Finally, the beginning of the end. Of my master's study group that we formed two years ago, we now have the first graduate among us. I went to her thesis defense this morning. Much like a PhD defense, master students also defend their thesis at my university as part of their graduation ceremony. She did great! Only a month or two and it's my turn. Over lunch, I caught up with someone I've known since 2006. Never as a friend, always as an acquaintance - imagine a Venn diagram with 'socially inept' and 'mildly annoying' and you can put him in the middle. He went to the same high school as I, but was in a different class. He did the same bachelor's degree as I, but made different friends. And now he's attempting the same master's degree that I am finishing. He even lives in the same block of buildings. Whereas I am almost done after 5,5 years of higher education with two degrees, he was already delayed with his bachelor's and has managed to cobble together less than ten percent of all credits in more than a year. His situation is exactly what I feared when I started my master's. It's a bit like looking into mirror of what I feared when I made the jump two years ago. On the one hand I pity him, but on the other hand, I think he should know himself better. But then again, it's not like I was super confident two years ago...nor am I confident about what to do next. A PhD position opened up which I am interested in. The professor is nice, the topic is 'public transport data science' (choice models and forecasting mostly) and they got the Amsterdam transit agencies to provide and help with data. So I can seamlessly continue to build my data science expertise in a topic that I like, while continuing to live like I do now (but with a salary instead of student loans). But maaan...four years of full-time is a long ass time. That's until 2022, which seems decades away. Anyway, this week I finally finished my code. As in, it now includes everything that I want (including the sensitivity analysis) and when run on a 22-core remote beast it only takes a few hours to run all my scripts. What's left is a bit of refactoring and commenting. The output is 30 CSVs, each of them with 158 indicators for 1192 areas, which is what I wanted. So finally my cool maps and graphs are actually correct! And the best thing is that everything seems to work as expected. My reasoning is sound, my data is sound and my results look sound. Tomorrow I present these initial findings to a bunch of colleagues at my internship. Next Tuesday my thesis committee gets the same story. Hopefully after that week I can focus on writing the thesis itself and making it look cool.
Sure! I'll explain bottom-to-top, that makes more sense. My thesis is about accessibility in cities, and how it is distributed over cities. Accessibility here means "how many useful places can you reach in a reasonable time". This depends on whether you travel by car, PT or bike so I distinguish between those. Anyway, the lowest image shows most of my study area. Each zone in my study area (which is one city) is a few blocks of houses big. I've coloured it depending on its accessibility score for bikes, where green is very good (relatively) and blue is very bad. As one would expect, centrally located zones are green and edge zones are blue. However, there are a bunch of patterns you can see already - like the blueish spots to the left and right of the center. Those reflect geographical barriers. In the middle picture, I have mapped each zone four times depending on how good they score on two factors: accessibility and mobility. Accessibility is the vertical axis, mobility the horizontal axis. Up and to the right is where you want to be. Each zone in my study area has an accessibility and a mobility score, so they each get a place. Because these scores depend on the mode of transportation, I have mapped each zone four times (the four colors you see). This allows me to see what would be an 8 by 1200 table in one graph. The thick black lines represent the average car accessibility and mobility, with the dotted lines representing 75 and 50% of that average. The top graph is a different way of making the same, inter-modal comparison of accessibility and mobility. The axes are the same, but instead of drawing points, I draw a line from public transport accessibility to car accessibility. In other words, how much better would your accessibility be if you had a car or not? As you can see, even in a city with amazing public transport (compared to the US), you would totally gain a lot by switching to a car. That graph also shows a cool asymptotic effect - when you already live in an area with good accessibility, your gains when switching modes would be more in the domain of mobility and not actually in the domain of accessibility. So you get to your destination faster, but you don't really get to good new places. The cool thing—in my opinion—is that I have a treasure trove of information and a whole lot to say about it. :)
Took me a while to understand the middle graph but maybe my eye is not used to it. Do I understand that correctly that public transport is actually not that bad compared to a car (as the red dots cluster not so far from the car dots)? Another question, is parking possibilities etc. taken into account when talking about car accessibility etc.? In Tel Aviv for example, the parking situation is so bad (really bad) that many people are switching to electronic bikes in the past 2-3 years.
