3 <!DOCTYPE eventdefs SYSTEM "csc.dtd">
7 <eventitem date="2011-07-22" time="7 PM" room="Comfy Lounge" title="Code Party 3">
10 The final Code Party of the term is here! Come hack on some code,
11 solve some puzzles, and have some fun. The event starts in the evening and will run
12 all night. You can show up for any portion of it. You should bring a laptop, and
13 probably have something in mind to work on, though you're welcome with neither.
16 Snacks will be provided. Everyone is welcome.
19 Please note this date is postponed from the originally scheduled date due to
20 conflicts with <a href="http://www.kitchenerribandbeerfest.com/">Kitchener Ribfest & Craft Beer Show</a>
25 <eventitem date="2011-07-20" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 2038" title="An Introduction to Steganography">
27 As part of the CSC member talks series, Yomna Nasser will be presenting an introduction to steganography.
28 This talk will include an introduction to the area, history, and some basic techniques for hiding information
29 and detecting hidden data. There will be an overview of some of the mathematics involved, but nothing too
34 <eventitem date="2011-07-09" time="4 PM to 10PM" room="Columbia Lake Firepit"
35 title="CSC Goes Outside">
36 <short> <p> Do you like going outside? Are you
37 vitamin-D deficient from being in the MC too long? Do you think
38 marshmallows, hotdogs, and fire are a delicious combination? </p>
40 <p> If so, you should join us as the CSC is going outside! </p>
42 <p> Around 4PM, we're going to Columbia Lake for some outdoor fun.
43 We'll have Frisbees, kites, snacks, and some drinks. We'll be
44 sticking around until dusk, when we're going to have a campfire
45 with marshmallows and hotdogs. We plan to be there until 10PM, but
46 of course you're welcome to come for any subinterval. </p>
49 <eventitem date="2011-07-04" time="1:30 PM" room="MC 5158" title="Our Troubles with Linux and Why You Should Care">
52 A joint work between Professors Tim Brecht, Ashif Harji, and
53 Peter Buhr, this talk describes experiences using the Linux
54 kernel as a platform for conducting performance evaluations.
59 Linux provides researchers with a full-fledged operating system that is
60 widely used and open source. However, due to its complexity and rapid
61 development, care should be exercised when using Linux for performance
62 experiments, especially in systems research. The size and continual
63 evolution of the Linux code-base makes it difficult to understand, and
64 as a result, decipher and explain the reasons for performance
65 improvements. In addition, the rapid kernel development cycle means
66 that experimental results can be viewed as out of date, or meaningless,
67 very quickly. We demonstrate that this viewpoint is incorrect because
68 kernel changes can and have introduced both bugs and performance
72 This talk describes some of our experiences using the Linux kernel as a
73 platform for conducting performance evaluations and some performance
74 regressions we have found. Our results show, these performance
75 regressions can be serious (e.g., repeating identical experiments
76 results in large variability in results) and long lived despite having
77 a large negative impact on performance (one problem appears to have
78 existed for more than 3 years). Based on these experiences, we argue
79 that it is often reasonable to use an older kernel version,
80 experimental results need careful analysis to explain why a change in
81 performance occurs, and publishing papers that validate prior research
85 This is joint work with Ashif Harji and Peter Buhr.
88 This talk will be about 20-25 minutes long with lots of time for
89 questions and discussion afterwards.
93 <eventitem date="2011-06-24" time="7 PM" room="Comfy Lounge" title="Code Party 2">
96 The second Code Party of the term takes place this Friday! Come hack on some code,
97 solve some puzzles, and have some fun. The event starts in the evening and will run
98 all night. You can show up for any portion of it. You should bring a laptop, and
99 probably have something in mind to work on, though you're welcome with neither.
102 Snacks will be provided.
106 <eventitem date="2011-06-14" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 2054" title="Taming Software Bloat with AdaptableGIMP">
108 Ever use software with 100s or 1000s of commands? Ever have a hard time
109 finding the right commands to perform your task? In this talk, we'll
110 present AdaptableGIMP, a new version of GIMP developed at Waterloo to
111 help simplify complex user interfaces.
115 Ever use software with 100s or 1000s of commands? Ever have a hard time
116 finding the right commands to perform your task? We have. And we have
117 some new ideas on how to deal with software bloat.
120 In this talk, we'll present AdaptableGIMP, a new version of GIMP
121 developed by the HCI Lab here at the University of Watreloo.
122 AdaptableGIMP introduces the notion of crowdsourced interface
123 customizations: Any user of the application can customize the interface
124 for performing a particular task, with that customization instantly
125 shared with all other users through a wiki at adaptablegimp.org. In the
126 talk, we'll demo this new version of GIMP and show how it can help
127 people work faster by simplifying feature-rich, complex user
132 <eventitem date="2011-06-09" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 2054"
133 title="General Purpose Computing on Graphics Cards">
135 In the first of our member talks for the term, Katie Hyatt will give a
136 short introduction to General Purpose Graphics Processing Unit
137 computing. This expanding field has many applications. The primary
138 focus of this talk will be nVidia's CUDA architecture.
141 <p> This is the first of our member talks for the term, presented by
142 CSC member and Waterloo undergraduate student Katie Hyatt
145 GPGPU (general purpose graphics processing unit) computing is an
146 expanding area of interest, with applications in physics, chemistry,
147 applied math, finance, and other fields. nVidia has created an
148 architecture named CUDA to allow programmers to use graphics cards
149 without having to write PTX assembly or understand OpenGL. CUDA is
150 designed to allow for high-performance parallel computation controlled
151 from the CPU while granting the user fine control over the behaviour
152 and performance of the device.
156 In this talk, I'll discuss the basics of nVidia's CUDA architecture
157 (with most emphasis on the CUDA C extensions), the GPGPU programming
158 environment, optimizing code written for the graphics card, algorithms
159 with noteworthy performance on GPU, libraries and tools available to
160 the GPGPU programmer, and some applications to condensed matter
161 physics. No physics background required!
165 <eventitem date="2011-06-03" time="7 PM" room="Comfy Lounge" title="Code Party 1">
167 The Computer Science Club is having our first code party of the term.
168 The theme for this week's code party is personal projects. Come show us
169 what you've been working on! Of course, everybody is welcome, even if you
170 don't have a project.
173 The Computer Science Club is having our first code party of the term.
174 The theme for this week's code party is personal projects. Come show us
175 what you've been working on! Of course, everybody is welcome, even if you
176 don't have a project.
178 Personal projects are a great way to flex your CS muscles, and learn interesting
179 and new things. Come out and have some fun!
181 Two more are scheduled for later in the term.
184 <eventitem date="2011-05-09" time="5:31 PM" room="Comfy Lounge" title="Elections Nominees List">
186 <p>CSC Elections, final list of nominations for Spring 2011</p>
189 <p>The nominations are:
191 <li>President: jdonland, mimcpher, mthiffau</li>
192 <li>Vice-President: jdonland, mimcpher</li>
193 <li>Treasurer: akansong, kspaans</li>
194 <li>Secretary: akansong, jdonland</li>
200 <eventitem date="2011-05-09" time="5:30 PM" room="Comfy Lounge" title="Elections">
202 <p>CSC Elections have begun for the Spring 2011 term, nominations are open!</p>
205 <p>It's time to elect your CSC executive for the Spring 2011 term. The
206 elections will be held on Monday May 9th at 5:30PM in the Comfy Lounge
207 on the 3rd floor of the MC. Nominations can be sent to the Chief
208 Returning Officer, <a href="mailto:cro@csclub.uwaterloo.ca">cro@csclub.uwaterloo.ca</a>.
209 Nominations will be open until 4:30PM on Monday May 9th. You can also stop by the office in
210 person to write your nominations on the white board.</p>
212 <p>The executive positions open for nomination are:
215 <li>Vice-President</li>
219 There are also numerous positions that will be appointed once the
220 executive are elected including systems administrator, office manager,
223 <p>Everyone is encouraged to run if they are interested, regardless of
224 program of study, age, or experience. If you can't make the election,
225 that's OK too! You can give the CRO a statement to read on your
226 behalf. If you can't make it or are out of town, your votes can be
227 sent to the CRO in advance of the elections. For the list of nominees,
228 watch the CSC website, or ask the CRO.</p>
230 <p>Good luck to our candidates!</p>
235 <eventitem date="2011-03-17" time="04:30 PM" room="MC2034" title="Software Patents">
237 <short><p><i>by Stanley Khaing</i>. What are the requirements for obtaining a patent? Should software be patentable?</p></short>
240 <p>Stanley Khaing is a lawyer from Waterloo whose areas of practice are software and high technology. He will be discussing software patents. In particular, he will be addressing the following questions:</p>
242 <li>What are the requirements for obtaining a patent?</li>
243 <li>Should software be patentable?</li>
249 <eventitem date="2011-02-17" time="07:00 PM" room="MC2017" title="A Smorgasbord of Perl Talks">
251 <short><p><i>by KW Perl Mongers</i>. These talks are intended for programmers who are curious about the Swiss Army Chainsaw of languages, Perl.</p></short>
254 <p>Tyler Slijboom will present:</p>
257 <li>Prototyping in Perl,</li>
258 <li>Perl Default Variables,</li>
259 <li>HOWTO on OO Programming, and</li>
260 <li>HOWTO on Installing and Using Modules from CPAN</li>
263 <p>Daniel Allen will present:</p>
266 <li>Coping with Other Peoples' Code</li>
269 <p>Justin Wheeler will present:</p>
272 <li>Moose: a Modern Perl Framework</li>
278 <eventitem date="2011-02-09" time="04:30 PM" room="MC3003" title="UNIX 103: Version Control Systems">
280 <short><p><i>by Calum T. Dalek</i>. In this long-awaited third installment of the popular Unix Tutorials the friendly experts of the CSC will teach you the simple art of version control.
283 <abstract><p>You will learn the purpose and use of two different Version Control Systems (git and subversion). This tutorial will advise you in the discipline of managing the source code of your projects and enable you to quickly learn new Version Control Systems in the work place -- a skill that is much sought after by employers.</p></abstract>
287 <eventitem date="2011-02-04" time="07:00 PM" room="Comfy Lounge" title="Code Party">
289 <short><p><i>by Calum T. Dalek</i>. Come one, come all to the Code Party happening in the Comfy Lounge this Friday. The event starts at 7:00PM and will run through the night.</p></short>
291 <abstract><p>Why sleep when you could be hacking on $your_favourite_project or doing $something_classy in great company? Join us for a night of coding and comraderie! Food and caffeine will be provided.</p></abstract>
295 <eventitem date="2011-02-02" time="04:30 PM" room="MC3003" title="UNIX 102: Documents and Editing in the Unix environment">
297 <short><p><i>by Calum T. Dalek</i>. The next installment in the CS Club's popular Unix tutorials UNIX 102 introduces powerful text editing tools for programming and document formatting.
300 <abstract><p>Unix 102 is a follow up to Unix 101, requiring basic knowledge of the shell. If you missed Unix 101 but still know your way around you should be fine. Topics covered include: "real" editors, document typesetting with LaTeX (great for assignments!), bulk editing, spellchecking, and printing in the student environment and elsewhere. If you aren't interested or feel comfortable with these tasks, watch out for Unix 103 and 104 to get more depth in power programming tools on Unix.</p></abstract>
304 <eventitem date="2011-01-26" time="04:30 PM" room="MC3003" title="UNIX 101: An Introduction to the Shell">
306 <short><p><i>by Calum T. Dalek</i>. New to Unix? No problem, we'll teach you to power use circles around your friends!
310 <abstract><p>This first tutorial is an introduction to the Unix shell environment, both on the student
311 servers and on other Unix environments. Topics covered include: using the shell, both basic
312 interaction and advanced topics like scripting and job control, the filesystem and manipulating
313 it, and ssh. If you feel you're already familiar with these topics don't hesitate to come
314 to Unix 102 to learn about documents, editing, and other related tasks, or watch out
315 for Unix 103 and 104 that get much more in depth into power programming tools on Unix.
322 <eventitem date="2010-11-17" time="04:30 PM" room="MC4061" title="Mathematics and aesthetics in maze design">
324 <short><p><i>by Dr. Craig S. Kaplan</i>. In this talk, I discuss the role of the computer in the process of designing mazes. I present some well known algorithms for maze construction, and more recent research that attempts to novel mazes with non-trivial mathematical or aesthetic properties.
328 <abstract><p>For thousands of years, mazes and labyrinths have played
329 an important role in human culture and myth. Today, solving
330 mazes is a popular pastime, whether with pencil on paper
331 or by navigating through a cornfield.
332 </p><p>The construction of compelling mazes encompasses a variety of
333 challenges in mathematics, algorithm design, and aesthetics.
334 The maze should be visually attractive, but it should also be
335 an engaging puzzle. Master designers balance these two goals
336 with wonderful results.
337 </p><p>In this talk, I discuss the role of the computer in the process
338 of designing mazes. I present some well known algorithms for
339 maze construction, and more recent research that attempts to
340 novel mazes with non-trivial mathematical or aesthetic properties.
344 <eventitem date="2010-11-13" time="12:00 PM" room="Outside DC" title="CSC Invades Toronto">
346 <short><p>The CSC is going to Toronto to visit UofT's <a href="http://cssu.cdf.toronto.edu/">CSSU</a>, see what they do, and have beer with them.
347 If you would like to come along, please come by the office and sign up. The cost for the trip is $2 per member.
349 The bus will be leaving from the Davis Center (DC) Saturday Nov. 13 at NOON (some people may have been told 1pm, this is an error). Please show up a few minutes early so we may
354 <eventitem date="2010-11-05" time="07:00 PM" room="CnD Lounge (MC3002)" title="Hackathon">
356 <short><p>Come join the CSC for a night of code, music with only 8 bits, and comradarie. We will be in the C&D Lounge from 7pm until 7am working on personal projects, open source projects, and whatever else comes to mind. If you're interested in getting involved in free/open source development, some members will be on hand to guide you through the process.
360 <abstract><p>Come join the CSC for a night of code, music with only 8 bits, and comradarie. We will be
361 in the C&D Lounge from 7pm until 7am working on personal projects, open source projects, and
362 whatever else comes to mind. If you're interested in getting involved in free/open source development,
363 some members will be on hand to guide you through the process.
368 <eventitem date="2010-10-26" time="04:30 PM" room="MC4040" title="Analysis of randomized algorithms via the probabilistic method">
370 <short><p>In this talk, we will give a few examples that illustrate the basic method and show how it can be used to prove the existence of objects with desirable combinatorial properties as well as produce them in expected polynomial time via randomized algorithms. Our main goal will be to present a very slick proof from 1995 due to Spencer on the performance of a randomized greedy algorithm for a set-packing problem. Spencer, for seemingly no reason, introduces a time variable into his greedy algorithm and treats set-packing as a Poisson process. Then, like magic, he is able to show that his greedy algorithm is very likely to produce a good result using basic properties of expected value.
374 <abstract><p>The probabilistic method is an extremely powerful tool in combinatorics that can be
375 used to prove many surprising results. The idea is the following: to prove that an
376 object with a certain property exists, we define a distribution of possible objects
377 and use show that, among objects in the distribution, the property holds with
378 non-zero probability. The key is that by using the tools and techniques of
379 probability theory, we can vastly simplify proofs that would otherwise require very
380 complicated combinatorial arguments.
381 </p><p>As a technique, the probabilistic method developed rapidly during the latter half of
382 the 20th century due to the efforts of mathematicians like Paul Erdős and increasing
383 interest in the role of randomness in theoretical computer science. In essence, the
384 probabilistic method allows us to determine how good a randomized algorithm's output
385 is likely to be. Possibly applications range from graph property testing to
386 computational geometry, circuit complexity theory, game theory, and even statistical
388 </p><p>In this talk, we will give a few examples that illustrate the basic method and show
389 how it can be used to prove the existence of objects with desirable combinatorial
390 properties as well as produce them in expected polynomial time via randomized
391 algorithms. Our main goal will be to present a very slick proof from 1995 due to
392 Spencer on the performance of a randomized greedy algorithm for a set-packing
393 problem. Spencer, for seemingly no reason, introduces a time variable into his
394 greedy algorithm and treats set-packing as a Poisson process. Then, like magic,
395 he is able to show that his greedy algorithm is very likely to produce a good
396 result using basic properties of expected value.
397 </p><p>Properties of Poisson and Binomial distributions will be applied, but I'll remind
398 everyone of the needed background for the benefit of those who might be a bit rusty.
399 Stat 230 will be more than enough. Big O notation will be used, but not excessively.
404 <eventitem date="2010-10-19" time="04:30 PM" room="RCH 306" title="Machine learning vs human learning - will scientists become obsolete?">
406 <short><p><i>by Dr. Shai Ben-David</i>.
415 <eventitem date="2010-10-13" time="04:30 PM" room="MC3003" title="UNIX 102">
417 <short><p>This installment in the CS Club's popular Unix tutorials UNIX 102 introduces powerful text editing tools for programming and document formatting.
421 <abstract><p>Unix 102 is a follow up to Unix 101, requiring basic knowledge of the shell.
422 If you missed Unix101 but still know your way around you should be fine.
423 Topics covered include: "real" editors, document typesetting with LaTeX
424 (great for assignments!), bulk editing, spellchecking, and printing in the
425 student environment and elsewhere.
429 <eventitem date="2010-10-06" time="04:30 PM" room="MC3003" title="UNIX 103">
431 <short><p>Unix 103 will cover version control systems and how to use them to manage your projects. Unix 101 would be helpful, but all that is needed is basic knowledge of the Unix command line (how to enter commands).
