Slashdot Mirror

The good folks at the MIT Media Lab (especially under the Things That Think research program) have been researching such things for years.
The July/August issue of IEEE Micro contains several articles on their work, including one on parasitic power.

This is the author of the first TCP/IP implementation, Bill Joy, speaking in the article:

I was the principal designer and programmer of the Berkeley version of Unix (BSD). After our very small group had worked on this project for a few years, we received support from DARPA to continue and expand the work. Specifically, we gained access to some code from BBN that implemented the TCP/IP protocol. Unlike the major technical universities (MIT, Carnegie Mellon University, and Stanford), Berkeley at that time had not been connected in any major way to the Arpanet.

The IEEE Annals of the History of Computing site is at http://www.computer.org/annals .

The IEEE Annals of the History of Computing site is at http://www.computer.org/annals .

6 PROFESSION - Software engineers shall advance the integrity and reputation of the profession consistent with the public interest.

One implication of this principle is that we all need to stay informed on events related to the intergrity and reputation of our profession in order to defend ourselves against unjustified external attacks. Clearly, the Sklyarov case represents an attack of unprecedented ferocity on the profession of software engineering. Iam currently teaching 2 sections of a graduate-level software engineering course, and in an informal poll last week Iwas shocked to learn that less than five out of sixty students had heard of the DMCA or Dmitri Sklyarov. I emphasized that it is our professional duty to keep informed and to speak out against the persecution of software engineers. Besides linking to information on this and related cases on my course webpages, Iam considering some type of assignment that will encourage students to respond in some way to the threat represented by the DMCA. Letter writing campaign? Protest actions? I am writing slashdot to solicit recommendations.

...the task of proving optimality seems impossible. No, I take that back, it is impossible

Actually, you're wrong. It is possible to prove in some cases that a given algorithm is optimal, and that a given implementation is optimal. You can discover this from a mathematically-based analysis of optimality, so that you can't use better hardware or loop unrolling, etc., to get a better solution.

Optimality is multi-faceted, since optimal solutions may exist for time constraints, space constraints, or both. Optimality is tied to computational complexity theory, since for some problem domains you can show that any solution must have a given complexity bounds, especially a theta-bound since that is the tightest bounds of a problem. Then you can show for a given machine set (abstracted assembly), with certain types of operations, that an implementation of the algorithm is in some sense optimal.

For some examples of proven optimal solutions to computational problems, see the following: static dictionary membership queries; generating minimal perfect hash functions; monte carlo estimation; scanning spanning trees of undirected graphs; hyperplane depth; simultaneous buffer and wire sizing (with implementation); maximum independent set of a circular-arc graph. The list could go on, but this gives you some idea of the breadth of solutions available. Sometimes, as with the halting problem, you can show that no solution exists, optimal or not.

As a final note, however, optimal solutions exist in algorithmics for well-defined computational problems. It is an entirely different thing to solve most real-world problems, where many non-theoretical issues enter the fray, such as how quickly can the code be written, is the design easily understood, how well can your code be maintained, does it do what the user or customer wants, does it have a good human interface, etc. These issues, rather than theoretics, dominate most of the actually programming that goes on in the world (despite what your professors may have taught you! ;-). In that sense, the language/optimality/editor/UI/paradigm flame wars will still go on for as long as people are using computers.

But it is still fun, on the rare occasion, to point out to your boss that your implementation of merging accounting transactions is theoretically optimal. Not that they really care, they just want it done by Friday. ;-)

In the tabulating machine era, there were keypunches for input, tabulators for addition, subtraction, and printing, sorters for sorting, and collators for merging and matching. The need for multiplication was limited, and was addressed by standalone machines like the 602A, basically a mechanical desk caculator integrated with a card reader/punch.

The mechanical multipliers were slow, and the last years of the mechanical era included electronic multipliers and dividers, culminating in the IBM 604, the last of the plugboard-wired engines.

The IBM 650, a real computer with a magnetic drum main memory, was IBM's first commercial general purpose programmable computer. (Knuth did his first programming on one.) It was programmed with an assembler that generated object programs, not by wiring plugboards like the 604.

The IBM 701 was IBM's first all-electronic computer. Everything previous had moving parts in the basic compute loop, slowing things down.

IBM had a few experimental machines before the 650 which could be called computers, the huge IBM Selective Sequence Controlled Calculator being the first big one. But those were one of a kind machines.

Bear in mind that IBM was running way behind in this period. UNIVAC was the technology leader back then.

