There's always the same things i find disturbing in every alan kay notes i've seen recently :
it's often a bunch of anecdotal (yet interesting) data put together that don't give the impression of making the talk move forward.
The general idea is often pretty vague. it doesn't go much beyond general.
There's always those tiny bits of self promotion (mentioning Xerox Parc inventing everything we have today), like someone that feels that his work has been underappreciated and lacks peer recognition.
It's like one of those general public TED inspirational talk except it tries to disguise itself as a scientific or philosophic one.
I always end up looking at the first 20 minutes because the anecdotes are entertaining in themselves, then i realize the talk doesn't go anywhere, and i go back to work.
(and then i go back to reading again the wikipedia page about alan kay to try to remember what made him so famous).
PS : as a comparison, i think Bret Victor talks are immensely more interesting. They also mention general use of computers today, make you think about it quite deeply, inspire you to try new things, and actually demonstrate something new every time. And you never hear him mention his work at Apple.
It's like one of those general public TED inspirational talk except it tries to disguise itself as a scientific or philosophic one.
I always end up looking at the first 20 minutes because the anecdotes are entertaining in themselves, then i realize the talk doesn't go anywhere, and i go back to work.
(and then i go back to reading again the wikipedia page about alan kay to try to remember what made him so famous).
PS : as a comparison, i think Bret Victor talks are immensely more interesting. They also mention general use of computers today, make you think about it quite deeply, inspire you to try new things, and actually demonstrate something new every time. And you never hear him mention his work at Apple.