Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
February 2013
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Equity, Policy, and and Why "Trickle Down" Doesn't
As a non common-core subject, computer science relies on vigorous policy efforts to help our educational leaders understand the importance of including computing in the K-12 curriculum. In just the past few years, we have witnessed…
From Schneier on Security
19th-Century Traffic Analysis
There's a nice example of traffic analysis in the book No Name, by Wilkie Collins (1862). The attacker, Captain Wragge, needs to know whether a letter has been placed in the mail. He knows who it will have been addressed to…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Attack of the Customers
Colleague, correspondent and former co-fellow of mine at SNCR Paul Gillin has written a book just brought to my attention. Attack of the Customers: Why Critics Assault Brands Online and How To Avoid Becoming a Victim byPaul…
From Computational Complexity
Are most lower bounds really upper bounds?
Recently Daniel Apon (grad student of Jon Katz at UMCP, but he also hangs out with me) proved a LOWER BOUND by proving an UPPER BOUND. His paper is here. I have heard it said (I think by Avi W and Lane H) that MOST lower bounds…
From Wild WebMink
Python – Why Is There Even An Issue?
As soon as I heard about the trademark dispute concerning Python, I tried to contact both sides and understand why there was even an issue. I got through straight away to the Python Software Foundation, but the other party –…
From Schneier on Security
Hacking Citation Counts
Hacking citation counts using Google Scholar.
From Putting People First
Teenage usability: designing teen-targeted websites
Recently published Nielsen/Norman Group research shows that teens are (over)confident in their web abilities, but they perform worse than adults. Lower reading levels, impatience, and undeveloped research skills reduce teens’…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Mining Feeling Bionic Hands
Haptics are a favorite topic. We sought to gather large amounts of data about how hands interacted with products. Then mine that data for specific usage capabilities. This sounds like an opportunity to do that.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Reinventing the Hospital, The Game
From my long time favorite collaborative future consulting group: Insititute for the Future (IFTF). A favorite topic, reinventing health care. I know of a number of related trials underway, lets do more.It's Official: Over…
From The Eponymous Pickle
The Separation of Web Pages
Back in the 90s we visited mathematician at the Santa Fe Institute, and learned to soon to be iconic statistic that people were separated on the web by a remarkably low number of clicks. (You can still join the SFI's complex…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Data Mining in R: Introductory Resources
The DataMining Collective sends along links to Data Mining in R. Fairly well done as an introduction, of both the power and complexity of using the Package R. Includes slides and audio. A 50 minute description of R as groups…
From Schneier on Security
More State-Sponsored Hacking
After the New York Times broke the story of what seemed to be a state-sponsored hack from China against the newspaper, the Register has stories of two similar attacks: one from Burma and another from China.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Big Data Will End Segmentation and Long Analysis Times
IBM CEO makes a clear statement about how big data will influence two key areas of marketing measurement an analysis. And makes a clear challenge: " ... Big data will spell the death of customer segmentation and force the…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
We are publishing a lot more! How will we cope?
The number of research articles published each year grows exponentially. We often estimate the rate of growth to between 4% to 6% a year. We are publishing a lot more in Computer Science. Editors must work a lot harder than they…
From Schneier on Security
Automobile Data Surveillance and the Future of Black Boxes
Tesla Motors gave one of its electric cars to John Broder, a very outspoken electric-car skeptic from the New York Times, for a test drive. After a negative review, Tesla revealed that it logged a dizzying amount of data from…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Interesting Links 18 February 2013
Another snowy weekend in New Hampshire for me. Not a bad thing as I had a lot of grading to catch up on. But today is a holiday for my school (Washington's Birthday) so I hope to get out into the woods on my snow shoes. I have…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Adding Dollar Signs
A few remarks on papers to appear at the 2013 Computational Com- plexity Conference Chris Umans is the program chair of the upcoming Computational Complexity Conference, and has put together a terrific-looking program. He was…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Tamagotchi Emerges Again in Gamification
More than a dozen years ago we looked at Bandai's Tamagotchi pets as a potential model for consumer engagement. The basic idea was an early look at what we now call gamification. Or using gaming principles in improve interaction…
From Wild WebMink
Unitary Patent Over-simplified By IoS
The IoS may have uncritically picked up the messaging the UK’s “Intellectual Property Office” has been spreading, but the likely outcome of the unitary patent is likely to be much less savoury. Rather than helping small business…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Google Retail Coming?
Mashable reports that Google retail stores are rumored to be on their way. At the very least a carefully selected group of Google stores could provide a wealth of information for comparison to on-line shopping.
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Drive Fear Out of the Classroom
Many years ago I was privileged to take the famous four day course taught by W Edwards Deming. Deming is widely credited with turning around the Japanese manufacturing system after World War II. he’s one of the founding fathers…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Watching You Watch Data
Was briefly involved in a constituent project to this idea. So thinking about the kind and volume of data is very intriguing. Along with closing the loop of interaction here. Suppose we would watch people watch data and adjust…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Combating Showrooming With Rebates
Good piece by Theresa Wabler. " .... They key to combating the shopper trend of showrooming is finding creative approaches that serve the consumer and benefit the business, not hurt it. If all consumers care about is lower…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Getting the value of Big Data
Perceptive colleague Jason Terry sends along a link to a good overview piece on this topic in ZDnet. Winnowing good data from the junk is part of the reason it is not used today. I write to him that " .. businesses will 'get…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Unintentional Data Innovation
In Technology Review:Why were the recent Russian meteor fall observed by so many cameras? It turns out there is a large incentive, for insurance purposes, to install a dash camera in Russia. As a result there are many such…
From Putting People First
Tablet use in California and Ontario high schools – Field observations by Experientia collaborator
Francesca Salvadori (Italian blog) is an Italian high school teacher who runs a 1:1 iPad pilot program in her school, and collaborates with Experientia on the topic of digital publishing. A few weeks ago she visited five schools…
From Wild WebMink
Eat Your Heart Out King Arthur
Made locally by D B Fletcher.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Drinkable Costmetics
In Cosmeticsdesign: Popular in Asia, "nutricosmetics" could start to make a splash in the West, trend watchers say. The beauty drinks, some of which contain antioxidants, collagen and other good-for-the-skin ingredients, haven't…
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: More on Flying Squid
Japanese squid researchers have confirmed flying squid can fly, and how they do it. (Note: I have written about flying squid before.)
As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news…From The Eponymous Pickle
Analytics IQ
Fascinating piece on consumer financial intelligence: Analytics-IQ launches industry's most accurate predictor of household economic profiles with "consumer financial intelligence" Quantitative, measurable results are always…