in a frenzy - we have a right to be vaccinated, don't you realize that this is a pandemic? The government has a responsibility to secure its population from dangerous disease, and won't SOMEBODY think of the children.
The manufacturer screws up an entire batch meant for Norway, and vaccination of the general population is delayed. Citizens start to threat their GPs physically and stating that "If I don't get the vaccine and I die from the mexican flu - you and the government is to blame". Media is still completely saturated with mexican flu stories.
Mass vaccination is initiated. In our municipality, only a handful of people bothered to show up. The media picture is supersaturated with "OHMIGAWD; Obama is gonna be in Norway for two and a half hours next week."

To end with another Jefferson quote: "The best argument against democracy is spending five minutes with the average voter"

Scientific peer review ca. 1945

2009-12-08T10:43:00.001Z

FAN-freakin-tastic. Thanks to Dr. H. for the link

..it's ALWAYS the third reviewer :-)))

A weird new type of chart

2009-11-27T21:41:00.007Z

I came across this new type of chart by way of the PST blog. It's a survey taken in connection with the upcoming climate meeting in Copenhagen:

The chart is square divided into 10x10 smaller squares, each representing 1%. I can't understand how this really adds anything to the data, since I count the points to see which area is the largest. It would be way easier just to read the numbers from a table. And to make things worse, they arrange three of these charts into three faces of a cube. And the whole survey is presented as three (none aligned) cubes. In my opinion, a total mess that in best case just adds noise.

In his blog, Jon Peltier suggests another chart. The solution is pretty good, the only improvement I can suggest is formating the questions better (to make them stand out more) and aligning the question with the start of the columns.

But looking into the questions and options, it's not only percentage there. The last question is "How high a priority (0-100) do you think the goverment should place on addressing climate change". First of all, you can't measure that in %.(how do you calculate those who haven't answered or have no opinion?). Second, have a scale from 0-100 is just forcing it into a formate that would fit this particular graph. A scale more with more then 10 steps are too finely divided to have make sense.

Also, I keep thinking of whether the questions could have been planned better. For instance, wouldn't it be better to have a similar scale on each question, for instant a scale from 1-5? To avoid confusion and make the process of answering the survey faster.

Planes, trains and automobiles 3

2009-11-27T20:36:00.004Z

Day two of the conference, and I'm scheduled to speak as the final speaker before lunch. This being a congregation of academics, the other two speakers spend way more than their allotted time. Don't matter though - I'm focused, and as the speaker before me finishes up his Q&A, I do my mental equivalent of putting on the chain mail and sunglasses, skip in place, rotate my shoulders and loosen my neck. The my music hits - the sirens go off, "Holla...if ya hear me"..and I walk towards the podium.

At least I WISH I'd had intro music. 'Cause the lame reality of it all - and if you've ever been to a conference, symposium or workshop you'll recognize this - is that the appointed chair of the session says something along the lines of "Our next speaker is (your name here), with a talk titled (title of your talk here)".

What possible purpose does this serve? The sequence of speakers is given in the program, so simply reading aloud the name of the speaker and the title of your talk holds little magic. Moreover, as some poor PhD student who "volunteered" to do the technical assistance for the conference (i.e., making sure the presentations appear on screen and running around in the audience with a microphone for the Q&A sessions) already has out the title slide of your talk on the screen, this serves no purpose whatsoever. Unless you assume that your audience can't read, which would be odd, considering that you ask the audience to submit abstracts for posters and oral presentations. If playing some entrance music plus accompanying video ever becomes an option, I'm first in line.

Especially if the chair of your session manages to introduce you first by mispronouncing your name and then screw up the definition of the award that landed you the coveted spot as invited speaker. Which coincidentally was what happened to me. Luckily, I was well enough prepared not to be affected by this, and I started my talk. I linked my story to presentations given before me whenever possible, I connected with the audience and made sure to make eye contact (to the extent this is possible throughout the venue with 150+ participants) and get nods, I was enthusiastic and I thoroughly enjoyed presenting my work. When I was done, I waited for any questions, but none came. At this point, I stated that this could be a good thing...or not, which elicited some laughter, and then the session broke off.

As we went to lunch, I wondered whether I'd bombed worse than a post-Y2K Van Damme movie. Then people started approaching me and asking me how they could use my methods on their systems and I got all sorts of collaboration offers, at which point I figures out that the reason I got no questions was because they'd not only understood what I presented, but also that I'd managed to get the audience to see that this was something they could use in their research.

I can't deny that this was a pretty good feeling. This also marks the second time I use Presentation Zen to prepare a talk, and I'm getting better at it. Not to blindly plug Garr Reynolds and his book, but it really helps to free up slide real estate and focus the attention where it should be - on the speaker.

Planes, trains and automobiles 2

2009-11-24T12:32:00.003Z

Having successfully reached my destination, it was time to get to the conference venue and get things started. I wasn't going to give my talk until the second day of the conference, so I had plenty of time to check out the venue + make sure that my presentation looked OK on the existing equipment. There was, of course, also ample opportunity to mingle and initiate small-talk with other speakers, etc., as well as reflect over the many potential pitfalls of public speaking, which were on display among a number of the speakers.

Which is not to say that the presentation skills have any real bearing on their qualities as scientists, but rather reflect the time and effort they spend planning and making presentations. Some people I know to be very good scientists gave absolutely mind-numbingly boring presentations, often due to (i) lack of apparent storyline and (ii) way excess detail being put on display. Add to that poorly designed slides (including obvious Frankensteining), no time-management (hence skipping of slides to get to the conclusions..), inability to read audience reactions and brutal lack of enthusiasm/charisma, and you've got a pretty good list of the reasons why I detest conferences. Which is not to say that there weren't good speakers - far from it - but the fact of the matter is that a lot of talks are made and given as an afterthought, which makes for a long couple of days for conferencegoers. When I could sit and listen to a talk - well within my field of expertise - and not understand what they had done and why, it speaks volumes. Assuming that I don't absolutely suck at what I do, what they did was take an entire journal article worth of experimental data and conditions, slam-dunk it down sequentially on PowerPoint slides and present it in all its detail within a 30-minute talk. Worse still, the presenter spent the first five minutes of the talk thanking the organizers and showing slides depicting the university he was from, complete with demographics and maps.

And his was the first talk of the session, with two more to go before we got a coffee break..absolutely ricockulous.

After the talks for the day were over and done with, it was time for poster session with refreshments, which was kind of cool. There were lots of posters - many of which I found interesting - and so I got to bother a lot of PhD students and researchers about their work. Lots of talented people out there, that's for sure.

Universal Soldier is back!

2009-11-24T08:09:00.000Z

..straight to DVD

Planes, trains and automobiles 1

2009-11-23T18:09:00.003Z

Last week I was at a conference in Lund, Sweden -the final conference/travel of the year for me. Which is just as good, 'cause while I'm all about spreading the word about my research and doing my David Lee Roth-thing from a podium, I'm not all that gung-ho about the travel. My distaste for the travel aspect increases proportionally with the number of connecting flights I need to get to my destination, and increases exponentially with the number of nights I have to spend away from my wife and kid.

Wednesday morning (to the extent 4 AM qualifies as "morning") I had to giddyup and have some old salt in a taxi haul me to the airport. Just before 8 AM I was in Copenhagen and found myself purchasing train tickets. 40 minutes later I was in Malmö, trying to convince the stupid vending machine to sell me tickets the final stretch to Lund. Clever as I am, I brought with me a stash of Euros, Sweden being a part of the EU and all. That turned out to be more useless than a "Rock the vote" campaign/membership drive for Venstre launched two days AFTER the general election. But not, as it turned out, more useless than a station clerk in Malmö.