Yeah, there's probably a reason that they're called "berkeley sockets."

The big problem I see is battery life. The original Itsy dealt with this by having a cholesteric display, I think, so that it could be powered off but still display data.

As the technology (hardware & software) improves to take more account of power, I think these things will really take off.

There's also the University of Manchester Department of Computer Science history and "50 years of computing at Manchester."

Or the Alan Turing Home Page.

Alan Turing used to drink at the Salisbury Arms, on Oxford Road in Manchester, which although serving a decent pint, is now way too packed in the evenings to be able to think in base 32 anymore.

The thing is, most universities follow a standard curriculum set out the by the ACM.

There are a few versions of this, the most recent completed was Computing Curricula 1991. There is another version in-progress, Computing Curricula 2001. I seem to remember being told that most schools are actually somewhere in between the 1991 curriculum and the previous recommendation, which doesn't seem to be online.

So, the bottom line is that our beef may be with the ACM. This question is well-timed, since the new curriculum is still in development. There are several discussion groups open to the public on the new curriculum proposals.

Greg

The thing is, most universities follow a standard curriculum set out the by the ACM.

There are a few versions of this, the most recent completed was Computing Curricula 1991. There is another version in-progress, Computing Curricula 2001. I seem to remember being told that most schools are actually somewhere in between the 1991 curriculum and the previous recommendation, which doesn't seem to be online.

So, the bottom line is that our beef may be with the ACM. This question is well-timed, since the new curriculum is still in development. There are several discussion groups open to the public on the new curriculum proposals.

Greg

Online content providers have skipped over a "known good" revenue generation model; that of subscription services. I won't participate as a consumer in micropayment systems. Its too risky. I can't afford to pay $0.05 several hundred, or thousand times a month for content whose value is only known after I've paid. Refund systems layered on top of micropayment just waste my time.

I feel subscriptions are well worth my money. If I find an online resource that has a mandate and reputation for delivering detailed, accurate information with a specific focus, I'd be happy to pay a larger sum of money (larger than a micropayment) under the assumption that they'll continue producing similar information.

For example, I'd probably be willing to pay CA$3/month for access to slashdot discussions. I'd be willing to pay $5 or $10 per month for Access to FirstMonday. I already pay over US$100/year for access to the IEEE Computer Society's Online Library (it's worth every penny!).

I don't bother with "free" information presented by CNN and other "news magazines". The accuracy of the information they present is questionable, and the cover is shallow.

Perhaps if web sites generated revenue from subscriptions instead of banner-ad sales we could be rid of these ridiculous three column layouts that impede understanding of the core content they contain.

-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith

IEEE/ACM has ethics guidelines...

Also, "After the Gold Rush" by Steve McConnell is pretty good.

Here are some things to look out for:

• Long-term disability won't pay for the first 30 days or 60 days or whatever is specified in the contract. To cover the first 30 or 60 days you would need either accured vacation/sick leave, savings, short-term disability insurance, or some combination thereof.
• If you pay for disability insurance with pre-tax dollars and you become disabled, you have to pay income tax on your disability check. If you pay for disability insurance with after-tax dollars, your disability check is tax-free.
• The maximum benefit for disability is usually 60% of your pay (for the past year) per year, to provide a disincentive to claiming disability to induced chronic fatigue or something. Thus, if possible, you want to pay for disability insurance with after-tax dollars so that the benefit will be about the same as your current take-home pay.
• If your employer offers disability insurance, I believe there is something that prevents you from buying disability insurance on your own, but I don't know what it is, whether it is a law, a tax disincentive, or an underwriter policy.
• Disability insurance doesn't pay past age 65, so make sure you get enough coverage so that you can still contribute to your IRA with your disability benefit check.
• Policies vary widely in what consider a disability and what benefits they will pay out and whether you're allowed to make some money on your hobby when you're disabled. Some policies (like those $10/month policies offered by most employers) will try to make you flip burgers if you at all can, and then say you're not disabled and not pay anything. That's why if you're serious about disability insurance you have to go to a Cadillac $100/month policy -- not many insurance companies offer good policies anymore, but Minnesota Life still does. Also, if you've been a member of IEEE for a while, you're eligible for their Financial Advantage Program group policies. Their disability insurance is almost as good as Minnesota Life's.
• Look for automatic inflation adjustment of benefits.
• You will have a choice between "level payments" and payments that increase as you get older. Since most of us aspire to early retirement and financial independence, get the latter of course, so you can simply cancel when you reach that point and not have wasted any money.
• Disability insurance is cheaper if you can get two or three buddies to do it with you. You can save 10-20% this way.
• The amount you pay depends on your profession. Some dangerous or high-risk professions don't qualify at all. So for a programmer, not only has the insurance company taken into account the possibility of carpal tunnel, but also brain damage, automobile accidents, etc. In other words, you're not a special case -- they've done this before. A supermodel insuring her legs is a unique case. A programmer insuring his hands is not -- it's simply disability insurance.

check here for information about becoming an IEEE Certfified Software Engineering Professional...

