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Ask HN: What are some of the best technical talks you've heard?

• unixhero 8y ago
  You Spent All That Money And You Still Got Pwned by Joseph Mccray https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJsNu0VRKYY&t=14s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJsNu0VRKYY&t=14s Very terse and content rich security walkthrough of corporate IT security fails by Joseph. I find delivery also highly entertaining.
• atq2119 8y ago
  John Carmack's talks, especially the ones from his id days at QuakeCon. Watching somebody get on stage and just talk for hours in detail without notes about a whole range of technical topics that they mastered and enjoy is pretty inspiring.
  • fastbeef 8y ago
    I’m by no means a gamer but have always admired Carmack for his sheer brilliance. I stumbled over one of his talks while doing something else and jumped to various points in the talk. _Every. Single. Time._ he was talking about something profound and the talk is friggin several hours long.
    • mywittyname 8y ago
      To make him more impressive, he had a pretty significant speech impediment when he was younger. So he was never some natural orator, he had to work extremely hard to sound like one.
  • jplayer01 8y ago
    I feel it was a huge loss that he no longer holds talks in any capacity. We get a detailed and incredibly interesting blog post from him like every 12 months, but otherwise, nothin'.
• DanPristupov 8y ago
  Here are some of my favorites: How To Design A Good API and Why it Matters https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAb7hSCtvGw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAb7hSCtvGw Agile Methods The Good, the Hype and the Ugly https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffkIQrq-m34&t=420s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffkIQrq-m34&t=420s
• redmorphium 8y ago
  SVG can do that?! (Sarah Drasner) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADXX4fmWHbo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADXX4fmWHbo
• jhammons 8y ago
  "Is it really Complex? Or did we just make it Complicated?" (Alan Kay): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubaX1Smg6pY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubaX1Smg6pY
  • abhishekjha 8y ago
    This reminds me of a comment on a book titled ‘Discrete mathematics and its application’ by Kenneth Rosen which was along the lines of how smart the author was at the same time not being able to explain the concepts to someone else in an easy manner and to be honest I had the same feeling. I understood those concepts from other texts which definitely means that it isn’t me who was was inadequate or not upto the task. I was willing to learn but the smartest of the texts in the field left me feeling stupid. Can somebody else chip in on this argument?
    • mabbo 8y ago
      I TA'd a fist year University course using, I believe, that textbook during my final two years of undergrad. The material itself is difficult to learn and harder to teach well. At my University, it seemed that the Prof had to teach the subject for 3 or 4 years before they could reasonably get half the class to pass the final exam. At the same time, I've often felt like I would have no harder of a time teaching the subject to 11 year olds. It's just a weird topic.
      • bordercases 8y ago
        Yeah, there's unity to it and no system other than "break the problem apart, look for these properties, think hard, and match them to the identity that also has these properties". A lot of interpretation and intellectual confidence involved, difficult things to communicate.
    • agumonkey 8y ago
      Most of science is bridging gaps. Between a person ans a phenomonon, then between others persons. It should be told every semester or so that if you wish to understand something, don't stop until you found something that match your own idiosyncrasies.
• da_murvel 8y ago
  Define "technical". But when it comes to programming I always enjoy Sandi Metz's talks. I can highly recomend this talk she made at the RailsConf in 2014, about taking an ugly beast of code and turning it to something more digestable and beautiful https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bZh5LMaSmE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bZh5LMaSmE
  • patrickdavey 8y ago
    Totally agree, Sandi is awesome, all of her talks are worth watching. I quite like the the one where she tells the future https://youtu.be/JOM5_V5jLAs https://youtu.be/JOM5_V5jLAs . I feel that kind of step change will shortly be with us (if we're not already in the middle of it)
    • OJFord 8y ago
      In the middle of a step change?
• ryan-allen 8y ago
  Simple Made Easy by Rich Hickey https://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy https://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy
• mythz 8y ago
  Bret Victor talks are inspirational: - Inventing on Principal https://vimeo.com/36579366 https://vimeo.com/36579366 - Stop Drawing Dead Fish https://vimeo.com/64895205 https://vimeo.com/64895205
  • yesenadam 8y ago
    Yep, I thought Inventing on Principle was the best computer-related talk I've ever watched. Not easy to describe what it's about! Design, tools, art, UI, visualization, invention, life.
    • unixhero 8y ago
      It's like he has caught on to a kind of a zen thing. It is almost as if he isn't even there, while presenting about a technological topic at all. That is just the media for him to get an expanded wisdom across. What that message is is hard to identify. But there is a glance of it at the end of inventing on principle. It's a lot more profound than what the talk seems to be at the surface. I really wish he would publish more frequently He has inspired me greatly.
      • yesenadam 8y ago
        Yeah, I was marvelling half the time at the wisdom, it makes other speakers seem merely knowedgeable, clever, brilliant etc. I missed most of it in my summary before. I love the this is a cool way to live your life, according to some principle - this is mine; these are some other amazing people who had their own aspect of it. His creators should be able to see and control what they're doing as they do it principle is awesome, and he's maybe uniquely well-equipped to do something about that. I wanna get the synth he designed!
        • jonnydubowsky 8y ago
          What's the synth?