When I present what I have, I usually use a bunch of different slides to slowly build up to that middle graph - so it's not just you. Yep! Remarkably close is my observation. My study area is highly urbanized and public transportation is generally really good here, so I would point to those as explanatory factors. The time it would take to park your car and walk to your destination is accounted for partly - it's taken into account as a rigid amount of time on top of the actual travel time.Do I understand that correctly that public transport is actually not that bad compared to a car (as the red dots cluster not so far from the car dots)?
Poor mk... he's going to wander in here tomorrow and wonder where everyone is... It's been a good week so far. I found a way to get super zen even when my crazy-ass boss is yelling at everyone in sight. In other news, the house I just moved in to a month ago... I just kinda half moved out of so that the floors can get re-done... because the only thing better than moving a piano once, is moving a piano three times... But hey... Good bye carpet!!! Hello Hickory!!!
all YC and no mitten state makes mk a dull boy all YC and no mitten state makes mk a dull boy all YC and no mitten state makes mk a dull boy all YC and no mitten state makes mk a dull boy all YC and no mitten state makes mk a dull boy all YC and no mitten state makes mk a dull boy all YC and no mitten state makes mk a dull boy all YC and no mitten state makes mk a dull boy all YC and no mitten state makes mk a dull boy
:/ You gotta get some R&R, bro. I'm sure you've had "the procedure", but still, ya know, your health n' stuff. edit: and truth be told, I'm jealous of your drive, because grad school is a joke.what I was happening
but it's also that funny way your legs go when you are running down hill.
It could not be put in a better way.
I booked a one way flight to Spokane, WA for the middle of October. I'm planning on meeting with a friend there for a week, and then... couchsurf around the pacific northwest until I find work? It's nuts, but I'm sick of feeling sorry for myself. I'm working on a portfolio website that I'll start applying to jobs and finding clients with. I'm trying to put as much of myself into it as possible, so that I can: 1. stick out and 2. work with people who like my sense of humor and 3. actually work on the portfolio without fretting about how shitty my work is. This is what is going above the fold: Also, I'm sneaking this in some way or another: I'm trying to not rely too heavily on being clever, but I've been flexing my stand up comedy muscles lately and they love an excuse to workout. Presenting the portfolio pieces is the hard part, but hey, selling yourself is an actual job and not a joke. I'm thinking about buying Facebook ads in every place I visit to try to target people. Maybe some craigslist ads to sell myself since I'm nuts. I'm also thinking about posting it on Designernews to gain some notoriety. I don't think it's going to be designery enough to hit desginery design pages likes SiteInspire and Typewolf, but I really don't want to design for other designers. I also don't want to go boring until I know that I'm not needed in this world. I'm thinking of this whole thing like the Giant Red Paperclip. I'm afraid I'm being incredibly naive, but fuck- it will bug me if I don't try this out once.
You are welcome on my couch for a couple nights if you end up out this way.
Where around? I'm planning on visiting Portland and Seattle for sure
Tacoma, WA. It's kind of the "second city" around here.
Had a real long talk with a friend the other day. It was a good one, nice dive-ish bar in the south end that's been around since 1946. Those are the best third places to have conversations about how your lives are going. Went on a real long hike this past weekend with some other friends. At one point we came across this incredible water flow going down a boulder field not too far off of the trail. The largest I have ever seen. I ended up running ahead of the group and scaling down the rocks as close I could get without being in a dangerous situation. Feeling the mist off of the rocks, six miles off the trailhead, felt like a baptism. Or at least as close to a baptism as I'm likely to get. Met a girl out hiking who was with the group of us. The one out of all of us who jumped in the alpine lake for a swim, slept outside, things like that are naturally attractive to me at this point. Wouldn't mind seeing her again but have no idea what to do about it.