After massively failing to purchase a ticket using Euros (what kind of lame attempt is it to cling to what used to be your national currency after you've joined the EU?) or credit card, I tried to solicit the help of a station clerk, who told me that she didn't know how to use the machine. This short conversation happened first in what passes for Swedish in Malmö, and when it became abundantly clear that she might as well have spoken some African language with clicking noises and all. Or Danish. Switching to English improved the communication greatly, but didn't help me much by way of getting tickets.

One semi-meltdown and one visit to the ticket office later, I had missed the express train and was stuck with a local route that stopped at every station at least once. Unlike the swank and roomy express train, the local train was packed, and I got the last available seat.

Lucky me.

On the twin seats facing me was a lesbian couple who made out like it was their livelihood and Spring Break was held during Mardi Gras. This lasted the entire 25 or so minutes the trip took. I'm not exactly shy or prude, but I definitely felt like I was invading something private - which in and of itself is bullshit considering that the couple obviously didn't opt to work blue in a crowded train due to a lack of exhibitionism. On the other hand, leaving my seat would send another kind of signal that didn't appeal to me either, so I was stuck.

Once in Lund, I started walking towards the campus and hotel. I'd asked someone in the organizing committee about the distance from the train station to the hotel, and upon being told that it was only one kilometer, there was no way I'd take a cab. After having walked for about an hour in increasingly crappy weather with my bags, I started second-guessing my decision, not to mention the accuracy of the one-kilometer estimate. I was equipped with what can only be described as a roughdraft of a map, where most of the roads were omitted, which didn't help my navigation one bit.

What also didn't help matters was that I was looking for a hotel on campus that shared a name with every other building within several blocks, in a region with absolutely no signs. Still; I made it to the hotel with about one hour to go before the conference started.

Friday music

2009-11-13T08:37:00.003Z

Today, from the Prince of Polyester (how's that for a nickname?) David Lindley with El Rayo X with the classic Mercury Blues. Enjoy this fine piece of steel guitar* playing. Have a nice weekend.

*Just a heads up to warn Wilhelm. ;)

Happy Jason Day

2009-11-13T07:38:00.001Z

Say hheellloo to my new metronome practice

2009-11-11T12:13:00.002Z

"Technical Difficulties" by Paul Gilbert/Racer X:

No bully-register?

2009-11-09T07:50:00.002Z

Lately, there's been a lot of fuss about the campaign "Stopp Mobbingen" (Stop the Bullying) which has assembled a register of schools where serious bullying occurs more frequently than what's to be expected. This weekend, VG reported that two "high-ranking politicians" demand that this register should be removed. Arguments ensue.

Who are these "high-level politicians", one might ask. Why, it's the Patron Saint of Mediocrity, Trine Skei Grande (Venstre), and the Crown Princess of Unsubstantiated Media Hype, Hadia Tajik (Arbeiderpartiet). Skei Grande is of course the second-in-command and presumed leader-elect of Venstre, which in and of itself should give some pause for Venstre-voters, considering that Skei Grande couldn't win a debate if she was the only participant, and that in the same contest, the lectern would be voted "Most Charismatic Participant". Talk about contrast in leadership change if she takes over after Lars Sponheim. Hadia Tajik is a political advisor rumored to be behind such wildly successful proposals as hijab in the Norwegian police force, and she was also one of the most visible proponents of the epitome of lameness campaign slogan in "Jens vi kæn", not at all a weak attempt to piggyback on a very successful slogan recently employed in international politics.. Both of these "high-level politicians" decry the campaign and their register, and offer instead their own solutions to the very real problem of bullying. Both are also very visible in media - in the case of Tajik, she's been very adept at getting face time in media ever since she got into national politics, whereas Skei Grande obviously has started to take the advice of a media consultant.

Skei Grande vehemently states that bullying cannot be stopped by blacklisting schools where bullying is a disproportionate problem compared to the mean. Rather, she wants to allocate resources towards reinstating the respect for teachers in the classroom. On the vagueness scale, this ranks right up there with her brilliant file-sharing proposal, where she suggests that somebody somehow should find alterantive revenue streams for musicians etc. to make money without limiting filesharing.

Brilliant. I'm sure the red-headed kid with the freckles and daily trips face-first into the toilet takes great comfort in this.

Tajik states that the bully-register has no constructive effect, and that concrete proposals and strategies are missing. According to her, bullying can be stopped by other means entirely. For example, the government will present a new, holistic approach to learning environment before Christmas. They also want to strengthen the victimization-sensitivity training among teachers and principals. But wait - there's more: The coalition government also want to allocate more funds to attitude campaigns in the schools.

Again, I'm sure that li'l Per is better able to hold on to his moral while on the receiving end of wedgies and beatings when he knows that the government is thinking about putting down a committee to investigate the problem and possibly allocate funds towards a future campaign no doubt featuring children of all colors rapping about how bullying is whack, yo.

These lame-ass attempts to make political hay of a very real (to the children involved) problem by launching some vague, non-committal nonsense that they never have to be held to is very low - even for beta politicians like Skei Grande and Tajik.

As far as I can tell, the register in question only lists schools where the bullying has been so severe as to necessitate students to change schools despite attempts from parents to enter a constructive dialogue with the school in question. Seeing as how the register doesn't even begin to list the majority of schools, we're talking about schools where bullying is a much greater problem than the norm. Isn't this information valuable in and of itself? Unless you're gonna claim that the students at these schools are more evil or more prone to bullying than other students, there is a need to realize that the problems are disproportionally present in some schools. And thus a general solution encompassing all schools nationwide probably won't do much. While I don't think the teachers and principals at these schools should be put in the pillory of constant media attention, I also don't think that they deserve a medal for either not being aware of the situation or not doing enough to fix the problem. Ducking responsibility is a poor trait in educators.

Mexican flu vaccine reality check

2009-11-07T18:02:00.002Z

Yes - I much prefer the American name for the new flu.

As the vaccines are becoming available for the general population, there's still a lot of debate within the population about whether or not to actually get vaccinated. A pro and con list meant to guide you to a decision can be found at VG.no.

Below said list you can also read what a fine selection of the populus feels about the vaccine. A staggering number of people argue against vaccination due to the possibility of side-effects, e.g. from the mercury-species it contains. Sure - all the other vaccines we take also contain the same species, but that's somewhat overlooked.

The irony is that among the naysayers who whine about possible side-effects you'll find - statistically speaking - a significant number of smokers, as well as people who regularly drink moonshine or have tried recreational drugs like X, both of which have at best sketchy quality assurance protocols.

So; if you don't want to take the vaccine due to the possibility of unknown side-effects yet smoke regularly or have tried moonshine or home-made recreational drugs at some point in your life: know your role, shut your mouth and get your ass to the back of the bus.

TGIF

2009-11-06T15:04:00.002Z

Redemption

2009-11-05T08:48:00.002Z

Tuesday I finally got to give the award acceptance talk/lecture in (or rather just outside of) Goth'N'Burg. It was supposed to happen back in August, but some kind of flu totally kicked my ass and I had to cancel, which major-league sucked. Thus I was pretty dead-set on a) showing up and b) giving one hell of a performance this time.

