Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
March 2010
From The Eponymous Pickle
WSJ on the Style of Inforamational Graphics
Good review on this new book. A style guide on how to do mainly quantitative graphics. " .. Dona Wong, who had stints on the graphics teams at both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, has contributed a how-to book…
From Putting People First
Can understanding human irrationality help solve our energy problems?
Behavioral economics is used to examine how consumers make decisions about everything from their life savings to which brands of jam they select in a supermarket. Hunt Allcott, a behavioral economist with a two-year appointment…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Foursquare for Loyalty in CIncinnati
In today's local paper a good article on the use of the social location game Foursquare in the Cincinnati area. Good to see the idea being explored outside big urban areas where it originated. I am currently examining this and…
From The Eponymous Pickle
March/April Analytics Magazine
New in analytics magazine for March/April Analytics is brought to you by INFORMS (www.informs.org) -- the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences -- the largest membership society in the world dedicatedRevenue…
From Wild WebMink
Blog Moved - Reminder
Just a reminder that this blog has now moved to Wild Webmink where you will be most welcome to join me from now on.
From My Biased Coin
SIGCOMM papers
A commenter asked me a while back to say what I thought of the SIGCOMM submissions this year. I'm finally getting around to reading and reviewing. (First round reviews aren't due for at least a week!) And so far, by and large…
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Teapot
Squid teapot. Could be squiddier.
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
Teaching Arts Students to Like Computer Science
I might be very well the first person to request to teach COMP 1001. That's the course that arts and social science students take to get the hang of computers and applications they might need in their program. From Carleton's…
From Schneier on Security
Another Interview with Me
I gave this one two days ago, at the RSA Conference.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Time to Take the Internet Seriously
Very thoughtful piece in the Edge by computer scientist David Gelernter, author of the book Mirror Worlds. Is it time to take the Internet seriously, or just let it evolve randomly like it has since the early 90s? Certainly one…
From Schneier on Security
Mariposa Botnet Shut Down
The Spanish police arrested three people in connection with the 13-million-computer Mariposa botnet.
From BLOG@CACM
Learning from the DARPA Network Challenge
Part 3: Lessons Learned. This is the story of the Georgia Tech team's experiences in the DARPA Network Challenge, a competition designed to see how online social networks could locate 10 red weather balloons moored throughout…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
10 things likely to be overheard from a Klingon Programmer
I have no idea where this came from originally but it showed up on the AP CS mailing list this week. On one level it is very funny especially if you know the Star Trek universe and the nature of Klingons. But on a deeper level…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Evolution of the Google File System
From CACM. An interesting technical and historical piece about decisions made at Google to make their massive file requirements work on challenging hardware: ' ... During the early stages of development at Google, the initial…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Best Buy to Buy Back
Evan Schuman in StoreFrontBackTalk writes about the intriguing implications of Best Buy re-purchasing used products: ' ... With the economy putting intense pressure on supplier costs
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Using a Sports Coaching Model to Support Informal Education
As a professional community, we need better idea of how many computer science teachers are also involved in informal education. I have a sense that there are many of you doing this work with no funding and even less recognition…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Crowdsourcing a Fragrance
Can a fragrance be crowdsourced? " ... New Global Online Platform 'Womanity' Will Try, With Help From Women and Martin Sorrell ... French beauty marketer Clarins Fragrance Group is launching a major global campaign Monday that's…
From Putting People First
The analogue human and the digital machine
Steve Portigal, Julie Norvaisas and Dan Soltzberg of Portigal Consulting were invited by Core77 to discuss what makes their clocks tick: the analogue human and hte digital machine. Steve Portigal: “I feel like there’s this tension…
From The Eponymous Pickle
The Innovation Imperative
This is a relatively old article, but worth reading again:The Innovation ImperativeBy Darrel Rhea, Cheskin CEOOriginally published in The HUB Magazine, March 2006Attempts by America
From Schneier on Security
Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative
On Tuesday, the White House published an unclassified summary of its Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI). Howard Schmidt made the announcement at the RSA Conference. These are the 12 initiatives in the plan…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Upcoming Microsoft Teacher Leader Training Events
Are you an educator responsible for providing technology training to colleagues? Do you frequently lead teachers with best practices on how to integrate technology in the classroom? Then this event is for you!
The Microsoft…From Putting People First
The experience design of Windows Phone 7
One of the key figures in redefining the Windows experience on smartphones is Albert Shum, who’s been with Microsoft for barely two-and-a-half two years. His previous employer for 12 years: sneaker manufacturer Nike, where he…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Data Everywhere
From the Economist:Data, data everywhereInformation has gone from scarce to superabundant. That brings huge new benefits, says Kenneth Cukier (interviewed here)
From Computational Complexity
Special Issue of TOC in honor of Rajeev Motwani
(Guest post by Samir Khuller, Sudipto Guha, Laci Babai)
Special Issue of the journal
Theory of Computing
in honor of Rajeev Motwani (1962 - 2009)
Submit contributions by July 30, 2010.
Submissions in all areas of…From The Eponymous Pickle
Addressing Writers Block
IBM was one of the first companies to actively encourage their employees to blog. As a way to accumulate knowledge and make social network connections in and outside the company. We examined their social networking methods.…
From BLOG@CACM
Has the Spam War Been Won?
A decade ago, e-mail spam was a severe problem. Now, e-mail spam is barely noticeable. After years of battles between spam filters and spammers creating new tricks to evade those filters, have the spammers lost?
From Schneier on Security
Crypto Implementation Failure
Look at this new AES-encrypted USB memory stick. You enter the key directly into the stick via the keypad, thereby bypassing any eavesdropping software on the computer.
The problem is that in order to get full 256-bit entropy…From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Newsletters for Computer Science Teachers
Maybe you are the sort who likes their news to come on paper. Or perhaps you just like your news in regularly scheduled chunks. Perhaps you like someone to do gathering and editing for you. Or perhaps you are looking for an online…
From Putting People First
Debunking the Idea of Digital Natives
The Economist questions whether it is really helpful to talk about a new generation of “digital natives” who have grown up with the internet. “Writing in the British Journal of Education Technology in 2008, a group of academics…
From CERIAS Blog
Cowed Through DNS
May 2010 will mark the 4th aniversary of our collective cowing by spammers, malware authors and botnet operators. In 2006, spammers squashed Blue Frog. They made the vendor of this service, Blue Security, into lepers, as everyone…