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According to this the population of Iowa is 2,923,179 residents. Assuming each person has 1 legally-purchased copy of Win98, $40 to each person winds up costing Billy-Boy $116,927,160. Which is approximately 0.29% of M$'s $40 Billion cashpile. A very insignificant amount in the grand scheme of things for Redmond.

As established in court the computer was invented before WW II at Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts in Ames, Iowa

As established in court the computer was invented before WW II at Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts in Ames, Iowa

Henry Cavendish did an experiment to measure the gravitational constant G. He used a torsional pendulum with two small lead weights to measure the gravitational attraction of two large lead weights nearby. I did this experiment as an undergrad and got a pretty good value for G (big error bars though). It's amazing that back in the 1700s he could measure the gravitational force due to a lead ball.

I just did a google search on "Cavendish experiment" and found this. Evidently a geologist named John Michell deserves some credit too.

Interestingly enough, when I was at Iowa State (graduated Dec. 1994), I think they were still using TeX for thesis papers. It was some time in the mid to late 1990's that they switched to MS Word. It's sad.

... as evidenced by one of my colleague's recent thesis. In it, he compares the performance of a high end 24-processor SGI system with the performance of a few (2-4) cheap Linux PCs running the same application. We aren't even talking about a clustered system here - just a few boxes sync'd with a little networking.

It's fan-freaking-tastic.

[Check out the paper here]

You're right in that the Atanasoff-Berry Computer was the first working computer. For the record, it was made at Iowa State University, not the University of Iowa.

You're right in that the Atanasoff-Berry Computer was the first working computer. For the record, it was made at Iowa State University, not the University of Iowa.

Here is a link to info on the Atanasoff-Berry computer. I believe they have finally gotten the credit they deserve for their invention even though most people still think it was Eckert and Mauchly.

Look at Everett Rogers' work on the diffusion of innovations. Basically, once an innovation has been picked up by about 25% of the available market, network effects (people talking to each other) take over and adoption becomes virtually unstoppable. Just the use of MS Office gives Windows a thoroughly entrenched position.

Can MS be dislodged? Let's say that the various *NIX factions get organized enough to make a serious run at displacing MS Windows. Rogers lists 5 conditions that are required for an innovation to be successful, and they place alternate operating systems at a disadvantage (definitions from Rogers' site, italicized comments mine):

1. Relative advantage: the degree to which an innovation is perceived as better than the idea it supersedes. Unless an alternative can show a substantial increase in uptime, a far more attractive UI, and seamless installation, it won't play in the mass market.
2. Compatibility: the degree to which an innovation is perceived as being consistent with existing values, past experiences, and needs of potential adopters. It has to run MS Office and whatever motley collection of apps people have gathered over the years.
3. Complexity: the degree to which an innovation is perceived as difficult to understand and use. Self-explanatory.
4. Trialability: the degree to which an innovation may be experimented with on a limited basis. OK, Windows fails this too -- but people don't even know there's an alternative to be tried. Where's the *NIX equivalent of AOL's "1000 free hours" preview?
5. Observability: the degree to which the results of an innovation are visible to others. If you adopt *NIX, how will this improve your life in ways that are clearly visible to others, including (and especially) non-techies?

So, anyone want to make Gates' nightmares come true?

Here is an article entitled "LCD Panels and Customer Expectations". It talks about "stuck pixels" among other things.

I'm a grad student in CprE/Security at Iowa State, one of the schools administering this program; I was too far along in my studies to apply. Some notes:

1. This started before 9/11. This is not in response to terrorist threats, but rather a real nderstanding that critical infrastructure is at risk.

2. There are both 2-year fellowships for grad students and scholarships for undergraduates. They cover full tuition, room, board, books and fees, plus a stipend.

3. It works a lot like a ROTC scholarship: we give you two years of support, you owe us two years of work after you graduate. Which in security isn't a bad tradeoff; guaranteed job plus very resume-boosting experience. Yeah, you can make more money elsewhere, but it's a good job.

If you want more information about actually applying, you can look at the program webpage here, or the ISU Information Assurance Program site here.

The program only accepts U.S. born applicants; more information on the Iowa State fellowships is available as is information on the program as a whole. Most of the core training at Iowa State is in Computer Engineering classes: CprE530(protocols), CprE531(security), CprE532(warfare/hacking), CprE533(crypto) and CprE534(ethics). If you take a look at the ISU fellowship specs, I think you'll agree that this is a decent way of paying for school and serving your country at the same time. I agree with the previous post that this is basically ROTC for geeks. ;-)

Theory says that antimatter falls just like matter. No conclusive experiments have been run yet - gravity's just far far too weak to be tested with individual particles, and there aren't any 'neat' couplings which allow us to probe that small.

