BritGAF |OT5| Superb Birds, Absurd Turds and Disturbed Nerds

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OK guys I have a second interview for a job on Thursday morning, and I have to give a 10 minute presentation on any subject of my choice, as long as it's nothing to do with work.

I need help.

I have to firstly pick a topic. They said it's good to do something I'm passionate about, but I'm passionate about a lot of things, comics, video games, music, snowboarding etc. And I need to make it more specific, I can't just do it on one of those things in general.

Plus I'm worried about visuals. I've never used Powerpoint before, I don't have it at home, I think I have it at work but obviously I can't be working on it at work, but I don't know if just standing there talking about it with no visual aids will be good enough?

Some help and advice from anyone who's had to do this sort of thing would be much appreciated.
 
Powerpoint is overated for one thing, most people hate it. Maybe pick something that has visual aids? Make it something you can talk about at length (easier when it's a passion) and above all, move around: motion creates emotion.

Not a huge amount of help I know.

My question, how are those with PS4's liking them?

Edit: also, for powerpoint if you do want it: free trial of office 365?
 
If you choose to do a presentation on Powerpoint, even if just for pictures - could you make it on Google Drive and then export for Powerpoint?
 
Musha, why don't you do a piece on an author you like? Or maybe a favourite director? A ski resort maybe? I dunno, I'd just steer clear of comics and video games, they don't exactly scream "professional", as unfortunate as that stigma may be.

Why don't you do it on Neil Gaiman? You seem to be a big fan and authors are a fairly well respected field if you're keen to give a good first impression. An aptitude for reading is never going to be frowned upon by a prospective employer either.

Also, I watched Kick-Ass 2 last night. It was pretty good but not a patch on the first. Jim was awesome though, he stole the show! There is an Ultraviolet download code if anyone wants it, I never use them. First PM claims the prize.

Edit: sorry, I have no input on the PowerPoint stuff, I'm a notorious luddite with PC's.
 
If you've got a Google account, you can create presentations in Drive which are exportable to powerpoint.

As to content, what about the DC universe reboot and subsequent retooling of their characters into younger versions? The content really isn't that important but I assume they'll want to measure your ability to time a presentation so lay out your argument, facts and conclusions and make sure it doesn't overrun. I'm in transit this week so can't really help out much further.
 
  • Keep it simple.
The trick to powerpoint is just to illustrate your point. The less words the better. Usually the words on the screen are there to help you trigger a thought process in your mind. You don't want to appear to just be reading what it says on a screen. Basically the above bullet point would be in the presentation but this paragraph of test explaining it would be what I'd say. Also only use animation if it requires it. People don't want to have their time wasted waiting for some text to finish spiralling around the screen. Might have been cool to see in PowerPoint 95, but it's been a long time since then.

Maybe try making up a talk on the spot about one of your favourite subjects and see if you can easily fill 10 minutes without even thinking about it. If you didn't even have to think about it it should be rather easy to come up with a properly prepared 10 minute presentation.

As for an idea, maybe focus on the business side of on of your hobbies i.e. for gaming maybe you could look at the mobile space debate of whether dedicated handhelds are doomed to extinction or if smart phone gaming is a bubble that is about to burst. Might come across better for a job interview than "like videogames they make me laugh. Did you know Super Mario Bros 2 is actually a reskin of a Japanese game called Doki Doki Panic..."
 
SteveWD40 said:
My question, how are those with PS4's liking them?
Click to expand...

Really enjoying it. AC4 and Tomb Raider looking beautiful and lots of fun. Not too many games out atm that I want but it still gets plenty of use as a handy Netflix player.

Edit: "business side", BGBW? I thought the brief was "nothing to do with work"? Admittedly, I don't know what Musha's job is to do with though.
 
SteveWD40 said:
Getting the next gen bug again, Titanfall looks ace but I think the PS4 has more potential...
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I'd agree with that. Unfortunately you're not going to be able to play Titanfall on it (got a 360 though / semi-decent PC?), but over the whole gen it's probably got more potential. Certainly it's got more "grunt" at it's disposal than the Xbox One, and you'd hope that'd translate to some pretty sweet games down the line. Already, the multiplats are looking better.
 
I have fuck all but a vita now, my laptop can hardly run BF3 let alone 4.

Frankly if the Steam Machines / Controller were out now I would probably go that route.
 
Just ordered CoD: Ghosts for the 360. My first CoD since Black Ops, the only one I actually liked. It's not supposed to be very good but at 15 quids (zavvi.com) I couldn't say no. I need something new, getting tired of BF3. And I'm not playing BF4 until I get a PS4.
 
musha what you need to do for your presentation is for the main background set it as a picture of your bum, and then you can have various bullet points fly out from within the middle (i.e. the hole) across the screen. bonus points if you make the writing the colour brown as well.
 