435 <abstract><p>Unix 103 will cover version control systems and how to use them to manage
436 your projects. Unix 101 would be helpful, but all that is needed is basic
437 knowledge of the Unix command line (how to enter commands).
442 <eventitem date="2010-10-12" time="04:30 PM" room="MC4061" title="How to build a brain: From single neurons to cognition">
444 <short><p><i>By Dr. Chris Eliasmith</i>. Theoretical neuroscience is a new discipline focused on constructing mathematical models of brain function. It has made significant headway in understanding aspects of the neural code. However, past work has largely focused on small numbers of neurons, and so the underlying representations are often simple. In this talk I demonstrate how the ideas underlying these simple forms of representation can underwrite a representational hierarchy that scales to support sophisticated, structure-sensitive representations.
448 <abstract><p><i>By Dr. Chris Eliasmith</i>. Theoretical neuroscience is a new discipline focused on constructing
449 mathematical models of brain function. It has made significant
450 headway in understanding aspects of the neural code. However,
451 past work has largely focused on small numbers of neurons, and
452 so the underlying representations are often simple. In this
453 talk I demonstrate how the ideas underlying these simple forms of
454 representation can underwrite a representational hierarchy that
455 scales to support sophisticated, structure-sensitive
456 representations. I will present a general architecture, the semantic
457 pointer architecture (SPA), which is built on this hierarchy
458 and allows the manipulation, processing, and learning of structured
459 representations in neurally realistic models. I demonstrate the
460 architecture on Progressive Raven's Matrices (RPM), a test of
461 general fluid intelligence.
466 <eventitem date="2010-10-04" time="04:30 PM" room="MC4021" title="BareMetal OS">
468 <short><p><i>By Ian Seyler, Return to Infinity</i>. BareMetal is a new 64-bit OS for x86-64 based computers. The OS is written entirely in Assembly, while applications can be written in Assembly or C/C++. High Performance Computing is the main target application.
472 <abstract><p><i>By Ian Seyler, Return to Infinity</i>. BareMetal is a new 64-bit OS for x86-64 based computers. The OS is written entirely in Assembly,
473 while applications can be written in Assembly or C/C++.
474 High Performance Computing is the main target application.
479 <eventitem date="2010-09-28" time="04:30 PM" room="MC4061" title="A Brief Introduction to Video Encoding">
481 <short><p><i>By Peter Barfuss</i>. In this talk, I will go over the concepts used in video encoding (such as motion estimation/compensation, inter- and intra- frame prediction, quantization and entropy encoding), and then demonstrate these concepts and algorithms in use in the MPEG-2 and the H.264 video codecs. In addition, some clever optimization tricks using SIMD/vectorization will be covered, assuming sufficient time to cover these topics.
485 <abstract><p><i>By Peter Barfuss</i>. With the recent introduction of digital TV and the widespread success
486 of video sharing websites such as youtube, it is clear that the task
487 of lossily compressing video with good quality has become important.
488 Similarly, the complex algorithms involved require high amounts of
489 optimization in order to run fast, another important requirement for
490 any video codec that aims to be widely used/adopted.
491 </p><p>In this talk, I
492 will go over the concepts used in video encoding (such as motion
493 estimation/compensation, inter- and intra- frame prediction,
494 quantization and entropy encoding), and then demonstrate these
495 concepts and algorithms in use in the MPEG-2 and the H.264 video
496 codecs. In addition, some clever optimization tricks using
497 SIMD/vectorization will be covered, assuming sufficient time to cover
503 <eventitem date="2010-09-23" time="04:30 PM" room="DC1301 (The Fishbowl)" title="Calling all CS Frosh">
505 <short><p>Come meet and greet your professors, advisors, and the heads of the school. Talk to the CSC executive and other upper year students about CS at Waterloo. Free food and beverages will also be available, so there is really no excuse to miss this.
509 <abstract><p>Come meet and greet your professors, advisors, and the heads of the school.
510 Talk to the CSC executive and other upper year students about CS at Waterloo.
511 Free food and beverages will also be available, so there is really no excuse
516 <eventitem date="2010-09-29" time="04:30 PM" room="MC3003" title="Unix 101">
518 <short><p>Need to use the Unix environment for a course, want to overcome your fears of the command line, or just curious? Attend the first installment in the CSC's popular series of Unix tutorials to learn the basics of the shell and how to navigate the unix environment. By the end of the hands on workshop you will be able to work efficiently from the command line and power-use circles around your friends.
522 <abstract><p>Need to use the Unix environment for a course, want to overcome your fears of
523 the command line, or just curious? Attend the first installment in the CSC's
524 popular series of Unix tutorails to learn the basics of the shell and how to
525 navigate the unix environment. By the end of the hands on workshop you will
526 be able to work efficiently from the command line and power-use circles around
532 <eventitem date="2010-09-22" time="06:00 PM" room="MC4045" title="Cooking for Geeks">
534 <short><p>The CSC is happy to be hosting Jeff Potter, author of "Cooking for Geeks" for a presentation on the finer arts of food science. Jeff's book has been featured on NPR, BBC and his presentations have wowed audiences of hackers & foodies alike. We're happy to have Jeff joining us for a hands on demonstration.
538 <abstract><p>The CSC is happy to be hosting Jeff Potter, author of "Cooking for Geeks" for a presentation on the finer arts of food science.
539 Jeff's book has been featured on NPR, BBC and his presentations have wowed audiences of hackers & foodies alike.
540 We're happy to have Jeff joining us for a hands on demonstration.
541 </p><p>But you don't have to take our word for it... here's what Jeff has to say:
542 </p><p>Hi! I'm Jeff Potter, author of Cooking for Geeks (O'Reilly Media, 2010), and I'm doing a "D.I.Y. Book Tour" to talk
543 about my just-released book. I'll talk about the food science behind what makes things yummy, giving you a quick
544 primer on how to go into the kitchen and have a fun time turning out a good meal.
545 Depending upon the space, I’ll also bring along some equipment or food that we can experiment with, and give you a chance to play with stuff and pester me with questions.
546 </p><p>If you have a copy of the book, bring it! I’ll happily sign it.
550 <eventitem date="2010-09-21" time="04:30 PM" room="MC4061" title="In the Beginning">
552 <short><p><b>by Dr. Prabhakar Ragde, Cheriton School of Computer Science</b>. I'll be workshopping some lecture ideas involving representations of
553 numbers, specification of computation in functional terms, reasoning about
554 such specifications, and comparing the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches.
558 <abstract><p>I'll be workshopping some lecture ideas involving representations
559 of numbers, specification of computation in
560 functional terms, reasoning about such specifications, and comparing the
561 strengths and weaknesses of
562 different approaches. No prior background is needed; the talk should be accessible
564 the University of Waterloo and, I hope, interesting to both novices and experts.
568 <eventitem date="2010-09-14" time="04:30 PM" room="Comfy Lounge" title="Elections">
569 <short><p>Fall term executive elections and general meeting.</p></short>
574 <eventitem date="2010-07-20" time="04:30 PM" room="MC2066" title="The Incompressibility Method">
576 In this talk, we shall explore the incompressibility method---an interesting and
577 extremely powerful framework for determining the average-case runtime of
578 algorithms. Within the right background knowledge, the heapsort question can be
579 answered with an elegant 3-line proof.
582 <p>Heapsort. It runs in $\Theta(n \log n)$ time in the worst case, and in $O(n)$
583 time in the best case. Do you think that heapsort runs faster than $O(n
584 \log n)$ time on average? Could it be possible that on most inputs,
585 heapsort runs in $O(n)$ time, running more slowly only on a small fraction
587 <p>Most students would say no. It "feels" intuitively obvious that heapsort
588 should take the full $n \log n$ steps on most inputs. However, proving this
589 rigourously with probabilistic arguments turns out to be very difficult.
590 Average case analysis of algorithms is one of those icky subjects that most
591 students don't want to touch with a ten foot pole; why should it be so
592 difficult if it is so intuitively obvious?</p>
593 <p>In this talk, we shall explore the incompressibility method---an interesting
594 and extremely powerful framework for determining the average-case runtime of
595 algorithms. Within the right background knowledge, the heapsort question
596 can be answered with an elegant 3-line proof.</p>
597 <p>The crucial fact is that an overwhelmingly large fraction of randomly
598 generated objects are incompressible. We can show that the inputs to
599 heapsort that run quickly correspond to inputs that can be compressed,
600 thereby proving that heapsort can't run quickly on average. Of course,
601 "compressible" is something that must be rigourously defined, and for this
602 we turn to the fascinating theory of Kolmogorov complexity.</p>
603 <p>In this talk, we'll briefly discuss the proof of the incompressibility
604 theorem and then see a number of applications. We won't dwell too much on
605 gruesome mathemtical details. No specific background is required, but
606 knowledge of some of the topics in CS240 will be helpful in understanding
607 some of the applications.</p>
611 <eventitem date="2010-07-13" time="04:30 PM" room="MC2066" title="Halftoning and Digital Art">
612 <short><p>Edgar Bering will be giving a talk titled: Halftoning and Digital Art</p></short>
613 <abstract><p>Halftoning is the process of simulating a continuous tone image
614 with small dots or regions of one colour. Halftoned images may be seen
615 in older newspapers with a speckled appearance, and to this day colour
616 halftoning is used in printers to reproduce images. In this talk I will
617 present various algorithmic approaches to halftoning, with an eye not
618 toward exact image reproduction but non-photorealistic rendering and
619 art. Included in the talk will be an introduction to digital paper
620 cutting and a tutorial on how to use the CSC's paper cutter to render
626 <eventitem date="2010-07-09" time="07:00 PM" room="MC Comfy" title="Code Party">
627 <short><p>There is a CSC Code Party Friday starting at 7:00PM (1900)
628 until we get bored (likely in the early in morning). Come out for
631 <abstract><p>There is a CSC Code Party Friday starting at 7:00PM (1900)
632 until we get bored (likely in the early in morning). Come out for
637 <eventitem date="2010-07-06" time="04:30 PM" room="MC2054" title="Dataflow Analysis">
638 <short><p>Nomair Naeem, a P.H.D. Student at Waterloo, will be giving a talk about Dataflow Analysis</p></short>
640 After going through an introduction to Lattice Theory and a formal treatment to
641 Dataflow Analysis Frameworks, we will take an in-depth view of the
642 Interprocedural Finite Distributive Subset (IFDS) Algorithm which implements a
643 fully context-sensitive, inter-procedural static dataflow analysis. Then, using
644 a Variable Type Analysis as an example, I will outline recent extensions that we
645 have made to open up the analysis to a larger variety of static analysis
646 problems and making it more efficient.
648 The talk is self-contained and no prior knowledge of program analysis is
653 <eventitem date="2010-06-22" time="04:30 PM" room="MC2066" title="Compiling To Combinators">
654 <short><p>Professor Ragde will be giving the first of our Professor talks for the Spring 2010 term.</p></short>
656 Number theory was thought to be mathematically appealing but practically
657 useless until the RSA encryption algorithm demonstrated its considerable
658 utility. I'll outline how combinatory logic (dating back to 1920) has a
659 similarly unexpected application to efficient and effective compilation,
660 which directly catalyzed the development of lazy functional programming
661 languages such as Haskell. The talk is self-contained; no prior knowledge
662 of functional programming is necessary.
666 <eventitem date="2010-05-25" time="05:00 PM" room="MC2066" title="Gerald Sussman">
667 <short><p>Why Programming is a Good Medium for Expressing Poorly Understood and Sloppily Formulated Ideas</p></short>
668 <abstract>Full details found <a href="http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/misc/sussman/">here</a></abstract>
671 <eventitem date="2010-05-26" time="03:30 PM" room="MC5136" title="Gerald Sussman">
672 <short><p>Public Reception</p></short>
673 <abstract>Full details found <a href="http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/misc/sussman/">here</a></abstract>
676 <eventitem date="2010-05-26" time="05:000PM" room="MC5158" title="Gerald Sussman">
677 <short><p>The Art of the Propagator</p></short>
678 <abstract>Full details found <a href="http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/misc/sussman/">here</a></abstract>
681 <eventitem date="2010-05-11" time="05:30 PM" room="Comfy Lounge" title="Elections">
682 <short><p>Spring term executive elections and general meeting.</p></short>
686 <eventitem date="2010-04-06" time="04:30 PM" room="DC1304" title="Brush-Based Constructive Solid Geometry">
688 <short><p>The last talk in the CS10 series will be presented by Jordan Saunders, in which he will discuss methods for processing brush-based constructive solid geometry.
692 <abstract><p>For some would-be graphics programmers, the biggest barrier-to-entry is getting data to render. This is why there exist so
693 many terrain renderers: by virtue of the fact that rendering height-fields tends to give pretty pictures from next to no
694 "created" information. However, it becomes more difficult when programmers want to do indoor rendering (in the style of the
695 Quake and Unreal games). Ripping map information from the Quake games is possible (and fairly simple), but their tool-chain
696 is fairly clumsy from the point of view of adding a conversion utility.
697 </p><p>My talk is about Constructive Solid Geometry from a Brush-based perspective (nearly identical to Unreal's and still very similar
698 to Quake's). The basic idea is that there are brushes (convex volumes in 3-space) and they can either be additive (solid brushes)
699 or subtractive (hollow, or air brushes). The entire world starts off as an infinite solid lump and you can start removing sections
700 of it then adding them back in. The talk pertains to fast methods of taking the list of brushes and generating world geometry. I may
701 touch on interface problems with the editor, but the primary content will be the different ways I generated the geometry and what I found to be best.
705 <eventitem date="2010-04-07" time="1:00 PM" room="MC2037" title="Windows Azure Lab">
707 <short><p>Get the opportunity to learn about Microsoft's Cloud Services Platform, Windows Azure. Attend this Hands-on-lab session sponsored by Microsoft.
711 <abstract><p>We are in the midst of an industry shift as developers and businesses embrace the Cloud.
712 Technical innovations in the cloud are dramatically changing the economics of computing
713 and reducing barriers that keep businesses from meeting the increasing demands of
714 today's customers. The cloud promises choice and enables scenarios that previously
715 were not economically practical.
716 </p><p>Microsoft's Windows Azure is an internet-scale cloud computing services platform hosted
717 in Microsoft data centers. The Windows Azure platform, allows developers to build and
718 deploy production ready cloud services and applications. With the Windows Azure platform,
719 developers can take advantage of greater choice and flexibility in how they develop and
720 deploy applications, while using familiar tools and programming languages.
721 </p><p>Get the opportunity to learn about Microsoft's Cloud Services Platform, Windows Azure.
722 Attend the Hands-on-lab session sponsored by Microsoft.
726 <eventitem date="2010-04-01" time="6:30 PM" room="CSC Office" title="CTRL-D">
728 <short><p>Once again the CSC will be holding its traditional end of term dinner. It will be at the Vice President's house. If you don't know how to get there meet at the club office at 6:30 PM, a group will be leaving from the MC then. The dinner will be potluck style so bring a dish for 4-6 people, or some plates or pop or something.
732 <abstract><p>Once again the CSC will be holding its traditional end of term dinner. It will
733 be at the Vice President's house. If you don't know how to get there meet
734 at the club office at 6:30 PM, a group will be leaving from the MC then. The
735 dinner will be potluck style so bring a dish for 4-6 people, or some plates
740 <eventitem date="2010-03-30" time="4:30 PM" room="DC1304" title="NUI: The future of robotics and automated systems">
742 <short><p>Member Sam Pasupalak will present some of his ongoing work in Natural User Interfaces and Robotics in this sixth installment of CS10.
746 <abstract><p>Bill Gates in his article “A Robot in every home” in the Scientific American describes how the current
747 robotics industry resembles the 1970’s of the Personal Computer Industry. In fact it is not just
748 Microsoft which has already taken a step forward by starting the Microsoft Robotics studio, but robotics
749 researchers around the world believe that robotics and automation systems are going to be ubiquitous in
750 the next 10-20 years (similar to Mark Weiser’s analogy of Personal Computers 20 years ago). Natural User
751 Interfaces (NUIs) are going to revolutionize the way we interact with computers, cellular phones, household
752 appliances, automated systems in our daily lives. Just like the GUI made personal computing a reality,
753 I believe natural user interfaces will do the same for robotics.
754 </p><p>During the presentation I will be presenting my ongoing software project on natural user interfaces as well
755 as sharing my goals for the future, one of which is to provide an NUI SDK and the other to provide a common
756 Robotics OS for every hardware vendor that will enable people to make applications without worrying about
757 underlying functionality. If time permits I would like to present a demo of my software prototype.
761 <eventitem date="2010-03-26" time="7:00 PM" room="MC7001" title="A Final Party of Code">
763 <short><p>There is a CSC/CMC Code Party Friday starting at 7:00PM (1900) until we get bored (likely in the early in morning). Come out for fun hacking times, spreading Intertube memes (optional), hacking on open source projects, doing some computational math, and other general classiness. There will be free energy drinks for everyone's enjoyment. This is the last of the term so don't miss out.
767 <abstract><p>There is a CSC/CMC Code Party Friday starting at 7:00PM (1900) until we
768 get bored (likely in the early in morning). Come out for fun hacking
769 times, spreading Intertube memes (optional), hacking on open source projects,
770 doing some computational math, and other
771 general classiness. There will be free energy drinks for everyone's
772 enjoyment. This is the last of the term so don't miss out.