Check out here

for a better discussion. Summary is that we're pretty damned sure that it should, but not positive, and we don't have any experiments to prove it.

http://www.cs.iastate.edu/jva/jva-archive.shtml

From that page:

The Atanasoff-Berry Computer was the world's first electronic digital computer. It was built by John Vincent Atanasoff and Clifford Berry at Iowa State University during 1937-42. It incorporated several major innovations in computing including the use of binary arithmetic, regenerative memory, parallel processing, and separation of memory and computing functions.

On October 19, 1973, US Federal Judge Earl R. Larson signed his decision following a lengthy court trial which declared the ENIAC patent of Mauchly and Eckert invalid and named Atanasoff the inventor of the electronic digital computer -- the Atanasoff-Berry Computer or the ABC.

The Common Criteria:
here and here.

Which supersedes the Orange Book:
here and here.

It looks interesting, that's for certain. I don't know that I would want to use it all the time yet, at least because I couldn't drag-and-drop a file between platters.

For those who are curious what it looks like, I took a couple of screenshots. At the risk of slashdotting my school's server, they are here:

Platters View.

A welcome return of Labels.

The Get Info window.

It looks interesting, that's for certain. I don't know that I would want to use it all the time yet, at least because I couldn't drag-and-drop a file between platters.

For those who are curious what it looks like, I took a couple of screenshots. At the risk of slashdotting my school's server, they are here:

Platters View.

A welcome return of Labels.

The Get Info window.

It looks interesting, that's for certain. I don't know that I would want to use it all the time yet, at least because I couldn't drag-and-drop a file between platters.

For those who are curious what it looks like, I took a couple of screenshots. At the risk of slashdotting my school's server, they are here:

Platters View.

A welcome return of Labels.

The Get Info window.

Certified makes no mention of a signature or correct delivery.

Lack of evidence is not evidence. Certified Mail requires a signature. If you get Certified Mail with Return Receipt, the USPS will return that signature to you. If you get Certified Mail without Return Receipt, the USPS will hold the receipt in the post office, and for a fee (greater than the cost of Return Receipt) you can request to get it.

It says it all in black and white (actually green and white) right here. "Certified mail provides...A signature upon delivery".

• A mailing receipt
• A unique identifier for your mailpiece
• A signature upon delivery
• A record of delivery kept by the Postal Service for two years

There are innumerable variations of this quote, which is attributed to Lenin.

• When it comes time to hang the capitalists they will compete with each other to sell us the rope at a lower price.
• The capitalists will sell us the rope by which we hang them
• Greedy capitalists will sell us the rope by which we will hang them
• If we were to announce today that we intend to hang all capitalists tomorrow, they would trip over each other trying to sell us the rope.
• When Communism finally hangs Capitalism, a Capitalist will sell us the rope
• A capitalist would sell the rope to his own hangman."
• Western business men will sell us the rope with which to hang them.

Unfortunately, no source for these quotations has ever been found in Lenin's collected works.

It may have been fabricated originally by the John Birch Society 40 years ago as part of their anti-Communist propaganda.

Curiously, Lenin actually said some things the John Birch Society might agree with: "While the State exists there can be no freedom; when there is freedom there will be no State."

Similar to gasoline, naphtha is a petroleum distillate that contains a colorless cocktail of several liquid hydrocarbons (mostly hexane, heptane, and pentane). Naphtha is a liquid at room temperature and atmospheric pressure. It is extremely flammable, with its flash point at -49F (-45C). The "flash point" is the lowest temperature at which the vapor of a combustible substance will ignite. A mixture of naphtha vapor and air can explode if the concentration of naphtha is between 1% and 5.9% by volume and the temperature is above the flash point. These flammability characteristics are very similar to those of unleaded gasoline.

(from this paper)

Iowa State has just deployed a wireless network on campus. It's been a joy to use, especially with my iPAQ. Although the academic benefits are debatable, it's certainly nice to be able to check Slashdot and use messenger during a boring lecture.

The network is deployed in common meeting areas and in large lecture halls. I can't wait for spring so I can sit outside the library and check my email.

I'm sure there are some cool things that can be done with a lecture hall full of people with connected laptops...I'm just waiting for someone tell me.

Iowa State has just deployed a wireless network on campus. It's been a joy to use, especially with my iPAQ. Although the academic benefits are debatable, it's certainly nice to be able to check Slashdot and use messenger during a boring lecture.

The network is deployed in common meeting areas and in large lecture halls. I can't wait for spring so I can sit outside the library and check my email.

I'm sure there are some cool things that can be done with a lecture hall full of people with connected laptops...I'm just waiting for someone tell me.

