3 ms·
Ask HN: Who/What would you have liked to have heard in college?
If you were in college (computer science/engineering) and had the opportunity to hear absolutely anybody in the world give a talk, who would that person be and what would you want to hear?
Would you listen to Ray Kurzweil giving a talk about Transhumanism or his inventions? Would you listen to Richard Stallman giving a talk about the FSF?
Or would you rather hear someone give a talk about nutrition/something non-computer sciencey?
Names and topics would be really helpful.
- scooby 17y agoPeter Diamendes, founder of the XPrize. Just heard him a few weeks ago... he will blow anybody's mind.
- grinich 17y agoFeynman.
- edw519 17y agoPaul Graham, on how the industry has changed in the past 15 years ago and what to do about it. Or I could just read his essays, but a talk would be nice too.
- grinich 17y agoThere's a few good talks of his scattered around the web. Startup School 08 http://www.omnisio.com/startupschool08/paul-graham-at-startup-school-08 http://www.omnisio.com/startupschool08/paul-graham-at-startu... or just http://video.google.com/videosearch?&q=paul+graham+y+combinator# http://video.google.com/videosearch?&q=paul+graham+y+com...
- uptown 17y agoI devour everything that guy puts out. Any idea if he's got a twitter account? The one w/ his name doesn't seem to be him.
- jrockway 17y agoHe does, however, have his own social news site.
- access_denied 17y agoNot necessarily Paul, but in any case someone who has something to say about how the industry developed and is likely to develop. The historical / economic context in which you will work.
- cake 17y agoI feel foolish but : Steve Jobs of course ! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc&fmt=18 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc&fmt=18) He's a great storyteller, that's why I guess his keynotes are so successful.
- zitterbewegung 17y agoI am in college but the people I would want to hear in College probably would be John McCarthy Peter Norvig
- caffeine 17y agoMohammed Yunus, the Dalai Lama .. (& Barack?)
- lleger 17y agoSteve Jobs, definitely. He has knowledge and skills that no college professor can teach. To get a glimpse of his business genius would be unfathomably valuable.
- Mutio 17y agoDefinitely marvin minsky (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_minsky http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_minsky) . He is pretty much the father of artificial intelligence, and not a bad speaker either.
- naveensundar 17y agoRoger Penrose. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Penrose http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Penrose
- pmjordan 17y agoFunny you should say that. He spoke at my graduation (York, 2006), and being a graduation speech it was unfortunately relatively insight-free.
- aswanson 17y agoAny professor who had Founders at Work as the textbook for his class. A class in Nutrition would have been good for me too.
- Xichekolas 17y agoPeter Norvig... his talk at SS'08 made me wish he taught all my classes.
- mkyc 17y agoI think you mean 07? http://singinst.org/media/singularitysummit2007 http://singinst.org/media/singularitysummit2007
- Xichekolas 17y agoWas referring to Startup School (in 2008)... But thanks for the link to a bunch of great videos! Watching them now. Edit: Not the best quality, but video here: http://www.justin.tv/clip/116fb17d94c http://www.justin.tv/clip/116fb17d94c
- shadytrees 17y agoSingularity Summit gets a hug from me for transcribing all the (long) talks. http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/people-blog/?p=233 http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/people-blog/?p=233
- vinutheraj 17y agoLeonardo Da Vinci.
- mdolon 17y agoHe was my childhood hero, still remains a big influence in all I do to this day. Growing up I always wanted to be a "universal genius" like Da Vinci, so I tried to pick up on science, music, art and pretty much anything I could get my hands on. I think my admiration of his abilities and the realization that he was just a man (like you or I) provided a lot of the drive and ambition I now have. This does have the unfortunate consequence of producing a 'jack of all trades, master of none' type persona, or at least it did for me. So yes, it would have been amazing to hear him speak. =)
- MikeMacMan 17y agoI would have liked someone to tell me the following: 1. Double-major in something marketable + something unusual. It's important to differentiate yourself early on, and an unusual skill, like say, Japanese fluency, can open a lot of doors. 2. Get good grades. Even if you think grades don't mean much, you might want to go to grad school, or apply to some company that actually cares about grades. 3. I can't improve on Larry Page's commencement speech, so just watch that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFb2rvmrahc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFb2rvmrahc
- thunk 17y agoBen Franklin as motivational speaker. Title: Industry! Frugality!
- deutronium 17y agoNikola Tesla
- joshz 17y agoBrian Cox, the physicist. I missed a chance to see Stephen Hawking. Out of some bigger names I saw Stallman, Mitnick and Desmond Tutu, all interesting people.
- chris11 17y agoI really would like to hear Douglas Hofstadter.
- tlrobinson 17y agoRMS spoke at my college about FSF. If you're already familiar with FSF, etc, then it won't be particularly interesting. ...until your econ major friend starts arguing with him, and he starts hurling personal insults.
- travisjeffery 17y agoLeonhard Euler or Carl Gauss.
- wheels 17y ago- David Deutsch, driving force behind the formalization of quantum computing, generally interesting in a wacky way, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Deutsch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Deutsch - Stallman was interesting to hear in college. - Lawrence Lessig would also be really interesting.
- pingswept 17y agoWendell Berry, as an intelligent counterpoint to all the enthusiasm about technology
- joe_bleau 17y agoI'd probably attend and listen to anything these people would talk about: Alan Kay, Don Knuth, Feynman, Oppenheimer, Teller, Von Braun, Henry Ford, Edison, Telsa, Edwin "Major" Armstrong (FM), Charlie Munger, Kary Mullis, Ray Kurzweil, Alfred Loomis, Turing, the transistor boys (Shockley, Bardeen, Brattain), Jim Williams (Linear Technology), Robert Pease (formerly National Semi), Bob Widlar (National Semi), maybe even Wozniak. I would not bother to attend a talk by any politician or Steve Jobs.
- xenophanes 17y agoDavid Deutsch on epistemology.
- sharpn 17y agoAlan Turing, Issac Newton or Jimi Hendrix
- prawn 17y agoRobert Hooke.
- justlearning 17y agoRamanujam(indian mathematician with no formal training) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan - for an insight into how his thought process may be. Without all that formal training, how did he treat maths? Kathy Sierra -In college, there is nothing motivating than talks about "being passionate" and "You can do it!" - talks. Kathy Sierra knows the hacks of the brain (i think). Someone who talks about HOW they hacked their way rather than someone who presents their entire hardwork in one sentence. [for context, Adam Savage talking about creating a dodo skeleton, http://fora.tv/2008/12/12/MythBusters_Co-Host_Adam_Savage_on_Obsession http://fora.tv/2008/12/12/MythBusters_Co-Host_Adam_Savage_on...]
- CarolynM 17y agoI did hear Dijkstra speak while I was in undergrad, on some graph algorithms. That was a win.