The presentation went well and I was able to connect with the audience, which in an ideal world would've had a few more asses in the seats. I also got a bunch of questions pertaining to extrapolations of the presented data, which was a good sign, as opposed to questions which can be answered by restating material that's already presented, which might indicate that I didn't do a very good job of explaining the data set. A lot of the questions came from a researcher orginally hailing from California. Although she spoke Swedish just fine, I shamelessly used her as an alibi to give the presentation in English "so as to avoid any kind of ambiguity". The Scandinavian languages are exactly different enough as to be the cause of confusion when presenting scientific data based on terminology which is translated from English to begin with.

Said Californian also provided a conversation partner during lunch, where we could do the patented "what kinds of food from the US do you miss in Scandinavia" bit. After rattling off Taco Bell and Johns, Christy mentioned that she missed this quaint Southern restaurant chain called the Cracker Barrel that she always stopped by when she drove cross-country. It's very unlikely that someone not familiar with the southern US is familiar with this chain, and so one of the Swedish people at the table asked what Cracker Barrel was.

This represented an opportunity for a pun too good to pass up, so I turned to the guy and said something like "In Norway, we call it 'Utendørs badestamp' (Outdoor hot tub)."

Tumbleweeds flew by. Quizzical faces were turned in my direction. Epic joke fail.

Turns out that Christy wasn't familiar enough with Swedish/Norwegian to get the joke, and the Swedes weren't familiar enough with American slang to connect the dots. Oh well.

Come on; it's pure comedy gold - Cracker barrel = outdoor hot tub, 'cause the only ones insane enough to buy these things in Norway and think it's a good idea to sit in a tub of water while it snows are whiter than Caspar the friendly ghost washing down a piece of white bread with a big glass of milk whilst wearing a knitted sweater featuring a moose.

That's Demetri Martin funny right there.

The only thing I would've done differently has to do with the fact that the PowerPoint slides were made before I read Presentation Zen, and there was absolutely no way I could justify spending a lot of time making a new one from scratch. I was actually quite happy with this talk back when I made it, but looking at it post Presentation Zen, it could've been SO much better. It didn't look amateur-like, but I never would've used that many bullet point slides now, despite the fact that this made the job of presenting a lot easier, with less to remember. This presentation, compared to the talk I gave in Oslo a couple of weeks back, also served as an example of why you lose a lot of flexibility and slide real-estate by using a company - or in my case laboratory - template.

I REALLY recommend the book Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds.

A lesson in sucktitude

2009-10-30T11:14:00.002Z

Two days ago, we got an email from the Department Head strongly encouraging us to register for a two-lecture deal on ergonomics and stress management. The first lecture - ergonomics at computer workstations, took place yesterday, scheduled for 90 minutes.

Two minutes after I entered the lecture hall is when I started sensing that something was wrong. First of all, I was the only academic staff member from the department present. The Department Head, although present in the very same building, was nowhere to be seen. When the lecture started, I really sensed some serious suctual overtones happening. The physiotherapist in charge started by stating that she was very happy to have the opportunity to give this lecture in English, seeing as how she really needed the practice.

No freakin' kiddin'

She then went on to say that this course was really supposed to have happened earlier, but she was on sick leave due to - you guessed it - back problems and repetitive stress injuries to her shoulders and wrist. Despite her claim of having 20 years of experience as a physiotherapist, she also needed a cheat sheet to give the definition of physiotherapy. So right off the bat this was like taking "how to win friends and influence people" lessons from the two douchebags currently incarcerated in Kongo. Or taking ethics lessons from Sudbø.

In what appeared to be four months but which turned out to be only 95 minutes we then were equipped with shocking new revelations such as "Adjust your chair to a position that's right for you", "take frequent breaks to avoid repetitive strain", "don't have reflections from lighting coming off of your computer screen" and so on.

The maximum sucktitude was saved for last, however, when the physiotherapist had all the participants partake in an impromptu (for us at least) aerobic exercise session to the elevator and supermarket classic "Vem Vet" by the introspective Swedish diary-reciter Lisa Ekdahl. Following this, the instructor even had the nerve to plug her upcoming set of recommended exercises accompanied by a CD comprised of her own selection of what she referred to as "modern music".

That's a cool 95 minutes of my life I'll never get back.

Blues tune of the week

2009-10-30T10:37:00.003Z

Ending this segment of weekly blues tunes with an all time favorite band of mine, none other then the little old band from Texas: ZZ Top. I could have picked a lot of tunes from this band, but I settle for a cover of Stop Breaking Down Blues (no bonus point for guessing the original artist). The reason I went for this tune, is that it featured together a live version of Nasty Dogs and Funky Kings on a CD single in the 90's, and it really restore my faith that ZZ Top still have some more great tunes in them.

Douse that light, enjoy and have a nice weekend!

(Sorry, Wilhelm, I was planing on Just Got Back From Baby's, but couldn't find any clips of it.)

I'm in the top 10 in buisness!

2009-10-30T08:35:00.004Z

Juhu!
It's only in the tenth position, but I'm still at number 10:

So this is a list over the most frequent used names of daily managers in companies that has gone bankrupt. It has to be at least 1000 companies registered with that name of the daily manager to be considered for the list.

I'm deeply honoured, and will do my best to climb further up on the list!

Sources: e24.no and forvalt.no

Epic Arnold ownage of political opponent

2009-10-28T19:53:00.005Z

The above is a letter from Governor Schwarzenegger to a local Democrat explaining why he refuses to sign a bill into law.

Hint: Read the first letter of every line in the two major paragraphs. You'll find that two words are spelled out.

I have no idea what the bill was all about and thus whether the Governator made a prudent decision, but damn was that ever funny.

Some more graphical design

2009-10-28T14:14:00.008Z

So, I came by yet another bad chart here. Check out the graph below, which was used in a presentation:

First of all, it suffers from of number of graphical flaws of more or less importance:

Vertically aligned text (the years)
The use of color (too much)
The grey back ground and the ultrabold lines around the legende.
The wrong chart type used.

But above all, there is one really major flaw which is unforgiving: It misrepresent the data.
I didn't relised this before I started plotting my own version of this chart. But the stacked bar chart is to represent part to whole ratio. The way it's supposed to be used in this case, is that the whole bar shows the total number of days. The strong color is emergency(ØH) and the lighter color is the planned days (Elektive). I thought it was strange that the emergency days were so much more then the planned days, and when I check the numbers, I found out it wasn't so. The planned days is actually the whole bar, i.e. the sum of the dark and light colored areas. Totally wrong representation of the data.

Also, I do believe that the point of the chart is to show trends over time. That is something a line chart does much better then a bar chart. My version represented the data truely in a line plot, and I also adjusted the colors to look more professional:

I chose to start the y-axis at 2500 rather then 0 (which you can do in a line chart, but not in a bar chart) to expand the data as much as possible in the y-direction to show the variation as clearly as possible. Didn't gain much, so it's better to start at 0 if the relationship between planned and emergency days are important. I also added light grey lines to show the quarters, as these kind of data usually is collected every third month.

If the total numbers of days are important, I would represent this in a three panel chart. Every chart has the same range on the y-axis, but different starting point:

Of course, if the relationship between emergency and planned days is important, a fourth panel of the ration could be added. Or replace the total panel.

(PS: I just noticed I forgot to add the correct weight to the line on the x-axis, but I'm too lazy to correct it)

Edit: I did notice that my source for the numbers was wrong. So the actual numbers may be wrong, but the design of my charts are still valid.

For Torbjørn - Sonata Arctica

2009-10-28T08:02:00.003Z

Two songs off of "Silence" - San Sebastian:

Weballergy

Update: Until The Last Drop Falls:

Disappointing releases from bands you like

2009-10-27T18:50:00.002Z

I noticed a thread with a similar title over at the Scream magazine board, and thought it was kewl enough to totally jack and revive over here. The point isn't to diss bands you didn't like to begin with, but rather to list releases you found to be not what you expected from bands or artists you actually enjoy.