          • 8y ago
• drainyard 8y ago
  Two of my favorites: code::dive conference 2014 - Scott Meyers: Cpu Caches and Why You Care: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDIkqP4JbkE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDIkqP4JbkE CppCon 2014: Mike Acton "Data-Oriented Design and C++": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rX0ItVEVjHc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rX0ItVEVjHc They're mostly about C++ and cache aware/data oriented programming.
  • sjellis 8y ago
    The Mike Acton talk is really valuable to anyone interested in efficient software, and doesn't have so much C++ as to be a barrier: I found out about it from a Go developer.
    • drainyard 8y ago
      Yes, I agree. It is more about a mindset rather than C++ specifically. I watch again now and then just to remind myself of the lessons that can be learned from it.
• xk0nsid 8y ago
  Probably one of the best introduction/starter to network programming with Golang. I love this talk. The speaker doesn't just throw a bunch of terms and theory at you, or slides, he just gets into the code and solves the problems as they arise. Pretty good talk even if you are not interested in the network programming. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afSiVelXDTQ&t=1208s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afSiVelXDTQ&t=1208s
  • another-cuppa 8y ago
    Did you mean to start the video half way through?
• wattengard 8y ago
  Jake Archibald talking about the javascript event loop and actually making it both entertaining and easily grokable! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCOL7MC4Pl0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCOL7MC4Pl0
  • keyvin 8y ago
    Another event loop talk from Philip Roberts. The tool he created to display the event loop in real time is fantastic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aGhZQkoFbQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aGhZQkoFbQ
• winrid 8y ago
  I hope this isn't too much of a stretch. Heard it recently and thought it was really interesting. https://youtu.be/4YYvBLAF4T8 https://youtu.be/4YYvBLAF4T8
  • yesenadam 8y ago
    It's a stretch to expect me to click on it without you saying what it is!
    • suprfnk 8y ago
      It's funny that you do go to the trouble of commenting this, which probably takes longer and more effort than clicking the link. I do get your point though.
      • yesenadam 8y ago
        I was doing it for everyone, not just for me. Your comment adds nothing to HN except ill-feeling.
      • themistokl1k 8y ago
        now i read and replied to this chain instead of clicking! dang
    • genezeta 8y ago
      The Search for the Perfect Door - Deviant Ollam - Shakacon About physical security.
    • winrid 8y ago
      Noted! Still getting used to HN. :)
  • ObsoleteNerd 8y ago
    I love this video and have watched it multiple times to refresh my sheer awe at how insecure the world is when you dig even slightly under the surface.
• expathacker 8y ago
  10+ deployments per day from Velocity 2009. It was really a pivotal talk in the early days of the DevOps movement https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdOe18KhtT4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdOe18KhtT4 Fixing Twitter: Improving the Performance and Scalability of the World's Most Popular Micro-blogging Site by John Adams (then from Twitter)at Velocity 2009 (Velocity 2009 was really an incredibly pivotal and influential conference in the DevOps movement). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X_ed6GPofQ&t=26s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X_ed6GPofQ&t=26s Bootstrapping an Infrastructure by Steve Traugott at Lisa 1998. I don't know of any videos of the talk, but the related paper eventually lead to Puppet and the beginning of the modern configuration management software https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Bootstrapping-an-Infrastructure-Traugott-Huddleston/aa92492a7c2d240dee0f006a0fe6a0bf401e628a https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Bootstrapping-an-Infra... There is no talent shortage by Andrew Schaefer, co-founder of Puppet from Velocity NYC 2013. https://vimeo.com/75670082 https://vimeo.com/75670082 (edited for consistant formatting)
• hguhghuff 8y ago
  YouTube is absolutely packed with technical channels on any software / computing topic that interests you.
  • ArchTypical 8y ago
    ...and youtube doesn't have everything. e.g. What we actually know about Software Development and why we know it's true. https://vimeo.com/9270320 https://vimeo.com/9270320 Seriously, what was the point of your comment?
• daganev 8y ago
  Uncle Bob and his talks about architecture are a must. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEeEic-c0D4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEeEic-c0D4
• ElectronShak 8y ago
  Messaging at Scale at Instagram - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E708csv4XgY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E708csv4XgY Covers many things but I specifically got to understand how they use Redis to manage stuff like photo updates to follower / following lists.
• sprice 8y ago
  Fork Yeah! The Rise and Development if illumos by Brian Cantrill https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc Quote copied from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5170246 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5170246 "As you know people, as you learn about things, you realize that these generalizations we have are, virtually to a generalization, false. Well, except for this one, as it turns out. What you think of Oracle, is even truer than you think it is. There has been no entity in human history with less complexity or nuance to it than Oracle. And I gotta say, as someone who has seen that complexity for my entire life, it's very hard to get used to that idea. It's like, 'surely this is more complicated!' but it's like: Wow, this is really simple! This company is very straightforward, in its defense. This company is about one man, his alter-ego, and what he wants to inflict upon humanity -- that's it! ...Ship mediocrity, inflict misery, lie our asses off, screw our customers, and make a whole shitload of money. Yeah... you talk to Oracle, it's like, 'no, we don't fucking make dreams happen -- we make money!' ...You need to think of Larry Ellison the way you think of a lawnmower. You don't anthropomorphize your lawnmower, the lawnmower just mows the lawn, you stick your hand in there and it'll chop it off, the end. You don't think 'oh, the lawnmower hates me' -- lawnmower doesn't give a shit about you, lawnmower can't hate you. Don't anthropomorphize the lawnmower. Don't fall into that trap about Oracle."