Wouldn't mind seeing her again but have no idea what to do about it.
you might start by telling her you'd like to see her again.
You have a point. I've developed a rather severe aversion to trying to date in Seattle, what with living 35 miles away.
My wife is scheduled to go in to induce labor in like.. 8 hours. I can't sleep. I feel woefully unprepared for what's about to happen. I have been home, in my own house for almost a week and it feels odd. I have become accustomed to travel and most notably, I have become used to being in the Bay Area. I miss it. I'm nervous about the baby. We have two, healthy and beautiful kids. I'm afraid we are tempting fate. My wife is pretty amazing. She's full term and still taking the dog on hour long hikes. She beat me in a basketball game of "P.I.G" yesterday. Plus, by all accounts she is running our household these days. She's a badass. Anyways, I can't sleep but I should at least try. Wish us luck, Hubski! At least I won't be delivering this one, like I did last time:
At this time next week, I will be walking around Stonehenge with my wife. The new roof is on my house, and it is glorious. The weather has gotten nice and I have ridden my motorcycle for two days in a row. My government frightens me. Most specifically, the TSA and DHS, as I plan to cross their paths twice in the next couple of weeks.
HOW ARE Y'ALL I HOPE EVERYONE IS GREAT It's been a hell of a several weeks! I moved to a new lab (long overdue; vaguely motivated by stupid dept. politics that I'm getting myself as far away from as possible). Research is going great although I appear to have stepped in some category theory lately. Hopefully I'll have a paper to show for all my scribblings soon. On a personal note, my wife has a girlfriend and I've been surprised how much being polyamorous has improved our relationship. There's been a lot of emotional work to do but things are going great. I hope you grace your ears with these sounds (if jazz is your thing): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT_aBs9pjfFY_EKyN9ETe8mCVAe5hpkb1
I'm applying bar tape to my bicycle. Please, shoot me. I hate doing this. 1 HOUR UPDATE I HAVE MANAGED TO FUCK ONE OF MY TAPE ROLLS> 3 HOUR MARK I have bought more tape, gotten a tutorial from LBS man. Unwrapping the one side I did. 4 HOUR MARK I am emotionally drained, but it is done. I'm now set up to use barend shifters instead of downtube. Apparently, shimano shifters don't have quite enough throw for my Suntour Superbe Pro shifters to make it into the 8th cog. That's just the price I'll pay, because you'll pry my Suntour mechs from my cold, dead hipster hands. ... plus I'm not unwrapping this shit for a looong time, if all goes according to plan*. ... also, my rear downtube shifter shit the bed. Couldn't go back to it if I wanted to. __________________ * Ooor I may be buying some different bars and doing this again soon, if these changes don't help with my lack of love for my current handlebars.
and then there was this one time when I got on my bike and realized that my teenager has abused it during recent use, leaving the bar tape a little shredded on one side... and I hate it too and don't look forward to re-doing it. BUT STEVE WHY DON'T YOU TEACH YOUR KID HOW TO DO IT AND MAKE HIM FIX WHAT HE BROKE? because I don't want to re-do it again... again. but I'll make his ass buy the tape...I hate doing this.
Thanks! The blue was my first choice, when I had to go back and get more tape I discovered that I'd gotten the only blue set they had the last time I came in. I almost went with pink, but the orange was slightly brighter. I've never ridden with squishy tape before. Always used cotton. The difference is amazing! I wrapped right over the old cotton layer, and added some gel inserts. The result is comically fat and squishy.
