3 <!DOCTYPE eventdefs SYSTEM "csc.dtd">
7 <eventitem date="2011-07-15" time="7 PM" room="Comfy Lounge" title="Code Party 3">
8 <short>Our third and final code party of the term! As usual, there will be
9 code, code, and more code. Plus energy drinks.
11 The theme for this code party is Open Source Collaboration. We encourage
12 everybody to come out and participate in some open source projects.
14 More details to follow!
16 <abstract>Our third and final code party of the term! As usual, there will be
17 code, code, and more code. Plus energy drinks.
19 The theme for this code party is Open Source Collaboration. We encourage
20 everybody to come out and participate in some open source projects.
22 More details to follow!
25 <eventitem date="2011-07-09" time="2 PM" room="Outdoors" title="picniCS">
27 Join us in July at our picnic and campfire. We'll have snacks, frisbees,
30 More details to follow!
33 Join us in July at our picnic and campfire. We'll have snacks, frisbees,
36 More details to follow!
39 <eventitem date="2011-06-17" time="7 PM" room="Comfy Lounge" title="Code Party 2">
40 <short>Our second code party. This iteration's topic: Puzzles, contests, and
41 interview questions. You can also work on whatever other code you want to.
43 More details to follow!
45 <abstract>Our second code party. This iteration's topic: Puzzles, contests, and
46 interview questions. You can also work on whatever other code you want to.
48 More details to follow!
51 <eventitem date="2011-06-14" time="4:30 PM" room="TBD" title="HCI Prof Talk">
53 Join us for a talk on AdaptableGIMP. More details to come.
56 Join us for a talk on AdaptableGIMP. More details to come.
59 <eventitem date="2011-06-09" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 2054"
60 title="General Purpose Computing on Graphics Cards">
62 In the first of our member talks for the term, Katie Hyatt will give a
63 short introduction to General Purpose Graphics Processing Unit
64 computing. This expanding field has many applications. The primary
65 focus of this talk will be nVidia's CUDA architecture.
68 <p> This is the first of our member talks for the term, presented by
69 CSC member and Waterloo undergraduate student Katie Hyatt
72 GPGPU (general purpose graphics processing unit) computing is an
73 expanding area of interest, with applications in physics, chemistry,
74 applied math, finance, and other fields. nVidia has created an
75 architecture named CUDA to allow programmers to use graphics cards
76 without having to write PTX assembly or understand OpenGL. CUDA is
77 designed to allow for high-performance parallel computation controlled
78 from the CPU while granting the user fine control over the behaviour
79 and performance of the device.
83 In this talk, I'll discuss the basics of nVidia's CUDA architecture
84 (with most emphasis on the CUDA C extensions), the GPGPU programming
85 environment, optimizing code written for the graphics card, algorithms
86 with noteworthy performance on GPU, libraries and tools available to
87 the GPGPU programmer, and some applications to condensed matter
88 physics. No physics background required!
92 <eventitem date="2011-06-03" time="7 PM" room="Comfy Lounge" title="Code Party 1">
94 The Computer Science Club is having our first code party of the term.
95 The theme for this week's code party is personal projects. Come show us
96 what you've been working on! Of course, everybody is welcome, even if you
100 The Computer Science Club is having our first code party of the term.
101 The theme for this week's code party is personal projects. Come show us
102 what you've been working on! Of course, everybody is welcome, even if you
103 don't have a project.
105 Personal projects are a great way to flex your CS muscles, and learn interesting
106 and new things. Come out and have some fun!
108 Two more are scheduled for later in the term.
111 <eventitem date="2011-05-09" time="5:31 PM" room="Comfy Lounge" title="Elections Nominees List">
113 <p>CSC Elections, final list of nominations for Spring 2011</p>
116 <p>The nominations are:
118 <li>President: jdonland, mimcpher, mthiffau</li>
119 <li>Vice-President: jdonland, mimcpher</li>
120 <li>Treasurer: akansong, kspaans</li>
121 <li>Secretary: akansong, jdonland</li>
127 <eventitem date="2011-05-09" time="5:30 PM" room="Comfy Lounge" title="Elections">
129 <p>CSC Elections have begun for the Spring 2011 term, nominations are open!</p>
