Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
February 2012
From Writing
Seven Languages in Seven Weeks: Prolog, Day 2
Today is the second day of Prolog in the Seven Languages in Seven Weeks series of blog posts. You can find the first day of Prolog here.Prolog, Day 2: ThoughtsToday, Prolog broke my brain. The chapter started with recursion,not…
From The Eponymous Pickle
When are Tweets Worthy of Your Time?
I started using Twitter about four years ago, dubbing it an 'experiment'. I continue to use Twitter, in part because some clients and colleagues use it, and in part because it is an easy way to quickly market my own work. Clients…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Econophysicists and the Swans
Ultrafast Trades Trigger Black Swan Events Every Day, Say Econophysicists The US financial markets have suffered over 18,000 extreme price changes caused by ultrafast trading, according to a new study of market data between 2006…
From The Eponymous Pickle
E-Books Changing the Book Industry
It is obvious that it is, but how? In E-Commerce Times. An author speaks: " ... Just as the iPod changed the music industry a decade ago, e-books are changing the publishing world right now. The rule book is being rewritten…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
DARPA Issues PERFECT Solicitation
Just a week after announcing
From Wild WebMink
? Sarah Jarosz
This performance by 20-year-old Sarah Jarosz is completely magical. She’s supported by Alison Krauss and Jerry Douglas but there’s no missing her star quality. What’s more, the song is her own composition. Superb stuff again…
From Apophenia
New Pew study on tone of social network sites
Pew Internet & American Life Project just released a new study called “The tone of life on social networking sites” where they examine adult meanness and cruelty. This complements their piece on “Teens, kindness, and cruelty…
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Squid's Beard
It's an acoustic bluegrass band.
As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven't covered.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Shiny Packages
Dan Ariely on the effect of packaging design on choice. Good exploration based on eye tracking research. " ... when making such simple choices, consumers can spot and choose most of their preferred items in as little as a third…
From Computational Complexity
STOC 2012 accepts are posted
STOC 2012 paper accepts are posted here. Travel support for grad students (which I am involved with) is posted here.
On a quick glance: I tried counting the paper for how many were in which categories. I got dizzy so I stopped…From Schneier on Security
Captchas
From The Eponymous Pickle
Choosing Relevant KPI's
A slide show in Information Management that has some useful information. Though this contains useful information, it is also an example of how the style of information delivery can get in the way of the content. I guess making…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
The Ups and the Downs
Why does it always feel as thought we are moving one step forward and two steps back?
After holding an annual summer camp in January (Yes, here in New Zealand it is summer) for 23 students in various stages of programming expertise…From The Eponymous Pickle
Activating Brand Advocates
In Chief Marketer. Thoughts on how to activate your brand advocates. For years I saw apathy to this idea in the enterprise. No more.
From Putting People First
Dan Lockton on behavioural heuristics
Behavioural change researcher Dan Lockton discusses an approach which has emerged out of some of the ethnographic work he has been doing for the Empower project, working on CarbonCulture with More Associates, where asking users…
From Putting People First
User Interface is the next battlefield in consumer electronics
User Interface (UI) is the next battlefield in consumer electronics and, as products mature, the race to differentiate based on the UI will accelerate. Rather than compare minor differences in features sets, consumers will increasingly…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Packaging Design
Thoughts on packaging design from a recent conference. " ... "Packaging is the number one medium to communicate the brand," said Michael Okoroafor, VP global packaging at H.J. Heinz. ... "
From BLOG@CACM
All Grown Up Now: Service and Serial Reciprocity
Computing is central to the debate about so many aspects of our present and future that we have a duty and responsibility to be active and enthusiastic participants. By paying it forward (serial reciprocity), we create an environment…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Key Imagine Cup 2012 Dates Approaching
Randy Guthrie wrote a long information packed post about Key Imagine Cup 2012 Dates Approaching in the very near future. If you or your students are entering the Imagine Cup I highly recommend you read Randy
From My Biased Coin
Class Size Incentives
There's an interesting story in today's Crimson about a possible rise in "limited enrollment" classes at Harvard. (See this older Crimson article as well.) There may, of course, be didactic reasons for limiting the number of…
From Wild WebMink
Eolas Verdict A Hollow Victory
With news breaking that apparently Eolas decade-plus attempt to tax innovation on the internet is finally over, I look at the context and find myself lacking reassurance in today’s column on ComputerWorldUK.
From Schneier on Security
Securing iPads for Exams
Interesting blog post about locking down an iPad so students can take exams on them.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Emergence of Whorfian Economists?
I have always been intrigued by the Whorfian hypothesis. The idea that different human languages strongly affect our thinking styles, communication capabilities and even world view. Now we have the notion of a Whorfian economist…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Democratization of Data Science
As I start a study of the democratization of data, and of the Wolfram Alpha Pro release I also see a very on point post by Stephen Wolfram: Launching a Democratization of Data Science. Very well put. It is about data and math…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Microsoft Announces New Policy-Focused Internship Program
Microsoft
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Hello From Texas
You may have noticed I haven
From My Biased Coin
Citation Circles on FSP
Sorry I haven't blogged much. Life's been busy. But here's an interesting post by FemaleScienceProfessor discussing the appearance of "citation circles", people forming groups to cite each other (when possible) in order to get…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Speaking Out
In the WSJ: Why people fail to speak up in various contexts. We examined this in focus group settings. I see it in myself in very specific group contexts. Another reason for better understanding of people unconscious reactions…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Wolfram Alpha Pro
The full announcement on Wolfram Alpha Pro. Quite impressive detail. A useful front end to business analytics? Plan to take a much closer look and report back.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Smarter Energy Usage
IBM report on smarter energy usage: " .. . From our prior surveys, we know consumers like the idea of having cleaner power options, and more control and efficiency at their fingertips. But have they assumed these benefits would…