I am very proud to announce that I accomplished nothing productive this week. I over drank, over slept and over ate. All with just my self (and a dog). I have some really good friends and they know I just went through a very horrible week following many horrible weeks. I was planning on camping out at some reclusive inn for a few days but 4 offered me their vacation properties where I could "hide out" for as long as I wanted. I took 2 of them up on their offers. I first drove up to a friend's hunting camp near Algonquin Park and spent a few days in the bush with their Tess, an awesome Golden Lab. Hiked and drove around, cooked over an open fire every night. partially rebuilt a bridge over a creek and sat on hill tops looking at the sky and trees. (Tess is right there in the middle of this pic if you can pick her out.) I then went over to Grand Bend for some beach time at another friend's cottage about 20 yards from here:. In the 90s F during the day. Slept outside for 2 nights under the stars with no tent. Left my laptop behind and turned off my cell phone. My only tech indulgence was a good pair of wireless headphones that I bought just for the trip and listened to a few hours a day. Really enjoyed that. Either silence or music for a few days was really good for me.
We're back in Kathmandu after a glorious few weeks of trekking in the Himalayan foothills, paragliding with one of 3 people to ever paraglide off everest, and taking baths with elephants in a south central Nepali river in Chitwan NP. I've got thousands of pics and videos to go through, and I'm planning on making a little video with some of them, but that's what I've been up to :)
Don't be such a tease. Post at least a couple of pics. Nepal is one of the most amazing places on this planet.
Haha sorry! I will when I get home tomorrow. Having a hard time getting pics uploaded between the slow internet and only having mobile. I agree; Nepal is awesome!! Especially getting to explore it with a local. I could stay in Pokhara forever. Have you been to Nepal?
Unfortunately I have not even though it has been something I have wanted to do since I was a kid. Seriously, I read every guide book I can get my hands on just to keep the dream alive. It may seem hard to believe but I have never been able to convince anyone to go with me and I am not into group travel.
I'm over the plague that my daughter brought home from school, and so trying to deal with various things that got put to the side while that was going on. I've got some tortière on the stove, as there's a multi-cultural potluck thing at our daughter's school tomorrow. It's a win-win: if no one likes it, more for me! Stress levels are a little higher than I'd like. It's a combination of getting back into the swing, it being the end of the federal fiscal year (so management is freaking out more than usual), and some family stuff. I'd mentioned in an earlier pubski that my mother-in-law went a little crazy pants, so we're having a phone call tomorrow evening to see where we're at. I think she's trying to get back to some semblance of the way things were, which ain't happening; my wife and I are looking to see if there's a reason to thaw relations at all from their current state (which involves 0 contact beyond occasional texts between her and my wife). OftenBen, this is the situation I told you about on IRC awhile back. In spite of this, I find myself a little more with it, and I'm getting a better handle on my inner demons. I'm finding an addiction model really helpful: the way you hear people with alcoholism or histories with drugs talk about how their addiction is always there telling them to drink or get high, there's a part of me always there telling me to feel terrible and that everything is pointless. Recognizing that this isn't something you can turn off with some kind of switch has helped a lot. In the meantime, I'm slowly piecing together what bugs me about the status quo in my life (and the degree to which it is not quo), and getting better about not being amazingly good at something the moment I try it. Progress!
Hola chicos! I feel like the last Pubski was yesterday. I'll put your minds at ease and tell you that I have no news. I watched The Deer Hunter (and its sequel The Taxi Driver) during the week, and it seems De Niro is very good at playing weird quiet dudes. Oh yeah I'm going to veenland soon - heading to Amsterdam in October for a few days. To see the canals, y'know. Any recommendations on things to do?
Awesome! It depends on what you're into. Wandering around is always a good idea (especially the canal rings). The museums are great. I'm told Micropia, the world's only zoo for microbes, is also awesome (if you're not a germaphobe). If it's a nice autumn day, the Vondelpark is a lovely place to go. There's a new lookout that opened, and it has a freakin' swing on top of the building. There are lots of cool places. Utrecht is also a short train ride away. But DUDE if you wanna grab lunch or coffee or want me to teach you the Way of the Bike or help you with train tickets just let me know. I am in Rotterdam on workdays, which is just a 50 minute train ride away.