132 <p>It's time to elect your CSC executive for the Spring 2011 term. The
133 elections will be held on Monday May 9th at 5:30PM in the Comfy Lounge
134 on the 3rd floor of the MC. Nominations can be sent to the Chief
135 Returning Officer, <a href="mailto:cro@csclub.uwaterloo.ca">cro@csclub.uwaterloo.ca</a>.
136 Nominations will be open until 4:30PM on Monday May 9th. You can also stop by the office in
137 person to write your nominations on the white board.</p>
139 <p>The executive positions open for nomination are:
142 <li>Vice-President</li>
146 There are also numerous positions that will be appointed once the
147 executive are elected including systems administrator, office manager,
150 <p>Everyone is encouraged to run if they are interested, regardless of
151 program of study, age, or experience. If you can't make the election,
152 that's OK too! You can give the CRO a statement to read on your
153 behalf. If you can't make it or are out of town, your votes can be
154 sent to the CRO in advance of the elections. For the list of nominees,
155 watch the CSC website, or ask the CRO.</p>
157 <p>Good luck to our candidates!</p>
162 <eventitem date="2011-03-17" time="04:30 PM" room="MC2034" title="Software Patents">
164 <short><p><i>by Stanley Khaing</i>. What are the requirements for obtaining a patent? Should software be patentable?</p></short>
167 <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>
169 <li>What are the requirements for obtaining a patent?</li>
170 <li>Should software be patentable?</li>
176 <eventitem date="2011-02-17" time="07:00 PM" room="MC2017" title="A Smorgasbord of Perl Talks">
178 <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>
181 <p>Tyler Slijboom will present:</p>
184 <li>Prototyping in Perl,</li>
185 <li>Perl Default Variables,</li>
186 <li>HOWTO on OO Programming, and</li>
187 <li>HOWTO on Installing and Using Modules from CPAN</li>
190 <p>Daniel Allen will present:</p>
193 <li>Coping with Other Peoples' Code</li>
196 <p>Justin Wheeler will present:</p>
199 <li>Moose: a Modern Perl Framework</li>
205 <eventitem date="2011-02-09" time="04:30 PM" room="MC3003" title="UNIX 103: Version Control Systems">
207 <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.
210 <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>
214 <eventitem date="2011-02-04" time="07:00 PM" room="Comfy Lounge" title="Code Party">
216 <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>
218 <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>
222 <eventitem date="2011-02-02" time="04:30 PM" room="MC3003" title="UNIX 102: Documents and Editing in the Unix environment">
224 <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.
227 <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>
231 <eventitem date="2011-01-26" time="04:30 PM" room="MC3003" title="UNIX 101: An Introduction to the Shell">
233 <short><p><i>by Calum T. Dalek</i>. New to Unix? No problem, we'll teach you to power use circles around your friends!
237 <abstract><p>This first tutorial is an introduction to the Unix shell environment, both on the student
238 servers and on other Unix environments. Topics covered include: using the shell, both basic
239 interaction and advanced topics like scripting and job control, the filesystem and manipulating
240 it, and ssh. If you feel you're already familiar with these topics don't hesitate to come
241 to Unix 102 to learn about documents, editing, and other related tasks, or watch out
242 for Unix 103 and 104 that get much more in depth into power programming tools on Unix.
249 <eventitem date="2010-11-17" time="04:30 PM" room="MC4061" title="Mathematics and aesthetics in maze design">
251 <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.
255 <abstract><p>For thousands of years, mazes and labyrinths have played
256 an important role in human culture and myth. Today, solving
257 mazes is a popular pastime, whether with pencil on paper
258 or by navigating through a cornfield.
259 </p><p>The construction of compelling mazes encompasses a variety of
260 challenges in mathematics, algorithm design, and aesthetics.
261 The maze should be visually attractive, but it should also be
262 an engaging puzzle. Master designers balance these two goals
263 with wonderful results.
264 </p><p>In this talk, I discuss the role of the computer in the process
265 of designing mazes. I present some well known algorithms for
266 maze construction, and more recent research that attempts to
267 novel mazes with non-trivial mathematical or aesthetic properties.
271 <eventitem date="2010-11-13" time="12:00 PM" room="Outside DC" title="CSC Invades Toronto">
273 <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.
274 If you would like to come along, please come by the office and sign up. The cost for the trip is $2 per member.
276 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
281 <eventitem date="2010-11-05" time="07:00 PM" room="CnD Lounge (MC3002)" title="Hackathon">
283 <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.
287 <abstract><p>Come join the CSC for a night of code, music with only 8 bits, and comradarie. We will be
288 in the C&D Lounge from 7pm until 7am working on personal projects, open source projects, and
289 whatever else comes to mind. If you're interested in getting involved in free/open source development,
290 some members will be on hand to guide you through the process.
295 <eventitem date="2010-10-26" time="04:30 PM" room="MC4040" title="Analysis of randomized algorithms via the probabilistic method">
297 <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.
301 <abstract><p>The probabilistic method is an extremely powerful tool in combinatorics that can be
302 used to prove many surprising results. The idea is the following: to prove that an
303 object with a certain property exists, we define a distribution of possible objects
304 and use show that, among objects in the distribution, the property holds with
305 non-zero probability. The key is that by using the tools and techniques of
306 probability theory, we can vastly simplify proofs that would otherwise require very
307 complicated combinatorial arguments.
308 </p><p>As a technique, the probabilistic method developed rapidly during the latter half of
309 the 20th century due to the efforts of mathematicians like Paul Erdős and increasing
310 interest in the role of randomness in theoretical computer science. In essence, the
311 probabilistic method allows us to determine how good a randomized algorithm's output
312 is likely to be. Possibly applications range from graph property testing to
313 computational geometry, circuit complexity theory, game theory, and even statistical
315 </p><p>In this talk, we will give a few examples that illustrate the basic method and show
316 how it can be used to prove the existence of objects with desirable combinatorial
317 properties as well as produce them in expected polynomial time via randomized
318 algorithms. Our main goal will be to present a very slick proof from 1995 due to
319 Spencer on the performance of a randomized greedy algorithm for a set-packing
320 problem. Spencer, for seemingly no reason, introduces a time variable into his
321 greedy algorithm and treats set-packing as a Poisson process. Then, like magic,
322 he is able to show that his greedy algorithm is very likely to produce a good
323 result using basic properties of expected value.
