When I first learned how to use Powerpoint (I was in middle school), I was taught that a Powerpoint presentation should not stand alone. Presenters should be able to talk about the subject they're presenting without relying on Powerpoint. Most of what Tufte criticizes relates to overly generalized statements and misinterpreted statistics. What would happen if Powerpoint presentations didn't have any words at all, so that the Powerpoint only existed to serve as a visual aid for whatever the presenter was talking about? Would this solve the problems that Tufte talks about?
Also, I understand that Tufte says that the image quality goes down a lot in Powerpoints. I was confused. Is he talking about how people use Clipart instead of actual photographs? Or is he saying that the resolution of photographs is too low to be useful?
One more question. Artists and other non-mainstream people tend to have an anti-Microsoft bias. How much does this influence Tufte's point of view? If Powerpoint was developed by Apple, do you think that Tufte would hold the same point of view? (not that I know absolutely nothing about Tufte other than the fact that he wrote this essay. For all I know, he could work for Microsoft.)