  • hyperion2010 8y ago
    How did I know that I'd find this talk at the top when I poked my head in here :). I must rewatch that segment at least once every 6 months even when not prompted by people linking to Brian's other, often more technically rewarding talks.
  • insertcredit 8y ago
    If that's the best technical talk you've ever seen, I have to feel sorry for you. Cantrill may rant all he wants about Oracle but he's not exactly doing better, with all the peddling of node.js to the masses. It is rare for me to see someone come up with so much bullshit in one talk: https://vimeo.com/230142234 https://vimeo.com/230142234 Since I don't want to end with a negative note, here is a personal favorite as far as best technical talks go: https://tinyurl.com/hzpccxj https://tinyurl.com/hzpccxj
• crivabene 8y ago
  21st Century Application Architectures by Werner Vogels, 2013 https://skillsmatter.com/skillscasts/4023-21st-century-application-architectures https://skillsmatter.com/skillscasts/4023-21st-century-appli... I can’t even say how many times I recommended someone to watch it - even today, 5 years after.
• hguhghuff 8y ago
  Any episode of The Ben Heck Show on YouTube.
• denormalfloat 8y ago
  Java Puzzlers by Joshua Bloch and Jeremy Manson are pretty entertaining. For a pretty bog standard language, Java has some more exotic corners: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbp-3BJWsU8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbp-3BJWsU8
• aargh_aargh 8y ago
  https://techyaks.com/ https://techyaks.com/ From a Show HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17988464 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17988464
  • myth_buster 8y ago
    I've been using this for finding videos to watch while eating and its been great. A lot of talks here do show up in the feed.
• ldng 8y ago
  Not the best I've seen but definitively one I would like to recover the link to : a Googler presentation where she explain how they took about 2 years developing a memory optimisation (circa 2007~2009 IIRC) and manage to finish a few months before it became indispensable because they were about to have an hardware shortage. They were consuming hardware faster than the industry could produce. I just can't remember who she was nor the link. Does it rings a bell to anyone ?
  • havardk 8y ago
    I'm guessing it could be Anna Patterson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Patterson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Patterson)
    • tminima 8y ago
      This is the only video where she mentions working on the problem - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7rzFqP3daI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7rzFqP3daI
      • ldng 8y ago
        Hum, no it was not her. I think it was a Google I/O on googlevideo at the time but I could be wrong. My memory is a bit fuzzy.
• Heliosmaster 8y ago
  Hammock Driven Development by Rich Hickey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f84n5oFoZBc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f84n5oFoZBc
  • spdionis 8y ago
    Adding to that Simppe Made Easy, also by Rich Hickey
    • rys 8y ago
      Agreed. Here’s a link: https://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy https://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy
    • narwally 8y ago
      Nearly all of Rich Hickey's talks are worth giving a watch. He's an incredibly gifted speaker. The Value of Values and The Language of the System are also among his best.
• steve_gh 8y ago
  Many years ago, I had the privilege of having Prof Peter Saunders as my MSc adviser while at King's College London. Peter Saunders was (apart from being a great educationalist), the person who did the maths behind James Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis. He was far and away the best maths teacher I ever had. Anyway, he also taught a dynamical systems (chaos theory) class to a mixture of MSc students and final year undergrads. On this occasion, he was explaining some principle, and was busy talking while writing on the board. He turns round, and there is a sea of blank looking faces in front of him. No one has understood. "Well it's obvious" he says, and turns back to the board. 2 minutes later, he turns back. Now there is a sea of bored looking faces in front of him. Why? Well it's obvious... Everyone understood completely. Genius at work
• logandk 8y ago
  The most humorous would have to be the "Wat" talk by Gary Bernhardt: https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/wat https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/wat
  • deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  • dnautics 8y ago
    His boundaries and functional core, imperative shell are less funny but life changing.
    • growtofill 8y ago
      They're both in my to-watch list: https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/boundaries https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/boundaries https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/screencasts/catalog/functional-core-imperative-shell https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/screencasts/catalog/funct...
      • tjoff 8y ago
        Thanks, without knowing the title of the talks I could not for the life of me parse parent.
  • chx 8y ago
    Also https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death-of-javascript https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death...
    • thsowers 8y ago
      The screenshot of GIMP running in Chrome running in Firefox is one of my favorites!
  • mxuribe 8y ago
    This is hilarious! Thanks for sharing!
• vesinisa 8y ago
  "Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?" by Karsten Nohl and Nemanja Nikodijevic from CCC 2016. It exposes how insanely ancient and insecure the global flight booking system is, allowing for stealing of personal information and even other people's flight tickets. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8WVo-YLyAg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8WVo-YLyAg
• g___ 8y ago
  David Beazley: Python concurrency from the ground up https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCs5OvhV9S4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCs5OvhV9S4
  • type0 8y ago
    Oh, Dabeaz has so many great talks. He has one of those teaching styles that can contagiously convince even the most Python dismissive person to start learning it.
    • agumonkey 8y ago
      Casually live coding any idiom even if the language didn't really support it. Definitely worth your time.