324 </p><p>Properties of Poisson and Binomial distributions will be applied, but I'll remind
325 everyone of the needed background for the benefit of those who might be a bit rusty.
326 Stat 230 will be more than enough. Big O notation will be used, but not excessively.
331 <eventitem date="2010-10-19" time="04:30 PM" room="RCH 306" title="Machine learning vs human learning - will scientists become obsolete?">
333 <short><p><i>by Dr. Shai Ben-David</i>.
342 <eventitem date="2010-10-13" time="04:30 PM" room="MC3003" title="UNIX 102">
344 <short><p>This installment in the CS Club's popular Unix tutorials UNIX 102 introduces powerful text editing tools for programming and document formatting.
348 <abstract><p>Unix 102 is a follow up to Unix 101, requiring basic knowledge of the shell.
349 If you missed Unix101 but still know your way around you should be fine.
350 Topics covered include: "real" editors, document typesetting with LaTeX
351 (great for assignments!), bulk editing, spellchecking, and printing in the
352 student environment and elsewhere.
356 <eventitem date="2010-10-06" time="04:30 PM" room="MC3003" title="UNIX 103">
358 <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).
362 <abstract><p>Unix 103 will cover version control systems and how to use them to manage
363 your projects. Unix 101 would be helpful, but all that is needed is basic
364 knowledge of the Unix command line (how to enter commands).
369 <eventitem date="2010-10-12" time="04:30 PM" room="MC4061" title="How to build a brain: From single neurons to cognition">
371 <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.
375 <abstract><p><i>By Dr. Chris Eliasmith</i>. Theoretical neuroscience is a new discipline focused on constructing
376 mathematical models of brain function. It has made significant
377 headway in understanding aspects of the neural code. However,
378 past work has largely focused on small numbers of neurons, and
379 so the underlying representations are often simple. In this
380 talk I demonstrate how the ideas underlying these simple forms of
381 representation can underwrite a representational hierarchy that
382 scales to support sophisticated, structure-sensitive
383 representations. I will present a general architecture, the semantic
384 pointer architecture (SPA), which is built on this hierarchy
385 and allows the manipulation, processing, and learning of structured
386 representations in neurally realistic models. I demonstrate the
387 architecture on Progressive Raven's Matrices (RPM), a test of
388 general fluid intelligence.
393 <eventitem date="2010-10-04" time="04:30 PM" room="MC4021" title="BareMetal OS">
395 <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.
399 <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,
400 while applications can be written in Assembly or C/C++.
401 High Performance Computing is the main target application.
406 <eventitem date="2010-09-28" time="04:30 PM" room="MC4061" title="A Brief Introduction to Video Encoding">
408 <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.
412 <abstract><p><i>By Peter Barfuss</i>. With the recent introduction of digital TV and the widespread success
413 of video sharing websites such as youtube, it is clear that the task
414 of lossily compressing video with good quality has become important.
415 Similarly, the complex algorithms involved require high amounts of
416 optimization in order to run fast, another important requirement for
417 any video codec that aims to be widely used/adopted.
418 </p><p>In this talk, I
419 will go over the concepts used in video encoding (such as motion
420 estimation/compensation, inter- and intra- frame prediction,
421 quantization and entropy encoding), and then demonstrate these
422 concepts and algorithms in use in the MPEG-2 and the H.264 video
423 codecs. In addition, some clever optimization tricks using
424 SIMD/vectorization will be covered, assuming sufficient time to cover
430 <eventitem date="2010-09-23" time="04:30 PM" room="DC1301 (The Fishbowl)" title="Calling all CS Frosh">
432 <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.
436 <abstract><p>Come meet and greet your professors, advisors, and the heads of the school.
437 Talk to the CSC executive and other upper year students about CS at Waterloo.
438 Free food and beverages will also be available, so there is really no excuse
443 <eventitem date="2010-09-29" time="04:30 PM" room="MC3003" title="Unix 101">
445 <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.
449 <abstract><p>Need to use the Unix environment for a course, want to overcome your fears of
450 the command line, or just curious? Attend the first installment in the CSC's
451 popular series of Unix tutorails to learn the basics of the shell and how to
452 navigate the unix environment. By the end of the hands on workshop you will
453 be able to work efficiently from the command line and power-use circles around
459 <eventitem date="2010-09-22" time="06:00 PM" room="MC4045" title="Cooking for Geeks">
461 <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.
465 <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.
466 Jeff's book has been featured on NPR, BBC and his presentations have wowed audiences of hackers & foodies alike.
467 We're happy to have Jeff joining us for a hands on demonstration.
468 </p><p>But you don't have to take our word for it... here's what Jeff has to say:
469 </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
470 about my just-released book. I'll talk about the food science behind what makes things yummy, giving you a quick
471 primer on how to go into the kitchen and have a fun time turning out a good meal.
472 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.
473 </p><p>If you have a copy of the book, bring it! I’ll happily sign it.
477 <eventitem date="2010-09-21" time="04:30 PM" room="MC4061" title="In the Beginning">
479 <short><p><b>by Dr. Prabhakar Ragde, Cheriton School of Computer Science</b>. I'll be workshopping some lecture ideas involving representations of
480 numbers, specification of computation in functional terms, reasoning about
481 such specifications, and comparing the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches.
