Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
February 2011
From The Eponymous Pickle
Google Changes Search
Google announced changes in it's search algorithms yesterday. Initially only implemented for US searchers. Which they say will improve the quality of results by rating sites in new, more equitable ways, less likely to be gamed…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Interactive China Province Map
Mark Perry points to an excellent Economist interactive map of the Chinese provinces, their population, GDP, exports, etc. Useful data for modeling. Could have used this a few years ago as we built retail models of the provinces…
From Wild WebMink
links for 2011-02-25
UK Government defines open standards as royalty free Excellent move here, although of course the devil is in the details. The big problem with getting open source into government procurement anywhere in the world is that the…
From Schneier on Security
HBGary and the Future of the IT Security Industry
This is a really good piece by Paul Roberts on Anonymous vs. HBGary: not the tactics or the politics, but what HBGary demonstrates about the IT security industry.
But I think the real lesson of the hack - and of the revelations…From Wild WebMink
? The Open Source Procurement Challenge
I am speaking at the ODF Plugfest here in the UK this morning, on the subject of the challenges facing the procurement of open source software by traditional enterprises (including the public sector). Based on a selection of…
From Putting People First
On the UX revolution coming up
Two articles in UX Magazine describe upcoming UX revolutions: data and the user interface. The UX of data By Scott Jenson / February 17th 2011 Data storage in the cloud enables user experiences that would be impossible with only…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Governing Predictive Analytics
In Information Management, a short article, mostly common sense, but a good reminder of how to address an analytical problem. " .... Six Steps to Governing Analytics ... This approach deals directly with behavioral change and…
From The Eponymous Pickle
RFID News Update
The RFID Journal is always a good place to go for the latest news on tagging things. Check out their useful and detailed news update.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Dole Tests QR Codes
Good detailed example of the use of QR codes. Have mentioned them many times here. We tested their use in the aisle for locational 'check in': " ... It was a match made, if not in heaven, than in the produce section. When Price…
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
USACM Comments on Federal Trade Commission Online Privacy Report
On February 18th, USACM submitted comments in response to the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) preliminary staff report concerning online privacy. Titled ?Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change,? the report outlines…
From Wild WebMink
? OBR Progress Report
The Open-By-Rule Benchmark I talked about recently has now had several workouts, and there are a number more under review ready for future posting. So far, it seems to be working out well, with projects receiving scores that…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Towards Collaborative Business Intelligence
A general overview of architecture for BI: " ... In today
From The Eponymous Pickle
Email Overload is Intractable
In the HBR Blog. I agree. Even with filtering and careful examination, too much of it can slip through or simply gum up the works. So what can be done?
From Computational Complexity
What I Tweeted
Various thoughts not restricted to 140 characters. Congrats to Mihalis Yannakakis for his election into the National Academy of Engineering as well as new Sloan Fellows Julia Chuzhoy, Rafael Pass, Chris Peikert, Mark Braverman…
From Putting People First
Experientia at Ecobuild 2011 in London
Experientia will be taking part at Ecobuild 2011, March 1-3, in London, UK. Ecobuild is the world
From The Eponymous Pickle
Letting Your People Speak and Celebrate
Paul Gillin has an excellent piece in his blog where he uses the Watson-Jeopardy example at IBM to show how a company can celebrate an accomplishement publicly. Lots of interesting links there to examine. We needed to do more…
From Schneier on Security
Good Article About the Terrorist Non-Threat
From Reason:
Know thy enemy is an ancient principle of warfare. And if America had heeded it, it might have refrained from a full-scale "war" on terrorism whose price tag is touching $2 TRILLION. That's because the Islamist…From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
FizzBuzz
Projects or exercises that lend themselves to many different “correct” solutions are just about the best sorts of learning experiences I can imagine. They really open the possibilities for discussion and from discussion – questions…
From BLOG@CACM
At the NSF CE21 Meeting: We Have Such a Long Way to Go
The NSF CE21 Community Meeting highlighted the opportunity that computing has to catch up with the rest of STEM on education issues.
From BLOG@CACM
Let's Teach Malware When It's Ready: The Purpose of Undergrad CS
Ledin's call for teaching malware to all undergraduate students conflicts with my understanding of the purpose of an undergraduate CS degree.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Using Plug-and-Play Macroscopes
From the ACM: Looking at complex data with visualization tools: " ... Decision making in science, industry, and politics, as well as in daily life, requires that we make sense of data sets representing the structure and dynamics…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Open Education
Readwriteweb looks at the future of Open Education, and the tenth anniversary of the concept at MIT. " ... Over the past decade, MIT has shared its course materials with over100 million individuals, and MIT OCW is laying out…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Numbers Rule Your World
Numbers Rule Your World: The Hidden Influence of Probabilities and Statistics on Everything You Do by Kaiser Fung In the midst of reading this book which I have had on the stack for some time. A largely non-technical work that…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Bad Decisions About CS Education in Ohio
About a week ago the University of Cincinnati in Ohio announced it was no longer going to offer Computer Science as a Major. Dean Carlo Montemagno said it was a money decision. He also said "I can no longer do more with less…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Social Media is subversive, but maybe not how you think
Back in 2005, Shirky argued that the Social Web offered an alternative to organizations. Working collaboratively has never been easier. And the innovation is ongoing: collaborative real-time editors (e.g., piratepad) are amazing…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Does Your Company Know What it Knows?
Short outline piece in the HBR on this perennially important issue. We worked on it since at least the 70s. Surprise it is still important, and largely unaddressed.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Making Decisions Work
A good results brief from Bain & Company on making decisions work. Even if you have the right decision in hand, it also has to be operationally well implemented to make a difference.
From Wild WebMink
The Problem With Bilateral Agreements
From Wild WebMink
? ForgeRock News
ForgeRock announces Australian partner I’m very pleased to say that ForgeRock has a new, full-service partner in Australia. A big welcome to FPG to the family. OpenDJ – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ForgeRock woke up this…
From Schneier on Security
Susan Landau on Government Surveillance of the Internet
Excellent House testimony.