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This has nothing to do with eyewitness testimony. If you want to read about that phenomenon, google "Gary Wells". He's the pioneer in eyewitness testimony research and a professor I had in undergrad.

In fact, here is his homepage

"Does anybody have some links?"

Sure, here's a few after a quick Googling. I'm sure there are better ones, but I don't have time to find them right now.
http://my.webmd.com/content/article/23/1728_56903. htm
http://my.webmd.com/content/article/54/65223.htm
http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/faculty/caa/Vide o_Game_FAQs.html
http://culturalpolicy.uchicago.edu/conf2001/papers /walsh.html
http://www.apa.org/science/psa/sb-anderson.html

A programming method that involves designing an application such that you break each top level logical component/ability down until you a) know that you have to impliment it or b) it is found to have already been done.

That already exists, and the specification is indeed amenable to proof tools (several specification languages use HOL as their proof assistant even!). Check out B-method, HasCASL, SPARK, Extended ML, or even Z and VDM. There are tools like Perfect Developer. There are specification extensions to Java like JML that support extended static checking and proof via other tools.

Uptake has been slow, and the tools associated with this stuff are still maturing (despite the fact that formal specification is a relatively old field - tracing it's way back to Djikstra and Hoare in the late 60's). Doing specification properly tends to require a little more math background, and does take some work. More importantly, for a great many projects, it simply isn't suitable. There is no magic process you can follow that makes everything work, and there is no "final" programming model. There are whatever mix of techniques and models suit the project at hand. Good developers are ones who know lots of models and techniques and adapt them to best fit the problems at hand.

That said, specification is sorely underrated and underused as a programming technique. Too few people are well acquainted with it, and almost all the complaints that often get raised are based on myths and misnomers. It's not right for everything, but there are plenty of places where perhaps it could and should be used. Knowing how to do proper formal specification is simply another weapon in a good developers arsenal, and I wish more people spent the little extra time required to learn something about it.

Jedidiah.

In text processing, there are two really important metrics: precision and effectiveness.

Recall is the fraction of relevant pages that exist that are returned. For example, if there are 30 pages that are relevant to your search and a search engine returns 10 of them, the recall is 1/3.

Effectiveness is the fraction of returned pages that are relevant. For example, if a search engine returns 200 pages, but only 10 of them are relevant to your search, then the effectiveness is only 1/20.

There are some other ways of looking at these metrics and combining them for an "overall usefulness" value. A link to a better description of these metrics is here.

As far as JavaDoc goes I like to expand on it with JML. Essentially it's just a matter of adding comments outlining "this is what I intend the function to do" which is always useful to the reader - the bonus is that the comments are also parseable, and allow for extra static checking beyond just type checking.

Documentation that helps reduce bugs - what more could you ask for?

(Note that this doesn't eliminate the need for good explanatory comments, it just allows you to get some extra mileage out of some of the comments that you ought to be making anyway)

Jedidiah.

I've had this for quite a while, thanks to the USDA and MIT, via Iowa State.

It does pretty much the same thing that the "new" Google Maps does, and with much better resolution in Iowa, although the overlays aren't as pretty.

Obviously, not even Google can get it perfect (Charleston, SC).

If you need a richer ui, then Flash is probably the best choice... if you need more client/server performance, then Java is probably better... if you want reasonable ability, and not plugin requirements, AJAX is a really nice option.. I wish that JML was used more often than XML, simply because it's less overhead, and easier to initialize into javascript... (var myobject = eval(result);) instead of having to use an xml based object model, or other alternatives.. just my $.02 here.

Why DVORAK? If you are going to switch, why not evolve your own tailored for your typing needs?

Find a large body of text similar to what you type, come up with your own 2D keyboard mapping, and through it through a genetic algorithm.
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~crb002/ie574final.p df

Source is available at:
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~crb002/ie574/code/

If anybody thinks this is usefull I can put a better user interface on it.

Why DVORAK? If you are going to switch, why not evolve your own tailored for your typing needs?