485 <abstract><p>I'll be workshopping some lecture ideas involving representations
486 of numbers, specification of computation in
487 functional terms, reasoning about such specifications, and comparing the
488 strengths and weaknesses of
489 different approaches. No prior background is needed; the talk should be accessible
491 the University of Waterloo and, I hope, interesting to both novices and experts.
495 <eventitem date="2010-09-14" time="04:30 PM" room="Comfy Lounge" title="Elections">
496 <short><p>Fall term executive elections and general meeting.</p></short>
501 <eventitem date="2010-07-20" time="04:30 PM" room="MC2066" title="The Incompressibility Method">
503 In this talk, we shall explore the incompressibility method---an interesting and
504 extremely powerful framework for determining the average-case runtime of
505 algorithms. Within the right background knowledge, the heapsort question can be
506 answered with an elegant 3-line proof.
509 <p>Heapsort. It runs in $\Theta(n \log n)$ time in the worst case, and in $O(n)$
510 time in the best case. Do you think that heapsort runs faster than $O(n
511 \log n)$ time on average? Could it be possible that on most inputs,
512 heapsort runs in $O(n)$ time, running more slowly only on a small fraction
514 <p>Most students would say no. It "feels" intuitively obvious that heapsort
515 should take the full $n \log n$ steps on most inputs. However, proving this
516 rigourously with probabilistic arguments turns out to be very difficult.
517 Average case analysis of algorithms is one of those icky subjects that most
518 students don't want to touch with a ten foot pole; why should it be so
519 difficult if it is so intuitively obvious?</p>
520 <p>In this talk, we shall explore the incompressibility method---an interesting
521 and extremely powerful framework for determining the average-case runtime of
522 algorithms. Within the right background knowledge, the heapsort question
523 can be answered with an elegant 3-line proof.</p>
524 <p>The crucial fact is that an overwhelmingly large fraction of randomly
525 generated objects are incompressible. We can show that the inputs to
526 heapsort that run quickly correspond to inputs that can be compressed,
527 thereby proving that heapsort can't run quickly on average. Of course,
528 "compressible" is something that must be rigourously defined, and for this
529 we turn to the fascinating theory of Kolmogorov complexity.</p>
530 <p>In this talk, we'll briefly discuss the proof of the incompressibility
531 theorem and then see a number of applications. We won't dwell too much on
532 gruesome mathemtical details. No specific background is required, but
533 knowledge of some of the topics in CS240 will be helpful in understanding
534 some of the applications.</p>
538 <eventitem date="2010-07-13" time="04:30 PM" room="MC2066" title="Halftoning and Digital Art">
539 <short><p>Edgar Bering will be giving a talk titled: Halftoning and Digital Art</p></short>
540 <abstract><p>Halftoning is the process of simulating a continuous tone image
541 with small dots or regions of one colour. Halftoned images may be seen
542 in older newspapers with a speckled appearance, and to this day colour
543 halftoning is used in printers to reproduce images. In this talk I will
544 present various algorithmic approaches to halftoning, with an eye not
545 toward exact image reproduction but non-photorealistic rendering and
546 art. Included in the talk will be an introduction to digital paper
547 cutting and a tutorial on how to use the CSC's paper cutter to render
553 <eventitem date="2010-07-09" time="07:00 PM" room="MC Comfy" title="Code Party">
554 <short><p>There is a CSC Code Party Friday starting at 7:00PM (1900)
555 until we get bored (likely in the early in morning). Come out for
558 <abstract><p>There is a CSC Code Party Friday starting at 7:00PM (1900)
559 until we get bored (likely in the early in morning). Come out for
564 <eventitem date="2010-07-06" time="04:30 PM" room="MC2054" title="Dataflow Analysis">
565 <short><p>Nomair Naeem, a P.H.D. Student at Waterloo, will be giving a talk about Dataflow Analysis</p></short>
567 After going through an introduction to Lattice Theory and a formal treatment to
568 Dataflow Analysis Frameworks, we will take an in-depth view of the
569 Interprocedural Finite Distributive Subset (IFDS) Algorithm which implements a
570 fully context-sensitive, inter-procedural static dataflow analysis. Then, using
571 a Variable Type Analysis as an example, I will outline recent extensions that we
572 have made to open up the analysis to a larger variety of static analysis
573 problems and making it more efficient.
575 The talk is self-contained and no prior knowledge of program analysis is
580 <eventitem date="2010-06-22" time="04:30 PM" room="MC2066" title="Compiling To Combinators">
581 <short><p>Professor Ragde will be giving the first of our Professor talks for the Spring 2010 term.</p></short>
583 Number theory was thought to be mathematically appealing but practically
584 useless until the RSA encryption algorithm demonstrated its considerable
585 utility. I'll outline how combinatory logic (dating back to 1920) has a
586 similarly unexpected application to efficient and effective compilation,
587 which directly catalyzed the development of lazy functional programming
588 languages such as Haskell. The talk is self-contained; no prior knowledge
589 of functional programming is necessary.