Iowa State has just deployed a wireless network on campus. It's been a joy to use, especially with my iPAQ. Although the academic benefits are debatable, it's certainly nice to be able to check Slashdot and use messenger during a boring lecture.

The network is deployed in common meeting areas and in large lecture halls. I can't wait for spring so I can sit outside the library and check my email.

I'm sure there are some cool things that can be done with a lecture hall full of people with connected laptops...I'm just waiting for someone tell me.

How do "know* something is real that's never been demonstrated?

Zero-point energy has a very testable hypothesis: the Casimir effect. Which has been demonstrated. Check this article or this one .

I know very little about the practicalities of anti-matter creation. The only real assumption I was taking is that energy is convertable into either matter or antimatter.

Energy is converted into both matter and antimatter. You don't get to pick one or the other; there are conservation laws (some more absolute than others) that say you can't change the net amount of certain quantities. If you start with 0 electrons, you have to end up with 0 electrons (1 + (-1) = 0).

It was my understanding that anti-everythings exist, so you can have an electron, positron, anti-electron, and anti-positron, all with positive mass.

This is basically correct, but a "positron" is an "anti-electron" - two names for the same critter. However there are antiprotons and antineutrons, with positive mass.

Many particles don't exist in normal matter, but can be created in both positive and negative varieties. One is the "anti-" of the other, but the standard notation is just to indicate the particle and its charge (e.g. mu+ for a positive muon).

The premise about amount of matter and antimatter, is as you say, too tough. I dont think anyone *knows* why it seems there is an imbalance in the universe.

The sci.physics FAQ discusses this, but doesn't have a conclusive answer.

I guess the question i am most curious about is "Is it possible to "create" anti matter from anything other than pure energy in some form?", or do you have to (as your example) use pair-antipair creation?

The various conservation laws (e.g. electric charge) make it very difficult to do anything other than balanced pair production. Maybe you could feed normal matter into a microscopic black hole and get a 50/50 mix of particles and antiparticles back through Hawking radiation...

A Final Chapter for FAX Algorithm

Earlier this year, the last Type III facsimile machine manufacturer holdout finally agreed to obtain a license from ISURF on this ISU technology. This final settlement brings the total number of licensees of the ISU FAX algorithm to 24 with royalties totaling over $36 million. The patent survived three re-examination challenges at the USPTO and serves to remind us the importance of keeping good research and invention records.

This was a patent the University discovered it had just before it was to expire -- well after fax machines were ubiquitous...

The Virtual Reality Application Center at Iowa State University is kind of a testbed for open source, being used as a trial to see if this type of development can really work.

Our largest project, VRJuggler, is a development environment for virtual reality apps and is absolutely open sourced.

We've had great success using the open source academic model, particularly in getting interest and support for the project from people outside the university.

Are there any other labs out in academia that are also promoting the use of open source?

The Virtual Reality Application Center at Iowa State University is kind of a testbed for open source, being used as a trial to see if this type of development can really work.

Our largest project, VRJuggler, is a development environment for virtual reality apps and is absolutely open sourced.

We've had great success using the open source academic model, particularly in getting interest and support for the project from people outside the university.

Are there any other labs out in academia that are also promoting the use of open source?

ISU has probably the premier researcher in this area, Dr. Carolina Cruz-Neira. Here's some info on the environments at ISU: C6 and more...

ISU has probably the premier researcher in this area, Dr. Carolina Cruz-Neira. Here's some info on the environments at ISU: C6 and more...

Actually, under the right circumstances the human eye can detect a single photon. However, due to the preprocessing done by the brain this signal doesn't actually reach any conscious part of your brain (for lack of better terms). But you don't need that many photon's, 10 or 20 should be perfectly detectable under the right circumstances.

Mrrrp. Photons have no mass, yet they are particles. More precise, they are "gauge bosons" . (From the Usenet Physics FAQ)

Mrrrp. Photons have no mass, yet they are particles. More precise, they are "gauge bosons" . (From the Usenet Physics FAQ)

Here are some links to Intrusion Detection systems being developed at Iowa State. They are offering fellowships for those interested in doing graduate work in computer security. Here is a link to one of their papers on distributed intrusion dection.

Automated Discovery of Concise Predictive Rules for Intrusion Detection

Well, as others said, you're not going to learn how to hack in a week for $60. But it can be taught.

My university actually does teach classes on hacking, or as they call it 'information warfare'. Not 'security' mind you, 'warfare'. Of course, it's a grad program... you'll need a degree before you can even take it...

Well, as others said, you're not going to learn how to hack in a week for $60. But it can be taught.

My university actually does teach classes on hacking, or as they call it 'information warfare'. Not 'security' mind you, 'warfare'. Of course, it's a grad program... you'll need a degree before you can even take it...

Actually that would be 6x more -- and it exists now at ISU's C6.

