Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
July 2014
From The Eponymous Pickle
Google Shopping Express and Retail Partnership Risk
Was unaware of this in particular, interesting points are made. " ... Whether it is Amazon or Google, the retailer who decides to partner with one of these services has to think long and hard about the impact on their relationship…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Creating User Journey Maps
Did not know there was so much process behind this, but here a Step by Step Guide to Creating User Journey Maps. Nice idea. " ... User journey mapping is one of the tools that UX pros use to find and address the weakest points…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
CS Principles Virtual Summit
Are you interested in the new CS Principals course that will be the new (additional) Advanced Placement Computer Science course? CSTA is helping to host a CS Principles Summit next week. While most of us can’t be there in person…
From Schneier on Security
This Leaked NSA Memo Will Restore Your Faith in Humanity
Okay, it's a parody: The Russian Federation is more complex. At a political level there's a lot of grandstanding. Operationally though, we share intelligence with Russia on anyone who is a mutual target (and that, ironically,…
From The Eponymous Pickle
BigDataLens Revisited
I revisited the site of BigDataLens. Most interesting, their blog. A form of interestingly constructed pattern recognition / predictive analytics. Worth a look, the examples given are useful and readable.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Nature of Creativity of the Brain
Replay of some recent talks and discussion at the Santa Fe Institute. " ... Creativity is a key ingredient of both science and art, but how much can scientific inquiry tell us about creativity?“Science can study creativity,…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
22 Of The Most Powerful Women Engineers In The World
We often hear about the dearth of women in computer science and engineering fields. Many organizations are working hard to attract and retain women in these fields. In an article titled 22 Most Powerful Women Engineers In the…
From Schneier on Security
How Google Glass Snoops Steal Your Passcode
Researchers are refining the techniques of surreptitiously videoing people as they type in their passwords. Other hackers have shown it's possible to perform automated over-the-shoulder password stealing. But Fu notes that older…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Augmented Pixels Update
I am following a number of Augmented Reality companies. Here are the latest updates from Augmented Pixels. in Odessa. " ... First of all, Large Silicon Valley Plug and Play Incubator invested in Augmented Pixels selected itFull…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Managing Supply Chain Risk
In CGMA Mag: Good ideas here. You can can manage your risks, often by simulating alternatives. " ... A global poll of more than 1,000 senior executives by consulting firm Accenture found that managing operational risksBut…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Facts about the Internet of Things
Some obvious yes, but useful thoughts about the internet of things." ... If something isn't connected to the Internet—whether human, animal, household appliance, automobile, factory tool, etc.—does it exist? If you're going all…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
High School Theorems
Taking a conjecture about identities to college Alex Wilkie is a Fellow of the Royal Society, and holds the Fielden Chair in Mathematics at the University of Manchester. Ken knew him at Oxford in 1981—1982 and again from 1986…
From Schneier on Security
This Common Home Appliance Can Compromise Your Entire Security
LIFX is a smart light bulb that can be controlled with your smart phone via your home's Wi-Fi network. Turns out that anyone within range can obtain the Wi-Fi password from the light bulb. It's a problem with the communications…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Lovelace Test versus Turing Test
More powerful in testing machine intelligence than the Turing test, it is claimed, from Slashdot. I had not heard of this particular term. A generalized non technical article. With an element of measuring actual creativity…
From Computational Complexity
Is there a word for the top part of a binomial coefficient?
Consider the sequence: x/y, (x+1)/y, (x+2)/y, ..., (x+z)/y one could say in this sequence of fractions the numerators goes through z-1 consecutive numbers. Consider the sequence (x choose y), (x+1 choose y), (x+2 choose…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
You Can Be An Advocate!
Yes, you can! If I can be an advocate you can be one too! It is not difficult to get started. I began by advocating at my school site for computer science with the counseling staff and the administration to help grow enrollment…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Microsoft Research Faculty Summit will be Live Streamed!
The 15th Annual Microsoft Research Faculty Summit is taking place July 14-15, 2014 in Redmond, WA. There is an exciting program planned with topics including computing devices and the Internet of Things, hardware-software co…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Google Map Hacking
Had never heard of this, but in Wired. It is a pretty serious thing if a supposedly perfect map and associated business list is hacked. It is happening. A Danger of crowd sourcing.
From CERIAS Blog
Update on “Patching is Not Security”
A few weeks ago, I wrote a post entitled “Patching Is Not Security.” Among other elements, I described a bug in some Linksys routers that was not patched and was supporting the Moon worm.
Today, I received word that the same …From CERIAS Blog
Update on “Patching is Not Security”
A few weeks ago, I wrote a post entitled “Patching Is Not Security.” Among other elements, I described a bug in some Linksys routers that was not patched and was supporting the Moon worm.
Today, I received word that the same …From Apophenia
The Cost of Contemporary Policing: A Review of Alice Goffman’s ‘On the Run’
Growing up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in the 80s and 90s, I had a pretty strong sense of fear and hatred for cops. I got to witness corruption and intimidation first hand, and I despised the hypocritical nature of the “PoPo.”…
From Schneier on Security
NSA Spied on Prominent Muslim Americans
The latest story from the Snowden documents is about five prominent Muslim Americans who were spied on by the NSA and FBI. It's a good story, and I recommend reading it in its entirety. I have a few observations. One, it's hard…
From The Eponymous Pickle
What is Hadoop?
A non technical introduction by colleague Bernard Marr, nicely done, an intro to some big data concepts as well.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Barriers to Open Innovation
With a link to a broader article: Interview with Anders Hjalmarsson of Viktoria Swedish ICT, Götegorg, Sweden. Author of “Beyond Innovation contest: a framework of barriers to open innovation of digital services” .... .
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Extrinsic motivations are harmful…
I have argued that when seeking professional success, it is best to avoid zero-sum games (e.g., compete for one prestigious slot). It is more fun, less distracting and more productive to focus on non-zero-sum games. That is,…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Python most Popular Teaching Language
Although most larger non tech enterprises these days do little internal programming themselves, it is interesting to see what programming languages are being taught these days, and what skills are thus most readily available.…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
As The Top Universities Go So Goes Who Actually?
Philip Guo had an interesting post on the Blog @ CACM titled Python is now the most popular introductory teaching language at top U.S. universities which summarizes his survey of the 39 top US PhD granting university CS departments…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Company Initiative Overload
Have seen it. There can even be be overload in figuring out which initiatives to work on. Ao how should we address this? Some good embedded ideas, in Forbes: " .... If you work for a large company, you may be suffering from…
From Schneier on Security
Here's How Brazilian Crooks Steal Billions
Man-in-the-middle attack against a Brazilian payment system: Brazil has an extremely active and talented cybercrime underground, and increasingly Brazilian organized crime gangs are setting their sights on boleto users who bank…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
AAAS S&T Policy Fellowship Information Sessions
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) will have two live chat sessions on July 10 and July 24 about the AAAS Science & Technology (S&T) Policy Fellowship. The AAAS S&T Policy Fellowships are in seven …