The author is correct that OOP won't solve every problem. But he tosses the baby out with the bath-water! The author obviously hasn't read any of these great books/articles:

What is Object-Oriented Programming? (Link to papers, since I can't find the .pdf for this one)

Multiparadigm Design and Implementation in C++

Design and Evolution of C++

Now I'm not saying C++ is the end-all and be-all, but every language was designed to solve a certain problem. Use the right tool for the right job! If C++ lets you solve your problems quickly and efficeintly, then use it. If not, then use what works.

Not quite. USB1 is 1.5MBps and Firewire (1394a) is 50MBps. Newly arrived USB2 can do 60MBps, and IEEE-1394b starts at 100MBps and will go up to 400MBps in a couple years.

And of course, 1394 supports up to 63 devices per bus, hot-swappable, networkable, yadda yadda yadda. But my favorite Firewire trick (target disk mode) is Mac only. Let's see IDE match that.

And I almost forgot, according to the IEEE, The IBM 305 RAMAC was the first disk memory system.

All the same, if they can integrate it, more power to them! IBM fab just continues to rock.

So, can anybody give me the skinny on any Free (libre) DMAPI/HSM work going on?

In the latest IEEE Computer (Oct 2000) there is a comprehensive article comparing C, C++, Java, Perl, Python, Rexx and TCL. The results are different than in the link that you provide.

The abstract for the article can be found here. You need to be a member to get the whole article.

The only issue I have with the research is that only one OS platform was used, a Sun Ultra II. I would like to see the executions performed on a few more systems, at least a Linux/BSD system and a Windows Box. While this might not affect the non-Java languages much, Java is heavily influenced by the JVM in use. It is wide known that (other than the IBM JVM on linux) the windows JVMs tend to be the fastest available.

OTOH, the testing approach looks good and more work should be done to validate and extend the research. The Internet C++ guys should use the same tools to get a good performance comparison.

According this this abstract of a paper in the IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, EDVAC had a recognizable operating system in 1952/53. I suspect this would qualify as the first OS...

Windows 2000 is designed to market a Windows server-dependency. The IEEE Computer Society's latest August 2000 (Vol. 33, No. 8) Computer magazine featured an article called Windows 2000: A Threat to Internet Diversity and Open Standards? (PDF available to members here).

A such, you need to adopt a Windows server-free network. This includes holding off on Windows 2000 until either Samba supports its interfaces (will take some reverse engineering) or someone finds a way to have it use NIS/NIS+ for authentication -- e.g., NISGINA does for NT 4.0. At my company, Theseus Logic, we use NISGINA instead of Samba TNG (just use regular Samba 2.0.7) to deal with authentication of NT 4.0 systems.

-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith

There is a small, but growing, collection of historians of science and technology exploring the history of computing/computer technology (I'm just halfway through my master's program here: The Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at the University of Toronto. There's only a couple of us doing computers, but it's a start :)

You might want to start at the library reading the Annals of the History of Computing. Off the top of my head, Michael Mahoney (who started in the History of Mathematics) has done a lot.

Historians of computing have looked at Babbage, Turing, and Wozniak, but you can start just about anywhere. The field has barely been touched - there are plenty of unexplored areas. And the great thing about the history of technology is that everybody can help: from engineers to economists.

Myself, as a recent University of Waterloo CompSci grad, I thought I'd return to my roots, and write my MA thesis about the early computer science program there. In particular, I'm thinking about looking at the birth of WatFor and the related successes achieved in undergraduate education. Hint: if you have a story to tell about Watfor, email me!

This may become true at some future point, but not yet. For example, I'm not entirely ready to use the Internet as my sole resource for doing historical research. The Internet is many things, but as a historical archive and a primary source (the words "due diligence" come to mind), it's somewhat lacking.

