Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
November 2013
From The Eponymous Pickle
November Analytics Magazine: Text Analytics
The Informs Outreach magazine this month has as its emphasis text analytics. Always interesting, business solution oriented, not heavily technical. I read every one. Subscribe. Its free. " ... Articles in this issue look…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Making Magic With Software
My friend and fellow teacher Tom Indelicato and I are teaching a new course this year. We are calling to Explorations in Computer Science and it is patterned somewhat after the larger Exploring Computer Science course developed…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Views from Our Top Shopper Scientist
Colleague and correspondent Herb Sorensen writes about the shopper from the view of a scientist. He helped us formulate some of the key concepts we used in the innovation center. Extensive and informative article in Shopper…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Machines Taking Over
Are we making it too easy for machines to take over? In ReadwriteWeb. Do we see early symptoms when we listen for every smartphone ring? I have been reading a novel recently that includes, in part, this theme. More on that…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Who plays nice? Who plays rough?
I have a confession to make. I am one of these people who can’t watch a TV show like Games of throne because there is too much evil. In fact, I generally cringe when reading novels or watching movies where there is too much lying…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
In Praise Of Chalk Talks
Chalking up a terrific talk on bit compression Winsor McCay was a cartoonist and animator in the early part of the twentieth century, and authored the comic strip Little Nemo. He may not have invented the chalk talk—that could…
From Computational Complexity
A Theorist Goes to SOSP
Monday I attended the 24th Symposium on Operating Systems Principles, the lead conference for computer systems research. Why would a nice theorist go to SOSP? Trying to recruit a few good systems faculty for Georgia Tech. Italks…
From Schneier on Security
Risk-Based Authentication
I like this idea of giving each individual login attempt a risk score, based on the characteristics of the attempt:
The risk score estimates the risk associated with a log-in attempt based on a user's typical log-in and usage…From The Eponymous Pickle
Big Data and Social Science
A number of interesting items in the Edge about the implications of new models, and most notable to me the implications of Big Data, for social science. Social Science has always had the problem of not having enough causal…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Wix as Easy Internet Presence
After mentioning the startup Waze, recently acquired by Google, I was sent a note to take a look at the startup Wix. I was intrigued by their description of it as a means of constructing low cost web presence. A mix of blog…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Technology and Dementia
Technology solutions for dementia care. Here from the CACM. An extensive view of technology current and future uses, and the barriers involved. I am peripherally involved in a startup effort related to this. " ... Our…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
SIGCSE 2014 a Great Opportunity for Professional Development
I just got back from Atlanta where, while wearing one of my other hats, I helped to put together the program for the SIGCSE conference to be held March 5-8, 2014, in Atlanta, GA.
I have never seen so much K-12 content …From Schneier on Security
Deception in Fruit Flies
The wings of the Goniurellia tridens fruit fly have images of an ant on them, to deceive predators: "When threatened, the fly flashes its wings to give the appearance of ants walking back and forth. The predator gets confused…
From Putting People First
Experientia taking on the Nordic Built Challenge, Finland
Experientia team in final four, with community-minded concept “The fundamental idea of the entry – the ENGAGE community noticeboard concept – is worth special mention. Transparent information is used to encourage people to adapt…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Future of Cloud Computing
Recorded Future looks at the future of cloud computing. " ... As businesses continue to modernize, technological innovation accelerates. Cloud computing is a relatively new trend in this modernization which has been growing…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Convincing People Mobile Shopping is Safe
In Baseline Mag: Intrigued by the element of persuasion here. Not an argument about safety itself.
From Schneier on Security
Elliptic Curve Crypto Primer
This is well-written and very good.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Smartwatch for Corporate Productivity
Looking at the smartwatch format as improving corporate productivity. Seems a stretch beyond the mild improvement in convenience in carrying the things around. Worth thinking about to get ahead of the (big?) explosion in…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Google Helpouts
Google now offers a method to seek and potentially sell online assistance via video, called Helpouts. Google takes a flat 20 percent transaction fee. More in ComputerWorld. Will this create a working market of knowledge?
From The Eponymous Pickle
Numbers from the History of the World
In Tableau Public Gallery. Nicely done visualization of a large selection of key numbers over history. " ... Julia Gusman with this viz reminds us the work of Hans Rosling whose work sets apart not just by making broad social…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Certified Analytics Professional
Become a Certified Analytics Professional, a service provided by Informs. Not sure how widely this is accepted by companies. Checking into it further. " ... Members and others interested in becoming a Certified Analytics Professional…
From Wild WebMink
Personal URL on Google+
I’m pleased that Google+ now offers personalised profile URLs – mine is https://plus.google.com/u/0/+SimonPhipps/ All I need now is for them to allow me to have multiple Google accounts represented by a single Google+ account…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Telling Your Story with Twitter
An approach to tell your life story via only your Twitter stream. Course that means you have to be using twitter all the time. Have seen similar approaches with Facebook. An intriguing approach to storytelling. Perhaps only…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Finding Big Data
Several recent projects have involved public big data, so have become used to the thought of seeking out such data and mashing it up with internal data. Geographic and census examples are good examples. But how do you find the…
From Computational Complexity
My Pope Number is 2: The Smaller World Hypothesis
I proofread Piergiogrio Odilfreddi's book (which is on Lance's List of Favorite Complexity Books) for which I got a generous acknowledgment. I have also visited him in Italy, though not for a while. Pope Benedict (I thinkhere…
From Schneier on Security
The Story of the Bomb Squad at the Boston Marathon
This is interesting reading, but I'm left wanting more. What are the lessons here? How can we do this better next time? Clearly we won't be able to anticipate bombings; even Israel can't do that. We have to get better at …
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
CSTA Voice November 2013
If you are a member of the CSTA you should have gotten this update in email. If you didn’t you may want to make sure that CSTA has your email address right. If you teach computer science you should be a member.
FEATURE ARTICLES…From Putting People First
Tesla’s groundbreaking UX: interview with UI manager Brennan Boblett
“Dashboards of the past are littered with physical buttons that can never change, forever ingrained into them. The [Tesla] Model S, by contrast, has a fully upgradeable dash that’s software driven. We started with a blank slate…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Innovations of Hadoop 2
Innovations of Note: " ... Hadoop 2 has brought along with it new ways of processing data and storing even more data. It suggests the Hadoop community understands the challenge in front of it — to keep innovating so users don…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Deputy Division Director Position Available at NSF CISE
The National Science Foundation is looking to hire a Deputy Division Director in the Division of Computing and Communication Foundations, a unit within the Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE)…