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https://github.com/PharkMillups/killer-talks

A list of talks that are worth watching.
https://github.com/PharkMillups/killer-talks

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A list of talks that are worth watching.

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# Killer Talks 



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?_")



When you see a talk you love, it sticks with you. Why was it so memorable? A few potential reasons:



* The ideas and assertions were actually novel and new, and presented with passion (even if you disagreed with them)

* Someone was able to take esoteric concepts and turn them into something comprehensible and concrete

* The speaker was a pure entertainer, and had a perfect mix of technical depth, wit, wisdom, and passion

* The slide quality and talk preparation were second-to-none

* The speaker didn't use slides, and it blew your mind

* The production quality (filming, editing, etc.) was exceptional and should be emulated

 

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.*	



[Mark](https://twitter.com/pharkmillups) 



### Talks (in no particular order)



* [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).

* [An End to Negativity](http://jsconf.eu/2011/an_end_to_negativity.html) (**Chris Williams, JSConf.eu 2011**) Pure passion. 

* [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. 

* [Inventing on Principle](https://vimeo.com/36579366) (**Bret Victor, CUSEC 2012**) Driven thinker and technologist talking about important things. 

* [WAT](https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/wat) (**Gary Bernardt, CodeMash 2012**) Hilarious and entertaining. Arguably a perfect lightning talk. 

* [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).

* [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.

* [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))

* [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))

* [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))

* [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))

* [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))

* [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.