Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
December 2012
From BLOG@CACM
Little's Law in the Exascale Era
When performance optimization, reliability requirements, and energy management are convolved with component costs, device physics, system software services and application characteristics, the constraint-based optimization problems…
From BLOG@CACM
Education as Engineering: The Benefits of Combining Education with Engineering
The relationship between education and engineering runs deep. Enhancing the relationship helps both.
From Wild WebMink
Neelie Kroes Endorses Open Source
This video message from EU vice president Neelie Kroes includes a fantastic explanation of the benefits of open source for public administrations.
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Getting Ready for SIGCSE 2013
Somewhere I read that I should buy a plane ticket three months before a trip in order to get the best price. If that's right, then I'm almost two weeks overdue in purchasing my plane ticket for SIGCSE 2013, the ACM Special Interest…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Mobile Ads Fail
In AdAge: Why Mobile Ads Still Fail. Interesting look into the industry and related statistics. Is it because we just don't want them on our phone?
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
Research Article About Me: Creating Compelling Computer Games
There's a nice story about my research on the Carleton website. I'm particularly happy to see it because it hasn't been easy to figure out my exact thesis project, and it feels good to have finally found my path.A team of Carleton…
From The Eponymous Pickle
On Precise Innovation Terminology
Having better terminology for innovation, like it is for many things, makes lots of sense. I find myself often getting into debates about analytics based on this. Terms can drive what is done, and the expectations for the results…
From CERIAS Blog
Looking for fail2ban++
If you're looking for a worthwhile project, here's something that could benefit most security practitioners. The application "fail2ban" has been extremely useful in blocking sources of undesirable behavior such as brute force…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Branch And Bound—Why Does It Work?
One of the mysteries of computational theory source—our congratulations George Nemhauser is one of the world experts on all things having to do with large-scale optimization problems. He has received countless honors for his…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Oak Ridge Visualization
A short piece on the use of visualization methods at Oak Ridge Labs. Using multiple projectors and images for analytics. Working on a project now that includes these elements. Powerful ideas for group collaboration and analysis…
From Schneier on Security
Information-Age Law Enforcement Techniques
This is an interesting blog post:
Buried inside a recent United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime report titled Use of Internet for Terrorist Purposes one can carve out details and examples of law enforcement electronic surveillance…From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Looking Back On CSEdWeek 2012
Last week was Computer Science Education week aka CSEdWeek. This was by far the biggest most active CSEdWeek yet. There are over 3,400 pledges to do something to celebrate the week. From official proclamations from mayors like…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Five Senses for the Smart Phone
Looking forward to this development. Cognitive computing: IBM wants to give the smartphone 5 senses. " ... IBM believes technology's future lies in cognitive computing, which essentially means making computers think more…
From My Biased Coin
Put This On My List...
Put this on my list of papers I wish I had written: Manipulating Google Scholar Citations and Google Scholar Metrics: simple, easy and tempting. I think the title is sufficiently descriptive of the content, but the idea was…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
DARPA Providing Radio Frequency Data Backbone to Match Fiber Optic Capacity
DARPA is envisioning a 100-Gigabit per second Radio Frequency communications link between airborne and ground assets. Currently, fiber optic cables provide the core backbone for military and civilian networks, enabling high speed…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Social Science Data Frontiers
Another interesting piece by Steve Miller on the use of social science data. We are at the edge of doing some very interesting data derived from our new devices. And see recent blog posts on the democratization of that…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Twitter TV Measure
In AdAge: Nielsen and Twitter establish new method to rate TV. " ... The "Nielsen Twitter TV Rating" will measure audiences for social TV activity on Twitter, including people who comment and people exposed to their comments…
From The Eponymous Pickle
DARPA Pushes Open Source
DARPA continues to push open source technology solutions, leading to more agile and modular systems, which can lead to even broader democratization of data and systems. " ... This fall, the (retired) eighth Vice Chairman of…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Brick Meets Click
Newly discover site and blog: Brick Meets Click. " ... Thought-leading perspective on how technology is changing the future of shopping. A strategic resource for retailers, suppliers, & technology providers ... "
From Schneier on Security
Nasty Samsung Phone Exploit
There's a new exploit against Samsung Galaxy phones that allows a rogue app access to all memory. A hacker could copy all of your data, erase all of your data, and basically brick your phone. I haven't found an offical Samsung…
From BLOG@CACM
Is It Time to Change How Software Developers Are Hired?
Considerations of how conventional hiring practices prevent diversification of software development groups.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Generating and Selling Books and Content
An article on book generation. I have been involved for a few years book selling and auction systems, so this approach constructed by a professor at INSEAD to generate and even pre-generate books for sale on Amazon was mostPatented…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Nanotechnology Blog and Foresight Institute
Nanodot, the Foresight Institute's informative nanotechnology blog. We used some of their resources in the early days of nano tech for product development. Always worth following. ... Foresight Institute is a leading think…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Towards an Era of Big Data for the Little Guy
I was invited to a presentation by Intuit and Emergent Research last week. Intuit presented an excellent view of how they were addressing the world of big data. This is a followup of work we did earlier this year to address…
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
Celebrating One Whole Year
Yesterday was Molly's first birthday, and we had a wonderful family celebration. Looking back, I realized just how much I've accomplished this year! With Christmas and New Year's around the corner, what a perfect time to reflect…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Opportunity Begat Opportunity
Occasionally an opportunity comes along, out of the blue, that really makes you stand up and take notice. It is not something that has been on your radar, nor is it something that you had a vision for with developed goals on…
From Schneier on Security
Possible Decryption of World War II Pigeon Message
A Canadian claims that the message is based on a WWI codebook. A spokesman from GCHQ remains dubious, but says they'll be happy to look at the proposed solution.
From Computational Complexity
Goodstein Sequences (Its his 100th birthday!)
LANCE: Bill, on Dec 15, 2012 it will be Reuben Goodstein's 100th birthday. BILL: Is he still alive? Will there be a conference in his honor? Free Food? Cake? LANCE: No, no, and no. But you could blog about Goodstein sequences…
From Apophenia
The Kinder & Braver World Project: Research Series – Eight Papers on The Role of Youth Organizations and Youth Movements for Social Change
The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University is pleased to announce the publication of eight new of papers in The Kinder & Braver World Project: Research Series (danah boyd, John Palfrey, and Dena Sacco, editors)…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Interesting Links 17 December 2012
Five school days until Christmas. Well at my house at least. Are you taking some time off for the holiday season or will you be filling a lot of the time with grading, teacher prep and other school work? A lot of teachers will…