Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
July 2011
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Sock Monkey and Michelle
Here is Sock Money with Michelle Hutton. After two years as CSTA President, Michelle is now moving into her new role as Past Chair. She will continue to sit on the Board and to advise new CSTA Board Chair Steve Cooper for the…
From The Eponymous Pickle
iPad University
USC tries to set up a complete University interface based on a tablet. I just saw the movie 'The Social Network', and apparently the players there just not think broadly enough.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Games for Training
In a continuing project that looks at training using game dynamics, I was reminded of the MS effort called Ribbon Hero, which aims to provide incentive to learn the complexity of Microsoft Office tasks. See also their FAQ here…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Social Computing and Cultural Modeling
In the July /August 2011 IEEE Intelligent Systems. Emphasises Social Computing and Cultural Modeling. Just reviewing. Not all of the content of this publication is available to non subscribers. Also unrelated in this issue…
From The Eponymous Pickle
P&G North American Planning Service Center
P&G Opens a new North American Planning Service Center in the Cincinnati area today. "The work involves planning the on-time delivery of millions of P&G products from factories to distributors to retailers, as well as forecasting…
From My Biased Coin
Beyond Worst Case Analysis -- Preparing a Talk
A few months ago, Tim Roughgarden mailed me to say was putting together a little workshop on the theme of Beyond Worst Case Analysis, and would I like to be one of the plenary speakers? It sounded like an interesting topic,workshop…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Describing Computing Research Challenges
In the past year, we’ve developed a set of brochures describing fundamental computing research challenges in a few areas of national priority, including healthcare, sustainability (spanning energy, transportation, and environment)…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
What does it mean?
Last week I had the chance to hear Douglas Rushkoff talk at the annual CSTA CS&IT Symposium. All of the conference attendees were also given a copy of his book Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age
From Wild WebMink
? Heading West To SFO
Heading West To SFO, a set on Flickr. A delightfully clear afternoon flying across Nevada to San Francisco allowed me to take some splendid photographs. Check out especially the shot of Half Dome and the colours of the salt pans…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
What the Internet wants me to read (summer 2011)
Last week, I asked on Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus what I should read over the summer. Here is a quick summary of the recommendations I got: On Twitter: A Beautiful Mind by @communicating War & Peace & War by @janmikkelsen…
From The Eponymous Pickle
An Overview of Business Intelligence (BI) Technology
In CACM: A very good definition and overview of BI. In my own conversations with executives and other decision makers, I have seen considerable confusion in this space. This article paints the picture well. I have linked…
From The Eponymous Pickle
What Does G+ Mean for Search Marketing?
Very detailed and interesting look at the apparent behind the scene motives for Google's jumping into Social. And this point, apparently successfully so ... " ... the way the launch of Google+ could end up enhancing the competitive…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Kyield and In Memory Databases
Mark Montgomery of KYield writes about HANA and KYield for better outcomes. (HANA is a high performance in-memory database product from SAP. )" ... Data Speed combined with Data Quality and Human Intelligence ... By partnering…
From Wild WebMink
? Pie Charts In The Plains
Pie Charts In The Plains, a set on Flickr. Flying from Chicago to San Francisco today I was struck by the fact that there were bar charts, pie charts and many more visible everywhere.
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
PCAST Discusses Future of Scientific Research
In a public session last Friday, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) spent time discussing the future of scientific research in the U.S. — hearing from
From The Eponymous Pickle
Computable Document Format
Wolfram Research announces a new document called the CDF. In an intriguing development the new document, is computable. I like the general idea. There were many times I would have liked to be able to automatically compute…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Free P&G Virtual Beauty App
This was something we explored a number of times, starting with CD Rom based delivery, then from the Web, then including in-mall camera kiosks. Has the time of virtual beauty applications finally become interesting with the…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Exploring Game Dynamics Talk
Gave a talk at Cincinnati Continuousweb last night to about 50 people. Thanks to all that attended. Nice assortment of startup and corporate types attended. The topic was Exploring Games Dynamics. Reviewed a dozen game style…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Google Killing Labs?
I have been impressed with what has come out of Google Labs. True that only 10% is useful to the average user, but that is not a bad percentage. And I am sure there are things we have not seen that actually have an ROI. This…
From Computational Complexity
Delay for a Postdoc
Suppose you have a tenure track offer at the University of Southern North Dakota and a postdoc offer at MIT. Tenure track jobs are hard to get so you want to accept the USND position but before you spend your life in Hoople you'd…
From Wild WebMink
links for 2011-07-21
From Schneier on Security
Is There a Hacking Epidemic?
Freakonomics asks: "Why has there been such a spike in hacking recently? Or is it merely a function of us paying closer attention and of institutions being more open about reporting security breaches?"
They posted five answers…From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Why are all programming languages in English?
Last week I was at the CSTA Computer Science & Information Technology conference in New York City. One of the great thing about events like this is the hallway conversations that just happen. When you get a lot of interesting…
From The Eponymous Pickle
A Replacement for Paper
Technology Review reports on a true replacement for paper. Very cheap and disposable too?
From The Eponymous Pickle
Practical Game Design
An overview of practical game design teaching at Drexel University. Not the kind of game I am particularly interested in, which is not so much the view ... but the useful process of the game, but it still makes some useful…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Food Private Label Continues Rise
Inevitable I think: From Food Processing:" ... The writing is on the wall
From The Eponymous Pickle
Affective Senses Emotion
We have followed some of the work on measuring emotion from facial expression, here from MIT spin off Affectiva. We tested their methods pioneered at the Media Lab in the early days to determine reaction to product packaging…
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
Story in Board Games: Betrayal at House on the Hill
Imagine finding yourself in the front foyer of what is probably a haunted mansion with a few of your closest friends. There's no way out, since the front door is locked (naturally). You begin to explore the house, discovering…
From Computational Complexity
Looking for people to review books for my column
I am looking for reviewers for the following books for my SIGACT NEWS book review column. I will try to edit this post to keep the list up to date; however, if you are reading this past July 28 then you should look at the this…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
A Who
A few weeks ago, we began highlighting a few of the 107 Computing Innovation Fellows (CIFellows) we’ve had the pleasure of funding.