└── README.md /README.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | # Killer Talks 2 | 3 | One of the distinct joys and privileges I've had as Community Manager at [Basho](http://basho.com) is being able to attend, view, and facilitate technical talks. Technical talks are a form of intellectual currency; talented speakers are heralded and sought after (for good reason), and fanboys like me memorize URLs of favorites so they can get credit for introducing a classic to a newcomer. ("Bro, you haven't seen Hickey's _Simple Made Easy?_") 4 | 5 | When you see a talk you love, it sticks with you. Why was it so memorable? A few potential reasons: 6 | 7 | * The ideas and assertions were actually novel and new, and presented with passion (even if you disagreed with them) 8 | * Someone was able to take esoteric concepts and turn them into something comprehensible and concrete 9 | * The speaker was a pure entertainer, and had a perfect mix of technical depth, wit, wisdom, and passion 10 | * The slide quality and talk preparation were second-to-none 11 | * The speaker didn't use slides, and it blew your mind 12 | * The production quality (filming, editing, etc.) was exceptional and should be emulated 13 | 14 | As usual, **pull requests are encouraged**. I'll be updating this regularly but there are scores of killer talks out there, and I've only seen a trivial portion of them. *If you're contributing a talk, include a few words on why you're adding it and some sort of self-attribution so that people can know from whom it came.* 15 | 16 | [Mark](https://twitter.com/pharkmillups) 17 | 18 | ### Talks (in no particular order) 19 | 20 | * [Simple Made Easy](http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy) (**Rich Hickey, Strange Loop 2011**) Hickey talk 1 of N that's worth every minute (even if you don't care at all about programming). 21 | * [An End to Negativity](http://jsconf.eu/2011/an_end_to_negativity.html) (**Chris Williams, JSConf.eu 2011**) Pure passion. 22 | * [Surge 2011 Key Note](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNhn-bNc96Y) (**Ben Fried, Surge 2011**) Lessons learned and practical advice related to the importance of being a technical generalist. Also, no slides; few can pull this off well. 23 | * [Inventing on Principle](https://vimeo.com/36579366) (**Bret Victor, CUSEC 2012**) Driven thinker and technologist talking about important things. 24 | * [WAT](https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/wat) (**Gary Bernardt, CodeMash 2012**) Hilarious and entertaining. Arguably a perfect lightning talk. 25 | * [Instant-ish Real Service Architecture](https://vimeo.com/37930578) (**Ted Nyman, BashoChats**) Smart, witty, and immediately applicable. Also gives you a simple call to action (which many speakers forget to do). 26 | * [How Eventual is Eventual Consistency?](https://vimeo.com/37758648) (**Peter Bailis, Basho Chats**) Great example of how to take an abstract concept and turn it into a practical talk with concrete findings and advice. Peter's also a high-caliber speaker. 27 | * [Metrics, Metrics Everywhere](http://pivotallabs.com/talks/139-metrics-metrics-everywhere) (**Coda Hale, Pivotal Labs Tech Talks**) Make better decisions by using numbers. (contributed by [@michaelfairley](https://twitter.com/#!/michaelfairley)) 28 | * [Persistent Data Structures and Managed References](http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Value-Identity-State-Rich-Hickey) (**Rich Hickey**) Describes Clojure's approach to state, identity and concurrency. (contributed by [@michaelklishin](https://twitter.com/#!/michaelklishin)) 29 | * [The DCI Architecture: Lean and Agile at the Code Level](http://www.infoq.com/presentations/The-DCI-Architecture) (**Jim Coplien**) Thought provoking insight into how modern "class oriented" programming is different from intents behind origins of OOP. (contributed by [Serge Balyuk](https://github.com/bgipsy)) 30 | * [Machine Learning: A Love Story](http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Machine-Learning) (**Hilary Mason**) A history of Machine Learning, covering major milestones over the last two decades. (contributed by [@vedang](http://twitter.com/vedang)) 31 | * [Programming and Scaling](http://www.tele-task.de/archive/video/flash/14029/) (**Alan Kay**) An excellent overview of the ambitious work that Alan Kay is involved with at VPRI, with a number of fascinating tangents. (contributed by [@puredanger](http://twitter.com/puredanger)) 32 | * [Resilient Response In Complex Systems](http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Resilient-Response-In-Complex-Systems) (**John Allspaw, QCON London 2012**) The much-heralded Ops thinker and doer [John Allspaw](https://twitter.com/#!/allspaw) with valuable perspective on how to approach and think about web operations at scale. 33 | 34 | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------