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 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 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
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 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
…From The Eponymous Pickle
Mobile BI Tools
I am in the midst of exploring mobile BI on tablets. It is increasingly being specified that the solutions will be mobile. That adds a number of challenges. More.
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Meet The Statistically Average Computer Science Teacher
Every two years, CSTA conducts a survey of current computer science teachers. We have an excellent response rate and now that the results have all been tallied, I would like to introduce you to the "average" Computer Science
…From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
Stories and Games at GRAND 2013
Last week, I attended the annual meeting of the GRAND (Graphics, Animation, and New Media) research network, held in Toronto. Although the research and discussion presented and held at the conference spanned much more, the focus
…From The Eponymous Pickle
Footprint App Again
I see that Kevin Karakotsios has made his Footprint USA App free for a limited time only. Worth a look. I really like the style of his simulation based methods. More about the App here.
From Apophenia
Heads Up: Parenting Leave Coming Up
I’m a big believer in taking breaks from work, research, and my mediated life to travel, trek, and explore. Years ago, I implemented email sabbaticals to give myself space to take time off without being overwhelmed by the ongoing
…From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
Hill Tech Happenings, Week of May 20
May 21 Hearing: The House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing on cybersecurity with witnesses from intelligence and critical infrastructure backgrounds. 10 a.m., 2123 Rayburn Building The Research and Technology
…From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Check out our new website!
The CCC is excited to announce the launch of our updated website www.cra.org/ccc. The new site has a fresh new look and was designed with your needs in mind. The user-friendly navigation provides easy access to the blog, research
…From The Eponymous Pickle
Software Patents
In the WSJ: On software patents. A survey and debate on the topic. The patent system, like the copyright laws, are broken and impede innovation. Process within software perhaps, but the system is heavily gamed and poorly
…From The Eponymous Pickle
One Planet Living on a Footprint App
Long time correspondent Ken Karakotsios has posted an excellent case study for the use of his Footprint USA App. I mentioned it previously and have been exploring its visualization capabilities. I have been an industrial simulation
…