776 <eventitem date="2010-03-23" time="4:30 PM" room="MC5158" title="Memory-Corruption Security Holes: How to exploit, patch and prevent them.">
778 <short><p>Despite it being 2010, code is still being exploited due to stack overflows, a 40+ year old class of security vulnerabilities. In this talk, I will go over several common methods of program exploitation, both on the stack and on the heap, as well as going over some of the current mitigation techniques (i.e. stack canaries, ASLR, etc.) for these holes, and similarly, how some of these can be bypassed as well.
782 <abstract><p>Despite it being 2010, code is still being exploited due to
783 stack overflows, a 40+ year old class of security vulnerabilities. In
784 this talk, I will go over several common methods of program
785 exploitation, both on the stack and on the heap, as well as going over
786 some of the current mitigation techniques (i.e. stack canaries, ASLR,
787 etc.) for these holes, and similarly, how some of these can be
792 <eventitem date="2010-03-19" time="7:00 PM" room="Comfy Lounge" title="Another Party of Code">
794 <short><p>There is a CSC Code Party Friday starting at 7:00PM (1900) until we get bored (likely in the early in morning). Come out for fun hacking times, spreading Intertube memes (optional), hacking on the OpenMoko, creating music mixes, and other general classiness. There will be free energy drinks for everyone's enjoyment.
798 <abstract><p>There is a CSC Code Party Friday starting at 7:00PM (1900) until we
799 get bored (likely in the early in morning). Come out for fun hacking
800 times, spreading Intertube memes (optional), hacking on the OpenMoko,
801 creating music mixes, and other
802 general classiness. There will be free energy drinks for everyone's
807 <eventitem date="2010-03-16" time="4:30 PM" room="MC5158" title="Approximation Hardness and the Unique Games Conjecture">
809 <short><p>The fifth installment in CS10: Undergraduate Seminars in CS, features CSC member Elyot Grant introducing the theory of approximation algorithms. Fun times and a lack of gruesome math are promised.
813 <abstract><p>The theory of NP-completeness suggests that some problems in CS are inherently hard—that is,
814 there is likely no possible algorithm that can efficiently solve them. Unfortunately, many of
815 these problems are ones that people in the real world genuinely want to solve! How depressing!
816 What can one do when faced with a real-life industrial optimization problem whose solution may
817 save millions of dollars but is probably impossible to determine without trillions of
818 years of computation time?
819 </p><p>One strategy is to be content with an approximate (but provably "almost ideal") solution, and from
820 here arises the theory of approximation algorithms. However, this theory also has a depressing side,
821 as many well-known optimization problems have been shown to be provably hard to approximate well.
822 </p><p>This talk shall focus on the depressing. We will prove that various optimization problems (such as
823 traveling salesman and max directed disjoint paths) are impossible to approximate well unless P=NP.
824 These proofs are easy to understand and are REALLY COOL thanks to their use of very slick reductions.
825 </p><p>We shall explore many NP-hard optimization problems and state the performance of the best known
826 approximation algorithms and best known hardness results. Tons of open problems will be mentioned,
827 including the unique games conjecture, which, if proven true, implies the optimality of many of the
828 best known approximation algorithms for NP-complete problems like MAX-CUT and INDEPENDENT SET.
829 </p><p>I promise fun times and no gruesome math. Basic knowledge of graph theory and computational
830 complexity might help but is not required.
834 <eventitem date="2010-03-12" time="7:00 PM" room="Comfy Lounge" title="A Party of Code">
836 <short><p>A fevered night of code, friends, fun, energy drinks, and the CSC.
840 <abstract><p>A fevered night of code, friends, fun, energy drinks, and the CSC.
841 </p><p>Come join us for a night of coding. Get in touch with more experianced coders,
842 advertize for/bug squash on your favourite open source project, write that personal
843 project you were planning to do for a while but haven't found the time. Don't
844 have any ideas but want to sit and hack? We can find something for you to do.
849 <eventitem date="2010-03-09" time="4:30 PM" room="DC1304" title="Software Transactional Memory and Using STM in Haskell">
851 <short><p>The fourth Undergraduate Seminar in Computer Science will be presented by Brennan Taylor, a club member. He will be discussing various concurrent computing problems, and introducing Software Transactional Memory as a solution to them.
855 <abstract><p>Concurrency is hard. Well maybe not hard, but it sure is annoying to get right. Even the
856 simplest of synchronization tasks are hard to implement correctly when using synchronization
857 primitives such as locks and semaphores.
858 </p><p>In this talk we explore what Software Transactional Memory (STM) is, what problems STM solves,
859 and how to use STM in Haskell. We explore a number of examples that show how easy STM is to use
860 and how expressive Haskell can be. The goal of this talk is to convince attendees that STM is
861 not only a viable synchronization solution, but superior to how synchronization is typically
866 <eventitem date="2010-03-06" time="5:00 PM" room="Waterloo Bowling Lanes" title="Bowling">
867 <short><p>The CSC is going bowling. $9.75 for shoes and two games. The bowling alley serves fried food and beer. Join us for
868 some or all of the above</p></short>
871 <eventitem date="2010-03-02" time="4:30 PM" room="DC1304" title="QIP=PSPACE">
873 <short><p>Dr. John Watrous of the <a href="http://www.iqc.ca">IQC</a> will present his recent result "QIP=PSPACE". The talk will not assume any familiarity with quantum computing or complexity theory, and light refreshments will be provided.
877 <abstract><p>The interactive proof system model of computation is a cornerstone of
878 complexity theory, and its quantum computational variant has been
879 studied in quantum complexity theory for the past decade. In this
880 talk I will discuss an exact characterization of the power of quantum
881 interactive proof systems that I recently proved in collaboration with
882 Rahul Jain, Zhengfeng Ji, and Sarvagya Upadhyay. The characterization
883 states that the collection of computational problems having quantum
884 interactive proof systems consists precisely of those problems
885 solvable with an ordinary classical computer using a polynomial amount
886 of memory (or QIP = PSPACE in complexity-theoretic terminology). This
887 characterization implies the striking fact that quantum computing does
888 not provide any increase in computational power over classical
889 computing in the context of interactive proof systems.
890 </p><p>I will not assume that the audience for this talk has any familiarity
891 with either quantum computing or complexity theory; and to be true to
892 the spirit of the interactive proof system model, I hope to make this
893 talk as interactive as possible -- I will be happy to explain anything
894 related to the talk that I can that people are interested in learning
899 <eventitem date="2010-02-26" time="7:00 PM" room="CnD Lounge" title="Contest Closing">
900 <short><p>The <a href="http://contest.csclub.uwaterloo.ca">contest</a> is coming to a close tomorrow, so to finish it in style we will be having ice cream and code friday night.
901 It would be a shame if Waterloo lost (we're not on top of the <a href="http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/contest/rankings.php">leaderboard</a> right now) so come out and hack for the home team.</p></short>
904 <eventitem date="2010-02-25" time="4:30 PM" room="DC1302" title="CSCF Town Hall">
906 <short><p>Come to a town hall style meeting with the managers of CSCF to discuss how to improve the undergraduate (student.cs) computing environment. Have gripes? Suggestions? Requests? Now is the time to voice them.
910 <abstract><p>Come to a town hall style meeting with the managers of CSCF to discuss how
911 to improve the undergraduate (student.cs) computing environment. Have gripes?
912 Suggestions? Requests? Now is the time to voice them.
913 </p><p>CSCF management (Bill Ince, Associate Director; Dave Gawley, Infrastructure Support;
914 Dawn Keenan, User Support; Lawrence Folland, Research Support) will be at the
915 meeting to listen to student concerns and suggestions. Information gathered from
916 the meeting will be summarized and taken to the CSCF advisory committee for
917 discussion and planning.
922 <eventitem date="2010-02-23" time="04:30 PM" room="MC5136B" title="The Best Algorithms are Randomized Algorithms">
924 <short><p>In this talk Nicholas Harvey discusses the prevalence of randomized algorithms and their application to solving optimization problems on graphs; with startling results compared to deterministic algorithms.
928 <abstract><p>For many problems, randomized algorithms are either the fastest algorithm or the simplest algorithm;
929 sometimes they even provide the only known algorithm. Randomized algorithms have become so prevalent
930 that deterministic algorithms could be viewed as a curious special case. In this talk I will describe
931 some startling examples of randomized algorithms for solving some optimization problems on graphs.
936 <eventitem date="2010-02-09" time="4:30 PM" room="DC1304" title="An Introduction to Vector Graphics Libraries with Cairo">
938 <short><p>Cairo is an open source, cross platform, vector graphics library with the ability to output to many kinds of surfaces, including PDF, SVG and PNG surfaces, as well as X-Window, Win32 and Quartz 2D backends. Unlike the raster graphics used with programmes and libraries such as The Gimp and ImageMagick, vector graphics are not defined by grids of pixels, but rather by a collection of drawing operations. These operations detail how to draw lines, fill shapes, and even set text to create the desired image. This has the advantages of being infinitely scalable, smaller in file size, and simpler to express within a computer programme. This talk will be an introduction to the concepts and metaphors used by vector graphics libraries in general and Cairo in particular.
942 <abstract><p>Cairo is an open source, cross platform, vector graphics library with the ability to
943 output to many kinds of surfaces, including PDF, SVG and PNG surfaces, as well as
944 X-Window, Win32 and Quartz 2D backends. Unlike the raster graphics used with programmes
945 and libraries such as The Gimp and ImageMagick, vector graphics are not defined by grids
946 of pixels, but rather by a collection of drawing operations. These operations detail how to
947 draw lines, fill shapes, and even set text to create the desired image. This has the
948 advantages of being infinitely scalable, smaller in file size, and simpler to express within
949 a computer programme. This talk will be an introduction to the concepts and metaphors used
950 by vector graphics libraries in general and Cairo in particular.
955 <eventitem date="2010-02-11" time="4:30 PM" room="MC3005" title="UNIX 101 Encore">
957 <short><p>New to Unix? No problem, we'll teach you to power use circles around your friends! The popular tutorial returns for a second session, in case you missed the first one.
961 <abstract><p>New to Unix? No problem, we'll teach you to power use circles around your friends!
962 The popular tutorial returns for a second session, in case you missed the first one.
963 </p><p>This first tutorial is an introduction to the Unix shell environment, both on the student
964 servers and on other Unix environments. Topics covered include: using the shell, both basic
965 interaction and advanced topics like scripting and job control, the filesystem and manipulating
966 it, and ssh. If you feel you're already familiar with these topics don't hesitate to come
967 to Unix 102 to learn about documents, editing, and other related tasks, or watch out
968 for Unix 103 and 104 that get much more in depth into power programming tools on Unix.
972 <eventitem date="2010-02-10" time="4:30 PM" room="MC3003" title="UNIX 101">
974 <short><p>New to Unix? No problem, we'll teach you to power use circles around your friends!
978 <abstract><p>New to Unix? No problem, we'll teach you to power use circles around your friends!
979 </p><p>This first tutorial is an introduction to the Unix shell environment, both on the student
980 servers and on other Unix environments. Topics covered include: using the shell, both basic
981 interaction and advanced topics like scripting and job control, the filesystem and manipulating
982 it, and ssh. If you feel you're already familiar with these topics don't hesitate to come
983 to Unix 102 to learn about documents, editing, and other related tasks, or watch out
984 for Unix 103 and 104 that get much more in depth into power programming tools on Unix.
988 <eventitem date="2010-01-18" time="15:30 PM" room="MC2066" title="Wilderness Programming">
990 <short><p>Paul Lutus describes his early Apple II software development days, conducted from the far end of a 1200-foot power cord, in a tiny Oregon cabin. Paul describes how he wrote a best-seller (Apple Writer) in assembly language, while dealing with power outages, lightning storms and the occasional curious bear.
994 <abstract><p>Paul Lutus describes his early Apple II software development days, conducted
995 from the far end of a 1200-foot power cord, in a tiny Oregon cabin. Paul
996 describes how he wrote a best-seller (Apple Writer) in assembly language,
997 while dealing with power outages, lightning storms and the occasional
999 </p><p>Paul also describes his subsequent four-year solo around-the-world sail in a
1000 31-foot boat. And be ready with your inquiries -- Paul will answer your
1002 </p><p>Paul Lutus has a wide background in science and technology. He designed spacecraft
1003 components for the NASA Space Shuttle and created a mathematical model of the solar
1004 system used during the Viking Mars lander program. Then, at the beginning of the
1005 personal computer revolution, Lutus switched career paths and took up computer
1006 science. His best-known program is "Apple Writer," an internationally successful
1007 word processing program for the early Apple computers.
1012 <eventitem date="2010-01-26" time="05:00 PM" room="DC1302" title="Deep learning with multiplicative interactions">
1014 <short><p>Geoffrey Hinton, from the University of Toronto and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, will discuss some of his latest work in learning networks and artificial intelligence. The talk will be accessable, so don't hesitate to come out. More information about Dr. Hinton's research can be found on <a href="http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~hinton/">his website</a>.
1018 <abstract><p>Deep networks can be learned efficiently from unlabeled data. The layers
1019 of representation are learned one at a time using a simple learning
1020 module, called a "Restricted Boltzmann Machine" that has only one layer
1021 of latent variables. The values of the latent variables of one
1022 module form the data for training the next module. Although deep
1023 networks have been quite successful for tasks such as object
1024 recognition, information retrieval, and modeling motion capture data,
1025 the simple learning modules do not have multiplicative interactions which
1026 are very useful for some types of data.
1027 </p><p>The talk will show how a third-order energy function can be factorized to
1028 yield a simple learning module that retains advantageous properties of a
1029 Restricted Boltzmann Machine such as very simple exact inference and a
1030 very simple learning rule based on pair-wise statistics. The new module
1031 contains multiplicative interactions that are useful for a variety of
1032 unsupervised learning tasks. Researchers at the University of Toronto
1033 have been using this type of module to extract oriented energy from image
1034 patches and dense flow fields from image sequences. The new module can
1035 also be used to allow motions of a particular style to be achieved by
1036 blending autoregressive models of motion capture data.
1043 <eventitem date="2009-12-05" time="6:30 PM" room="MC3036" edate="2009-12-05" etime="11:55 PM" title="The Club That Really Likes Dinner">
1044 <short><p>Come on out to the club's termly end of term dinner, details in the abstract</p></short>
1045 <abstract><p>The dinner will be potluck style at the Vice President's house, please RSVP (respond swiftly to the vice president)
1046 <a href="https://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/rsvp">here</a> if you plan on attending. If you don't know how to get there meet at the club
1047 office at 6:30 PM, a group will be leaving to lead you there.</p></abstract>
1050 <eventitem date="2009-11-27" time="7:00 PM" room="Comfy Lounge" edate="2009-11-28" etime="7:00 AM" title="Code Party!!11!!">
1052 <short><p>A fevered night of code, friends, fun, energy drinks, and the CSC. Facebook will be around to bring some food and hang out.
1056 <abstract><p>Come join us for a night of coding. Get in touch with more experianced coders,
1057 advertize for/bug squash on your favourite open source project, write that personal
1058 project you were planning to do for a while but haven't found the time. Don't
1059 have any ideas but want to sit and hack? Try your hand at the Facebook puzzles,
1060 write a new app, or just chill and watch scifi.
1065 <eventitem date="2009-11-05" time="4:30 PM" room="MC2065" title="In the Beginning">
1067 <short><p>To most CS students an OS kernel is pretty low level. But there is something even lower, the instructions that must be executed to get the CPU ready to accept a kernel. That is, if you look at any processor's reference manual there is a page or two describing the state of the CPU when it powered on. This talk describes what needs to happen next, up to the point where the first kernel instruction executes.
1071 <abstract><p>To most CS students an OS kernel is pretty low level. But there is
1072 something even lower, the instructions that must be executed to get the
1073 CPU ready to accept a kernel. That is, if you look at any processor's
1074 reference manual there is a page or two describing the state of the CPU
1075 when it powered on. This talk describes what needs to happen next,
1076 up to the point where the first kernel instruction executes.
1077 </p><p>This part of execution is extremely architecture-dependent. Those of
1078 you who have any experience with this aspect of CS probably know the x86
1079 architecture, and think it's horrible, which it is. I am going to talk
1080 about the ARM architecture, which is inside almost all mobile phones,
1081 and which allows us to look at a simple implementation that includes
1087 <eventitem date="2009-10-20" time="04:30 PM" room="MC3036" title="CSC Goes To Dooly's">
1089 <short><p>We're going to Dooly's to play pool. What more do you want from us? Come to the Club office and we'll all bus there together. We've got discount tables for club members so be sure to be there.
1093 <abstract><p>We're going to Dooly's to play pool. What more do you want from us?
1094 Come to the Club office and we'll all bus there together. We've got
1095 discount tables for club members so be sure to be there.
1100 <eventitem date="2009-10-16" time="7:00 PM" room="Comfy Lounge" title="Code Party and Contest Finale">
1102 <short><p>Come on out for a night of code, contests, and energy drinks. Join the Computer Scinece Club for the finale of the Google AI Challenge and an all night code party. Finish up your entry, or start it (its not too late). Not interested in the contest? Come out anyway for a night of coding and comradarie with us.
1106 <abstract><p>Come on out for a night of code, contests, and energy drinks. Join the Computer
1107 Scinece Club for the finale of the Google AI Challenge and an all night code party.
1108 Finish up your entry, or start it (its not too late). Not interested in the contest?
1109 Come out anyway for a night of coding and comradarie with us.
1110 </p><p>Included in the party will be the contest finale and awards cerimony, so if you've
1111 entered be sure to stick arround to collect the spoils of victory, or see just who
1112 that person you couldn't edge off is.
