Milton Friedman - Greed

Milton Friedman was an American Nobel Laureate economist and public intellectual. An advocate of economic freedom and personal liberty, Friedman made major contributions to the fields of macroeconomics, microeconomics, economic history and statistics. In 1976, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics for his achievements in the fields of consumption analysis, monetary history and theory, and for his demonstration of the complexity of stabilization policy.

In this excerpt from an interview with Phil Donahue in 1979, Friedman discusses greed and capitalism.

Authors@Google: Phillip Zimbardo

What makes good people do bad things? How can moral people be seduced to act immorally? Where is the line separating good from evil, and who is in danger of crossing it? Renow-ned social psychologist Philip Zimbardo has the answers, and in The Lucifer Effect he explains how---and the myriad reasons why---we are all susceptible to the lure of "the dark side." Drawing on examples from history as well as his own trailblazing research, Zimbardo details how situational forces and group dynamics can work in concert to make monsters out of decent men and women.

Zimbardo, professor emeritus of psychology at Stanford University, is perhaps best known as the creator of the Stanford Prison Experiment. For the first time, he tells the full story of this landmark study, in which a group of college-student volunteers was randomly divided into "guards" and "inmates" and then placed in a mock prison environment. Within a week the study was abandoned, as ordinary college students were transformed into either brutal, sadistic guards or emotionally broken prisoners.

Steven Pinker: A brief history of violence

In a preview of his next book, Steven Pinker takes on violence. We live in violent times, an era of heightened warfare, genocide and senseless crime. Or so we've come to believe. Pinker charts a history of violence from Biblical times through the present, and says modern society has a little less to feel guilty about.

Steven Pinker is a prominent Canadian-American experimental psychologist, cognitive scientist, and popular science writer known for his spirited and wide-ranging advocacy of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind.

Authors@Google: Bjorn Lomborg

In Cool It, Bjørn Lomborg argues that many of the elaborate and expensive actions now being considered to stop global warming will cost hundreds of billions of dollars, are often based on emotional rather than strictly scientific assumptions, and may very well have little impact on the world's temperature for hundreds of years. Rather than starting with the most radical procedures, Lomborg argues that we should first focus our resources on more immediate concerns, such as fighting malaria and HIV/AIDS and assuring and maintaining a safe, fresh water supply—which can be addressed at a fraction of the cost and save millions of lives within our lifetime. He asks why the debate over climate change has stifled rational dialogue and killed meaningful dissent.

Bjørn Lomborg is the author of The Skeptical Environmentalist. He was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2004 and has written for numerous publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Economist. He is presently an adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School, and in 2004 he started the Copenhagen Consensus, a conference of top economists who come together to prioritize the best solutions for the world's greatest challenges.

John Stossel's 'Stupid in America'

"Stupid in America" is a nasty title for a program about public education, but some nasty things are going on in America's public schools and it's about time we face up to it.

Kids at New York's Abraham Lincoln High School told me their teachers are so dull students fall asleep in class. One student said, "You see kids all the time walking in the school smoking weed, you know. It's a normal thing here."

We tried to bring "20/20" cameras into New York City schools to see for ourselves and show you what's going on in the schools, but officials wouldn't allow it.

I, Pencil

I, Pencil is Leonard Read's most famous essay. The full title is "I, Pencil. My Family Tree as told to Leonard E. Read" and it was first published in the December, 1958 issue of The Freeman. It was reprinted in The Freeman in May 1996 and as a pamphlet entitled "I...Pencil" in May 1998. In the reprint, Milton Friedman wrote the introduction and Donald J. Boudreaux wrote the afterword. Friedman (the 1976 winner of the Nobel Prize in economics) used the essay in his 1980 PBS television show Free to Choose and the accompanying book of the same name.

"I, Pencil" is written in the first person from the point of view of an Eberhard Faber pencil. The pencil details the complexity of its own creation, listing its components (cedar, lacquer, graphite, ferrule, factice, pumice, wax, glue) and the numerous people involved, down to the sweeper in the factory and the lighthouse keeper guiding the shipment into port.

Debunking myths about the "Third World"

You've never seen data presented like this. With the drama and urgency of a sportscaster, Hans Rosling debunks myths about the so-called "developing world" using extraordinary animation software developed by his Gapminder Foundation. The Trendalyzer software (recently acquired by Google) turns complex global trends into lively animations, making decades of data pop. Asian countries, as colorful bubbles, float across the grid -- toward better national health and wealth. Animated bell curves representing national income distribution squish and flatten. In Rosling's hands, global trends -- life expectancy, child mortality, poverty rates -- become clear, intuitive and even playful.

The Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog

The Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog is a fictional beast from the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail. According to Tim the Enchanter, it "[has] a vicious streak a mile wide!", as well as "nasty, big, pointy teeth!" The creature has become known as the vorpal bunny, although this name does not appear in the film.

The Cave of Caerbannog ("Caer bannog" being Welsh for "turreted castle") is the home of the Legendary Black Beast of Aaaaarrrrrggggghhhhh, and is ostensibly guarded by a fearsome predator of an unknown description, because no one who attempts to enter the Cave or face the monster has ever lived to tell the tale.

The beast appears to be a cute, fluffy white rabbit, surrounded by the bones of the fallen. Despite Tim's warnings, King Arthur orders one of his knights, Bors, to decapitate the rabbit. Bors approaches it, sword drawn, and is immediately decapitated by the rabbit to the sound of a can opener. The knights attack in force, but are driven into retreat as the rabbit leaps and attacks, killing Gawain and Ector.

Principles of economics, translated

Yoram Bauman has appeared at venues ranging from the New York Improv to the American Association for the Advancement of Science's annual meeting. He is a regular at the Comedy Underground in Seattle, where he runs Non-Profit Comedy, a political-ish comedy benefit show (featured in the Seattle P-I). When not performing stand-up he consults on climate change and other environmental economics issues and teaches at the University of Washington.

Comedian movie trailer

Hal Douglas is an American voice actor best known for his work on movie trailers and television commercials.

Douglas is known in the film industry as the "In a world …" guy because many of his trailers have begun with these words, and his voice has immortalized them (although Don LaFontaine claims to have actually created the catchphrase). In addition, Douglas has been the promotional voice for the former WB, A&E and The History Channel. As of 2007, Douglas records promotional narrations for ABC along with theatrical trailers, but no longer does voice overs for the CW, the merger of The WB and UPN. His voice can also be heard as the "trailer announcer" in the 2006 movie, The Holiday. He can be seen parodying himself in the trailer for Jerry Seinfeld's film Comedian.

Authors@Google: Tyler Cowen

Tyler Cowen is a professor of economics and director of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. He writes for MarginalRevolution.com, the #1 economics blog according to blogpulse.com. Stephen Dubner, co-author of Freakonomics, called this blog "awesomely good, every day." Cowen also writes a monthly column for the business section of The New York Times, and contributes to many other publications.

In DISCOVER YOUR INNER ECONOMIST: Use Incentives to Fall in Love, Survive Your Next Meeting, and Motivate Your Dentist , economics professor Tyler Cowen shows how many of our needs, whims, and wants can be understood through markets. Want to vent some anger? A bar in China lets you pay to beat up the staff. Want to talk to aliens? For $3.99 a minute a company will broadcast your phone call directly into space.

This event happened September 14, 2007 at the Google NY office.

Asimo Commercial

ASIMO (アシモ, ashimo?) is a humanoid robot created by Honda Motor Company. Standing at 130 centimeters (4 feet 3 inches) and weighing 52 kilograms (119 lbs.), the robot resembles a small astronaut wearing a backpack and can walk on two feet at speeds up to 6 km/h (3.7 mph). ASIMO was created at Honda's Research & Development Wako Fundamental Technical Research Center in Japan. It is the current model in a line of eleven that began in 1986 with E0.

Officially, the name is an acronym for "Advanced Step in Innovative MObility". As of 2007, there are 46 ASIMO units in existence. Each one costs less than $1 million to manufacture, and some units are available to be hired out for $166,000 per year.