Megadeth - Risk. Big fan of Dave, but he totally rolled the dice and lost on this one. He even admits as much himself, in that he uncharacteristically caved in to pressure from record label and band members to change the musical direction to something that would move more product in the brief period of time when "alternative" music was hot.
Iron Maiden - Virtual XI. Just...NO. Good job that Bruce Dickinson returned.
Poison - Native Tongue. On paper, replacing C.C. DeVille with a technically superior guitar player - Richie Kotzen - looked like it could work. Upon closer inspection, DeVille wrote most of the music and Kotzen didn't want to play anything but inferior, white boi blues. Thus, the album sucked and still sucks, with the possible exception of "Until You Suffer Some More".
Running Wild - Rogues En Vogue. OK, this was the final Running Wild album before Kasparek decided to call it a day, but this release is still very much disappointing.
W.A.S.P. - Still Not Black Enough. One would have thought that Blackie Lawless got all of the introspective rebel in search of acceptance, identity and love out on the spectacular "Crimson Idol" concept album. If so, one would be very much mistaken. Not the same quality in songs as on "Idol" either.
Joe Satriani - Crystal Planet. Guitar deity Joe Satriani on a synthesizer and techno trip. Ugly. Very ugly. Two thumbs way down.
Yngwie Malmsteen - Unleash The Fury. By normal standards, this album reeks of awesomeness. Compared to Yngwie's usual gold standard, it just reeks.
Rhapsody - Symphony Of Enchanted Lands II: The Dark Secret. Following up the wonderful "Power Of The Dragonflame" with a name change (Rhapsody Of Fire,due to some copyright issues) and recycled, lameness is just that - lame. Coincidentally, right before this release, the band solicited the management services of one Joey DeMaio from Manowar - the Overlords of All Things Bad about Metal. Subsequent albums have sucked hard. Quite the coincidence...thanks a lot Joey, ya greasy guido POS.
Luca Turilli - The Infinite Wonders Of Creation. The guitarist from Rhapsody also hosted a successful side project with similar but more hard-core guitar-oriented music. His first two solo albums, featuring the vocal stylings of Olaf Hayer, totally rule. His third album, with the dubious title featured in bold type, features Nightwish-like vocals, tons of synth and an overall goth vibe. From king of the world to chumpstain in three albums or less, by Luca Turilli.
Last Tribe - The Uncrowned. Strong contender for the title of my absolute favorite band not featuring Yngwie Malmsteen. Their debut album "The Ritual" is in my opinion one of the best albums EVER, and the follow-up is also kick-ass. Their third and final album thus suffers from not being able to live up to the phenomenal standard set by Magnus Karlsson and his former bandmates.
Eminem - Encore. The low point in Eminem's solo career, as he even admits to himself. Just not his usual standard. Very few strong tracks....
Sonata Arctica - Reckoning Night. "Silence" was a phenomenal power metal album by any standard. "Reckoning Night" is a weak attempt at moving away from power metal and into harder material. Fail.
Helloween - Pink Bubbles Go Ape. Right off the bat it's a major downer with a title like that. Coming off of two fantastic albums like "Keeper ..." I and II it's pretty hard to keep the trend going, but that's not really an excuse for this reekazoid product.
Gary Moore - Blues For Greeny. I much prefer the hard rock version of Gary Moore to the blues version, but all things considered, I really like "Still Got The Blues" and "After Hours". With "Blues For Greeny", however, the Moore-train really goes off the tracks as far as my musical preferences are concerned.
Extreme - Waiting For The Punchline. Still waiting...
...many more I'm sure...

Sic transit gloria mundi

2009-10-27T12:20:00.002Z

Like 'Cube says, it was a good day. Got a good nights sleep, got to work early, got started on preparing new course in applied nanotech. A paper is gonna get submitted to a very good journal today.

Then some kind of clusterf*ck happened.

We're probably not gonna get a new kitchen installed until over New Year's. I was supposed to have a phoner with a prospective grad student, but I never got anything but his voice mail. And the crowning achievement of the day - the Department Head sent me an email informing me that he'd volunteered me as the department's ombud for equal status/equal rights representative at the faculty.

I am now the Crown Prince of Political Correctness and Grand Wizard of Soul-Draining Meetings.

I sense some serious sucktual overtones happening here.

To quote Linda Eide in the last episode of Norske Attraksjoner - "Negative tankar"

If this sucks even half as much as I think it does, I'm going to seriously contemplate my chosen profession.

Blues tune of the week

2009-10-25T22:29:00.003Z

This week, Ry Cooder - Down In Mississippi. Some deep delta blues and soul in there. And check out the mean vocal there, courtesy of Bobby King, Terry Evans, Arnold McCuller and Willie Green Jr. Mr. Cooder sure knows how to pick his musical collaborators.

Enjoy!

Kamelot - Love You To Death

2009-10-23T15:09:00.001+01:00

Downer video,but great song...and I'd kill to be able to write such a fantastic chorus.

Bow to the Master

2009-10-23T10:51:00.003+01:00

...of music videos, that is. I present to you:

Eminem - We Made You

Just AWESOME...Mr. Mathers proves once and again that he's not your formulaic rapper with videos consisting of Big-screen TVs, rims, hos, jacuzzis and a black leather couch, topped off with Cristal and a bunch of mean-mugging homies pointing at the camera from low angles.

Chickity check yo'self before you wreck yo'self

2009-10-22T14:19:00.002+01:00

...'cause being a smoker is bad fo' yo' health. Courtesy of Professor J to da G - much appreciated, brotha'

Mozart on acoustic guitar

2009-10-22T14:12:00.002+01:00

Some pretty schweet playing going on up in heah'

New deadline, new possibilities

2009-10-21T10:49:00.003+01:00

In November, I'm going to give a talk at a conference, and since I had to submit an abstract in June/July, I thought I was walled in by the, albeit vague, set of perimeters I coughed up to meet the deadline.

However, it turns out that I was in the minority among the invited speakers in that I actually submitted an abstract within the deadline, and so I recently got an email stating that the new, absolutely final deadline for submission of an abstract for my talk would be October 25th.

This leaves me with two options. I can either roll with my previously submitted story, or I can use this opportunity to perhaps craft a completely new story partially based on experimental findings obtained since the previous deadline.

Decisions, decisions...

Flickr update plug 102009

2009-10-20T20:57:00.003+01:00

Totally awesome skyline. Can't make up my mind as to whether it's got an "apocalyptic/ominous" or "ray of light" look to it

Post-game analysis - addendum

2009-10-19T18:44:00.002+01:00

Just some other things that ran through my mind as I watched the other presentations and presenters, all of whom are excellent scientists in their respective fields. In random order, even.

Being able to speak English really well and without a strong accent is pretty much like having a superpower. English is the predominant language in conferences, seminars and workshops, and if your English is burdened with a very strong national accent, you've got to have spectacular charisma and some groundbreaking science to gain back what you lost during the first impression. You've only got one shot at giving a good first impression, and if you sound like the Swedish Chef from Muppet Show, that's the first and probably lasting impression of you, way before you've got a chance to show off your science. Is it fair? Probably not, but if you think said Swedish Cook or someone sounding like the bad Soviet guy from an 80's action flick isn't gonna come off as weak following up someone with a neutral North American accent, all else being equal, then I've got some swamp land in the Everglades that I'll sell to you for a song.