Find a large body of text similar to what you type, come up with your own 2D keyboard mapping, and through it through a genetic algorithm.
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~crb002/ie574final.p df

Source is available at:
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~crb002/ie574/code/

If anybody thinks this is usefull I can put a better user interface on it.

"I'm not a lawyer, but I certainly know right from wrong."

As an employee of the Office of Admissions at a public university, I know that students love our status check system. Of course, it usually only takes about 2 days to approve undergrads, so we only have the status check for graduates and international undergraduates.

I cannot imagine how it could be "right" to reject students for this, unless the intention is to weed out the one "hacker" who originally figured it out. If that was the case, ban the first one to do it. I'm also a little concerned why they haven't immediately canceled service with "ApplyYourself", though I imagine they have a contract and it'll be up at the end of the year.

Stanford just annouced to the world, with this action, that they don't wish to employ the very best Knowledge Workers that are currently available. Congratulations and thanks, Stanford, you're making us other universities look great!

"I'm not a lawyer, but I certainly know right from wrong."

As an employee of the Office of Admissions at a public university, I know that students love our status check system. Of course, it usually only takes about 2 days to approve undergrads, so we only have the status check for graduates and international undergraduates.

I cannot imagine how it could be "right" to reject students for this, unless the intention is to weed out the one "hacker" who originally figured it out. If that was the case, ban the first one to do it. I'm also a little concerned why they haven't immediately canceled service with "ApplyYourself", though I imagine they have a contract and it'll be up at the end of the year.

Stanford just annouced to the world, with this action, that they don't wish to employ the very best Knowledge Workers that are currently available. Congratulations and thanks, Stanford, you're making us other universities look great!

Actually, you are not that much of an anomaly (really not at all, I would say)...

Statistically, the likelihood of one of each in a family with precisely two children (as opposed to 2.4) is about 54.5%. The likelihood of two of the same (boy or girl) is 45.5%.

If you consider how likely the second child will be the same sex as the first, regardless of how many kids you eventually have, the likelihood of the first two children being the same sex is 47.8% (no doubt the higher percentage is due to couples deciding to have a third child because the first two were of the same sex).

And, as an aside, your first child proves you can father children of that sex (regardless of which one)...you have not yet proven you can father a child of the other sex until you actually have one.

These numbers are from a 1979 study (PDF file, sorry), based on a US population of 8,770 households (being based entirely on US households might affect the statistics somewhat for the rest of the world)...

I got one at Iowa State University's ISU Surplus for $2. Sorry, they don't offer financing. I also got an LCD panel *designed* to go on the overhead for $30. One thing you should know: overhead bulbs often cost $20-$40, and rarely last more than 100 hours. This may make an LCD projector more practical in your case.

That's okay. You didn't. (Burst my bubble that is)

Carbon dioxide is a non-toxic gas

You'll note that high concentration can cause all sorts of things, including death. This is because it displaces oxygen. A vacuum will have the same effects, but a vacuum is non toxic. How could it be toxic.

To the parent, who said liquid nitrogen is non toxic, since it follows the same rules of physics that CO2 gas does, it to can displace just as much oxygen, and have the exact same effects. So either Liquid nitrogen is just as toxic, or neither is. In truth neither one is toxic. Lack of oxygen does not correlate to toxicity in the displacing gas.

The same holds true for Argon or any inert gas. As well as many "ert" or reactive gasses.

The C6 at ISU is one example of immersion. There is a whole center devoted to VR and the C6.

http://www.vrac.iastate.edu/

Iowa State University does a lot of VR-oriented research: http://www.vrac.iastate.edu/.

The majority of the research going on here is driven by industry and military applications, with comparatively little funding for things for consumer use. One common misperception I've noticed is that many people assume VR == head-mounded displays, when in reality there is a great variety of possible displays (VRAC's facilities include a number of non-headset displays.) The Howe Hall auditorium, in which over 200 people can view a VR presentation (often a science- or engineering-oriented visualization, but there are many artistic applications as well) is an excellent way to show normal people that VR doesn't have to involve bulky headsets.

Although advancements in VR are generally oriented towards specific applications -- a better input device for a paint program, a new wireless sensor/transmitter system, etc. -- the field as a whole is still moving forward in leaps and bounds. Although it's debatable whether consumers will see any Virtual Reality products or devices in Wal-Mart anytime soon, industry use of VR is alive and well, and there is nothing to suggest that the field will go away anytime soon.

Iowa State University does a lot of VR-oriented research: http://www.vrac.iastate.edu/.

The majority of the research going on here is driven by industry and military applications, with comparatively little funding for things for consumer use. One common misperception I've noticed is that many people assume VR == head-mounded displays, when in reality there is a great variety of possible displays (VRAC's facilities include a number of non-headset displays.) The Howe Hall auditorium, in which over 200 people can view a VR presentation (often a science- or engineering-oriented visualization, but there are many artistic applications as well) is an excellent way to show normal people that VR doesn't have to involve bulky headsets.

Although advancements in VR are generally oriented towards specific applications -- a better input device for a paint program, a new wireless sensor/transmitter system, etc. -- the field as a whole is still moving forward in leaps and bounds. Although it's debatable whether consumers will see any Virtual Reality products or devices in Wal-Mart anytime soon, industry use of VR is alive and well, and there is nothing to suggest that the field will go away anytime soon.

Still alive and well at Iowa State: http://www.vrac.iastate.edu/facilities.php

And I'm assuming you're using the http://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/ Iowa Environmental Mesonet for your imagery? They do a good job for real-time imagery... And they're interested in data from Amateur Radio and trained spotters, too.

Hey brudda, how long beefo it be talkin ebonics yo?

science in iowa brought you the first electronic digital computer http://www.cs.iastate.edu/jva/jva-archive.shtml
perhaps if you were to say "that might pass for science at the university of iowa" ... i might have to agree with you though.

please don't mod this post; just had to get that off my chest. use your points in a place worthwhile

The word "addiction" in this context is merely used to make geeks look more pathetic. This study is not meant to "help" anyone, because the MMORPGers don't have a problem.

Actually, there been quite a bit written about MMORPGs being addictive. I've known a few people who have become "addicted" to MMORPGs, not all were geeks. I had a friend in college who stopped going to class for a couple weeks so he could stay in his room and play EQ. I like MMORPGs as much as anyone (I play WoW all the time), but if you start ditching work, school, family and friends so you can play, I'd start calling that an addiction.


I guess that might pass for science in Iowa.

Yeah, because Iowa has never contributed anything to science.

Sorry, I can remember reading about a patent filed years ago that did this exact thing. One of the ideas behind it was that if you had a PDA type device, you could exchange phone numbers/buisness cards etc. just by shaking hands. I am not sure of my exact source, but a quick google search turned up this published Oct. 1996.

Look at the case of Percy Schmeiser, a Canadian farmer whose canola crop was contaminated with Monsanto's Round-Up Ready Canola.

This is a wide-spread problem that is pitting the small farmer against corporate giants. Look at this article from The Des Moines Register.

Not so micro. Or soft. He might be the new "giver".

* shudder *

Can't we organize a Slashdot interview of BG?

Do you _really_ wish to see a virtual bukkake?

Thanks a lot. I almost forgot this picture.

i command everyone reading this post to imagine this in grotesque detail:

bill gates fucking ballmer's floppy, sweaty man-tits with his massive tool.

(i've been looking to bump up my foes list for awhile - that should do it)

Jesus Christ! not so floppy!

depends on the class laser that being pointed into your eye...Laser Pointer Safety and so you know, anyone can buy a class 3b laser which can cause damage to the retina in the time it takes to blink

Quote from Laser Safety Information
"Class 3B lasers are very likely to cause damage to the eye before the aversion response operates."

They also invented the electronic digital computer http://www.cs.iastate.edu/jva/jva-archive.shtml

I was watching CSI the other night and caught a number of simple scientific inaccuracies that really bothered me. Such as the lead scientist guy saying "terminal velocity is 9.8 meters per second squared" and having the misconception that you are safe in a car during a thunderstorm because it sits on rubber tires go uncorrected. I've seen what happens when lightning hits a vehicle "protected" by its rubber tires, every thing was fine EXCEPT the rubber tires. Do you actually think that after going through a mile of free air that a half inch of rubber is going to stop a lightning strike?

Every year the local university has a festival where each department gets to show its stuff to the community and the students' families. The physics department puts on a wonderful show of applied physics which is always packed as they keep things light hearted and very educational. The biology department had experiments with banana DNA. The chemistry department showed how many calories were in a gummie bear by burning it. Many of the departments and clubs (such as solar car and robot projects) have very good displays and would likely give good ideas on reaching the general populace and especially high school students (which are targeted as potential students for the university).

May I suggest doing a regular how things work presentation. Perhaps bring in clips from popular TV shows and show how they got it wrong. Like the CSI episode I mentioned or why the antagonist that cut the air hoses on the racing tractor-trailer will not have it go speeding out of control but will in fact bring it to a sudden, spectactular, and usually quite safe stop.

Such misconceptions in television and movies not only insult the intelligence of those watching but perpetuate myths that may cost people lives. That sheet metal lawn tractor shed will not stop a .45 calibre round. A car that has been in a crash should not cause one to grab the occupants quickly because "O my God! It's gonna blow!" but have them call 911 so the crash victims can be safely extracted by those trained to do so.

What's the point of my rant? I'm not sure. Maybe it's that Mythbusters is must see TV.

I was watching CSI the other night and caught a number of simple scientific inaccuracies that really bothered me. Such as the lead scientist guy saying "terminal velocity is 9.8 meters per second squared" and having the misconception that you are safe in a car during a thunderstorm because it sits on rubber tires go uncorrected. I've seen what happens when lightning hits a vehicle "protected" by its rubber tires, every thing was fine EXCEPT the rubber tires. Do you actually think that after going through a mile of free air that a half inch of rubber is going to stop a lightning strike?

Every year the local university has a festival where each department gets to show its stuff to the community and the students' families. The physics department puts on a wonderful show of applied physics which is always packed as they keep things light hearted and very educational. The biology department had experiments with banana DNA. The chemistry department showed how many calories were in a gummie bear by burning it. Many of the departments and clubs (such as solar car and robot projects) have very good displays and would likely give good ideas on reaching the general populace and especially high school students (which are targeted as potential students for the university).

May I suggest doing a regular how things work presentation. Perhaps bring in clips from popular TV shows and show how they got it wrong. Like the CSI episode I mentioned or why the antagonist that cut the air hoses on the racing tractor-trailer will not have it go speeding out of control but will in fact bring it to a sudden, spectactular, and usually quite safe stop.

Such misconceptions in television and movies not only insult the intelligence of those watching but perpetuate myths that may cost people lives. That sheet metal lawn tractor shed will not stop a .45 calibre round. A car that has been in a crash should not cause one to grab the occupants quickly because "O my God! It's gonna blow!" but have them call 911 so the crash victims can be safely extracted by those trained to do so.

What's the point of my rant? I'm not sure. Maybe it's that Mythbusters is must see TV.

Check out the project page or read an article (pdf) about the first one.

Every high school in the state is invited to the competition. Percentage-wise we get a terrible response but do usually get a half dozen to a dozen teams. It basically boils down to there being a volunteer at the school willing to help the kids out.

The kids always seem to have a great time flinging eggs at our giant frying pan. And we hope they gain some interest in engineering through the process of building their catapult and documenting the work.

I thought they've been using liquid optics for years with lasers. Is this an application of that? Liquid for telescope mirrors is also well known for creating a cheap mirror.

So, can we not manufacture sodium-Borate, from Sodium, and Boron?... So, after doing a few Googles in search of the answer, I came across this page, that isn't entirely unrelated

http://www.public.iastate.edu/~mqolson/papertwo.ht ml

This is about using Boron itself, as a fuel. Apparently, Boron will burn, however, by-products of burning is just Boron - Oxide, which can be turned back to boron. The energy density of this process is > gasoline.... Tony.

