Hacker News Reader

Comment by rwmj | Hacker News Reader

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.

View on HN

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

> 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.

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.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com