Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
June 2013
From BLOG@CACM
Representative Reviewing
What is good reviewing?
From The Eponymous Pickle
Feedly Replaces My Google Reader
In anticipation of Google's Reader RSS shut down in a couple of weeks I have moved to the free Feedly service. Both as an App and in Chrome. Works well, and for those that like tradition, it can be made to look exactly the…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
New Code.org Video Released
Code.Org has just released a new video promoting computer science that may be especially effective for creating broader public awareness among policy leaders and parents.
The video, Code - the new literacy is shorter than …From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Hashing and the Birthday paradox: a cautionary tale
If you meet a stranger, the probability that he will have the same birth date as yourself is probably less than 1%. It is roughly 1/365 if you make simplifying assumptions. The Birthday paradox is the observation that given a…
From Computational Complexity
Fraud or not ?
For each of these, are they frauds? The Turk was a chess playing ``computer'' (around 1770) that was later discovered to be cheating--- a human made the moves. As Ken Regan knows well, we now have the opposite problem- humans…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Consequence of EU Tightening Data Privacy Further
A good Adage Article on how the revelations of massive private data leaks could make the EU further tighten data privacy. What does this mean and and what are the consequences. Will this sequestering of the data end the domination…
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
Hill Tech Happenings, Week of June 17
June 18 Hearing: The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee will hold a hearing on the nominee to head the Federal Communications Commission, Thomas Wheeler. 2:30 p.m., 253 Russell Building June 19 Hearing: The…
From Schneier on Security
Project C-43: A Final Piece of Public-Key Cryptography History
This finally explains what John Ellis was talking about in "The Possibility of Non-Secret Encryption" when he dropped a tantalizing hint about wartime work at Bell Labs.
From The Eponymous Pickle
P&G Takes IT Work from India
Via my UK consultant, in the India Times. P&G aims to cut down outsourced IT work in India. A surprise which is making Indian vendors nervous.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Strategy's Tough Choices
Came late to my inbox. In the HBR's blog in late May. Former and current P&G's CEO AG Lafley on Strategy's Tough Choices. A video.
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Computing Community Consortium Announces New Council Members and Executive Committee
The Computing Research Association (CRA), in consultation with the National Science Foundation (NSF), has appointed five new members to the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Council: Daniela Rus, Massachusetts Institute of…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Fracturing of Corporate IT
In CIO Insight: Different and becoming more so. Not going away, as some say, standards and security still need to exist. But the nature of enterprise IT is changing quickly. Betting linking to business problems and decision…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Data Visualization Startup
First I had heard of this. A simple to use solution by former Facebook employees. Probably for everyday visual data solutions. See Polychart.
From Schneier on Security
Blowback from the NSA Surveillance
There's one piece of blowback that isn't being discussed -- aside from the fact that Snowden killed the chances of a liberal arts major getting a job at the DoD for a decade -- and that's how the massive NSA surveillance of the…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Interesting Links 17 June 2013
First Monday of “summer vacation” and my grading is done and have been submitted. You know what that means! Yep, working on my lesson plans for August. Two brand new courses to teach and I am determined to be ready for them.First…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Networked Things
A good overview of the current state of the network of things. Which points back to our own experiments with networked refrigerators, in that nexus of the modern home, the kitchen. A talk by Bill Joy inspired us to take closer…
From CERIAS Blog
Opticks and a Treatise on the PRISM Surveillance Program (Guest Blog)
By Mark Rasch† and Sophia Hannah‡
Last post, we wrote about the NSA‟s secret program to obtain and then analyze the telephone metadata relating to foreign espionage and terrorism by obtaining the telephone metadata relating to…From The Eponymous Pickle
Failure of Design Thinking
In Innovation Excellence: Interesting thoughts on the failure of design thinking. A little muddled, but I do think there must be a stronger combination of business, quantitative/analytic and design thinking to get to useful…
From The Eponymous Pickle
The Uncomfortable CEO
Former colleague José Ignacio Sordo Galarza has a new site: The Uncomfortable CEO. I will follow with more about his new book mentioned: " ... Exceptional CEOs approach work in a very consistent fashion: They are uncomfortable…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Happy Father’s Day
And the mother who gave it to us Sonora Dodd is widely credited with the creation of Father’s Day. The first one was organized by her in Spokane, Washington in 1910. The history of her struggle to make it an annual holiday is…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Deep Learning with Neural Nets
In CACM: Deep learning finally comes of age. Still a bit skeptical about what deep really means here. I need it it be useful. We used neural nets extensively to replace specific statistical methods in decision resolution…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Glass to Create Huge Data?
Via Gib Bassett: Will Glass make Big Data into Huge Data? Yes, definitely if it becomes popular, and something like it will, we will be collecting increasing amounts of data in many new contexts. Get ready for the analytics…
From CERIAS Blog
Schrodinger’s Catnip: A Review of the NSA Phone Surveillance Program (Guest Blog)
By Mark Rasch† and Sophia Hannah‡
The NSA programs to retrieve and analyze telephone metadata and internet communications and files (the former we will call the telephony program, the latter codenamed PRISM) are at one and the…From The Eponymous Pickle
Monetizing Mobile
In the midst if a mobile application. But the value will be in efficiency, connectivity and supporting decisions from anywhere. Not advertising dollars from consumers. So how do you measure the value? Something to consider…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
The Mathematics Of Dieting
Yes there are math issues in this activity William Banting may have created the first very popular diet. In 1863 he published the Letter on Corpulence, Addressed to the Public, which outlined the details of a particular low-carbohydrate…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
AP CS Principles Course Moves One Step Closer
This morning the College Board announced that the National Science Foundation has committed $5.2 million in funding to support the continued development of the Advanced Placement Computer Science Principles course with the goal…
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Sperm Consumption in the Southern Bottletail Squid
It's a novel behavior.
As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven't covered.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Brainwashed Review
In the WSJ: A balanced review of correspondent Sally Satel and Scott Lilienfeld's book: Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Neuroscience and Marketing
In Mediapost, Elissa Moses posts a good introduction about a number of non conscious methods and their use in marketing analysis. For a largely contrary critical view, see my note about Sally Satel's book: Brainwashed. I have…
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
Technical + Creative
It's amazing how many people fail to realize that computing can be a creative field. In fact, in many cases, it has to be! For example, it makes no sense for me to try to come up with completely abstract game stories to test…