1117 <eventitem date="2009-10-08" time="4:30 PM" room="MC3003" title="UNIX 103">
1119 <short><p>In this long-awaited third installment of the popular Unix Tutorials the friendly experts of the CSC will teach you the simple art of version control. You will learn the purpose and use of two different Version Control Systems (git and subversion). This tutorial will advise you in the discipline of managing the source code of your projects and enable you to quickly learn new Version Control Systems in the work place -- a skill that is much sought after by employers.
1123 <abstract><p>In this long-awaited third installment of the popular Unix Tutorials the
1124 friendly experts of the CSC will teach you the simple art of version control.
1125 You will learn the purpose and use of two different Version Control Systems
1126 (git and subversion). This tutorial will advise you in the discipline of
1127 managing the source code of your projects and enable you to quickly learn new
1128 Version Control Systems in the work place -- a skill that is much sought after
1134 <eventitem date="2009-10-14" time="2:30 PM" room="DC1304" title="UofT Graduate School Information Session">
1135 <short><p> "Is Graduate School for You?" Get the answers to your grad school questions - and have a bite to eat, our treat</p>
1137 <abstract><p> Join Prof. Greg Wilson, faculty member in the Software Engineering research group in the UofT's Department of Computer Science,
1138 as he gives insight into studying at the graduate level-what can be expected, what does UofT offer, is it right for you? Pizza and pop will
1139 be served. <b>Come see what grad school is all about!</b>. All undergraduate students are welcome; registration is not required.</p>
1140 <p>For any questions about the program, visit <a href="http://www.cs.toronto.edu/dcs/prospective-grad.html">UofT's website</a>. This
1141 event is not run by the CS Club, and is announced here for the benefit of our members.</p></abstract>
1144 <eventitem date="2009-10-03" time="10:00 AM" edate="2009-10-03" etime="3:30 PM" room="DC1301 FishBowl" title="Linux Install Fest">
1146 <short><p>Interested in trying Linux but don't know where to start?
1147 Come to the Linux install fest to demo Linux, get help installing it
1148 on your computer, either stand alone or a dual boot, and help setting
1149 up your fresh install. Have lunch and hang around if you like, or just come in for a CD.
1153 <abstract><p>Interested in trying Linux but don't know where to start?
1154 Come to the Linux install fest to demo Linux, get help installing it on
1155 your computer, either stand alone or a dual boot, and help setting
1156 up your fresh install. Have lunch and hang around if you like, or just
1157 come in for a qick install.
1162 <eventitem date="2009-10-01" time="4:30 PM" room="MC3003" title="UNIX 102">
1164 <short><p>The next installment in the CS Club's popular Unix tutorials UNIX 102 introduces powerful text editing tools for programming and document formatting.
1168 <abstract><p>Unix 102 is a follow up to Unix 101, requiring basic knowledge of the shell.
1169 If you missed Unix101 but still know your way around you should be fine.
1170 Topics covered include: "real" editors, document typesetting with LaTeX
1171 (great for assignments!), bulk editing, spellchecking, and printing in the
1172 student environment and elsewhere.
1173 </p><p>If you aren't interested or feel comfortable with these taskes, watch out for
1174 Unix 103 and 104 to get more depth in power programming tools on Unix.
1179 <eventitem date="2009-09-28" time="4:30 PM" edate="2009-10-09" etime="11:59 OM" room="MC3003" title="AI Programming Contest sponsored by Google">
1181 <short><p>Come learn how to write an intelligent game-playing program.
1182 No past experience necessary. Submit your program using the <a href="http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/contest/">online web interface</a>
1183 to watch it battle against other people's programs. Beginners and experts welcome! Prizes provided by google,
1184 including the delivery of your resume to google recruiters.
1188 <abstract><p>Come learn how to write an intelligent game-playing program.
1189 No past experience necessary. Submit your program using the <a href="http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/contest/">online
1190 web interface</a> to watch it battle against other people's programs.
1191 Beginners and experts welcome!
1192 </p><p>The contest is sponsored by Google, so be sure to compete for a chance
1193 to get noticed by them.
1194 </p><p>Prizes for the top programs:
1195 <ul><li>$100 in Cash Prizes</li>
1196 <li> Google t-shirts</li>
1197 <li>Fame and recognition</li>
1198 <li>Your resume directly to a Google recruiter</li>
1203 <eventitem date="2009-09-24" time="4:30 PM" room="MC3003" title="UNIX 101">
1206 New to Unix? No problem, we'll teach you to power use circles around your friends!
1211 New to Unix? No problem, we'll teach you to power use circles around your friends!
1213 This first tutorial is an introduction to the Unix shell environment, both on the student
1214 servers and on other Unix environments. Topics covered include: using the shell, both basic
1215 interaction and advanced topics like scripting and job control, the filesystem and manipulating
1216 it, and ssh. If you feel you're already familiar with these topics don't hesitate to come
1217 to Unix 102 to learn about documents, editing, and other related tasks, or watch out
1218 for Unix 103 and 104 that get much more in depth into power programming tools on Unix.
1222 <eventitem date="2009-09-15" time="5:00PM" edate="2009-09-15" etime="6:00 PM"
1223 room="Comfy Lounge" title="Elections">
1225 Nominations are open now, either place your name on the nominees board or
1226 e-mail <a href="mailto:cro@csclub.uwaterloo.ca">the CRO</a>
1227 to nominate someone for a position.
1228 Come to the Comfy Lounge to elect your fall term executive. Contact
1229 <a href="mailto:cro@csclub.uwaterloo.ca">the CRO</a> if you have questions.
1234 <!-- Spring 2009 -->
1235 <eventitem date="2009-07-23" time="4:30 PM" edate="2009-07-23" etime="6:00 PM"
1236 room="MC 3003" title="Unix 103">
1238 In this long-awaited third installment of the popular Unix Tutorials the dark
1239 mages of the CSC will train you in the not-so-arcane magick of version control.
1240 You will learn the purpose and use of two different Version Control Systems
1241 (git and subversion). This tutorial will advise you in the discipline of
1242 managing the source code of your projects and enable you to quickly learn new
1243 Version Control Systems in the work place -- a skill that is much sought after
1248 <eventitem date="2009-07-17" time="7:00 PM" edate="2009-07-18" etime="4:00 AM"
1249 room="MC 3001" title="Code Party">
1251 Have an assignment or project you need to work on? We
1252 will be coding from 7:00pm until 4:00am starting on Friday, July 17th
1253 in the Comfy lounge. Join us!
1257 <eventitem date="2009-07-07" time="3:00 PM" etime="5:00 PM" room="DC 1302"
1258 title="History of CS Curriculum at UW">
1260 This talk provides a personal overview of the evolution of the
1261 undergraduate computer science curriculum at UW over the past forty
1262 years, concluding with an audience discussion of possible future
1267 <eventitem date="2009-06-22" time="4:30 PM" etime="6:30 PM" room="MC 4041"
1269 <short><p> Come and drink tea and read an academic CS paper with
1270 the Paper Club. We will be meeting from 4:30pm until 6:30pm on
1271 Monday, June 22th on the 4th floor of the MC (exact room number
1272 TBA). See http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~paper
1276 <eventitem date="2009-06-19" time="5:30 PM" room="Dooly's" title="Dooly's Night">
1278 The CSC will be playing pool at Dooly's. Join us for only a few dollars.
1282 <eventitem date="2009-06-05" time="7:00 PM" edate="2009-06-06" etime="4:00 AM"
1283 room="MC 3001" title="Code Party">
1285 Have an assignment or project you need to work on? We
1286 will be coding from 7:00pm until 7:00am starting on Friday, June 5th
1287 in the Comfy lounge. Join us!
1291 <eventitem date="2009-06-02" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 2037" title="Unix 101">
1293 Need to use the UNIX environment for a course, want to overcome your fears of
1294 the command line, or just curious? Come and learn the arcane secrets of the
1295 UNIX command line interface from CSC mages. After this tutorial you will be
1296 comfortable with the essentials of navigating, manipulating and viewing files,
1297 and processing data at the UNIX shell prompt.
1301 <eventitem date="2009-05-12" time="12:00 PM" room="MC 2034" title="PHP on Windows">
1302 <short><p>PHP Programming Contest Info Session</p></short>
1304 Port or create a new PHP web application and you could win a prize
1305 of up to $10k. Microsoft is running a programming contest for PHP
1306 developers willing to support the Windows platform. The contest is
1307 ongoing; this will be a short introduction to it by
1308 representatives of Microsoft and an opportunity to ask questions.
1309 Pizza and pop will be provided.
1314 <!-- Winter 2009 -->
1315 <eventitem date="2009-04-02" time="4:30 PM" room="DC1302" title="Rapid prototyping and mathematical art">
1317 <short><p>A talk by Craig S. Kaplan.</p></short>
1320 <abstract><p>The combination of computer graphics, geometry, and rapid
1321 prototyping technology has created a wide range of exciting
1322 opportunities for using the computer as a medium for creative
1323 expression. In this talk, I will describe the most popular
1324 technologies for computer-aided manufacturing, discuss
1325 applications of these devices in art and design, and survey
1326 the work of contemporary artists working in the area (with a
1327 focus on mathematical art). The talk will be primarily
1328 non-technical, but I will mention some of the mathematical
1329 and computational techniques that come into play.
1333 <eventitem date="2009-04-03" time="6:00 PM" edate="2009-04-04"
1334 etime="6:00 AM" room="TBA" title="CTRL-D">
1337 Join the Club That Really Likes Dinner for the End Of Term
1338 party! Inquire closer to the date for details.
1343 This is not an official club event and receives no funding.
1344 Bring food, drinks, deserts, etc.
1349 <eventitem date="2009-03-27" time="6:00 PM" edate="2009-03-28"
1350 etime="12:00 PM" room="Comfy Lounge (MC)"
1354 CSC Code Party! Same as always - no sleep, lots of caffeine,
1355 and really nerdy entertainment. Bonus: Free Cake!
1360 This code party will have the usual, plus it will double as the
1361 closing of the programming contest. Our experts will be
1362 available to help you polish off your submission.
1367 <eventitem date="2009-03-19" time="4:30 PM" edate="2009-03-28"
1368 etime="12:00 PM" room="MC2061"
1369 title="Artificial Intelligence Contest">
1372 Come out and try your hand at writing a computer program that
1373 plays Minesweeper Flags, a two-player variant of the classic
1374 computer game, Minesweeper. Once you're done, your program
1375 will compete head-to-head against the other entries in a
1376 fierce Minesweeper Flags tournament. There will be a contest
1377 kick-off session on Thursday March 19 at 4:30 PM in room
1378 MC3036. Submissions will be accepted until Saturday March 28.
1383 Come out and try your hand at writing a computer program that
1384 plays Minesweeper Flags, a two-player variant of the classic
1385 computer game, Minesweeper. Once you're done, your program
1386 will compete head-to-head against the other entries in a
1387 fierce Minesweeper Flags tournament. There will be a contest
1388 kick-off session on Thursday March 19 at 4:30 PM in room
1389 MC3036. Submissions will be accepted until Saturday March 28.
1394 <eventitem date="2009-03-05" time="4:30 PM" edate="2009-03-05"
1395 etime="6:30 PM" room="Comfy Lounge"
1396 title="SIGGRAPH Night">
1399 Come out and watch the SIGGRAPH (Special Interest Group on
1400 Graphics) conference video review. A video of insane, amazing,
1401 and mind blowing computer graphics. .
1406 The ACM SIGGRAPH (Special Interest Group on Graphics) hosts a
1407 conference yearly in which the latest and greatest in computer
1408 graphics premier. They record video and as a result produce a
1409 very nice Video Review of the conference. Come join us watching
1410 these videos, as well as a few professors from the UW Computer
1411 Graphics Lab. There will be some kind of food and drink, and its
1412 guranteed to be dazzling.
1417 <eventitem date="2009-03-12" time="8:00 AM" edate="2009-03-13"
1418 etime="9:00 PM" room="Toronto Hilton"
1419 title="Canadian Undergraduate Technology Conference">
1422 See <a href="http://www.cutc.ca">cutc.ca</a> for more details.
1427 The Canadian Undergraduate Technology Conference is Canada's
1428 largest student-run conference. From humble roots it has emerged
1429 as a venue that offers an environment for students to grow
1430 socially, academically, and professionally. We target to exceed
1431 our past record of 600 students from 47 respected institutions
1432 nationwide. The event mingles ambitious as well as talented
1433 students with leaders from academia and industry to offer
1434 memorable experiences and valuable opportunities.
1439 <eventitem date="2009-03-09" time="3:00 PM" room="DC1302"
1440 title="Prabhakar Ragde">
1442 Functional Lexing and Parsing</p></short>
1445 This talk will describe a non-traditional functional approach
1446 to the classical problems of lexing (breaking a stream of
1447 characters into "words" or tokens) and parsing (identifying
1448 tree structure in a stream of tokens based on a grammar,
1449 e.g. for a programming language that needs to be compiled or
1450 interpreted). The functional approach can clarify and organize
1451 a number of algorithms that tend to be opaque in their
1452 conventional imperative presentation. No prior background in
1453 functional programming, lexing, or parsing is assumed.
1458 <eventitem date="2009-03-12" time="5:00 PM" etime="7:00 PM" room="RAC2009"
1459 title="IQC - Programming Quantum Computers">
1462 A brief intro to Quantum Computing and why it matters,
1463 followed by a talk on programming quantum computers. Meet at
1464 the CSC at 4:00PM for a guided walk to the RAC.
1469 Raymond Laflamme is the director of the Institute for Quantum
1470 Computing at the University of Waterloo and holds the Canada
1471 Research Chair in Quantum Information. He will give a brief
1472 introduction to quantum computing and why it matters, followed
1473 by a talk on programming quantum computers. There will be
1474 tours of the IQC labs at the end, and pizza will be provided
1475 back at the CSC for all attendees.
1480 <eventitem date="2009-02-27" time="5:00 PM" etime="7:00 PM" room="CSC Office: MC3036" title="Dooly's Night">
1482 Come join the CSC as we head to Dooly's.</p></short>
1484 Meet us at the Club office as we head to Dooly's for cheap tables and good times.</p></abstract>
1487 <eventitem date="2009-02-05" time="5:30 PM" room="MC2062 and MC2063" title="UNIX 101 and 102">
1489 Continuing the popular Unix Tutorials with a rerun of 101 and the debut of 102.</p></short>
1491 Unix 101 is an introduction to the Unix shell environment, both on the student
1492 servers and on other Unix environments. Topics covered include: using the shell, both basic
1493 interaction and advanced topics like scripting and job control, the filesystem and manipulating
1494 it, and ssh. </p><p>
1495 Unix 102 is a follow up to Unix 101, requiring basic knowledge of the shell.
1496 If you missed Unix101 but still know your way around you should be fine.
1497 Topics covered include: "real" editors, document typesetting with LaTeX
1498 (great for assignments!), bulk editing, spellchecking, and printing in the
1499 student environment and elsewhere. </p><p>
1500 If you aren't interested or feel comfortable with these taskes, watch out for
1501 Unix 103 and 104 to get more depth in power programming tools on Unix. </p></abstract>
1505 <eventitem date="2009-02-03" time="5:30 PM" room="MC3003" title="UNIX 101">
1506 <short><p> New to Unix? No problem, we'll teach you to power use circles around your friends!</p></short>
1507 <abstract><p>This first tutorial is an introduction to the Unix shell environment, both on the student
1508 servers and on other Unix environments. Topics covered include: using the shell, both basic
1509 interaction and advanced topics like scripting and job control, the filesystem and manipulating
1510 it, and ssh. If you feel you're already familiar with these topics don't hesitate to come
1511 to Unix 102 to learn about documents, editing, and other related tasks, or watch out
1512 for Unix 103 and 104 that get much more in depth into power programming tools on Unix.</p></abstract>
1515 <eventitem date="2009-02-06" time="7:00 PM" room="Comfy Lounge" title="Code Party!">
1518 There is a CSC Code Party starting at 7:00PM (19:00). Come out
1519 and enjoy some good old programming and meet others interested
1520 in writing code! Free energy drinks and snacks for all. Plus,
1521 we have lots of things that need to be done if you're looking
1522 for a project to work on!
1527 Code Party. Awesome. Need we say more?
1532 <eventitem date="2009-01-16" time="7:30 PM" room="Comfy Lounge" title="Code party !!11!!1!!">
1534 <short><p>There is a CSC Code Party Tonight starting at 7:30PM
1535 (1930) until we get bored (likely in the early in morning). Come
1536 out for fun hacking times, spreading Intertube memes (optional),
1537 hacking on the OpenMoko, creating music mixes, and other general
1538 classyness. If we manage to swing it, there will be delicious
1539 energy drinks for your consumption! Alternatively, if we don't we
1540 will have each other as well as some delicious tea and
1541 coffee. Perhaps a crumpet
1545 <abstract><p>There is a CSC Code Party Tonight starting at 7:30PM
1546 (1930) until we get bored (likely in the early in
1547 morning). Come out for fun hacking times, spreading Intertube
1548 memes (optional), hacking on the OpenMoko, creating music
1549 mixes, and other general classyness. If we manage to swing it,
1550 there will be delicious energy drinks for your consumption!
