Google Page Rank Sparks New Computing Paradigm

In Map-Reduce and its Children today at NICTA in Canberra, Professor Jeffrey Ullman discussed the wider uses for the approach Google uses for calculating “PageRank” for web sites:Abstract: Since its publication by Google researchers in 2004, Map-reduce has proven to be a significant advance in programming methodology that offers resilient, easy-to-code parallel computation on aRead… Read more »

Online Collaboration for Science in Canada

Greetings from the famous room N101 at the ANU, where Dr. Brian Corrie, Technical Director IRMACS, is talking on collaboration infrastructure in Canada. The Interdisciplinary Research in the Mathematical and Computational Sciences Centre (IRMACS) provides rooms equipped with computer technology for people to work together remotely.The IRMACS Centre is 2,300 square meters, with offices, meetingRead… Read more »

Online Collaboration for Science in Canada

Greetings from the famous room N101 at the ANU, where Dr. Brian Corrie, Technical Director IRMACS, is talking on collaboration infrastructure in Canada. The Interdisciplinary Research in the Mathematical and Computational Sciences Centre (IRMACS) provides rooms equipped with computer technology for people to work together remotely.Title: Collaboration in the Computational Sciences: Why, Where, Original post

Undoing Reform: Cronyism in the DC Government

Since I was quoted in this article, Second Run: Why Local Filmmakers Are Miffed by Crystal Palmer’s Return to the D.C. Film Office, I thought I’d elaborate on my thoughts on why I’m miffed. In the run-up to the mayoral election, I was told by many well-meaning folks that Vincent Gray shared the reformer credentialsRead… Read more »

What Do Dominos and EPA Have In Common? They LISTEN!

I never had a favorite national pizza chain until recently, when Dominos Pizza rolled out one of the best customer service campaigns I’ve seen. Have you seen the commercial where Dominos CEO, Patrick Doyle, displays a photo that was posted on Domino’s showusyourpizza.com website showing pizza toppings horribly stuck to the top of the box?Read… Read more »

Keep It Real

Creative Commons via wn.com/CRAB Recently, I found myself in an interesting conversation on Twitter regarding the use of social media in emergency drills or exercises. Usually in emergency drills, a script is created that contains various messages or “injects” which are intended to drive participants to act in a certain way. We use these inRead… Read more »

Privacy Act Declaration of Emergency

A little known aspect of Australia’s Privacy Act (1998) is provision for Declaration of emergency. The Prime Minister or the Attorney General can make a declaration so that the usual restrictions on collection and use of personal information can be relaxed. The Department of Prime Minster and Cabinet website has a page to list emergencyRead… Read more »