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 The Eponymous Pickle
Make Your Data Last. Forever?
In overview article on storing away data. Just an introduction. Its not just about doing backups. We stored backups under mountains in the west. But how can you make sure you have chosen the right media, the right formats…
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
Review / Think Like a Programmer: An Introduction to Creative Problem Solving
Programming involves a particular flavour of problem solving. If you're a beginner trying to get better at it, an educator teaching beginners, or just someone who enjoys thinking about thinking, then I may have just the bookThink…
From The Eponymous Pickle
IBM/DemandTec Assortment Optimization
Early in my career I was given the task of how to optimize assortments under the constraints of the market shelf. On the surface the problem looks easy. You have a set of possible products you want to place on shelf. You have…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Ensuring Teacher Voices Are Heard
This is an exciting time for CS education. There seems to be a growing national consensus that achievement in the sciences is critical both for the next generation of students and the future well-being of our country. Hopefully…
From BLOG@CACM
Computer Science: Filling the Education Pipeline Gap
Computer Science Education Week 2012 Chair Ruthe Farmer talks about the importance of CS education and looks to you to pledge your support.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Object Oriented Recipe Development
An interesting piece out of GigaOM interviews media chef Alton Brown about using social media constructs to file and adapt food recipes. The link points to a video that broadly outlines the idea. I am an amateur chef, and…
From Wild WebMink
MariaDB Foundation
I was pleased yesterday to see the MariaDB community starting the process of creating a Foundation to host open collective governance for their community. I’ll be interviewing Monty on Monday in a live webcast at 5pm; watch my…
From Schneier on Security
Roger Williams' Cipher Cracked
Another historical cipher, this one from the 1600s, has been cracked:
Senior math major Lucas Mason-Brown, who has done the majority of the decoding, said his first instinct was to develop a statistical tool. The 21-year-old…From Putting People First
Design patterns for mobile user interfaces targeted at older adults
The use of smartphones is becoming widespread among all sectors of the population. However, developers and designers do not have access to guidance in designing for specific audiences such as older adults. This study by Roxanne…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Sharing is Learning
Last week was a great week for sharing among teachers. Microsoft ran their Partners in Learning Global Forum in Prague Czech Republic. They had 500 educators from over 75 countries sharing really innovative ideas. From all reports…
From Putting People First
No one likes a city that’s too smart
This week London hosts a jamboree of computer geeks, politicians, and urban planners from around the world. At the Urban Age conference, they will discuss the latest whizz idea in high tech, the “smart city”. “But,” writes Richard…
From Putting People First
Using ethnography to study asthma
Ethnography can be used to inform important health and policy decisions. But there are few public case studies that illustrate the value of ethnography for this specific context. When Erik Bigras of EthnographyMatters learned…
From Putting People First
What does it mean to be a digital native?
The war between natives and immigrants is ending. The natives have won, argues Oliver Joy on the CNN website. It was a bloodless conflict fought not with bullets and spears, but with iPhones and floppy disks. Now the battle between…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Postdoc “Best Practices”
The Computing Research Association has adopted a set of “best practices” for postdocs, the result of work done by Anita Jones and Erwin Gianchandani under the auspices of CRA’s Computing Community Consortium. Postdocs have been…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
The Amazing Zeta Code
But can it encode itself? src Sergei Voronin was an expert in analytic number theory, especially the Riemann zeta function. He proved a sense in which the Riemann Hypothesis “ain’t necessarily so.” That is, he found complex analytic…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Collaboration is the Thing
In Supermarket News: " ... Haggen and other retailers are showing how to collaborate with trading partners on mutually rewarding promotional and merchandising initiatives. ... "
From The Eponymous Pickle
Creative Confidence
In Linkedin: Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO on creative confidence, with some useful links as well. " ... creative confidence is the ability to come up with breakthrough ideas, combined with the courage to act. Individuals with creative…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Can Games Improve Vision?
I recall a conversation with an eye doctor a long time ago who swore to the use of eye exercises for improving vision. Can games be used as simulations to specifically improve the muscles in the eye? An exploration.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Package Goods Firms Seek Data Scientists
Adage makes the breathless claim that even Consumer Package Goods firms (CPGs) are now seeking data scientists. Well excuse me, they have always used data scientists, ever since such roles have been defined. CPG companies…
From Wild WebMink
Intended to Fail?
Was Freiburg’s cancellation of its open source migration a foregone conclusion? With friends to support my terrible German, I tried to find out – see ComputerWorldUK for more.
From Computer Science Teachers Association
The Importance of Funding
More than five years ago, my school expressed an interest in adding computer programming classes to the curriculum. Since I had not taught programming in over ten years, I wasn't sure what languages to pursue and exactly where…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Advice to Microsoft Education Marketing–Computer Science
For nine years my job at Microsoft was to promote the use of Microsoft technology in computer science education. I started with universities but moved over to K12 CS education. CS education is something I feel strongly about.…
From The Noisy Channel
Continuing to Post on LinkedIn
I just posted another pair of articles on LinkedIn: Understanding Relevance Relevance is Complicated I’ll continue to use The Noisy Channel as a personal blog, but I’ll be focusing my publishing efforts on LinkedIn. Hope you’ll…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Internet end of Year Status
Kleiner Perkins provides lots of interesting data regarding the Internet at the end of the year. Always thought provoking and useful for presentations.
From The Eponymous Pickle
More Virtual Research
Had another excellent interaction with John Milby, CEO of the startup Full Scale Virtual Research,which uses some of the technology developed at Procter & Gamble and has extended it considerably to virtualize consumer research…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Digital and Non-Digital Research Tools
In Progressive Grocer: On the integration of digital and non digital research. Perhaps obvious, but it is well put here. In particular how increasingly granular data can lead us to deeper insights.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Deep Learning
From KurzweilAI: More on deep learning. On the future of bio inspired neural network infrastructure intelligence. We creep closer to human intelligence by learning. An interview with " ... Dr. Jürgen Schmidhuber is Director…
From Computational Complexity
Too Much Competition?
On Friday the New York Times ran an article on how online retailers constantly adjust prices to match their competitors. Their ability builds on many tools from computer science, from networks to algorithms, not unlike airlines…
From Schneier on Security
Feudal Security
It’s a feudal world out there. Some of us have pledged our allegiance to Google: We have Gmail accounts, we use Google Calendar and Google Docs, and we have Android phones. Others have pledged allegiance to Apple: We have Macintosh…
From Putting People First
In safe hands
Clare Brass is the team leader of Sustain at the Royal College of Art in London, where she presides over a radical initiative to make sustainability a core issue for all students, whether they are studying architecture, textiles…