Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
September 2013
From Schneier on Security
How to Remain Secure Against the NSA
Now that we have enough details about how the >NSA eavesdrops on the Internet, including today's disclosures of the NSA's deliberate weakening of cryptographic systems, we can finally start to figure out how to protect ourselves…
From The Eponymous Pickle
GEPhi Graph Visualization for Exploratory Data Analysis
This method was brought to my attention my a colleague. We had looked at it some time ago and it has come back as a possible exploratory solution.The Open Graph Viz Platform" ... Gephi is an interactive visualization and exploration…
From The Eponymous Pickle
On the Movement of Queues
In Mind Hacks: Why the other line in a queueing situation always moves faster than yours. A good example of how perception beats out rational thought. In my early days we worked on many industrial simulation problems thatwith…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Portfolio as Innovation Dashboard
In Innovation Excellence: We used exactly this approach in the enterprise new product development world. Its very useful if you have many competing efforts: " ...As I’ve written before, the portfolio is the pivotal tool for…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Smarter Cashless Vending Machines
Cashless Vending machines are now smarter. We examined machines like this in Japan that could adapt to supply chain and demand problems.
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Are 8-bit or 16-bit counters faster than 32-bit counters?
Programmers often want to count things. They typically use 32-bit counters (e.g., the int type in Java). But what if you are counting small numbers? Maybe a 16-bit counter could be enough (e.g., the short type in Java). Obviously…
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Fishing in the Cook Islands
Diamondback squid could be a source of food. No word on taste.
As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven't covered.
From BLOG@CACM
Fixing the K-12 CS Teacher Certification Mess
This blog piece explores the mess that is K-12 Computer Science Teacher certification in the U.S. and why this matters. It introduces CSTA's new "Bugs in the System" report and provides practical recommendations for creating…
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
Early Experiences with Poll Everywhere and Peer Instruction
I've now survived the first three lectures in both my classes. Both are introductory computing classes for non-majors: one is heavier on concepts but includes Python programming, while the other is heavier on programming ineven…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Engaging Social and Mobile Consumers
In the coming weeks I will be passing along some of the excellent work by correspondent Phil Hendrix. Three-part Series on Engaging Social and Mobile Consumers (link to download ZIP file with most recent reports)Philip E. Hendrix…
From Schneier on Security
Radio Interviews with Me
Four interviews with me on the NSA.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Big Data and IBM
Not unexpected view and direction by IBM. Riding the hype wave, with their own considerable analytics resources. Those put together can provide a formidable capability:" ... IBM wants to help IT managers apply company policies…
From The Eponymous Pickle
SAP Buying KXEN
SAP buys a fairly well known predictive analytics company, KXEN. Have followed SAP in the past with its other related acquisitions, like Khimetrics in 2005. Historically it has taken a long time to integrate these companies…
From Schneier on Security
New NSA Leak Shows MITM Attacks Against Major Internet Services
The Brazilian television show "Fantastico" has exposed an NSA training presentation that discusses how the agency runs man-in-the-middle attacks on the Internet. The point of the story was that the NSA engages in economic espionage…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
What Are People Better At (Then Computers)
I love xkcd. It’s probably the nerdiest comic strip around. Recently the following strip appeared.
I think that people are still better at creating comic strips than computers. I think we’re also still a whole lot better at…From The Eponymous Pickle
Remembering Douglas Engelbart
Ted Talks on his visionary work." ... One of the pioneers of the Internet and graphic user interfaces, Engelbart is perhaps best known for inventing the computer mouse. Above, watch him lead what’s been described as the “mother…
From The Eponymous Pickle
The Influence of Showrooming
Lots of fears regarding the influence of 'showrooming' in driving place of purchase ..." ... But a study released Thursday from Columbia Business School and loyalty management firm Aimia aims to “bust” what it calls “myths” surrounding…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Macy's Using Data and Showing Restraint
From the D2 Conference in Cincinnati via AdAdge: " ... Macy's sees plenty of value in data-driven marketing and believes consumers should hear more from marketers about the benefits. But that doesn't mean the retailer willJulie…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Teacher Teach Yourself
How teaching helps you understand proofs Stanislav Žák is a theorist who has made important contributions to complexity theory. He was at the Institute for Computation Techniques of the Technical University in Prague thirty years…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Tableau 8 Guide
Recently released: Tableau 8: The Official Guide by George Peck I am in the midst of a project that specifies this, and searched for several fairly obscure things, and found them. Good sign. It is a complex User Interface…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Instant Entrepreneurship
From the Front End of Innovation: Is Instant Entrepreneurship the future? More importantly, what precisely is it? Was the first I head of it:Interview with Shelby Lee Walsh, Shelby is President at TrendHunter:" ... This is…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Gmail Visualization Tool
An visual analysis of Gmail as metadata using Immersion from MIT. Have take a quick look at this, and as the article suggests, more art than useful visual. But this did allow me to find how my mail links have varied overtime…
From Schneier on Security
Did I Actually Say That?
I'm quoted (also here) as using this analogy to explain how IT companies will be damaged by the news that they've been collaborating with the NSA:
"How would it be if your doctor put rat poison in your medicine? Highly damaging…From Daniel Lemire's Blog
To succeed, adopt the post-industrial view
From time to time, students ask me wether such degree or certificate in computer science will help them get a good job. There is no shortage of studies showing that degrees lead to good jobs. That might be true, but there is…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
CSTA Voice Moving to E-Distribution
Like many non-profit institutions, CSTA is always looking for new, more efficient ways to do business and for ways to keep CSTA membership free of charge for individual members. We also try to be proactive when it comes to addressing…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Ahalogy for Content Marketing
Brought to my attention, formerly Pingage, now Ahalogy. Previously I wrote about Pingage." ... We're building Ahalogy (formerly Pingage) to solve one simple problem: making content marketing as easy and effective as possible…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Linking Small Business to Innovation
In Innovation Excellence: How can small business spot innovation and connect to it? " ... Our businesses evolve and go through so many changes on a regular basis. How do we know what ideas to stick with and which to move on…
From Putting People First
Experientia workshop on strategic UX design for Taiwanese businesses
Taiwan meets Italy this week, in a series of workshops and company visits hosted by Experientia for Taiwanese business people. The 15 chief customer experience officers from Taiwanese IT, retail, finance and telecom companies…
From Computational Complexity
Cryptography and the NSA
Back at Northwestern I occasionally taught an undergraduate cryptography class since I was the local expert in the field (a statement not even remotely true at Georgia Tech). I would cover the Advanced Encryption Standard, an…
From Schneier on Security
Ed Felten on the NSA Disclosures
Ed Felten has an excellent essay on the damage caused by the NSA secretly breaking the security of Internet systems:
In security, the worst case -- the thing you most want to avoid -- is thinking you are secure when you're not…