Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
October 2009
From Schneier on Security
Six Years of Patch Tuesdays
Nice article summing up six years of Microsoft Patch Tuesdays:
The total number of flaws disclosed and patched by the software maker so far this year stands at around 160, more than the 155 or so that Microsoft reported forThe…From The Eponymous Pickle
Data Intensive Scientific Discovery
The Fourth Paradigm: Data-Intensive Scientific DiscoveryPresenting the first broad look at the rapidly emerging field of data-intensive science ... '
From Computational Complexity
List of books I want reviewed
I have been the SIGACT NEWS Book Review Column Editor for a while now. Every issue I have a list of books that I WANT reviewed. This works pretty well, but I recently thought if only I had a way to let LOTS of people know the…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
How to Win Academic Debates
In an academic unit, all professors hold a little bit of power. Yet, unfortunately, professors have nuanced positions. Just like in a democracy, you cannot get rid of your tenured colleagues—even the idiots who got tenure by…
From My Biased Coin
WSDM Paper : Acceptance Rates
I'm happy to announce our paper "Adaptive Weighing Designs for Keyword Value Computation" -- by me, John Byers, and Georgios Zervas -- was accepted to WSDM 2010 -- The Third ACM Int'l Conference on Web Search and Data Mining.…
From The Noisy Channel
Who Will Buy?
Recent years have witnessed dramatic changes in our price sensitivities in every genre of digital (or digitizable) content, and I’m curious (sometimes morbidly so) about where it goes from here.
From Putting People First
An Australian view on user-centred design
Damian Kernahan (featured earlier) just published his second article in Fast Thinking, an Australian innovation quarterly — this time on user-centred design. “Web designers have had a focus on user-centred design and have used…
From Apophenia
Teaching, Nursing, and Second-Wave Feminism
I am deeply grateful for all that was accomplished by second wave feminism. I love living in a world in which my job opportunities are not constrained because of what's between my legs. That said, I also struggle with the externalities…
From Schneier on Security
Helpful Hint for Fugitives: Don't Update Your Location on Facebook
"Fugitive caught after updating his status on Facebook." It's easy to say "so dumb," and it would be true, but what's interesting is how people just don't think through the privacy implications of putting their information on…
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
Hill Tech Happenings, Week of October 19
October 21
Hearing: The Elections Subcommittee of the Committee on House Administration will hold a hearing on modernization of election registration. 10 a.m., 1310 Longworth Building
October 22
Meeting: The President's Council…From The Eponymous Pickle
Comments
Comments here are moderated. I usually get to them very quickly, but depending on my schedule may take up to a day or two. Comments also need to be on relevant. I will not approve those that do not make a useful point. Also,…
From BLOG@CACM
The Rise of Empirical Software Engineering (I): The Good News
Empirical software engineering papers, at places like the International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE), used to be terrible. There were exceptions, of course, but the scene has greatly improved.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Investment in Suppy Chain Management
E-Commerce Times article. Suggests based on Gartner and other reports that investment has flatlined in SCM. Somewhat difficult to believe, given increasing cost pressures.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Trouble in Social Networks
Brand damaging activities in social networks. An update in Computerworld with a number of useful examples.
From Putting People First
Technology is giving us the means to co-create the future
Author, speaker and technologist Juliette Powell sees the true significance of social media technology in the new kinds of collaborations we are able to forge that offer the potential to create a new kind of future. In a video…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Touchless 3D Fingerprinting
Can we replace an old system with a much faster and reliable one? Good overview, with a number of advantages over the old fingerprinting method. Some start ups working in the field, such as Flashscan 3D, which uses a method known…
From My Biased Coin
Harvard Finances
For those who are interested in such things, Harvard's latest financial report appears to be available. Rumors have it that the report was made (widely) public in part because of a Boston Globe article, showing that HarvardCherry…
From The Eponymous Pickle
IFoundry
About IFoundry:' ... The Illinois Foundry for Innovation in Engineering Education (iFoundry) is transforming engineering education for the 21st century. Specifically, iFoundry is forging widespread educational change resulting…
From Wild WebMink
links for 2009-10-18
What Tim said. I still believe that blogging creates no risk for a company that does not already exist becuase of their ethics or hiring process. The presence of Draconian…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Life Blogging Camera to be Produced
It was implied in a previous post that Microsoft did not intend to have the life blogging camera Sensecam produced. It was just reported that the camera will be manufactured, primarily for mental health applications. A early …
From The Eponymous Pickle
Customer Centricity at Kraft
In Consumer Goods Technology:Kraft, Harvard Business School Talk Customer CentricityAlarice Padilla October 5, 2009 - In today's challenging economy with unprecedented consumer power and shifts in shopping behavior, consumer…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Looking at the Programming Language Options
It is interesting to follow the debate among college CS educators over time. At one point in the distant past, there was a large camp of CS teachers pushing for a breadth-first approach to intro CS, providing beginning students…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Google Selling Online Books
Forthcoming: Google Editions. Now that Google has been given the open ability to scan books in the public domain, it is only natural that they are looking at ways to deliver books to multiple kinds of readers. Even as a formHere…
From Wild WebMink
? Relaxed Saturday Links
From Putting People First
Myths and realities about women and mobile phones
Mobile phones have been a boon to developing countries and to social development. Access to mobiles may indeed allow for better medical information, change the way farmers grow and sell crops, expand the way families interact…
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Robot
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
Computers, Freedom and Privacy 2010 Conference
The Computers, Freedom and Privacy (CFP) Conference has just released its call for proposals for the 20th edition of the conference. It will take place June 15-18, 2010 in San Jose. The theme this year is Computers, Freedom…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Experimenting With Mechanical Turk
A very good how-to article about the process of experimenting with Amazon's Mechanical Turk system. If you don't know about Mechanical Turk, it is one of the longest running experiments with public crowd-sourcing. Open to anyone…
From The Eponymous Pickle
A Remarkable Wind Story
Richard James sends this along: "...The extraordinary true story of a Malawian teenager who transformed his village by building electric windmills out of junk is the subject of a new book, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind..." In…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Tesco's Wireless Item Finder
Storefrontbacktalk reports that Tesco has a system to let shoppers find items in its 3700 plus stores using their IPhones. But they are not providing local WiFi, so there is potential for weak mobile signals. I do not agree that…