Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
December 2019
From insideHPC
Sr. HPC System Administrator at ASRC Federal
ASRC Federal in Maryland is seeking a Sr. HPC System Administrator in our Job of the Week. "This position is a member of an HPC Support team focusing on storage hardware and software for two supercomputing clusters. You will
…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Comments in this Blog
All comments in this blog need to be approved before publishing. In general I won't permit or usually answer a comment unless it is relevant and lends itself to the general content of this blog. I reserve editorial additions…
From The Eponymous Pickle
China Blockchain Dominance
Previously noted. What are the consequences? Fewer intermediaries for sharing key data sources and analyses.
China’s Blockchain Dominance: Can the U.S. Catch Up?
Knowledge@Wharton
By all counts, China is leading the world in the…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Your Data is Shared and Sold
Further look at personal data and its use and regulations.
Your Data Is Shared and Sold…What’s Being Done About It?
Oct 28, 2019 Europe, North America
Earlier this month, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law amendments to…
From The Eponymous Pickle
AI Improves the Way Humans Think
After reading this a few times I wondered. Because we can use an AI to explore ideas more quickly? Things that wold have taken more time to examine?
Mind meld: Artificial intelligence is improving the way humans think
When AIs…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Hiding Cryptocurrency Transactions
Addressing visibility of transactions.
Some crypto-criminals think jumping across blockchains covers their tracks. Big mistake.
A popular cryptocurrency service that may appear to enhance anonymity actually doesn’t, according to…
From The Eponymous Pickle
MIT Model Forecasts Business Financials
If real, here is something of considerable value ... Note 'Belief Propagation' .... which we tested for things like predicting future product sales in varying context. Looking more closely.
Model Beats Wall Street Analysts in…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Russia Unplugs Its Domestic Internet
Now What? Implications? Note mention of how successful such an attempt might be. One-way or both?
Russia Announces 'Successful Test' of Its Unplugged Internet
Jane Wakefield in the BBC
December 24, 2019
Russia's Ministry of Communications…
From The Eponymous Pickle
XAI: Google Explainable AI
Google takes on Explainable AI, try it free at the link ... Note in contrast IBM's Explainability Toolkit. Now ask explainability of what, to whom?
Understand AI output and build trust
Explainable AI is a set of tools and frameworks…
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: New Species of Bobtail Squid
Euprymna brenneri was discovered in the waters of Okinawa. As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven't covered. Read my blog posting guidelines here....
From The Eponymous Pickle
Definitions for Use Cases of Blockchains
Useful simple user case examples, definitions, Major Players and cautions:
Understanding Blockchain Basics and Use Cases in Infoq
Key Takeaways:
Blockchains can be either public or private, permissioned or trustless
IBM Hyperledger…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Looking Back on Computer Science Education 2019
Christmas break for me until 6 January 2020 and with Christmas over I have some time to think. 2019 was an intere3sting year in CS education. States continue to adopt more CS in K12. Teachers are still in short supply but soAP…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Procter Sponsors Video Game Competition
A new kind of effort by big CPG to my knowledge, course Gillette has been sponsoring sports for somet ime.
Gillette parent boosts esports sponsorship via video game competition in BizJournals
Gillette parent company Procter &
…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Learn a task by Reading About it
Chess, analyzed from a description? Research yes, but mastery takes experience.
Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning inTechnology Review.
Instead of practicing, this AI mastered chess by reading about it
Machines that appreciate…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Apple (or Amazon) as a Store Anchor
Does Apple Anchor a Shopping Mall?
This came to mind as well as we noticed all the failing local malls. Used to go to them for holiday shopping, just for the atmosphere, but many have descended below that. ....
Does Apple Anchor…
From insideHPC
Podcast: The Evolution of Neuromorphic Computing
In this Chip Chat podcast, Intel’s Mike Davies describes neuromorphic computing, what it means to “spike” a neural network, and Intel’s Loihi, a neuromorphic research chip that contains over 130,000 “neurons.” "To be sure, neuromorphic…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Is 2020 the Year of Consumer VR?
Good piece in engadget. Not quite convinced of the conclusion. Can VR create consumer experiences that are really better enough than on a screen? Agree that for relatively narrow business context, makes lots of sense. but…
From insideHPC
Video: Lustre Features and Future
Andreas Dilger from Whamcloud gave this talk at LAD'19 in Paris. "For a number of years, a majority of the world’s 100 fastest supercomputers have relied on Lustre for their storage needs. If you need lots of data fast and reliably…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
A Math Gift For All
Happy holidays to all. Kathryn Farley is my dear wife. We just celebrated Christmas together and then went off to London for a holiday. Today I thought I would share a gift with you. Kathryn and I exchange books for the holiday…
From The Eponymous Pickle
IOTA, FiWare and more
Brought to my attention regarding IOTA, also the connection to Fiware, which was new to me. Regarding identification and secure use of knowledge/data. Mentioning this here for later examination.
Video from the IOTA meetup in…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Article Summarization by Microsoft
Had just mentioned this classic AI problem, was pointed to work underway by Microsoft, which points to this. Pointd to the article below, which after the abstract gets technical. Like I have mentioned before, its what humans…
From insideHPC
Take the Data Science Survey from the University of Pisa
A research team from the University of Pisa seeks your participation in their Data Science Survey. The survey is mainly addressed at those who work every day in the field of data science, either on their own or for a company.…
From insideHPC
Video: I/O Architectures and Technology
Glenn Lockwood from NERSC gave this talk at ATPESC 2019. "Systems are very different, but the APIs you use shouldn't be. Understanding performance is easier when you know what's behind the API
What really happens when you read…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Walgreens Explores Drone Delivery
Exploring new means of delivery.
History made: Walgreens takes off with first drone delivery
By Dan Berthiaume - 10/18/2019
Walgreens is officially in flight with a pilot of on-demand drone deliveries in Virginia.
As of Oct. 18,
Walgreens…
From Schneier on Security
Chinese Hackers Bypassing Two-Factor Authentication
Interesting story of how a Chinese state-sponsored hacking group is bypassing the RSA SecurID two-factor authentication system. How they did it remains unclear; although, the Fox-IT team has their theory. They said APT20 stole…
From insideHPC
An Alternative to OpenMP and an On-Ramp to Future C++ Standards
In this edition of Let's Talk Exascale, Christian Trott of Sandia National Laboratories shares insights about Kokkos, a programming model for numerous Exascale Computing Project applications. "Kokkos is a programming model being…
From insideHPC
SC19 Invited Talk: HPC Solutions for Geoscience Application on the Sunway Supercomputer
Lin Gan from Tsinghua University gave this invited talk at SC19.
In recent years, many complex and challenging numerical problems, in areas such as climate modeling and earthquake simulation, have been efficiently resolved on…
From The Eponymous Pickle
AI for Boosting Online Training Business
Good thoughts, though ultimately we need better ways to create and maintain conversations to make training work well. Moving in that direction, but lots of work yet to do.
Huge Benefits of AI For Boosting Your Online Training…
From Schneier on Security
ToTok Is an Emirati Spying Tool
The smartphone messaging app ToTok is actually an Emirati spying tool: But the service, ToTok, is actually a spying tool, according to American officials familiar with a classified intelligence assessment and a New York Times…
From The Eponymous Pickle
The Future will be More Autonomous, Humans will be Involved.
True, its been going that way for a long time , but has it really sped up greatly at the macro level? At the level of 'self driving', 'identifying', 'charging' ....where people are integrated with larger context systems we…