Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
August 2011
From Wild WebMink
OggCamp Approaching
If you’re in the south of England (or want to travel here) don’t forget that OggCamp is being held this weekend. It’s in Farnham, just off the M3, and you’ll want to arrive early on Saturday to be more likely to gain admission…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Neuromarketing and Big Marketers
A long article in Fast Company on how the company Nielsen subsidiary Neurofocus is working with major companies to implement Neuromarketing. Quite interesting with regard to maketing details. They make a big deal of AK Predeep…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
DARPA: Automated Program Analysis for Cybersecurity
Fresh on the heels of announcing a call for social media research, DARPA’s Information Innovation Office (I2O) has issued a solicitation for “innovative research proposals in the area of automated program analysis for cybersecurity…
From Schneier on Security
Free-Riding on Plant Security Countermeasures
There's a security story from biology I've used a few times: plants that use chemicals to call in airstrikes by wasps on the herbivores attacking them. This is a new variation: a species of orchid that emits the same signals…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Stampt Customer Loyalty App
Recently brought to my attention and examined: Stampt, a simple smartphone based customer loyalty program. Links to social networking systems. More here,
From The Eponymous Pickle
Math and Language
In New Scientist: Does mathematics depend less on our language than we thought? Mental calculation methods seem to say so, as well as studies of abacus usage.
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Usury and the collapse of empires
The American government recently played Russian roulette with its economy by threatening to default on its debt. Of course, nobody actually thought that the Americans would truly default at this time. After all, the Americans…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Is Gamification Bull?
Having been a veteran of the AI hype world I am always sensitive and open to criticisms of new technology hype waves. I like to promote new ideas because I am interested in more efficient ways to get things done, but that does…
From Wild WebMink
links for 2011-08-09
LibreOffice vs. OpenOffice.org: Showdown for Best Open Source Office Suite | Wazi If LibreOffice maintains the pace of improvement Brian describes here, by the time work on OpenOffice resumes next year (yes, I really think it…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
NSF Awards CS-Led Health, Robotics Research Center
Yesterday, the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced a new five-year, $18.5 million Engineering Research Center (ERC) that will pursue interdisciplinary research and education in areas of health and robotics: The
From Schneier on Security
MRI Lie Detectors
An article from Salon -- lots of interesting research.
My previous blog post on the topic.
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Abstraction At The Core of Computer Science
I spent the latter part of last week in Palo Alto, California working on the CS 2013 project. There are some pretty amazing people involved in this project (CS 2013 steering committee) and I learned a lot in the various discussions…
From Wild WebMink
? Responding to the Bling Riots
First, let me say I think the inexplicable thuggery that’s going on in London (and elsewhere) is indefensible and the people doing it without respect for people or property are despicable. They deserve everything they have coming…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Opportunities for Small Retail Spaces
In Retail Traffic: " ... Nationwide, the size of food stores is going down
From The Eponymous Pickle
Future Cola
We took at look at Coca-Cola's futuristic drink blending and delivery dispenser for some time. It is a classic case of late differentiation and tailoring a product to the local consumer. And the dispenser can gather valuable…
From Schneier on Security
New Bank-Fraud Trojan
The German Federal Criminal Police (the
From The Eponymous PickleRecord Levels of P&G Ad Spending
In AdAge: Lots of interesting novel ad spending at P&G, including a connection with BlogHer and the online deoderant stand off. I guess brainless ad focusing does still work.
From The Eponymous PickleDemandTec and Sam's Club
New from DemandTec. We explored their capabilities seeking to better understand the relationship between assortment and profitability. Impressive approaches.
From The Eponymous PickleBoredom Works
Scott Adams has evidence that it is boredom that will cause the creative act. And its incrasingly hard to be bored. In the WSJ, Registration required.
From The Eponymous PickleLocation Based Marketing Ideas
I have been doing a survey of location based marketing and looking for tips and case studies, here is one that is simple but worth while.
" ... While many merchants hope check-ins will immediately generate sales, most are…
From The Eponymous PickleBig Data
Information Management on devising a forward looking big data strategy. " ... In today
From Daniel Lemire's BlogPick one: determinism or fairness
Computers changed our life drastically in the last few decades. Correspondingly, I view the world in terms of algorithms. When I think of how the government works, for example, I see over-engineered heuristics. To some extend…
From Computer Science Teachers AssociationExploring Collaborative Opportunities for Students
Recently, Stephanie Hoeppner, CSTA Ohio Vice President, and I met with Dr. Rob Williams at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, near Fairborn, Ohio, to learn about a program that Wright-Patterson is currently conducting with high…
From Computational ComplexityWhat is a simple function?
In my discrete Math course I asked the following question: For each of the following sequences find a simple function a(n) such that the sequence is a(1), a(2), a(3),.. a) 10, -17, 24, -31, 38, -45, 52, ... b) -1, 1…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog20 Years Later,
In a Comment in the Aug. 4 issue of Nature — coinciding with the 20th anniversary of the public release of the World Wide Web –
From Schneier on Security<i>Business Week</i> on The Cyberwar Arms Race
I've been using the phrase "arms race" to describe the world's militaries' rush into cyberspace for a couple of years now. Here's a good article on the topic that uses the same phrase.
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred ThompsonInteresting Links 8 August 2011
I’m home for a while now. A month anyway. I’ve made 6 trips in the last 6 weeks and only one of them for vacation. So it will be nice to be home for a while. Maybe I can get some code written – Kinect and Windows Phone are on…
From Wild WebMinkOSCON Round-Up
My time in the US was all-consuming, as you may have noticed by the absence of posts for the last week. I’m ending the hiatus with a long review of OSCON – you’ll find it over on ComputerWorldUK.
From The Noisy ChannelRetiring a Great Interview Problem
Interviewing software engineers is hard. Jeff Atwood bemoans how difficult it is to find candidates who can write code. The tech press sporadically publishes “best” interview questions that make me cringe — though I love the…
From The Eponymous PickleBook Store Fees
In the future will we all be paying fees for bookstore admission? Is the unsustainable future of all physical retail simply to have a place where we will browse and try things out? M J Perry's blog brings up the question. Yes…