30 old computer ads
A 10-megabyte hard disk once cost $3500. Today, a 10-Mb email attachment is no big deal. The really interesting part is to consider how archaic today's computer-related ads will look in 20 years.

A report from Pakistan
The nation's devastating flooding is causing real and significant human suffering

Russian prime minister Putin says protesters should expect to get hit on the head by police
If that kind of language doesn't recall Soviet-era prohibitions on protest and free speech, what does? The world needs Russia to be prosperous and free.

US Army colonel booted from Afghanistan in part for criticizing PowerPoint
Bullet-pointed slides are no substitute for clear thinking, but the colonel thinks the bullet points are winning out

Hurricane Earl could hit New York City
And it's doubtful the city is adequately prepared. Related: What everyone should have in a "go bag" in case of emergency.

"Skeptical environmentalist" Lomborg now thinks $100 billion a year would be a good investment in fixing climate change

MyWifeKnowsEverything at the finish
(Video) Two oddly-named horses finish one-two

Golfer accidentally causes 25-acre fire
Somehow, a bad swing in a rocky patch of rough caused a spark, igniting a whole bunch of dry brush. Bizarre.

Justice Department clears the way for United and Continental Airlines to merge

Prediction: BP will change its corporate name sometime in the next 18 months
(Audio)

Why Apple seems just a little bit Stalinist
(Audio)

Dozens permanently kicked out of Nebraska mobile-home park because of a broken septic system



Lady Gaga on the Iowa State University campanille
(Video) It's like a heaping helping of awesome. Very good work, ISU.



An education nobody could have gotten ten years ago
How a creative individual has generated hundreds of online educational videos -- on a shoestring budget -- and distributed them via YouTube, gaining the praise of the likes of Bill Gates and others in the process. Gates has been pushing for major improvements in public education through his foundation, and one of his conclusions has been that we need to do a better job of distributing and replicating the work of "master teachers". This boot-strapped effort to do that is probably a good example.

15 logos that look like something else
The Dodge Viper logo, for instance, looks like an upside-down Daffy Duck. Of course, there are some logos that really shouldn't be used, ever.

Americans are still pulling lots of money out of stock-market mutual funds
They're trying to move lots of that money over to the bond markets, which is thought to be safer. Just because it's thought to be safer doesn't make it so, but that's what the conventional wisdom says.

Iowa's foreclosure rate hits a new record high
It's lower than the rest of the nation's, but it's still higher than it's ever been.

Algae cuts into Ohio town's drinking-water supply



Air-traffic control is finally getting upgraded
The NextGen system for guiding aircraft from one airport to another has been under development for a long, long time. American Airlines just sent a flight on the first route using the new system, which is supposed to create more-direct routes for flights, saving fuel and time. It's mostly just a matter of using GPS (which is widely available) instead of radio beacons, but the airlines blame the FAA for taking much too long to put the system into service.

Internet banking crime steals $600,000 from Diocese of Des Moines
The need for safeguards against electronic theft has never been greater

An automatic translator for Internet and text-messaging slang

Casey's will buy back a quarter of its outstanding shares
It's an effort to head off a takeover by Couche-Tard. On one hand, the step will most likely help the current management remain in control of the company, but on the other, it comes at a very hefty price: about $500 million in borrowed money. They received reasonable financing on the deal, but new debt depletes the owners' equity. Was it the right move? For some people, yes. But if a share buyback had been the company's most efficient use of capital, why didn't they do it a year ago, when the stock cost $27.67 a share, rather than $37 today?

Top Gear reviews the world's fastest street car
(Video)

A virtual tour of tenement life in America a century ago
Progress is the result of lots of little improvements in life, all compounded upon one another



Charlie Rose and the business of producing an interview show
His drawl can sound a little foreign to northerners, but Rose is one of the best interviewers actively working today

Why schools should think more broadly about the historical record
One school administrator says "If I see another school trying to boost black achievement by talking about black pop and sports stars, I am going to do someone a serious injury". And when education gets hung up on the same handful of revered historical figures (like George Washington), rather than making note of lesser-known types who still affected the world in which we live today (like George Washington Carver), that education risks making kids think that only the flashiest contributions matter. In fact, the world has been built by the steady contributions of improvements by many.

The Federal debt is equal to $1,800 for every second that has passed since the US declared independence in 1776
Now that's a scary thought

FEMA to Lake Delhi: No cash for you



The phantom toll booth
How a poorly-designed toll plaza is likely to cause driver anxiety and possibly even accidents



Maybe we're looking for the wrong signs of alien life
An astronomer makes a very good observation: We're looking for signs of biological activity as an indicator that life exists beyond our little blue planet. But maybe shouldn't be looking for anything biological, since we don't necessarily know how things would have evolved elsewhere in the Universe. Maybe we should instead be looking for signs they're using computers of their own, since the rules of electricity are likely to be more universal (literally) than the rule of biology.