• lewispb 8y ago
  Kent Beck - 3X
• kilian 8y ago
  Making impossible states impossible" by Richard Feldman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcgmSRJHu_8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcgmSRJHu_8 has really changed the way I approach dealing with data in my code and was very insightful.
• pnambic 8y ago
  Guy L. Steele, "Growing a Language" (1998) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ahvzDzKdB0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ahvzDzKdB0) As far as technical presentations can be, this is a work of art, and in spite of its age still completely relevant.
  • seanmcdirmid 8y ago
    And YouTube doesn’t even really capture his use of beautiful crayoned transparencies in the live version of the talk! Also, any talk where Richard Gabriel and Guy Steele get together will be a treat. I really miss those old quirky OOPSLA days.
• ranjeethacker 8y ago
  Rob Pike - 'Concurrency Is Not Parallelism' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cN_DpYBzKso https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cN_DpYBzKso
  • quickthrower2 8y ago
    And Concurrency Is Not Not Parallelism
• chrisflink 8y ago
  Raymond Hettinger - Beyond PEP 8 -- Best practices for beautiful intelligible code - PyCon 2015 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wf-BqAjZb8M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wf-BqAjZb8M
• ntlk 8y ago
  Programming with nothing by Tom Stuart https://codon.com/programming-with-nothing https://codon.com/programming-with-nothing
• aidos 8y ago
  I'm not a Closure coder but I loved this talk on how as your tooling becomes more complex and automated, you start to lose sight of simpler solutions to problems. It's all about woodworking! Tim Ewald - Clojure: Programming with Hand Tools https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShEez0JkOFw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShEez0JkOFw
  • chpill 8y ago
    It does take time before he starts drawing the parallel between woodworking and software, but it is well worth the wait! Thank you for reminding me of this great talk.
  • wool_gather 8y ago
    Clojure people seem to give really good talks; it's starting to make me think I should look into learning the language.
• sasvari 8y ago
  Free Electron Lasers ...or why we need 17 billion Volts to make a picture. https://media.ccc.de/v/34c3-8832-free_electron_lasers https://media.ccc.de/v/34c3-8832-free_electron_lasers HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16028723 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16028723 Wouldn’t it be awesome to have a microscope which allows scientists to map atomic details of viruses, film chemical reactions, or study the processes in the interior of planets? Well, we’ve just built one in Hamburg. It’s not table-top, though: 1 billion Euro and a 3km long tunnel is needed for such a ‘free electron laser’, also called 4th generation synchrotron light source. I will talk about the basic physics and astonishing facts and figures of the operation and application of these types of particle accelerators. Most people have heard about particle accelerators, most prominently LHC, at which high energy particles are brought to collision in order to study fundamental physics. However, in fact most major particle accelerators in the world are big x-ray microscopes. The latest and biggest of these synchrotron radiation sources which was built is the European XFEL. A one billion Euro ‘free electron laser’, based on a superconducting accelerator technology and spread out 3km beneath the city of Hamburg. The produced x-ray pulses allow pictures, for example from proteins, with sub-atomic resolution and an exposure time short enough to enable in-situ studies of chemical reactions. This talk aims to explain how particle accelerators and in particular light sources work, for what reason we need these big facilities to enable new types of science and why most of modern technology would be inconceivable without them.
• amrrs 8y ago
  Recent Previous: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12637239 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12637239 Slightly old: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16838460 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16838460
• catwell 8y ago
  The talk that had the most influence on how I write software is Robert 'Uncle Bob' Martin's "Architecture: The Lost Years" [1]. Being a Ruby conference keynote, it helps if you know how Ruby on Rails works, but the lessons apply to all software. Another one would be "Let It Crash! The Erlang Approach to Building Reliable Services" by Brian Troutwine. [2] I don't know if you would call it "technical" but Brett Slatkin's talk on Cohort Analysis is something anyone interested in tools to analyze how our users behave should watch. [3] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpkDN78P884 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpkDN78P884 [2] https://www.infoq.com/presentations/erlang-reliable-services https://www.infoq.com/presentations/erlang-reliable-services [3] https://www.onebigfluke.com/2013/05/video-cohort-analysis-talk-at-google.html https://www.onebigfluke.com/2013/05/video-cohort-analysis-ta...
• pedro1976 8y ago
  Hacking the mind, how to get your brain into the right mode Marty Lobdell - Study Less Study Smart https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlU-zDU6aQ0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlU-zDU6aQ0 AJ Jacobs: The Importance of Self-Delusion in the Creative Process” https://vimeo.com/68572000 https://vimeo.com/68572000 -- On Machine Learning biases Aylin Caliskan - A Story of Discrimination and Unfairness https://media.ccc.de/v/33c3-8026-a_story_of_discrimination_and_unfairness https://media.ccc.de/v/33c3-8026-a_story_of_discrimination_a... -- On scaling test automation, why scaling does not deliver the value you want GTAC2016: Scale vs Value - Test Automation at the BBC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkPHntWZAPc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkPHntWZAPc -- On Future of Machine Learning Joscha Bach - Machine Dreams (33c3) https://media.ccc.de/v/33c3-8369-machine_dreams https://media.ccc.de/v/33c3-8369-machine_dreams Joscha Bach - Computational Meta-Psychology (32c3) https://media.ccc.de/v/32c3-7483-computational_meta-psychology https://media.ccc.de/v/32c3-7483-computational_meta-psycholo... Joscha Bach - From Computation to Consciousness (31c3) https://media.ccc.de/v/31c3_-_6573_-_en_-_saal_2_-_201412281130_-_from_computation_to_consciousness_-_joscha https://media.ccc.de/v/31c3_-_6573_-_en_-_saal_2_-_201412281... [Edit] Layout
• unixhero 8y ago
  Elevator Hacking: From The Pit To The Penthouse by Deviant Ollam and Howard Payne https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOzrJjdZDRQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOzrJjdZDRQ They've done several iterations of this, including a censored/shorter version for DEFCON 22. This version is the best, with all details, no secrets withheld. I find the content rather stunning, and I've even watched it several times.
