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Ask HN: What talks do you consider real gems?
What are the talks that you consider real gems? The kind that sticks with you for a long time either due to the exceptional content or delivery. Some insightful and impactful talks that have influenced your thinking or work.
These could be from YouTube, tech conferences, or any other source — preference for the fresh stuff from 2023, but not necessarily.
Please share your top picks and couple of words of why they stood out to you. Thanks!
- mtmail 3y ago11 years old, a classic. "Mike Monteiro: F*ck You, Pay Me" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVkLVRt6c1U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVkLVRt6c1U Target audience is freelance designers.
- andrei_says_ 3y agoJust rewatched this last month. valuable and entertaining at the same time. Monteiro is a king of drama-infused memorable communication and having his lawyer in the room was incredible.
- abhayhegde 3y agoThe entire playlist of Learning to Learn by Richard Hamming is absolutely worth it [0], especially the introduction talk and "You and Your Research". They make you think hard about the effective ways to learn and ask important and pertinent questions. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2FF649D0C4407B30 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2FF649D0C4407B30
- samwho 3y agoI know you said you have a preference for fresh stuff but I just have to post my all-time faves: - Pushing Through Friction by Dan Na: https://youtu.be/8bxZuzDKoI0?si=FRVYc-XAK_HuRNs3 https://youtu.be/8bxZuzDKoI0?si=FRVYc-XAK_HuRNs3. Great talk about how ideas get stalled in the big organisational machine, and what you can do about it. - You Deserve Nice Things by Soroush Khanlou: https://youtu.be/CTZOjl6_NuY?si=a1pmGILQzGR9T4Wv https://youtu.be/CTZOjl6_NuY?si=a1pmGILQzGR9T4Wv. Eye opener about making nice-to-use data structures / APIs. - The Most Important Design Guideline by Scott Meyers: https://youtu.be/sfLZ7v9gEnc?si=QFNdmcguaOHbmFfX https://youtu.be/sfLZ7v9gEnc?si=QFNdmcguaOHbmFfX. A fun exploration of badly designed software.
- tobinfekkes 3y agoAny talk by Bryan Cantrill is worth your time.
- mikewarot 3y agoKevlin Henney - Refactoring to Immutability[1] from 2018, but addresses the key fact that when you add threading or cores, you change the laws of physics for your software. It was this talk that explained to me why the Rust people do the strange things they do with borrow checkers, etc. Plain Text • Dylan Beattie • GOTO 2023[2] - Dylan explains in detail and with humor, that there really is no such thing as plain text. Well worth it. I watched an older version of the same talk, that finally convinced me why people care so much about Unicode. Joe Rogan Experience - #2076 - Aza Raskin & Tristan Harris[3] - You really have no idea what LLMs are capable of until you hear them talk about it. No BS, no wild claims, just stuff that you likely haven't heard elsewhere. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APUCMSPiNh4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APUCMSPiNh4 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mRxIgu9R70 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mRxIgu9R70 [3] https://open.spotify.com/episode/4ZcBHvjhGMTTdGF3fIdvg9 https://open.spotify.com/episode/4ZcBHvjhGMTTdGF3fIdvg9
- andrei_says_ 3y agoPretty much all talks by Rich Hickey, Sandy Metz, Russ Olsen. All these have the trifecta of important subject + essential concepts + brilliant teacher. Russ Olsen’s talk about the U.S. moon landing program is one of my favorites. His childlike excitement and amazing storytelling get me every time. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l3XwpSKqNZw https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l3XwpSKqNZw
- ravenstine 3y agoJonathan Blow - Preventing The Collapse Of Civilization https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSRHeXYDLko https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSRHeXYDLko Highly relevant to software development.
- dysoco 3y agoA classic but Growing a Language by Guy Steel is extremely original https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ahvzDzKdB0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ahvzDzKdB0
- croo 3y agoMIT lecture by Patric Winston: How to speak is the lecture you need to watch about public speaking and presentation. The most awesome thing about the lecture that it is self describing it's tools and framework in an awesome way and built up exactly as it's content describe is should. It's on youtube: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Unzc731iCUY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Unzc731iCUY
- jamesblonde 3y agoNearly all talks by James Mickens are a laugh a minute. The guy is the only computer science standup comedian I have ever encountered. He is also technically excellent. This one is a classic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajGX7odA87k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajGX7odA87k