Don't ever, ever, ever, ever, EVER have a lot of slides in the middle of your presentation that you simply skip ("Oh, let's skip this one....and that one..."). You're really sending out the signal that you've either a) simply frankenstein'd together the talk at the last minute without any specific tailoring to the audience, b) don't know what's on your slides, or c) think what's on the skipped slides is too advanced for the audience. Either way, you're SO not looking good doing it.

Don't put up detailed figures and whatnot on the slide unless you actually plan to talk about them. The extra time required by the audience to sweep across and absorb the new material on the slide is time they won't be paying attention to you. When you introduce a new slide, the movement on the screen is going to attract the eyes of the audience. The more stuff is there to sweep across, the more time before the audience is ready to focus on you again.

Presentation Zen testballoon - post-game analysis

2009-10-19T12:18:00.005+01:00

After reading Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds I was quite intrigued by the concept, and decided to battle-test the approach for an invited talk I gave this last Friday. I spent quite a lot more time preparing the slides in order to have them as clean and uncluttered as possible, trying to make sure that I avoided the data dump syndrome. The lab template also took a hike, save for the first and last slides, in order to allow for more empty space. My "Dakara Nani" or "so what" was highlighted very early in the presentation. Moreover, I was definitely the only one at this symposium using the Presentation Zen approach.

So how'd it go?

One thing's for sure - the Presentation Zen approach requires total control over the slide content and sequence, as there are hardly any visual clues beyond what's absolutely necessary to provide a backdrop for your narrative. All meta-content must be thought through well before your name is announced. There is still opportunity to tune the detail bandwidth for each slide or section, but unless you're absolutely familiar with every slide you're screwed. This actually suits me well, because the slides kind of help me stand out, rather than there being any conflict whatsoever with regard to the focus of attention. MUCH more work, though. Next time I'll see if I can get away with even less detail on my slides.

As for my actual presentation skills, I feel I was at about 85%, as I had a few things working against me:

I had a cold, and my voice kept coming and going during the morning, so I was somewhat unsure as to how that was gonna pan out. Luckily it held up during my talk and subsequent Q&A.
My freakin' remote control/laser pointer totally went south the day before, and I was not familiar enough with the new one. Different positioning of functions and altered response time pretty much meant that I needed to look at the remote almost every time I introduced some animation.
Not enough space between the front rows and the lectern/screen meant I had less room to move around than what's my preference.
I was last in a sequence of speakers and the guy before me ran more than 10 minutes over. Rather than extend the session too much, I shortened my talk by ~5 minutes. In retrospect, I could've done a better job selecting which ornamental details to skip, although I hardly think the audience noticed.
As I was introduced and the chair mentioned the lab I work at, some guy in the audience snickered and shook his head. As he apparently scanned the full author list on the intro slide, he repeated this behavior. I have to admit that this puzzled me greatly - I'm not used to being heckled within the realms of academia - not like this anyways. Having been in a cover band there was always some drunk dude who wanted us to play something different, but this was a strange experience. The same guy also tried to "get" me during the Q&A session, but failed both at provoking me and at asking "difficult" questions. I'm pretty well prepared when I present my work, and I'm actually quite good at what I do, so the combination of heckling and failed attempts at asking "hard" questions only made him look bad. For sure I'd have looked like a loser if I lost my cool, which is apparently all the rage among the more chardonnay- and Absinthe-inclined part of the population.

I later found out who the guy was, and everything became clear to me. Although I've never met the guy in my life, he has strong heat not only with the head of the division where I work, but also with one of my co-authors.

Outside of this, things went very well, and I got plenty positive, unsolicited feedback. I'm going to continue using the Presentation Zen approach, but get better at it.

Flickr update plug 101809

2009-10-18T19:39:00.002+01:00

I've been too busy to find suitable photos for Flickr, but here's the first of a couple' updates. This one's from Malvikmarka, shot by my wife. Awesome colors in this one.

And I used to like the Varg Veum movies...

2009-10-18T19:28:00.002+01:00

I've always said that the Varg Veum movies in general is a pretty decent watch, even after pumping out six of them. Ok, I might be a little biased due to the Bergen aspect of it, but still. Even Pia Tjelta's appearance in one of the movies didn't manage to ruin it (basically because I only have to suffer through 10-15 minutes of Ms. Tjelta befor her exit). But know, for some unknown reason, they casted Lene Nystrøm as Varg's girlfriend for the next six, count'em six, Veum movies. WTF?! Barbie girl in a Veum movie? And not only one, but six? And not a minor role either, but Varg's girlfriend? I can't believe. What is the world coming to?

Fairtrade for whom, exactly?

2009-10-18T15:15:00.002+01:00

In principle, I'm completely sold on the concept of fairtrade, of paying a little bit more to give farmers a bigger piece of the pie, which puts me smack dab in the middle of the market segment undoubtedly labeled "Gullible - will buy any damn thing".

Case in point, we bought some "Farmer's Fairtrade Orange Juice" recently. The Fairtrade" label was prominently featured on the carton, together with the slogan "The Fairtrade logo - your best guarantee for a good deal".

Now I grant you - getting good orange juice isn't that easy in Norway. Save for fresh squeezed or the Tropicana label, it's mostly bitter, watered-down concentrates. However, I've never tasted an orange juice nearly as vile as the crap which supposedly offers me the best possible deal, both with respect to me as a customer and the percentage given to the farmers.

Orange juice is just that, so how is it possible to make such a crap product? There are basically three possibilities: 1) The farmers associated with Fairtrade absolutely suck at their profession and as such don't deserve a larger piece of the pie than given by major labels. 2) Knowing that some people are gullible enough to purchase a product on the premise of a better deal for farmers in some third-world country, some very cynical distributors take second- or third-rate raw material - in this case oranges - and makes a clearly inferior product. 3) The production plants asociated with Fairtrade are staffed with bottom-of-the-barrel staff that couldn't get a job elsewhere, likely for lower wages.

Either way, there's absolutely no excuse for peddling inferior products under the Fairtrade label. Don't even get me started on the battery acid and antifreeze mixture sold under the label "Ubuntu Cola".

Blues tune of the week

2009-10-18T10:50:00.003+01:00

A modern classic, expanding the blues genre in I way that I love, one of my all time favorite artists and guitarists: Rainer Ptacek - Don't Know Why. A rare, previously unreleased music video (I've never seen an official music videos of Rainer, so I guess any video is previously unreleased), but I sure feel that they've manage do make a decent video on a very low budget. And this is a great version of the tune, which I don't think have been released on audio.

Enjoy, mi amigos!

That was fast

2009-10-14T18:23:00.002+01:00

In the new proposed national budget, the gov't wants to introduce a value-added tax to biodiesel and LPG, i.e., gaseous fuel for motor vehicles. The reason is apparently that the majority of costs associated with personal motor vehicles are associated with accidents, heavy traffic/gridlocks and noise, none of which vary significantly with the fuel source. Thus there is no reason for tax rebates for certain types of fuel.

Brilliant, says I. There is only one singular explanation for this proposal that doesn't bring into play a linear combination of zero eco-cred among the government parties, epic broken promises during the election campaign and several people in key positions not taking their medication. Namely that the pesky problem with CO2 emissions and that whole man-made climate changes-dealie has been called off.

Otherwise, how in the blue hell do they plan to motivate people to purchase more eco-friendly cars when they refuse to lower the taxes for hybrid cars significantly and the fuel for the more expensive cars they're supposed to buy is at least as expensive?

So; now that the red-green coalition has eliminated climate changes, what's on the agenda for next week? End world hunger? Rename Mondays?