I'm really enjoying the PS4, but I'm not exactly a critical consumer as I don't have much to compare it to.

There are quite a few good games on it to tide you over if you're not picky about games that scream NEXT GEN POWER.

Aside from the obvious multiplats, I can't stop playing Don't Starve, Outlast was fun and you know how I feel about Resogun.

The 'Live From PlayStation' streaming stuff is also weirdly addictive. I never thought it would be fun watching and listening to other people play games. It's also nice to look inside other people's living rooms.

Remote Play works well too, although if the game is 60fps the downgrade to 30 can be a bit jarring.
 
I think a PS4 is hugely worth it if you're not looking for a huge ready-made library of games.

There's plenty on there to play right now, considering it's a new system, but you're not going to be spoilt for choice. Obviously that's going to change in the coming months, but it's not there yet.

That being said, I'd be surprised if you don't get sucked in massively by Resogun.
 
Although I am looking at Titanfall and thinking I'd like to play it. I even started looking on Amazon for an Xbox One (not that I could afford it after getting the PS4), but after Titanfall, there's not really much else announced. I also think Windows 8 is poopy so don't trust their OS designers. I don't need all that TV rubbish either.

But Titanfall does look good. I don't think I'd mind if Infamous looked like my thing, but it just doesn't appeal at all.
 
Musha_Soturi said:
OK guys I have a second interview for a job on Thursday morning, and I have to give a 10 minute presentation on any subject of my choice, as long as it's nothing to do with work.

I need help.

I have to firstly pick a topic. They said it's good to do something I'm passionate about, but I'm passionate about a lot of things, comics, video games, music, snowboarding etc. And I need to make it more specific, I can't just do it on one of those things in general.

Plus I'm worried about visuals. I've never used Powerpoint before, I don't have it at home, I think I have it at work but obviously I can't be working on it at work, but I don't know if just standing there talking about it with no visual aids will be good enough?

Some help and advice from anyone who's had to do this sort of thing would be much appreciated.
Click to expand...

Sorry, a bit late to this.

I had to do this for a job interview quite a few years ago. I chose to do it on something that I was interested in but also had a passing relevance to what I do (At that time I wanted to be a corporate lawyer (shoot me) so I did it on the PS3 vs the Wii and how they represented different corporate cultures and strategies (this was in 2006 (although the job didn't start until 2008)).

I used Powerpoint, but I don't think it's the be all and end all. It's pretty easy to knock up some really basic slides though. I agree with BGBW - usually when I do slides even now I use take some web images from Google, stick them on a few slides with a heading and then speak - you want it to be a visual aid, a backdrop, not your refresher notes. I think it might be worth it to install one of the free alternatives (like 8bit's said) - or even the free trial of Office 365 as Steve has said.

When I had corporate training in Powerpoint they said to prepare mental maps for the presentation first and then make your refresher notes as brief as possible - definitely not a script. Don't write out your presentation, just have a few touchstones and then improvise the bridges between them (although obviously practice a couple of times first, preferably with a stopwatch).

I think what they will be looking for is confidence, articulacy and just a sense of being a capable human being - the subject is probably secondary.

Hope that helps...


edit: I forgot the rest of the things they drilled us in - have an 'impact opening' - start with a question - even invite audience participation ( a show of hands, for example). It will put you at ease by creating more of a 'discussion' atmosphere rather than you feeling self-conscious speaking at a bunch of people. It also gets their attention. Don't be inadvertently confrontational with it though (e.g. asking a room who smokes and then telling them how it affects their life expectancy (I saw someone do this) or asking who in the audience went to Oxbridge and then explaining that they shouldn't worry if they didn't because Oxbridge people are just like everyone else (I saw someone do this too)). They also said to keep your hands together and hold them in front of your tummy, breaking away one hand when you want to emphasise a point (like news reporters / politicians do) although I don't do it because I hate it.

Find out as much as possible beforehand too - will there be a lectern? will you have a clicker in one hand? What about a microphone?
 
sploatee said:
Although I am looking at Titanfall and thinking I'd like to play it.
Click to expand...
It does look kind of amazing, it's the best looking next gen game I've seen yet (not visually, just in terms of looking like an incredible amount of fun). But yeah, I wouldn't plump for a Xbone over a PS4 on the strength of one game, particularly as Respawn have said it's only the first game that is exclusive. It's obviously going to look nicer and run better on Sony's machine.

But besides that, I still have so much to play from last gen, I'm going to be busy for a few months yet. And by that time, we'll know more about Valve's plans for their Steam Machines, I haven't played many PC games these last few years so there will be an incredible library for me to dive into. I'll make an informed decision then.

