So one of my favorite features of Google Chome is that it will autocomplete when you're searching something. Normally a feature I fear (don't ever trust it when filling out the recipient of an email), it returns some pretty ridiculous stuff. Google search even does it now. A little creepy because it means it's tracking what you're typing in near real time to give you commonly searched suggestions, but as long as your search history is sqeaky clean (another feature of chrome is that it displays a splash page for your most common searches), it's a useful feature.
Try the word powerpoint. Then try powerpoint makes. My favorite hit? Powerpoint makes you stupid. Bingo. I was so inspired this morning when I leafed through a 28 page tirade written none other than Edward Tufte (the champion of visualizing data, or moreso a champion of publishing about visualizing data). Despite the fact that NY Times ran an article in 2001 (Absolute PowerPoint), followed by Wired articles and a slew of Slashdot-esque blog postings, this is not something I've though about before now, and yet, it seems so obvious. According to Tufte, PowerPoint assaults intelligence in a number of insidious ways. Among PowerPoint's sins: It locks presenters into a linear, slide-by-slide
format that discourages free association and creative thinking. It imposes artificial and potentially misleading hierarchies on information. It encourages bullet points. It suffers from clip art. People animate text...for all things good and holy is there ANY value in this program?!?!
Well I guess it does have value it's just that this whole thing has got me thinking about the boxes we get put in when we're thinking. Does that even make sense? For all of this searching, for all of this definition, I have come to a new (new to me) revelation.
I am a victim of 400 years of conditioning.
The man has programmed my condition.
Even my conditioning has been conditioned.
-Simpleton, Chameleon Street, 1989
And there you have it. A mind map from Orwell to Tufte to Black Star. This is the stuff I think I think about.