Best tech talks, according to Hacker News
This tech selection starts with the recommendation evidence preserved in HackerTube. Each entry was chosen by hand and retains the words that led a Hacker News commenter to suggest it. The selection rule admits videos recommended by at least two distinct commenters, or videos in the top twenty percent of recommendation counts within an associated topic. Ties at that boundary are included, which matters when a small topic has several equally recommended videos. A position in this list is not an independent rating or a claim about total audience size. Read the excerpt, open its source discussion, and use the speaker, series and publication details to decide which talk to watch next on YouTube.
Selection criteria
Eligible videos have recommendations from at least two distinct HN commenters, or meet the top-twenty-percent recommendation-count cutoff in at least one of their topics; ties at the cutoff are included. Lists are selected and ordered by hand, not sampled automatically.
The selected talks
Vectors | Chapter 1, Essence of linear algebra
HN recommendation: “3Blue1Brown[1] has opened my eyes on the intuitive understanding of linear algebra” Read the original recommendation.
Indistinguishable From Magic: Manufacturing Modern Computer Chips
HN recommendation: “If you haven't watched this video, I highly recommend it” Read the original recommendation.
The spelled-out intro to neural networks and backpropagation: building micrograd
HN recommendation: “I highly recommend this youtube playlist from Andrej Karpathy” Read the original recommendation.
8 Bit & '8 Bitish' Graphics-Outside the Box
HN recommendation: “most excellent GDC presentation on the lost power of palettized textures” Read the original recommendation.
How Python was Shaped by leaky Internals, Armin Ronacher, Flask framework
HN recommendation: “I thought this presentation by Armin Ronacher (the creator of Flask and Jinja) was very enlightening” Read the original recommendation.
AT&T Archives: Similiarities of Wave Behavior (Bonus Edition)
HN recommendation: “John Shive's Wave Machines is where every student should start” Read the original recommendation.
RailsConf 2014 - All the Little Things by Sandi Metz
HN recommendation: “Worth watching in its entirety, but the quote is from ~13:59 in that video.” Read the original recommendation.
But what is the Fourier Transform? A visual introduction.
HN recommendation: “This video does a great job explaining what it is and how it works to the layman.” Read the original recommendation.
The Soul of Erlang and Elixir • Sasa Juric • GOTO 2019
HN recommendation: “Really one of the best presentations to show what you may get out of adopting Elixir.” Read the original recommendation.
"Simple Made Easy" - Rich Hickey (2011)
HN recommendation: “You need to watch this” Read the original recommendation.
What the heck is the event loop anyway? | Philip Roberts | JSConf EU
HN recommendation: “This one is my all time favorite” Read the original recommendation.
But what is a neural network? | Deep learning chapter 1
HN recommendation: “an excellent introduction that made Andrej's videos understandable” Read the original recommendation.
A Better Default Colormap for Matplotlib | SciPy 2015 | Nathaniel Smith and Stéfan van der Walt
HN recommendation: “I have to mention this fantastic presentation on colormaps” Read the original recommendation.
The Beauty of Bézier Curves
HN recommendation: “I feel compelled to share these absolutely incredible videos from Freya Holmér” Read the original recommendation.
The Tragedy of systemd
HN recommendation: “you should really watch this talk, particularly 12:45 through 16:20” Read the original recommendation.
Rich Harris - Rethinking reactivity
HN recommendation: “is an amazing talk which talks about how spreadsheets were the OG reactivity software. Highly recommended.” Read the original recommendation.
"Making Impossible States Impossible" by Richard Feldman
HN recommendation: “the talk is Elm lang focused, but the concepts still apply to other languages.” Read the original recommendation.
D/A and A/D | Digital Show and Tell (Monty Montgomery @ xiph.org)
HN recommendation: “also made an amazing video response to the many responses he received to this article” Read the original recommendation.
8-bit computer update
HN recommendation: “I think I learned more from Ben Eater’s “Building an 8-bit breadboard computer” series [0] than my intro to computer architecture course at university.” Read the original recommendation.
CppCon 2015: Andrei Alexandrescu “std::allocator...”
HN recommendation: “It really opened my eyes to how one could very elegantly make a very complex and high-performance heap allocator” Read the original recommendation.
Lexical Scanning in Go - Rob Pike
HN recommendation: “I love everything about this talk.” Read the original recommendation.
William Byrd on "The Most Beautiful Program Ever Written" [PWL NYC]
HN recommendation: “I can't recommend the talk Dr Byrd did on this enough” Read the original recommendation.
"Testing Distributed Systems w/ Deterministic Simulation" by Will Wilson
HN recommendation: “Well worth a watch for anyone interested in distributed systems & reliability.” Read the original recommendation.
🚀 TDD, Where Did It All Go Wrong (Ian Cooper)
HN recommendation: “This the best talk I've ever seen about testing (Ian Cooper)” Read the original recommendation.
Bret Victor - Inventing on Principle
HN recommendation: “an absolute must watch, if anyone hasn't yet” Read the original recommendation.
How To Design A Good API and Why it Matters
HN recommendation: “He digs much deeper, mostly at code level rather than JSON level but the same principles apply.” Read the original recommendation.
The Problem with Time & Timezones - Computerphile
HN recommendation: “a must watch for developers just starting out with Timezones” Read the original recommendation.
The Value of Values with Rich Hickey
HN recommendation: “strongest programming speaker I've found to date.” Read the original recommendation.
Bret Victor The Future of Programming
HN recommendation: “If you haven't yet seen this video, please do” Read the original recommendation.
Why Isn't Functional Programming the Norm? – Richard Feldman
HN recommendation: “This talk by Richard Feldman is an excellent discussion about why Functional Programming is not the norm” Read the original recommendation.
Overwatch Gameplay Architecture and Netcode
HN recommendation: “There's an awesome talk by someone in the overwatch team in youtube.” Read the original recommendation.
Maybe Not - Rich Hickey
HN recommendation: “My mind blown experience was listening to a Rich Hickey talk (maybe not [1]) that flipped upside down my accepted method of thinking about types” Read the original recommendation.
Solving Problems the Clojure Way - Rafal Dittwald
HN recommendation: “there is a video which I really like that demonstrates this functional core/imperative shell approach” Read the original recommendation.
Lecture 1A: Overview and Introduction to Lisp
HN recommendation: “It changed my outook on programming by pi degrees” Read the original recommendation.
"Performance Matters" by Emery Berger
HN recommendation: “Emery Berger has an excelent talk on this [1]” Read the original recommendation.