Woo, next-gen!
 
sploatee said:
Although I am looking at Titanfall and thinking I'd like to play it. I even started looking on Amazon for an Xbox One (not that I could afford it after getting the PS4), but after Titanfall, there's not really much else announced. I also think Windows 8 is poopy so don't trust their OS designers. I don't need all that TV rubbish either.

But Titanfall does look good. I don't think I'd mind if Infamous looked like my thing, but it just doesn't appeal at all.
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A lot of people think this, but I don't think many have given it a chance.
Give 8.1 a go, install Start8 or a similar program so you don't have to ever look at that stupid Metro Start screen & it's like Windows 7 but way better.

Windows 8 is an amazing OS that's a lot better realized now that 8.1 is out. It starts in seconds, it's fast & fluid, it does things like file transfers in a much smarter way & it really is a great release.

I was one of the biggest haters of 8 when it first launched, but now that I've used it for a while (and they've updated it), I'm pretty much in love. But yeah, Start 8 or a similar Start menu replacement (if others exist) is pretty much a necessity.
 
NinjaBoiX said:
It does look kind of amazing, it's the best looking next gen game I've seen yet (not visually, just in terms of looking like an incredible amount of fun). But yeah, I wouldn't plump for a Xbone over a PS4 on the strength of one game, particularly as Respawn have said it's only the first game that is exclusive. It's obviously going to look nicer and run better on Sony's machine.

But besides that, I still have so much to play from last gen, I'm going to be busy for a few months yet. And by that time, we'll know more about Valve's plans for their Steam Machines, I haven't played many PC games these last few years so there will be an incredible library for me to dive into. I'll make an informed decision then.

Woo, next-gen!
Click to expand...

Yeah, I think it's the fact that it's the first proper console next-gen game to come out. I mean, Knack didn't look that great and wasn't much fun after a few hours, Killzone looked swish but was poopy (word of the day!) and everything else is cross-gen. I've not played them but I heard that Dead Rising 3 didn't look much more than a last-gen game and that Ryse was a bit like KZ in that it looked great but played pretty dull-y. Early adopter syndrome probably. I'm hoping that the reviews for Infamous get my attention, otherwise it's all about Fez and Raiden 4 for me (once I've 100%ed TR).

Steam Machines could be cool. VR too. More info please, manufacturing gods!
 
Mikeside said:
A lot of people think this, but I don't think many have given it a chance.
Give 8.1 a go, install Start8 or a similar program so you don't have to ever look at that stupid Metro Start screen & it's like Windows 7 but way better.

Windows 8 is an amazing OS that's a lot better realized now that 8.1 is out. It starts in seconds, it's fast & fluid, it does things like file transfers in a much smarter way & it really is a great release.

I was one of the biggest haters of 8 when it first launched, but now that I've used it for a while (and they've updated it), I'm pretty much in love. But yeah, Start 8 or a similar Start menu replacement (if others exist) is pretty much a necessity.
Click to expand...

I've edited this post a bit!

Start8 might work if you have a desktop PC, but I have a convertible one (Vaio Duo) with a digitiser pen and I need tablet mode for a few things. It's the join between the two modes which feels really beta. I can see that the desktop mode is more stable and that there are some sensible things going on, but the Metro stuff feels unfinished (even though I agree it's been improved with 8.1).

For every thing on my laptop which makes me go "woo" or enables me to do something creative, there's something in Windows which winds me up (for example(s)...
the only browser that works well with Metro is MS's own IE metro - which takes an age to load tabbed windows and doesn't work properly with lots of sites (GAF included), the W8 app store is comically bad and there's no other place to get touchscreen apps for it, I had a weekend of nightmares with getting administrator access to my own computer, Bing is wired into Metro and although I really like the splash page it never gives me decent results, the charms bar should be customisable so if you are in touchscreen mode you can bring up an onscreen keyboard, etc etc etc). I look at Emma using her Mac and yeah it's got a bit of a 'safe area' feel to it, but it just seems to work.
 
oh my god, this girl I've been meeting with is fucking scary. like, she just snaps for no reason, and I can kinda tell I need to stay the fuck away

scary times.
 
Thanks so much for all your useful help and advice guys.

Have decided to go with something along the lines of how Comic Books have become more mainstream. I've got about 5 minutes so far, reckon I can stretch that out a bit if I talk slower and put a few more pauses in. The guy at the job agency is meeting me tomorrow to go over it and help me put a few slides together. Then it'll just be rehearsing it tomorrow night and Wednesday and I should be all ready for Thursday!

I'll obviously keep you posted on how it goes.
 
Been a long time since I poked my head into Community (I keep forgetting i am a terrible neogaffer), but heartwarming to see tales of SmokyDave spawning. Good luck there. Good few years before me and Mrs Pie and Beans are going to even bother trying.

