Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
May 2010
From Wild WebMink
? Open Data: Fantastic, But Not Enough
In an unusual move for such a significant news item, the UK government announced over the weekend that they were ordering all government departments to embark on a voyage of transparency. There were some very good ideas in the…
From The Eponymous Pickle
The Value of Being Uncool
Jonathan Baskin spins the interesting case of the mashed-up Pabst Blue Ribbon beer brand. A number of things I did not know about them. Should the brand be cooler or less cool?
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Virtual Schools: What Exactly Are They?
We are living in a world that is becoming increasingly dependent on technology. With expanding technology comes an exponentially growing number of virtual schools and K-12 learning programs that blend on-line or distance learning…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Stop Customer Price Fixation
Herb Sorensen pointed us to a paper on how to avoid customer price fixation in the May Harvard Business Review. Good examples and good read, and also read the comments which have some good points.
From My Biased Coin
Blogging from Bertinoro
I'm here at Bertinoro (a beautiful, out-of-the-way, small town in Italy) for the 2010 version of Random GRAALS (= graphs and algorithms), a workshop that we've been having every few years, usually with around 30 or so people,…
From Schneier on Security
Canada Spending $1B on Security for G8/G20 Summit in June
The Canadian government disclosed Tuesday that the total price tag to police the elite Group of Eight meeting in Muskoka, as well as the bigger-tent Group of 20 summit starting a day later in downtown Toronto, has already…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Cosmic 140
A visualization of the 140 most important entities on Twitter. This reminds me of Stephen Few's recent document on the overuse of circular images for data visualization. What exactly is the circle meant to acurately and comparatively…
From Computational Complexity
24: Really Bad Game Theory, technology, and science
The TV show 24 aired its last episode on May 24. The show used computers and technology ALOT, more than on most shows. Was it realistic? What it interesting? Bad Game Theory: When two sides are negotiating you can have interesting…
From Wild WebMink
? Transparency, Privacy and Genius
Analysis: this government is open to scrutiny Noble words that, if truly implemented, take Britain down a path to open governmnet and citizen scrutiny. But only if “transparency” actually means “open data”. We don’t need summaries…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Interesting Links 31 May 2010
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From The Eponymous Pickle
Twitter as a Gaming Platform
In Readwriteweb: Thinking about Twitter as a gaming platform.I am still convinced that there is real value in overlaying game incentives on serious work. See my reviews of Byron Reeves's book: Total Engagement as an example.…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Getting Some Privacy with Google
I good piece on what you can do to make it more difficult to invade your privacy via Google tools. ' ... Bottom line? Big Brother knows a whole lot more than you probably thought. But you don't have to avoid Google to keep…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Things You Should Know About Statistics
Good overview piece about statistics. This wont tell you how, but will position your knowledge of when stats can be used, and classic errors in their use. A good starting place with interesting links.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Pure Data
Do you know Pure Data? A way to analyze multi channel music data. Can it also be used for other kinds of real time data streams? More here, the system's site. Any comments?
From The Eponymous Pickle
Numeracy
In the Freakonomics blog, regarding numeracy. Like literacy, it should be valued. From the comments a quote I had not heard: Oscar Wilde said:
From The Eponymous Pickle
Marketing Power of the Negative
Intriguing piece that is worth considering:" ... Tim Berry has noticed that when two strangers sit next to each other on a plane, the icebreaker that starts a conversation is likely to be something negative about the airline…
From Wild WebMink
? Transparency and Good Will
The SEC and The Python What does open source have to do with open data? This extremely insightful move by the SEC demonstrates that the syntax of open data is not enough to provide transparency. We also need an implementation…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
CS Teacher Job Opportuntity
We don't usually do job postings here on the CSTA Advocate blog, but this one is rather special and we want to let you know about the opportunity.
Evan Glazer is the Principal of the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science …From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: 500-Million-Year-Old Squid
Early squid:
New Canadian research into 500 million-year-old carnivore fossils has revealed an early ancestor of modern-day squids and octopuses, solving the mystery surrounding a previously unclassifiable creature. "This is…From The Eponymous Pickle
The Shallows
Nick Carr overviews his newly released book and provides some links to excerpts. ' ... The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. ... draws on material from the chapter of the book entitled "The Juggler's Brain…
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: The Contents of Squid Stomachs
Not that interesting, really.
Preliminarily, I can tell you that within my sample, cannibalism seems to be on the rise, myctophid consumption is falling, and a lot more squid may be dying hungry.
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
DoD support of university research
Attached is a new DoD directive, reinforcing and clarifying the role of fundamental research at universities.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Value of Mobile Data
In MIT Tech Review: Mobile Data: A Gold Mine for Telcos, A snapshot of our activities, cell phone data attracts both academics and industry researchers. ... '
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
Policy Highlights from Communications of the ACM - May 2010 (Vol. 53, No. 5)
Below is a list of items with policy relevance from the May issue of Communications of the ACM. As always, much of the material in CACM is premium content, and free content one month may slip behind a pay wall the next. You need…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Children More Likely to Own a Mobile than a Book
Are children more likely to own a phone than a book? Not sure what own means here, but I have certainly seen more children with phones than with books lately.
From The Noisy Channel
HCIR 2010 Submission Deadlines Approaching
Just a reminder to all of you HCIR people out there that the submission deadline for the HCIR 2010 Workshop on Human-Computer Interaction and Information Retrieval
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
CRV 2010
The Seventh Canadian Conference on Computer and Robot Vision (CRV 2010) is being held right here in Ottawa next week, and I'll be attending at least a couple of the days. A paper I wrote based on some of my Masters work wasSURF…
From Schneier on Security
Another Scene from an Airport
I've gotten to the front of the security line at a different airport, and handed a different TSA officer my ID and ticket.
TSA Officer: (Looks everything over. Reads the name on my passport.) The Bruce Schneier?
Me: (Nods, …From Computational Complexity
The Structure (or lack thereof) of Data
Many of the various "proofs" of P≠NP follow a common theme: Define an NP problem with a certain structure. Argue that any algorithm that solves that problem must work in a certain way and any algorithm that works that way must…
From My Biased Coin
Extension Results
At the start of semester, at one point I had 48 people signed up for my extension Algorithms and Data Structures course, which I said from day one would not last. (The extension class is for Distance Education students, offered…