Corn's 22th

It's time to make a decent update for my blog. Projects and presentations are all over for now, thank god. Screw up quite a few and was really depressed about it. Anyway, had been feeling so lazy these few days, the feeling where you just want to lay on your bed and rot for the whole day. 

Always had been wanting to update Connie's birthday celebration but I'm too lazy to transfer the pictures. Coincidentally, Connie had the same birthday as Qiwen! (10/08) It was celebrated on National's Day and we tricked her that we are not going etc. The surprise was quite fail if you watch the video when we are surprising her. Lol! Went K-box and had Swensens for dinner! 

Birthday girl and Jie fu! 

She and her card all nicely done by Xinying!

Favourite girls!

P.S: I swear that her boyfriend really looks like one of my secondary school classmate. Lol!

I finally finished watching Lie To Me. Quite a good show but some parts are draggy, the ending was so cute! Mum was making a big fuss when she saw me watching the kissing scenes, lol! :S

How to Give a Bad Talk

David A. Patterson

Computer Science Division

University of California-Berkeley

Circa 1983 

Ten commandments (with annotations gleaned from Patterson's talk by Mark D. Hill): 

Thou shalt not be neat

Why waste research time preparing slides? Ignore spelling, grammar and legibility. Who cares what 50 people think? 

Thou shalt not waste space 

Transparencies are expensive. If you can save five slides in each of four talks per year, you save $7.00/year! 

Thou shalt not covet brevity 

Do you want to continue the stereotype that engineers can't write? Always use complete sentences, never just key words. If possible, use whole paragraphs and read every word. 

Thou shalt cover thy naked slides 

You need the suspense! Overlays are too flashy. 

Thou shalt not write large 

Be humble -- use a small font. Important people sit in front. Who cares about the riff-raff? 

Thou shalt not use color 

Flagrant use of color indicates uncareful research. It's also unfair to emphasize some words over others. 

Thou shalt not illustrate 

Confucius says ``A picture = 10K words,'' but Dijkstra says ``Pictures are for weak minds.'' Who are you going to believe? Wisdom from the ages or the person who first counted goto's? 

Thou shalt not make eye contact 

You should avert eyes to show respect. Blocking screen can also add mystery. 

Thou shalt not skip slides in a long talk 

You prepared the slides; people came for your whole talk; so just talk faster. Skip your summary and conclusions if necessary. 

Thou shalt not practice 

Why waste research time practicing a talk? It could take several hours out of your two years of research. How can you appear spontaneous if you practice? If you do practice, argue with any suggestions you get and make sure your talk is longer than the time you have to present it. 

Commandment X is most important. Even if you break the other nine, this one can save you.