And don't even mention the people who won't get off their fat ass but insist on driving and talking on cell phones and nearly killing a certain computer programmer, who shall continue to remain nameless, every morning. Don't!

Back when I took compiler construction at Drake University three of us got together and made our own programming language called Eubonicode to help those who like to engage in ghetto algorithmic expression. I threw it up on the website. Here is the fibbonacci code:

sup
{
gimme fibo bitch
a be 1 bitch
b be 1 bitch
putou a bitch
putou b bitch
fibo be fibo widout 2 bitch
slongas (fibo bepimpin 0)
c be a an b bitch
a be b bitch
b be c bitch
putou b bitch
dissin fibo bitch
nomo
}

My School limits dormrats to 200MB worth of uploads per day with unlimited downloading. Needless to say, this makes trading a lot harder, and it gets to be a problem for people running game servers. When you first hook up and open up a browser, you get redirected to a network "login" page. Basically, you put in your university username and it records which IP was assigned to you. At least they didn't resort to port-blocking. Good thing I'll have my very own DSL line this year! :)

Please note, though, that this has nothing to do with making faster Si-based MOSFETs (i.e. smaller transistors). If you're interested in that, look here, here (great story), or here to see just a handful of the ideas people have. With all of these things in development, don't expect anything to overtake Si as the dominant technology for a long, long time (~10 years, maybe even). ;-)

Damascus Steel in fact was never lost, at least in Soviet Russia. Several articles But in the west, it might not be taught in metalurgy classes. There is this article found on the net from 1994 where someone had "rediscovered" the secret back in 1981, with the development of "ultrahigh carbon steels". I also recall an old Scientific american article from the 1980s (?) which went into the making of Dasmacus Steel So I imagine that the secret has been rediscovered several times over the past 20 years, There is more on this from another source here and also here. Other resources are here on the Materials Science and Engineering newsletter. I see that that the people in the article are right now looking to put a patent on it. They won't be able to get a pattent if it was already developed in recent history.

Lets not forget the ABC, the first digital computer, built at Iowa State University by researchers from 1937-1942. I'm pretty sure it wasn't general purpose, but hey, it deserves mention at least! Go cyclones! ;)

Disclaimer: Iowa State University is one of my alma maters, so I am naturally biased.

The "VRAC team" is actually about 150 people. the VR Juggler team (the one that writes the software that runs the C6, and many other VR devices), is actually about 4 grad students (allen,chris,patrick,kevin), the original inventor of the CAVE (Dr. Cruz-Neira), and a few others...

VR Juggler is an opensource virtual reality platform. It is the next generation of CAVE software. It runs caves, c6, HMD, powerwall, desktop VR, etc... highly configurable and highly extensible.

For background info: Dr. Cruz wrote the original CAVElib (closed source) at EVL for the original CAVE system she designed. NOTE: that all CAVE(tm) systems are only 4 walls! The C6 at VRAC is the worlds first 6 sided cave-like device.

VR Juggler is her next endeavor, it doesn't suffer from the problems that CAVElib does, and whats best is that VRJuggler is completely open source (LGPL).

The "VRAC team" is actually about 150 people. the VR Juggler team (the one that writes the software that runs the C6, and many other VR devices), is actually about 4 grad students (allen,chris,patrick,kevin), the original inventor of the CAVE (Dr. Cruz-Neira), and a few others...

VR Juggler is an opensource virtual reality platform. It is the next generation of CAVE software. It runs caves, c6, HMD, powerwall, desktop VR, etc... highly configurable and highly extensible.

For background info: Dr. Cruz wrote the original CAVElib (closed source) at EVL for the original CAVE system she designed. NOTE: that all CAVE(tm) systems are only 4 walls! The C6 at VRAC is the worlds first 6 sided cave-like device.

VR Juggler is her next endeavor, it doesn't suffer from the problems that CAVElib does, and whats best is that VRJuggler is completely open source (LGPL).

The "VRAC team" is actually about 150 people. the VR Juggler team (the one that writes the software that runs the C6, and many other VR devices), is actually about 4 grad students (allen,chris,patrick,kevin), the original inventor of the CAVE (Dr. Cruz-Neira), and a few others...

VR Juggler is an opensource virtual reality platform. It is the next generation of CAVE software. It runs caves, c6, HMD, powerwall, desktop VR, etc... highly configurable and highly extensible.

For background info: Dr. Cruz wrote the original CAVElib (closed source) at EVL for the original CAVE system she designed. NOTE: that all CAVE(tm) systems are only 4 walls! The C6 at VRAC is the worlds first 6 sided cave-like device.

VR Juggler is her next endeavor, it doesn't suffer from the problems that CAVElib does, and whats best is that VRJuggler is completely open source (LGPL).