Also there is no stock of the vanilla PS4 at all is there. I've fucked up real bad. I keep hoping this Gamestop bet at £20 cheaper is gonna pay off, but nary a whisper. Its surreal to me I cant just jaunt into the city centre and pick one up either when true impatience strikes.

Chinner said:
anyone living around leeds or west yorkshire might be interested in this.

http://events.retrocollect.com/ this saturday retro videogame market.
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Well hello there.
 
watch out dave, i heard musha is commencing operation 'southern rising' in which she intends to steal your baby to raise her into tory loving and northern hating southener.
 
Musha_Soturi said:
Thanks so much for all your useful help and advice guys.

Have decided to go with something along the lines of how Comic Books have become more mainstream. I've got about 5 minutes so far, reckon I can stretch that out a bit if I talk slower and put a few more pauses in. The guy at the job agency is meeting me tomorrow to go over it and help me put a few slides together. Then it'll just be rehearsing it tomorrow night and Wednesday and I should be all ready for Thursday!

I'll obviously keep you posted on how it goes.
Click to expand...

Very interesting, mucho up my alley as you can imagine. Things to consider (IMO) - the fact that actual sales of monthly comic books have been on a downward spiral since the 90s - the bestselling monthlies probably only get about 100k in sales, the least get around 5k sold. So in a way while 'comic book culture' has become part of the mainstream, comics themselves continue to be marginalised.

Also interesting to consider that the 'canon' for comics was set at the start of the 90s and hasn't really had any additions - ask a non comics reader for the 'best' comics and you'll get Watchmen, Dark Knight, Maus, maybe Sandman. Walking Dead is probably added to the short list of 'comics people know about' but it's not really literature in the same way the aforementioned 80s book are.

Digital is a new wrinkle into the industry that helps to make comics more accessible, and also let the indies be on the same tier in terms of shelf space as books from the big two. Image has made a massive resurgence of late with creator-owned series, moving away from the corporate capes and cowls scene into something more broad and approaching the diversity of output you'd expect from non-comics publishing.

Popularity of comics related stuff is much higher now though - TV, movies, games, references on cunting Big Bang Theory. Perhaps more to do with DC/Marvel ownership by large corporate concerns with big marketing dollars rather than the comics origins? Also, consider that comics movies are the default 'action movies' of our age - in the 80s we had Arnie and Bruce Willis movies, now we have superhero movies...

SmokyDave said:
I'm a dad!

7lb12, born at 2:01. Calling her Lottie. Mum and Baby both fine. Dad needs sleep.
Click to expand...

Congrats
on the sex!
 
Jedeye Sniv said:
Popularity of comics related stuff is much higher now though - TV, movies, games, references on cunting Big Bang Theory.
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Co-opt my childhood hobby, will you?! mmmmmmmRAAAARGH!

angry-duck-o.gif


...

I'm cool.
 
Jedeye Sniv said:
Popularity of comics related stuff is much higher now though - TV, movies, games, references on cunting Big Bang Theory. Perhaps more to do with DC/Marvel ownership by large corporate concerns with big marketing dollars rather than the comics origins? Also, consider that comics movies are the default 'action movies' of our age - in the 80s we had Arnie and Bruce Willis movies, now we have superhero movies...
Click to expand...

True dat. Corps did help push comics into the mainstream via marketing and funding.

Until about 2001/2002 with Sony's Spiderman movies, Most comic book movies were a complete joke (Captain America, Dolph Lundgren's Punisher, Shaq's Steel, Billy Zane's Phantom, Ice T in Tank Girl) aside from a few exceptions like Burton's Batmans, Blade, Spawn (which were never heavily advertised as comic book movies anyway >.>). Only successful comic book film that I can recall that was heavily marketed as a comic book movie is Dick Tracy. School playground wise, only one kid I knew in primary school publicly admitted to buying Spiderman comics every week and we'd always go into in-depth conversations about villains and story-arcs. Every other kid were either into Star Wars, Jurassic Park or Man United. Nobody heavily invested their time into superheroes unless if it was related to either Batman or Superman...and even then, that would be forgotten by the time they reached 12/13. Teens would get mocked for wearing any comic-book related clothing back then. Nowadays I see middle-aged dads wearing Captain America t-shirts...

...and I still can't comprehend the huge international popularity behind Captain America. Out of all the superheroes movies out there I always considered him to be the cheesiest, most nauseatingly patriotic superhero that would only be liked by blindly patriotic flag-waving twats. Maybe it's the movies...I haven't seen the new movies so I don't know how good they are.

But I digress, yes, Superhero movies today are as popular as muscle action movies in the 80s and 90s.

Wish they'd make a decent Tank Girl someday...
 
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