Blues tune of the week

2009-10-10T19:24:00.002+01:00

Opening track from the Hendrix "Blues" collection CD: Hear My Train A'Comin'. Sure, Hendrix was known as a rock icon, but he could play some mean blues as well. And I could have picked some more famous blues tunes by Hendrix (Red House anyone?), but the acoustic take of Hear My Train A'Comin' is one of my alltime favorite Hendrix tunes.

Enjoy, and have a nice weekend!

New trend for Nobel Prizes

2009-10-10T11:28:00.003+01:00

Some have argued that it's OK to dole out Nobel Peace Prizes based on potential and expressed good intentions. As long as the nominee has promised to get something done, there is all reason to believe that this will in fact happen. Is this trend going to continue into other branches - say into physics and chemistry? Will the prizes be awarded to some grad student based on spectacular performance during doctorate studies as well as the student's promise of more and better results once he or she gets a faculty position?

If potential and media hype was all that was required, how do you explain Marit Bjørgen?

If it is reasonable to assume that what a politician promises during the election campaign will come true once he or she is elected, how do you think SV voters are feeling about Soria Moria II?

Then again, at least they didn't award the Nobel Peace Prize to someone for cutting down on their genocide agenda.

The Nobel Peace Prize 2009... Obama??

2009-10-09T11:27:00.002+01:00

Two years ago, there was a bit of a fuzz on m-factor regarding the peace prize being awarded to Al Gore. Well, this year it was awarded to Barack Obama. Now, disregarding the fact that I'm once again ignored by the Nobel Committee: Isn't this a bit too early in his career? The deadline for nomination this year was just a couple of weeks after he was elected president. And, wouldn't it be wise the give it some time, to see whether he actually can but some action behind his plans and promises or if it's just a load of hot air?

I'm amazed by the Committee; are they influenced by all the Obama fan-bois out there and the positive media coverage? If they wanted to use the price in an active way to promote peace work, there are some many other candidates they could have choosen.

So, what do the rest of the poeple here at the A-factor blog thinks?

More power ballads

2009-10-08T20:39:00.003+01:00

As requested and promised, here are a few more power ballads. These are not necessarily the best power ballads of the 80's, but the ones that I have been listened to more than what's considered to be healthy.
This means that some of the songs on this list is also present at Wilhelm's September list.

30)
Scorpions; Holiday

29)
Poison; Every rose has it's thorn (also on Wilhelm's list)

28)
Damn Yankees; High enough (also on Wilhelm's list)

27)
Nazareth: Love hurts

26)
Ozzy Osbourne: Killer of giants

25)
Whitesnake; Is this love

24)
Tigertailz;Living without you
(warning: Absolutely worst of glam!)

23)
Europe: Carrie

22)
TNT: Kings of seven seas

21)
Manowar; Defender

20)
Metallica; Nothing else matters

19)
Frehley's comet: Into the night

18)
Skid Row; 18 and life

17)
Kiss; I still love you

16)
Stage Dolls; Ammunition

15)
Gorky Park; Fortress

14)
Dio; All the fools sailed away

13)
Queen; The show must go on

12)
MSG; But I want more

11)
Yngwie; Hold on

10)
Extreme; song for love (also on Wilhelm's list)

9)
Helloween; A tale that wasn't right
(also on Wilhelm's list)

8)
Alice Cooper; Hell is living without you

7)
Twisted Sister; The price

6)
Guns n' Roses; Sweet child o' mine
(Also on Wilhelm's list)

5)
Cinderella; Nobody's fool

4)
White Lion; 'Till death do us part

3)
Def Leppard; Love bites
(also on Wilhelm's list)

2)
Bon Jovi; Santa Fe

1) Stryper; First love

Overkill??

How charming...

2009-10-08T07:46:00.003+01:00

I just saw this article in BA, where a young, pregnant mother out walking was attacked by a
cyclist, because "she didn't get out of the way quick enough". The dude even hit the side of the baby stroller.

There are so many things wrong with this, here are some of the thoughts that I reacted on:

You never hit a stroller with a baby in.
You never attack a pregnant lady. No matter what's done.
On the photo, you can clearly see that this was on the sidewalk. According to Norwegian traffic regulations, cyclist have a duty to give way to pedestrian on sidewalk.

But most of all: You gotta be a real a**hole to do something like that. I can't help being really annoyed when I read something like this.

Movie Review - The Battle of the Red Cliff (or Chi bi, as it's called)

2009-10-06T13:43:00.004+01:00

So I checked out the John Woo film Red Cliff. As I've understood it, this movie is based (and I use that term lightly) on some actual events in China's history. The basic plot is a classic one: The warlord Cao Cao invates two southern regions of China, which joins forces against Cao Cao's waste army of 800 000 men. Wastly out-numbered, they make their final stand at the Red Cliff, hoping that brilliant war strategist Zhou Yu and the fact that Cao Cao isn't used to naval warfare.

What can I say. The plot is so classic it's almost a cliché. But I'm a sucker for those epic acient battles, and add mr. Woo's signature slow motion splatting, and you got yourself some good entertainment for the evening. Thumbs up!

TGI funny stuff

2009-10-02T14:07:00.004+01:00

All graphs stolen from GraphJam.com. Have a nice weekend, y'all!

Blues tune of the week

2009-10-02T13:37:00.003+01:00

A true classic, from the one and only Boogie-boy himself: John Lee Hooker. Boom-Boom from 1964. ZZ Top got nuthin' on this boy!

Enjoy and have a nice weekend!
PS: Check out the chef at 1:53. :)

Some data...

2009-10-02T08:14:00.011+01:00

...to quote Demetri Martin. I've just come across a bad graphs at FINN.no. First off, is a pie chart of the different browseres used on FINN.no:

So what's wrong with this? First off all, pie charts are depending on us camparing areas to each other, and we can't do that very well when there are some many. So this is the wrong type of chart. To make it even worse, the gradient, shading and 3D-effect makes it even harder to compare the ares. The alignment of the numbers can also have an effect to make the perceived area larger or smaller (though there aren't any really good examples on this chart). They should at least have ordered the slices in decreasing or increasing size. Also, the legend on the right makes your eye go back and fourth to match the browser with the corresponding slice of the pie.

A simple table would have made these data much more available and faster to explore for the reader.

But since I'm in a mood for exploring the possibilities and limitations of Excel and improve my presentation/ charting skills, I've suggested a better graph:
I made this just with Excel, no editing. The numbers next to the where made using a "fake" second series with value 0% and named after the value of each browser share, and I use series name as data label, aglined to the left. I would have loved if Excel could do that automatically, and to be able to formate each of the labels individually. For example, I would prefer to have the "%"-sign a couple of points smaller then the number. Also, I think the point of the author was that IE6 is now used of less then 10% of the users. To emphasise that, I could have given the IE6 bar a red color. But, when it comes to colors, I prefer the following rule:

So, I made a version in black and white. Slightly less fancy, but it does get the point across:
Yes, I could have worked a bit more with selecting the greys, but this is the default grey's in Excel 2003.

