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James Mickens' USENIX Speech [video]
- greenyoda 8y agoDo yourself a favor and watch the video of the talk instead (the link is at the top of the transcript). Mickens is a hilarious and captivating speaker, and a mere transcript of his talk doesn't convey that experience.
- miss_classified 8y agoIt's also slightly wrong, and needs some proofreading. Example: > Get at. That's not what he says at the 24 second mark. If you can't get the first 30 seconds of an hour-long transcript right, why should I read on? (btw, I get that it was an automated transcript [http://temi.com http://temi.com], and has some OCR-like errors, which is apropos, considering the context of the speech)
- HarryHirsch 8y agoYes, the transcription errors convey a vaguely machine-generated feel, and together with the weird typography (contrast insufficient, background too bright, line spacing too tight, timing marks every 30 seconds) you ask yourself if the whole speech wasn't a machine-generated prank. Considering the subject of that speech, that's ironic.
- flohofwoe 8y agoThe best part is that this "Audio to Text" transcription service says on its web page: Proprietary algorithm Built by our machine learning and speech recognition experts.
- starbeast 8y agoWho are experts in learning new machines and can nearly always recognise speech, but generally prefer email.
- mr_overalls 8y agoAs someone who has really enjoyed reading Mickens' highly-caffeinated essays, I was pleased to see that his speaking style is even better!
- erikb 8y agoThe speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajGX7odA87k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajGX7odA87k
- huhtenberg 8y agoIt just so happens it's the same James Mickens who wrote the Night Watch! What are the odds! https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1311_05-08_mickens.pdf https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1311_05-08_mickens.pdf
- atq2119 8y ago... and many more Usenix writings, pretty much all of which are laugh-out-loud hilarious.
- mikeash 8y agoLinks to those, and other videos of talks he's done, are available here: https://mickens.seas.harvard.edu/wisdom-james-mickens https://mickens.seas.harvard.edu/wisdom-james-mickens For anyone who isn't familiar with him, you should definitely check them out.
- toomuchtodo 8y agoAll of his talks are incredibly good.
- michaelcampbell 8y ago100%
- skummetmaelk 8y agoMickens is brilliant. His style may be polarizing, but he has insight and makes good points. Talks like this are a nice counterbalance to the most upvoted viewpoints expressed here a couple of days ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18516177 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18516177 where people view their skills only as a way to make money and basically do not care how it is done or how safe it is. How many money makers are running around right now preaching these stupid ideas just to make money without even considering the real life implications their selfish actions will have on millions of people. It's downright terrifying. Technical excellence matters.
- sudofail 8y agoWhat a great talk. He brings up a lot of very important points that we all in tech need to consider and keep in mind.
- starbeast 8y agoIt's Partick Thistle, not Patrick Thistle, Kingsely's gonna be right steamin'.
- andrewflnr 8y agoJames better start running.
- starbeast 8y agoKingsley will have found out pretty quickly too as he follows all the latest developments in machine learning. One of the few luxuries allowed into Kingsleys's padded storage cell is a workstation packed with GPUs that Kingsley tests the latest algorithms on, in order to calculate his ideal fantasy-football team. Edit - Mickens will have called Partick 'Patrick' on purpose, of course. He's been gunning for Kingsley for a while now, as James is a long time supporter of Dunfermline Athletic.
- andrewflnr 8y ago> starbeast Yellow, pointy... Oh shit.
- starbeast 8y agoNahh, wrong starbeast. I'm more of a lummox. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/175328.The_Star_Beast https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/175328.The_Star_Beast
- merricksb 8y agoTranscript: http://www.zachpfeffer.com/single-post/2018/11/27/Transcript-of-James-Mickens-USENIX-Speech http://www.zachpfeffer.com/single-post/2018/11/27/Transcript...
- stuartd 8y agoFound the format a bit distracting to read, so cleaned it up a bit (removing Speaker 1 ... etc) - https://pastebin.com/5nvvxSWB https://pastebin.com/5nvvxSWB
- krylon 8y agoMmmh, that face looks familiar. He used to work at Microsoft, right? I remember reading a couple of his blog posts, and they as funny as they were interesting. But he is so much better in person.
- michaelcampbell 8y ago> He used to work at Microsoft, right? Yes, same guy.
- pronoiac 8y agoI love his work! Here's his page at Harvard that collects all of it: https://mickens.seas.harvard.edu/wisdom-james-mickens https://mickens.seas.harvard.edu/wisdom-james-mickens
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 8y agoI hope he can make some better life choices.
- sctb 8y agoPreviously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17785162 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17785162.
- selimthegrim 8y agoGod help Gritty when Mickens finds out about him.