593 <eventitem date="2010-05-25" time="05:00 PM" room="MC2066" title="Gerald Sussman">
594 <short><p>Why Programming is a Good Medium for Expressing Poorly Understood and Sloppily Formulated Ideas</p></short>
595 <abstract>Full details found <a href="http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/misc/sussman/">here</a></abstract>
598 <eventitem date="2010-05-26" time="03:30 PM" room="MC5136" title="Gerald Sussman">
599 <short><p>Public Reception</p></short>
600 <abstract>Full details found <a href="http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/misc/sussman/">here</a></abstract>
603 <eventitem date="2010-05-26" time="05:000PM" room="MC5158" title="Gerald Sussman">
604 <short><p>The Art of the Propagator</p></short>
605 <abstract>Full details found <a href="http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/misc/sussman/">here</a></abstract>
608 <eventitem date="2010-05-11" time="05:30 PM" room="Comfy Lounge" title="Elections">
609 <short><p>Spring term executive elections and general meeting.</p></short>
613 <eventitem date="2010-04-06" time="04:30 PM" room="DC1304" title="Brush-Based Constructive Solid Geometry">
615 <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.
619 <abstract><p>For some would-be graphics programmers, the biggest barrier-to-entry is getting data to render. This is why there exist so
620 many terrain renderers: by virtue of the fact that rendering height-fields tends to give pretty pictures from next to no
621 "created" information. However, it becomes more difficult when programmers want to do indoor rendering (in the style of the
622 Quake and Unreal games). Ripping map information from the Quake games is possible (and fairly simple), but their tool-chain
623 is fairly clumsy from the point of view of adding a conversion utility.
624 </p><p>My talk is about Constructive Solid Geometry from a Brush-based perspective (nearly identical to Unreal's and still very similar
625 to Quake's). The basic idea is that there are brushes (convex volumes in 3-space) and they can either be additive (solid brushes)
626 or subtractive (hollow, or air brushes). The entire world starts off as an infinite solid lump and you can start removing sections
627 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
628 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.
632 <eventitem date="2010-04-07" time="1:00 PM" room="MC2037" title="Windows Azure Lab">
634 <short><p>Get the opportunity to learn about Microsoft's Cloud Services Platform, Windows Azure. Attend this Hands-on-lab session sponsored by Microsoft.
638 <abstract><p>We are in the midst of an industry shift as developers and businesses embrace the Cloud.
639 Technical innovations in the cloud are dramatically changing the economics of computing
640 and reducing barriers that keep businesses from meeting the increasing demands of
641 today's customers. The cloud promises choice and enables scenarios that previously
642 were not economically practical.
643 </p><p>Microsoft's Windows Azure is an internet-scale cloud computing services platform hosted
644 in Microsoft data centers. The Windows Azure platform, allows developers to build and
645 deploy production ready cloud services and applications. With the Windows Azure platform,
646 developers can take advantage of greater choice and flexibility in how they develop and
647 deploy applications, while using familiar tools and programming languages.
648 </p><p>Get the opportunity to learn about Microsoft's Cloud Services Platform, Windows Azure.
649 Attend the Hands-on-lab session sponsored by Microsoft.
653 <eventitem date="2010-04-01" time="6:30 PM" room="CSC Office" title="CTRL-D">
655 <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.
659 <abstract><p>Once again the CSC will be holding its traditional end of term dinner. It will
660 be at the Vice President's house. If you don't know how to get there meet
661 at the club office at 6:30 PM, a group will be leaving from the MC then. The
662 dinner will be potluck style so bring a dish for 4-6 people, or some plates
667 <eventitem date="2010-03-30" time="4:30 PM" room="DC1304" title="NUI: The future of robotics and automated systems">
669 <short><p>Member Sam Pasupalak will present some of his ongoing work in Natural User Interfaces and Robotics in this sixth installment of CS10.
673 <abstract><p>Bill Gates in his article “A Robot in every home” in the Scientific American describes how the current
674 robotics industry resembles the 1970’s of the Personal Computer Industry. In fact it is not just
675 Microsoft which has already taken a step forward by starting the Microsoft Robotics studio, but robotics
676 researchers around the world believe that robotics and automation systems are going to be ubiquitous in
677 the next 10-20 years (similar to Mark Weiser’s analogy of Personal Computers 20 years ago). Natural User
678 Interfaces (NUIs) are going to revolutionize the way we interact with computers, cellular phones, household
679 appliances, automated systems in our daily lives. Just like the GUI made personal computing a reality,
680 I believe natural user interfaces will do the same for robotics.
681 </p><p>During the presentation I will be presenting my ongoing software project on natural user interfaces as well
682 as sharing my goals for the future, one of which is to provide an NUI SDK and the other to provide a common
683 Robotics OS for every hardware vendor that will enable people to make applications without worrying about
684 underlying functionality. If time permits I would like to present a demo of my software prototype.
688 <eventitem date="2010-03-26" time="7:00 PM" room="MC7001" title="A Final Party of Code">
690 <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.
694 <abstract><p>There is a CSC/CMC Code Party Friday starting at 7:00PM (1900) until we
695 get bored (likely in the early in morning). Come out for fun hacking
696 times, spreading Intertube memes (optional), hacking on open source projects,
697 doing some computational math, and other
698 general classiness. There will be free energy drinks for everyone's
699 enjoyment. This is the last of the term so don't miss out.
703 <eventitem date="2010-03-23" time="4:30 PM" room="MC5158" title="Memory-Corruption Security Holes: How to exploit, patch and prevent them.">
705 <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.