Duuude! That swing looks crazy! I mentioned it to my friend and she said no way - she can sit and watch! The microbe museum is such an interesting idea too. Coffee or lunch sounds like a fantastic idea! Just to give you an idea of timescales, we'll be heading over on Thurs 12th and leaving on Tuesday 17th. So we have five days over there which seems like lots of time.
I delivered a speech in my 100-level public speech class. I bombed. I knew that I had an aversion to public speechmaking, but I didn't know the physiological extent. My heart starts jackhammering even when I raise my hand in a large class. Today I straight up blanked right at the start and I'm sure it was awful. The class was gracious about feedback but it was so humbling. Public speaking is a more recent fear (last five years) that I attribute to growing up more and realizing how many ways public performance can go wrong. I don't want to 1) bore people but I also don't want to 2) take up too much conversational space. And now I just cannot be relaxed while talking to groups larger than ten people. So nothing comes off naturally and I can't remember why what it is I'm talking about is interesting to begin with. Any thoughts or advice? I'll definitely try more practicing.
Instead of focusing on big things that could go wrong, focus on small, concrete things you can do to make your presentation better. That way when you're speaking and you wonder, "are they getting it?" or "am I being dull" or whatever, you'll have something you can do to fix that problem. I also spend a lot of time "rehearsing" various parts of lectures 'n whatnot in my head. It's not really rehearsing--I don't tend to go in order, and most of the stuff I think through I don't actually say. But, I think coming up with a handful of ways to cover a topic makes speaking easier. Nerves never go away; even after lecturing for a while I still get nervous right before classtime. That's something that you just have to practice getting through, I think. Once I actually start talking I usually relax and things get better.
What sort of lecturing do you do? How much does mastery of the subject help when delivering?
Variously: digital network design, calculus, C (beginner & advanced), discrete math, miscellaneous stuff-you-probably-should-know-as-a-person-who-programs-computers-sometimes. Mastery helps because you can answer "why": why is something useful, why would you care to study something (sometimes those two have different answers!), why certain algorithms give the results they do. Anyone can learn, say, how to calculate a remainder; mastery helps you connect remainders to other related ideas (cycles, clocks, symmetries of geometric shapes, cryptography...). Also, mastery helps you answer unanticipated questions and to come up with alternate explanations when your audience doesn't get what you're trying to say. It doesn't help when you forget that you know something--it's easy to gloss over basic concepts that have ingrained themselves in your mind so much that you don't even notice they're there anymore. This is not to say that I've mastered anything, or that 'mastery' is a final, well-defined state of existence...
