New google maps street view and more …

It has been quite a while since I used google maps. I saw a posting in kottke today, where he described the street view in New York. Wow. That is something very cool. In the few times I have used googlemaps or any other mapping software, the one thing that I have always had a problem is, how does this place ‘look’. I know I need to look for the next traffic light and turn left on (say) Brokaw. But it would have helped immensely if I knew that there was the big Bank of America building just before the lights ! Much easier to recognize than squinting towards the sky trying to read what the green street sign board on the intersection says.

I then proceeded to just check out Tampa, Fl (my alma mater), to see if the googleguys consider this city as a ‘big city’. Much as I expected, it was not. I did notice something else which blew me away though – HARTLINE (hillsboro area regional transport) bus stops neatly marked. Wait, it does not end there. Click on a bus-stop, and a pop-up shows you the buses (by number) that stop here within the next one hour. Is that not amazing !

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The computer is a Moron

.. so said a genius — Peter Drukker. I happened to read the above statement in presentationzen.com (one of my favourite blogs). The first thought that hits you, in this age of information and technology is, ‘what !’. Well, delving a little deeper into it, however much cognitive sciences and natural language processing (NLP) has improved, the computer still is a ‘processing machine’. It cannot ‘think’ of ideas for you. In some ways, it can even inhibit ideas. Garr Reynolds of presentationzen says it best, when he refers to the task of planning. When say, you want to plan a presentation, sitting in front of power point, draws only a blank line. Try sitting down with a pencil and a pad, ideas start flowing. Before you know it, you have the agenda sketched out. Then you start jotting down, your story line framework. You have the ending – where you decide what the listener needs to take-away.

Some Brilliant Presentations

I have always been a sucker for good presentations. I am most often than not, left slack-jawed. It comes as no surprise sites like Garr Reynolds’ presentationzen.com, and Seth Godins sethgodin.typedpad.com are in my bookmark list.

Today, in my routine browsing, I found this link to the worlds best presentation contest. Ofcourse, I was more than slack-jawed when I saw the slides on slide-share. Awesome. Brilliant. Amazing.

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My favourite is ‘Meet Henry’.