709 <abstract><p>Despite it being 2010, code is still being exploited due to
710 stack overflows, a 40+ year old class of security vulnerabilities. In
711 this talk, I will go over several common methods of program
712 exploitation, both on the stack and on the heap, as well as going over
713 some of the current mitigation techniques (i.e. stack canaries, ASLR,
714 etc.) for these holes, and similarly, how some of these can be
719 <eventitem date="2010-03-19" time="7:00 PM" room="Comfy Lounge" title="Another Party of Code">
721 <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.
725 <abstract><p>There is a CSC Code Party Friday starting at 7:00PM (1900) until we
726 get bored (likely in the early in morning). Come out for fun hacking
727 times, spreading Intertube memes (optional), hacking on the OpenMoko,
728 creating music mixes, and other
729 general classiness. There will be free energy drinks for everyone's
734 <eventitem date="2010-03-16" time="4:30 PM" room="MC5158" title="Approximation Hardness and the Unique Games Conjecture">
736 <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.
740 <abstract><p>The theory of NP-completeness suggests that some problems in CS are inherently hard—that is,
741 there is likely no possible algorithm that can efficiently solve them. Unfortunately, many of
742 these problems are ones that people in the real world genuinely want to solve! How depressing!
743 What can one do when faced with a real-life industrial optimization problem whose solution may
744 save millions of dollars but is probably impossible to determine without trillions of
745 years of computation time?
746 </p><p>One strategy is to be content with an approximate (but provably "almost ideal") solution, and from
747 here arises the theory of approximation algorithms. However, this theory also has a depressing side,
748 as many well-known optimization problems have been shown to be provably hard to approximate well.
749 </p><p>This talk shall focus on the depressing. We will prove that various optimization problems (such as
750 traveling salesman and max directed disjoint paths) are impossible to approximate well unless P=NP.
751 These proofs are easy to understand and are REALLY COOL thanks to their use of very slick reductions.
752 </p><p>We shall explore many NP-hard optimization problems and state the performance of the best known
753 approximation algorithms and best known hardness results. Tons of open problems will be mentioned,
754 including the unique games conjecture, which, if proven true, implies the optimality of many of the
755 best known approximation algorithms for NP-complete problems like MAX-CUT and INDEPENDENT SET.
756 </p><p>I promise fun times and no gruesome math. Basic knowledge of graph theory and computational
757 complexity might help but is not required.
761 <eventitem date="2010-03-12" time="7:00 PM" room="Comfy Lounge" title="A Party of Code">
763 <short><p>A fevered night of code, friends, fun, energy drinks, and the CSC.
767 <abstract><p>A fevered night of code, friends, fun, energy drinks, and the CSC.
768 </p><p>Come join us for a night of coding. Get in touch with more experianced coders,
769 advertize for/bug squash on your favourite open source project, write that personal
770 project you were planning to do for a while but haven't found the time. Don't
771 have any ideas but want to sit and hack? We can find something for you to do.
776 <eventitem date="2010-03-09" time="4:30 PM" room="DC1304" title="Software Transactional Memory and Using STM in Haskell">
778 <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.
782 <abstract><p>Concurrency is hard. Well maybe not hard, but it sure is annoying to get right. Even the
783 simplest of synchronization tasks are hard to implement correctly when using synchronization
784 primitives such as locks and semaphores.
785 </p><p>In this talk we explore what Software Transactional Memory (STM) is, what problems STM solves,
786 and how to use STM in Haskell. We explore a number of examples that show how easy STM is to use
787 and how expressive Haskell can be. The goal of this talk is to convince attendees that STM is
788 not only a viable synchronization solution, but superior to how synchronization is typically
793 <eventitem date="2010-03-06" time="5:00 PM" room="Waterloo Bowling Lanes" title="Bowling">
794 <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
795 some or all of the above</p></short>
798 <eventitem date="2010-03-02" time="4:30 PM" room="DC1304" title="QIP=PSPACE">
800 <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.
804 <abstract><p>The interactive proof system model of computation is a cornerstone of
805 complexity theory, and its quantum computational variant has been
806 studied in quantum complexity theory for the past decade. In this
807 talk I will discuss an exact characterization of the power of quantum
808 interactive proof systems that I recently proved in collaboration with
809 Rahul Jain, Zhengfeng Ji, and Sarvagya Upadhyay. The characterization
810 states that the collection of computational problems having quantum
811 interactive proof systems consists precisely of those problems
812 solvable with an ordinary classical computer using a polynomial amount
813 of memory (or QIP = PSPACE in complexity-theoretic terminology). This
814 characterization implies the striking fact that quantum computing does
815 not provide any increase in computational power over classical
816 computing in the context of interactive proof systems.
817 </p><p>I will not assume that the audience for this talk has any familiarity
818 with either quantum computing or complexity theory; and to be true to
819 the spirit of the interactive proof system model, I hope to make this
820 talk as interactive as possible -- I will be happy to explain anything
821 related to the talk that I can that people are interested in learning
826 <eventitem date="2010-02-26" time="7:00 PM" room="CnD Lounge" title="Contest Closing">
827 <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.
828 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>
831 <eventitem date="2010-02-25" time="4:30 PM" room="DC1302" title="CSCF Town Hall">
833 <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.
837 <abstract><p>Come to a town hall style meeting with the managers of CSCF to discuss how
838 to improve the undergraduate (student.cs) computing environment. Have gripes?