HP will use the Palm WebOS to drive a tablet computer
It'll be available next year. Much has been made of the iPad, but with a price point of $499, it costs as much as a more powerful laptop computer, but does less. But if HP (or another manufacturer) can start selling tablet computers for $150 or less, then they'll be on to something. Tablets are a novelty without a lot of practical use (aside from places like hospitals, where easy-to-clean surfaces are valuable) -- until they're cheap. Once they get to be cheap, then their utility for lesser applications emerges. $500 is too much to pay for an easy way to watch videos of people playing the Super Mario Brothers theme on a Theramin, but $100 might not be.

A real moment of Zen
(Video) A man juggles while a cover band plays "Purple Rain" at the Iowa State Fair Bud Tent. Go on; just try to explain that.

Lou Piniella retires from the Cubs
It's sad that his family circumstances have initiated an early exit, but there have also been a lot of reports (and even televised evidence) of rivalries and infighting inside the clubhouse. That's a managerial problem. In any organization, if there are people problems, then there's a managerial problem.

A beautiful home made largely of glass
But, seriously, who would want to live there? Great for entertaining and fine for use as an office, but there's a reason we have blinds and curtains. Privacy is valuable, even when what's being kept private isn't very important.



"You don't want to slide into whack-job territory. You just need a little ability to live without total dependence on the grocery stores being stocked."
Why Americans need to get tougher and smarter, for our own good.

Smartphone adoption rates continue to soar
It's estimated that 23% of all US mobile-phone subscriptions are for smartphones like the iPhone and the Android phones. The rate of adoption suggests that they'll be more common than standard phones within about two years. And to think that only 20 years ago, most people didn't even have a mobile phone at all.

No, Mars isn't going to appear as large as the Moon
An e-mail in circulation now suggests that Mars will appear as large as the Moon in the night sky sometime this month. Too bad it's preposterously false. And too bad it's a hoax that's been circulating for half a decade without being stopped.

How to write (well) for television
Putting aside the hindrance that it's written in all-capitals, producer David Mamet's letter to his screenwriters working on the now-cancelled "The Unit" implores them to ensure that every moment contains something to move the plot, not just deliver information. It's quite insightful.

Government spending, and the gap between what's legal and what's smart
Whether passenger-rail service between Des Moines and Chicago would have been a good use of government money is up for debate. But there's no debating that a lot of what's been involved in "stimulating" the economy through government spending comes with a heavy administrative toll, and all that administration still won't stop stupid projects from being funded.

Like a stroke, but diff'rent
One terribly evil but hilarious joke about a departed celebrity

Real heroes
Too much time is spent idolizing the famous -- not the heroic

It's strangely easy to see the future now
The quality of graphics-editing programs (like Photoshop) and the skills of the people using them have improved so much over the last few years that when someone generates a picture of a proposed sign at a place like Wrigley Field, it looks almost exactly the same when it's actually finished.



Change your name? No thanks, Google.
Google's CEO Eric Schmidt has told the Wall Street Journal that he thinks young people might someday have to be given the option to change their names as they reach adulthood, just to let them escape the digital trail that recorded their youthful indiscretions. Interesting, coming from a guy whose personal website lists his e-mail address at Yahoo (a rival to Google).

Text messages to tell farmers when to apply fertilizer
Sounds silly in the US, where GPS drives some tractors. But it's a great tool for people in the developing world.



Intel buys McAfee
Interesting move -- the chip-maker wants to have a greater presence in network computing, and figures that it needs a stronger security offering in order to do it right.

Facebook introduces geolocation services
They're rolling it out to all US users. It's a cute idea, in a pat-it-on-the-head kind of way. But it's really a bad idea to let people know where you are all the time, even if it's kept to your Facebook "friends." If loose lips sank ships, geolocation is a great way to invite stalking and burglary. (There must be a catchier way to say that.)

Russian seed bank might be saved by a Twitter campaign
Russian president Dmitry Medvedev appears to have been influenced by an online pressure campaign to intervene in a case where a huge seed bank was about to be destroyed and turned into a housing development. The seed bank apparently contains a huge amount of unique material -- 90% of its seeds aren't found anywhere else -- and a huge portion of it is a field collection, which means the seeds can't be moved. Supporters say that it contains 5,000 varieties of seeds and berries.

Why you should never use your child's photo as your profile picture on Facebook or elsewhere
There are at least three hidden hazards, two of which can harm the child -- and one of those is a direct threat to their safety



Your password is too short
Passwords are supposed to protect our security by keeping unwanted intruders out of our online profiles. But here's the problem: As computers get faster, those passwords become less secure. The computers that incredible graphics (making possible animated films like Toy Story 3) are downscaled in order to produce smooth graphics on personal computers, too. And they produce those graphics by making lots of calculations swiftly. That also means that they can generate long lists of fake passwords swiftly, too -- making it possible for them to run brute-force attacks against password-protected websites and computer systems, relying only upon their ability to generate lots of possible passwords quickly, and nothing more sophisticated than that. Georgia Tech researchers say that anything shorter than 12 characters just isn't long enough.

