Google, a mecca for top notch programmers, attracts many top speakers to give talks on (generally) technical topics. They graciously record these talks and upload them to Google Video. You can get a list of most of them by searching video.google.com for “engEDU”. Think of these as virtual user group talks, but usually with bigger “name” speakers than a typical local group offers.
Here are just a few that’s I’ve enjoyed recently, there are many more worth watching.
How Debian (Ubuntu) packages work
Mary Poppendieck (“Lean Software Development” author) – Competing on the basis of speed
A new Way to look at Networking – Fascinating
The Mercurial distributed source control system
Added later:
Jessica Livingston, talking about “Founders at Work”
Still later: