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The first digital computer was a berry: Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC)

Not to forget the The Banana Computer.

As someone who essentially (though not officially) minored in philosophy I can assure slashdot readers that:

1) Not all philosophers are elitist assholes, though some of them are.

2) Not all philosophy is worthless masturbation but some of it is.

3) The Matrix has nothing particularly interesting with respect to philosophy, it is essentially a retread of the story of christ, and the idea that Descartes had about dreams vs reality.

The most interesting philosophy courses I took were from Michael Bishop. His classes were thought provoking and relevent to everyday life. (Hi Mike!)

The most interesting philosophy, to me, is philosophy of science, and philosophy of economics. The essential questions are what should we consider as rational reasons for making decisions about the world? How should we evaluate theories that others create? Why should we study science, or human action, and what constitutes the best types of scientific studies and discourse.

Notice that the Matrix is not particularly relevent to any of those issues.

There are big ideas in UI research. In fact, Iowa State University is starting a human-computer interface graduate program. The desktop isn't the future though. That's all been said and done. What we're looking at is inexpensive virtual environments, wearable computing, nanocomputing, and areas where interfaces haven't been developed that much. Granted, some (a lot?) of these systems use Linux, but the "Linux desktop" isn't what the research is being based on.

For example, I know a guy who recently developed an head-tracked interface for wearable computers... The problem with wearable computing is that the displays often have very low resolutions, 640x480 or so. But if your head is tracked, you can simply move your head to look around. This interface prototype implemented exactly that using Linux and some weird window manager. Unfortunately, most of you won't actually see this interface in action, since you probably don't have a wearable computer at home. :) But the point is, clear innovation is happening in academia, and a good chunk of it runs on Linux.

It doesn't help address the rest of your points but xsmbrowser is a great tool for browsing windows workgroups.

You can see all the computers in the domain, browse them, and copy to/from them - entering passwords if necessary.

I use it all the time.

How can you say a machine built in 1943 came before one built in 1937-42. That's at least one year earlier.

Looks like the Japanese did, especially after the ill-fated Final Fantasy disaster. They just do full length series instead of one shot hack called movies. That also include Final Fantasy Unlimited.

This is outlandishly ignorant and foolishly confident of the legislature. What makes them think that outlawing this knowledge will somehow change things? All this does is make it harder for the good guys.

Based on ideas they gleaned from Atanasoff on a one-week visit to Iowa State (and actually staying at the home of Atanasoff and leaving with a notebook full ABC computer details). Did Eckert/Mauchly deserve a patent for ideas gleaned from Atanasoff? The courts ruled NO, as Atanasoff had clearly developed the first digital computer.

Based on ideas they gleaned from Atanasoff on a one-week visit to Iowa State (and actually staying at the home of Atanasoff and leaving with a notebook full ABC computer details). Did Eckert/Mauchly deserve a patent for ideas gleaned from Atanasoff? The courts ruled NO, as Atanasoff had clearly developed the first digital computer.

The first stored program computer to go into service was Wilkes' machine. I was actually in error to respond to the original message that said Von Neumann came up with the "idea" for the stored program computer since it is well known that Von Neumann got his idea for the stored program computer from Eckert and Mauchly and that Mauchly got his ideas from Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts in Ames, Iowa when he visisted Prof. Atanasoff clear back in the 1930's.

Wait I'm confused, isn't this a bad thing?

Yes it's bad.

If you use NetCraft to see what Iowa State is running, it says they are using /bin/sh as their webserver. Here are the results.

Is this related? How do they do that? It must be a joke.

Some prices are good, but other prices are ridiculous. I picked up an old HP Netserver this afternoon for $30, and they are currently selling on eBay for a few hundred dollars. By the same token, they had SGI O2's for $500 which can be had cheaper from other places. If you were big time into reselling surplus stuff you could take advantages of palents of DEC Alphas for $50!

Some prices are good, but other prices are ridiculous. I picked up an old HP Netserver this afternoon for $30, and they are currently selling on eBay for a few hundred dollars. By the same token, they had SGI O2's for $500 which can be had cheaper from other places. If you were big time into reselling surplus stuff you could take advantages of palents of DEC Alphas for $50!

It seems to me that if p2p software allowed people from a specific school to look for files on each other's computers first, and to go outside of the campus only when necessary, a lot of bandwidth would be saved.

Interestingly enough, Iowa State University has implemented something of the sort...or rather, the students have implemented it as a matter of necessity.

At ISU they have a search engine called StrangeSearch that searches the local network for files shared on other people's boxes. The intranet at ISU isn't throttled, but if you go over a certain amount of bandwidth per day, you get moved to a shaped line that severely limits your throughput from the Internet. Thus, very few people doing actual downloading from the Internet and massive sharing of the files once they get inside. Which, to me, seems reasonable.

The university I used to attend (and still have friends at), Iowa State University, fairly recently had to look into something like this.

They started off by monitoring bandwidth, and cutting anyone off who had sent more than X amount of data outside the campus network. To get your connection back, you had to go to a certain office, plead your case, etc. And then you were put on a monitored connection.

Now, they have moved to a more tolerant policy. After a certain amount of uploads (I think it's just uploads) in a week, your connection is throttled down to a small amount. That amount is enough for simple things like page-requests for the web, but basically kills things like hosting multiplayer games.

For the curious, they track it based on the MAC address. When you hook a computer up to the network with a MAC address that isn't in their database, the only thing you can do is view a form over the web that requests your ID and password (the same as e-mail for most users). They reset this database once a year to clear out old info. It's certainly possible to spoof to an existing address and get that person's bandwidth limit, but since this is a permanent-on network, that would lead to general badness with the routers not being sure where to send things. At least, that is what the officials say, anyway...

A benefit of doing things this way, that I appreciated, was the ability for them to give you a "permanent" URL to use to access your machine. They mapped the DHCP address they gave you to your MAC, and allowed you to specify a hostname. Then you could access your machine from anywhere with the URL ..iastate.edu. For instance (this doesn't exist anymore): cjhuitt.stures.iastate.edu.

here is what I get when I got to isonews.com. Maybe it's just an issue of the DNS servers not updating soon enough (assuming the DOJ just changed the address).

The IP address on that is 66.201.243.172, it apears to be a virtual host

There was free music back then. Not if you went to a concert, but if you had any friends or neighbors, there was plenty of free music. Haven't you ever heard of barn dances? They didn't charge anyone, they just used someone's barn, and a few farmers would play the fiddle.

City dwellers would play the piano in their parlor. That's what the room was for--entertaining guests. Music was part of the entertainment. They usually didn't hire anyone, because so many people knew how to play musical instruments. Did you think they went to see movies or watched tv? Those didn't exist.

Television, movies and recorded music has made it so very few try to learn how to entertain because someone else does it for them. Entertainment has become a niche market. There are people who want to entertain (for free), but pre-internet they didn't have any way to distribute their recordings to the masses. Just look for the stories, movies (not much of this, but wait until real broadband comes alive), and music--there is a lot of it out their. Yes, most of it is not polished (I think only superficial people really care about that anyway). Yes, lots of the stories and movies are fan based fiction, so the characters are not compeletely original, but most of the story is. If you call what they do "stealing", then Disney and most of the parody producers belong in jail for a long, long time.

Physical simulations cannot be parallelized in time, but they can be parallelized in space.

For example, see here for a description of a parallel weather simulation algorithm.

Not really a joke, but funny as hell.

"The Knack"

Doctor: "It's worse than I feared."
Mother: "What is it?"
Doctor: "I'm afraid your son has ... the Knack."
Mother: "The knack?"
Doctor: "The Knack. It's a rare condition characterized by an extreme intuition about all things mechanical and electrical ... and utter social ineptitude."
Mother: "Can he lead a normal life?"
Doctor: "No. He'll be an engineer."
Mother: "Oh, no! [crying]"
Doctor: "There, there. Don't blame yourself."

It depends how many hundreds. This relates to a concept called minimum viable population size. According to a site about elephant conservation:

Genetic theorists believe that at least 500 breeding animals [elephants] are needed to ensure long-term survival.

Other species seem to be able to get around with much smaller populations, less than a hundred in some cases.

Although it sounds counter-intuitive, what management did is not strictly wrong. It just sounds like the managed it incorrectly. Contemprary constraint theory (I found a brief explaination) suggests that subordinating all processes to the speed of the bottleneck is the best way to improve throughput.

This is very difficult to do in a software development organisation, which is one of the most ego-driven working environments.

In my experience the only way to handle this effectively is to get your best developers/engineers to devote their time to mentoring and prototyping the next phase once they have finished their current deliverables. It is also useful to encourage them to learn new technologies and practices, especially best practices like configuration management.

Sadly most managers don't like this ... it seems like a waste of time. Throw away code (prototypes) never go down well, and learning is often something that employees "should do on [their] own time".

This is why it is essential that Software Engineers have management and communication skills, not only downwards, but upwards as well. Managing the knowledge and expectations of business managers is critical in the success of a project -- and of a company!

HABET (High Altitude Balloon Experiments in Technology) is one organization that has been doing this for years (I believe there are many). About 4 years ago I helped on a project that used two cameras, one with color film and one infrared. The cameras were triggered based on GPS altitude data so we examine the resulting photos and determine the difference in atmospheric interference (the clouds and graininess you see in his pics) and potentially combine the data from the color and infrared film to eliminate the interference.