Bah, ISU has had a "sphere" virtual reality room for years, the C6. I think they even tried putting a few games on it at one time (e.g. - Quake).

You seem to be confusing this matter with some other red herring that someone has cooked up.

These are air bubbles whose composition is measured directly to obtain the CO2 spike.

Some of the points you are trying to repeat have some validity and cannot be dismissed so easily, but we're talking about the CO2 itself here. The human casued increase of greenhouse gases is not any more speculative than, oh, gravity. Your statement that "The end result of increasing greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere seems to be speculative" is absolutely incorrect.

>> The value of cash is tied to many different "tangiable" assets
In the US, at least, our currency is fiat based. It has no "real" value, the gov't holds nothing tangible that you can lay claim to with your dollars. Dollars are valuable because you think they are.

The US went off the gold system for good with the Bretton Woods accord under Nixon.

20 minutes into the future -- 17 years into the past.

From the Max Headroom Episode Guide, we have 14 episodes. Of those 14, I can classify only THREE as "fiction", meaning "requires technology that doesn't exist today."

Episode 1: Blipverts. Check. (Ad agencies are designing ads to look "good" even if you're fast-forwarding them at 30x on a DVR).

Episode 2: Rakers. 75% there. ("Ultimate Fighting Championships", "COPS" - it'll be official when we have a reality TV series in which serious bodily harm and/or death is part of the show.)

Episode 3: Body Banks. Check. (Harvesting of Brazilian street youth, Chinese execution market.)

Episode 4: Security Systems. Check. ("Credit fraud! That's worse than murder!" - and now 3 years for skipping commercials.)

Episode 5: War. Check. (Bringing you the opening 72 hours of Operation Iraqi Freedom, live and direct!)

Episode 6: The Blanks. 50% there. (HomeSec, national ID card, Safe Travel programme, MATRIX database, Supreme Court decisions regarding citizens' obligation to reveal or provide identity on demand, all clearly pointing towards the criminalization of anonymity and development of systems and technologies to make the "roundup" option more practical.)

Episode 7: Academy. Check. ("Captain Midnight" was a real-life "zipper", and was likely the inspiration for this episode. This was the only "current events" episode in the series.)

Episode 8: Deities. 75% there. (We already have "online churches", it's only a matter of time before some huckster starts charging for diskspace for the soul. All the technology is now in place, all we need is the huckster and some suckers. :)

Episode 9: Grossberg's Return. Check. ("Watch while you sleep" devices in the episode are basically like auto-clickers for those stupid dotcom pyramid schemes like AllAdvantage, used to artificially boost clickthrough ratings.)

Episode 10: Dream Thieves. 0% there. (Finally, something that's just science fiction!)

Episode 11: Whacketts. 0% there. (Finally, another fiction episode :)

Episode 12: Neurostim. 25% there. ("Neuromarketing" is the buzzword -- advertisers are doing active brain scans to see how effective their campaigns are. Long way from being able to induce brain states to drive product, but it's a start.)

Episode 13. Lessons. Check. (Any teacher using showing taped from the TV in the classroom without paying a license fee is eligible for the DMCA smackdown. In 1987, the smackdown was dystopian science fiction. Today, the surprising thing would be if they didn't get the smackdown.)

Episode 14. Baby Growbags. 0% (OK, three episodes out of 14, fiction.)

Funny how the second edition of the book didn't catch that. The Honeywell lawsuit was decided in 1973 and recognized the Atanasoff-Berry Computer as the first electronic digital computer.

Maybe you should go find the section in the treaty that says "China and India can produce as much polution as they like".

Jesus...

Kyoto doesn't apply to developing nations like India and China.

Maybe you could start learning about the subject before you form an opinion?

For Lisp you could use ACL2. For Java you could use JML , together with Krakatoa, Why (which could also be used to program the solution) and Coq. For all the other languages that appear in the solutions list I think you're on your own.

But it's still better than Blipverts.

