academic talks

Doug Zongker's deadpan conference presentation of his famously chicken-filled paper, given at the 2007 AAAS humor session. It satirizes academic talks while showing the pitfalls of bad presentation.

A PyCon 2013 block of Friday evening lightning talks. It includes the debut of Hy, a Lisp dialect that compiles to Python AST, and Solomon Hykes's first public talk on Docker.

Noam Chomsky gives a Talks at Google lecture covering his work on politics and language. It touches on his linguistic theory, including universal grammar, alongside his political criticism.

An Onion Talks satire in which a young media professional pitches compost-powered cars, offering the idea itself and leaving all implementation to others.

A four-minute Onion Talks parody in which a social media consultant pitches never putting any effort into social marketing. It lampoons TED-style talks and marketing consultants.

An Onion Talks satire in which a faux animal behaviorist gives a pompous TED-style talk about ducks quacking and chickens clucking. It parodies the vacuous style of TED talks.

Frank Abagnale, the real subject of Catch Me If You Can, speaks at Google about his life as a con man turned FBI fraud and cybersecurity expert, including advice on fraud, breaches and credit cards.

Conan O'Brien and Andy Richter visit Google's Mountain View headquarters in 2010 for a comedic Q&A. Conan jokes with the interviewer and the Google audience.

Randall Munroe, creator of xkcd, gives an Authors@Google talk in 2007 about the webcomic and his background, followed by audience Q&A. Donald Knuth and Guido van Rossum ask questions during the session.

Noam Chomsky speaks at Google Cambridge in 2017 about his political development and the control of information and media. It is a wide-ranging talk with audience discussion.

Barack Obama, then a presidential candidate, presents his innovation agenda at Google and takes questions from Eric Schmidt and employees in November 2007.

A collection of lightning talks from the Surge 2015 conference on scalable systems, hosted by Geir Magnusson. HN mostly points to one segment, a Bryan Cantrill talk touching on madvise semantics.

Lawrence Lessig's Talks at Google presentation based on his book Republic, Lost, arguing that money in politics corrupts Congress and eroded public trust, and outlining what could be done about it. It supports the argument with data on political donations.

John Ousterhout, Stanford professor and creator of Tcl, presents the ideas of his book A Philosophy of Software Design in a Talks at Google session. He covers managing complexity, deep modules and interfaces, and what he teaches in his Stanford software design course.

David Graeber's Talks at Google presentation on his book Debt: The First 5,000 Years, covering the history of debt, the myth of barter and the Jubilee tradition.

Economist Richard Wolff's Talks at Google lecture on his book Democracy at Work. He critiques capitalism and argues for worker-run cooperatives as a path to a more democratic economy.

Cory Doctorow's Talks at Google lecture on the coming civil war over general-purpose computing. He argues that locked-down devices, DRM, and surveillance threaten user control of computers.

Kelly Starrett's Talks at Google presentation on staying healthy while desk bound, mixing anatomy and practical mobility advice. It shows how to set up a desk and sit and move to avoid pain.

Climber Chris Warner talks at Google about his book on high altitude leadership and the 2007 K2 expedition, where eighteen climbers summited and two died.

Daniel Kahneman's Talks at Google lecture on his book Thinking, Fast and Slow, covering System 1 and System 2 thinking and the psychology of judgment and decision making.

Eric Brechner, a Microsoft Xbox development manager, presents his Kanban approach for agile project management at Talks at Google. He covers using sticky notes to organize work, estimate and meet deadlines.

Charles Marohn of Strong Towns presents, in a Talks at Google session, the ideas from his book on why many North American towns struggle financially despite decades of growth. He argues for incremental, bottom-up city building as a path to local prosperity.

Sean Carroll's Talks at Google presentation of his book Something Deeply Hidden. He gives an accessible introduction to quantum mechanics and argues for the many-worlds interpretation and the emergence of spacetime.

Mark Blyth's Talks at Google presentation based on his book on austerity. He argues that government debt came largely from bailing out banks, and that budget cuts are a misguided response to the financial crisis.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb talks at Google about his book Antifragile, on systems that gain from disorder and volatility. It draws on themes from his earlier books.

Joseph Henrich's Talks at Google presentation of his book. He argues that human success comes from collective brains and cultural learning across generations rather than individual intelligence.

Neal Stephenson visits Google in 2008 to discuss his novel Anathem as part of the Authors@Google series. He talks about the book's world and takes audience questions.

A Talks at Google visit by Douglas Engelbart, inventor of the mouse. He presents his lifelong aim of augmenting collective human intelligence, followed by a Q&A.

Anand Giridharadas presents his book Winners Take All at Google, arguing that the global elite's philanthropy and 'win-win' framing preserve the systems that create inequity. He challenges the audience, including Google employees, to examine their own role in that system.

Dr. Michael Greger presents his book How Not to Die at Google NYC, arguing that diet and lifestyle changes can prevent or reverse many of the top causes of death. He walks through evidence on whole-food plant-based eating.

Author JL Collins discusses his book The Simple Path to Wealth at Google, covering avoiding debt, simple index fund investing, and retirement accounts like 401(k)s and IRAs. It is an hour-long interview in plain language.

Gary Taubes presents the argument of his book Why We Get Fat to Googlers in 2011. He claims the type of calories matters more than the count, challenges calories-in-calories-out thinking and criticizes the low-fat dietary consensus.

Tony Schwartz of The Energy Project speaks at Google about managing energy rather than time. He draws on The Power of Full Engagement and his work on stamina and sustained performance.

Dr. Howard Schubiner presents his research that much chronic pain comes from learned neural pathways rather than structural damage, and outlines a treatment approach based on that view.

Sandy Pentland of MIT presents his book on social physics, which uses big-data studies of how people interact to explain how ideas spread. He describes findings on collective intelligence and social influence.

Misko Hevery's Clean Code Talk shows how to use object-oriented techniques such as polymorphism to remove repeated if and switch statements. The result is code that is easier to test, understand and maintain.

Slavoj Zizek discusses his book Violence in an Authors@Google talk in New York. He covers ideology, including his idea of the unknown knowns.

Berkeley sleep scientist Matthew Walker presents the science of sleep and dreams and how sleep affects health and lifespan, based on his book Why We Sleep.

Harvard geneticist David Sinclair discusses his book Lifespan at Google. He covers the biology of aging, lifestyle interventions and possible future ways to slow or reverse it.

UCLA professor Dario Nardi presents brain-imaging research suggesting that different Myers-Briggs personality types use their brains in different ways. He discusses how each type can reach a state of creative flow. It is aimed at a general audience.