Now to answer the original question, I'd probably agree that there are few careers directly tied to computer history. Besides the museums mentioned in other posts, the IEEE Annals in the History of Computing is the only periodical that I can think of offhand.

Beyond archiving, writing, journalism, films, and documentaries, I'm not sure what other career paths an interest in computer history would take you. However, I would think that if you find one of the above interesting, by all means focus your efforts along those lines.

You might want to drop Dr. Lee an email, I'm sure he would love to answer your questions.

Things are not good in the computer history business. In part because the main-line companies that felt this was important have faded into oblivion (think mainframe and mini) and the dot coms are too interested in wasting their venture capital on roll-out parties.

The sadest example of the problem is the death of the Boston Computer Museum. Strongly supported by DEC, when DEC went away, so did their funding (and yes there were other reasons including some idiots for executive directors). I was in it several weeks before it closed and a pretty sad thing to see. It has been 'moved' to the Boston Science Center.

The actual museum for the BCM is in California and can be found at Computer History Center. It looks to be alive and interested in history, not 'gee, look, computer interactive toys for school bus loads of children to play with instead of learning how to add, subtract, multiply or heaven forbid divide without a calculator'.

Probably the most respected computer history place at the moment is the Charles Babbage Institute at the University of Minnesota.

In any case, learn more, subscribe to IEEE Annals of the History of Computing and remember that the dot comes have mostly forgotten/ignored all of this and so you can make money consulting on 'NEW' ideas that are actually old things revisited.

--multics.

My suggestion would be to check out the better books on computer history (imo, the best by far is COMPUTER: A HISTORY OF THE INFORMATION MACHINE by Martin Campbell-Kelly and William Aspray), find the author who you admire, and try to go to school where s/he teaches. It's hard to find departments that will support your area of specialty, but it should be pretty straightforward to find a professor who can help you learn what you need to know and who will already have jumped through the "nobody studies this but me" hurdles. Take a look at the IEEE's Computer Society -- www.computer.org -- they have a computer history SIG that's chockful of contacts. OR you could go to a school that specializes in self-designed study, like Gallaudet (NYU). Good luck! It's a topic I love, too.

Crispin
----
Immunix: Free, Hardened Linux Distribution
Chief Scientist, WireX

The disappointing thing about cases like this is that the software professionals who write these programs apparently don't consider ethical behavior to be a priority.

The ACM and the IEEE consider user privacy to be so important that it appears in their joint Software Engineering Code of Ethics and Professional Practice in a number of places, to wit:

3.12. Work to develop software and related documents that respect the privacy of those who will be affected by that software.

3.13. Be careful to use only accurate data derived by ethical and lawful means, and use it only in ways properly authorized.

Furthermore, management (i.e. Mattel) is admonished to:

5.11. Not ask a software engineer to do anything inconsistent with this Code.

5.12. Not punish anyone for expressing ethical concerns about a project.

So why do products like this keep appearing? I realize that just because something's unethical doesn't make it illegal, but still... it's dismaying, to say the least.

here.

Rather use this link - it has the missing explanations.

And this link explains integer relations.

On a side note, who decided what the 10 top algo's should be? Where's the skiplist?

Technicians/Engineers/Programmers are badly in need of codified ethics. Does anyone know anywhere on the Net where this is discussed? Or proposals for what a code of ethics would contain?

The ACM already created a Code of Professional Conduct in 1966 (no link, sorry), which has been revised a couple of times. The current version can be found on http://www.acm.org/constitution/code.html

YDD

http://www.computerhistory.org

Another interesting timeline can be found on the IEEE Computer Society website:

http://computer.org/history

The IEEE and ACM are two organizations that get involved in public policy matters. The IEEE has the Computer Society for people interested in computer hardware and software.

My understanding is that this new Intel chip will be the first commercially available chip to use the EPIC (Explicitly Parallel Instruction Computing).

From what I've read, the philosophy of EPIC is to have the CPU slavishly execute instructions in the exact order and manner prescribed by the compiler, allowing compilers to do intense optimizations without worrying about being second-guessed by the CPU. To quote from an article in this month's issue of IEEE Computer magazine:

[EPIC and VLIW code] provides an explicit plan for how the processor will execute the program, a plan the compiler creates statically at compile time. The code explicitly specifies when each operation will be executed, which functional units will do the work, and which registers will hold the operands.

What I couldn't determine from my reading was whose standard it is and to what degree the IA-64 chip will implement it?

