Barbara Liskov wins Turing Award!

What an amazing day! I was just casually checking my e-mail and what do I find out? That another woman has won the Turing Award!

MIT Press Release
ACM Press Release

Although I feel bad to be surprised about the fact a woman has won (why should anyone be surprised about that??), I don't know how I could not be excited. When Fran Allen won it seemed like a barrier had been broken, but it still seemed like it would a long time before the community was willing to honor another woman. Apparently we are better than I thought! From reading through the press releases she sounds like an amazing researcher. I wanted to share a few paragraphs from the ACM Press Release:

The award cites Liskov for her foundational innovations to designing and building the pervasive computer system designs that power daily life. Her achievements in programming language design have made software more reliable and easier to maintain. They are now the basis of every important programming language since 1975, including Ada, C++, Java, and C#. The Turing Award, widely considered the "Nobel Prize in Computing," is named for the British mathematician Alan M. Turing. The award carries a $250,000 prize, with financial support provided by Intel Corporation and Google Inc.

The first U.S. woman to be awarded a Ph.D. from a computer science department (in 1968 from Stanford University), Liskov revolutionized the programming field with groundbreaking research that underpins virtually every modern computer application for both consumers and businesses. Her contributions have led to fundamental changes in building the computer software programs that form the infrastructure of our information-based society. Her legacy has made software systems more accessible, reliable, and secure 24/7.

I want to go dance around the block! Maybe one day (in many decades) my research will be great enough to receive this type of acknowledgment. Once can only hope! Despite her obviously being a deserving recipient, her success will help highlight what great things women can do (and are already doing) in the field of computer science.

GOP proves the point that Obama was trying to make

I watched the DNC on primetime last night, which basically covered Michelle Obama's speech and not much more. I enjoyed the speech though, and I think she got across a lot of what she supposedly wanted to: that they are normal people living the American dream, that they can relate to the average American, and will make changes in Washington for the better.

I read through a few commentaries about the speech this morning online, and one of the articles on CNN caught my eye. In this article, we basically read excerpts from comments made by GOP members about the first day of the DNC. Ironically, their criticisms actually brought out the points Michelle Obama was trying to make. For one, Ben Stein said that she was nothing special in the fact that she's a mother, and had a sick father. Exactly the point! She wanted people to realize that she understands their struggles because they are her struggles as well.

Other Republicans commented that the theme of change is the same one the Democrats have been spouting since the 1960's. Well, I do believe that progress is a main focus for the Democratic party. We don't believe in the status quo as being the right way by default, especially because there are so many people that struggle to make ends meet, or to get their fair chance. Once we make it possible for everyone to live a decent life, and break down racism, sexism, homophobia, and all other ways that Americans try to make others sub-human, then maybe change won't be necessary. But there are still so many major changes that need to be made, of course it is still a major theme!

I suspect the fact that the Republicans are saying that the American people should "rely on more than convention speeches" is a good sign: it shows that so far the speeches have been strong, and well done. I'm looking forward to the rest of them this week!

Why the outrage?

According to CNN.com, people are outraged that there will be pro-Islam posters on New York City subway trains in September. The ads are very simple black and white ads with a simple phrase related to Islam, and a web address where you can find out more about the religion. The dates were chosen to correspond with one of their holy holidays.

Why are people so against this idea? One man claimed it was due to the fact that one of the backers may have been involved in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. This man has not been sent to trial or convicted, however. Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty? It seems that as long as the website is promoting the religion and not extremism then the ads should be fine.

The point that the ads would be up during the anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy was also used. Does that really matter though? Extremists and terrorists were behind that event. Granted, many (or all?) of them can be linked to Islam. But does that mean that all Muslims are terrorists? NO! If people get worried during the anniversary because there is a simple add asking you to learn more about Islam, then that is their own narrow-minded problem. I see no reason for the city of New York to keep a religious group from simple advertising. They should keep the ads up specifically for this reason, to make people think twice about stereotyping and fearing an entire religion.

Powerful and Energy Efficient go Hand in Hand

There is apparently a list called "Green500" that ranks supercomputers based on their energy efficiency, as I read about in this article: The Green500 List: Good things come in threes. According to the article, the world's current fasted super computer named Roadrunner is also the third most energy efficient!

