When I was in graduate school at Columbia University, we has so many outside speakers coming to present their latest research, I would have to force myself to limit my attendance to just a few a week so I could actually work on my dissertation. I thought it would be such a public good to have these talks available via the web. Back then, hardware and software was expensive and internet connections were slow. Now, costs have come down and connections are much faster, so we should have these available to the public (and less endowed universities). How great would it be to have these talks at Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, etc. available to the public. Until then, we have TED talks now available via their website and podcasts. Check out this great talk by Dan Gilbert.
