Personally, I find his talks fantastic. However, to be fair I also normally have problems determining what his actual points are and what is a joke and I rarel

Personally, I find his talks fantastic. However, to be fair I also normally have problems determining what his actual points are and what is a joke and I rarely see what his main point is (sometimes I'm pretty sure it's just a bunch of stuff randomly thrown together). That being said, his talks are a great example of how to make an otherwise dry topic very interesting and consumable by laymen. And he typically takes a skeptical approach to technology just working. Combine those two things and you get something that we as an industry desperately need. A skeptical and conservative view towards emerging technology that arbitrary people can consume (especially technology inept decision makers). Currently, the best presentations to decision makers about new technologies are all made by evangelists, wide eyed early adapters, and snake oil sales men. These presentations encourage those with power to make poor decisions (they don't want to be left behind for the next big thing, they already thought the internet wasn't going to work). James Mickens provides a much needed splash of cold water. And it's in a form that is easy to listen to when you don't understand technology. The typical approach for why a new technology is a bad idea is a boring technical digression where a bunch of people say a bunch of words that nobody understands. James Mickens makes it interesting and compelling without getting bogged down. Somebody does need to get into the details at some point, but if we don't have a way to signal that some new things are in fact a bad idea then nobody is going to get the chance and we'll be stuck implementing the next bad idea yet again.