Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
March 2013
From The Eponymous Pickle
Natural Gas and Commercial Trucking
An area I investigated several years ago. MJ Perry examines. While natural gas is now considerably cheaper and more energy efficient than gasoline today, commercial fleets have not been overhauled to use natural gas. Nor…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Analytics Newsletter
Always good Analytics Newsletter. Latest issue. Lots of directly useful topics. Tied directly to the modern issues of data, decisions and results. Subscribe to it if you do any kind of analytics work.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Solving Big Data Problems with Visualization
A SAS paper, which requires some registration. I believe you should always build a sandbox for relevant visualization when doing analytics on a data set. Let people that understand the business origins and uses of the data…
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
Reforming the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act this Congress?
During last Wednesday’s hearing on “Investigating and Prosecuting 21st Century Cyber Threats,” the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security and Investigations explored whether Congress should change…
From Putting People First
Sustainable living and behavioural change
A Unilever sponsored sustainability supplement to The Guardian contains a short articles by Dan Lockton that is worth exploring. Design for sustainability: making green behaviour easy describes how design can enable sustainable…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Decision Rooms
Your company needs a decision room. To help create change and foster innovation. Click on the labels below to see some of Procter & Gamble's work in this area." ... Companies may be able to encourage innovation and big-picture…
From Schneier on Security
Text Message Retention Policies
The FBI wants cell phone carriers to store SMS messages for a long time, enabling them to conduct surveillance backwards in time. Nothing new there -- data retention laws are being debated in many countries around the worldthis…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Managing Supply Chain Risks
And the dangers of an opaque supply chain. And how this increases in a complicated world. And how this relates to the recent horsemeat scandal. " ... Two companies taking novel approaches to monitoring their supply chains…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Nielsen Tracking
In Adage: How Nielsen tracks almost everything, with some mini case studies of how it works. Instructive.
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
Story Graph Example Inspired by The Paper Bag Princess
Without giving too much away, I wanted to share an early example of the types of story graphs I'm working on for my thesis. This was my first example, and it's inspired by Robert Munsch's Paper Bag Princess.Without even telling…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
NSF Launches Search Committee for Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Division Director
The following was submitted by Farnam Jahanian, NSF Assistant Director for CISE. Dear Colleagues, The National Science Foundation CISE Directorate is pleased to announce the formation of a search committee for the Director of…
From Computational Complexity
The Slot Machine Theory of Paper Submissions
Why do scientists publish so much? There is the whole "publish or perish" thing but that doesn't explain the large increase in quantity of publications. With a focus on important publications and measures like H-indices, a simple…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Cheap Data Visualization
There are lot of possibilities here. This slideshow outlines them. I also see that Tableau 8 is out today, plan to look at that excellent package for interactive data visualization. They have a free form calledTableau Public…
From Wild WebMink
Leveson Collateral Damage
I just sent this to my MP. Feel free to borrow from it. Dear $MP, I’m one of your constituents ($postcode), as well as being a pro bono director of Open Rights Group and a writer on digital rights issues. I am extremely concerned…
From Schneier on Security
When Technology Overtakes Security
A core, not side, effect of technology is its ability to magnify power and multiply force -- for both attackers and defenders. One side creates ceramic handguns, laser-guided missiles, and new-identity theft techniques, while…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Math, Physics, Art and the Spirograph
When I was a kid there were a number of spirograph toys available. Some, like the ones available today, had gears and circles with sprockets. One very old toy that belonged to some people my father knew also incorporated moving…
From The Eponymous Pickle
The Future of MOOC U
In the Pennsylvania Gazette, an excellent and detailed article on Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs). My undergraduate alma mater, The University of Pennsylvania, is a big player in the Coursera online system, with a number…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Consumer Cloud for Mobile Health Data
A not unexpected development. Standards will lead to the application of analytics:WebMD, Qualcomm build consumer cloud for mobile health dataWebMD is also building a physician, patient web portalComputerworld - WebMD and Qualcomm…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Urban Mobility Innovation
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
Upcoming Event – ACM Turing Award Recipient Dr. Vint Cerf on “Reinventing the Internet”
ACM Turing Award Recipient Dr. Vint Cerf on “Reinventing the Internet” Monday, May 13, 2013, 6:30 pm Google DC 1101 New York Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20005 Sponsored by: ACM Washington D.C. Chapter Registration is free and…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Robotics Roadmap 2.0 on the Hill
The Congressional Robotics Caucus held a briefing this morning on the Robotics Roadmap 2.0(PDF), a follow up report to the CCC-led Robotics Roadmap(PDF) published in 2009. Click here to view the CRA Policy Blog summary of the…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Revenue Management with Negotiation
University of Cincinnati's research seminars organized by the Operations, Business Analytics, and Information Systems (OBAIS) department at the Carl H. Lindner College of Business. Please reply to [email protected] The OBAIS…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Call for White Papers on Mid-Scale Infrastructure Investments for Computing Research
The Computing Community Consortium is seeking community input to better understand the potential needs and payoff for additional investments in mid-scale infrastructure for computing research. NSF spends significantly less on…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Using the Code.org Video for Grassroots Advocacy
The code.org video has started a lot of conversations, but it takes you to bring that conversation home to your school district. Here is a 5-minute advocacy idea.
Write an email to the superintendent of your school district…From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
The Thousand Percent Solution
Boeing Dreamliner’s battery of problems Ray LaHood was until recently the top FAA administrator, the head of the U.S. agency that oversees air safety for the United States. He said at a meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors…
From Putting People First
Book: A History of Future Cities
A History of Future Cities by Daniel Brook W. W. Norton & Company 2013 – 480 pages [Amazon link] The new book A History of Future Cities looks at the attempts of places like Dubai, Shanghai, and Mumbai to create Western-looking…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Collaborative Next Gen Analytics
A Webex recorded seminar by Robin Bloor in the Briefing Room. Good overview of the topic. Requires some registration. " ... Experienced analysts know there is no single platform that can handle all types of analytic processing…
From Schneier on Security
Lessons From the FBI's Insider Threat Program
This article is worth reading. One bit:
For a time the FBI put its back into coming up with predictive analytics to help predict insider behavior prior to malicious activity. Rather than coming up with a powerful tool to stop…From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Imagine Cup Kodu Challenge 2013
I wasn’t sure if this sort of event would happen again but it has. I saw the announcement yesterday. If you have students looking for a challenge and they are aged nine through 18 this may be just the thing to get their creative…
From Wild WebMink
Demand A Proper Consultation
The UK’s Home Office continues to push for maximum surveillance powers with minimum accountability in the latest adjustments to the Communications Data Bill. I decided to find out just how much consultation with non-corporates…