I don't know where the interference-correction went since I graduated and fled the state, but I do know that triggering the cameras based on GPS altitude worked because I wrote that portion of the PIC code. There's something very satisfying about lifting a payload a few feet into the air and hearing the cameras go *click* when you reach an altitude threshold. Kudos to this guy for making so many pieces come together.

-FF

Automated Mileage and Stateline Crossing Operational Test (AMASCOT):

Here's the Iowa State University study

Here a longer, more general PDF report on AMASCOT

It was originally designed for tracking commercial vehicles, but now is being cited for passenger vehicles too.

In Wisconsin, a man is charged with using GPS to stalk his ex-girlfriend.

Automated Mileage and Stateline Crossing Operational Test (AMASCOT):

Here's the Iowa State University study

Here a longer, more general PDF report on AMASCOT

It was originally designed for tracking commercial vehicles, but now is being cited for passenger vehicles too.

In Wisconsin, a man is charged with using GPS to stalk his ex-girlfriend.

Here's a rebuttal to that: at urbanlegends.com and: from a Google search

Dive In To Accessibility

WAI

Colour blind checker

ISU

• Carbon dioxide
  
  Carbon dioxide is a non-toxic gas. It has beneficial uses and is the "fizz" in carbonated beverages. When frozen, it is "dry ice". At concentrations of from 2,500 ppm to 5,000 ppm carbon dioxide can cause headaches. At extremely high levels of 100,000 ppm (10 percent) people lose consciousness in ten minutes, and at 200,000 ppm (20 percent) CO2 causes partial or complete closure of the glottis.

It is All Saint's Day, though, and a Day of the Dead.

Lines of code has a little bit to do with reliability. It's a well-known fact that the more lines of code you write (called SLOCs), the more bugs you will have (notes on this here). Although more SLOCs means more bugs, density of bugs does not increase with code length (IEEE report here).

If the US had the most productive workers in the world (and we don't, West Europe does)

Here's a fact check on that statement:

1997 GDP per Capita

Switzerland $43,479.93
Japan $42,736.09
Denmark $36,656.21
Norway $36,206.64
Singapore $31,600.89
Germany $30,493.78
Austria $29,485.56
United States $29,142.63

Granted, it's 5 years old. I wonder if Japan has slipped.

1) the book "The Island of Doctor Moreau" comes to mind

2) I've seen people with less cleanliness than these pigs

3) so the suffering of the human who knows that another human MUST die for them to get better.

4) so are flu shots Kosher? they are based on egg protiens...and I doubt they are blessed.

5) so throw away your glasses, contacts, pacemakers, heart bypass surgery, vaccinations...I don't see in the bible (or any other religious text) where it says: "Thou shalt not genetically modify pigs so you can make replacement parts for humans"

I'm religious, and I've been taught that these animals have been put here to help mankind. even in genesis it talks about man having dominion over the animals. I'd have a problem if they said, "sorry we need to make a Mini-me of you and then kill him so you can live".

There comes a point when you just have to get off the pulpit.

Please use this abacus to quickly add 387 to 495. It's not intuitive? Well, here a tutorial to help.

As for Blender, I tried it and gave up as well. I think some software has so many features that it becomes difficult to give intuitive ways to quickly perform all appropriate actions.

• Make Nitrogen triiodide crystals and detonate them (the purple crystals explode when jarred)
• Electric pickle - make a pickle glow!
• Oobleck! Corn starch and water combine to make a substance you've got to handle to believe.

Yes. Here's a paper (in PDF) that discusses phytoextraction as a means of reducing heavy metal contamination:

Of course, the practicality depends on the level of concentration and the efficiency of the plants. . .

I haven't heard the latest, but the last I heard one of the Math professors here at Iowa State was not allowed back into the country thanks to Mr. Ashcroft.

Dr. Maria Axenovich went to Germany this summer to visit her husband's parents. She and her husband took seperate flights back. He (a German physisist) was let back into the country. She (a Russian graph theorist) was refused entry. Apparently she had been flagged as a security threat because she had done some consulting for a few biologists on campus on how to organize their data. Thus, foriegn Math professors who colaberate with Biologists are now bio-terrorists. If they visit the in-laws they are not allowed back into the country.

Her lawyer asked to see the law stating that she had done anything wrong. Apparently it is secret, and they don't publish it. Sounds like the same b.s. that happened to Erdos during the cold war. Hopefully they get everything straightened out, and Congress starts prosecuting Ashcroft for abuse of power.

