[verelo]

I completely agree and actually would argue that it further pushes the point of why we should be concerned: They cant even make good slides, how can anyone be sure they're keeping the data they collect (legally or not - irrelevant for this point) safe?

I suppose you could also say they spend their time keeping the data safe and not producing quality slides, but i would consider it to be more of an insight into the quality of their overall architecture.

[advice4u]

>They cant even make good slides, how can anyone be sure they're keeping the data they collect...

When I was in university, my professors made and taught from slides of roughly the same quality. Does that mean they cannot do their jobs? Obviously not: they have proved important theorems, published significant papers, worked on interesting patents, and successfully trained their students (all the while updating and reusing shoddy slides for years and years).

I am a little surprised at the surprise/snobbery over the quality of NSA's slides, as if it mattered. In my mind, blustering about colors and fonts in a case of this import only serves to highlight the triviality of designers: they are a luxury.

[verelo]

Clearly a lot of people agree with you (including myself). I should clarify that I don't think its a hard and fast rule...but if this is something they consider to be acceptable then my point is simply that it doesn't inspire confidence in the work they'll put out in other areas of the organization.

[jsmcgd]

I disagree. Satire is a very effective form of political argument. There are probably many people in the politically apathetic masses who will have not followed recent developments. Unlike the regular media, gimmicks like this can effectively penetrate their consciousness.

[stevelaz]

I would disagree with what you consider to be an insight. There are plenty of great architectures that don't have well designed slide shows to go with them. Come now, look at some of the old school web sites that hard core *nix hackers kept. An example would be the old Linux kernel website was a single text page. Sure, they've upgraded it in this past year, but it was a simple ugly site many years before that. If your argument about slide show vs arch is true, then Linux would have failed long ago.