Termites

Slashdotter's Diets

goingupriver.mov.torrent

At my university's library has a bunch of Sun Xterminals of some sort (I don't spend much time there so I haven't really looked all that close) They all run apps on this monsterious Sun machine in the university machine room. (I have access, I have seen it) Although I'm sure the server was not cheap in the long run it works out.

Unfortunately, this weapon might not prove terribly effective against the kind folks at SCO.

This is a common misconception but it's simply not true. The theoretical limit of efficiency is for an internal combustion engine like the one we use in our power plants is 35%. Internal combustion fossil fuel power plants operate at very near that theoretical limit but you have to factor in transmission loss, about 9%, which basically makes them equal to best-case car engine use (about 30%). The problem with today's cars is they often operate far from best-case (idling, downhill slopes, breaking, etc) bringing their efficiency down to 18-23%. This is why hybrid vehicles do so much better. They operate the engines much more intelligently and bring the efficiency up to about 30%. That means that an electric car powered by an fossil fuel power plant uses just about as much fuel as a hybrid car running on gasoline. This says nothing about pollution emissions which will be better from the power plant, but fuel use and CO2 emissions will be roughly the same.

The only way electric/fuel cell based cars are actually a benefit to the environment is if they are powered by nuclear power plants or some other non-poluting technology. Fuel cells in cars won't solve anything by themselves.

Good stats on fuel efficiency

Second law of thermodynamics wrt. internal combustion

Greylisting is the *only* implementation to kill spam. Not surprisingly it is free, easy to setup, and extremely effective. So far, spammer have been slow to catch on. Which is why I am not going to link to a site explaining how to implement it. Iowa State University recently switched to it and had an insane 95% SPAM reduction rate campus wide. It has worked so well that the email filter documentation never gets downloaded by students and staff anymore.

There's enough math and computational expertise required in advanced economics to keep any math geek satisfied. It's not a coincidence that large numbers of Physics PhD's are working on Wall Street these days. The cookbook economics you hear on the tube is not the economics being done in research today; it's the economics that politicians and TV newshosts can understand, and communicate in soundbites.

As you alluded, much of basic Econ can be described as a bunch of rules-of-thumb and ad hoc arguments, of the sort, "If we ignore all these things here, and assume that they are constant, we can pretend that this here happens." The problem is that economic systems are complex systems (analogous to the brain's neural network), and can't be modeled well using "billiard ball" physics models. Until recently the only alternative has been to use statistical, "gas law" models and other simplifications of the systems.

Example: a small town may have 1000 citizens, 200 businesses, and perhaps 500 formal and informal groups/organizations. Each of those individuals and organizations has over 1000 'inputs' and 1000 'outputs' - relations with each other and outside entities, that may be considered as economic factors. (Relations may be financial or other.) You have a social network with something like 10^13 relations/interconnections. And that's just a small town or neighborhood.

I'm embarking on a PhD in Econ shortly, after many years in computing, and my math skills are being stretched like they haven't in a long time. Differential equations is a prerequisite for several of the introductory graduate level courses, along with linear algebra and a bunch of statistics and game theory. Thomas Bayes' much appreciated Bayesian Theorem probability is a tool of economists. Vilfredo Pareto (Pareto-optimal" game outcomes) was an economist. Many elements of modern statistics, probability and game theory were developed by economists.

The problem faced by economists has been not that it was too simple, but that the systems under study have been too complex to delve into very deeply until both the mathematical tools and the computational power became available. It was necessary to drastically simplify the models in order to get any sense at all. And, of course, there is a strong philosophical and social-studies thread throughout economics.

Nowadays there is a strong thrust into new approaches to Economics, including complex adaptive systems, agent based systems, Neuroeconomics, Experimental Economics (vis. Vernon Smith, 2002 Bank of Sweden "Nobel" and social network economics.

Often in addition to training and/or experience in biology, physics, systems theory and other disciplines, these approaches require a good understanding of differential equations, comfort in manipulating long chains of partial derivatives, and working with multi-layered irregular networks. Interestingly, even fluid dynamics equations are applicable in some cases.