Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
May 2013
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
Review / Python for Kids: A Playful Introduction to Programming
There are many resources out there for Python, but I've recently had the opportunity to enjoy a fully colour printed book on the topic. Sure, it's called Python for Kids, but that doesn't mean the young at heart can't benefit
…From Computer Science Teachers Association
This is My Dream Job
Long ago in a land far away (well, actually only about 2.5 hours east of here -- but definitely a very different day and time), I started teaching high school math (in a very progressive school system), and I thought, "This
…From Putting People First
Smart citizens make smart cities, a talk by Dan Hill
“We have the technology to do anything. To make things happen you need to turn to design and redesign the context, the decision making and the question.” – Dan Hill, CEO of Fabrica, figured out that smart citizens are necessary
…From Schneier on Security
"The Global Cyber Game"
This 127-page report was just published by the UK Defence Academy. I have not read it yet, but it looks really interesting.
Executive Summary: This report presents a systematic way of thinking about cyberpower and its use…Cyberpower
From Putting People First
The future of tablets in education: potential vs. reality of consuming media
Justin Reich of MindShift has launched a four-part series to explore four dimensions of using tablets, such as the iPad, in educational settings, examining how teachers can take students on a journey from (1) consumption of media
…From The Eponymous Pickle
Brainwaves Added to the Quantified Self
Word of a kickstarter project called Melon that would gather brainwaves. Another example of the quantified self. Also, related this to neuromarketing, there might be the potential to market you brainwaves under different contexts
…From Apophenia
thoughts on Pew’s latest report: notable findings on race and privacy
Yesterday, Pew Internet and American Life Project (in collaboration with Berkman) unveiled a brilliant report about “Teens, Social Media, and Privacy.” As a researcher who’s been in the trenches on these topics for a long time
…From The Eponymous Pickle
Big Oil and Gas Companies in the next 5 Years
Recorded Future uses their forward looking semantic analysis tool to understand future activities of Oil and Gas Companies. Full interactive version here.Some sample extracts used to construct the maps:"A final investment"Oil
…From The Eponymous Pickle
Printing 3D Food
Much in the News: About how NASA and others are looking at how food can be printed digitally, remotely. Things like Pizza? You still have to have the component materials at the remote location, but you could make it more appetizing
…From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Big Data through the Years
Earlier this month, Gil Press of Forbes wrote A Very Short History Of Big Data. The history in this article begins in 1944, but jumps every few years until 2008, when it seems Big Data hit the big time. The impact of efforts
…From The Eponymous Pickle
Mobile Completes Us
In E-Commerce Times: MicroStrategy CEO on how our mobile presence completes us. An interesting take. Helps form our identity, yes. And beyond the idea of a 'tool', like a carpenter's hammer, because its presence has become
…From The Eponymous Pickle
Information Dashboard Design
Stephen Few is coming out with a new edition of his book: Dashboard Design. He writes about it here. Have not read it, but may be the time to do that. From his perspective, what is a dashboard? He concisely describes it
…From Schneier on Security
DDOS as Civil Disobedience
For a while now, I have been thinking about what civil disobedience looks like in the Internet Age. Certainly DDOS attacks, and politically motivated hacking in general, is a part of that. This is one of the reasons I found
…From Putting People First
Death, life and place in great digital cities
At the heart of the Smarter Cities movement is the belief that the use of engineering and IT technologies, including social media and information marketplaces, can create more efficient and resilient city systems. In an excellent
…From The Eponymous Pickle
Causes of World Death
A good dynamic visualization of this data in Tableau public, emphasizing a treemap visualization and supporting bar charts. I think this could be used for many kinds of complex health data. " ... Identification of detailed
…From The Eponymous Pickle
Illusions of Cognition in Computing
Interesting Forrester piece: In fact all AI and expertise based systems appear to be cognitive. How is this an illusion? In fact in our own experiments with systems with only a handful of rules, say a dozen, could be seen
…From Computer Science Teacher – Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Sexism and Women in Technology
There seems to be a lot of discussion on the Internet about women in technology. More specifically the troubles they have with. The Girls in IT–Infographic and Report from NCWIT I wrote about talks about the shortage of women
…From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Twin Primes Are Useful
Why the recent breakthrough is important Yitang Zhang, of the University of New Hampshire, has apparently proved a finite approximation to the famous Twin Prime Conjecture. This is a result of the first order. After ten days
…From The Eponymous Pickle
Management Tools and Trends 2013
A look at the year 2013: From Darrell Rigby, my correspondent at Bain & Company. " .... Global executives who participated in Bain & Company's 14th Management Tools & Trends survey see economic conditions improving in their
…From Computational Complexity
Do you KNOW how you KNOW what you KNOW? I don't KNOW.
When watching Jeopardy with Darling if I get a question correct that is NOT in my usual store of knowledge (that is NOT Ramsey Theory, NOT Vice Presidents, NOT Satires of Bob Dylan) Darling asks me How did you know that? I usually
…From The Eponymous Pickle
Watson as a Customer Service Agent
In Forbes: Once your have built an 'intelligent' knowledge structure like Watson, all sorts of advisory applications come to mind. In the link it is positioned as a customer service agent. Likely works best in very focused
…From Schneier on Security
Surveillance and the Internet of Things
The Internet has turned into a massive surveillance tool. We're constantly monitored on the Internet by hundreds of companies -- both familiar and unfamiliar. Everything we do there is recorded, collected, and collated -- sometimes
…From Putting People First
How the Mobile Mind Shift is different in Europe
People are in the midst of making a Mobile Mind Shift, which can be defined as “the expectation that any desired information or service is available, on any appropriate device, in context, at your moment of need.” Attitudes and
…From Putting People First
Service Design + Lean UX + Disruptive Design = UX Strategy?
It seems like the UX community has been struggling a bit to reach a common definition of UX strategy. Is it a framework or an approach? Is it a methodology or a philosophy? According to Mona Patel, there are three concepts and
…From Computer Science Teacher – Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Girls in IT–Infographic and Report from NCWIT
I found an info graphic from NCWIT on Girls in IT to be pretty interesting. I can’t get it to format right in this blog format but you can see it here. I’ve got one snippet of it below.
It is shocking to me how under represented
…From BLOG@CACM
Progress on Computing in Schools: 2 Countries, 2 States
Computing is making progress towards becoming a primary and secondary schools subject worldwide. I report on three personal meetings about activities in England and Denmark, and in South Carolina and Maryland.
From The Eponymous Pickle
A Look at Regulatory Burdens
A number of studies examine this. MJ Perry concludes that regulatory costs are the second highest component of a US family's cost.
From My Biased Coin
Grades In
The grades are in for CS 124. Hooray!Interesting trend : freshmen, who make up a small fraction of the class, are highly over-represented in the A and A- grades. This has been happening for some years now. Extension of the
…From The Eponymous Pickle
Data in that Toothbrush
In Adage: More internet of things linked with consumer behavior plays: " ... Imagine for a second that you could interview a product. How often is it being used? For how long? And where in the house does it live? Sounds crazy
…From Computer Science Teacher – Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Would You Hire Your Graduates?
I was reading a blog post by a university professor on the subject of adjunct faculty (Tenure-track’s untouchables) when I can across the statement that “the university has a disinclination to hire their own graduates.” This
I
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