Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
May 2011
From The Eponymous Pickle
Sharing Data Corrupts Wisdom of Crowds
Some experiments are showing that sharing information makes a knowledge pool less diverse and leads to worse results. In a test we saw something similar, but we were looking for the influence of management or other known expert…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Time-saving versus work-inducing software
At a glance, office software like Word, PowerPoint or Excel, are great time savers. Nobody would want to go back to the era before Word Processors? Unfortunately, I believe that this same software bears part of the blame for…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
CS&IT and Summertime PD
The flowers are blooming (finally) here in Massachusetts so spring has indeed arrived, which means, summer is not too far away. Some of us think, can it get here fast enough? For most teachers, summertime is a time of rest, relaxation…
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
Hill Tech Happenings, Week of May 16
May 19 Meeting: The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology will meet. The meeting will be webcast. 9 a.m., Marriott Metro Center, 775 12th Street NW Hearing: The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Reading: Reality is Broken
I am doing some research in the area of 'gamification' and the use of games to solve serious work processes. That and some emerging project work has led me to start reading: Reality Is Broken: What Games Make Us Better and How…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Jeff Naughton
Jeff Naughton, a top database researcher from the University of Wisconsin – Madison, has made available a superb keynote that he gave at the 26th IEEE International Conference on Data Engineering.
From Computational Complexity
On demand Publishing (guest post)
Cambridge Press (and others) offers PRINT-ON-DEMAND for some books. This is a guest post by Lauren Cowles from Cambridge Books about this, and then my comments on her comments, and then her comments on my comments. We stop there…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Marginalia in the Digital World
It is not as easy as it once once. Yet is still exists. Good thoughts and software that can help. And in one sense isn't all of the Web and hyperlinks a form of marginalia? "... People are already using the margin of a book…
From The Eponymous Pickle
A Look at Edward Tufte
In the Washington Monthly, a good article on visualization guru Edward Tufte. " ... Edward Tufte occupies a revered and solitary place in the world of graphic design. Over the last three decades, he has become a kind of oracle…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Flying Robots Form Emergency Network
From IEEE Computer.Org a kind of mobile computer sourcing.
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Live Webcast: The U.S. Ignite Gigabit Applications Workshop
The
From Schneier on Security
The Inner Workings of an FBI Surveillance Device
This FBI surveillance device, designed to be attached to a car, has been taken apart and analyzed.
A recent ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirms that it's legal for law enforcement to secretly place a tracking…From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Interesting Posts 16 May 2011
Computer Science teacher Pat Yongpradit seems to be everywhere on the educational blogosphere lately. I posted about his 5-6 week XNA course curriculum last week. Vicki Davis (@coolcatteacher) posted an interview on her Cool…
From BLOG@CACM
Research Directions For Machine Learning and Algorithms
An in-depth discussion of near-term research directions for machine learning and algorithms.
From Wild WebMink
? Speaking at OSBC
If you’re at the Open Source Business Conference, OSBC, in San Francisco today and tomorrow, you have three opportunities to hear me speak (or three sessions to scrupulously avoid, depending on your taste). They are: Why You…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Zoomable Sky Survey
A very impressive zoomable sky survey. Will this mean that ultimately we will not care if the sky is hopelessly washed out by light? I hope not. " ... What do you see? This was the anthropic question of a year-long photographic…
From The Eponymous Pickle
McKinsey on Big Data and Analytics
Mark Montgomery of KYield sends this along, Yes, lots of interesting statistics. He writes: This needed to be done by someone and they did a good job -- comprehensive overview of big data and analytics by Mckinsey -- long,…
From The Noisy Channel
In Search Of Structure
A couple of weeks ago, I participated in a summit that Greylock Partners organized for its portfolio companies at LinkedIn to discuss the power of data. Invited participants represented some of the most interesting “big data”…
From Putting People First
UX Lx, a user experience conference in Lisbon
Jeroen van Geel and Vicky Teinaki report on Johnny Holland on UX Lx, the international user experience conference that took place in Lisbon, Portugal, May 11-13. Day One featuring Whitney Quesenbery, Leah Buley, Andrew Watterson…
From Putting People First
The kitchen-table industrialists
My favourite New York Times writer Anand Giridharadas delved into the topic of “making stuff” in this week’s Magazine. “The American romance with making actual things is going through a resurgence. In recent years, a nationwide…
From The Eponymous Pickle
E-Textbooks Flunk a Test?
In Nicholas Carr's Roughtype blog, a look at early experiments with e-textbooks. Does not look good, but again, with many adjustments, likely inevitable:" ... But schools may want to pause before jumping on the e-textbook bandwagon…
From Putting People First
Cognitive styles
UX designer Tyler Tate explores on Johnny Holland the attitudes, preferences and habitual strategies that determine how people process information. “We pour over analytics, conduct ethnographic studies, and interview users in…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Smartphone Shopping
I thought these numbers were high, and it is pointed out that those doing the survey have a vested interest in high results ... yet I still think this is where we are going.Two thirds of Moms shop with their smartphones. "In…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Brands and Startups
Former colleague Dave Knox posts about how brands can work with startups. " ... I see startups as the canary in the marketing coal mine
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Returning Data From A Second Form
The other day I received a query about using second forms in Visual Basic. I found a link to some examples and passed it along but it left me unsettled. The teacher in me did not find those examples explanatory enough. Sample…
From Wild WebMink
links for 2011-05-14
Conway's Game of Life in one line of APL This is a really good introduction to the mind-numbing complexity that is APL. It's not just the terse, obscure syntax; the way you need to think in order to use it is complex too. (tags…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Google Outage Implications
In ZDNet: The Google outage makes a case against a cloud only strategy. The outages, though rare, can be devastating to business. There has to be a clear strategy to get things started up again. This indicator shows that…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Simulating the Brain
In the SCiAm: Is simulating the brain too hard for science? Research from the Santa Fe Institute: " ... Supercomputers may soon approach the brain's power, but much is unknown about how it works ... "
From My Biased Coin
Back to Blogging
I've given my final, and have grades ready to submit. The semester is over! Over the summer I may do some blogging again, as I may have time for it. I was noticing that on my calendar, I now have empty days ahead, something…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Scaling MongoDB
I have been spending much time thinking about a future where document-oriented databases are the default. Though they have their problems, I think that they are far better suited for what most people want to do than relational…