1551 Alternatively, if we don't we will have each other as well as
1552 some delicious tea and coffee. Perhaps a crumpet
1557 <eventitem date="2009-01-29" time="6:30 PM" room="Modern Languages Theatre" title="Richard M. Stallman">
1558 <short><p> The Free Software Movement and the GNU/Linux Operating System </p>
1562 Richard Stallman will speak about the Free Software Movement, which
1563 campaigns for freedom so that computer users can cooperate to
1564 control their own computing activities. The Free Software Movement
1565 developed the GNU operating system, often erroneously referred to as
1566 Linux, specifically to establish these freedoms.</p>
1567 <p><b>About Richard Stallman:</b>
1568 Richard Stallman launched the development of the GNU operating system (see
1569 <a href="http://www.gnu.org">www.gnu.org</a>) in 1984. GNU is free
1570 software: everyone has the freedom to copy it and redistribute it,
1571 as well as to make changes either large or small. The GNU/Linux
1572 system, basically the GNU operating system with Linux added, is used
1573 on tens of millions of computers today. Stallman has received the
1574 ACM Grace Hopper Award, a MacArthur Foundation fellowship, the
1575 Electronic Frontier Foundation's Pioneer award, and the the Takeda
1576 Award for Social/Economic Betterment, as well as several honorary
1581 <eventitem date="2009-01-22" time="12:00 PM" room="MC5136" title="Joel Spolsky">
1582 <short><p> Joel Spolsky, of <a href="http://www.joelonsoftware.com">Joel on Software</a> will be giving a talk entitled "Computer Science Education and the Software Industry".</p>
1584 <abstract><p><b>About Joel Spolsky:</b> Joel Spolsky is a
1585 globally-recognized expert on the software development process. His
1586 website <em>Joel on Software</em>
1587 (<a href="http://www.joelonsoftware.com/">www.joelonsoftware.com</a>)
1588 is popular with software developers around the world and has been
1589 translated into over thirty languages. As the founder
1590 of <a href="http://www.fogcreek.com/">Fog Creek Software</a> in New
1592 created <a href="http://www.fogcreek.com/FogBugz">FogBugz</a>, a
1593 popular project management system for software teams. He is the
1594 co-creator of <a href="http://stackoverflow.com/">Stack
1595 Overflow</a>, a programmer Q&A site. Joel has worked at
1596 Microsoft, where he designed VBA as a member of the Excel team, and
1597 at Juno Online Services, developing an Internet client used by
1599 written <a href="http://www.joelonsoftware.com/BuytheBooks.html">four
1600 books</a>: <em>User Interface Design for Programmers</em> (Apress,
1601 2001), <em>Joel on Software</em> (Apress, 2004), <em>More Joel on
1602 Software </em>(Apress, 2008), and <em>Smart and Gets Things Done:
1603 Joel Spolsky's Concise Guide to Finding the Best Technical
1604 Talent </em>(Apress, 2007). He also writes a monthly column
1605 for<strong> </strong><em><a href="http://www.inc.com/">Inc
1606 Magazine</a>. </em>Joel holds a BS from Yale in Computer
1607 Science. Before college he served in the Israeli Defense Forces as a
1608 paratrooper, and he was one of the founders of Kibbutz Hanaton.</p>
1612 <eventitem date="2009-01-13" time="4:20 PM" room="Comfy Lounge" title="Term Elections">
1613 <short><p>Winter Elections</p>
1618 <eventitem date="2008-11-15" time="6:30 AM" room="Toronto" title="Changing the World Conference">
1620 <short><p>Organized by Queen's students, Changing the World aims to bring together the world's greatest visionaries to inspire people to innovate and better our world. Among these speakers include Nobel Peace Prize winner, Eric Chivian. He was a recipient for his work on stopping nuclear war.
1624 <abstract><p>Organized by Queen's students, Changing the World
1625 aims to bring together the world's greatest visionaries to
1626 inspire people to innovate and better our world. Among these
1627 speakers include Nobel Peace Prize winner, Eric Chivian. He
1628 was a recipient for his work on stopping nuclear war.
1629 </p><p>The conference is modeled after TED (Technology,
1630 Entertainment, Design), an annual conference uniting the
1631 world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, and like TED,
1632 each speaker is given 18 minutes to give the talk of their
1634 </p><p>Specifically for students in CS/Math, 50 tickets have
1635 been reserved (non-students: $500). For those who would like
1636 to attend, please pick up your ticket in the Computer Science
1637 Club office. The tickets are limited and they are first come
1643 <eventitem date="2008-11-06" time="10:00 AM" room="SLC Multipurpose Room" title="Linux Install Fest">
1645 <short><p>Come join the CSC in celebrating the new releases of
1646 Ubuntu Linux, Free BSD and Open BSD, and get a hand installing one
1647 of them on your own system.
1651 <abstract><p>Come join the CSC in celebrating the new releases of
1652 Ubuntu Linux, Free BSD and Open BSD, and get a hand installing
1653 one of them on your own system.
1654 </p><p>This is an event to celebrate the releases of new
1655 versions of Ubuntu Linux, OpenBSD, and FreeBSD. CDs will be
1656 available and everyone is invited to bring their PC or laptop
1657 to get help installing any of these Free operating
1658 systems. Knowledgeable CSC members will be available to help
1659 with any installation troubles, or to troubleshooting any
1660 existing problems that users may have.
1661 </p><p>This event will also promote gaming on Linux, as well as
1662 FLOSS (Free/Libre and Open Source Software) in general. We may
1663 also have a special guest (Ian Darwin, of OpenBSD and OpenMoko
1668 <eventitem date="2008-11-10" time="4:30 PM" room="MC4061" title="Functional Programming">
1670 <short><p>This talk will survey concepts, techniques, and
1671 languages for functional programming from both historical and
1672 contemporary perspectives, with reference to Lisp, Scheme, ML,
1673 Haskell, and Erlang. No prior background is assumed.
1677 <abstract><p>This talk will survey concepts, techniques, and
1678 languages for functional programming from both historical and
1679 contemporary perspectives, with reference to Lisp, Scheme, ML,
1680 Haskell, and Erlang. No prior background is assumed.
1685 <eventitem date="2008-10-24" time="6:00 PM" room="Comfy Lounge" title="Code Party">
1687 Come join us for a night of coding. Get in touch with more experianced coders,
1688 advertize for/bug squash on your favourite open source project, write that personal
1689 project you were planning to do for a while but haven't found the time. Don't
1690 have any ideas but want to sit and hack? We can find something for you to do.
1693 A fevered night of code, friends, fun, free energy drinks, and the CSC.
1697 <eventitem date="2008-10-16" time="4:30 PM" room="Comfy Lounge" title="SIGGRAPH Night">
1699 Come out and watch the SIGGRAPH (Special Interest Group on Graphics) conference video
1700 review. A video of insane, amazing, and mind blowing computer graphics.
1703 The ACM SIGGRAPH (Special Interest Group on Graphics) hosts a conference yearly
1704 in which the latest and greatest in computer graphics premier. They record video
1705 and as a result produce a very nice Video Review of the conference. Come join us
1706 watching these videos, as well as a few professors from the UW Computer Graphics
1707 Lab. There will be some kind of food and drink, and its guranteed to be dazzling.
1711 <eventitem date="2008-09-12" time="4:30 PM" room="Comfy Lounge" title="Meet the CSC">
1713 Come out and meet other CSC members, find out about the CSC, meet the executive
1714 nominees, and join if you like what you see. Nominees should plan on attending.
1718 <eventitem date="2008-09-16" time="4:30 PM" room="Comfy Lounge" title="CSClub Elections">
1720 Elections are scheduled for Tues, Sep 16 @ 4:30 pm in the comfy lounge.
1721 The nomination period closes on Mon, Sep 15 @ 4:30 pm. Nominations may be
1722 sent to cro@csclub.uwaterloo.ca. Candidates should not engage in
1723 campaigning after the nomination period has closed.
1727 <eventitem date="2008-09-25" time="4:30 PM" room="MC2037" title="Unix 101">
1729 New to Unix? No problem, we'll teach you to power use circles around your friends!
1732 This first tutorial is an introduction to the Unix shell environment, both on the student
1733 servers and on other Unix environments. Topics covered include: using the shell, both basic
1734 interaction and advanced topics like scripting and job control, the filesystem and manipulating
1735 it, and ssh. If you feel you're already familiar with these topics don't hesitate to come
1736 to Unix 102 to learn about documents, editing, and other related tasks, or watch out
1737 for Unix 103 and 104 that get much more in depth into power programming tools on Unix.
1741 <eventitem date="2008-10-07" time="4:30 PM" room="MC2037" title="Unix 101">
1743 New to Unix? No problem, we'll teach you to power use circles around your friends!
1746 This first tutorial is an introduction to the Unix shell environment, both on the student
1747 servers and on other Unix environments. Topics covered include: using the shell, both basic
1748 interaction and advanced topics like scripting and job control, the filesystem and manipulating
1749 it, and ssh. If you feel you're already familiar with these topics don't hesitate to come
1750 to Unix 102 to learn about documents, editing, and other related tasks, or watch out
1751 for Unix 103 and 104 that get much more in depth into power programming tools on Unix.
1755 <eventitem date="2008-10-09" time="4:30 PM" room="MC2037" title="Unix 102">
1757 Want more from Unix? No problem, we'll teach you to create and quickly edit high quality documents.
1760 This is a follow up to Unix 101, requiring basic knowledge of the shell. If you missed
1761 Unix101 but still know your way around you should be fine. Topics covered include: "real" editors,
1762 document typesetting with LaTeX (great for assignments!), bulk editing, spellchecking, and printing
1763 in the student environment and elsewhere. If you aren't interested or feel comfortable with these
1764 taskes, watch out for Unix 103 and 104 to get more depth in power programming tools on Unix. If you
1765 don't think you're ready go to Unix 101 on Tuesday to get familiarized with the shell environment.
1769 <eventitem date="2008-10-03" time="4:30 PM" room="MC2065" title="Game Sketching">
1770 <short><p>Juancho Buchanan, CTO Relic Entertainment</p></short>
1772 In this talk I will give an overview of the history of Relic and our
1773 development philosophy. The Talk will then proceed to talk about work
1774 that is being pursued in the area of early game prototyping with the
1775 introduction of game sketching methodology.
1780 Fired from his first job for playing Video Games Juancho Buchanan is
1781 currently the director of Technology for Relic Entertainment. Juancho
1782 Buchanan Wrote his first game in 1984 but then pursued other interests
1783 which included a master's in Program Visualization, A Doctorate in
1784 Computer Graphics, a stint as a professor at the University of Alberta
1785 where he pioneered early work in Non photo realistic rendering, A stint
1786 at Electronic Arts as Director, Advanced Technology, A stint at EA as
1787 the University Liaison Dude, A stint at Carnegie Mellon University where
1788 he researched the Game Sketching idea. His current role at Relic has
1789 him working with the soon to be released Dawn of War II.
1794 <eventitem date="2008-10-02" time="4:30 PM" room="MC4021" title="General Meeting 2">
1796 The second official general meeting of the term. Items on the adgenda are CSC Merch,
1797 upcoming talks, and other possible planned events, as well as the announcement of
1798 a librarian and planning of an office cleanout and a library organization day.
1802 <!-- Spring 2008 -->
1804 <!-- Winter 2008 -->
1806 <eventitem date="2008-02-08" time="4:30 PM" room="MC4042" title="A Brief History of Blackberry and the Wireless Data Telecom Industry">
1807 <short>Tyler Lessard</short>
1809 Tyler Lessard from RIM will present a brief history of BlackBerry
1810 technology and will discuss how the evolution of BlackBerry as an
1811 end-to-end hardware, software and services platform has been
1812 instrumental to its success and growth in the market. Find out how the
1813 BlackBerry service components integrate with wireless carrier networks
1814 and get a sneak peek at where the wireless data market is going.
1818 <eventitem date="2008-02-29" time="5:00 PM" room="BFG2125" title="Quantum Information Processing">
1819 <short>Raymond Laflamme</short>
1821 Information processing devices are pervasive in our society; from the 5
1822 dollar watches to multi-billions satellite network. These devices have
1823 allowed the information revolution which is developing around us. It has
1824 transformed not only the way we communicate or entertain ourselves but
1825 also the way we do science and even the way we think. All this
1826 information is manipulated using the classical approximation to the laws
1827 of physics, but we know that there is a better approximation: the
1828 quantum mechanical laws. Would using quantum mechanics for information
1829 processing be an impediment or could it be an advantage? This is the
1830 fundamental question at the heart of quantum information processing
1831 (QIP). QIP is a young field with an incredible potential impact reaching
1832 from the way we understand fundamental physics to technological
1833 applications. I will give an overview of the Institute for Quantum
1834 Computing, comment on the effort in this field at Waterloo and in
1835 Canada and, time permitted visit some of the IQC labs.
1839 <eventitem date="2008-02-14" time="4:00PM" room="MC2061" title="CSC Programming Contest 1">
1840 <short>Yes, we know this is Valentine's Day.</short>
1842 Contestants will be writing an artificial intelligence to play Risk. The
1843 prize will be awarded to the intelligence which wins the most
1844 head-to-head matches against competing entries. We're providing easy
1845 APIs for several languages, as well as full documentation of the game
1846 protocol so contestants can write wrappers for any additional language
1847 they wish to work in.
1850 We officially support entries in Scheme, Perl, Java, C, and C++. If you
1851 would like help developing an API for some other language contact us
1852 through the systems committee mailing list (we will require that your API
1853 is made available to all entrants).
1856 To kick off the contest we're hosting an in-house coding session starting
1857 at 4:00PM on Thursday, February 14th in MC2061. Members of our contest
1858 administration team will be available to help you work out the details of
1859 our APIs, answer questions, and provide the necessities of life (ie,
1860 pizza). Submissions will open no later than 5:00PM on February 14th
1861 and will close no earlier than 12:00PM on February 17th.
1864 Visit our contest site <a href="http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/contest/"> here!</a>
1869 <eventitem date="2008-01-23" time="5:00 PM" room="MC 4020" title="Creating Distributed Applications with TIPC">
1870 <short>Elmer Horvath</short>
1872 The problem: coordinating and communicating between multiple processors
1873 in a distributed system (possibly containing heterogeneous elements)
1875 The open source TIPC (transparent interprocess communication) protocol
1876 has been incorporated into the Linux kernel and is available in VxWorks
1877 and, soon, other OSes. This emerging protocol has a number of
1878 advantages in a clustered environment to simplify application
1879 development while maintaining a familiar socket programming interface.
1880 The service oriented capabilities of TIPC help in applications easily
1881 finding required services in a system. The location transparent aspect
1882 of TIPC allows services to be located anywhere in the system as well as
1883 allowing redundant services for both load reduction and backup.
1885 Learn about the emerging cluster protocol.
1889 <eventitem date="2008-01-15" time="4:30 PM" room="Comfy Lounge" title="CSClub Elections">
1891 Elections are scheduled for Tues, Jan 15 @ 4:30 pm in the comfy lounge.
1892 The nomination period closes on Mon, Jan 14 @ 4:30 pm. Candidates should
1893 not engage in campaigning after the nomination period has closed.
1900 <eventitem date="2007-10-19" time="5:00 PM" room="MC4058" title="General Meeting">
1903 There is a general meeting scheduled for Friday, October 19, 2007 at 17:00.
1906 This is a chance to bring out any ideas and concerns about CSC happenings into the open, as well as a chance to make sure all CSC staff is up to speed on current CSC doings. The current agenda can be found at <a href="http://wiki.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/wiki/Friday_19_October_2007">http://wiki.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/wiki/Friday_19_October_2007.</a>
1911 <eventitem date="2007-09-25" time="1:30 PM" room="DC 1302" title="Virtual Reality, Real Law: The regulation of Property in Video Games">
1912 <short>Susan Abramovitch</short>
1915 This talk is run by the School of Computer Science
1918 How should virtual property created in games, such as weapons used in
1919 games like Mir 3 and real estate or clothing created or acquired in
1920 games like Second Life, be treated in law. Although the videogaming
1921 industry continues to multiply in value, virtual property created in
1922 virtual worlds has not been formally recognized by any North American
1923 court or legislature. A bridge has been taking shape from gaming's
1924 virtual economies to real world economies, for example, through
1925 unauthorized copying of designer clothes sold on Second Life for in-game
1926 cash, or real court damages awarded against deletion of player-earned
1927 swords in Mir 3. The trading of virtual property is important to a
1928 large number of people and property rights in virtual property are
1929 currently being recognized by some foreign legal bodies.
1932 Susan Abramovitch will explain the legal considerations in determining
1933 how virtual property can or should be governed, and ways it can be
1934 legally similar to tangible property. Virtual property can carry both
1935 physical and intellectual property rights. Typically video game
1936 developers retain these rights via online agreements, but Ms.
1937 Abramovitch questions whether these rights are ultimately enforceable
1938 and will describe policy issues that may impact law makers in deciding
1939 how to treat virtual property under such agreements.
