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 The Computing Community Consortium Blog
A Report from the Visions and Grand Challenges Conferences
Your faithful correspondent recently attended the paired ACM-BCS Visions of Computer Science 2010 and UKCRC Grand Challenges conferences at Edinburgh University.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Hyper Realism
Intriguing Wired report on a new faster graphics methodology that directly utilizes voxels, the 3D equivalent of pixels. Look forward to the possibilities for their applications in understanding complex data.
From Putting People First
April 2010 issue of Boxes and Arrows
The April issue of Boxes and Arrows is recommended reading: Designing for social interaction – strong, weak and temporary ties by Paul Adams, senior UX researcher, Google Our social web tools must start to understand the strength…
From Wild WebMink
links for 2010-04-22
WhiteHouse.gov Releases Open Source Code Delighted to see Obama's White House releasing their work as open source – way to go. (tags: Obama OpenSource FOSS USA Drupal)
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
US Imagine Cup Finals This Weekend
Today I have a presentation to give around mid-day and then I go home to pack for a trip to Washington DC for the US finals of the Imagine Cup. Ironically last year
From Schneier on Security
NIST on Protecting Personally Identifiable Information
Just published: Special Publication (SP) 800-122, "Guide to Protecting the Confidentiality of Personally Identifiable Information (PII)."
It's 60 pages long; I haven't read it.
From Computational Complexity
P and NP: A Short Movie
From The Eponymous Pickle
Visa to Buy Cybersource
In StorefrontBacktalk: Visa buys more than a security company for 2 billion. Comments on its being more than just a security company play. See also Cybersource's press release, which positions the purchase as speeding up eCommerce…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Total Engagement via Games
Although published late last year, this book was recently brought to my attention: Total Engagement: Using Games and Virtual Worlds to Change the Way People Work and Businesses Compete by Byron Reeves and J. Leighton. The book's…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Do Your Knowledge Workers Have a Bitsmith?
In HBR: The concept of a bitsmith for knowledge workers. An area of particular interest to me of late: " ... Along with my colleagues Jeff Hesse and Terry Holliday, I have been trying to understand what makes some teams of knowledge…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Ensuring Clean, Consistent Data
A TDWI / SAS Paper on ensuring clean, consistent data. I have just been involved in a project where this could have saved us much money and time. Read it.
From Schneier on Security
Security Fog
An odd burglary prevention tool:
If a burglar breaks in, the system floods the business with a dense fog similar to what's used in theaters and nightclubs. An intense strobe light blinds and disorients the crook.[..]
Mazrouei…From Computer Science Teachers Association
Dealing with Competance Issues
Engaging every student in computer science is a goal we all share. We label it diversity and know it is critical to a balanced industry and a competitive country. We've all struggled with encouraging students to try our courses…
From Computational Complexity
Is there a pangramic palindrome?
Pangrams are sentences that contain every letter of the alphabet. The classic is
The quick brown fox jumped over a lazy dog.There are more here. Palindromes are words, phrases, sentences, or even longer that are thehere…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Seeking the Brain's True Capacity
A short article in New Scientist. In computing we have precise measures of how much storage exists. In the brain, neither the method of storage nor how much room the brain has is clear. People who learn to recite very long…
From Wild WebMink
links for 2010-04-21
Tech companies fear implications of trade pact It's good to see press coverage starting to appear about ACTA – hopefully the release of the current draft today will get more comment flowing. The article notably only includes …
From Schneier on Security
Personal Code Ink
Remember SmartWater: liquid imbued with a uniquely identifiable DNA-style code? Well, Mont Blanc is selling a pen with uniquely identifiable ink.
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
New Silverlight 4 Training Kit Available
Microsoft has just released a new free Silverlight 4 Training Kit that walks you through building business applications with Silverlight 4. You can also download the entire offline version of the kit here. You can use theThe…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Tell me What I Should be Researching!
I want to run a short crowdsourcing experiment: can the web give me better research directions? Or maybe good research directions for students, or readers of this blog? I am curious. There are many smart people reading this blog…
From Putting People First
The Screen and the Drum
The latest issue of Design and Culture contains an article by Louise Crewe, Nicky Gregson and Alan Metcalfe on
From The Eponymous Pickle
The Brain Lies Also
Very good video of a talk by Neuroeconomics researcher Drazen Prelec at MIT. ' ... A pioneer in a
From The Eponymous Pickle
The Arrow of Time
Ever wonder what the meaning of time is? A wonderful set of Ted lectures by Sean Carroll on the arrow of time. Mind-bending. Via Delaine Hampton.-
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
The Intersection of Education and Entertainment
How many times have you heard a teacher say something like
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
The mythical reproducibility of science
David Donoho was among the first researchers to promote reproducible research through software publication
From Schneier on Security
Young People, Privacy, and the Internet
There's a lot out there on this topic. I've already linked to danah boyd's excellent SXSW talk (and her work in general), my essay on privacy and control, and my talk -- "Security, Privacy, and the Generation Gap" -- which I've…
From My Biased Coin
Advisors and Publications
There have been several interesting comments regarding the student/advisor relationship on my previous posts (here, here, and here) on co-authorship. It's clearly an issue that stirs up strong feelings in many, with severalone…
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
Not All Women's Groups Are Harmful
After reading Hilary Mason's Stop talking, start coding article, I was thinking about writing a reaction. It slipped my mind until Terri Oda wrote her piece Women in computing groups considered harmful? She gave me the opportunity…
From Wild WebMink
links for 2010-04-20
Women to blame for earthquakes, says Iran cleric If you are in any doubt about the size of the cultural gulf that separates societies on this planet, read and weep. By the metric of this cleric, the road outside my study (where…
From Computational Complexity
Life without Flying
A reminder that registration for all three Cambridge conferences are now live: STOC (early registration deadline April 30), Complexity (May 3) and Electronic Commerce (May 6). The week of June 6th should be quite exciting and…
From Schneier on Security
The Effectiveness of Political Assassinations
This is an excellent read:
I wouldn't have believed you if you'd told me 20 years ago that America would someday be routinely firing missiles into countries it