Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
April 2010
From Wild WebMink
? Strategic Errors
Eight Strategic Mistakes with Memberships Very interesting list of advice that relates to two different activities in which I’m participating. (tags: Volunteer Membership Strategy)
Duncan Blasts “Useless” Air Marshal Service…From The Eponymous Pickle
Knowledge Creating Company
Of interest: The Knowledge-Creating Company (Harvard Business Review Classics) (Paperback)by Ikujiro Nonaka
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Is Computer Science Too Big For One Degree
For a number of years I have been on an industry advisory for the computer science & engineering department at Taylor University. In one of my early discussions, back 7-8 years ago now, I remember asking if it was really possible…
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Another Squid T-Shirt
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
Government Agencies Release Open Government Plans
On Wednesday several federal agencies released open government plans, which is a requirement of the Open Government Directive issued late last year by the Obama Administration. The affected agencies can be found at the Open…
From Schneier on Security
Me in CRN
CRN Magazine named me as one of its security superstars of 2010.
From Schneier on Security
Schneier on "Security, Privacy, and the Generation Gap"
Last month at the RSA Conference, I gave a talk titled "Security, Privacy, and the Generation Gap." It was pretty good, but it was the first time I gave that talk in front of a large audience -- and its newness showed.
Last…From The Eponymous Pickle
Wearable Brain Analyzer
Hitachi is launching what looks to be an easily wearable and portable Encephalograph recorder. Very pricy but interesting. ' ... The new encephalometer was developed based on the "optical topography method (NIRS: near infrared…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Knoesis at Wright State
Kno.e.sis: Brought to my attention, I will be attending their formal launch on Monday and report back. See also their current news. ' ... Our cutting-edge research in the use of semantic and services science for data integration…
From Computational Complexity
What Makes a Lecture "Distiguished"?
In January I gave a Distinguished Lecture in the CS Department at the University of Alberta. In early March I gave essentially the same lecture at Penn State in their regular CSE colloquium. What's the difference?One is audience…
From My Biased Coin
More on Authorship
My last post, on what I called "60-40" papers, where one author does non-trivially more of the work than the other(s), seems to have generated some interesting comments, worth following up on. There seem to be multiple issues…
From Wild WebMink
? DNA and BPI
Court Rules that DNA Is Information, Not Intellectual Property While this is fantastic and much-needed news, it will take a Supreme Court decision to truly address the abuse of patent and copyright laws to prevent innovative …
From Schneier on Security
The Economics of Dueling
Dueling has a rational economic basis.
From Wild WebMink
? Calling IBM To Account Is Not Judging
IBM's case against TurboHercules is not the issue; their mistake using pledged patents is.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Winning at the Shelf
Webinar from Quofore on April 13, 2010 at 11AM EST: More information and registration.-
From The Noisy Channel
Fernanda Vi
This just in: Fernanda Vi
From Computer Science Teachers Association
"Training" Should Be a Four-Letter Word
"We need to train more teachers."
"Teachers need more training in order to be successful at teaching computer science."
"More teacher training programs are needed."
Statements like these are common and reading a recent post…From Schneier on Security
Cryptanalysis of the DECT
New cryptanalysis of the proprietrary encryption algorithm used in the Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications (DECT) standard for cordless phones.
Abstract. The DECT Standard Cipher (DSC) is a proprietary 64-bit stream…From The Eponymous Pickle
Open Innovation Success Factors
Good piece on Open Innovation: ' ... an article that supports my own observations. The report is about a qualitative interview study on the state of implementation of open innovation in the world
From The Eponymous Pickle
Hidden Costs of Complexity in the Enterprise
Mark Montgomery of KYield discusses hidden costs of complexity in the enterprise.-
From Computational Complexity
Baseball violates the rules of mathematics!!
(Looking for a roomate for STOC. Check out this site..)
Baseball Season started this week. I want to point out that Baseball violates mathematics in two ways.
1) By the rules of the game Home Plate is a right triangle …From Wild WebMink
? When Reptiles Attack
What is the significance of IBM’s patent attack on the company behind the open source Hercules community? I believe it indicates a change in the balance of power inside IBM, one probably reflected in other large corporations,…
From Schneier on Security
The Effectiveness of Air Marshals
Air marshals are being arrested faster than air marshals are making arrests.
Actually, there have been many more arrests of Federal air marshals than that story reported, quite a few for felony offenses. In fact, more air marshals…From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Barriers and Strategies for K-12 Computer Science Teachers
An interesting new report from Anita Borg Institute, CSTA and the University of Arizona called
From BLOG@CACM
Connecting Computing Education Research to Practice
The SIGCSE 2010 keynotes by Sally Fincher and Carl Weiman suggest how we connect research to changing practice. It's complicated! It's enculturation.
From BLOG@CACM
Cleaving Computer Science Into New Degrees
Computer science is becoming too broad to fit under the tyranny of a single bachelors degree. Cleaving the BS in CS into new degrees is a natural growth path.
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Books Worth Reading
Some books I've read recently have a lot of applicability to education in general and computer science education in specific. So I thought I'd share...
The Mathematician's Lament by Paul Lockhart talks about how to fix the …From The Noisy Channel
Go TunkRank!
I haven’t talked much about TunkRank in the past months, largely because Jason Adams, who stepped up to the TunkRank Implementation Challenge last year, has been leading the charge. Indeed, all I did, beyond lending my first …
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
Court Ruling Will Stall FCC
Yesterday a federal appeals court ruled in a case involving the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) efforts to sanction Comcast for violating the FCC's net neutrality rules. The court decided in favor of Comcast. While…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Are there too many Ph.D.
Would you accept work designing mass destruction weapons?