Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
December 2009
From Computational Complexity
How to tell how good a TV show is
(This is my last blog of the year. Lance will interupt his blog sabbatical to do an END OF THE YEAR blog later.)
The TV show MONK recently finished its 8th and final season. My wife and I are big fans and have seasons 1-7…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Virtual Gifts do Better than Banner Ads
So called 'virtual gifts', which are basically ads that are passed along in social networks, appear to be more effective than banner ads. Some good examples and specifically how this method works via Facebook, by increasing the…
From Schneier on Security
Howard Schmidt to be Named U.S. Cybersecurity Czar
I head this rumor two days ago, and The New York Times is reporting today.
Reporters are calling me for reactions and opinions, but I just don't know. Schmidt is good, but I don't know if anyone can do well in a job with lots…From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Women and Computer Science
The Internet was a buzz last week with reports of a study done on the effects of environment on women’s interest in computer science. (Links to articles below) While we’ve been talking about how the atmosphere in a computer lab…
From The Eponymous Pickle
WolframAlpha Year-end Update
An update on what WolframAlpha has done and plans to do in the coming year. I like their direction, but they still have far to go. They have very impressive demonstrations, but the few times I thought of them for a piece of analysis…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Auto Wifi
Wired view of the current state of using cars as mobile hotspots and their planned usage. New specific work by Ford is detailed. I am less interested in how I could run wifi in a car than allowing a car to autonomously integrate…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Keeping Advanced Students Challenged
How do you keep your advanced students challenged? My school is a magnet school for 11th and 12th grade students who excel in math and science. Every junior takes computer science. Despite the fact that they are all exceptional…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Groundswell on Social Tech
I saw this Forrester/Groundswell post on the growth of social tech lately, it describes the participation growth from 2007-2009 based on Forrester's useful classifications: creators-critics-collectors-jointers-spectators-inactives…
From Schneier on Security
Santa's Naughty
This is very serious.
From Michael Nielsen
Biweekly links for 12/21/2009
Preskill Lecture Notes on Quantum Field Theory
I’ve just dipped in here and there, but these are great. Don’t miss the link to the notes on general relativity, all the way at the bottom of the page. And, of course, there’s John’s…From Schneier on Security
Defeating Microsoft BitLocker
Defeating BitLocker, even with a TPM.
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
End of Term Bliss
I finally finished my last projects for school this weekend. In fact, I was half an hour late to our CU-WISE potluck dinner organized for execs and officers because I packaging up my project to send to my professor after waiting…
From Wild WebMink
? Public Information
I've no comment on whether this is good or bad, but it's worth keeping in mind that under a draconian global copyright enforcement regime, it…
From The Noisy Channel
Blogs I Read: UXmatters
One of my favorite resources for learning about user experience is the UXmatters blog. This group blog boasts a set of authors that represent a diverse collection of industry practitioners (and one academic) and offer concrete…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
My Best Blog Posts (2009)
As year 2009 comes to an end, I selected a few of my best blog posts. Database, compression and column stores:
More database compression means more speed? Right? Trading compression for speed with vectorization Column stores…From The Eponymous Pickle
Decline of RSS Readers
In ReadWriteWeb, a look at the decline of RSS readers. I still use them, but agree I see them used less and less either in or outside of the enterprise. There is talk of other capabilities, notably Facebook and Twitter, overtaking…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Digital Building Data Delivery
Brought to my attention: Archaio ' ... Our expertise is delivering software that accurately depicts building data and automated decision support tools to improve building management and response operations. We are the global…
From The Eponymous Pickle
User Experience Matters
In the Noisy Channel, a look at the UXmatters Blog. ' ... user experience is
From The Eponymous Pickle
How Big is the Internet
Gizmodo graphically looks at how big the Internet has become. It is staggering. -
From The Eponymous Pickle
Inner CEO
Alan Cox posts a review of his book: Your Innner CEO, which I recall being a good read. His unusual blog is also worth a look.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Net Neutrality and Tech Implications
In E-Commerce Times, an interesting view of net neutrality, in particular how ultimately other devices in the consumers home, like the set-top-box, will start to play: Net Neutrality, VoIP and the First AmendmentNew developments…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Global Economy as Physics problem.
Worth a look, though I have been weary of such simplifications since the Club of Rome.
From Putting People First
Slaves of the feed
Thomas Petersen, co-founder and partner of Danish digital creative agency Hello, reflects on the experience and design implications of the exponential growth of information. “Constantly checking our feeds for new information,…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Report on the Cross-layer Reliability Visioning Study Group
The Cross-layer Reliability Visioning Study Group met October 29-30 at the IBM Austin Research Center in Austin, Texas. This was the third of three scheduled meetings focused on the growing challenges imposed by changes in device…
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Mosaic
Neat.
From Schneier on Security
Yet Another Schneier Interview
This one for ZDNet.uk.
From My Biased Coin
Text-book Algorithms at SODA (Guest Post, Mikkel Thorup)
Mikkel Thorup sent in the following guest post:Text-book algorithms at SODAThis is a pitch for promoting good text-book algorithms at SODA. Erdos promoted book proofs, but book algorithms are in some sense far more important…
From Schneier on Security
Live Face-Off with Marcus Ranum at ISD
Here are the six links to the face-off Marcus Ranum and I did on stage at the Information Security Decisions conference in Chicago.
From BLOG@CACM
Inside an Effective Computer Science Classroom
A discussion of Guy Claxton's "What's the Point of School" book and how it relates to CS.
From Michael Nielsen
Biweekly links for 12/18/2009
Shtetl-Optimized » Blog Archive » Hopefully my last D-Wave post ever
Scott, in full ironic mode, proposes a crowdsourcing project that could really take off: “Yes. I concede! D-Wave wins, and I hereby retire as skeptic. So…