Next up was a line plot showing the trends over time:

Line plots greatest strength is to show trends over time, so in that case, they've choosen the correct type of chart. But there are some bad graphing here as well: The background gradient takes too much attention, the alignment of the titles of the axis are wrong (they should be horisontal), your eyes again has to go back and fourth between the legende and the plot, etc. But my main concern is the numbers on the lines. First of all, they don't add up to 100% (just sum the numbers on the right end) and especially from sept. '08 march '09 it's really hard to read the values on the smallest browseres. I even had to "guesstimate" the values there when I made my own version. Line plots does not do a good job of presenting individual values, bar charts are much better at that. Or a table. So my suggestion for improving this graph, is a combination of a line plot and a table, to get the best of two worlds:
Again I could have spent more time on the colors, but I used the standard palette in Excel 2003. What I really would want to be able to do here, is to formate the table better, so make the legende and headers stand out from the data. But here I'm falling short, I don't even know how to "cheat" in Excel to make that happen. Any suggestions? Still, I do feel my suggestion is clearer and better then the default ones from FINN.no.

The new signature Jimi Hendrix Electric Guitar Package

2009-10-02T07:46:00.004+01:00

...from the Gibson Guitar Company. WTF??? Yes, you read correctly, from the one and only Gibson Guitar Company. Yeah, Jimi might have played a few different guitars, but the iconic image of the legend is with a "Fender Stratocaster, maple neck, strung upside down for a left-handed motherf**king genius" to quote Ford Fairlaine. And what to Gibson do? Release an SG or Flying V, which are legendary Gibson models that there at least are some photos of mr. Hendrix playing? No, they copy a Strat and slap on some kind of Firebird neck:
I can't believe the nerve. And this is in collaboration with the Hendrix estate? I've should have filed this under "nonsense"... No es bueno.

Since it apparently is Vader time...

2009-10-02T07:39:00.004+01:00

...here's a touching father and son moment. It's funny with these classics, when I see them again, sometimes they are not quite as I rememebered them...

Power Ballad of the Day September 30th

2009-09-30T08:14:00.002+01:00

Final installment, and I've saved the best for last: "Dreaming (Tell Me) by Yngwie J. Malmsteen from his "Trial By Fire - Live In Leningrad '89" album and DVD:

This is one of my absolute favorite songs irrespective of genre, and the first YJM song I learned how to play back in '92 or so. The first electric guitar solo is the epitome of emotional playing, and it still brings a tear to my eyes when I hear it - even to this day, and even when I'm playing it myself. Believe it or not, but what first drew me to Yngwie's playing was actually the emotional content and not the sheer speed.

That's it for Power Ballad September - hope you've enjoyed it.

Power Ballad of the Day September 29th

2009-09-29T08:10:00.003+01:00

Thought I'd include at least one Norwegian power ballad, and here it is: "Tonight I'm Falling" by TNT

Great song, with machine-gunning and all, absolutely horrible video. Wasn't sure which Norwegian song to include - found a video of "Forever In My Heart" by Da Vinci, but the lip-syncing was beyond gruesome. Stage Dolls made a comeback some seven or eight years ago, so finding live clips from their "golden age" is kinda' hard. Another option would be Return, but alas I couldn't find a video for their best power ballad "Straight Across My Heart".

Power Ballad of the Day September 28th

2009-09-28T07:01:00.002+01:00

Since that emo-lookin', no testosteron-havin', Mac-ownin', Coldplay-worshipping, no-game-havin' "journalist" made a point of hatin' on White Lion, here they are: "When The Children Cry"

..so there

10 worst songs of Metal

2009-09-27T12:47:00.002+01:00

Side2 just published a list over metal's 10 worst songs. Follow the link for the videos, I'll just repeat the list here:

1. Dangerous Toys - Sport'n a woody

2. Kiss - Forever

3. Grim Reaper - Suck it And See

4. Ozzy Osbourne - Working Class Hero

5. AC/DC - Fly on the Wall
AC/DC is metal? Oh well, this songs sounds like any other AC/DC tune to me...

6. White Lion - Wait
As Side2 points out: This band was called "Shite Lion" on British radio... LOL!

7. Nargaroth - Black metal ist Krieg

8. Guns 'n Roses - Look At Your Game, Girl

9. Metallica - Invisible Kid

10. Accept - Generation Clash

Nearly half of the bands are unknown to me, and for the bands I know, the songs doesn't sound that much worse then then ones I know. Anybody how's missing from the list?

Power Ballad of the Day September 27th

2009-09-27T10:20:00.002+01:00

At least a more well-known band today:

Bon Jovi - Never Say Goodbye

Everyone's heard "Wanted Dead Or Alive", "Bed Of Roses", "I'll Be There For You" and "Always" at least a gajillion times, but this one might be a little bit off the beaten track.

Blues tune of the week

2009-09-26T16:07:00.008+01:00

One of my old heros here, Hound Dog Tayler, doing Taylor's Rock, in all his six-fingered glory (more is more, as some people claim...). Mr. Taylor was the artist that made Bruce Iglauer start Alligator records, since the boss at the record company he worked on wouldn't record Hound Dog and the House Rockers. Or so the story goes. Anyway, Hound Dog Taylor is known for his six fingers, fierce slide playing, a cheap ass japanese guitar with too many switches and knobs and bad jokes.

Enjoy!

Power Ballad of the Day September 26th

2009-09-26T11:12:00.003+01:00

Today: "Green-Tinted Sixties Mind" by Mr. Big.

Again, there was a slew of more obvious choices - like "Wild World", "To Be With You" and "Just Take My Heart". However, I've got a soft spot for this song, with the tapped intro which is somewhat reminiscent of a certain G'N'R tune. Mr. Big actually reformed recently and is currently touring. You should check them out - how often do you have teh opportunity to see talents like Paul Gilbert and Billy Sheehan in a melody-oriented band?

Power Ballad of the Day September 25th

2009-09-25T07:27:00.002+01:00

Today: "Song For Love" by Extreme.

I know - the obvious and more commercially successful choice would've been "More Than Words", but this one - also from "Pornografitti" - is less known yet much more interesting guitar-wise. The various guitar parts from this era Nuno Bettencourt almost never repeat themselves, and the solo is outstanding. Enjoy!

Power Ballad of the Day September 24th

2009-09-24T07:20:00.002+01:00

In the interest of getting it over with: "Sweet Child Of Mine" by Guns'N'Roses

Absolutely great riff/main theme, very much standard G-C-D progression for the verse and chorus, and then they go and spoil it all by adding something stupid like the extended "where do we go now" and "harder" section. It also doesn't help that the solo hardly does the song justice.

Power Ballad of the Day September 23rd

2009-09-23T07:51:00.002+01:00

Today: "Empty Rooms" by Gary Moore:

Beautiful guitar work on this one, as can be expected from Mr. Moore. Not sure what the deal is with the video on this one either, and all I can hope is that neither Mr. Moore nor his contemporaries had to part with much money to the "video directors".

'Cause let's face it - most music videos absolutely suck, and the formulaic approach hasn't changed that much.

Some funny stuff

2009-09-22T13:19:00.004+01:00

This just seemed appropriate now... :-D

Power Ballad of the Day September 22nd

2009-09-22T06:16:00.002+01:00

A song that needs no introduction (hopefully):

Whitesnake - Here I Go Again

It's fairly obvious why this video really helped launch this (magnificent) song into single-success orbit - and I'm not talking about Tawny Kitaen doing splits and kavorking across two cars. The band actually looks like it's enjoying what they do, and David Coverdale has an almost unmatched presence.

It also helps that Coverdale has one of the best voices in hard rock and that at this point in time, his band was successful enough to allow him to hire any musician he pleased. Depending on your point of view, that was either great - as it allowed him to hire such luminaries as Steve Vai, Rudy Sarzo and Adrian Vandenberg -or it sucked, because his old pals from the blues rock era got the old heave-ho.