It's really great to see that we are making progressing in decreasing the energy consumption of computing. These energy savings are apparently due at least in some part to IBM's BladeCenter QS22.

Hopefully technology can continue to become more environmentally friendly, but this success seems like a great step in the right direction.

JK Rowling Gives Harvard Commencement Speech

Sorry, I'm a little behind on the news it seems! But perhaps not all of you have seen this speech yet.

Both the video and transcript of her speech

Today I ran across a link to the speech that J.K. Rowling gave at Harvard's commencement this spring. Among other things, this speech gives insight into why her characters are the way that they are, and why the evil characters are evil in the ways that they are. It seems that she values empathy and compassion above many things, mostly due to her experiences working at Amnesty International while in college. It was great to see the speech that she gave, both because it echoed many of the thoughts I have had over the past few years and because it helped give insight into who she is besides the author of the Harry Potter books.

A great speech

Usually political speeches drive me a little batty, but Barrack Obama gave one this week that I thought was actually really good. He brought up a lot of things that usually hide on the sidelines, some of which was related to both race and gender discrimination.



Whether you are republican, democrat, independent, foreign, or any other category, you should really listen to what he has to say. Much of his speech is devoted to why he will not denounce his pastor for comments that were made that Obama disagrees with, and I think everything was completely valid. Much of what he says is not particularly partisan, so I'm not trying to sway your political views but am instead encouraging you to hear a really great speech.

Facebook Makes Beacon Opt-in!

I was planning to write a post about Facebook beacon (privacy concerns, bad website design, etc) but just hadn't gotten around to it. Well, they announced yesterday that they are fixing it, so now is the perfect chance to actually tell you about Beacon.

For those that don't know, Facebook recently implemented a new feature called "Beacon." This feature was opt-out, meaning that every Facebook user was signed up for using it unless they said "no." That sounds easy enough, but the way it was designed was even more frustrating. What beacon does is it shows your Internet activity to your friends by posting it in their news feeds (a list of all recent Facebook activity of all friends that have chosen to share that activity). This includes purchases at websites such as Amazon and Overstock.com, as well as other activity such as game playing at Kongregate. At each site a link appears for approximately 10 seconds in which you have the option to "opt out" of the activity showing on Facebook.

I have experienced this link, and I only barely caught it in time. It was hard to notice as it was displayed outside of the area I was expected to be looking at on the site (i.e. bottom right of the screen). I probably only caught it quick enough because I knew it must be around somewhere.



One would hope that this mere 10 second window is not the only chance to decline your friends, relatives, and coworkers the chance to know what you are doing in the privacy of your own home. Technically it is not, as the "privacy" setting area of Facebook allows you to choose whether or not to show activity on that website (above picture). However, the option only appears after you have seen the "opt out" link for that site (i.e. bought something, played the game, etc), and if you choose to "never" show the activity it will still not remove it from the news feed of your friends. So it is not a true second chance as once you miss that first 10 second window that activity will be there for the entire Internet to potentially see. Also, the privacy setting defaults to "notify me first" even if you chose "no" on the initial 10 second window.

As you can undoubtedly tell, Beacon was not well designed. There are ethical flaws, privacy flaws, even common sense flaws. It worries me as to what type of people are working at Facebook; when I was an undergraduate in Computer Science we talked about the ethics of the business, and this type of feature would certainly fall into the category of bad computing decisions. I know Zuckerman is only 23, but I'm not that much older than him and I can see the flaws a mile away.

Not surprisingly, the users of Facebook rallied for their rights! Not only was there a Facebook petition group (as of this posting there are 57873 members), there was also a MoveOn.org petition that grew with each passing day. There were also blogs that shared information on how to "block" beacon from working.



The good news is that they have apologized for the error of their ways (again), and are going to fix the problem. Unsurprisingly they will now be making the program opt-in. The main change will be that the default is now "no, I don't want you to share this!" instead of "oh yes, please, I would love you to share this!" I can't wait to see it in action. There are many other concerns beside the fact that friends might see your activity, such as the fact that Facebook will now know your activity either way. Hopefully this concern will also be considered in their revamp of the service. I'm sure many users will eventually warm up to sharing *some* of their activities, especially since people are generally more likely to participate in something when they make the choice themselves!

