I have a few objections to that, as nice as it is for what it's trying to be.

The first is covered by the "Is there any kind of Âpresenter screen in Impressive?" FAQ. (Or more directly, the "No, and there is currently no proper way (or plans) to implement such a thing" answer.) There's sort of a half-assed workaround that gets some of the way there, but a half-assed workaround is still half-assed.

The second is that I don't think PDF is a good delivery medium for a lot of presentations. A lot of people (especially here) will decry things like fancy effects and animations, and when used without purpose they're distracting and obnoxious. However, they can also be used very well, to clarify relationships or show how a system transitions from state-to-state and stuff like that. I get the feeling that PDF is a bit more capable here than I give it credit for, but I still think it's pretty poor in comparison to something in the PPT/Impress/Keynote genre.

Third, it's only a viewer, which leaves open the question of what you author the PDFs in. The example slides are Beamer, and as much of a fan of Latex as I am for documents*, I think it's a pretty poor fit for most presentations. Partly this goes to my previous point, but I also think that presentations are a medium that minimizes most of Latex's strengths and maximizes its weaknesses.

(* Actually this is untrue. I hate Latex. :-) But like PPT, it stands out as being by far the best of a bad lot.)

Like you say, to each their own, but I think it's not for me.

Keynote is free now with Macs and iOS devices and free online for everyone.

Are you sure about that? I tried signing into iCloud with the credentials I use for iTunes, and it said "Your Apple ID must be used to set up iCloud on an OS X or iOS device before you can use iCloud.com."

Did I go to the wrong place? Or can I set up an account even if I don't own a machine?

This is why the current generation of MLC SSD's is so disruptive. A single, cheap, consumer grade drive has IOPS and longevity that used to cost 100x as much. There are big changes coming in the storage industry.

it's easier to type "17 25 4 12" than "17 25 4 12" even ignoring row vs column-ness.

Let's try that again not making up new HTML tags: ...it's easier to type "17 [enter] 25 [enter] 4 [enter] 12" than "17 [comma] 25 [comma] 4 [comma] 12" even ignoring row vs column-ness.

I would vote Excel in that contest. To me, comparing Excel to Python/matplotlib harkens a lot of the comparison of something like Python to a compiled language. The former gives you a REPL that lets you interact with your language easily, you can make changes and see them reflected without recompiling, etc. Well, Excel takes that one step further: with it, you don't have to do anything: as you change the input data, the calculated data changes immediately. With Python and matplotlib (at least as much as I've seen it), you don't have to recompile but you do have to re-run your script or take some other action besides just changing the data to get it to regraph (or else start writing your own wrapper).

Or not everything is graphing either. For instance, suppose you're picking between different mortgages and want to compare a few different scenarios. You can have cells for the interest rate, nominal loan time, points, extra prepayments, etc. and then have cells to calculate the total interest paid, actual loan time, etc. Want to see what an additional 1% does to your rate? Change 3.5% to 4.5% and... you see the effect.

Finally, I think spreadsheets often make data entry easier as well as just looking at tables easier. You can just grab and resize columns if something doesn't fit, as opposed to go and manually respace things. Entering data going down in a spreadsheet column is about as easy as it gets because you have an enter button on your 10-key: it's easier to type "17 25 4 12" than "17 25 4 12" even ignoring row vs column-ness.

At least personally, when I use a spreadsheet instead of going to Python/matplotlib or something else, those are usually the reasons why.

Second, he for your analogy basically stood outside and asked for some secrets and the homeowner yelled them back at him.

That's like saying someone who breaks into a house by throwing a brick through the window merely lets go of a brick when it has a particular trajectory and the glass just got out of their way.

Sure there were some incremental changes that took advantage of newer technologies, some new UI changes that I am not sure if it makes things better

This is going to sound like a shill, but I promise it's not; I've actually been really impressed with the Office UI changes post-2007. (For purposes of this discussion, let's forget about whether the ribbon itself was a good idea (I am actually pretty indifferent, to be honest) and just assume it's here to stay.) A few years back I went to work on a PowerPoint presentation in 2010 on a shared computer, than later continued work using 2007 on my own. And I definitely missed some of the changes -- where 2010 made much more accessible some operations that were more buried in 2007. And recently I was doing some collaborative work in Word 2013, and there were a couple minor but still nice changes to the way comments and track-changes were displayed in comparison to what I was used to (and have reason to believe changed since 2010).