For a course project I've spent the past six months exploring the connections between machine/biological vision and our growing understanding of Quantum mechanics and it's implications for computing. The bottom line is that we are far enough along to ask credible scientific questions about the implications of Physics to Computation and Biology. For another popular science account that makes connections between evolution, Quantum mechanics and theory of computation read: Fabric of Reality

It is very early to judge what "Physics can do for Evolution" but I've read enough Dawkins to know that we can fruitfully think of evolution as a kind of computation. Quantum computer "simulations" of evolution or intelligence may turn out to be much more efficient than the "real" thing. OR it might turn out that Nature already "thought" of that and used the most powerful computing model available-- that would be the Quantum computing model and it's what many people are trying to find out.

My first contact with the concept of an artificial muscle started when Prof. Jonathan W. Mills from Indiana Univ. gave an IEEE talk at my college around 1992. When he demonstrated the foreshortening of a small nickle-titanium (nitinol) heat actuated leg all the geeks in the auditorium were impressed. (College profs included)

We had a small lab session where we made the legs from materials he brought and did a Q&A session. I still have that device around played w/ it 2 nights ago. Didn't have a battery around to run current through the nitinol wire to actuate it (the electrical resistance generates enough heat to contract it), so I held a lighter about 6" underneath to test it out. Still worked like a charm.

If you are interested in looking into this thing, I'd suggest hitting

• www.computer.org/books/stiquito
• reading through the comp.robotics.misc Newsgroup
• and the newsgroup comp.robotics.research (moderated) which has some archives & FAQ at www.metamech.com/crr

Isn't he the one who says that Linux is a piece of shit? Sounds like a great Slashdot role model to me!

[...time passes...]

Alright, here you go. Read this, which I got from IEEE Computer Magazine:

Computer: In a sense, Linux is following in this tradition. Any thoughts on this phenomenon?

Thompson: I view Linux as something that's not Microsoft-a backlash against Microsoft, no more and no less. I don't think it will be very successful in the long run. I've looked at the source and there are pieces that are good and pieces that are not. A whole bunch of random people have contributed to this source, and the quality varies drastically.

My experience and some of my friends' experience is that Linux is quite unreliable. Microsoft is really unreliable but Linux is worse. In a non-PC environment, it just won't hold up. If you're using it on a single box, that's one thing. But if you want to use Linux in firewalls, gateways, embedded systems, and so on, it has a long way to go.

The best news, I guess, is that Ken says he didn't intend to write off Linux itself as simply an anti-Microsoft backlash; what he was trying to say was that he believes the recent popularity of Linux in the press is an anything-but-Microsoft phenomenon. He adds ``i very much appreciate the chance to look at available code when i am faced with the task of interfacing to some nightmare piece of hardware'' and that ``i think the open software movement (and linux in particular) is laudable.''

Ken further adds ``i dont see eye-to-eye with microsoft's business practices.'' His original language was rather stronger and more entertaining, but he asked me not to quote that in order to avoid giving Lucent's lawyers heart failure.

The bad news is that Ken still thinks Linux is flaky. I offered to have VA Linux Labs ship him a machine so he could see what a properly tuned modern Linux looks like, but he said he couldn't accept. He adds ``i do believe that in a race, it is naive to think linux has a hope of making a dent against microsoft starting from way behind with a fraction of the resources and amateur labor. (i feel the same about unix.)''

I cited all the case studies and trend curves and statistics you'd expect me to. He didn't respond directly to those, but I hope I at least gave him some things to think about.

Ken did finish by saying ``i must say the linux community is a lot nicer than the unix community. a negative comment on unix would warrent death threats. with linux, it is like stirring up a nest of butterflies.'' (Hm. Butterfly T-shirts, anyone?)

• Kurt Gödel, whose incompleteness theorem proves that there is a limit on what computers can do
• William Shockley, John Bardeen, and Walter Brattain, inventors of the transistor
• JFK, for insisting that we "send a man to the moon, and return him safely to the earth"
• Jack Kirby and Robert Noyce, who (independently) invented the integrated circuit
• John McCarthy -- while John Backus was inventing Fortran and Grace Hopper was inventing Cobol, he came up with Lisp. While Backus and Hopper certainly deserve their own due, it still boggles me that a language like Lisp traces its roots right back to the earliest days of high level languages.

Seriously Slashdot gives way to much play to ZDNet articles and PCWeek. Why do we so rarely hear about articles from Information Week (sometimes from InfoWorld Electric), Newsbytes, First Monday, or IEEE Journals (hey, now the IEEE has NEWS FOR NERDS!).