  • smilesnd 8y ago
    I love this video it actually got me into fooling around with elevators. I have a full box elevator keys just because of this talk, with no idea what to do with them.
• 532nm 8y ago
  Control engineering Gunter Stein's inaugural Bode prize lecture from 1989 titled "Respect the Unstable" [0]. In this talk, he uses a minimum of mathematics to clearly demonstrate the fundamental (and inevitable!) trade-offs in control systems design. He effortlessly makes the link between his (in)ability to balance inverted rods of various lengths on his palm (with shorter rods being harder to balance) to why the X-29 aircraft was almost impossible to control and why Chernobyl blew up. The fundamental message is extremely important and the derivation is so crystal clear that it is simply marvelous to watch him present it. I like it so much that I re-watch it about once a year. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Lhu31X94V4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Lhu31X94V4 [1] Pdf transcription (use it to skim or go over the details. However, the lecture is easier to follow and has a lot more than the transcript): https://jagger.berkeley.edu/~pack/me234/GSBode.pdf https://jagger.berkeley.edu/~pack/me234/GSBode.pdf
• simonhorlick 8y ago
  Miško Hevery's talks on writing testable code. Watching those videos immediately made me a better developer, lots of well explained, practical advice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcT4yYu_TTs&index=6&list=PLD0011D00849E1B79 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcT4yYu_TTs&index=6&list=PLD...
• js8 8y ago
  The Haskell Journey from Simon Peter-Jones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re96UgMk6GQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re96UgMk6GQ
• thephilsproject 8y ago
  The use and abuse of CT scanners https://media.ccc.de/v/emf2018-65-the-use-and-abuse-of-ct-scanners https://media.ccc.de/v/emf2018-65-the-use-and-abuse-of-ct-sc... Truly fascinating talk about the capability of CT scanners, not in a medical environment. I don't want to say much more as I don't want to give any spoilers.
• marcoc 8y ago
  CCC (Lange, Domke) - The exhaust emissions scandal ("Dieselgate") https://media.ccc.de/v/32c3-7331-the_exhaust_emissions_scandal_dieselgate https://media.ccc.de/v/32c3-7331-the_exhaust_emissions_scand...
• highesttide 8y ago
  What has my compiler done for me lately? - Matt Godbolt https://youtu.be/bSkpMdDe4g4 https://youtu.be/bSkpMdDe4g4 Entertaining talk, not extremely in depth, though.
• StreakyCobra 8y ago
  I don't know if it is part of the bests, but very interesting anyway: Modern Dictionaries by Raymond Hettinger [1] It's about Python 3.6 dictionaries improvements. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p33CVV29OG8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p33CVV29OG8
• collyw 8y ago
  I really enjoyed "The Birth And Death Of Javascript". https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death-of-javascript https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death...
• pasta 8y ago
  GOTO 2016 • Secure Coding Patterns • Andreas Hallberg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqd9bxy5Hvc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqd9bxy5Hvc Simple advice to create more secure and imho bug-free code. Some of his advice: Let functions return what they promise. Don't return null or false, but throw exceptions. Use immutable objects. Use domain objects. Don't black-list: white-list.
• komuW 8y ago
  1. Why Do Keynote Speakers Keep Suggesting That Improving Security Is Possible? - James Mickens https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajGX7odA87k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajGX7odA87k 2. James Mickens on JavaScript - James Mickens https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5xh0ZIEUOE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5xh0ZIEUOE 3. Creating containers From Scratch - Liz Rice https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fi7uSYlOdc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fi7uSYlOdc 4. 2013 Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate: The Existence of Nothing - Panelists: J. Richard Gott, Jim Holt, Lawrence Krauss, Charles Seife, Eve Silverstein. Moderator: Neil deGrasse Tyson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OLz6uUuMp8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OLz6uUuMp8 5. 2016 Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate: Is the Universe a Simulation? - Panelists: David Chalmers, Zohreh Davoudi, James Gates, Lisa Randall, Max Tegmark Moderator: Neil deGrasse Tyson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgSZA3NPpBs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgSZA3NPpBs 6. Zig: A programming language designed for robustness, optimality, and clarity – Andrew Kelley https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4oYSByyRak https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4oYSByyRak 7. Concurrency Is Not Parallelism - Rob Pike https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cN_DpYBzKso https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cN_DpYBzKso
  • hessenwolf 8y ago
    What’s the message?
  • soobrosa 8y ago
    https://medium.com/@soobrosa/my-humble-james-mickens-shrine-a-k-a-the-only-real-combined-cs-degree-and-mba-you-will-ever-need-1f437f496d1c https://medium.com/@soobrosa/my-humble-james-mickens-shrine-...
  • winkeltripel 8y ago
    > 3. Creating containers From Scratch I read that as "creating containers IN Scratch (a visual game programming language from MiT)." It wasn't as impressive as my expectations, only because my expectations were so very high.
  • themoat 8y ago
    I just watched the first video. That was so good!
• netpascal 8y ago
  Douglas Crockford on the good parts of Javascript https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEzQf147-uEpvTa1bHDNlxUL2klHUMHJu https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEzQf147-uEpvTa1bHDNl...
  • Timpy 8y ago
    I excitedly clicked this link, thinking I'd love some insight from the JavaScript an himself. I can't digest 104 videos, I was hoping for a really good 1~2 hour presentation. I'm going to cherry pick a video or two, if anybody has a favorite they can recommend.
• dwrodri 8y ago
  Here is a good one that come to mind: 1. This one is alive demo where the speaker derives the Y Combinator from first principles. A really interesting exposition of functional programming at its finest. Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FITJMJjASUs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FITJMJjASUs
• SuddsMcDuff 8y ago
  "The Power of Composition" by Scott Wlaschin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhEkBCWpDas https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhEkBCWpDas
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• georgecalm 8y ago
  You may like https://techyaks.com https://techyaks.com — it’s a site with over 80K software development tech talks ranked algorithmically.
• giancarlostoro 8y ago
  It's not directly technical although it does speak about technical things, but Steve Blank's talks about the "secret history" of Silicon Valley are amazing. He's got some on YouTube, and links to some on his blog. He talks about how different tech was made to fight the Nazis, Soviets and co and how they made their own tech, and how it just became an arms race, whilst also spawning a good chunk of Silicon Valley startups and how it affected VC money down road. You get tech and Silicon Valley (/ and) history and business all in one. https://steveblank.com/secret-history/ https://steveblank.com/secret-history/
• jor-el 8y ago
  Thomas Dullien (halvarflake) on security, moore's law and anomaly of cheap complexity. In the talk Thomas discusses the idea why simplicity is important and how increasing complexity increases attack surface. https://www.err.ee/836236/video-google-0-projekti-tarkvarainseneri-ettekanne-cyconil https://www.err.ee/836236/video-google-0-projekti-tarkvarain...
• pdpi 8y ago
  Just about everything Kate Gregory has presented at cppcon is worth watching. The nitty gritty tends to be C++-centric (as befits the venue), but the overarching themes are more or less universal. Where Rich Hickey's Simple Made Easy talks about simplicity at the macro level, and mostly as an aspirational goal, Kate's talks focus on the practicalities of actually achieving simplicity at the micro level.
• vinipolicena 8y ago
  "Design, Composition and Performance" by Rich Hickey. His view of what improvising means is brilliant. https://www.infoq.com/presentations/Design-Composition-Performance https://www.infoq.com/presentations/Design-Composition-Perfo...
• egourlao 8y ago
  The Scandalous Story of Dreadful Code Written by the Best of Us - by Katrina Owen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lp_ST9nbf5M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lp_ST9nbf5M This talk made a strong impression on me when I was figuring out how to write more beautiful, and more readable code.
• pmiri 8y ago
  Propositions as Types by Philip Wadler A really in depth look into why functional languages stand out as a programming paradigm. The short of it being that they parallel perfectly (almost proof for proof!) with mathematical logic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOiZatlZtGU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOiZatlZtGU
• cosmic_quanta 8y ago
  A Better Default Colormap for Matplotlib (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAoljeRJ3lU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAoljeRJ3lU) This talk is made better by the fact that it's rather brief (~20min).
• nnnate 8y ago
  Breaking the x86 Instruction Set by Christopher Domas. https://youtu.be/KrksBdWcZgQ https://youtu.be/KrksBdWcZgQ I found it easy to follow and pretty entertaining.
• afandian 8y ago
  Rich Hickey has a lot of excellent stuff to say. Not only are his ideas philosophically sound, but also real, practical and ready to use in the form of Clojure. This recent review "10 years of Clojure", encapsulates a lot of of the wisdom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2V1FtfBDsLU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2V1FtfBDsLU
  • squeed 8y ago
    Agreed! "Hammock driven development" definitely has stuck with me over the years: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f84n5oFoZBc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f84n5oFoZBc
• olavgg 8y ago
  Jake Archibald's "In the Loop", Visual explanation of how the javascript event loop works! Awesome video for every javascript developer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCOL7MC4Pl0&t=153s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCOL7MC4Pl0&t=153s
• veganjay 8y ago
  Play CTF! A Great Way to Learn Hacking by LiveOverflow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfjV8XukxO8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfjV8XukxO8 This talk is less technical than his other videos, but really catches the spirit of discovery, failure and learning.
