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.

Tech Talk: Linus Torvalds on git

Linus Torvalds visits Google to share his thoughts on git, the source control management system he created two years ago. (...) Linus Benedict Torvalds is a Finnish software engineer best known for initiating the development of the Linux kernel. He now acts as the project's coordinator.

Authors@Google: Michael Shermer

Michael Shermer discusses his book "Mind of the Market" as part of the Authors@Google series.

How did we evolve from ancient hunter-gatherers to modern consumer-traders? Why are people so irrational when it comes to money and business? Bestselling author Dr. Michael Shermer argues that evolution provides an answer to both of these questions through the new science of evolutionary economics. Drawing on research from neuroeconomics, Shermer explores what brain scans reveal about bargaining, snap purchases, and how trust is established in business. Utilizing experiments in behavioral economics, Shermer shows why people hang on to losing stocks and failing companies, why business negotiations often disintegrate into emotional tit-for-tat disputes, and why money does not make us happy. Employing research from complexity theory, Shermer shows how evolution and economics are both examples of a larger phenomenon of complex adaptive systems. Along the way, Shermer answers such provocative questions as: Do our tribal roots mean that we will always be a sucker for brands? How is the biochemical joy of sex similar to the rewards of business cooperation? How can nations increase trust within and between their borders? Finally, Shermer considers the consequences of globalization and what will happen if nations allow free trade across their borders.

Silicon Valley Linux Users Group - Kernel Walkthrough

The Silicon Valley Linux Users Group hosts weekly sessions to walk through the code for the Linux Kernel, allowing newer users and developers to better understanding the operating system.

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.

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.

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.

Authors@Google: Robert Frank

Author Robert Frank discusses his book "The Economic Naturalist: In Search of Explanations for Everyday Enigmas" as a part of the Authors@Google series. This event took place on July 23, 2007 at Google headquarters in Mountain View, CA. (...)

Robert Frank is the Henrietta Johnson Louis Professor of Management Professor of Economics at Cornell University's S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management. He is a monthly contributor to the "Economic Scene" column in The New York Times.

Authors@Google: James Randi

James Randi is an internationally known magician (as The Amazing Randi), psychic debunker, and winner of a MacArthur Foundation "Genius Grant." He was a founding fellow of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP). He is perhaps best known for offering $1,000,000 (via the James Randi Educational Foundation) to anyone who can successfully demonstrate psychic powers under conditions mutually agreed on by the challenger and himself. Starting with a $10,000 prize over 25 years ago, no claimant to psychic powers has ever won the money.

Randi has pursued "psychic" spoonbenders, exposed the dirty tricks of faith healers, investigated homeopathic water "with a memory," and generally been a thorn in the sides of those who try to pull the wool over the public's eyes in the name of the supernatural.

Candidates@Google: Ron Paul

2008 Republican Presidential candidate Ron Paul in discussion with Google executive Elliot Schrage as part of the company's Candidates@Google series. (...)

Ronald Ernest Paul (born August 20, 1935) is a 10th-term Congressman from Lake Jackson, Texas, a member of the Republican Party, a physician, and a candidate for the 2008 presidential election. He has represented Texas's 14th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1997 and represented Texas's 22nd district in 1976 and from 1979 to 1985. He earned the nickname "Dr. No" because he is a medical doctor who votes against any bill he believes violates the Constitution.[1] On March 12, 2007, Paul announced his candidacy for the 2008 presidential election seeking the nomination of the Republican Party.