Microsoft advertising all over the place. They even seem to have crept into the osdn advertisements on slashdot. I captured a screenshot here.

See if this is believable

Dr. Dan Ashlock at Iowa State University has been evolving robots that push blocks around a 2-D world for some time now. Check out the BotWorld link on his research page for info. On a side note, I did a research project for one of his courses during Spring 2002, where I evolved robots for Robocode that were effective in destroying human-programmed robots.

My two cents:

I graduated from The University of Iowa College of Engineering during Dean Miller's last year. (As the article mentions, Miller is now president of Olin College.)

This concept is very appealing to me. The UI COE prides itself in a student body comprised of those who are "engineers and more." This is one of the reasons I choose to attend Iowa over That Other School. Admittedly, Iowa's curriculum is not much different from the basic curriculum of any other ABET-accredited school. (BTW, we were required to take Rhetoric, like all UI grads, and a number of courses in the humanities and social sciences. In fact, to fulfil, say, the humanities requirement, you had to take a lower-level and upper-level course in the same field.) Yet, the exposure to, and opportunity in, many diverse areas was invaluable. As a hiring manager, I would be very reluctant to hire an engineer that wasn't "well-rounded," with excellent written and verbal communication skills, and a broader perspective on his work.

Here is a 6 sided cave(like), and a 4 sided with movable walls... http://www.vrac.iastate.edu/about/otherLabs/index. html ---- http://subatomic.vrsource.org!!

I'm a programmer who uses Hypercard extensively in the development of my website www.public.iastate.edu/~ntandon (cheap plug) and I use a debugger that emits high pitched noises when a bug is found. It continues until I fix the bug. This is what I call eXtreme Programming.

Yeah, but unfortunately, it'll never ship by default unless APPLE makes it themselves. (Apple typically exhibits serious Not Invented Here syndrome, IMHO)

Take a look at this list. Okay it refers to an earlier version of QuickTime, but of the 22 video codecs, 18 are not invented by Apple. Most are open standards (JPEG, RGB, GIF, MPEG), one is even a Microsoft standard.

NIH? I don't think so.

I agree. "Open Source" in biology is more the rule than the exception.l I have been astounded by the FREE resources out there available for anyone to use! Databases like Genbank and Swiss-Prot are invaluable to modern molecular work. Pedro's Biomolecular Tools is just a sample of the plethora of free resources available today.

Incidentally, I can't recommend Ensembl highly enough. Not only have I been able to significantly further my research with their tools, but they have open-sourced the entire code behind their site! And the documentation is even in Wiki! I really think what they have done is incredible and should be one of the first projects anyone mentions when expounding the virtues of open-source software as well as sharing information in the field of Biology.

-Ryan

I know that there are a lot of cars out there where you won't...my '98 Dodge Caravan, for one, says specifically on the gas cap that you can put in pure ethanol. In fact, my university makes a point of running mostly ethanol-only cars on campus.

Ever heard of the ABC? The Atanasoff-Berry Computer?

The first electronic digital computer, built at Iowa State University between 1937 and 1942, before the much better-known ENIAC? And, hey look, that was before Colossus as well.

So, perhaps before you act so knowing about how we "USAns" like to think we invented everything, perhaps you ought to do a little research. I'll give you the following link to help you get started.

ABC Computer

1) yes, the digital computer.

2) Iowa produces Corn. Corn = Ethanol. Ethanol = lessened dependance on oil. This makes oil prices drop, and it lessens our dependance on foreign oil. Not to mention that it burns cleaner and more efficent than regular oil.

3) You want something that we've done? How about the first six-sided 'cave' virtual reality system in the united states?

Contrary to popular belief (and many ill-informed CS texts) the Atanasoff Berry Computer was the first electronic digital computer.

Read up on how Mauchly and Eckert's ENIAC patent was rendered void by a 1973 court case based on prior art in the ABC. Basically, Mauchly "borrowed" key ideas from Atanasoff to get ENIAC working.

Check the facts next time before you buy into popular myth.

Contrary to popular belief (and many ill-informed CS texts) the Atanasoff Berry Computer was the first electronic digital computer.

Read up on how Mauchly and Eckert's ENIAC patent was rendered void by a 1973 court case based on prior art in the ABC. Basically, Mauchly "borrowed" key ideas from Atanasoff to get ENIAC working.

Check the facts next time before you buy into popular myth.

This is what he's talking about.

That's not entirely accurate. I beleive that ENIAC was the first digital computer, but it used base-10 logic instead of binary. The ABC was the first binary computer, and it was built at Iowa State University. A court case later on (1973) decided that the patent for the electronic computer went to Iowa State because it was more like the computers that were being developed.