• otras 8y ago
  Although not strictly a talk, I would highly recommend the first of the SICP lectures[0], if only to expand your thinking about what computer science: "I'd like to welcome you to this course on Computer Science. Actually that's a terrible way to start. Computer science is a terrible name for this business. First of all, it's not a science. It might be engineering or it might be art. We'll actually see that computer so-called science actually has a lot in common with magic. We will see that in this course. So it's not a science. It's also not really very much about computers. And it's not about computers in the same sense that physics is not really about particle accelerators. And biology is not really about microscopes and petri dishes. And it's not about computers in the same sense that geometry is not really about using a surveying instruments." [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Op3QLzMgSY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Op3QLzMgSY
  • mlevental 8y ago
    can someone please convince me that the use of the word "magic" is justified? yes I know sicp is universally exalted in the cs/programming community and even though I haven't read it yet I support the principle of a principled approach to computation (it's math after all in the purest sense) but I can't support the infantilism of words like magic and the wizard on the cover of the book because the two themes are directly in opposition. there is no magic and clear rigorous analysis of programs is very fruitful.
    • brilee 8y ago
      There's an aphorism: "objects are a poor man's closure; closures are a poor man's object". When I got to the point in SICP where I understood that, the word "magic" was very definitely justified :)
    • lcuff 8y ago
      Watching the SICP lectures, I had a moment of "I totally did not see that coming", with triple exclamation marks. The ability to do astonishing things with so little code justifies the word magic to me. Also magic as sleight-of-hand is not infantile to me, either. It's ingenious and practice, practice practice in order to astonish the audience.
• petermcneeley 8y ago
  "Papers I Have Loved" by Casey Muratori is a talk about CS algorithms useful in the game industry. https://youtu.be/SDS5gLSiLg0 https://youtu.be/SDS5gLSiLg0
• cafard 8y ago
  After seeing the top-voted one, perhaps I should hesitate here. But I do remember Kevin Loney's "Controlled Flight into Terrain", on what you can do wrong with databases, as very good. I saw it at a regional Oracle users group years ago. More recently I have looked at Raymond Hettinger's "Beyond PEP 8--Best Practices for Beautiful Intelligible Code", and I hope improved my Python as a result.
• jacobedawson 8y ago
  The Feynman Lectures (on Physics) are incredible - Feynman had such an amazing mind, one of the greatest the world has known, yet could explain complex things like he was talking to a friend in the living room over drinks. Never patronizing, always amusing & informative: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3mhkYbznBk&list=PLLzGzdSNup63lMYeOpU9Hax6MBsTjdDas https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3mhkYbznBk&list=PLLzGzdSNup...
  • vagab0nd 8y ago
    This. And also "why magnets repell each other" https://youtu.be/36GT2zI8lVA https://youtu.be/36GT2zI8lVA
• Qub3d 8y ago
  Indistinguishable From Magic: Manufacturing Modern Computer Chips [0]. This talk is delivered really well and always leaves me with a sense of awe in how CRAZY it is that humans figured out integrated circuits. Its a bit out of date, but it gives enough of a peek under the hood to understand why Intel has had such difficulties going to 10 and 7mn processes[1]. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGFhc8R_uO4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGFhc8R_uO4 [1]: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-cpu-10nm-earnings-amd,36967.html https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-cpu-10nm-earnings-am...
• ivanmaeder 8y ago
  Not so much technical, but my favourite talk about technology and more: "Back to the Future (of 1994)." Danny Hillis (1994). 19 mins https://www.ted.com/talks/danny_hillis_back_to_the_future_of_1994 https://www.ted.com/talks/danny_hillis_back_to_the_future_of...
• dunk010 8y ago
  Steve Yegge talking about the system he built at Google, called Grok: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTJs-0EInW8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTJs-0EInW8. If we have anything half that good in the wider programming community in twenty years time, I will be very surprised.
• jeffreyrogers 8y ago
  The CMU Database Lecture series is great. Requires a fair amount of background knowledge on how DBs work to follow though. https://db.cs.cmu.edu/seminar2018/ https://db.cs.cmu.edu/seminar2018/
• topkai22 8y ago
  Douglas Engelbert, “Augmenting Human Intelligence” from 1968. Introduced the world to the mouse (and therefore the GUI), video conferencing, revision control and basically the modern personal computing environment. Also known as the “Mother of All Demos”. I don’t think I’ve watched the entire thing in one sitting (I tend to jump over some of the drier parts), but I do return to it every year or so because it helps me remember the lab innovations of 1968 didn’t reach consumers until the mid/80s to late 90s, which helps me keep innovation in perspective.
  • agumonkey 8y ago
    This was so unbelievable even by 2010s standard. Gotta thank Jay.
• Mironor 8y ago
  Silver bullet: Hadi Hariri (2015) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wyd6J3yjcs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wyd6J3yjcs Every time people think a technology will solve all their problems (remember guys from NOSQL back in the days?), they need to see this talk. The speaker also did this talk as a keynote a couple of times during other conferences.
• creyes 8y ago
  Implementing a Strong Code-Review Culture: Derek Prior (2015) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJjmw9TRB7s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJjmw9TRB7s I guess this is more of a 'soft talk' but I still reference this all the time and watch it at least once a year. One of the more relevant and practical talks for any software company.
• tyurok 8y ago
  Greg Young - The art of destroying software He has a few talks that he barely uses any presentation material and it's very good.