Tragedy in VA -- W&M Fencing

As some of you may know, I was on the fencing team throughout my time at Virginia Tech. One of the many other schools that competed in Virginia was William & Mary. During the weekend of November 10th one of the cars traveling with their team during a trip for a competition was involved in a crash. This crashed killed their coach Pete Conomikes and injured the members of the team that were also in that car. I just found out that although two of the injured players are OK, one of those team members Ben Gutenberg has died from his injuries. He was a freshman.

There are many things that have gone through my mind the past few weeks about this accident. One was that I wish I had been more involved in MACFA to have known Pete better (he coached the men's team, W&M doesn't have a women's team). Everyone has always revered him as a great coach, especially among those teams that are club and not varsity (i.e. all VA teams). I am sure the Ben was also a fabulous person, with a wonderful life ahead of him. On another note, I'm extremely thankful that it was not the VTFC involved in the crash. I'm quite sad that someone has died, and his death has hit many of the fencers at VT hard enough without it being a fellow Hokie. I can barely imagine the pain I would feel if one of my friends still at VT was killed on their way to a tournament.

It also reminds me a lot of what traveling to tournaments is often like. Many times you either have to leave very early in the morning the day of the event or in the late afternoon or evening the day before the event, because students can't get out of classes on time to leave earlier. It is common to need to drive at night on the way home from a tournament as well. For our team, the drivers are always team members. What is so scary about the W&M crash is that it really reminds me of how easily it could have been us. It still could happen to them. The one thing that puts my mind at least partially at ease is knowing that we always tried to have older more experienced people driving, always ensured that the people driving were not worn out, and always made sure to switch off drivers so no one became fatigued. I am in no way implying that W&M did not do these things, but at least I know VT fencers are working to try to make their trips as safe as possible. Hopefully their luck will continue to hold out. What a way to be reminded about how dangerous it is to drive.

My heart truly goes out to all of the W&M fencers. I've met a few over the years but I think everyone I had met has since graduated. Still, I wish them the best and I hope that their hearts heal. I hope their team is able to heal over time, that they will still travel for their tournaments next semester (sometimes getting back into it can be the best thing for you), and that no other disaster befalls them. Life has become too short for too many this year.

I'm almost speechless....so I'm going to ramble for awhile...

This is so incredibly wrong on so many levels.

The sheer idea of a family trying to sabotage a teenage girl online makes my skin burn. A mother helped create a fake MySpace profile so that she could see what a teenage girl down the street was saying about her own daughter. Then her and her daughter talked to the teenager as if they were some new person in the area that wanted to be her friend. After the fake person and the teen had become good friends, they told her they had heard she was mean and that they didn't want to be her friend anymore, then posted demeaning things about her online such as statements that she was a slut. As far as the girl knew, she had just lost a new friend and people were talking about her behind her back. She committed suicide that night, age 13.

Whether or not she had killed herself in the end, how could an adult not realize how wrong it was to purposefully try to upset and trick a child? Even if the teenager hadn't had depression to begin with, how devastating is it to be told that you are cruel and a bad friend when all you are trying to do is be yourself, fit in, and make friends? From my experience, adults tend to think children are "cruel" because they misunderstand their motivations and think them to be much more conniving than they are. Usually the kids are just making mistakes on interactions with others because they are still learning. It's a shame that a parent would treat a child as an adult, make such a poor decision on how to deal with what was probably a fight between two kids, responding is such a way that is not ever appropriate.

What is the world coming to that even an adult can be so vindictive and mean? Since when is such horrible ill-spirited trickery OK? How incredibly heartless.

Mom, get off the phone!

A recent study has (unsurprisingly) discovered that teens use IM more than adults, apparently to avoid embarrassing themselves. Afraid Johnny won't want to go out on a date with you? Just IM him, and then close the window if he says "no." That way he won't see you get embarrassed and you can run away. One kid broke up with his girlfriend this way, which he claims probably saved him from bodily harm (haha). Does anyone else think that maybe the phone would have accomplished that same goal without being completely impersonal?

I think one of the main reasons that teens prefer personal conversations to be on instant messenger instead of the phone or in person is that they can't be easily overheard. At school or around town, if a kid makes a fool of him/herself many of his/her peers or complete strangers will witness it. For a teenager, that is potentially devastating (even if only in his/her own mind). At home one's parents or sibling could overhear any spoken conversation, which takes away one's privacy. For a teenager this is of course not acceptable, as obviously parents have no right to know what their kids say to their friends. So I don't think that teens necessarily want to avoid embarrassment with the people they talk to on IM, but that they want to keep other people from knowing of their embarrassment. Because, like, you know, that would be totally uncool.

