PowerPointless

Hot on the heels of the Gettysburg Address, some guy has come up with the The Power Point Anthology of Literature.

The first slide, summarizing Hamlet, is the funniest.

It's safe concluding that great literature does NOT do well when translated to the powerpoint format, because the beauty of the language is lost and the bullet-list cannot capture the impact of the ideas expressed. Why do science or business talks do better? Simpler, more easily-expressed ideas benefit from a flow chart or bullets, sure... But then again, a lot of clarity and subtlety is lost by powerpoint as well. And if you organize your thoughts according to powerpoint outlines, the good-ideas-per-minute ratio takes a hit, I think...

Peter Norvig, naturally, has some good additional thoughts, including links to Tufte and a bunch of other oration and presentation tips.

Incidentally, related to the google-bomb post earlier, if you search for Gettysburg Address, Norvig's powerpoint presentation is #3. Unbelievable.