Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
September 2010
From The Eponymous Pickle
Mission Control for Social Media and Retail
In AdAge: Gatorade has established an interesting 'mission control' room for tracking how their message is working. " ... In a room crammed with flat-screen monitors, Gatorade monitors social media and deduces what its customers…
From Schneier on Security
Stealing Money from a Safe with a Vacuum
The burglars broke into their latest store near Paris and drilled a hole in the "pneumatic tube" that siphons money from the checkout to the strong-room.They then sucked rolls of cash totalling
From The Eponymous PickleEye Tracking Case Studies
Just brought to my attention for a study: A set of case studies from the eye-tracking vendor Tobii that covers a number of capabilities and study contexts. Previous mentions here about Tobii.
From The Eponymous PickleApple TV
Apple TV is to arrive by this Friday. Sounds like an interesting change is underway. " ... Apple's focus is on selling you 99
From The Eponymous PickleHow Facebook Sells You
A very instructive piece in the current Bloomberg Businessweek on How Facebook Sells You.
From The Eponymous PickleRise of Apps Culture
Pew Internet on the rise of Apps culture. Or based on the stats, perhaps a non-apps culture: " ... Some 35% of U.S. adults have software applications or
From Computational ComplexityReview of Lipton's Book-Blog/Review of Goldreich and Arora-Barak/New Book Review Column/Do you want to review?
My review of Lipton's new blog-book is here. It will appear in my SIGACT NEWS at some later time. Daniel Apon's joint review of Computational Complexity: A Conceptual Perspective by Oded Goldreich and Computational Complexity…
From Wild WebMink? Transitions
LibreOffice – A fresh page for OpenOffice This is a good and balanced article that is worth reading. At Sun I tried several times to get a Foundation started for OpenOffice.org and it had to happen in the end. Today was the day…
From Schneier on SecurityCultural Cognition of Risk
This is no surprise:
The people behind the new study start by asking a pretty obvious question: "Why do members of the public disagree
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred ThompsonWould you play this game?
I love puzzles and small little programming projects. When you can combine those two at get a project that you can use for a good learning/teaching experience it is just a bit of gold. When the concepts you can get into the project…
From Wild WebMink? Travel Security
I have been travelling this week on Europe’s low-cost airlines, and have realised that there is only one way to make air travel secure, and that is to take security seriously and prioritise it above all other factors. We should…
From Wild WebMinkWhy Open Source Is Free
My classic essay on Payment At The Point Of Value has finally made it on to the Essays page on this site. Now that community-centric open source is once again returning to centre stage, PPV is a relevant concept to understand…
From The Computing Community Consortium BlogComputer Scientist Dawn Song wins Macarthur
Dr. Dawn Xiadong Song, Associate Professor of Computer Science at U.C. Berkeley, is one of 23 recipients of the 2010 Macarthur Grants awarded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
From The Eponymous PickleChicago Thinkubator
I have been involved with innovation contexts in the enterprise, and had heard of the Thinkubator in Chicago, but never visited. They have established a new web site that is worth a look. Personally I think that a space by itself…
From Computer Science Teachers AssociationLoners Will be Loners ... Or Not.
Many of us are fortunate to have taught classes in which all students are active participants and teaching and learning are natural activities in the classroom setting. Chattering among my students brings a smile to my face. …
From The Eponymous PickleTableau Software Blog
I just spent some time updating my Tableau Software visualization system to the latest version. I brought it into the enterprise when Tableau was first released, seeking an easy-to-use method that the data analyst could addElissa…
From The Eponymous PickleUnderstanding the ROI for BPM
Thinking about the ROI for business process modeling (BPM). We never directly calculated such an ROI in the enterprise. The modeling alone was useful to understand changes and proposals of interest. The ROI can be very useful…
From The Eponymous PickleThe Application of Scientific Method in Healthcare
Mark Montgomery sends along a link to a talk by Dr. Donald Berwick. Provocative talk about how the scientific method is modified by social interaction in a health care scenario. A short but very powerful thought. Is the scientific…
From Schneier on SecurityIsolating Terrorist Cells as a Security Countermeasure
It's better to try to isolate parts of a terrorist network than to attempt to destroy it as a whole, at least according to this model:
Vos Fellman explains how terrorist networks are "typical of the structures encountered in…
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACMHill Tech Happenings, Week of September 27
September 28
The Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee of the Department of Homeland Security will meet. 8:30 a.m., Carl Hayden Room, Government Printing Office, 732 North Capitol Street, N.W., Washington, D.C.
From The Eponymous PickleExtensible Ad Formulas
In AdAge: A formula for ads by Procter & Gamble's Men's grooming. Is it extensible to other categories? " ... Cracking Viral Code: Look at Your Ads. Now Look at Old Spice ... String of Hits From P&G Grooming Biz Seem to Point…
From The Eponymous PickleVisual Dictionaries
A friend and I recently discussed how we had both grown up scanning pages in the encyclopedia and dictionary. What I found interesting about that were not only the words, but also the images that gave the terms for many parts…
From Wild WebMinklinks for 2010-09-27
Meet the Defenders of Open-Source Software I can't decide whether I am pleased there are people doing this or concerned that their actions become the focus of public understanding about open source software. Not all software…
From Schneier on SecurityNew Attack Against ASP.NET
It's serious:
The problem lies in the way that ASP.NET, Microsoft's popular Web framework, implements the AES encryption algorithm to protect the integrity of the cookies these applications generate to store information during…
From Computational ComplexityThe Theory Social Network
Derrick Stolee tweeted that the videos from the 2010 Complexity Conference are now on-line. If you want to attend a conference live, don't forget early hotel and conference registration for FOCS ends Thursday. Hope to see you…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred ThompsonInteresting Links 27 September 2010
Last week I wrote a post about the Imagine Cup. (Imagine Cup–Solving the Worlds Problems Through Software) A couple of things I should have mentioned about it though. One is there is a chance for students who enter to win anImagine…
From The Eponymous PickleBig Green Boxes
An interesting idea via IFTF: Take unused warehouse space in a city and use it to implement aquaponics ... a combination of soil-less growing of plants, and using fish to provide manure to fertilize the plants. In particular…
From The Eponymous PickleEnforcing Fun at Work
I always loved having fun at work. Yet in my years at the enterprise there were a couple of times where there was an attempt at attempting to enforce or systematize fun. It never worked, in fact was downright embarrassing. …
From The Eponymous PickleBerners-Lee and the Mobile Web
In Read Write Web: Comments by the Web Inventor Berners-Lee on concerns with important issues regarding the mobile Web. Some points I had not thought of. Inevitable though that the Web combined with mobile-sensed information,…
From The Eponymous PickleOn Not Finishing the Book
An interesting Volokh piece about the ethics of reviewing or criticizing books (or anything) without finishing the whole thing. Guilty at times of exactly that.