I'm by no means a heavy Office user -- there will be weeks that go by where I almost don't open any Office programs. But at the same time, (1) they are making UI improvements and (2) I definitely don't think you can dismiss UI improvements for programs like these -- in some sense, 98% of the program is the UI for something like Word. Word's not doing any heavy computation behind the scenes that's the real thing you're interested in.

OTOH, it is my wish that no one use MS Powerpoint anymore. It is dated and ugly

There's not a lot of good choices. And by "not a lot", I mean... pretty much 0, to be honest. Keynote might be one, but I haven't really used it and my standard line is that I don't want to spend a thousand dollars on presentation software, even if it does come with a free computer. (My other standard line -- re. Hackintoshes -- is that I try to have grown out of pirating and if Apple doesn't want me to give them money for a working legit copy, then fine, I wont.) Some other options like some of the HTML presentation libraries are kind of intriguing, and I haven't had cause to play around with them -- but I'm tempted they wouldn't be worth the added hassle of using separate programs to make a bunch of images and then having those images sit around in separate files.

And as tired as PPT is, Impress is still basically shit in comparison. PowerPoint is pretty much the best of a bad lot, IMO.

In your opinion. I clearly disagree, finding more agreement with Breyer's dissent in McDonald v. Chicago (2010) that incorporation under the 14th was inappropriate because it is not a fundamental, individual right.

The Second is the only Amendment in the Bill of Rights that explicitly explains the intent behind the right enumerated there -- that the ownership of firearms is intended for the establishment of well functioning militias. That means the right is limited and not fundamental, and the government should have a free hand to regulate so long as that purpose is not thwarted. To hold otherwise is to regulate the militia clause meaningless. I do not think any phrase in the Constitution should be treated so.

Well, if you're going to completely disregard the Second, then you must at least look to the Tenth, which held that powers not reserved by the federal government belong to the States or to the people. Note that "the States" is capitalized as a formal term in the same way that "State" is in the Second and in the rest of the Constitution. Once again, this points to the explicit, focused intent of the Amendment to address state and local concerns.

Furthermore, its very clear from the rest of the Constitution that the founders intended the States to still have a large role in the life of their citizens. The structure of the Senate is the clearest expression of that intent, giving an entire house of the legislature over to (originally) state-appointed representatives, balanced between the states.

Yes, it is. Any misinterpretation of the constitution is an undermining of its intent and effect, regardless of whether that results in a situation you like or not, and the pure individual right interpretation of the Second Amendment undermines states' rights.

Yes, it was made up of the people, but the whole phrase "well-regulated" is not mere puffery. It means a militia in proper and working order, and it explicitly referenced as "being necessary to the security of a free State." The governments of the states have long been held to have the right to regulate arms within that context, and the federal government has the right to regulate firearms that do not have a purpose in a militia. (See US v. Miller (1939) on regulation of sawed-off shotguns.)

Unless a state passed a law saying that you didn't, by your own statement.

Actually, I view the Second Amendment as a state's right and support the right of the states to regulate arms, seeing at the concept of a militia is directly tied to the state power and not individual power. If a state wants to ban handguns and keep only a professional militia (e.g. the National Guard), that should be their right.

Title II weapons are heavily regulated in ways that handguns cannot be, under current standards. The federal government as the power to regulate them -- even the power to outright ban them. The fact that they have not exercised that power is no proof that they don't. Even DC v. Heller (2008), the case that nailed down the notion that firearm ownership was an individual right, upheld the notion that it only applies to certain types of weapons (referring to US v. Miller (1939).

And that's my point. A strict reading of the Second Amendment in no way forbids the government from preventing private citizens from having ordnance. It only guarantees the right to bear arms, not ordnance.

Then what do you say to all the justices that effectively voted to nullify any meaning of the term "well-regulated militia" in the 2nd Amendment?

Not much, if the militia clause is given effect as a state's right instead of an individual one. Then again, there's not much for the citizens to say if a state wanted to define its militia as a purely professional force and outright ban private ownership either under that scenario.

No, in the 18th century there was already a clear separation between man-portable "arms" and larger "ordnance," and all the examples you mention would definitely qualify as ordnance. You *might* be able to make an argument for chemical & biological weapons, but any sane court would by long precedence consider those to be outside of the realm of what a citizen's militia should possess.