839 Suggestions? Requests? Now is the time to voice them.
840 </p><p>CSCF management (Bill Ince, Associate Director; Dave Gawley, Infrastructure Support;
841 Dawn Keenan, User Support; Lawrence Folland, Research Support) will be at the
842 meeting to listen to student concerns and suggestions. Information gathered from
843 the meeting will be summarized and taken to the CSCF advisory committee for
844 discussion and planning.
849 <eventitem date="2010-02-23" time="04:30 PM" room="MC5136B" title="The Best Algorithms are Randomized Algorithms">
851 <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.
855 <abstract><p>For many problems, randomized algorithms are either the fastest algorithm or the simplest algorithm;
856 sometimes they even provide the only known algorithm. Randomized algorithms have become so prevalent
857 that deterministic algorithms could be viewed as a curious special case. In this talk I will describe
858 some startling examples of randomized algorithms for solving some optimization problems on graphs.
863 <eventitem date="2010-02-09" time="4:30 PM" room="DC1304" title="An Introduction to Vector Graphics Libraries with Cairo">
865 <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.
869 <abstract><p>Cairo is an open source, cross platform, vector graphics library with the ability to
870 output to many kinds of surfaces, including PDF, SVG and PNG surfaces, as well as
871 X-Window, Win32 and Quartz 2D backends. Unlike the raster graphics used with programmes
872 and libraries such as The Gimp and ImageMagick, vector graphics are not defined by grids
873 of pixels, but rather by a collection of drawing operations. These operations detail how to
874 draw lines, fill shapes, and even set text to create the desired image. This has the
875 advantages of being infinitely scalable, smaller in file size, and simpler to express within
876 a computer programme. This talk will be an introduction to the concepts and metaphors used
877 by vector graphics libraries in general and Cairo in particular.
882 <eventitem date="2010-02-11" time="4:30 PM" room="MC3005" title="UNIX 101 Encore">
884 <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.
888 <abstract><p>New to Unix? No problem, we'll teach you to power use circles around your friends!
889 The popular tutorial returns for a second session, in case you missed the first one.
890 </p><p>This first tutorial is an introduction to the Unix shell environment, both on the student
891 servers and on other Unix environments. Topics covered include: using the shell, both basic
892 interaction and advanced topics like scripting and job control, the filesystem and manipulating
893 it, and ssh. If you feel you're already familiar with these topics don't hesitate to come
894 to Unix 102 to learn about documents, editing, and other related tasks, or watch out
895 for Unix 103 and 104 that get much more in depth into power programming tools on Unix.
899 <eventitem date="2010-02-10" time="4:30 PM" room="MC3003" title="UNIX 101">
901 <short><p>New to Unix? No problem, we'll teach you to power use circles around your friends!
905 <abstract><p>New to Unix? No problem, we'll teach you to power use circles around your friends!
906 </p><p>This first tutorial is an introduction to the Unix shell environment, both on the student
907 servers and on other Unix environments. Topics covered include: using the shell, both basic
908 interaction and advanced topics like scripting and job control, the filesystem and manipulating
909 it, and ssh. If you feel you're already familiar with these topics don't hesitate to come
910 to Unix 102 to learn about documents, editing, and other related tasks, or watch out
911 for Unix 103 and 104 that get much more in depth into power programming tools on Unix.
915 <eventitem date="2010-01-18" time="15:30 PM" room="MC2066" title="Wilderness Programming">
917 <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.
921 <abstract><p>Paul Lutus describes his early Apple II software development days, conducted
922 from the far end of a 1200-foot power cord, in a tiny Oregon cabin. Paul
923 describes how he wrote a best-seller (Apple Writer) in assembly language,
924 while dealing with power outages, lightning storms and the occasional
926 </p><p>Paul also describes his subsequent four-year solo around-the-world sail in a
927 31-foot boat. And be ready with your inquiries -- Paul will answer your
929 </p><p>Paul Lutus has a wide background in science and technology. He designed spacecraft
930 components for the NASA Space Shuttle and created a mathematical model of the solar
931 system used during the Viking Mars lander program. Then, at the beginning of the
932 personal computer revolution, Lutus switched career paths and took up computer
933 science. His best-known program is "Apple Writer," an internationally successful
934 word processing program for the early Apple computers.
939 <eventitem date="2010-01-26" time="05:00 PM" room="DC1302" title="Deep learning with multiplicative interactions">
941 <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>.
945 <abstract><p>Deep networks can be learned efficiently from unlabeled data. The layers
946 of representation are learned one at a time using a simple learning
947 module, called a "Restricted Boltzmann Machine" that has only one layer
948 of latent variables. The values of the latent variables of one
949 module form the data for training the next module. Although deep
950 networks have been quite successful for tasks such as object
951 recognition, information retrieval, and modeling motion capture data,
952 the simple learning modules do not have multiplicative interactions which
953 are very useful for some types of data.
954 </p><p>The talk will show how a third-order energy function can be factorized to
955 yield a simple learning module that retains advantageous properties of a
956 Restricted Boltzmann Machine such as very simple exact inference and a
957 very simple learning rule based on pair-wise statistics. The new module
958 contains multiplicative interactions that are useful for a variety of
959 unsupervised learning tasks. Researchers at the University of Toronto
960 have been using this type of module to extract oriented energy from image
961 patches and dense flow fields from image sequences. The new module can
962 also be used to allow motions of a particular style to be achieved by
963 blending autoregressive models of motion capture data.