I've been a really good public speaker for a long time. It came pretty naturally to me. And it turns out that the same skills make me a good teacher. So one of the things I could always do when my marketing business was slow, was set up a couple of classes and teach people public speaking skills. Really, the key thing to do is Bring Fewer Notes. People like to write out what they are going to say, and then read off the cards. This is bad. Most people are not actors, and suck at reading lines. In addition, written English is much different than spoken English, and if you write something down, and then speak it, it is going to sound weird. To both you, and your audience. The best thing to do is to give yourself bullet points you want to hit. The 3 or 4 points you want people to remember when they walk out of the room. Take a single blank sheet of paper. Write the name of your talk at the top. Write the names of people/orgs you want to thank. Write a two-sentence intro that you will practice, and repeat verbatim in front of the crowd. Write your 3 or 4 key points in big sharpie, spaced evenly down the page, with many lines in between each of them. Leave two inches at the bottom of the page. In a lighter pen, make notes of key phrases or ideas you want to hit in between each bullet point, to tie them together. So your page should look like this: ------ INTRO (A brief, 2 sentence description of what people are going to leave with today. Work on this phrasing. Write it carefully. Rewrite it. Remove jargon. Make it simple.) "Thank you to Dr. Smith, and the School of Herbology for the opportunity to speak to you all today. My work over the last two years has been focused on hybridizing oranges with grapes, to make an edible orange peel." - pause - Topic 1: Hybrids attempt to bring the good traits of two different things together, into a single, hybrid thing. - Dr. Karlsen's research from Instituit de van Voors. - Tangelos. Pluots. - Topic 2: Problems with hybridization. - Johnathan the capybara/penguin. - Time. - Monetization/Research funding Topic 3: Cellular hybridization with CRISPR - blah blah blah - blah Closing (This 2-3 sentence ending should wrap up the three things you want people to remember from your talk, your name, and thank the people who invited you to speak.) "Thank you again to Dr. Smith, the school of Herbology, and to you all, for your attention. In closing, my name is Professor Blackbootz of Quirm, and I am enthusiastic about Orange/Grape hybridization; a win/win for the market, and for Herbology, and the underlying techniques will allow us to create new foods that defend against climate, pest, and other environmental problems. Thank you. I will now take any questions..." ------ This model works for a couple of reasons: You already KNOW what you are talking about. You talk about it every single day. Without notes. So writing ALL of your words/talk down on paper simply gives you several other things to worry about, than your message. Am I reading too fast? Did I pronounce that right? Woah... those words sound weird together. Wait... did I already read that line? Aren't I supposed to make eye contact? Oh crap... where was I? The bullet points help you present a story with a beginning, middle, and end, without a lot of extra fluff and distraction. Hit the points. Stitch them together with a couple of sentences to move from one thought to the next one, down the page, until you get to the bottom. Writing out the Intro helps alleviate the butterflies and nervousness that ALL of us get when we walk up to the microphone. You know this part by heart. You have repeated it in the mirror at home, and in your head, over and over, for a couple of weeks. You KNOW this. And it is WRITTEN RIGHT THERE, so if you clutch up, just read what you wrote down. Presentation-wise, over time you will know how long to spend on each section of the talk, as well. So if you have a clock or watch, you can check to make sure you aren't going over, by simply getting to the middle of the page, and checking to see how much time you have left. "I'm half way down the page, and half way through my time. Perfect." Finally, don't go in to detail! This is a presentation, not a lab. Give them the highlights. Then, at the end, give them time to ask questions. EVERYONE is better at answering questions about what they do, than they are at presentations. So keep the "presenting" part short, and the Q&A section longer. This way, you also engage the crowd. They aren't just tuned out and not listening. They are actively participating, which makes YOU feel good, as the presenter. I hope those suggestions help you out with your next presentation!! (PS - I can also help make your PowerPoint presentation interesting, and not suck.)
I have a PowerPoint presentation tomorrow to my thesis supervisors. I start with those bullet points ("I'm gonna talk about X, Y and Z today") and then have one slide per sub-point. I prefer little to no text - the slides should only support or summarize what I have to say. Any Goobster PowerPoint Power Tips for me? :)
EXCELLENT start! Use no font smaller than 20 points, and stay with 30pt if you want people to actually read something. (Projectors and displays are hard enough to read, as is.) Use "builds". Every word you put on the screen will be read by everyone in the room, faster than you can say it. Do not read the words. Hit the button, let the words display, count to 3 seconds, and then ADD to the words that are on the screen by speaking about the point shown on screen. ---- Reading what is on the screen is annoying to the audience, and makes them feel like you are treating them like children. ---- Give people a moment to read and digest your words. Then add something material to the idea. So sentences can be short, and even incomplete. Questions also work. For example, the bullet point on screen says: Traffic heat maps provide one valuable data vector Then you follow up with: "I also found it was important to map this data in conjunction with the size and number of floors of the buildings found at the "hottest" points in my map..." click to show next graph/data plot "Because a 20-story office building is obviously going to have heavier traffic than a 2-story one." --- Most people would present this as a couple of sentences and a big graphic of a heat map. But then you have to leave the audience time to read all the text, grok the image, re-read the text, and then re-assess the meaning of the heat map in light of the text. Yeah, my method can seem like you are spoon-feeding them, but there is a fine line here, and the end result is that you want them to take away 2 or 3 key things. So give them something valuable first. Then INCREASE the value of that information with more detail, or surrounding data. That gets people to the "a-ha!" moment faster, than if you wait for them to figure it out themselves. You can then refer to this a-ha moment in your conclusion, to remind them of this little discovery in your wrap up. Good luck with your presentation!!
