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Ask HN: What are some of the best technical talks you've heard?

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Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best technical talks you've heard?

#24
Not the best I've seen but definitively one I would like to recover the link to : a Googler presentation where she explain how they took about 2 years developing a memory optimisation (circa 2007~2009 IIRC) and manage to finish a few months before it became indispensable because they were about to have an hardware shortage. They were consuming hardware faster than the industry could produce. I just can't remember who she was nor the link. Does it rings a bell to anyone ?

Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best technical talks you've heard?

#25
post #11

I hope this isn't too much of a stretch. Heard it recently and thought it was really interesting. https://youtu.be/4YYvBLAF4T8

It's a stretch to expect me to click on it without you saying what it is!

It's funny that you do go to the trouble of commenting this, which probably takes longer and more effort than clicking the link. I do get your point though.

Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best technical talks you've heard?

#26
Many years ago, I had the privilege of having Prof Peter Saunders as my MSc adviser while at King's College London. Peter Saunders was (apart from being a great educationalist), the person who did the maths behind James Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis. He was far and away the best maths teacher I ever had.

Anyway, he also taught a dynamical systems (chaos theory) class to a mixture of MSc students and final year undergrads. On this occasion, he was explaining some principle, and was busy talking while writing on the board.

He turns round, and there is a sea of blank looking faces in front of him. No one has understood.

"Well it's obvious" he says, and turns back to the board.

2 minutes later, he turns back. Now there is a sea of bored looking faces in front of him. Why?

Well it's obvious...

Everyone understood completely. Genius at work

Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best technical talks you've heard?

#27
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a stretch to expect me to click on it without you saying what it is!

It's funny that you do go to the trouble of commenting this, which probably takes longer and more effort than clicking the link. I do get your point though.

now i read and replied to this chain instead of clicking! dang

Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best technical talks you've heard?

#28

Define "technical". But when it comes to programming I always enjoy Sandi Metz's talks. I can highly recomend this talk she made at the RailsConf in 2014, about taking an ugly beast of code and turning it to something more digestable and beautiful https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bZh5LMaSmE

Totally agree, Sandi is awesome, all of her talks are worth watching. I quite like the the one where she tells the future https://youtu.be/JOM5_V5jLAs . I feel that kind of step change will shortly be with us (if we're not already in the middle of it)

Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best technical talks you've heard?

#29
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a stretch to expect me to click on it without you saying what it is!

It's funny that you do go to the trouble of commenting this, which probably takes longer and more effort than clicking the link. I do get your point though.

I was doing it for everyone, not just for me. Your comment adds nothing to HN except ill-feeling.
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