Too Perfect not to share

As everyone knows, script writers in the USA are currently striking. How can they possibly get their message out? Certainly not by writing a show about their plight and performing it themselves. Oh wait...they actually know how to make a point, how to make jokes, and how to communicate! But certainly they wouldn't use their skills to fight for their own rights or make fun of their bosses, would they?

Well, why not? Looks like someone did write a script and someone else actually owns a camera. As one of my friends said, "Here's your moment of Zen:"



Goooooooooooooooooooooooooo, YouTube!

Crazy? No.... Revolutionary!

Of all the articles I've seen related to the dates of presidential primaries, I have to mostly agree with a recent commentary article on CNN.

The writer Roland Martin makes a lot of points that seem valid if sometimes flippant. For instance, why should are Iowa and New Hampshire be first? Did their governors beat the other governors at chess? Were they the big bullies of the early government? I'd like to quickly quote the article:

"But that respect for tradition -- Iowa and New Hampshire have always been first in line -- has gone out the window, and the Republican and Democratic national committees have struggled to keep order.

Folks, this cat is out of the bag, and it's never going to be the same again. And frankly, it shouldn't." -- Roland Martin, CNN

Of course, my main issue has nothing against Iowa or New Hampshire. It doesn't really matter to me who the first 2 states are. Although I agree that it is going to quickly get out of hand with states changing their dates like kids trying to be first in the lunch line. However, I also agree that in the end forcing change may be for the best. I'm not a political scientist but I feel like the long primary time span was designed so that candidates had time to travel around the country in an era where airplanes weren't exactly commonplace. Do we have that problem now? No. Do we need to have candidates travel to Iowa for those people to see them debate? No. We have TVs, radios, and Internet. Word travels exponentially faster than it did when the primaries first started. So why are we still doing things the way they were done hundreds of years ago? Since when was the status quo the best way to do things? (Ah yes, my liberal strain emerges...)

Mr. Martin seems of the opinion that having all primaries at the same time would just be crazy. But why? I think it's a great idea (revolutionary, even!). Now no state will heavily influence the voters in other states. Everyone will actually vote for who they want to win, as opposed to who they think has the best chance of winning. *gasp* People actually making decisions for themselves? I know that is actually a crazy idea, but I have a hunch that if the media was forced to focus on all candidate's platforms more than who won Iowa or New Hampshire, it might actually work better...besides, it's only the delegates that really have a say in the end anyway, so why not give it a shot?

Not Paying Attention, or just hoping that No one Else is?

The Onion usually writes funny stories, but one recent one has me stumped as to why they wrote it: Roomba Maker Unveils Military Robot.

So, iRobot has made military robots for years. I'm fairly sure that the military division came before the Roomba division. Maybe I'm just more aware of this fact since I'm in Computer Science or because I saw a speech and movie at Grace Hopper in 2006 by one of the founders of iRobot. But I have a feeling that it's not just Computer Scientists or Grace Hopper attendees that know about iRobot.

If so, were they just trying to poke fun of a Roomba outfitted with guns? I think I would have written it differently if they were going for that, since then maybe some of us wouldn't just assume they have no idea what they are talking about. At least then it would just be funny instead of confusing and maybe funny.

Ever heard of Charity??

Apparently it was recently discovered that a factory making clothes for GAP used child labor, which the company does not tolerate. They are taking action against the factory involved, and are pulling the piece of clothing off the shelves and will not be selling. This part I agree with, as forced child labor is basically slavery and shouldn't be tolerated nor should the company benefit from it.

However, what I disagree with is the fact that they are destroying the garments that were created by children. OK, so it's good that they aren't selling them. But destroying them? Yes, it was bad that children were forced to make them, but they are already made. Why not donate them to people who can't afford the clothing? They have piles of sweaters they can't sell, you would think that someone in the company would think about putting them to a good use. Making something good out of something bad, as the saying goes.

It seems like such a waste, and makes the company seem even more irresponsible to me. Since I don't like shopping there anyway I can't say I won't shop there anymore, but my opinion of them just dipped even lower (didn't know it was possible!).