Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
May 2010
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
Scratch and Eighth Graders
I finished teaching the third round of my mini-course on Friday, and was so exhausted (in a good way) that I accidentally fell asleep at 9pm.This year, I tried Scratch as a platform for making our game projects instead of Game…
From Wild WebMink
? Changes, Personal and
For me it has been a week full of change and energy on every level.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Writing an IPhone App
Good first advice before writing a smart Phone App.
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: The Colossal Squid isn't a Vicious Predator
New research shows that, even though it's 15 meters long, it's not the kraken of myth:
Its large size and predatory nature fuelled the ancient myth of the underwater "kraken" seamonster and modern speculation that the colossal…From Schneier on Security
I Was Named as One of the Top 10 Science and Technology Writers
Someone named me as one of the top 10 science and technology writers of all time. Flattering though it is, I don't think I belong in the company of Einstein, Newton, Darwin, and Asimov.
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Point Them in a Direction and Get Out of the Way
I’ve heard Bill Gates talk a number of times about how influential his middle school experiences with computers were in his life. (You can hear him talk about it a bit from his recent visit to the Science Leadership Academy in…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Young and Affluent Moving to Private Label
In MediaPost, Nielsen shows data that the young and affluent are moving towards increasingly better and more readily available private label offerings.
From My Biased Coin
Aldous/Diaconis: Longest Increasing Subsequences
For some research I'm currently doing, I ran across a truly wonderful "old" paper,Longest increasing subsequences: from patience sorting to the Baik-Deift-Johansson theoremby Aldous and Diaconis, which appeared in the Bulletin…
From Computational Complexity
Is Complexity Math or Science?
In March David Pennock promoted Computer Science as STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) a takeoff on STEM. There are aspects of computer science that fit all five of these areas. But how about theoretical…
From Wild WebMink
links for 2010-05-07
Investing And Asperger's Andrew Sullivan points to a fascinating article on Asperger's. The role of Asperger's Syndrome in the technology industry is reasonably obvious to many of us, but is rarely mentioned directly. The role…
From Schneier on Security
Cory Doctorow Gets Phished
It can happen to anyone:
Here
From The Eponymous PickleThe Details of URLs
Have you noticed how much longer URLs have been getting? Its been a trend that has been going on for years. Have you wondered what all those things in URL mean, beyond just a simple address? A very good article in Skorks…
From The Eponymous PickleText Analytics
Good non technical overview of text analytics, often called unstructured data, text is not of course unstructured, but has the complex structure of language. That complex structure can get in the way of analyzing it.
From The Eponymous PickleEmotional Design
Correspondent Mark Capper on What is emotional design?. Relates to other non conscious elements of emotion.
From The Eponymous PickleKraft and Coke Move to IVend
Kraft and Coke showcases touch screen vending machines. It is suggested that their machine design comes from the IPhone. Not sure I buy that
From Computer Science Teachers AssociationWhat is Computer Science: Undergrad Perspective for High School Students
I get the pleasure of teaching a service-learning based course at the university each semester. Within this course, undergraduate students are trained to conduct educational programs that fit the mission of our outreach program…
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACMACM Washington Update, Vol. 14.3 (May 6, 2010)
CONTENTS
[1] Newsletter Highlights [2] Competes Act Reauthorization Gets Rolling [3] Open Government Plans Released and Guidance Issued on Social Networking [4] FCC Broadband Plan Stalled by Court Case [5] Draft Internet Privacy…
From Schneier on SecurityWiFi Cracking Kits
WiFi cracking kits are being sold in China.
From My Biased CoinPoll : Conference Acceptances
Consider your favorite conference(s). Do you think they're accepting too many papers, too few, or just right? (With SIGCOMM decisions out, STOC/EC/CCC coming up, etc., it seems like a timely question to ask.) Keep in mind…
From Computational ComplexityCOLT and CCC no longer take papers in ...
The list of COLT papers are posted here.
Carl Smith claimed that COLT was made possible because of THREE strands of learning theory coming together to form a workshop and later a conference: (1) Inductive Inference (Computability…
From BLOG@CACMOn Social Networks, Political Campaigns and Threats
Brief discussion on how social networks are now the battlefield of political campaigns, death threats and more.
From The Eponymous PickleWriting a To-Do List
On the effective use of a to-do list, in Fast Company.
From The Eponymous PickleChrome is Still Here
I have been using the Google Chrome browser off and on since it has come out. Just recently I made it a standard book mark. It has improved consistently over the last year, and is worth look at and its share is continuing to…
From The Eponymous PickleArchiving Those Little Bits
Former P&Ger Kevin Roberts now Saatchi CEO on the Library of Congress Twitter archive. Via Richard James. Have written about this a few times, the permanent archive is another erosion of privacy, nit that this was not all out…
From Wild WebMinklinks for 2010-05-06
What Does Facebook Publish About You? Use this handy and simple web page to get a full list of the stuff Facebook is making public about you. (tags: Facebook Privacy SocialGraph) Cutting Libraries? Good (if slightly hyperbolic)…
From Schneier on SecurityNobody Encrypts their Phone Calls
From the Forbes blog:
In an annual report published Friday by the U.S. judicial system on the number of wiretaps it granted over the past year ..., the courts revealed that there were 2,376 wiretaps by law enforcement agencies…
From The Noisy ChannelTunkRank Scores Added to FluidDB
For those keeping track of TunkRank, I encourage you to check out FluidDB, which just added TunkRank scores to its feature set. That lets you do cool things like find out which users I follow have a TunkRank score over 40. You…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred ThompsonProgram me a story
I recently came across a blog post titled
From Putting People FirstFerrari F10 steering wheel is usability horror
Every year, Ferrari fields a team in the Formula One championship, and dumps around $400 million into developing and racing the car. So, says Cliff Kuang in Fast Company, you’d think that the steering wheel–perhaps the car’s…
From The Eponymous PickleGetting Rid of Paper Receipts
Why have we not rid ourselves of paper receipts? In Storefrontbacktalk.