
James Mickens' USENIX Speech [video] - pfefferz
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajGX7odA87k
======
skummetmaelk
Mickens is brilliant. His style may be polarizing, but he has insight and
makes good points.

Talks like this are a nice counterbalance to the most upvoted viewpoints
expressed here a couple of days ago
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18516177](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18516177)
where people view their skills only as a way to make money and basically do
not care how it is done or how safe it is. How many money makers are running
around right now preaching these stupid ideas just to make money without even
considering the real life implications their selfish actions will have on
millions of people. It's downright terrifying. Technical excellence matters.

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greenyoda
Do yourself a favor and watch the video of the talk instead (the link is at
the top of the transcript). Mickens is a hilarious and captivating speaker,
and a mere transcript of his talk doesn't convey that experience.

~~~
miss_classified
It's also slightly wrong, and needs some proofreading.

Example:

    
    
      > Get at.
    

That's not what he says at the 24 second mark. If you can't get the first 30
seconds of an hour-long transcript right, why should I read on?

(btw, I get that it was an automated transcript
[[http://temi.com](http://temi.com)], and has some OCR-like errors, which is
apropos, considering the context of the speech)

~~~
flohofwoe
The best part is that this "Audio to Text" transcription service says on its
web page:

Proprietary algorithm

Built by our machine learning and speech recognition experts.

~~~
starbeast
Who are experts in learning new machines and can nearly always recognise
speech, but generally prefer email.

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huhtenberg
It just so happens it's the same James Mickens who wrote the Night Watch! What
are the odds!

[https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1311_05-08_mickens.pdf](https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1311_05-08_mickens.pdf)

~~~
atq2119
... and many more Usenix writings, pretty much all of which are laugh-out-loud
hilarious.

~~~
mikeash
Links to those, and other videos of talks he's done, are available here:
[https://mickens.seas.harvard.edu/wisdom-james-
mickens](https://mickens.seas.harvard.edu/wisdom-james-mickens)

For anyone who isn't familiar with him, you should definitely check them out.

~~~
toomuchtodo
All of his talks are incredibly good.

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starbeast
It's _Partick_ Thistle, not Patrick Thistle, Kingsely's gonna be right
steamin'.

~~~
andrewflnr
James better start running.

~~~
starbeast
Kingsley will have found out pretty quickly too as he follows all the latest
developments in machine learning. One of the few luxuries allowed into
Kingsleys's padded storage cell is a workstation packed with GPUs that
Kingsley tests the latest algorithms on, in order to calculate his ideal
fantasy-football team.

Edit - Mickens will have called Partick 'Patrick' on purpose, of course. He's
been gunning for Kingsley for a while now, as James is a long time supporter
of Dunfermline Athletic.

~~~
andrewflnr
> starbeast

Yellow, pointy... Oh shit.

~~~
starbeast
Nahh, wrong starbeast. I'm more of a lummox.
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/175328.The_Star_Beast](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/175328.The_Star_Beast)

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stuartd
Found the format a bit distracting to read, so cleaned it up a bit (removing
Speaker 1 ... etc) -
[https://pastebin.com/5nvvxSWB](https://pastebin.com/5nvvxSWB)

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krylon
Mmmh, that face looks familiar. He used to work at Microsoft, right? I
remember reading a couple of his blog posts, and they as funny as they were
interesting.

But he is so much better in person.

~~~
michaelcampbell
> He used to work at Microsoft, right?

Yes, same guy.

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sudofail
What a great talk. He brings up a lot of very important points that we all in
tech need to consider and keep in mind.

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merricksb
Transcript:

[http://www.zachpfeffer.com/single-
post/2018/11/27/Transcript...](http://www.zachpfeffer.com/single-
post/2018/11/27/Transcript-of-James-Mickens-USENIX-Speech)

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pronoiac
I love his work! Here's his page at Harvard that collects all of it:
[https://mickens.seas.harvard.edu/wisdom-james-
mickens](https://mickens.seas.harvard.edu/wisdom-james-mickens)

------
sctb
Previously:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17785162](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17785162).

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selimthegrim
God help Gritty when Mickens finds out about him.

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0xdeadbeefbabe
I hope he can make some better life choices.

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erikb
The speech:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajGX7odA87k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajGX7odA87k)