Newsbytes is pretty pedestrian but the news is usually raw (uncooked, uninterpreted) and more appropriate for discussion.

The main problem with wearable technology is power. It really defeats the purpose of having a computer that sits in your shirt pocket because you need a kilogram worth of batteries to run the thing for a day.

This is the reason why most of wearcomp stuff runs on embedded CPUs, such as the Motorola Dragonball series (as used in Palm) or the ARM chips (as used in Psion and Newton), NOT X86. Xybernaut does great stuff, but so far their systems have been hampered by the fact that they insist on running Windows on their wearables, so they need hefty processing power. Not that there are many companies in the wearable business anyway...

What Linux will offer is the ability to adapt to multiple platforms: you can do your development on your top-of-the-line Athlon system at home, then quite easily port onto your uCsimm system. I personally think that we're going to see a lot of new wearable systems based on light-weight embedded systems and uCLinux.

BTW, for anyone who is interested, go see the International Symposium on Wearable Computing home page (you can download most of the presentations from 98 and 99 as PDF (abstracts) and RealVideo). Another good place (though still heavily under construction) is the Wearable.org page. Did you know, for example, that you can harvest power from your shoes to power a wearable?

...however I guess the place has changed over time.

I - and my friends (And I guess most /.'ers) used to buy magazines for two things: technical articles/reviews and updated info on new products.

Now, such information is more available on the WWW than in printed form. It's more updated, easier to access etc. And in the /.-form, one is even no longer bound by the magazine/reporter/editor's potentially biased point of view.

Another issue is, that while the popularity of computers have spread, the magazines have much more people to appeal to. Not only techies, but also the techies kids, parents, grandparents - and (ohh boy) PHB's. Thus often - at least from what I have sean - the depth is sacrificed in favour of broader appeal.

There are very few magazines out there - be that the general magazines such as Byte, PC-Magazine as well as Linux-specific magazines - which appeal to real techies. All tend to focus on what I believe is the largest segment of the market: home computer users and management/IS-dept guys.

I guess that the magazines will continiue living - to a PHB, the phrase "...but says that...." will almost always be better accepted than "....Anonymous Coward writes on slashdot that...". And to the home computer users.

However there are always exceptions, of course. IEEE Computer Society and ACM provide excellent publications with a high-tech content. Of course mostly research-based, but still.....however they also come as electronic magazines nowadays....

Ohh......apologies if this came out partially in a previous posting. Netscape blew up in my face while copy-pasting (cannot wait for mozilla...)

The interesting bit is that this doesn't affect just Apple or even just the iBook--the new desktop G4s can also take the AirPort card. (Makes for an easy home LAN.) AirPort is based on IEE 802.11, no Apple-NIH syndrome here. I think Lucent had a hand in developing the product, and I know that several PC implementations are on the way, including at least one product which is contained on a PC Card

Here's the skinny from one of Apple's AirPort FAQs:

IEEE 802.11 is a standard developed by the same organization that set standards for Ethernet networking, which is commonly used in offices. 802.11 is a worldwide standard, so companies that build products conforming to this standard can have their products work together. Schools often find it beneficial to use standardized equipment so that they can combine hardware from different vendors. Home users who buy a standardized product are assured that it will work with products from other companies.

This paper on IEEE 802.11 I turned up might also be of interest. It contains the "Idiot's Guide to IEEE 802.11 Networking"

So... now everyone using IEEE 802.11 is screwed in France...But what about Quebec? (j/k)

The title of his paper, Who put the sugar in Sydney Harbor?, refers to the sensitivity of his chip. It's capable of detecting concentrations as small as a teaspoon of sugar placed in Sydney Harbor. That's impressive. Check out his abstract or nice non-technical article. It's an interesting, entertaining, and not-too-technical read.

Speaking of recognition, this audience may also be interested to ponder that in the days of Eniac, "software" as we now know it, was not recognized as a part of the invention. The people responsible for coding the obtuse beast in binary were staff of the army computing center where they had previously performed trajectory calculations by hand. Since the men were mostly at war, this office capitalized on the labor of top women in mathematics who were eventually called on to work on programming the Eniac. The pictures we often see of the Eniac in action, showing women walking around it in lab coats were no Vanna Whites but some of Americas first software engineers as we now know them. That's as best as I remember the details anyway. If you belong to the IEEE Computing Society, you can read the full article here: http://computer.org/annals/an1996/a3 013abs.htm