Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
August 2010
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Girls, Games and Software Development
Girls play games – computer games, video games, console games, online games – all kinds of games. Yet girls are not big into creating their own computer games. Why is that? A recent article in the Chicago TribuneWomen missing…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Utilizing Facebook's Public Data
Very interesting guest column in Readwriteweb on the leveraging of Facebook's Public data. Here on the eve of Facebook starting to gather location-based data and introducing location aware interaction between people, their friends…
From Schneier on Security
"The Fear Tax"
Good essay by Seth Godin:
We pay the fear tax every time we spend time or money seeking reassurance. We pay it twice when the act of seeking that reassurance actually makes us more anxious, not less. We pay the tax when we …From The Eponymous Pickle
The Truth About Wal-Mart RFID Plans
Nice piece in CGT. Worth reading. I find nothing very surprising here. Just that the latest writings indicated a specific set of plans, while previously only general talks were mentioned. Tagging clothes has been talkedThe…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Change Your Name to Avoid Cyber-Past
Eye opening, given that they are the enablers ... : Young will have to change names to escape 'cyber past' warns Google's Eric Schmidt ... The private lives of young people are now so well documented on the internet that many…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Airline Traffic Data
Have been following airline network traffic for some time. Fascinating compendium of May 2010 Airline Traffic Data. Via Mark Perry's blog, who has some comments.
From Computational Complexity
Today is Paul Turan's 100th Birthday!
The following conversation is a fictional version of a real conversation.
Lance: Bill, Wed August 18, 2010 is Paul Turan's 100th birthday. We should post on it.
GASARCH: WOW, he's still alive? Will there be a conference…From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Computer Science is NOT Boring!
Well I guess a lot of people, especially students thing computer science is boring. According to a recent article (Steve Furber: why kids are turned off computing) the UK’s Royal Society is trying to understand why students are…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Simpler Solar
In the NYT ... a simpler, plug and play solar array system under development. Like to see these kinds of things.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Wikify Fact Checking
Can you use a Wiki to do true fact checking? A USC journalism Prof attempt. I don't think it is working in the WIkipedia for anything that smells even a tiny amount controversial. The nascent site is called WIkiFactCheck. Good…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Achieving Marketplace 2.0
Some of my recent explorations of e-procurement systems led me to this upcoming AMR webinar. See my previous post on ViniMaya, a strong contender in this space. I plan to attend this.Achieving Marketplace 2.0 Improving Productivity…
From Schneier on Security
Crypto 2010 Proceedings
The Crypto 2010 Conference is going on right now at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Springer-Verlag publishes the proceedings, but they're available as a free download for the next few days.
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
Outreach Campaign: Smart Girls Rock!
I've been leading an effort for our Women in Science and Engineering group, CU-WISE, to create a set of promotional items intended to be used during outreach events. We want giveaways that will be fun and that will leave the…
From Computational Complexity
My last post on the alleged P NE NP paper
(This is likely my last post on the alleged P NE NP paper unless more real news on it occurs. The only real news I can see happening at this point is a retraction.)
I have not commented much on the alleged P ≠ NP since I …
From The Eponymous Pickle
Shopkick at BestBuy
What appears to be an easy to use location based promotion system that does not require explicit check-in once enabled. Also, the automatic check-in cannot be faked. Benefit for shopper and merchant. Macy's is also mentioned…
From The Eponymous Pickle
FlowingData
Check out Nathan Yau's always interesting visualization and statistics site: FlowingData.
From Wild WebMink
links for 2010-08-17
The Twitter Simon Phipps Daily Interesting meta-aggregator turns links posted by the people I follow on Twitter into a daily "newspaper". (tags: paper.li Twitter Newspaper Zeitgeist) The Hand May Be Forced "While I would have…
From Schneier on Security
Hacking Cars Through Wireless Tire-Pressure Sensors
Still minor, but this kind of thing is only going to get worse:
The new research shows that other systems in the vehicle are similarly insecure. The tire pressure monitors are notable because they're wireless, allowing attacks…From Apophenia
Social Divisions Between Orkut & Facebook in Brazil
I have been writing about social divisions between Facebook and MySpace for some time now, focused exclusively on American teenager dynamics. Yet, every time I post about this subject, folks write to me to ask if I know much…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Free Microsoft Office Add-ins for Educators
Just in time to start off the new school year, several new supporting tools are now updated for teacher use. You can read some summaries below but first check out this review by Christopher Dawson of ZDNet Education
From The Eponymous Pickle
Advertising Policy
Readers, Publishers, Vendors,I have had an increasing number of requests to have advertising links placed in this blog.In general I do not take advertising that does not have some relationship to my blog topics. You can get a…
From Apophenia
a few thoughts on name changes & reputation
I’ve changed my name twice. First, I took my (now ex) stepfather’s last name when I was a child. At 18, I started the process to take my maternal grandfather’s name to honor him and to create an identity that meant something…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Subtle Patterns in Complex Events
I have now seen a number of live demonstrations of Recorded Future and am increasingly intrigued by the subtle complexity that is revealed when we can do something that is more that just simple search.I have been involved inSearching…
From The Eponymous Pickle
SASCom Centers of Excellence Webinar
Upcoming Wednesday, a very useful topic:"Centers of Excellence 101: How to maximize knowledge from BI and analytical resourcesIt's webinar time again! This hour session is designed for business analysts, directors of analytics…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Franz Edelman Award Submissions
While at the Procter & Gamble company I was involved in finalist and winning submissions for the Franz Edelman Award. I am a big proponent. Its purpose " .. is to bring forward, recognize, and reward outstanding examples of…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Kroger Pushes Private Label Beauty
Big brand manufacturers continue to be nervous about how retailers are increasingly promoting private label (aka store brands). Beauty care products have been less prone to this kind of erosion of big brand share due to their…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Working long hours is stupid
We do too much. We carry too many projects. This overproduction creates problems which we try to fix by working even more. We value most what we create (see
From The Eponymous Pickle
Infographic Overuse
This infographic about new and declining social media was recently much touted. It would attract attention if hung on the wall, but it is no more than a list of social media players and number of users. The 'geographic' aspect…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Marketing Analysis Tools from HBS
These are inexpensive PDFs used in courses that include Excel templates. Have not examined in detail, but might be useful to get started in the basic analytics of marketing:HBS Introduces Marketing Analysis Tools for Managers…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Does Arithmetic Need to Be Saved?
Arithmetic broken? Provocative little piece via Richard James. In New Scientist: "...Mathematicians are facing a stark choice