Peek beneath the hood of just about anything in your life—including, yes, your car—and you’ll find computer code. That code is written by brilliant, fallible humans whose decisions end up affecting us in unexpected ways. The new book "You Are Not Expected to Understand This”: How 26 Lines of Code Changed the World looks at how programming reflects its very human origins, for better or for worse, in fields from law enforcement to social media to space exploration. Written by leading historians, technologists, journalists, and others, “You Are Not Expected to Understand This” can help everyone think through the way technology and humanity intersect.

Join us on Tuesday, Nov. 15, to celebrate the publication of "You Are Not Expected to Understand This". While you enjoy snacks and drinks, four of the book’s contributors and its editor will decode the code all around us. 

Speakers: 

All speakers are contributors to “You Are Not Expected to Understand This”.

Arthur Daemmrich
Director, Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation, Smithsonian Institution
You Are Not Expected chapter: “Spacewar: Collaborative Coding and the Rise of Gaming Culture”

Charles Duan, @charles_duan
Postdoctoral Fellow, Cornell University

Senior Policy Fellow, Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property, American University

You Are Not Expected chapter: “A Failure to Interoperate: The Lost Mars Climate Orbiter”

Will Oremus, @WillOremus

Technology Writer, the Washington Post

You Are Not Expected chapter: “The Curse of the Awesome Button”

Elena Botella
Principal at Omidyar Network
Author of Delinquent: Inside America’s Debt Machine
You Are Not Expected chapter: "The First Line of Code"

Moderator: 

Torie Bosch, @thekibosch

Editor, “You Are Not Expected to Understand This”: How 26 Lines of Code Changed the World 

Editor, Future Tense

Location:

New America
740 15th Street, N.W., Suite 900, Washington, DC 20005