Monday, September 15, 2008

Authors@Google: David Friedman

David Friedman visits Google's Mountain View, CA headquarters to discuss his book "Future Imperfect: Technology and Freedom in an Uncertain World." This event took place on September 3, 2008, as part of the Authors@Google series.

In his brand new work, Future Imperfect: Technology and Freedom in an Uncertain World, the famed economist David Friedman presents a variety of technological revolutions in the next 20 years and their implications. If dead could be brought alive, genes of the unborn could be picked and matched to a perfect combination, and robotic flies are the future of surveillance cameras, then what does this all mean for the traditional values and ideals our society is based on? Our passive consumption of evolving technology could lead to more or less privacy than we have ever known, freedom or slavery, effective immortality and radical changes in life, marriage, law, medicine, work, and play.

David D. Friedman is Professor of Law at Santa Clara University, California. After receiving a Ph.D. in theoretical physics at the University of Chicago, he switched fields to economics and taught at Virginia Polytechnic University, the University of California at Irvine, the University of California at Los Angeles, Tulane University, the University of Chicago, and Santa Clara University. A professional interest in the economics of law led to positions at the law schools of the University of Chicago and Cornell and thereafter to his present position, where he developed the course on legal issues of the twenty-first century, which led to his writing Future Imperfect.

"Fake" Arnold Schwarzenegger pranks George Takei

"Fake" Arnold Schwarzenegger (voice of Josh Robert Thompson) fools "Star Trek" legend, George Takei, into believing he's talking with the REAL Governor of California. Voted "Top 10 of 2006" on "The Howard Stern Show."

Phantom of the Opera - Sarah Brightman and Steve Harley


The Phantom of the Opera is a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on the book written by the French novelist Gaston Leroux. The music was composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, with lyrics by Charles Hart and additional lyrics by Richard Stilgoe directed by Hal Prince, choreographed by Gillian Lynne, lighting by Andrew Bridge and designed by Maria Bjornson.
The musical focuses on a beautiful soprano, Christine DaaĆ©, who becomes the obsession of a mysterious, disfigured musical genius known as "The Phantom of the Opera", who terrorizes the Paris Opera House. It opened on the West End in 1986 and in 2008 surpassed its 9,000th performance there. It is the second longest-running West End musical in history and the longest-running Broadway musical. It was made into a film in 2004 and, according to its official website, it is the most successful entertainment project in history, grossing more than £1.8bn ($3.2bn) by 2007.

Large Hadron Rap


Rappin' about CERN's Large Hadron Collider

University of London External System (2)


The University of London External System (until recently the University of London External Programme) is the external degree granting division of the University of London. (...)

When the first "London University" was established in 1828, the institution, Scottish in curriculum and teaching, was non-denominational. As such, given the intense religious rivalries at the time, there was an outcry against the "godless" university. The issue soon boiled down to which institutions had degree-granting powers, and which institutions didn't.

The compromise solution that emerged in 1836 was that the sole authority to conduct the examinations leading to degrees would be given to a new entity called the "University of London". As Sheldon Rothblatt states, "thus arose in nearly archetypal form the famous English distinction between teaching and examining, here embodied in separate institutions."

With the state giving examining powers to a separate entity, the groundwork was laid for the creation of a programme within the new university that would both administer exams and award qualifications to students either pursuing instruction at another institution, or pursuing a course of self-directed study.