[OS X TeX] NASA, Word, TeX and PowerPoint
Alain Schremmer
schremmer.alain at gmail.com
Wed Feb 4 18:40:30 CET 2009
On Feb 4, 2009, at 12:24 PM, Joseph C. Slater PE, PhD wrote:
>
> On Feb 4, 2009, at 12:00 PM, Adam M. Goldstein wrote:
>
>> Right, my thought about the NASA bussiness immediately was, if
>> they had used, say Beamer or TeX in general more widely, their
>> communication would have been that much more effective, and then
>> things such as what Tufte refers to in his little pamphlet
>> wouldn't have occurred.
>>
>> Moreover it occurs to me that Springer, at least, has a LaTeX
>> submission option that allows you to upload your source, and it
>> will typeset it and show you the completed PDF. So it's not as
>> though this is impossible. You are supposed to put in any macros
>> you want to use in the document itself. They are not generating a
>> house style, I don't think, with manuscripts, but the auto upload
>> does work. NSF's fastlane works the same way.
>> <snip>
>
> My sense, in having worked with NASA and US Military folks for 18
> years, is that they are briefed and briefing to death. Instead of a
> few high quality reports, the tendency is to generate PP after PP
> presentation in what turns into a dog and pony show. IMHO an
> excruciating amount of time is spent trying to show that things are
> "getting done" in place of time better spent a) doing it, b)
> documenting it. I really don't think Beamer, etc. solves the real
> problem. It's about the fact that presentations have an
> environment, and an expectation, that is not conducive to critical
> thinking about details. The details can't be shown in a
> presentation lest the presentation last more than the allotted time/
> attention span/donut supply. We spend a year of class time in
> engineering going over Newton's laws for a variety of situations,
> and it's not exhaustive. However, give me the details showing
> whether it's safe to de-orbit the shuttle seems to have gotten 3
> hours of presentation. The devil indeed was in those details. The
> first presentation had an obvious statement that would have made me
> panic, but someone important sipped coffee at the wrong time, and
> oops, the test conditions being totally irrelevant to the situation
> was blown right over.
And, methink, exactly the same goes on with governments' reactions
to, say, economic crises, global warming, etc.
Poor everybody.
Rueful regards
--schremmer
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