1944 <eventitem date="2007-10-02" time="4:30 PM" room="MC4061" title="Putting the fun into Functional Languages and Useful Programming with OCaml/F#">
1945 <short>Brennan Taylor</short>
1947 <p>A lecture on why functional languages are important, practical applications, and some neat examples. Starting with an introduction to
1948 basic functional programming with ML syntax, continuing with the strengths of OCaml and F#, followed by some exciting examples. Examples include GUI
1949 programming with F#, Web Crawlers with F#, and OpenGL/GTK programming with OCaml. This lecture aims to display how powerful functional languages can
1953 <eventitem date="2007-10-09" time="4:45 PM" room="MC 4060" title="Join-Calculus with JoCaml. Concurrent programming that doesn't fry your brain">
1954 <short>Brennan Taylor</short>
1957 A lecture on the fundamentals of Pi-Calculus followed by an introduction
1958 to Join-Calculus in JoCaml with some great examples. Various concurrent
1959 control structures are explored, as well as the current limitations of
1960 JoCaml. The examples section will mostly be concurrent programming,
1961 however some basic distributed examples will be explored. This lecture
1962 focuses on how easy concurrent programming can be.
1967 <eventitem date="2007-10-15" time="4:30 PM" room="MC4041" title="Off-the-Record Messaging: Useful Security and Privacy for IM">
1968 <short>Ian Goldberg</short>
1971 Instant messaging (IM) is an increasingly popular mode of communication
1972 on the Internet. Although it is used for personal and private
1973 conversations, it is not at all a private medium. Not only are all of
1974 the messages unencrypted and unauthenticated, but they are all
1975 routedthrough a central server, forming a convenient interception point
1976 for an attacker. Users would benefit from being able to have truly
1977 private conversations over IM, combining the features of encryption,
1978 authentication, deniability, and forward secrecy, while working within
1979 their existing IM infrastructure.
1982 In this talk, I will discuss "Off-the-Record Messaging" (OTR), a widely
1983 used software tool for secure and private instant messaging. I will
1984 outline the properties of Useful Security and Privacy Technologies that
1985 motivated OTR's design, compare it to other IM security mechanisms, and
1986 talk about its ongoing development directions.
1989 Ian Goldberg is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the
1990 University of Waterloo, where he is a founding member of the
1991 Cryptography, Security, and Privacy (CrySP) research group. He holds a
1992 Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, where he discovered
1993 serious weaknesses in a number of widely deployed security systems,
1994 including those used by cellular phones and wireless networks. He also
1995 studied systems for protecting the personal privacy of Internet users,
1996 which led to his role as Chief Scientist at Zero-Knowledge Systems (now
1997 known as Radialpoint), where he commercialized his research as the
2004 <eventitem date="2007-11-20" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 4041" title="Why you should care about functional programming with Haskell *New-er Date*">
2005 <short>Andrei Barbu</short>
2009 <eventitem date="2007-11-22" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 4041" title="More Haskell functional programming fun!">
2010 <short>Andrei Barbu</short>
2012 Haskell is a modern lazy, strongly typed functional language with type inferrence. This talk will focus on multiple monads, existential types,
2013 lambda expressions, infix operators and more. Along the way we'll see a parser and interpreter for lambda calculus using monadic parsers. STM,
2014 software transactional memory, a new approach to concurrency, will also be discussed. Before the end we'll also see the solution to an ACM problem
2015 to get a hands on feeling for the language. Don't worry if you haven't seen the first talk, you should be fine for this one anyway!
2020 <eventitem date="2007-11-29" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 4061" title="Concurrent / Distributed programming with JoCaml">
2021 <short>Brennan Taylor</short>
2024 A lecture on the fundamentals of Pi-Calculus followed by an introduction to Join-Calculus in JoCaml with some great examples.
2025 Various concurrent control structures are explored, as well as the current limitations of JoCaml. The examples section will
2026 mostly be concurrent programming, however some basic distributed examples will be explored. This lecture focuses on how easy
2027 concurrent programming can be.
2032 <eventitem date="2007-12-04" time="4:30 PM" room="TBA" title="PE Executable Translation: A solution for legacy games on linux (Postponed)">
2033 <short>David Tenty</short>
2036 With today's fast growing linux user base, a large porportion of legacy applications have established open-source equivalents or ports.
2037 However, legacy games provided an intresting problem to gamers who might be inclinded to migrate to linux or other open platforms.
2038 PE executable translation software will be presented that provides a solution to this dilema and will be contrasted with the windows compatiblity framwork Wine.
2039 Postponed to a later date.
2044 <eventitem date="2007-12-01" time="1:30 PM" room="MC 2037" title="Programming Contest">
2045 <short>Win Prizes!</short>
2048 The Computer Science club is holding a programming contest from 1:00 to 6:30 open to all! C++,C,Perl,Scheme are allowed.
2049 Prizes totalling in value of $75 will be distributed. You can participate online! For more information, including source files visit <a href="http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/contest">http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/contest</a>
2052 And Free Pizzaa for all who attend!
2056 <eventitem date="2007-12-02" time="2:30 PM" room="TBA" title="Multi-Player Linux games for Linux awarness week">
2057 <short>Multi-Player Gaming with Linux [Possibly Pizza!]</short>
2060 Come out for multi-player gaming on Linux. If you don't have linux on your machine, we will have LiveCDs available.
2061 Lots of fun! Possible Pizzaa!
2066 <eventitem date="2007-10-04" time="4:30 PM" room="TBA" title="Distributed Programming with Erlang">
2067 <short>Brennan Taylor</short>
2070 A quick introduction on the current state of distributed programming and various grid computing projects. Followed by some
2071 history and features of the Erlang language and finishing with distributed examples including operating on a cluster.
2076 <eventitem date="2007-12-05" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 4061" title="Google Summer of Code, a look back on 2007">
2077 <short>Holden Karau</short>
2080 An overview on Google Summer of Code 2007. This talk will look at some of the Summer of Code projects, the project organization, etc.
2083 Holden Karau participated in Google Summer of Code 2007 as a student on the subversion team. He created a set of scheme bindings for the
2093 <eventitem date="2007-07-17" time="7:00 PM" room="AL 116" title="C++0x - An Overview">
2094 <short>Bjarne Stroustrup</short>
2096 A good programming language is far more than a simple collection of
2097 features. My ideal is to provide a set of facilities that smoothly work
2098 together to support design and programming styles of a generality beyond
2099 my imagination. Here, I briefly outline rules of thumb (guidelines,
2100 principles) that are being applied in the design of C++0x. Then, I
2101 present the state of the standards process (we are aiming for C++09) and
2102 give examples of a few of the proposals such as concepts, generalized
2103 initialization, being considered in the ISO C++ standards committee.
2104 Since there are far more proposals than could be presented in an hour,
2105 I'll take questions.
2109 <eventitem date="2007-07-06" time="4:30 PM" room="AL 116" title="Copyright vs Community in the Age of Computer Networks">
2110 <short>Richard Stallman</short>
2112 Copyright developed in the age of the printing press, and was designed
2113 to fit with the system of centralized copying imposed by the printing
2114 press. But the copyright system does not fit well with computer
2115 networks, and only draconian punishments can enforce it.
2117 The global corporations that profit from copyright are lobbying for
2118 draconian punishments, and to increase their copyright powers, while
2119 suppressing public access to technology. But if we seriously hope to
2120 serve the only legitimate purpose of copyright--to promote progress, for
2121 the benefit of the public--then we must make changes in the other
2124 The CSC would like to thank MEF and Mathsoc for funding this talk.
2126 <a href="http://www.fsf.org/events/waterloo20070706">The Freedom Software Foundation's description</a><br />
2127 <a href="http://www.defectivebydesign.org">FSF's anti-DRM campaign</a><br />
2128 <a href="http://www.badvista.org">Why you shouldn't use Microsoft Vista</a><br />
2129 <a href="http://www.gnu.org">The GNU's Not Unix Project</a><br />
2133 <eventitem date="2007-06-27" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 4042" title="Usability in the wild">
2134 <short>A talk by Michael Terry</short>
2136 What is the typical monitor resolution of a GIMP user? How many monitors
2137 do they have? What size images do they work on? How many layers are in
2138 their images? The answers to these questions are generally unknown: No
2139 means currently exist for open source applications to collect usage
2140 data. In this talk, I will present ingimp, a version of GIMP that has
2141 been instrumented to automatically collect usage data from real-world
2142 users. I will discuss ingimp's design, the type of data we collect, how
2143 we make the data available on the web, and initial results that begin to
2144 answer the motivating questions.
2146 ingimp can be found at http://www.ingimp.org.
2150 <eventitem date="2007-06-22" time="4:30 PM"
2152 title="Email encryption for the masses">
2153 <short>Ken Ho</short>
2155 E-mail transactions and confirmations have become commonplace and the
2156 information therein can often be sensitive. We use email for purposes as
2157 mundane as inbound marketing, to as sensitive as account passwords and
2158 financial transactions. And nearly all our email is sent in clear text;
2159 we trust only that others will not eavesdrop or modify our messages. But
2160 why rely on the goodness or apathy of your fellow man when you can
2161 ensure your message's confidentiality with encryption so strong not even
2162 the NSA can break? Speaker (Kenneth Ho) will discuss email encryption,
2163 and GNU Privacy Guard to ensure that your messages are sent, knowing
2164 that only your intended recipient can receive it.
2165 </p><p>An optional code-signing party will be held immediately
2166 afterwards; if you already have a PGP or GPG key and wish to
2167 participate, please submit the public key to
2168 <a href="mailto:gpg-keys@csclub.uwaterloo.ca">
2169 gpg-keys@csclub.uwaterloo.ca</a>.
2171 Laptop users are invited also to participate in key-pair sharing
2172 on-site, though it is preferable to send keys ahead of time.
2176 <eventitem date="2007-06-18" time="4:30 PM"
2177 room="DC 4040" title="Fedspulse.ca, Web 3.0, Portals and the Metaverse">
2178 <short>Peter Macdonald</short>
2180 The purpose of the talk is to address how students interact with the
2181 internet, and possibilities for how they could do so more efficiently.
2182 Information on events and happenings on UW campus is currently hosted
2183 on a desperate, series of internet applications. Interactions with
2184 WatSFIC is done over a Yahoo! mailing list, GLOW is organized through a
2185 Facebook group, campus information at large comes from
2186 <a href="http://imprint.uwaterloo.ca">imprint.uwaterloo.ca</a>. There
2187 has been historical pressures from various bodies, including some
2188 thinkers in feds and the administration, to centralize these issues. To
2189 create a one stop shop for students on campus.
2191 It is not through confining data in cages that we will finally link all
2192 student activities together, instead it is by truly freeing it. When
2193 data can be anywhere, then it will be everywhere students need it. This
2194 is the underlying concept behind metadata, data that is freed from the
2195 confines of it's technical imprisonment. Metadata is the extension of
2196 people, organizations, and activities onto the internet in a way that is
2197 above the traditional understanding of how people interact with their
2198 networks. The talk will explore how Metadata can exist freely on the
2199 internet, how this affects concepts like Web 3.0, and how the university
2200 and the federation are poised to take advantage of this burgeoning new
2201 technology through adoptions of portals which will allow students to
2202 interact with a metaverse of data.
2206 <!-- Winter 2007 -->
2208 <eventitem date="2007-04-11" time="3:30 PM" room="Hagey Hall" title="The Free Software Movement and the GNU/Linux Operating System">
2209 <short>A talk by Richard M. Stallman (RMS) <b>[CANCELLED]</b></short>
2211 Richard Stallman has cancelled his trip to Canada.
2215 <eventitem date="2007-04-08" time="4:30pm" room="MC 4041" title="Loop Optimizations">
2216 <short>A talk by Simina Branzei</short>
2218 Abstract coming soon!
2222 <eventitem date="2007-04-01" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 3036" title="Surprise
2224 <short>Bill Gates is coming to visit the CSClub</short>
2227 While reading Slashdot, Bill came across the recently digitized audio
2228 recording of his 1989 talk at the Computer Science Club. As Bill has always
2229 had a soft-spot for the Computer Science Club, he has decided to pay us a
2232 Bill promises to give away free copies of Windows Vista Ultimate, because
2233 frankly, nobody here (except j2simpso) wants to pay for a frisbee. Be sure
2234 to bring your resumes kids, because Bill will be recruiting for some
2235 exciting new positions at Microsoft, including Mindless Drone, Junior Code
2236 Monkey, and Assistant Human Cannonball.
2241 <eventitem date="2007-03-28" time="5:30 PM"
2242 room="MC 1056" title="Computational Physics Simulations">
2243 <short>A talk by David Tenty and Alex Parent</short>
2253 <eventitem date="2007-03-29" time="4:30 PM"
2254 room="MC 1056" title="All The Code">
2255 <short>A demo/introduction to a new source code search engine. A talk by Holden Karau</short>
2258 Source code search engines are a relatively new phenomenon . The general idea of most source code search engines is helping programmers find
2259 pre-existing code. So if you were writing some code and you wanted to find a csv library, for example, you could search for csv.
2260 <a href="http://www.allthecode.com/">All The Code</a> is a
2261 next generation source code search engine. Unlike earlier generations of source code search engines, it considers how code is used to help determine
2265 The talk will primarily be a demo of <a href="http://www.allthecode.com">All The Code</a>,
2266 along with a brief discussion of some of the technology behind it.
2272 <eventitem date="2007-04-04" time="4:00 PM"
2273 room="MC 1056" title="Data Analysis with Kernels: [an introduction]">
2274 <short>A talk by Michael Biggs. This talk is RESCHEDULED due to unexpected
2275 circumstances</short>
2278 I am going to take an intuitive, CS-style approach to a discussion about the
2279 use of kernels in modern data analysis. This approach often lends us
2280 efficient ways to consider a dataset under various choices of inner product,
2281 which is roughly comparable to a measure of "similarity". Many new tools in
2282 AI arise from kernel methods, such as the infamous Support Vector Machines for
2283 classification, and kernel-PCA for nonlinear dimensionality reduction. I will
2284 attempt to highlight, and provide visualization for some of the math involved
2285 in these methods while keeping the material at an accessible, undergraduate
2293 <eventitem date="2007-02-26" time="4:30 pm"
2294 room="DC 1350" title="ReactOS: An Open Source OS Platform for Learning">
2295 <short>A talk by Alex Ionescu</short>
2298 The ReactOS operating system has been in development for over eight years and aims to provide users
2299 with a fully functional and Windows-compatible distribution under the GPL license. ReactOS comes with
2300 its own Windows 2003-based kernel and system utilities and applications, resulting in an environment
2301 identical to Windows, both visually and internally.
2303 More than just an alternative to Windows, ReactOS is a powerful platform for academia, allowing
2304 students to learn a variety of skills useful to software testing, development and management, as well as
2305 providing a rich and clean implementation of Windows NT, with a kernel compatible to published
2306 internals book on the subject.
2308 This talk will introduce the ReactOS project, as well as the various software engineering challenges
2309 behind it. The building platform and development philosophies and utilities will be shown, and
2310 attendees will grasp the vast amount of effort and organization that needs to go into building an
2311 operating system or any other similarly large project. The speaker will gladly answer questions related to
2312 his background, experience and interests and information on joining the project, as well as any other
2313 related information.
2315 <strong>Speaker Bio</strong>
2317 Alex Ionescu is currently studying in Software Engineering at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec
2318 and is a Microsoft Technical Student Ambassador. He is the lead kernel developer of the ReactOS Project
2319 and project leader of TinyKRNL. He regularly speaks at Linux and Open Source conferences around the
2320 world and will be a lecturer at the 8th International Free Software Forum in Brazil this April, as well as
2321 providing hands-on workshops and lectures on Windows NT internals and security to various companies.
2327 <eventitem date="2007-02-15" time="4:30 PM"
2328 room="MC 2065" title="An Introduction to Recognizing Regular Expressions in Haskell">
2329 <short>A talk by James deBoer</short>
2333 This talk will introduce the Haskell programming language and and walk
2334 through building a recognizer for regular languages. The talk will
2335 include a quick overview of regular expressions, an introduction to
2336 Haskell and finally a line by line analysis of a regular language
2342 <eventitem date="2007-02-09" time="4:30 PM"
2343 room="MC 4041" title="Introduction to 3-d Graphics">
2344 <short>A talk by Chris "The Prof" Evensen</short>
2347 A talk for those interested in 3-dimensional graphics but unsure of where to
2348 start. Covers the basic math and theory behind projecting 3-dimensional
2349 polygons on screen, as well as simple cropping techniques to improve
2350 efficiency. Translation and rotation of polygons will also be discussed.
2355 <eventitem date="2007-02-09" time="8:30 PM"
2356 room="DC 1351" title="Writing World Class Software">
2357 <short>A talk by James Simpson</short>
2360 A common misconception amongst software developers is that top quality software
2361 encompasses certain platforms, is driven by a particular new piece of
2362 technology, or relies solely on a particular programming language. However as
2363 developers we tend to miss the less hyped issues and techniques involved in
2364 writing world class software. These techniques are universal to all
2365 programming languages, platforms and deployed technologies but are often times
2366 viewed as being so obvious that they are ignored by the typical developer. The
2367 topics covered in this lecture will include:
2369 - Writing bug-free to extremely low bug count software in real-time<br/>
2370 - The concept of single-source, universal platform software<br/>
2371 - Programming language interoperability<br/>
2373 ... and other less hyped yet vitally important concepts to writing
2374 World Class Software
2379 <eventitem date="2007-02-08" time="4:30 PM"
2380 room="MC 2066" title="UW Software Start-ups: What Worked and What Did Not">
2381 <short>A talk by Larry Smith</short>
2384 A discussion of software start-ups founded by UW students and what they did
2385 that helped them grow and what failed to help. In order to share the most
2386 insights and guard the confidences of the individuals involved, none of the
2387 companies will be identified.
2393 <eventitem date="2007-02-07" time="4:30 PM"
2394 room="MC 4041" title="Riding The Multi-core Revolution">
2395 <short>How a Waterloo software company is changing the way people program computers.