• virde 8y ago
  Technically not a tech talk but since it was at Talks at Google, this one: Frank Abagnale: "Catch Me If You Can" | Talks at Google - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsMydMDi3rI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsMydMDi3rI
• yaj54 8y ago
  The top 5 most referenced tech talks on HN are: - Douglas Engelbart - The Mother of All Demos - Bryan Cantrill - Fork Yeah! The Rise and Development of illumos - Guy Steele - Growing a Language - David Heinemeier Hansson - Startup School 08 - Rich Hickey - Hammock Driven Development The top 50 are listed at https://techyaks.com https://techyaks.com which I recently updated with a ranking "techyaks score" that ranks talks (first) by HN reference count.
  • jplayer01 8y ago
    This is great, thanks.
• knbknb 8y ago
  I like the talk by Ryan Dahl, node.js inventor Original Node JS Presentation, 2009, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztspvPYybIY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztspvPYybIY In 2018 he gave a follow-up presentation "10 things I regret about node", but that presentation is more for experts.
• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
• tyingq 8y ago
  Brendan Gregg's talks on Linux performance. Scroll down to "Talks": http://www.brendangregg.com/linuxperf.html http://www.brendangregg.com/linuxperf.html
• gumby 8y ago
  Richard Hamming (as in Hamming codes, Bell labs etc): "You and Your Research". This had a profound effect on me at 18 when I heard him present it (it was by then a "set piece" talk) and it still holds valuable advice for me now. In general his published talks have all been good. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1zDuOPkMSw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1zDuOPkMSw or just read it at https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~dahlin/bookshelf/hamming.html https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~dahlin/bookshelf/hamming.html
• alexeiz 8y ago
  I recommend Sean Parent's talks: http://sean-parent.stlab.cc/papers-and-presentations/ http://sean-parent.stlab.cc/papers-and-presentations/. Pretty much everything is very good. It's usually C++-centric, but his subjects are deep enough to be useful to software engineering in any language.
  • agumonkey 8y ago
    Is he still on réversible computations ?
• mitchtbaum 8y ago
  Alan Kay https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVw42wWZWrg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVw42wWZWrg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdSD07U5uBs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdSD07U5uBs Ted Nelson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcqIlDhkSdo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcqIlDhkSdo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVU62CQTXFI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVU62CQTXFI Doug Engelbart https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2zJLiYMoXk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2zJLiYMoXk Steve Jobs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmuP8gsgWb8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmuP8gsgWb8 Jacob Appelbaum https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntTnLO-4p1o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntTnLO-4p1o
• timsneath 8y ago
  I'll call out one channel that I haven't seen on this thread -- the Computer History Museum in Mountain View publishes some astonishing oral history videos, presentations and other footage. So many of the challenges that pioneers faced in the past have historical resonance; and unlike almost any other major human revolution, the pioneers of our space are captured in video that is readily available to all. So you can hear the likes of Fred Brooks talking about IBM's approach to unifying operating system interfaces with System/360[1], Bjarne Stroustrup describing the origins of C++ [2], or watching Charles Simonyi and Tom Malloy demonstrating Bravo, the Xerox PARC document writer [3]. Some quite astonishing material hidden in their archive that hasn't in my view had nearly the audience it deserves. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8c0_Lzb1CJw&t=5422s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8c0_Lzb1CJw&t=5422s) [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69edOm889V4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69edOm889V4 [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_Na1SJXSBg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_Na1SJXSBg
• chan729 8y ago
  MIT Pathway to Fusion Energy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0KuAx1COEk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0KuAx1COEk
• gt2 8y ago
  Zebras All the Way Down - Bryan Cantrill, Uptime 2017 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fE2KDzZaxvE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fE2KDzZaxvE Lots of great tangents that add to the subjects. I love talks like this.
• ivanmaeder 8y ago
  Demo of Ivan Sutherland's 1963 Sketchpad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6orsmFndx_o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6orsmFndx_o It was a drawing app with the following features: Snap to object ("This allows me to be sloppy while I'm drawing and get a precision drawing at the same time"), connected vectors, arcs, alignment with other objects, copying, multiple "files," scaling ("It scales approximately 2 miles in size"), 3D, etc etc It blows me away that this kind of UI was even conceived in the 1960s. It feels like there was a dark ages middle period after then until quite recently.
• wedesoft 8y ago
  Jim Weirich's talks about "connascence". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22vYwcfQnk8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22vYwcfQnk8
• eduardsi 8y ago
  Ian Cooper's "TDD, Where Did It All Go Wrong" (which Uncle Bob Martin has recommended on his Twitter): https://dev.tube/video/EZ05e7EMOLM https://dev.tube/video/EZ05e7EMOLM
• JanVanRyswyck 8y ago
  Here's a list that I've curated over the past several years: https://github.com/JanVanRyswyck/awesome-talks https://github.com/JanVanRyswyck/awesome-talks
  • rptr_87 8y ago
    Thanks for this.
• tomashm 8y ago
  Statistics for Hackers by Jake Vanderplas https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq9DzN6mvYA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq9DzN6mvYA A really nice intuitive intro to resampling methods.
• rvazquezglez 8y ago
  "Elixir should take over the world" by Jessica Kerr https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X25xOhntr6s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X25xOhntr6s Despite the title is about Elixir, Jessica exposes a lot of topics like how ideas arise at the same time from different people, what different programming paradigms offer and how can they work together, error handling in a myriad of paths, and mainly people.