Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
October 2017
From The Eponymous Pickle
Shopping Free with the Google Assistant
Starting an examination of the user experience of hands free voice shopping at well known retailers. The Google Home assistant has this capability using what they call Google Express. I just received some instructions by mail…
From insideHPC
Call for Submissions: PASC18 in Basel
The PASC18 Organizing Team has posted their Call for Submissions. Proposals are now being accepted for minisymposium, papers, and posters. The conference takes place July 2-4 in Basel, Switzerland (the week after ISC 2018 in
…
From insideHPC
How the POP Performance Optimization Centre at BSC is Speeding up HPC in Europe
In this video, Jesús Labarta from the Barcelona Supercomputing Center describes the POP (Performance Optimization and Productivity) Centre of Excellence led by BSC. According to Labarta, POP’s performance analysis results in
…
From The Eponymous Pickle
G-Drive Tips
We were previously a shop that worked entirely with Microsoft Office 365, but connecting with Universities find ourselves working with Google drive products. Which I have grown used to for collaborative efforts. Found these…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Short Sentences are not Always Better
Today you rarely see short sentences. So it is best to at least best to think about shortening your expression.
Why Writing ShortSentences may be Short-Changing Your Reader
Ubiquity, | By Philip Yaffe
" .... Virtually every article…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
CSTA 2018 Conference Call for Proposals
It’s that time again! I have to get to work on a proposal. Or two. This is the best conference for computer science educators. If you have something good to share you should definitely submit a proposal.
The Computer Science Teachers…
From insideHPC
HPC Connects: How Supercomputers Are Unraveling the Mystery of the Human Brain
In this video from SC17, Katrin Amunts from Jülich highlights how the massive European-based Human Brain Project (HBP), comprising a veritable orchestra of scientists, collaborates to deliver the most exquisitely detailed human…
From insideHPC
Agenda Posted for Intel HPC Developer Conference at SC17
The Intel HPC Developer conference at SC17 has posted its Session Agenda. The conference takes place Nov. 11-12 in Denver. "The Intel HPC Developer Conference is the premier technical training event to meet and hear from Intel…
From Schneier on Security
Technology to Out Sex Workers
Two related stories: PornHub is using machine learning algorithms to identify actors in different videos, so as to better index them. People are worried that it can really identify them, by linking their stage names to their…
From Writing
Reusable, composable, battle-tested Terraform modules
Listen up, developers. You are not special. Your infrastructure is not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You have the same tech debt as everyone else. So why are you reinventing the wheel? Why are you building the same infrastructure…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
CCC Computing Research: Addressing National Priorities and Societal Needs Symposium
On October 23-24, 2017, the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) will hold the Computing Research: Addressing National Priorities and Societal Needs Symposium in order to address the current and future contribution of computing…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Alibaba Wants to put Virtual Helpers Everywhere
The idea of virtual assistance continues to expand. Look for more contextually focused solutions from a number of directions.
Alibaba Aims to “Master the Laws” of AI and Put Virtual Helpers Everywhere
CTO of the e-commerce giant…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Amazon Teen Prime Logins
Good further discussion at the link. Will this lead to more use of assistants. Good further discussion at the link.
Amazon gives teens their own Prime logins by George Anderson in RetailWire.
Many teens already think of Amazon…
From insideHPC
NERSC lends a hand to 2017 Tapia Conference on Diversity in Computing
The recent Tapia Conference on Diversity in Computing in Atlanta brought together some 1,200 undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, researchers and professionals in computing from diverse backgrounds and ethnicities to…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Kasparov Book: Deep Thinking
See Garry Kasparov's blog featuring information about his book: Deep Thinking
“Writing this book became type of therapy. It was a painful process, but I learned a great deal about myself and my opponent, and am now very glad I…
From insideHPC
GPUs Power Near-global Climate Simulation at 1 km Resolution
A new peer-reviewed paper is reportedly causing a stir in the climatology community. "The best hope for reducing long-standing global climate model biases, is through increasing the resolution to the kilometer scale. Here we
…
From insideHPC
Introducing the European EXDCI initiative for HPC
"The European Extreme Data & Computing Initiative (EXDCI) objective is to support the development and implementation of a common strategy for the European HPC Ecosystem. One of the main goals of the meeting in Bologna was to
…
From insideHPC
Diagnose Cluster Health with Intel® Cluster Checker
Intel® Cluster Checker, distributed as part of Intel® Parallel Studio XE 2018 Cluster Edition, provides a set of system diagnostics and analysis methods in a single tool to assist managing clusters of any size. "Think of Intel…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Engaging with Customers on Facebook
We looked at ways to connect effectively to customers to do product development. How should it be done?
Does Engaging with Customers on Facebook Lead to Better Product Ideas? By Irene Bertschek, Reinhold Kesler
Feedback on
Anecdotes…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Thinking the Science in Data Science
Evocative piece:
The scientific method to approach a problem, in my point of view, is the best way to tackle a problem and offer the best solution. If you start your data analysis by simply stating hypotheses and applying Machine…
From Computational Complexity
Lessons from the Nobel Prizes
We've had a big week of awards with the Nobel Prizes and the MacArthur "Genius" Fellows. The MacArthur Fellows include two computer scientists, Regina Barzilay and Stefan Savage, and a statistician Emmanuel Candès but no theoretical…
From Schneier on Security
Impersonating iOS Password Prompts
This is an interesting security vulnerability: because it is so easy to impersonate iOS password prompts, a malicious app can steal your password just by asking. Why does this work? iOS asks the user for their iTunes password…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
CS Educator Interview: Bob Irving
Bob Irving teaches middle school students and seems to have a lot of fun doing so. He constantly learning new things to share with his students. He is half of of a great CS team at Porter-Gaud School in Charleston, SC. I interviewed…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Deep Learning from Neural Inspiration
So this is what all the fuss is about. These things gather data and appear to learn. They were inspired by biological neurons, but are really not anything like a real neuron, either in structure or in the way the exact way…
From Schneier on Security
More on Kaspersky and the Stolen NSA Attack Tools
Both the New York Times and the Washington Post are reporting that Israel has penetrated Kaspersky's network and detected the Russian operation. From the New York Times: Israeli intelligence officers informed the NSA that, in…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Knowing Who You are Talking to
From insideHPC
Spectra Logic Launches LTO-8 Pre-Purchase Program
"LTO-8 tape technology doubles the capacity of LTO-7 to an astonishing 30 TB compressed (12TB native) per cartridge, and improves performance by 20 percent, up to 360Mbps. The additional capacity equates to fewer tape cartridges…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Superforecasting for Better Prediction
I was reminded today again of the need for the best forecasting possible when doing many kinds of analytics. I have covered the concept of Superforecasting here a number of times. Basically the idea that there are people…
From insideHPC
Intel Joins Open Neural Network Exchange
Jason Knight from Intel writes that the company has joined Microsoft, Facebook, and others to participate in the Open Neural Network Exchange (ONNX) project. "By joining the project, we plan to further expand the choices developers…
From insideHPC
Intel Delivers 17-Qubit Superconducting Chip with Advanced Packaging to QuTech
Today, Intel announced the delivery of a 17-qubit superconducting test chip for quantum computing to QuTech, Intel’s quantum research partner in the Netherlands. The new chip was fabricated by Intel and features a unique design…