Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
April 2015
From Schneier on Security
Cell Phone Opsec
Here's an article on making secret phone calls with cell phones. His step-by-step instructions for making a clandestine phone call are as follows: Analyze your daily movements, paying special attention to anchor points (basis…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Linkedin Killing the Traditional Resume?
Yes, recent studies show that the use of online CVs in Linkedin are becoming a requirement. But it is still too early to expect the end of the classic resume. I was asked this by a mentee recently: Should I even have a resume…
From Computational Complexity
Two cutoffs about Warings problem for cubes
Known:
From insideHPC
Video: Applications Performance Optimizations – Best Practices
"To achieve good scalability performance on the HPC scientific applications typically involves good understanding of the workload though performing profile analysis, and comparing behaviors of using different hardware which pinpoint…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
To College or Not To College?
One of the ongoing arguments in computer science is if a university degree or study is necessary in computer science. Basically I think it boils down to “do you need a college degree to be a good programmer.” Of course computer…
From Putting People First
Bosch uses UX approach to spark enthusiasm for electric driving
Bosch, the German multinational engineering and electronics company, is applying a UX approach to help spark enthusiasm for electric driving, and to develop a “fascinating” user interface for electric vehicles. The project website…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Evil abbreviations in programming languages
Programming language designers often abbreviate common function names. The benefits are sometimes dubious in an era where most programmers commonly use meaningful variable names like MyConnection or current_set as opposed to…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Google Wants You Online, All the Time
In Wired:Google's Business Only \ works when people are online. It doesn’t care how you get there. But Google has every incentive to make connecting to the internet as easy as possible. And now it’s looking at a few new waysBy…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Challenge and Opportunity of CPG Innovation
The CPG Innovation Challenge Is Really An OpportunityBy Jonathan Salem Baskin in Forbes:See also his book and more in his supporting blog." ... Consumers don’t want to have conversations with their toothpaste brands. ... That…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Commercializing Virtual Reality
The idea of integrated and interactive Augmented Reality has been around for some time. We looked at it for applications like machine maintenance. And interacting with complex data. What will it take to really commercialize…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
NSF CISE Distinguished Lecture – Multiple Antenna Wireless – An Enduring Frontier
The National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) is pleased to announce a Distinguished Lecture on Thursday, April 9, 2015 at 2:30 pm EST by Dr. Arogyaswami J. Paulraj…
From Geeking with Greg
Interview on early Amazon personalization and recommendations
From insideHPC
Open Compute Solutions
The Open Compute Project partners with leading CPU vendors such as Intel, AMD and ARM-based vendors to create reference designs that may be used by board and system vendors. These designs are bare-bones systems, with expansion…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Failed Personalization
Have been involved in a number of projects that were aimed at customizing response to consumers based on a technical segmentation or personalization. I agree that many of these attempts are poorly done. Look at some of my recent…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Why Procurement Matters
From Bain&Company, an article on procurement. A key cost component of any enterprise. A video:" ... Procurement is often a company's biggest cost item, accounting for as much as 80% of total costs in some industries. Companies…
From insideHPC
Video: Datacenter Computers – Modern Challenges in CPU Design
"Computers used as datacenter servers have usage patterns that differ substantially from those of desktop or laptop computers. We discuss four key differences in usage and their first-order implications for designing computers…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Rethinking EMail. Security and Communications
Correspondent Evan Schuman on rethinking EMail. It needs it, even when inside the enterprise I dealt with many outside people, and that led to lots of problems managing threads among people I corresponded with. Most of the…
From Schneier on Security
Bluetooth Doorlock
Neat, but I'll bet it can be hacked....
From insideHPC
Video: IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Center
In this video from the 2015 HPC Advisory Council Switzerland Conference, Branislav Jansík from the Technical University of Ostrava presents: IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Center. "Our mission is to deliver scientifically…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Interesting Links 6 April 2015
Happy Monday! I hope everyone had a great weekend. For me it was a three day weekend. One of the benefits of teaching at a Catholic school is having Good Friday off. I do worry that some students may think that is the reasondon…
From insideHPC
PRACE Days15 to Spotlight European Exascale Projects
The development of exascale computing in Europe will be on display at the upcoming PRACE Days conference to be held in Dublin, Ireland, in May.
The post PRACE Days15 to Spotlight European Exascale Projects appeared first on insideHPC…From The Eponymous Pickle
Deep Brain Stimulation for Memory
In Technology Review: Quite a considerable claim. Now figure out how this can be controlled and measured? " ... Work Begins on Brain Stimulator to Correct Memory ... Can deep brain stimulation affect how well and what we…
From insideHPC
Supercomputing Global Ocean Temperatures with ACME
Over at Live Science, Shannon Hall writes that new global map of the world's oceans is so visually stunning that it could be mistaken for art. Computed on LANL supercomputers, the simulation is a component of the DOE's Accelerated…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Comparing Analytic Methods
Good examination of jargon, in an often confusing space.Deep Learning vs Machine Learning vs Pattern Recognition by Tomasz Malisiewicz Lets take a close look at three related terms (Deep Learning vs Machine Learning vs Pattern…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Data Wrangling the Ecosystem
Nice part two CW article which lays out the existing ecosystem. Wrangling is a good word for it. This is nice to have because of the complexity of and number of players involved. Many enterprises are deeply embedded in particular…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Checkouts are Tougher
Than rocket science, the discussion says. OK, in a way. An area we monitored. The user has changed. It is a good example where the communications with and training of the shopper has become very important. Detailed, technical…
From insideHPC
Video: Software Tools for Intel Xeon Co-processors
In this video, Vadim Karpusenko from Colfax International describes the software tools for developing applications for Intel Xeon Phi coprocessors. The session begins with software that is necessary to boot coprocessors and to…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Design Using Games with Playful Dynamics
An approach we examined. (See Gamification link below for much more) Worth taking a close look at. Key is to define a readily usable evaluative measure. In InfoQ: " ... Etienne Mineur discusses creating playful dynamics,…
From insideHPC
Job of the Week: HPC Linux Systems Administrator at University of Vermont
The University of Vermont is seeking an HPC Linux Systems Administrator in our Job of the Week.
The post Job of the Week: HPC Linux Systems Administrator at University of Vermont appeared first on insideHPC.
From Wild WebMink
Blocking The Fields
Why mandating the impossible, even with the best of intentions, always leads to ruin if you follow through.