Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
June 2013
From Computer Science Teacher – Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Interesting Links 17 June 2013
First Monday of “summer vacation” and my grading is done and have been submitted. You know what that means! Yep, working on my lesson plans for August. Two brand new courses to teach and I am determined to be ready for them.
First
…From The Eponymous Pickle
Networked Things
A good overview of the current state of the network of things. Which points back to our own experiments with networked refrigerators, in that nexus of the modern home, the kitchen. A talk by Bill Joy inspired us to take closer
…From CERIAS Blog
Opticks and a Treatise on the PRISM Surveillance Program (Guest Blog)
By Mark Rasch† and Sophia Hannah‡
Last post, we wrote about the NSA‟s secret program to obtain and then analyze the telephone metadata relating to foreign espionage and terrorism by obtaining the telephone metadata relating to
…From The Eponymous Pickle
Failure of Design Thinking
In Innovation Excellence: Interesting thoughts on the failure of design thinking. A little muddled, but I do think there must be a stronger combination of business, quantitative/analytic and design thinking to get to useful
…From The Eponymous Pickle
The Uncomfortable CEO
Former colleague José Ignacio Sordo Galarza has a new site: The Uncomfortable CEO. I will follow with more about his new book mentioned: " ... Exceptional CEOs approach work in a very consistent fashion: They are uncomfortable
…From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Happy Father’s Day
And the mother who gave it to us Sonora Dodd is widely credited with the creation of Father’s Day. The first one was organized by her in Spokane, Washington in 1910. The history of her struggle to make it an annual holiday is
…From The Eponymous Pickle
Deep Learning with Neural Nets
In CACM: Deep learning finally comes of age. Still a bit skeptical about what deep really means here. I need it it be useful. We used neural nets extensively to replace specific statistical methods in decision resolution
…From The Eponymous Pickle
Glass to Create Huge Data?
Via Gib Bassett: Will Glass make Big Data into Huge Data? Yes, definitely if it becomes popular, and something like it will, we will be collecting increasing amounts of data in many new contexts. Get ready for the analytics
…From CERIAS Blog
Schrodinger’s Catnip: A Review of the NSA Phone Surveillance Program (Guest Blog)
By Mark Rasch† and Sophia Hannah‡
The NSA programs to retrieve and analyze telephone metadata and internet communications and files (the former we will call the telephony program, the latter codenamed PRISM) are at one and the
…From CERIAS Blog
Schrodinger’s Catnip: A Review of the NSA Phone Surveillance Program (Guest Blog)
By Mark Rasch† and Sophia Hannah‡
The NSA programs to retrieve and analyze telephone metadata and internet communications and files (the former we will call the telephony program, the latter codenamed PRISM) are at one and the
…From CERIAS Blog
Schrodinger’s Catnip: A Review of the NSA Phone Surveillance Program (Guest Blog)
By Mark Rasch† and Sophia Hannah‡
The NSA programs to retrieve and analyze telephone metadata and internet communications and files (the former we will call the telephony program, the latter codenamed PRISM) are at one and the
…From The Eponymous Pickle
Monetizing Mobile
In the midst if a mobile application. But the value will be in efficiency, connectivity and supporting decisions from anywhere. Not advertising dollars from consumers. So how do you measure the value? Something to consider
…From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
The Mathematics Of Dieting
Yes there are math issues in this activity William Banting may have created the first very popular diet. In 1863 he published the Letter on Corpulence, Addressed to the Public, which outlined the details of a particular low-carbohydrate
…From Computer Science Teachers Association
AP CS Principles Course Moves One Step Closer
This morning the College Board announced that the National Science Foundation has committed $5.2 million in funding to support the continued development of the Advanced Placement Computer Science Principles course with the goal
…From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Sperm Consumption in the Southern Bottletail Squid
It's a novel behavior.
As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven't covered.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Brainwashed Review
In the WSJ: A balanced review of correspondent Sally Satel and Scott Lilienfeld's book: Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Neuroscience and Marketing
In Mediapost, Elissa Moses posts a good introduction about a number of non conscious methods and their use in marketing analysis. For a largely contrary critical view, see my note about Sally Satel's book: Brainwashed. I have
…From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
Technical + Creative
It's amazing how many people fail to realize that computing can be a creative field. In fact, in many cases, it has to be! For example, it makes no sense for me to try to come up with completely abstract game stories to test
…From Schneier on Security
Sixth Annual Movie-Plot Threat Contest Semifinalists
On April 1, I announced the Sixth Annual Movie Plot Threat Contest:
I want a cyberwar movie-plot threat. (For those who don't know, a movie-plot threat is a scare story that would make a great movie plot, but is much too specific…
From Computer Science Teacher – Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Free Computers For ISTE Attendees
Wow! Free computers. Hard to ignore that one. If you are heading out to San Antonia for ISTE 2013 Microsoft has a deal for you. They are giving away free Microsoft Surface RT computers to attendees from eligible schools. There
…From The Eponymous Pickle
Mini Windows Stores at Best Buy
I mentioned some time ago visiting a new Microsoft Store in the local mall. Located very close to the Apple store, which had been around for a couple of years. The proximity made them easy to compare. On a midweek afternoon
…From The Eponymous Pickle
Retail Data Synchronization
Kroger and GS1 are beginning a three year Project Mercury effort to synchronize data. A key element of running any large, complex retail operation. " ... Under the system, suppliers will give as many as 150 "attributes" for
…From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Moving to the Cloud Saves Energy
Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Northwestern University have conducted a study and found that moving common applications to the cloud can save significant amounts of energy. The study is summarized in
…From The Eponymous Pickle
Unemployed Geniuses
An intriguing article on the employment of genius. By their carefully limiting definition. Seen this effect relatively often. Genius does not always combine with social or collaborative skills. Includes some interesting
…From The Eponymous Pickle
Telepresence Robotics in the Office
In IEEE Spectrum: Cisco and iRobot working to produce a telepresence robot. Conceptually an appealing idea, but I wonder about the practicality before robotic systems are more autonomous. The proposed system seems to be remotely
…From Schneier on Security
Ricin as a Terrorist Tool
This paper (full paper behind paywall) -- from Environment International (2009) -- does a good job of separating fact from fiction:
Abstract: In recent years there has been an increased concern regarding the potential use of…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Mitigating Risk in the Supply Chain
In Industry Week:" ... Supply chain managers adopt new strategies to mitigate risks Research has shown that major interruptions in the supply chain can sap a company's share price by 7%, so supply chain managers are adopting
…From The Eponymous Pickle
Tesco Supply Chain Big Data
From Tableau Software: Major global retailer on the use of visualization: " ... Tesco uses Teradata to warehouse their supply and inventory data. They've got 5 years of data and 100 Terabytes on 100 cores in Teradata. On using
…From Schneier on Security
Trading Privacy for Convenience
Ray Wang makes an important point about trust and our data:
This is the paradox. The companies contending to win our trust to manage our digital identities all seem to have complementary (or competing) business models that breach…
From Computational Complexity
The Internship
Last weekend I took my teenage daughters to see The Internship, the Vince Vaughn-Owen Wilson vehicle where they play two forty-year old interns at Google. It basically follows the standard underdog story Vince Vaughn so greatly
…