Power Ballad of the Day September 21st

2009-09-21T07:15:00.002+01:00

Not much to add about todays' power ballad:

Scorpions - Still Loving You

One of the most overplayed songs of all time, and at this point I don't particularly like neither listening to it nor playing it. Not the song's fault at all - just a matter of complete and utter oversaturation.

That being said, I prefer the Uli Jon Roth-era "We'll Burn The Sky"

Power Ballad of the Day September 20th

2009-09-20T12:14:00.002+01:00

Heute: "When The Crowds Are Gone" by Savatage:

Savatage was an up-and-coming band with more than a modicum of label support. Then, guitar prodigy Chriss Oliva passed away, and the wind completely vanished fromt he sails. His brother Jon Oliva still tries to pass off a live act as "Savatage", but that's much akin to the currrent-day version of Thin Lizzy.

Beautiful song though.

Blues tune of the week

2009-09-19T16:53:00.003+01:00

Mississippi John Hurt - You Got to Walk That Lonesome Valley
Countless guitarists have learned fingerpicking blues from Mississippi john Hurt tunes. Their may seem simple, but the mans pack a lot emotions in his songs. He was one of the "rediscovered" bluesmen of the 60's blues revival, allegedly tracked down by information given in his tune Avalon Blues.

Though he has more famous songs then this, I picked it because it was the best video I could find. And every Mississippi John Hurt tune sounds the same anyway...

Enjoy, and have a nice weekend.

Power Ballad of the Day September 19th

2009-09-19T10:39:00.001+01:00

Today: "Only My Heart Talkin'" by Alice Cooper:

This song -as well as all the other songs on "Trash" very successfully captures the essence of mainstream, late 80's LA metal. A concept that Trond Holter and Wig Wam has been able to bottle in a similar manner, I might add; there's no signature sound whatsoever, only the sense that you've heard it before and that it was a big hit.

That's not a knock on either Mr. Vincent Furnier og Trond Holter, by the way.

As is the case for many power ballads, the video and the song content seriously clash here. The main "story" in the video appears to be a girl with a backstage pass (actually depicted in the video - yes) who wakes up in Alice Cooper's bed - alone - and starts to ponder that she might not be the only or true love of Mr. Cooper.Consequently, after much tossing and turning in her lingerie, she decides to pack her stuff and face up to the big rock star. She tosses her backstage pass back to Alice, and proceeds to waltz out into the back yard, where she enters limo, which turns out to be belonging to a certain Steven Tyler of Aerosmith.

Whether the song is meant to portray the fact that groupies in LA in the late 80's had seen the ceiling of every tour bus in town, or that the groupies probably aren't the brightest bulbs in the box remains unclear.

Dio classic

2009-09-18T07:56:00.002+01:00

Trying to publish my first post in here.

What Ronnie James Dio did 50 years (or so) ago.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmbuHKuyDRc

Power Ballad of the Day September 18th

2009-09-18T07:04:00.002+01:00

Today: "Another Day" by Dream Theater:

Awesome PB from a band that's not exactly known for radio-friendliness, with their 20-minute prog metal songs and weird time signatures.

Power Ballad of the Day September 17th

2009-09-17T07:16:00.002+01:00

Today's cheesefest:

Mötley Crüe - Without You

Never was a big fan of the 'Crüe, and never could figure out where they got their uppity attitude with respect to their musical and attitude credentials compared to those of, say, Poison and Warrant. They're posers, they wear lipstick, they pout for the camera and they used more aqua net than their female audience. Pot, meet kettle.

This tune is from their only decent album - Dr. Feelgood - and the video is a mixture of nonsensical backdrops, poorly veiled allusions to the band members' genitals and a penchant for literal tracking between video and lyrics.

For example, when the lyrics go "I reach out and touch the rain" (whatever that means), Vince Neil reaches out in the video and extends his hand into - well - pouring rain. Profound stuff.

If you listen to the lyrics and find yourself saying that this is probably the work of a non-native English speaker in his early teens who don't do that well in school, you should know that Nikki Sixx considers himself to be a lyrical genious of hitherto unknown proportions - the kind of lyricist Dylan and Billy Joel could only hope to get close to.

Power Ballad of the Day September 16th

2009-09-16T08:42:00.002+01:00

Today: "Lisa" by Lita Ford:

Beautiful song by a great artist. I know the obvious choice would've been "Close My Eyes Forever" - the duet with Ozzy Osbourne, but I feel that a) this song is vastly superior, b) it better showcases the phenomenal guitarist Lita Ford, and c) the duet doesn't give Lita enough space by far - it's all about the Ozz.

Lita Ford is a true pioneer of heavy metal in that she succeeded in a very male-dominated genre, with predominantly male audiences.

Moreover, Lita Ford is a true musician and songwriter rather than just a poster girl. I remember watching the VH1 Behind The Music about her and seeing one prominent LA rocker after another giving her all kinds of props and - more to the point - in one case took her aside right after she got a record deal and told her that she was more than talented enough that she didn't have to work the sex angle to sell metal.

Of course, the flip side is that the next time David Lee Roth saw her on MTV, she was down on all four, licking an ice cube, so either she didn't heed his advice or the record company wouldn't let her.

Be that as it may, Lita Ford is a heavy metal musician's musician, and this song is a kick-ass power ballad. So there.

Power Ballad of the Day September 15th

2009-09-15T07:52:00.002+01:00

Today: "A Tale That Wasn't Right" by Helloween.

..kind of fitting today. Also, the video features the line-up of Kiske, Weikath AND Hansen.

Power Ballad of the Day September 14th

2009-09-14T07:44:00.002+01:00

Today's classic:

Def Leppard - Love Bites

Awesome song - at best a mediocre video, which appears to be the bane of many a power ballad's existence. I particularly like the wide interval range between the guitars in the bridge and chorus here.

Power Ballad of the Day September 13th

2009-09-13T10:42:00.002+01:00

Today: "Alone Again" by Dokken

Clichés abound with the implicit suggestion that although the Dokken boyz are lonely and heartbroken, someone from the audience could make it all better. And by the way; what George Lynch lacks in wardrobe finesse he more than makes up for with his musicianship.

Blues tune of the week

2009-09-12T11:04:00.002+01:00

Just to to counter balance the spandex wearin', bleached haired, girl-friend-metal dudes that makes "metro sexual" seem like the epitome of manhood that have infected this blog lately (no offense). :-D

First out, I bring you a modern and slightly slick version of the Robert Johnson classic Sweet Home Chicago, by Keb' Mo' and Corey Harris. Check out the beautiful National Reso-Phonic "Vintage Steel" tricone Corey Harris is playing.

Not quite power Ballad of the Day September 12th

2009-09-12T10:56:00.005+01:00

...but still very relevante these days, by Black Debbath.

Have a nice weekend!

Power Ballad of the Day September 12th

2009-09-12T09:57:00.003+01:00

Today's classic:

Cinderella - Don't Know What You've Got Until It's Gone

Two things about this piano-driven epic: 1) I can't believe how strained the vocal sounds, and 2) it seems like an awful lot of work required to haul a grand piano down to the beach.

Power Ballad of the Day September 11th

2009-09-11T09:01:00.002+01:00

Today's epic:

Slaughter - Fly To The Angels

Led by pretty-boy Mark Slaughter, this bunch of bandwagon-jumpers really only had two hits, one of them being this very formulaic power ballad. Many questions arise from the accompanying video, such as but not limited to, why are they in a hangar? The metaphor for "flying to the angels" gets kind of thick, dontcha' think? Also, why are the screaming groupies/fans chanting the title of their OTHER hit?

.....inquiring minds want to know...