Wadler's Blog

One silver-lining to the cloud of COVID has been the development of virtual forms of participation. A SIGPLAN blog post by five early-career researchers offers their perspective on what we should do next.

We propose that SIGPLAN form a Committee on Conference Data. The committee would be made up of: one organizing-committee representative from each of the flagship SIGPLAN conferences, one early career representative, and, crucially, a professional data collection specialist hired by SIGPLAN. The group would identify and collect key data that is pertinent to conference organization, especially with respect to physical versus virtual conference formats. The committee would make data-driven recommendations to SIGPLAN organizers based on the collected data and guided by core tenets such as community building, inclusivity, research dissemination, and climate responsibility. We realize that this is not a small request, but we are confident that it is both necessary and achievable. If the committee were to form by May 1, 2021, it would be able to start collecting data at PLDI 2021 and continue through the next two years, providing enormous clarity for SIGPLAN organizers at a time when so much is unclear.

Labels: Academia, ACM, Climate Change, Covid-19, SIGPLAN

[An open request from three of my students. Please try it out! I'm impressed with what they have achieved.]

We'd like to invite you to take a look at Mandelbrot Maps - an interactive fractal explorer!

https://jmaio.github.io/mandelbrot-maps/

This has been my honours project for the past two years, and this year it's also been updated with contributions from Fraser Scott and Georgina Medd. (cheers!)

There's a [Help] menu with information about the various available options: hopefully you'll learn something new!

If you could take a few minutes to look around, we'd really appreciate it! 

Feel free to leave feedback either through the button on the website ([Settings] > [Info] > [Feedback]) or directly:
https://forms.office.com/r/uRQwkQvVpL

(This study was certified according to the Informatics Research Ethics Process, RT number 2019/22202)

Thank you!

Joao

The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.

Labels: Graphics, Mathematics, Recursion, Web

 

Marco Patrignani explains why and how to use colour in your technical papers. The guidelines for making highlighting useful even for colour-blind folk are particularly helpful.

Labels: Academia, Graphics, Programming Languages, Writing

 

Wealth Shown to Scale and Incarceration in Real Numbers, two intriguing infographics from Matt Korostoff.

Labels: BLM, Politics, US

 

Maria Stoian muses on how our reaction to Covid-19 predicts our reaction to the Climate Crisis. Simultaneously downbeat and upbeat. Courtesy of the Nib.

Labels: Climate Change, Covid-19, Politics