GM files for an IPO
The company, which received a $50 billion bailout from the Treasury Department after declaring bankruptcy last year, will be selling itself to shareholders again. Shareholders in the previous edition of General Motors? Screwed. Bondholders from the previous version of GM? Also screwed.

Stealth UAVs coming soon to a theater of war near you
The government is encouraging airplane and UAV manufacturers to look at including stealth technology in their next generation of unmanned aircraft. Great news for the theater of war. Terrible news if any evildoers get their hands on the technology and use it against a civilian population for terrorism.

Celebrity plastic surgeon killed by texting-while-driving
A friend says he was posting something on Twitter while driving -- just before he crashed off a cliff

Do yourself a favor: Take two minutes for a self-exam today
Take a minute or two and conduct some basic self-screenings for cancer. Early detection saves lives. There's lots of misinformation about cancer that finds its way around the Internet, largely because we've been trained to wait expectantly for some sort of magic-bullet solution to cancer. But cancer risks can be significantly reduced through a balanced diet, exercise, and early detection and treatment. Meanwhile, science is making great progress towards improving genetic detection, which holds great promise for some types of cancer. Instead of forwarding hoax-ridden e-mails about "cancer cures" and false threats, people should instead remind their friends and family to assess their health once a month.



Boeing 737 crashes, breaks into three pieces -- but only one person was killed
It happened in Colombia, and naturally a lot of people are talking about how grateful they are that God "protected" them in the incident. But what they should really do is thank the massive strides forward in airplane safety that have been achieved over the last couple of decades. Better airplanes and better pilot training mean we're seeing far fewer airline fatalities than in the past.

It sure isn't the Gateway Arch
Four sculptures have been installed on a bridge over Interstate 80 as it passes through Council Bluffs, Iowa, just to the east of Omaha. Considering its location on the most important east-west highway in the United States, the site is pretty prominent -- being traveled by about 80,000 vehicles a day. While it's great that western Iowans are getting behind public art, the sculptures aren't all that attractive. It's a subjective judgment, to be sure, but the sculptures just don't really have the same enduring aesthetic appeal as the St. Louis Gateway Arch or the Great Platte River Road Archway. There's a lot of modern sculpture that seems to celebrate a sense of incompleteness or hasty fabrication, with jagged edges and unsmoothed connections. Something suggests to the modern viewer that sculptures in this style are going to look hideously dated in about twenty years. It's not like we haven't long known how to approximate perfection in our physical objects. Why can't anyone work on a revival of Art Deco monuments or the Streamline movement in their sculpture?

Ghost signs
The remnants of old wall-painted signs that have faded with age but haven't been replaced. Proving that advertising and commerce don't have to be unpleasant to the eye.

Vanilla Ice and Tone Loc: Back in action
Billed as the "Legends of hip-hop", they attracted thousands to a free stage at the Iowa State Fair. No word on any poisonings by Funky Cold Medina. But who can resist a good novelty show, anyway?

Tailgating rules to get tougher at the University of Iowa
It'll probably just lead to more concentrated drinking before people drive, which is even worse than the current binge drinking that takes place around Hawkeye football games



Southwest Airlines thinks a little apology goes a long way
They actually employ a staff to apologize to passengers inconvenienced either by them or just while in their care. It's hard to think of a way in which this is a bad idea. The worst customer isn't one who's angry -- it's the one who's angry and decides never to come back.

Health-care reform bill only makes Medicare budget projections more murky
The reforms were pitched in part on the notion that they'd make Medicare more budgetarily-balanced, but not only does that seem superficially unlikely -- the people charged with making the future estimates say that the projected savings they hope to make probably won't come true. Egads, we're in a lot of trouble.

India and America: Two countries separated by a common language
As has been so often said of other pairs of English-speaking countries

A gallery of the Iowa floods of 2010
The Iowa Department of Transportation caught a number of shots from road cameras that have been preserved for history

A terrific history of business in Ames, Iowa
The city will have a lot of work to do to recover from this year's flooding, but its historical society has done a laudable job of documenting what it's overcome in the past

Why it takes so long to return municipal water service after an outage

Optical illusion makes uphill look like downhill
Among other things, we're not wired very well for estimating slope

Yesterday's "Brian Gongol Show" on WHO Radio
In four parts: the value of alternative Internet browsers, why bad design is a hassle, how to put an end to neighborhood disputes, and the quest for a personal theme song



After 30 years and a lot of computing power, the Rubik's Cube has been broken
A conclusion has been reached with the help of a lot of computing power that any Rubik's Cube puzzle can be solved in no more than 20 moves. Not that most of us can come anywhere close to matching that ideal.

Remarkable satellite imagery of the 2010 flooding in Iowa
Thanks to real-time satellite imagery, we can see just how profoundly many rivers have exceeded their banks

Psychics get the skewer
(Video - with some coarse language) Charlie Brooker destroys television "psychics" by showing just how transparent their cold-read schemes really are. Hilarious, and a blow for science.

The Omaha World-Herald turns 125
The employee-owned company appears to have been reasonably successful in staging itself to remain strong in the long term



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