Ask HN: What is your favourite tech talk?

Uniting Church and State: OO and FP Together by Noel Welsh

If you are interested in functional programing this little gem has some great insights into how to translate between data and behavior correctly. Not quite the level of Rich Hickey or Philip Wadler, but very good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IO5MD62dQbI

i rewatch this one now and then just to hear Joe Armstrong speak of another author's complex compiler code and the singular comment " and now for the tricky bit"

Also:

I see what you mean: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2Aa4PivG0g

and

Applying Failure Testing Research @Netflix: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3mHQCkr-4I

both by Peter Alvaro (second also includes Kolton Andrus) are thought-provoking looks at failure modeling in distributed systems.

Jayson E. Street: Steal Everything, Kill Everyone, Cause Total Financial Ruin! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsVtHqICeKE

Van Albert and Banks: Looping Surveillance Cameras through Live Editing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoOqznZUClI

Ken Thompson: Reflections on Trusting Trust https://www.ece.cmu.edu/~ganger/712.fall02/papers/p761-thomp...

And of course, Simple Made Easy, Wat, etc.

#Softwarish - I'm biased a bit more towards interface development:

greg wilson - What We Actually Know About Software Development, and Why We Believe It’s True - https://vimeo.com/9270320#t=3450s

steve wittens - making webgl dance - the title is deceptive, it's in some ways a visual crash course in linear algebra - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNO_CYUjMK8&t=84s

glenn vanderburg - software engineering doesn't work - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCns726nBhQ

chris granger - in search of tomorrow - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZQoAKJPbh8

alan kay - tribute to ted nelson at intertwingled fest - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnrlSqtpOkw

bret victor - this is already mentioned but if I had to pick one it'd be 'the humane representation of thought' - https://vimeo.com/115154289

#Hardwarish:

saul griffith - soft, not solid: beyond traditional hardware engineering - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyMowPAJwqo

deb chachra - Architectural Biology and Biological Architectures - https://vimeo.com/232544872

#Getting more meta in technology and history:

James Burke - Connections