Lecture Archive

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Will Schenk

Will Schenk is a world traveller, pilot, electronic tinkerer, amateur photographer and software hacker. He’s worked at the Java Development Center at Sun Microsystems, we worked on projects ranging from e-commerce sites in New York City to health care information systems for the Ministry of Health in Malaysia. He was not-so-recently the Director of Software Engineering at Jones Apparel Group. Before that he spent time volunteering putting that technology knowledge to work at a large hospital in southern India. The last 2 years have traveling through Italy and studying what catches his fancy, which has been a combination of electronics, large scale database systems, data mining, and piloting. He currently has way too many books. He blogs at sublimeguile.com

No Dilettantes: When Actions have Consequences

We all make decisions everyday that effect our health; going to the gym or not, eating enough vegetables, getting enough rest, having that second drink. You know that these are bad for you in some vague way, but what’s the real penalty? Being hung-over at work doesn’t fundamentally matter. What happens if it did matter? What happens if the penalty were death? We’ll talk a little bit about the process that pilots, flight instructors, and the FAA use to cope with the limits of human physiology and psychology, how wisdom is captured from mistakes in a systematic way, and how to cope with such complicated systems.

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Michael Hines

Michael Hines is the founder of The Lorimer Series and lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Time.

I’ll explore the nature of Time through physics, cosmology, mythology, and psychology.

Previous Topic: You Are Here.

What will life be like 5, 10, 100 billion years into the future? What are the outer limits of our survivability as a species? How “vast” is the vastness of space? Why should I care?

I’ve only got 20 minutes. So that should just about cover it.

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Dr. Andrea Kondracke

Dr. Andrea Kondracke is a Johns Hopkins SOM graduate, board certified psychiatrist, and internist who specializes in the medical care of mentally ill patients. She works at Bellevue Medical Center, NYC.

WTF Is Wrong With Brit, Tom, and Michael

Yeah, they’re weird. What in the word is going on in their heads? A psychiatrist and internist at Bellevue gives us her professional opinion.

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Troy Tyler

Troy Tyler is, for lack of a better description, an entrepreneur. Profiling him in an article entitled “Soul Proprietor”, the business magazine Fast Company declared, “Bouncing is what Tyler does, like a Superball, as if his insistent energy isn’t quite contained by a standard-issue mortal frame.” Troy left his boyhood ranch in Colorado first to work on Wall Street, then in a Japanese autoplant, and finally in “technology-enabled media”. He led the web developer Avalanche Systems — later a part of RazorFish, started the mobile phone content provider SmartRay, and is currently working on both content creation and product invention. A student of science, economics, design, and acting, Troy is always asking, “Where’s the Heat?!”

Cheap Energy Smackdown! Physics vs. Economics

While global warming gets the headlines, the smart money is worried about “Peak Oil”, that point beyond which each year sees less and less black gunk gushing forth. While economists assert, “The market will provide.”, the scientists taunt, “You can’t get somthin’ for nuthin’!” What are these two camps shouting about? What might the world look like as we exhaust a once-a-planet endowment of fossil fuel?

There’s something in your genes!

Troy discusses how our genes influence but do not determine our futures.

Read the rest on this speaker’s page »

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D. Robert Wolcheck

D. Robert Wolcheck has been working with statistics for six years, namely social stats for Interactive, Inc., a small education research and evaluation firm. He has been involved with projects for State agencies and private companies, evaluating student performance and test scores from Alabama to Japan. Outside of the home office, he works as a photographer (http://drobertwolcheck.com) and occasionally acts (http://noteaproductions.com).

Not Always Bullshit: A Simple Explanation of Statistics

A non-mathematician attempts to explain the basics of statistics and how they’re used so that we can learn to trust them while retaining a healthy skepticism.