2396 A talk by Stefanus Du Toit</short>
2399 For decades, mainstream parallel processing has been thought of as
2400 inevitable. Up until recent years, however, improvements in
2401 manufacturing processes and increases in clock speed have provided
2402 software with free Moore's Law-scale performance improvements on
2403 traditional single-core CPUs. As per-core CPU speed increases have
2404 slowed to a halt, processor vendors are embracing parallelism by
2405 multiplying the number of cores on CPUs, following what Graphics
2406 Processing Unit (GPU) vendors have been doing for years. The Multi-
2407 core revolution promises to provide unparalleled increases in
2408 performance, but it comes with a catch: traditional serial
2409 programming methods are not at all suited to programming these
2410 processors and methods such as multi-threading are cumbersome and
2411 rarely scale beyond a few cores. Learn how, with hundreds of cores in
2412 desktop computers on the horizon, a local software company is looking
2413 to revolutionize the way software is written to deliver on the
2414 promise multi-core holds.
2417 Refreshments (and possible pizza!) will be provided.
2422 <!-- <eventitem date="2007-01-24" time="4:00 PM"
2423 room="TBA" title="TBA">
2424 <short>A talk by Reg Quinton</short>
2432 <eventitem date="2007-01-31" time="4:00 PM"
2433 room="MC 4041" title="Network Security -- Intrusion Detection">
2434 <short>A talk by Reg Quinton</short>
2437 IST monitors the campus network for vulnerabilities and scans
2438 systems for security problems.
2439 This informal presentation will look behind the scenes to show the
2440 strategies and technologies used and to show the problem magnitude. We
2441 will review the IST Security web site with an emphasis on these pages
2443 <a href="http://ist.uwaterloo.ca/security/vulnerable/">http://ist.uwaterloo.ca/security/vulnerable/</a><br/>
2444 <a href="http://ist.uwaterloo.ca/security/security-wg/reports/20061101.html">http://ist.uwaterloo.ca/security/security-wg/reports/20061101.html</a><br/>
2445 <a href="http://ist.uwaterloo.ca/security/position/20050524/">http://ist.uwaterloo.ca/security/position/20050524/</a><br/>
2450 <eventitem date="2007-01-31" time="4:30 PM"
2451 room="TBA" title="An Brief Introduction to Projection Graphics">
2452 <short>A talk by Christopher Evensen</short>
2462 <!-- Nothing happened :( -->
2464 <!-- Spring 2006 -->
2467 <eventitem date="2006-07-29" title="CTRL D" time="7:00pm" room="East Side Mario">
2468 <short>Come out for the Club that Really Likes Dinner</short>
2471 Summer: the sparrows whistle through the teapot-steam breeze. The
2472 ubiquitous construction team tears the same pavement up for the third
2473 time, hammering passers-by with dust and noise: our shirts, worn for
2474 the third time, noisome from competing heat and shame. As Nature
2475 continues her Keynesian rotation of policy, and as society decrees yet
2476 another parting of ways, it is proper for the common victims to have
2477 an evening to themselves, looking both back and ahead, imagining new
2478 opportunities, and recognising those long since missed. God fucking
2482 This term's CTRL-D end-of-term dinner is taking place tomorrow
2483 (Saturday) at 7:00 P.M. at East Side Mario's, in the plaza. Meet in
2484 the C.S.C. fifteen minutes beforehand, so they don't take away our
2485 seats or anything nasty like that.
2488 A lot of people wanted to go to the Mongolian Grill, but I'm pretty
2489 sure this place has a similar price-to-tasty ratio; what's more,
2490 they'll actually grant us a reservation more than four nights a week.
2491 I've confirmed that the crazy allergenic peanuts no longer exist
2492 (sad), and they have a good vegetarian selection, which is likely
2493 coincides with their kosher and halal menus.
2496 Come out for the tasty and the awesome! If you pretend it's your
2497 birthday, everyone's a loser! Tell your friends, because I told the
2498 telephone I wanted to reserve for 10 to 12 people, and I don't wish to
2499 sully Calum T. Dalek's good name!
2506 <eventitem date="2006-07-26" title="Lemmings Day" time="3:30pm" room="MC Comfy Lounge">
2507 <short>Come out for some retro Amiga-style Lemmings gaming action!</short>
2510 Does being in CS make you feel like a lemming? Is linear algebra driving you
2511 into walls? Do you pace back and forth, constantly, regardless of whatever's
2512 in your path? Then you should come out to CSC Lemmings Day. This time, we're
2513 playing the pseudo-sequel: Oh No! More Lemmings!
2516 <li>Old-skool retro gaming, Amiga-style (2 mice, 2 players!)</li>
2517 <li>Projector screen: the pixels are man-sized!</li>
2518 <li>Enjoy classic Lemmings tunes</li>
2523 <eventitem date="2006-07-25" title="Linux Installfest!" time="1:00pm" room ="DC Fishbowk">
2524 <short>A part of Linux Awareness Week</short>
2527 The Computer Science Club is once again stepping forward to fulfill its ancient duty to the people-this time by installing one of the many
2528 fine distributions of Linux for you.
2531 Ubuntu? Debian? Gentoo? Fedora? We might not have them all, but we seem to have an awful lot! Bring your boxen down to the D.C. Fishbowl for
2535 Install Linux on your machine-install fear in your opponents!
2541 <eventitem date="2006-07-24" title="Software development gets on the Cluetrain" time="4:30pm" room ="MC 4063">
2542 <short>or How communities of interest drive modern software development.</short>
2545 Simon Law leads the Quality teams for Ubuntu, a free-software operating
2546 system built on Debian GNU/Linux. As such, he leads one of the largest
2547 community-based testing efforts for a software product. This does get a
2551 In this talk, we'll be exploring how the Internet is changing how
2552 software is developed. Concepts like open source and technologies like
2553 message forums are blurring the lines between producer and consumer.
2554 And this melting pot of people is causing people to take note, and
2555 changing the way they sling code.
2558 Co-Sponsored with CS-Commons Committee
2563 <eventitem date="2006-07-21" time="5:30 PM"
2564 room="MC1085" title="March of the Penguins">
2565 <short>The Computer Science Club will be showing March of the Penguins</short>
2568 <a href="http://wip.warnerbros.com/marchofthepenguins/">March of the Penguins</a> , an epic nature documentary, as dictated
2569 by some guy with a funny voice is being shown by the Computer Science club because penguins are cute and were bored [that and the
2570 whole Linux awareness week that forgot to tell people about].
2576 <eventitem date="2006-07-20" time="5:30 PM"
2577 room="MC4041" title="Cool Stuff to do With Python">
2578 <short>Albert O'Connor will be introducing the joys of programming in python</short>
2581 Albert O'Connor, a UW grad, will be giving a ~30 minute talk on introducing the joys of programming python. Python is an open source
2582 object-oriented programming language which is most awesome.
2587 <eventitem date="2006-07-20" time="4:30 PM"
2588 room="MC4041" title="Simulating multi-tasking on an embedded architecture">
2589 <short>Alex Tsay will look at the common hack used to simulate multi-processing in a real time embedded environment.</short>
2592 In an embedded environment resources are fairly limited, especially. Typically an embedded system has strict time constraints in which it must
2593 respond to hardware driven interrupts and do some processing of its own. A full fledged OS would consume most of the available resources, hence
2594 crazy hacks must be used to get the benefits without paying the high costs. This talk will look at the common hack used to simulate multi-processing
2595 in a real time embedded environment.
2601 <eventitem date="2006-07-19" title="Semacode: Image recognition on mobile camera phones" time="4:30 PM" room ="MC1085">
2602 <short>Simon Woodside, founder of Semacode, comes to discuss image what it is like to start a business and how imaging code works</short>
2605 Could you write a good image recognizer for a 100 MHz mobile phone
2606 processor with 1 MB heap, 320x240 image, on a poorly-optimized Java
2607 stack? It needs to locate and read two-dimensional barcodes made up of
2608 square modules which might be no more than a few pixels in size. We
2609 had to do that in order to establish Semacode, a local start up
2610 company that makes a software barcode reader for cell phones. The
2611 applications vary from ubiquitous computing to advertising. Simon
2612 Woodside (founder) will discuss what it's like to start a business and
2613 how the imaging code works.
2622 <eventitem date="2006-07-17" time="11:59 PM"
2623 room="MC3036" title="Midnight Madness, Alpha Edition">
2624 <short>Come out to discuss current & future plans/projects for the Club</short>
2627 The Computer Science Club (CSClub) has "new" DEC Alphas which are most awesome. Come out, help take them part, put them back
2628 together, solder, and eat free food (probably pizza).
2634 <eventitem date="2006-06-21" time="4:30 PM"
2635 room="MC4042" title="CSC General Meeting">
2636 <short>Come out to discuss current & future plans/projects for the Club</short>
2639 The venue will include:</p>
2641 <li><p>Computer usage agreement discussion (Holden has some changes he'd like to propose)</p></li>
2642 <li><p>Web site - Juti is redesigning the web site (you can see <a href="beta/">a beta here</a> - ideas are welcome.</p></li>
2643 <li><p>Frosh Linux cd's that could be put in frosh math faculty kits.</p></li>
2644 <li><p>VoIP "not phone services" ideas.</p></li>
2645 <li><p>Ideas for talks (people, topics, etc...). We requested Steve Jobs and Steve Balmer, so no idea is too crazy.</p></li>
2646 <li><p>Ideas for books.</p></li>
2647 <li><p>General improvements/comments for the club.</p></li>
2650 If you have ideas, but can't attend, please email them to <a href="mailto:president@csclub.uwaterloo.ca">president@csclub.uwaterloo.ca</a> and they will be read them at the meeting.
2656 <eventitem date="2006-05-25" time="4:00 PM" room="MC 4060" title="Eighteen Years in the Software Tools Business">
2657 <short>Eighteen Years in the Software Tools Business at Microsoft, a talk by Rico Mariani, (BMath CS/EEE 1988)</short>
2660 Rico Mariani, (BMath CS/EEE 1988) now an (almost) 18 year Microsoft veteran but then a CSC president comes to talk to us about the
2661 evolution of software tools for microcomputers. This talk promises to be a little bit about history and perspective (at least from
2662 the Microsoft side of things) as well as the evolution of software engineers, different types of programmers and their needs, and what
2663 it's like to try to make the software industry more effective at what it does, and sometimes succeed!
2666 A video of the talk is available for download in our <a href="media/">media</a> section.
2671 <eventitem date="2006-05-14" time="1:00 PM" room="CSC" title="Unix 101 and 102 Recording">
2672 <short>Unix 101 and 102 recording</short>
2675 Have you heard of our famous Unix 101 and Unix 102 tutorials. We've decided to try
2676 and put them on the web. This Sunday we will be doing a first take.
2677 At the same time, we're going to be looking at adding new material
2678 that we haven't covered in the past. </p>
2680 Why should you come out? Not only will you get to hang out with a wonderful group of people,
2681 you can help impart your knowledge to the world. Don't know anything about Unix? That's cool too,
2682 we need people to make sure its easy to follow along and hopefully keep us from leaving something
2688 <eventitem date="2006-05-13" time="1:00 PM" room="CSC" title="Video 4 Linux Day">
2689 <short> We don't know enough about V4L</short>
2692 We don't know Video 4 Linux, but increasingly people are wanting to do interesting stuff with our webcam which
2693 could benefit from a better understanding of Video 4 Linux. So, this Saturday a number of us will be trying to learn
2694 as much as possible about Video 4 Linux and doing weird things with webcam(s).
2699 <eventitem date="2006-05-08" time="4:30 PM" room="The Comfy Lounge" title="CSC
2701 <short>Come out and vote for the Spring 2006 executive!</short>
2704 The Computer Science Club will be holding its elections for the Spring 2006
2705 term on Monday, May 8th. The elections will be held at 4:30 PM in the
2706 Comfy Lounge, on the 3rd floor of the MC. Please remember to come out and
2710 We are accepting nominations for the following positions: President,
2711 Vice-President, Treasurer, and Secretary. The nomination period continues
2712 until 4:30 PM on Sunday, May 7th. If you are interested in running for
2713 a position, or would like to nominate someone else, please email
2714 cro@csclub.uwaterloo.ca before the deadline.
2719 <!-- Winter 2006 -->
2721 <eventitem date="2006-03-06" time="4:45 PM"
2722 room="Physics 145" title="Creating Killer Applications">
2723 <short>A talk by Larry Smith</short>
2726 A discussion of how software creators can identify application opportunities
2727 that offer the promise of great social and commercial significance. Particular
2728 attention will be paid to the challenge of acquiring cross domain knowledge
2729 and setting up effective collaboration.
2735 <eventitem date="2006-02-09" time="5:30 PM" room="Bombshelter Pub" title="Pints With Profs">
2736 <short>Come out and meet your professors. Free food provided!</short>
2738 <p>Come out and meet your professors! This is a great opportunity to
2739 mingle with your professors before midterms or find out who you might
2740 have for future courses. All are welcome!</p>
2742 <p>Best of all, there will be <strong>free food!</strong></p>
2744 <p>You can pick up invitations for your professors at the Computer Science
2745 Club office in MC 3036.</p>
2747 <p>Pints with Profs will be held this term on Thursday, 9 February 2006
2748 from 5:30 to 8:00 PM in the Bombshelter.</p>
2754 <eventitem date="2005-11-29" time="5:30 PM"
2755 room="TBA" title="Programming Contest">
2756 <short>Come out, program, and win shiny things!</short>
2759 The Computer Science club is holding a programming contest open to all students on Tuesday the 29th of November at 5:30PM. C++,C,Perl,Scheme* are allowed. Prizes totalling in value of $75 will be distributed.
2763 <p>And best of all... free food!!!</p>
2768 <eventitem date="2005-10-17" time="5:30 PM"
2769 room="Fishbowl" title="Party with Profs!">
2770 <short>Get to know your profs and be the envy of your
2774 Come out and meet your professors!! This is a great opportunity to
2775 meet professors for Undergraduate Research jobs or to find out who
2776 you might have for future courses. One and all are welcome!
2779 <p>And best of all... free food!!!</p>
2784 <eventitem date="2005-10-11" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 2037" title="UNIX 103: Scripting Unix">
2785 <short>You Too Can Be a Unix Taskmaster</short>
2788 This is the third in a series of seminars that cover the use of the
2789 UNIX Operating System. UNIX is used in a variety of applications, both
2790 in academia and industry. We will provide you with hands-on experience
2791 with the Math Faculty's UNIX environment in this tutorial.
2793 Topics that will be discussed include:
2795 <li>Shell scripting</li>
2796 <li>Searching through text files</li>
2797 <li>Batch editing text files</li>
2800 If you do not have a Math computer account, don't panic; one will be lent to
2801 you for the duration of this class.
2807 <eventitem date="2005-10-06" time="4:30 PM" room="MC3D 2037" title="UNIX 102">
2808 <short>Fun with Unix</short>
2811 This is the second in a series of seminars that cover the use of the
2812 Unix Operating System. Unix is used in a variety of
2813 applications, both in academia and industry. We will provide you with hands-on
2814 experience with the Math Faculty's Unix environment in this tutorial.
2817 Topics that will be discussed include:
2819 <li>Interacting with Bourne and C shells</li>
2820 <li>Editing text using the vi text editor</li>
2821 <li>Editing text using the Emacs display editor</li>
2822 <li>Multi-tasking and the screen multiplexer</li>
2826 If you do not have a Math computer account, don't panic; one will be lent to
2827 you for the duration of this class.
2832 <eventitem date="2005-10-04" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 2037" title="UNIX 101">
2833 <short>First UNIX tutorial</short>
2836 The CSC UNIX tutorials are intended to help first year CS and other
2837 interested learn UNIX and the CS UNIX environment.
2840 This is the first in a series of two or three tutorials. It will cover basic shell
2841 use, and simple text editors.
2847 <!-- Summer 2005 -->
2848 <eventitem date="2005-06-02" time="3:30 PM" room="DC 1302" title="Programming and Verifying the Interactive Web">
2849 <short>Shriram Krishnamurthi will be talking about continuations in Web Programming</short>
2852 Server-side Web applications have grown increasingly common, sometimes
2853 even replacing brick and mortar as the principal interface of
2854 corporations. Correspondingly, Web browsers grow ever more powerful,
2855 empowering users to attach bookmarks, switch between pages, clone
2856 windows, and so forth. As a result, Web interactions are not
2857 straight-line dialogs but complex nets of interaction steps.
2860 In practice, programmers are unaware of or are unable to handle these
2861 nets of interaction, making the Web interfaces of even major
2862 organizations buggy and thus unreliable. Even when programmers do
2863 address these constraints, the resulting programs have a seemingly
2864 mangled structure, making them difficult to develop and hard to
2868 In this talk, I will describe these interactions and then show how
2869 programming language ideas can shed light on the resulting problems
2870 and present solutions at various levels. I will also describe some
2871 challenges these programs pose to computer-aided verification, and
2872 present solutions to these problems.
2876 <eventitem date="2005-06-07" time="4:00 PM" room="MC 4042" title="UW's CS curriculum: past, present, and future">
2877 <short>Come out to here Prabhakar Ragde talk about our UW's CS curriculum</short>
2880 I'll survey the evolution of our computer science curriculum over the
2881 past thirty-five years to try to convey the reasons (not always entirely
2882 rational) behind our current mix of courses and their division into core
2883 and optional. After some remarks about constraints and opportunities in
2884 the near future, I'll open the floor to discussion, and hope to hear
2885 some candid comments about the state of CS at UW and how it might be
2892 Prabhakar Ragde is a Professor in the School of Computer Science at UW.
2893 He was Associate Chair for Curricula during the period that saw the
2894 creation of the Bioinformatics and Software Engineering programs, the
2895 creation of the BCS degree, and the strengthening of the BMath/CS degree.
