Google Tech Talks
January 8, 2007

Abstract

The legal threat is a powerful weapon — even when it’s wrong. Cease-and-desists have even become part of the search optimizers’ toolbox. ChillingEffects.org tracks the proliferation of cease-and-desist letters that threaten online activity and helps the public understand the legal claims and their effects.

For the past several years, Google has been sending the demands it receives to Chilling Effects. Rather than disappearing sites from its search results without notice, Google forwards the removal demands to Chilling Effects and links to those notices in its search results. Last year alone, Google got and forwarded more than a thousand…

Google Tech Talks
February 13, 2007

ABSTRACT

A large percentage of time behind the computer screen is spent on editing text. Investing a little time in learning more efficient ways to use a text editor pays itself back fairly quickly. This presentation will give an overview of the large number of ways of using Vim in a smart way to edit programs, structured text and documentation. Examples will be used to make clear how learning a limited number of habits will avoid wasting time and lower the number of mistakes.
Bram Moolenaar is mostly known for being the benevolent dictator of the text editor Vim. His roots are in electrical engineering and for a long time he worked on inventing image…

Google Tech Talks
March 28, 2007

ABSTRACT

The program aims to bring over 175kW of residential solar power to 50+ homes in the Mountain View, Los Altos, Menlo Park & Woodside communities. SolarCity is offering a substantial discount for homeowners and businesses who purchase solar through this program, giving it the possibilty of being one of the largest residential solar co-op purchases to date. The purpose of the talk is to inform googlers about the benefits and economics of solar, the technologies that SolarCity is using, and to learn about the co-op program itself. Similar public meetings have already been held for local residents, and have attracted a fair bit of local media attention,…

Google Tech Talks
April 5, 2007

ABSTRACT

For the past 50 years, people have begun to recognize that advanced technology and material abundance do not provide meaning in their lives. This talk discusses how spiritual practice provides the balance needed to live a life of understanding and harmony.
Before retiring from the corporate, high-tech world in 1990, Les Kaye worked at IBM for over 30 years, as an engineer, salesman, manager, and software developer. In the mid-sixties, while working and raising a family, he started to practice Zen Buddhism. He was ordained as a Zen monk in 1970 and was recognized as a Zen teacher in 1986. Today he is the abbot of the Kannon Do Zen Center in Mountain View….

Google Tech Talks
March 23, 2007

ABSTRACT

Nuclear explosives are a mature technology with well-characterized effects. Proposed utilizations include a near asteroid burst to ablate surface material and nudge the body to a safer orbit, or a direct sub-surface burst to fragment the body. For this latter method, previous estimates suggest that for times as short as 1000 days, over 99.999% of the material is diverted, and no longer impacts the Earth, a huge mitigation factor. To better understand these possibilities, we have used a multidimensional radiation/hydrodynamics code to simulate sub-surface and above surface bursts on an inhomogeneous, 1 km diameter body with an average density of 2 g/cc….

Google Tech Talks
May 24, 2006

ABSTRACT

If you happen to be lucky (or unlucky) enough to live in Washington, D.C., and are appropriately credentialed or won the right lottery, you can choose from a couple of dozen places to go watch the workings of government in action. Congressional hearings and the White House briefing rooms are the best known of these official hotspots, but most agencies have their own hearing rooms for official actions, press conferences, and other public proceedings.

Sometimes these official proceedings make themselves visible to the rest of us, usually through low-resolution streaming video using a proprietary format. A few hearings get archived, though the archives are…

Google Tech Talks
April 9, 2007

ABSTRACT

While investigating the genetic workings of the microscopic worm, C. elegans, Mello and colleague Andrew Fire, PhD, of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, discovered RNAi, a natural but previously unrecognized process by which a certain form of RNA can be manipulated to silence—or interfere with—the expression of a selected gene. The discovery, published in the journal Nature in 1998, has had two extraordinary impacts on biological science. One is as a research tool: RNAi is now the state-of-the-art method by which scientists can knock out the expression of specific genes in cells, to thus define the biological functions of those genes. But just as…

Google Tech Talks
January 25, 2007

ABSTRACT

Project retrospectives help teams examine what went right and what went wrong on a project. But traditionally, retrospectives (also known as “post-mortems”) are only performed at the end of the project — too late to help. In organizations where teams develop using iterative, incremental methods, Agile retrospectives at the end of each iteration or increment stimulate continuous improvement throughout the project. Exceptional software process and project improvement grows out of solid data and good planning.

Esther Derby and Diana Larsen, authors of Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great, will introduce you to a framework for effective…

Google Tech Talks
January 18, 2007

ABSTRACT

We’ll cover:
-approapriate attire for wilderness activities (“cotton kills”)
-how not to get lost 🙂

Once lost:
-signaling for assistance (both day and night)
-building land markers to indicate direction
-choosing a location for shelter
-building shelters
-finding and purifying water
-basic medical kit and its use
-basic land navigation (and direction determination) without a compass
-also, well cover “child SAR”, so parents are encouraged to attend Credits: Speaker:Robert Nielsen