MythBusters Co-Host Adam Savage on Obsession

Re:MythBusters Co-Host Adam Savage on Obsession by jd on Saturday December 20, 2008 @07:39AM (#404512)

Note the unique presentation style - story with flashing images. It's surprisingly appealing. Even simple slides like "Anyway." that stay for just a second or two keep the viewer from getting distracted.

The whole "less words more pictures" philosophy has become really popular lately, and it seems this has taken it to a new level.

Bonus points for style and execution.

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Re:MythBusters Co-Host Adam Savage on Obsession by 12ren on Saturday December 20, 2008 @10:22PM (#405128)

It's the planned spontaneity that makes the "Anyway." slide work. His setup and delivery of this line is so enthusiastic, natural, sincere that it couldn't be planned... yet there's the slide. Cute theatrical technique.

Here's an idea: treat the slides like a ventriloquist's dummy, so that they counter your argument, mock you, undermine you. You could have a conversation. You'd need theatrical skills to pull this off.

Please reply to this comment if you try this out!

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Re:MythBusters Co-Host Adam Savage on Obsession by kirubakaran on Saturday December 20, 2008 @10:53PM (#405154)

> treat the slides like a ventriloquist's dummy, so that they counter your argument, mock you, undermine you.

This is an awesome idea. Stephen Colbert does this a little bit. But having a conversation would be great.

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Re:MythBusters Co-Host Adam Savage on Obsession by staunch on Saturday December 20, 2008 @11:26PM (#405181)

The Word segments: http://www.hulu.com/watch/47154/the-colbert-report-the-word-...

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Re:MythBusters Co-Host Adam Savage on Obsession by 12ren on Sunday December 21, 2008 @01:18AM (#405253)

thanks, but Hulu says "not available in your country" :(

oddly enough, the colbert report's own site is happy to share it worldwide: http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/21198...

It's a similar idea, but the charm of it really coming from the speaker (as in a ventriloquist's dummy) is missing.

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Re:MythBusters Co-Host Adam Savage on Obsession by timr on Saturday December 20, 2008 @10:03AM (#404551)

It's great, but I think I'm going to be pretty sick of it by the time I've seen the tenth presentation on web programming that's been done in the same style.

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Re:MythBusters Co-Host Adam Savage on Obsession by jd on Saturday December 20, 2008 @11:01AM (#404582)

When you have 50 pictures in a presentation about web programming, about half of them tend to fall into the lolcat category. Of course that grows old quickly.

But in a presentation about the dodo every picture is both relevant and interesting. The 60th picture is as engaging as the 3rd.

In other words, with web programming pictures are used because text is boring and the presenter wants the audience to know he doesn't work at IBM.

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Re:MythBusters Co-Host Adam Savage on Obsession by jrockway on Saturday December 20, 2008 @04:37PM (#404834)

Incidentally, most presentations that I've seen that have contained lolcats have been by people who do "work at IBM". I've used a lolcat once or twice, but I stopped after I noticed that :)

Apparently it is now cool to use the word "fuck" a lot, since the corporate types seem to have trouble emulating this. Even that is getting old now, forcing speakers to be even more obscene. My favorite example was a friend describing mod_perl during a talk -- "When all you have is a nailgun, everything looks like the Messiah". I am not sure what was funnier, that remark, or the horrified look on people's faces.

Either way, it was better than a lolcat.

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Re:MythBusters Co-Host Adam Savage on Obsession by timr on Saturday December 20, 2008 @05:41PM (#404898)

That was kind of what I was getting at...soon, we're going to be seeing lots of picture-filled presentations on AJAX, where every other slide is a profanity. ;-)

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Re:MythBusters Co-Host Adam Savage on Obsession by stcredzero on Saturday December 20, 2008 @09:49AM (#404544)

Eventually, media and computers are going to change our language from a verbal one to one where instantly synthesized sounds and images will directly portray many of the ideas we now communicate using word abstractions.

I'm not the originator of this idea. David Brin had uplifted dolphins doing this in his books. Since they could "see" through echolocation, dolphins could synthesize "images" for each other by mimicking what would be the return reflections of imagined objects and directly beam them into each other's heads.

It will take many advances in interfaces, but we will eventually get there. Already, cameraphones and video cameras and media are starting to effect the way we communicate about the past.

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