2900 <!-- Winter 2005 -->
2901 <eventitem date="2005-03-15" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 4060" title="Oh No! More Lemmings Day!">
2902 <short>Come out for some retro Amiga-style Lemmings gaming action!</short>
2905 Does being in CS make you feel like a lemming? Is linear algebra driving you
2906 into walls? Do you pace back and forth, constantly, regardless of whatever's
2907 in your path? Then you should come out to CSC Lemmings Day. This time, we're
2908 playing the pseudo-sequel: Oh No! More Lemmings!
2911 <li>Old-skool retro gaming, Amiga-style (2 mice, 2 players!)</li>
2912 <li>Projector screen: the pixels are man-sized!</li>
2913 <li>Live-Action Lemmings (the rules are better this time)</li>
2914 <li>Lemmings look-alike contest</li>
2915 <li>Enjoy classic Lemmings tunes</li>
2920 <eventitem date="2005-02-01" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 2037" title="UNIX 102">
2921 <short>Fun with Unix</short>
2924 This is the second in a series of seminars that cover the use of the
2925 Unix Operating System. Unix is used in a variety of
2926 applications, both in academia and industry. We will provide you with hands-on
2927 experience with the Math Faculty's Unix environment in this tutorial.
2930 Topics that will be discussed include:
2932 <li>Interacting with Bourne and C shells</li>
2933 <li>Editing text using the vi text editor</li>
2934 <li>Editing text using the Emacs display editor</li>
2935 <li>Multi-tasking and the screen multiplexer</li>
2939 If you do not have a Math computer account, don't panic; one will be lent to
2940 you for the duration of this class.
2946 <eventitem date="2005-01-25" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 2037" title="UNIX 101">
2947 <short>First UNIX tutorial</short>
2950 The CSC UNIX tutorials are intended to help first year CS and other
2951 interested learn UNIX and the CS UNIX environment.
2954 This is the first in a series of two or three tutorials. It will cover basic shell
2955 use, and simple text editors.
2961 <eventitem date="2005-01-13" time="4:30 PM" room="The Comfy Lounge" title="CSC
2963 <short>Come out and vote for the Winter 2005 executive!</short>
2966 The Computer Science Club will be holding its elections for the Winter 2005
2967 term on Thursday, January 13. The elections will be held at 4:30 PM in the
2968 Comfy Lounge, on the 3rd floor of the MC. Please remember to come out and
2972 We are accepting nominations for the following positions: President,
2973 Vice-President, Treasurer, and Secretary. The nomination period continues
2974 until 4:30 PM on Wednesday, January 12. If you are interested in running for
2975 a position, or would like to nominate someone else, please email
2976 cro@csclub.uwaterloo.ca before the deadline.
2984 <eventitem date="2004-12-08" time="4:30 PM" room="Mongolian Grill"
2986 <short> This semesters CTRL-D (or the club that really likes
2987 dinner) is going to be at Mongolian grill. Be there or be square</short>
2990 Come to the end of term CTRL-D (club that really likes dinner) meeting.
2991 Remember : food is good
2997 <eventitem date="2004-12-01" time="2:30 PM" room="MC 4058" title="Knitting needles, hairpins and other tangled objects">
2998 <short>In this talk, I'll study linkages (objects built from sticks that are connected with flexible joints), and explain some
2999 interesting examples that can or cannot be straightened out</short>
3002 In this talk, I'll study linkages (objects built from sticks that are connected with flexible joints), and explain some
3003 interesting examples that can or cannot be straightened out</p>
3009 <eventitem date="2004-11-24" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 2066" title="Eclipse">
3010 <short>How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the IDE</short>
3013 How I stopped worrying and Learned to Love the IDE
3016 Audience: anyone who as ever used the Java programming language to do anything. Especially if you don't like
3017 the IDEs you've seen so far or still use (g)Vi(m) or (X)Emacs.
3021 I'll go through some of the coolest features of the best IDE (which stands for "IDEs Don't Eat" or
3022 "Integrated Development Environment") I've seen. For the first year and seasoned almost-grad alike!
3029 <eventitem date="2004-11-18" time="5:00 PM" room="MC 2066" title="GracefulTavi">
3030 <short>Wiki software in PHP+MySQL</short>
3033 GracefulTavi is an open source wiki programmed by Net Integration
3034 Technologies Inc. It is used internally by more than 25 people, and is
3035 the primary internal wiki for NITI's R&D and QA.
3038 I'll start with a very brief introduction to wikis in general, then
3039 show off our special features: super-condensed formatting syntax,
3040 hierarchy management, version control, highlighted diffs, SchedUlator,
3041 the Table of Contents generator. As part of this, we'll explain the
3042 simple plugin architecture and show people how to write a basic wiki
3047 As well, I will show some of the "waterloo specific" macros that have
3048 been coded, and explain future plans for GracefulTavi.
3052 If time permits, I will explain how gracefulTavi can be easily used
3053 for a personal calendar and notepad system on your laptop.
3060 <eventitem date="2004-11-12" time="2:30 PM" room="MC 4063" title="Lemmings Day!">
3061 <short>Everyone else is doing it!</short>
3064 Does being in CS make you feel like a lemming? Is linear algebra driving you into walls? Do you pace back and forth , constantly ,
3065 regardless of whatever's in your path? Then you should come out to CSC Lemmings Day!
3068 <li>Play some old-skool Lemmings, Amiga-style</li>
3069 <li>Live-action lemmings</li>
3070 <li>Lemmings look-alike contest</li>
3071 <li>Enjoy classic Lemmings tunes</li>
3074 Everyone else is doing it!
3080 <eventitem date="2004-10-23" time="11:00 PM" room="MC 2037" title="CSC Programming Contest">
3081 <short>CSC Programming Contest</short>
3084 The Computer Science Club will be hosting a programming competition.
3085 You have the entire afternoon to design and implement an AI for a simple
3086 game. The competition will run until 5pm.
3092 <eventitem date="2004-10-18" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 2037" title="UNIX 103: Scripting Unix">
3093 <short>You Too Can Be a Unix Taskmaster</short>
3096 This is the third in a series of seminars that cover the use of the
3097 UNIX Operating System. UNIX is used in a variety of applications, both
3098 in academia and industry. We will provide you with hands-on experience
3099 with the Math Faculty's UNIX environment in this tutorial.
3101 Topics that will be discussed include:
3103 <li>Shell scripting</li>
3104 <li>Searching through text files</li>
3105 <li>Batch editing text files</li>
3108 If you do not have a Math computer account, don't panic; one will be lent to
3109 you for the duration of this class.
3114 <eventitem date="2004-10-04" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 2037" title="UNIX 102">
3115 <short>Fun with Unix</short>
3118 This is the second in a series of seminars that cover the use of the
3119 Unix Operating System. Unix is used in a variety of
3120 applications, both in academia and industry. We will provide you with hands-on
3121 experience with the Math Faculty's Unix environment in this tutorial.
3124 Topics that will be discussed include:
3126 <li>Interacting with Bourne and C shells</li>
3127 <li>Editing text using the vi text editor</li>
3128 <li>Editing text using the Emacs display editor</li>
3129 <li>Multi-tasking and the screen multiplexer</li>
3133 If you do not have a Math computer account, don't panic; one will be lent to
3134 you for the duration of this class.
3139 <!-- Spring 2004 -->
3141 <eventitem date="2004-09-27" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 2037" title="UNIX 101">
3142 <short>First UNIX tutorial</short>
3145 The CSC UNIX tutorials are intended to help first year CS and other
3146 interested learn UNIX and the CS UNIX environment.
3149 This is the first in a series of three tutorials. It will cover basic shell
3150 use, and simple text editors.
3154 <eventitem date="2004-09-17" time="4:00 PM" room="The Comfy Lounge" title="CSC
3156 <short>Come out and vote for the Fall 2004 executive!</short>
3159 The Computer Science Club will be holding its elections for the Fall 2004
3160 term on Friday, September 17. The elections will be held at 4:00 PM in the
3161 Comfy Lounge, on the 3rd floor of the MC. Please remember to come out and
3165 We are accepting nominations for the following positions: President,
3166 Vice-President, Treasurer, and Secretary. The nomination period continues
3167 until 4:30 PM on Thursday, September 16. If you are interested in running
3168 for a position, or would like to nominate someone else, please email
3169 cro@csclub.uwaterloo.ca before the deadline.
3174 <eventitem date="2004-07-27" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 2065"
3175 title="Game Complexity Theorists Ponder, by Jonathan Buss">
3176 <short>Attention AI buffs: Game Complexity presentation</short>
3179 Why are some games hard to play well? The study of computational
3180 complexity gives one answer: the games encode long computations.</p>
3182 <p>Any computation can be interpreted as an abstract game. Playing the
3183 game perfectly requires performing the computation. Remarkably, some
3184 natural games can encode these abstract games and thus simulate
3185 general computations. The more complex the game, the more complex the
3186 computations it can encode; games that can encode intractable problems
3187 are themselves intractable.</p>
3190 I will describe how games can encode computations, and discuss some
3191 examples of both provably hard games (checkers, chess, go, etc.) and
3192 games that are believed to be hard (hex, jigsaw puzzles, etc.).
3197 <eventitem date="2004-07-17" time="11:30 AM" room="RCH 308"
3198 title="Case Modding Workshop!">
3199 <short>Come and learn how to make your computer 1337!</short>
3202 Are you bored of beige?<br />
3203 Tired of an overheating computer?<br />
3204 Is your computer's noise level on par with a jet engine?
3207 Got a nifty modded case?<br />
3211 The Computer Science Club will be holding a Case Modding Workshop
3212 to help answer these questions.
3215 There will be demonstrations on how to make a case window, how
3216 to paint your case, managing cables and keeping your computer
3220 The event is FREE and there will be FREE PIZZA. All are welcome!
3223 To help you on your way to getting a wicked computer case, we have a limited
3224 number of "Case Modding Starters Kits" available. They come with an LED fan,
3225 a fan grill, a sheet of Plexan, thumbscrews, wire ties, and more! They're
3226 only $10 and will be on sale at the event. Here's a <a
3227 href="redkit.jpg">picture</a>.
3230 If you already have a modded case, we encourage you to bring it out
3231 and show it off! There will be a prize for the best case!!
3234 We hope to see you there!
3237 This event is sponsored by Bigfoot Computers.
3242 <eventitem date="2004-06-17" time="4:00 PM" room="MC 2066"
3243 title="``Optical Snow'': Motion parallax and heading computation in densely cluttered scenes. -or- Why Computer Vision needs the Fourier Transform!">
3244 <short>A talk by Richard Mann; School of Computer Science</short>
3247 When an observer moves through a 3D scene, nearby surfaces move faster in the
3248 image than do distant surfaces. This effect, called motion parallax, provides
3249 an observer with information both about their own motion relative the scene,
3250 and about the spatial layout and depth of surfaces in the scene.
3253 Classical methods for measuring image motion by computer have concentrated on
3254 the cases of optical flow in which the motion field is continuous, or layered
3255 motion in which the motion field is piecewise continuous. Here we introduce a
3256 third natural category which we call ``optical snow''. Optical snow arises in
3257 many natural situations such as camera motion in a highly cluttered 3-D scene,
3258 or a passive observer watching a snowfall. Optical snow yields dense motion
3259 parallax with depth discontinuities occurring near all image points. As such,
3260 constraints on smoothness or even smoothness in layers do not apply.
3263 We present a Fourier analysis of optical snow. In particular we show that,
3264 while such scenes appear complex in the time domain, there is a simple
3265 structure in the frequency domain, and this may be used to determine the
3266 direction of motion and the range of depths of objects in the scenes. Finally
3267 we show how Fourier analysis of two or more image regions may be combined to
3268 estimate heading direction.
3271 This talk will present current research at the undergraduate level. All are
3278 <eventitem date="2004-05-26" time="5:30 PM"
3279 room="DC 1350" title="Computing's Next Great Empires: The True Future of Software">
3280 <short>A talk by Larry Smith</short>
3283 Larry will challenge conventional assumptions about the directions of
3284 computing and software. The role of AI, expert systems, communications
3285 software and business applications will be presented both from a
3286 functional and commercial point of view. The great gaps in the
3287 marketplace will be highlighted, together with an indication of how
3288 these vacant fields will become home to new empires.
3292 <eventitem date="2004-05-12" time="4:30 PM"
3293 room="The Comfy Lounge" title="CSC Elections">
3294 <short>Come out and vote for the Spring 2004 executive!</short>
3297 The Computer Science Club will be holding its elections for the Spring
3298 2004 term on Wednesday, May 12. The elections will be held at 4:30 PM in
3299 the Comfy Lounge, on the 3rd floor of the MC. Please remember to come out
3303 We are accepting nominations for the following positions: President,
3304 Vice-President, Treasurer, and Secretary. The nomination period continues
3305 until 4:30 PM on Tuesday, May 11. If you are interested in running
3306 for a position, or would like to nominate someone else, please email
3307 cro@csclub.uwaterloo.ca before the deadline.
3312 <!-- Winter 2004 -->
3314 <eventitem date="2004-03-29" time="6:00 PM"
3315 room="MC 4058" title="LaTeXing your work report">
3316 <short>A talk by Simon Law</short>
3319 The work report is a familiar chore for any co-op student. Not only is
3320 there a report to write, but to add insult to injury, your report is
3321 returned if you do not follow your departmental guidelines.
3325 Fear no more! In this talk, you will learn how to use LaTeX and a
3326 specially developed class to automatically format your work reports.
3327 This talk is especially useful to Mathematics, Computer Science,
3328 Electrical & Computer Engineering, and Software Engineeering co-op
3329 students about to go on work term.
3334 <eventitem date="2004-03-30" time="5:30 PM"
3335 room="The Grad House" title="Pints with Profs!">
3336 <short>Get to know your profs and be the envy of your
3340 Come out and meet your professors!! This is a great opportunity to
3341 meet professors for Undergraduate Research jobs or to find out who
3342 you might have for future courses. One and all are welcome!
3345 <p>And best of all... free food!!!</p>
3349 <eventitem date="2004-03-23" time="6:00 PM"
3350 room="MC4058" title="Extending LaTeX with packages">
3351 <short>A talk by Simon Law</short>
3354 LaTeX is a document processing system. What this means is you describe
3355 the structure of your document, and LaTeX typesets it appealingly.
3356 However, LaTeX was developed in the late-80s and is now showing its age.
3360 How does it compete against modern systems? By being easily extensible,
3361 of course. This talk will describe the fundamentals of typesetting in
3362 LaTeX, and will then show you how to extend it with freely available
3363 packages. You will learn how to teach yourself LaTeX and how to find
3364 extensions that do what you want.
3368 As well, there will be a short introduction on creating your own
3369 packages, for your own personal use.
3374 <eventitem date="2004-03-16" time="6:00 PM"
3375 room="MC4058" title="Distributed programming for CS and Engineering
3377 <short>A talk by Simon Law</short>
3380 If you've ever worked with other group members, you know how difficult
3381 it is to code simultaneously. You might be working on one part of your
3382 assignment, and you need to send your source code to everyone else. Or
3383 you might be fixing a bug in someone else's part, and need to merge in
3384 the change. What a mess!
3388 This talk will explain some Best Practices for developing code in a
3389 distributed fashion. Whether you're working side-by-side in the lab, or
3390 developing from home, these methods can apply to your team. You will
3391 learn how to apply these techniques in the Unix environment using GNU
3392 Make, CVS, GNU diff and patch.
3397 <eventitem date="2004-03-15" time="5:30 PM"
3398 room="MC4040" title="SPARC Architecture">
3399 <short>A talk by James Morrison</short>
3402 Making a compiler? Bored? Think CISC sucks and RISC rules?
3406 This talk will run through the SPARC v8, IEEE-P1754, architecture.
3407 Including all the fun that can be had with register windows and the
3408 SPARC instruction set including the basic instructions, floating
3409 point instructions, and vector instructions.
3414 <eventitem date="2004-03-09" time="6:00 PM"
3415 room="MC4062" title="Managing your home directory using CVS">
3416 <short>A talk by Simon Law</short>
3419 If you have used Unix for a while, you know that you've created
3420 configuration files, or dotfiles. Each program seems to want its own
3421 particular settings, and you want to customize your environment. In a
3422 power-user's directory, you could have hundreds of these files.
3426 Isn't it annoying to migrate your configuration if you login to another
3427 machine? What if you build a new computer? Or perhaps you made a
3428 mistake to one of your configuration files, and want to undo it?
3432 In this talk, I will show you how to manage your home directory using
3433 CVS, the Concurrent Versions System. You can manage your files, revert
3434 to old versions in the past, and even send them over the network to
3435 another machine. I'll also discuss how to keep your configuration files
3436 portable, so they'll work even on different Unices, with different
3442 <eventitem date="2004-03-02" time="6:00 PM"
3443 room="MC4042" title="Graphing webs-of-trust">
3444 <short>A talk by Simon Law</short>
3447 In today's world, people have hundreds of connexions. And you can
3448 express these connexions with a graph. For instance, you may wish to
3449 represent the network of&nbs