>has 18pt font on multiple slides... Good point. I like your concept of builds - it's useful to approach presentation styles as UX design problems. I already do it sometimes but I don't think I am very good at pausing. Usually, I say something along the lines of "...and that leads me to...[click]...eh,...this next slide. [small pause] A part of my degree was a long series of company visits. Usually, they'd ask us students to divide in smaller groups, work on a small case study and present the results after an hour of giving it some thought. While others were thinking of excuses not to present, I usually didn't mind the practice and I ended up refining the bullet-point-method along the way. In high school I was deathly afraid of giving presentations, but now I'm comfortable giving presentations to small and medium sized groups and sometimes get compliments for it. What I don't know is how I can move on from here. How do I continue improving my presentation skills? What are some of the lessons you've learned more recently?
Really, the sad thing is to think like Twitter. People consume data in discrete chunks. This is true conceptually, biologically, and physically. Blinking is actually us cutting up our experience into discrete chunks, so our brain can process and store all the data. (That's an incomplete description of blinking, but accurate enough for the point.) So give them a fact, and a moment to process it. Stack another fact on top of that one. Give them a moment. Stack another one. Then stand back and have a general description for what you have built. Let them process that. So place a brick, place a brick, place a brick, then stand back and say, "pyramid!" Leave out the details. Be general. Get the broad strokes right. Point them in the right direction, but don't give them GPS coordinates. Then, stand back and let them ask questions. THAT's where you give them the detail. People learn better when THEY drive the process of inquiry. So if you give them waypoints on a map, and then let them ask "Hey, how do we cross this river between points C and D?", two things happen: 1. You are no longer the "presenter". You are having a conversation, with another person, about a topic you know VERY well. This will make you more natural, less stressed, and more interesting, all while standing on that (normally) terrifying stage. 2. The person actually learns more, and respects you more, because you were able to provide the answer to the question that they couldn't work out on their own. People try to present an excess of data, to prove their point, and all they do is bury the audience in confusing minutiae. Let them tease out the details with their questions. You can also use their questions as talking points, if they truly need further explanation, and the crowd is interested. Ideally, if you have a 15-minute slot, give them a 5-minute presentation and then answer questions for 10 minutes. You will have the highest rated talk of the day.
Again a little late to the pub. Damn, everyone is drunk already! one Tripel Karmeliet please I talked to my friend that I fell in love with (from my last Pubski) and told her that we should not meet anymore. She was very sad... Weirdly, I was not. I felt pretty empty while saying it. As if I went through this scenario 10,000 times and by the 10,001 time I was so used to it that it was routine. I was/am worried about that. Anyone has an explanation?
Brevity is key for me tonight. Relationships Steadily moving along with previously mentioned date. Seeing her again tomorrow. Thank you for the words of wisdom. Excited to see how things pan out. Life A well-known reporter for a well-known magazine is visiting town to do research on a kid from my alma mater. I was recommended to give a comment since those who would like to are not allowed, too. I'm planning on giving my two cents which is in conjunction with those I'm speaking in place for. I own them for their influence on my life and have no other real affiliation with the subject matter of the article, but I'm wary of privacy is all - hence stupid vagueness. Anywho, we'll see how it goes, and what the article will look like if/when it breaks.