Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
June 2010
From Computational Complexity
Sims Complexity
I called home last night and my daughter Molly had an exciting story to tell. She was at her friend Danielle's house (the same Molly and Danielle from the video) and playing the Sims, a computer role-playing game. One of the…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Academic publishing is archaic
Technological progress tends to increase the available information. Thus, our capacity to manage this information becomes overloaded (hence the term information overload). As Clay Shirky explained: it is not so much an information…
From Schneier on Security
The "Quake" Simulation and Risk Perception
Read this.
From Wild WebMink
links for 2010-06-10
Copyright: The Elephant in the Middle of the Glee Club Well worth reading this article. The TV programme 'Glee' features a singing club as the backdrop for a situational drama. Despite the fact that the music industry would sue…
From Schneier on Security
Hiring Hackers
Any essay on hiring hackers quickly gets bogged down in definitions. What is a hacker, and how is he different from a cracker? I have my own definitions, but I'd rather define the issue more specifically: Would you hire someone…
From My Biased Coin
Branding Your Research (and Yourself)
In honor of being at EC, a post on branding. In theory, your research will be judged and appreciated based on its intrinsic quality, and your scientific reputation will follow accordingly. In practice, unsurprisingly, branding…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Second Life Downsizes
Second Life, the well known virtual world that attracted large investments in time and money from companies like IBM, Kraft and Circuit City, announced a 30% downsizing. In addition they plan to make major changes in their interface…
From My Biased Coin
EC Day 1
EC is an interesting mix of theory/AI/economics and many other things as well (data mining, social computing, user interfaces....) Definitely a bit of a hodgepodge, but interesting in its variety. If you don't look at the titles…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Kraft, Procter and J&J Talk Marketing
Great article fronm CGT overviewing the Marketing Summit this week: " ... Kraft, P&G, J&J Unite to Share Sales & Marketing Insights June 9, 2010 - More than 200 consumer goods executives convened yesterday for the kickoff of…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Technology is Not a Replacement for Face-to-Face Instruction
A couple of days ago, the Chronicle of Higher Education had an interesting article about Salman Khan, a fellow who quit his job as a financial analyst to start creating curricular materials on the web in various K-12 areas. (See…
From Schneier on Security
DARPA Research into Clean-Slate Network Security Redesign
This looks like a good research direction:
Is it possible that given a clean slate and likely millions of dollars, engineers could come up with the ultimate in secure network technology? The scientists at the Defense Advanced…From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Projects That Mean Something
Very often is seems as though teacher tend to assign projects that mean little if anything to any one. It is as if we feel that learning is medicine that only works if it tastes bad. If students enjoy a book does that mean it…
From Putting People First
Positive user experiences at Google
From The Eponymous Pickle
New Media Actionable? A Good Idea.
Some useful ideas in really undertanding new media. Although I thought we always did this, I do have examples where it did not work out that way. ' ... While the Internet and social media are a potential boon to market researchers…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Models of the Imagination
Some implications for advertising? Mindhacks on the power of fictional plots and stories.Psychologist Paul Bloom considers why imaginary characters and fictional plots can have such a powerful emotional effect in a fantastic…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Clarity and Charity in Reviewing
On May 4 I posted a short message titled “Fratricide and the Ecology of Proposal Reviews.”
From Wild WebMink
? BCS Rebels Finally Get A Voice
Rajan Anketell, one of the signatories calling the BCS EGM, said in a broadcast e-mail: “You will already be aware of the EGM call, of which I am a signatory. You will also be aware of all propaganda (much of it inaccurate) put…
From Schneier on Security
Terrorists Placing Fake Bombs in Public Places
Supposedly, the latest terrorist tactic is to place fake bombs -- suspicious looking bags, backpacks, boxes, and coolers -- in public places in an effort to paralyze the city and probe our defenses. The article is unclear about…
From The Noisy Channel
Why Can
Prediction markets were all the rage a few years ago, two of the most notable being the Iowa Electronic Market forecasting electoral results and the now defunct Tradesports offering a similar platform for betting on sports events…
From Wild WebMink
? BCS Leadership Targets Member Rights
On Monday I wrote about the crisis facing the British Computer Society (BCS) as its current leadership tries to jettison the old name. I found out about the move in an expensively-produced glossy mailing I received on the subject…
From Putting People First
Handbook of Global User Research
From The Eponymous Pickle
Unilever Strikes iAD Deal with Apple
Apple plans to start it's iAD on July 1:" ... a little over one week after iOS 4 becomes available to the general public. The iOS 4 update allows developers to incorporate the service into their applications using the API that…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Inspiration
Earlier this week Microsoft announced the winners of the 2010 Windows Phone 7 "Rockstar" Award. Two high school students from the Advanced Technologies Academy in Nevada won it. Now this is pretty impressive as most of the 131…
From Putting People First
Design Everything, a futures conference
From Putting People First
A sense of place, a world of Augmented Reality
From Putting People First
From industrial design to user experience
From Putting People First
Rapid prototyping at UNICEF
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
GRAND Research Network
Last week, I attended the first GRAND Annual Conference. I didn't really know what GRAND (Graphics, Animation, New Media) was, but I knew my supervisor was a network investigator on a few of its projects. I'm really glad IGRAND…
From Schneier on Security
Fear in a Political Ad
Carly Fiorina wants to scare Californians into voting for her.
Yes, terrorists kill -- about as often as home appliances.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Posing New Tools for Big Data
From Dataspora. Insightful post, starting to see increasing examples of this. Lots of good thoughts in this detailed piece: ' ... In my previous post , I discussed the forces behind what I