That'll Never Work | Hacker News Reader

That'll Never Work

blog.jgc.org

111 pointsjgrahamc30 comments

John's a good speaker and has done a few "crazy" things.

However I thought this talk was going to be about the wingnut ideas that really will never work because they defy human nature / currently known laws of physics / principles of good software design / basic logic / etc.

That's a great talk idea. I really want at some time to do one called "7 minutes to Tranquility Base" detailing all the stuff that happened in the last 7 minute before Aldrin and Armstrong landed on the moon. A lot of interesting technical stuff work and failed in those critical minutes.

And if you can't get enough of me speaking about random stuff, here's my StrataConf talk: http://blog.jgc.org/2012/10/the-great-railway-caper-big-data...

Although this happened during Apollo 12, I love stories [1] like John Aaron's [2] "SCE to AUX". It is a story of how one critical piece of knowledge in a clutch moment can turn failure into success.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWQIryll8y8

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Aaron

What's "human nature"? Human nature, if anything, is adaptability. What feels "natural" to us is largely determined by our socialisation and our environment (i.e., things which we can change).

I was specifically thinking about Communism when I wrote that.

If you change it so that what feels "natural" to you is not what feels "natural" to everyone else, then you are in for a world of hurt when you find that all the resources you were relying on are no longer presented in a way that you're compatible enough to access.

> wingnut ideas that really will never work because they defy human nature / currently known laws of physics / principles of good software design / basic logic

One of these things is not like the others. People defy the principles of good software design and get something that works all the time.

That was a great talk, and well worth listening to. I think it also highlights why we find your blog posts interesting -- because you are an engaging speaker with that mysterious "charm" quality.

I feel that the HN post title is missing much needed air-quotes around "That'll Never Work" since the talk is all about ignoring the internal voice that tells you to give up.

While I've only done much less impossible things, I have found that the act beating the impossible helps give confidence for future tasks. You realize that things aren't as impossible as they seem at first glance.

Hi John, is there any way you can provide subtitles (in english) on this talk? or a transcript? English is not my native language so it's kinda hard to understand everything you say

If I had time I'd listen to what I said and write it down for you.

I'm not sure if this was a snarky reply or not, but you can get pretty cheap english translators on oDesk. Average price is $1/minute of translated material. The accuracy is usually superb, especially considering the price.

What would make you think that was a snarky reply on my part?

Strange. I think it's bleed over connotation from when you ask someone to do something and say something like "have you got that or shall I write it down for you?"

Something about the "write it down for you" is often used in a condescending way.

Yeah, I think this was it. Sorry jgrahamc, I wasn't trying to be insulting. It was just the phrasing with threw me off.

Something about the mix of "I'd listen to what I said" and "I'd write it down for you" just seemed like an unpleasant way to say "sorry I don't have time to transcribe it"

It reads like you're offering a personal transcription service, which would be an unusual thing to see in this context, so it's reasonable to interpret as sarcasm.

I think you might mean transcription.

Re-upload it to youtube and try the auto-captioning service there.

I'm a native English speaker and found it hard to understand. I think the audio echo makes the sound unclear.

Never heard you speak before, jgrahamc. Enjoyed the video immensely.

Thanks.

I'm more than happy to speak at people's events on the following conditions:

1. I have something to say. I never give the same talk twice so I usually need quite a lot of warning so that I have time to come up with something original.

2. It's convenient for me to get there.

3. The talk is videoed and made public. Since I'm not being paid my pay is publicity.

Thank you very much for making it public.

Is publicity the only reason? I thought it was because you take pity on those born with the unfortunate curse of being constantly curious.

Same here. This was quite a coup for Dmitri to get him speaking at the London meetup. Definitely one of the best talks so far.

This is how Dmitri got me to come: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4640303

What was the previous talk? You've piqued my interest now!

Linda Sandvik's talk about "Making Things Better" was a really touching talk. It started slowly and I thought it wasn't going to be good but it just got better and better over time: http://vimeo.com/53074443

Mandatory plug for the HNLondon Vimeo page: http://vimeo.com/hnlondon

A collection of all our previous speakers including jgc (obviously) Eben Upton, Rand Fishkin, Joel Spolsky and many more.

The first thing I thought of when reading the title of this post is Adaptive Optics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_optics). When I was told the idea of using a mirror which could reposition itself thousands of times a second to correct for atmospheric disturbances I had an initial gut reaction of "this will never work". There just seemed like there was too much which could go wrong or would have to be compensated for. Of course I was completely wrong - the technology works brilliantly and along side telescopes is now being used in microscopes, medicine and weapons!

Excellent talk and well worth the time to watch. Thanks for making it publicly available.

whens the next hacker news meetup in london?

22nd Nov http://www.meetup.com/hnlondon/

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