Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
March 2015
From insideHPC
SC15 Seeking Nominations for Seymour Cray, Sidney Fernbach, and Ken Kennedy Awards
The SC15 conference is now now accepting nominations for the Seymour Cray, Sidney Fernbach, and Ken Kennedy Awards.
From insideHPC
Geophysicist Marianne Walck named VP of Sandia’s California laboratory
Today Sandia National Laboratories announced the appointment of Marianne Walck as vice president of Sandia’s California laboratory.
From insideHPC
Correct and Efficient Code – HYDRO2D
Simulation of physical processes such as the waves in an ocean or the wake behind a boat, although similar in a number of ways, require different approaches. With current systems designed with many parallel computational units…
From insideHPC
Palmetto Supercomputer Powers Genetics at Clemson
Researchers at Clemson University are using the Palmetto supercomputers to study biomass production and disease resistance. As one of the fastest supercomputers in Academia, the Palmetto2 cluster is an HP system with 12,080 compute…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Hear Every Voice in the Room
An IBM exec's key to innovation is the free flow of informationIT leaders often must navigate a range of personalities as they guide teams and advance projects, writes Phil Gilbert, the general manager of IBM Design. "[W]e focus…
From Putting People First
The Addiction Algorithm: An interview with Natasha Dow Schüll
Natasha Dow Schüll is a cultural anthropologist and associate professor of Science, Technology and Society at MIT. Her first book, Addiction by Design, examines technology design and addiction in the world of electronic gambling…
From Computational Complexity
Quotes with which I disagree
Often we hear pithy quotes by famous people but some just don't hold water. "Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes." Usually attributed to Edsger Dijkstra, the quote tries to capture…
From Schneier on Security
The Changing Economics of Surveillance
Cory Doctorow examines the changing economics of surveillance and what it means: The Stasi employed one snitch for every 50 or 60 people it watched. We can't be sure of the size of the entire Five Eyes global surveillance workforce…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Simplify Simplify Simplify
One of the things beginners do when learning how to program is to make things more complicated then they need to be. It’s a natural thing because they often don’t know the shortcuts. They may not know enough library routines …
From The Eponymous Pickle
Python as Language, for Beginners
In the CACM: A look at Python, a computer language now often used for analytics, and increasingly taught in schools. For a techno piece, quite thoughtful. Have always thought about the differences in expression between natural…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Machine Learning Advice From Practice
Via O'Reilly, a nice set of Machine Learning practice observations (not really hard rules). These are mostly technical, for data analytics practitioners. Some good thoughtful insight I had not heard of. From the blog: " ..…
From Schneier on Security
Equation Group Update
More information about the Equation Group, aka the NSA. Kaspersky Labs has published more information about the Equation Group -- that's the NSA -- and its sophisticated malware platform. Ars Technica article....
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
You’d have to be irrational to not celebrate Pi Day at NIH!
Due the advancement in computer science, π (Pi) has now been calculated to over one trillion digits past its decimal. Only 39 digits past the decimal are needed to accurately calculate the spherical volume of our entire universe…
From insideHPC
Dr. Steven Ashby Named Director of PNNL
Today Battelle announced the appointment of Dr. Steven Ashby as Laboratory Director for Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL).
From insideHPC
insideHPC to Livestream Keynotes from GPU Technology Conference Next Week
We are pleased to announce that insideHPC will be streaming live keynotes next week from the GPU Technology Conference in San Jose.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Innovation Using Restless Dissatisfaction
I like the statement, you should always be dissatisfied. And looking for solutions, or parts of solutions, that can be fitted together to lead to better results ... This blog is my statement of that search. Join me.Behind…
From The Eponymous Pickle
High vs Low Level Analytics
Some comments of interest by Vincent Granville: " ... Here I describe a case study: a solution based on high-level data science. By high level, I mean data science not done by statisticians, but by decision makers accessing,…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Tableau 9 Beta Rolling Out, with Analytics
Have been a long time user of Tableau visualization, brought it into the enterprise. I see they are about to roll out their latest Beta 9.0. To address some frequent criticism, they say they are including more data analytics…
From insideHPC
Job of the Week: HPC Applications Specialist at SMU in Dallas
Southern Methodist University in Dallas is seeking an HPC Applications Specialist in our Job of the Week.
From insideHPC
IBM Platform Computing – Ready to Run Clusters in the Cloud
Demands by users that are running applications in the scientific, technical, financial or research areas can easily outstrip the capabilities of in-house clusters of servers. IT departments have to anticipate compute and storage…
From insideHPC
Test Bed Systems Pave the Way for 150 Petaflop Summit Supercomputer
Oak Ridges is preparing for their upcoming Summit supercomputer with two modest test bed systems using Power8 processors. "Summit will deliver more than five times the computational performance of Titan’s 18,688 nodes, using …
From The Eponymous Pickle
Getting Control of the Digital Shelf
Straightforward steps to audit the presence of brands online. By Schawk. " ... To get your share of a rapidly expanding e-commerce market, you need to provide customers with an online experience that’s as true as possible to…
From Schneier on Security
Hardware Bit-Flipping Attack
The Project Zero team at Google has posted details of a new attack that targets a computer's' DRAM. It's called Rowhammer. Here's a good description: Here's how Rowhammer gets its name: In the Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM)…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
How to teach Computer Science to 5-14yr Olds – #CSK8 Twitter Chat
Join CSTA K-8 task force for #CSK8 chat on Mar 11 8pm EST. Pedagogy- ‘How to teach’ Computer Science to 5-14yr olds. Not the What or Why. Discuss pair programming, blended learning, structured vs unstructured approaches, online…
From Putting People First
From design thinking to ethnographic thinking
In the broader business world, writes social anthropologist Jay Hasbrouck, design thinking “is already a stale buzzword — a concept that spread widely as a panacea for dull and slow-moving corporate cultures.” “Some say it’s…
From The Eponymous Pickle
On Technological Evolution
By Marcus Olsson (Nokia/Microsoft, Helsinki Finland) Recording.Last week I gave a speech at Hannes Sjöblad’s “Singularity Evenings” at SUP46 (Startup People Stockholm). I recorded it and put it online. Unfortunately the videocamera…
From The Eponymous Pickle
New SAP Analytic Tools
Had not looked at SAP BI and analytics for some time, we were a well worn SAP shop, they now have new offerings worth a look.SAP brings new analytics tools to companies large and smallA bumper crop of new analytics tools hasCombining…
From insideHPC
Penguin Tundra Platform brings Open Compute Project to HPC
Today Penguin Computing gave customers a peek at the future of increased customization and choice in high performance computing at the Open Compute Project Summit.
From Schneier on Security
Can the NSA Break Microsoft's BitLocker?
The Intercept has a new story on the CIA's -- yes, the CIA, not the NSA -- efforts to break encryption. These are from the Snowden documents, and talk about a conference called the Trusted Computing Base Jamboree. There are some…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
NIH-led Effort Launches Big Data Portal for Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery
The National Institute of Health (NIH) is determined to reduce the cost and time it takes to discover viable therapeutic targets, which drive the changes in the molecular networks leading to the signs and symptoms of Alzheimer…