Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
December 2014
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Professional Development Online–Is Twitter the Best?
Last week Audrey Watters wrote a blog post that asked Is Twitter the Best Option for Online Professional Development? Now I love Twitter (follow me there @AlfredTwo) and I learn a lot there. But while there is some good conversation…
From Schneier on Security
New Documents on NSA's Crypanalysis Capabilities
Spiegel published a long article today on the NSA's analysis capabilities against encrypted systems, with a lot of new documents from the Snowden archive. I'm not going to have time to look at this for a few days. Describe anything…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
The New Chess World Champion
Available for $59.96, or—for free? chessprogramming wiki source Larry Kaufman is a Grandmaster of chess, and has teamed in the development of two champion computer chess programs, Rybka and Komodo. I have known him from chess…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Review of Imitation Game: Alan Turing Movie and Asset Value
Saw the recently released Alan Turing Biopic yesterday.There were a few big errors in fact and emphasis. Like barely mentioning the key Polish results in solving the Enigma. Inferring Turing and his small team figured it all…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Process and Culture
Processes, culture are key for successful growthSuccessfully scaling a business requires developing an organizational culture and effective processes, writes Hayagreeva Rao of the Stanford Graduate School of Business. "There…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Unilever Aerosol Innovation
A very complete article on the history and current market of deodorants. An old and stable market. But now Unilever claims a new aerosol innovation. Interested because of my long time connection to CPG marketing. But also…
From Wild WebMink
Facebook’s Illuminating Algorithmic Cruelty
The ever-presumptive and unremittingly faux-positive peer pressure of Facebook is doing its part this Christmas to re-open wounds of hurt from 2014 for a bunch of people. Their Year In Review is a product of the – often welcome…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Internet of Services
In ComputingNow: (The original article is missing, will seek to replace) Thinking about the concept of an Internet of Services. Look at ISSIP, The International Society of Service Innovation Professionals group for pointers…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Retail Opportunities
In Retailwire: Looking at retail technologies in 2015. I agree, these are all key areas to monitor. Technology will continue to sculpt these areas, as they will many others. The comments are also instructive.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Data Science Without Statistics
Vincent Granville makes some provocative statements about the interaction of statistics and data science. I often worked with professional statisticians for problems that had regulatory dimensions, and they would have disagreed…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Changing the Past
In Sciam: Productive Illusions? Using immersive virtual reality to change our impression of realty, present and past. The general idea has also been experimented with for other kinds of psychological remediation.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Easier Prototyping for the Independent Inventor
What 3-D Printing Means for the Independent Inventor. In Entrepreneur. " .. Inventing is an iterative process. An entrepreneur learns by trial and error. Prototyping, whether through traditional means or 3-D printing, meansThe…
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Mummers Play Featuring Giant Squid
"St. George, the Dragon, and the Squid: A Preservation Mumming," by the American Folklife Center. As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven't covered....
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Geeky Christmas Humor
All you AP CS teachers will want to share this one.
This one is the for math teachers in the crowd.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Pupil Arousal in Shopping
A different kind of eye tracking. Non conscious reactions that are also related to other neuromarketing methods." ... Abstract: The present study proposes arousal as an important mechanism driving buying impulsiveness. We…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Adding Smart Home Devices with a Scan
In Engadget: Nice idea to add to the internet of things for the home. " .... D-Link's latest smart home hub lets you add devices with a scan .... "
From The Eponymous Pickle
Robots Need to Ask for Your Help
Thinking of Robots collaboratively, even at the simplest level.Researching indoor service robots. A Carnegie Mellon researcher shows that designing robots to ask for human assistance can make them a lot more useful.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Upselling and Cross Selling
Upselling and cross-selling your travel product not only optimizes profits but also enhances your customer’s travel experience and loyalty. Getting it right is a huge opportunity for revenue managers and marketers to engage customers…
From Schneier on Security
Merry Christmas from the NSA
On Christmas eve the NSA relesed a bunch of audit reports on illegal spying using EO 12333 from 2001 to 2013. Bloomberg article. The heavily-redacted reports include examples of data on Americans being e-mailed to unauthorized…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Single Finger Programming
Yesterday I was charged with helping my grandson (he’s three months old) get to sleep for a nap. After walking around and speaking softly to him for a while I got him to sleep. On my chest. Now of course I didn’t want to take…
From Schneier on Security
"Santa Claus and the Surveillance State"
He sees you when you're sleeping. He knows when you're awake. He's everywhere. And that's the whole point of the Elf on the Shelf, the bright-eyed, Kewpie-esque doll that millions of parents display around their homes in December…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
MOOCs are closed platforms… and probably doomed
Colleges and universities, left and right, are launching Massive open online courses (MOOC). Colleges failing to follow are “behind the times”. Do not be fooled by how savvy MOOC advocates sound. They do not understand what they…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Neuromarketing Overview
In Forbes/ HBS Working Knowledge: Good, short item on the current state of neuromarketing. Still not clear from this how this is better than or effectively combines with classical methods.Neuromarketing: Brain Scans Shed Light…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Testable Ideas vs Good Ideas
By Michael Schrage in the HBR. Good point that is rarely directly first considered in innovation. How do we test this idea? " ....the successful innovators I observed spent less time on identifying and developing good ideas…
From The Eponymous Pickle
A Discovery Advisor
A press release of nearly a year ago that I reviewed for a meeting with a client in the last few weeks. What does it mean for a company to do discovery on a combination of its own knowledge and data and public information? This…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Executive Manager and Machine
In McKinsey: What will AI mean to management, to the executive suite? A long term question we examined for a long time. They have some interesting points. It is not only about managing key knowledge, but it is about understanding…
From The Eponymous Pickle
DARPA Looking for More Sensing, Autonomous Drones
In CWorld: Implications of more data and the need for methods that can understand sensor data at high speed and the intelligence to make decisions. Inspired by Biomimicry." ... The FLA drones are supposed to be quick, independent…
From Schneier on Security
Did North Korea Really Attack Sony?
I am deeply skeptical of the FBI's announcement on Friday that North Korea was behind last month's Sony hack. The agency's evidence is tenuous, and I have a hard time believing it. But I also have trouble believing that the US…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Use Two Factor Authentication
JP Morgan was burned by not implementing it everywhere. So it is a good time to enable two factor authentication security for passwords. It is not univsersal security, but it is a necessary first step. Just did it myself.…
From Schneier on Security
Manipulating Juries with PowerPoint
Interesting article on the subconscious visual tricks used to manipulate juries and affect verdicts. In December 2012 the Washington Supreme Court threw out Glasmann's convictions based on the "highly inflammatory" slides. As…