Ruby Sig: How To Design A Domain Specific Language
Google engEDU
1 hr 3 min – Oct 5, 2006

Google Tech Talks
October 5, 2006

David Pollak has been developing commercial software for 28 years. He founded Athena Design and wrote Mesa, the first real-time spreadsheet. David wrote Integer, the first online, collaborative spreadsheet. Since 2000, David has been developing domain specific languages for security and general web development.

ABSTRACT
David will describe a framework for developing DSLs which includes:

* Identifying the constituents in a development project;
* Determining the costs and benefits of a DSL for a particular constituency vs. hand-coding functionality for that constituency based on interviews and specs;
* Identifying the ‘thought leader’ in a given constituency and interviewing him or her to determine the semantics of the domain;
* Determining syntax of the DSL;
* Mocking up the DSL and ‘test driving’ it with the thought leader;
* Finding appropriate integration points for the DSL into the application;
* Defining the process by with the Domain Experts will update code in the DSL (e.g., they have a web page where they can change tax calculation rules vs. they make a change to particular Ruby files as part of a development/staging/production cycle.); and
* Iterate over the semantics, syntax, and process to fully integrate Domain Experts into the development process. Read the rest of this entry »

Computers versus Common Sense
Google engEDU
1 hr 15 min – May 30, 2006

Google TechTalks
May 30, 2006

Douglas Lenat
Dr. Douglas Lenat is the President and CEO of Cycorp. Since 1984, he and his team have been constructing, experimenting with, and applying
a broad real world knowledge base and reasoning engine, collectively "Cyc".

Dr. Lenat was a professor of computer science at Carnegie-Mellon University and at Stanford University. His interest and experience in national security has led him to regularly consult for several U.S. agencies and the White House.

ABSTRACT
It’s way past 2001 now, where the heck is HAL? For several decades now we’ve had high hopes for computers amplifying our mental abilities not just giving us access to relevant stored information, but answering our complex, contextual questions.

Even applications like human-level unrestricted speech understanding continue to dangle close but just out of reach. What’s been holding AI up? The short answer is that while computers make fine idiot savants, they lack common sense: the millions of pieces of general knowledge we all share, and fall back on as needed, to cope with the rough edges of the real world. I will talk about how that situation is changing, finally, and what the timetable — and the path — realistically are on achieving Artificial Intelligence. Read the rest of this entry »

A New Way to look at Networking
Google engEDU
1 hr 21 min – Aug 30, 2006

Google Tech Talks
August 30, 2006

Van Jacobson is a Research Fellow at PARC. Prior to that he was Chief Scientist and co-founder of Packet Design. Prior to that he was Chief Scientist at Cisco. Prior to that he was head of the Network Research group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He’s been studying networking since 1969. He still hopes that someday something will start to make sense.

ABSTRACT
Today’s research community congratulates itself for the success of the internet and passionately argues whether circuits or datagrams are the One True Way. Meanwhile the list of unsolved problems grows.

Security, mobility, ubiquitous computing, wireless, autonomous sensors, content distribution, digital divide, third world infrastructure, etc., are all poorly served by what’s available from either the research community or the marketplace. I’ll use various strained analogies and contrived examples to argue that network research is moribund because the only thing it knows how to do is fill in the details of a conversation between two applications. Today as in the 60s problems go unsolved due to our tunnel vision and not because of their intrinsic difficulty. And now, like then, simply changing our point of view may make many hard things easy. Read the rest of this entry »

Deconstructing The Xbox Security System
Google engEDU
1 hr 2 min – Dec 8, 2006

Google Tech Talks
December 1, 2006

ABSTRACT

In late 2001, Microsoft released the Xbox, their first gaming console, to compete against Sony and Nintendo in the living room. As the real money is made with the games and not the consoles, Microsoft had to make sure (as much as they could) that nobody could play pirated games or use the machine for anything other than games. Although the original security design idea was a good one and has been copied a lot since then, Microsoft’s inexperienced team made a variety of design, implementation, and policy mistakes. This talk first (re)constructs the design of the Xbox security system from Microsoft’s point of view, and then deconstructs it from the hacker’s point of view. As a bonus, the talk will feature some insights in the security system of the Xbox successor, the Xbox 360.

Michael Steil is the founder and maintainer of the Xbox-Linux Project. He oversaw most of the Xbox hacks and also contributed to hacking, reverse engineering and porting Linux on the Xbox. Read the rest of this entry »

Thoughts on the World’s Largest Possible Computer & What It Runs On
Google engEDU
1 hr 2 min – Mar 27, 2007

Google Tech Talks
March 27, 2007

ABSTRACT

The relation between Google and the free software movement is one of the most important diplomatic relationships in the 21st century. But it is largely invisible, even to the principals. In this talk I will try and make some of what we have taken for granted less implicit, so we can progress with mutual confidence and collective security.

Speaker: Eben Moglen, Software Freedom Law Center

Chairman of the Software Freedom Law Center, professor of Law and Legal History at Columbia University Law School, and General Counsel of the Free Software Foundation. In addition to FSF, Professor Moglen has represented many of the world’s leading free software developers.

Professor Moglen earned his PhD in History and law degree at Yale University during what he sometimes calls his "long, dark period" in New Haven. After law school he clerked for Judge Edward Weinfeld of the United States District Court in New York City and to Justice Thurgood Marshall of the United States Supreme Court. He has taught at Columbia Law School – and has held visiting appointments at Harvard University, Tel Aviv University and the University of Virginia – since 1987. In 2003 he was given the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Pioneer Award for efforts on behalf of freedom in the electronic society. Professor Moglen is admitted to practice in the State of New York and before the United States Supreme Court. Read the rest of this entry »