Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
April 2013
From The Eponymous Pickle
A Second Digital Economy
W Brian Arthur at PARC via the Santa Fe Institute , who worked with us in the 90s to look at consumer behavior complexity simulation. In a 65 minute video: Signalling the Second Digital Revolution " ... a Palo Alto Research…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Google's Changing View of Link Abuse
In Search Engine Watch: An instructive look at Google's changing view of link abuse. hat is, the use of links in a site that are sued to primarily influence Google's sorting algorithms, rather than primarily act as a clear…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Data Scientists
From the receont TDWI conference. A short video by Krish Krishnan on the need and nature of the data scientist. I agree in general, the data scientist includes three roles: A data analyst, a business analyst and a statistician…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Community Managers and Equity
In Word of Mouth Marketing Blog: A resource I have just started to cover, some good thoughts about being a content and community manager. Reminds me of conversations I had with (unofficial) brand equity managers in the enterprise…
From The Eponymous Pickle
User Interface and Launch
In UX Magazine: A real-life view of how a startup can be killed at launch by not paying attention to its user interface.
From Putting People First
Videos of breakout sessions at the recent Interaction13 conference in Toronto
The IxDA gathered in Toronto, Canada’s largest center for design, for its 6th annual conference. Here are the video records of the breakout talks that took place (grouped thematically). AGILE / LEAN Josh Seiden: A designer’s…
From Putting People First
Videos of keynotes and panel discussions at the recent Interaction13 conference in Toronto
The IxDA gathered in Toronto, Canada’s largest center for design, for its 6th annual conference. Here are the video records of the keynotes and panel discussions that took place. KEYNOTES Albert Shum: Connecting – emerging themes…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Sankey Diagrams for Balance Visualization
Though I had seen this form of visualization many times, I had never heard it called the Sankey Diagram. Often used for energy and resource balances. Recall Charles Minard's map of the diminishing soldiers in Napoleon's Russian…
From Putting People First
Communicating sustainability: lessons from public health
Experts in public health have struggled with enabling behaviour change for years. The sustainability sector should learn what it can from their experiences, writes Steven Johnson in The Guardian. “Consumer behaviour change is…
From Putting People First
Two recent articles from UX Magazine
Killed at Launch: A complete disregard for user experience leads to drastic action by Pete MacKie A failure to account for UX results in an e-commerce being pulled offline shortly after launch. POP UX! Clued Into Curiosity by…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Disruptive Innovation
Useful thoughts on the topic in a short post. And the start of a conversation: " ... What are the secrets of companies that manage to bring disruptive innovation to market? I often argue that you cannot plan for disruptive…
From Wild WebMink
Speaking At OSCON
I’ve received confirmation this week that my talk for OSCON 2013 – entitled “Can Evil Corporations Embrace Open Source?” – has been accepted. See you there!
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Zeno Proof Paradox
Another discussion of paradoxes src Zeno of Elea was a Greek philosopher who lived almost 2400 years ago. He is famous for the creation of paradoxes at the juncture of mathematics and the real world. Today Ken and I want to talk…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Predicting Images in Dreams
In the Smithsonian Magazine. Apparently we can now predict to some degree what people are seeing with a combination of fMRI and EEG sensors. I observed a number of fMRI sessions that sought to determine consumer reactions to…
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Nighttime Squid Fishing Seen from Space
Page 18 of this thesis explains that squid fishing is done at night, and the lighting is so bright shows up in the satellite surveys of planetary lighting. This video shows the phenomenon off the coast line of Argentina.
As…From Schneier on Security
Apple's iMessage Encryption Seems to Be Pretty Good
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency has complained (in a classified report, not publicly) that Apple's iMessage end-to-end encryption scheme can't be broken. On the one hand, I'm not surprised; end-to-end encryption of a messaging…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Data Visualization and Story Telling
Gib Bassett sends along a link to an article compiled by Erica Driver. Data Visualization: Storytelling, Skills and Utility. Just this topic came up in a recent client discussion. Storytelling is a form of direction and persuasion…
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
The Best Posts of All Time
I love how much easier it is to see statistics on blog post views with the most recent Blogger redesign. While these (probably?) don't account for views by RSS subscribers, it has been fascinating seeing which posts are theended…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Social Wicked Problems
An interesting technical look at the application of 'wicked problem' techniques to social problems. We used the term to indicated difficult to formalize and solve problems of many kinds. Even this abstract is too convoluted…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Supercomputers are Sustainable
Last week, there were great advancements in Supercomputing as two new facilities were officially opened to the research community. This week, supercomputers are making headlines for a totally different reason: The National Center…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Thoughts on Bring Your Own Device to School
I seldom pay attention to the cars that students drive to school. I’m not that interested. Their technology on he other hand does interest me. I see all manner of smart phones for example. iPhones are not uncommon for example…
From Wild WebMink
Nokia Attacks
I remain bemused by Nokia’s attack on the prospects of the VP8 video format becoming an open standard. I can’t see what they & their shareholders get as a benefit, but I can see the harm it does to Nokia in the eyes of pretty…
From Schneier on Security
Skein Collision Competition
Xkcd had a Skein collision competition. The contest is over -- Carnegie Mellon University won, with 384 (out of 1024) mismatched bits -- but it's explained here.
From Putting People First
Free resources provided by the Interaction Design Foundation
A few days ago, I reported on the news that SAP has become the first major sponsor of the Interaction Design Foundation (IDF). Today, Rikke Friis Dam, Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief of the The Interaction Design Foundation, provides…
From The Eponymous Pickle
How P&G Presents Data to Decision Makers
In the HBR: This effort started long ago as a method to deliver data and models to executives, and has evolved much more broadly for many employees. And has finally resulted in what they call the Business Sphere. Note also…
From My Biased Coin
Upcoming Events
I've been asked to post for some upcoming events. The Simons Institute will have a multi-day symposium on Visions of the Theory of Computing May 29-31, just before STOC. Looks like a lot of big-name speaker. More info here.…
From The Eponymous Pickle
On Collaboration for Reliable Data
Very true: In the end it is all about the decision processes themselves, equally important to the correctness of the data that drives them. Collaboration drives that correctness:" .. Business competitiveness and agility are…
From The Eponymous Pickle
What Designers Need to Know About Strategy
Good general advice: I think there is more 'magic' in design driven organizations, thus strategy is even more important than in engineering/quant driven. Good book excerpt. " ... If you’re going to run a design-led business…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
She++ Is a Winner
Yesterday evening, I saw She++, one of the most amazing documentary videos. Two of my students, Ellora Israni and Ayna Agarwal, produced this documentary on young women and CS/IT. They obviously got a good deal of professional…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Disappearing Messages
In MIT Technology Review: The increasing use of messages that will expire, self destruct and just go away. When I first saw evidence, I wondered how much consumer research had been done on how such techniques could be used…