970 <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">
971 <short><p>Come on out to the club's termly end of term dinner, details in the abstract</p></short>
972 <abstract><p>The dinner will be potluck style at the Vice President's house, please RSVP (respond swiftly to the vice president)
973 <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
974 office at 6:30 PM, a group will be leaving to lead you there.</p></abstract>
977 <eventitem date="2009-11-27" time="7:00 PM" room="Comfy Lounge" edate="2009-11-28" etime="7:00 AM" title="Code Party!!11!!">
979 <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.
983 <abstract><p>Come join us for a night of coding. Get in touch with more experianced coders,
984 advertize for/bug squash on your favourite open source project, write that personal
985 project you were planning to do for a while but haven't found the time. Don't
986 have any ideas but want to sit and hack? Try your hand at the Facebook puzzles,
987 write a new app, or just chill and watch scifi.
992 <eventitem date="2009-11-05" time="4:30 PM" room="MC2065" title="In the Beginning">
994 <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.
998 <abstract><p>To most CS students an OS kernel is pretty low level. But there is
999 something even lower, the instructions that must be executed to get the
1000 CPU ready to accept a kernel. That is, if you look at any processor's
1001 reference manual there is a page or two describing the state of the CPU
1002 when it powered on. This talk describes what needs to happen next,
1003 up to the point where the first kernel instruction executes.
1004 </p><p>This part of execution is extremely architecture-dependent. Those of
1005 you who have any experience with this aspect of CS probably know the x86
1006 architecture, and think it's horrible, which it is. I am going to talk
1007 about the ARM architecture, which is inside almost all mobile phones,
1008 and which allows us to look at a simple implementation that includes
1014 <eventitem date="2009-10-20" time="04:30 PM" room="MC3036" title="CSC Goes To Dooly's">
1016 <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.
1020 <abstract><p>We're going to Dooly's to play pool. What more do you want from us?
1021 Come to the Club office and we'll all bus there together. We've got
1022 discount tables for club members so be sure to be there.
1027 <eventitem date="2009-10-16" time="7:00 PM" room="Comfy Lounge" title="Code Party and Contest Finale">
1029 <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.
1033 <abstract><p>Come on out for a night of code, contests, and energy drinks. Join the Computer
1034 Scinece Club for the finale of the Google AI Challenge and an all night code party.
1035 Finish up your entry, or start it (its not too late). Not interested in the contest?
1036 Come out anyway for a night of coding and comradarie with us.
1037 </p><p>Included in the party will be the contest finale and awards cerimony, so if you've
1038 entered be sure to stick arround to collect the spoils of victory, or see just who
1039 that person you couldn't edge off is.
1044 <eventitem date="2009-10-08" time="4:30 PM" room="MC3003" title="UNIX 103">
1046 <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.
1050 <abstract><p>In this long-awaited third installment of the popular Unix Tutorials the
1051 friendly experts of the CSC will teach you the simple art of version control.
1052 You will learn the purpose and use of two different Version Control Systems
1053 (git and subversion). This tutorial will advise you in the discipline of
1054 managing the source code of your projects and enable you to quickly learn new
1055 Version Control Systems in the work place -- a skill that is much sought after
1061 <eventitem date="2009-10-14" time="2:30 PM" room="DC1304" title="UofT Graduate School Information Session">
1062 <short><p> "Is Graduate School for You?" Get the answers to your grad school questions - and have a bite to eat, our treat</p>
1064 <abstract><p> Join Prof. Greg Wilson, faculty member in the Software Engineering research group in the UofT's Department of Computer Science,
1065 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
1066 be served. <b>Come see what grad school is all about!</b>. All undergraduate students are welcome; registration is not required.</p>
1067 <p>For any questions about the program, visit <a href="http://www.cs.toronto.edu/dcs/prospective-grad.html">UofT's website</a>. This
1068 event is not run by the CS Club, and is announced here for the benefit of our members.</p></abstract>
1071 <eventitem date="2009-10-03" time="10:00 AM" edate="2009-10-03" etime="3:30 PM" room="DC1301 FishBowl" title="Linux Install Fest">
1073 <short><p>Interested in trying Linux but don't know where to start?
1074 Come to the Linux install fest to demo Linux, get help installing it
1075 on your computer, either stand alone or a dual boot, and help setting
1076 up your fresh install. Have lunch and hang around if you like, or just come in for a CD.
1080 <abstract><p>Interested in trying Linux but don't know where to start?
1081 Come to the Linux install fest to demo Linux, get help installing it on
1082 your computer, either stand alone or a dual boot, and help setting
1083 up your fresh install. Have lunch and hang around if you like, or just
1084 come in for a qick install.
1089 <eventitem date="2009-10-01" time="4:30 PM" room="MC3003" title="UNIX 102">
1091 <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.
1095 <abstract><p>Unix 102 is a follow up to Unix 101, requiring basic knowledge of the shell.
1096 If you missed Unix101 but still know your way around you should be fine.
1097 Topics covered include: "real" editors, document typesetting with LaTeX
1098 (great for assignments!), bulk editing, spellchecking, and printing in the
1099 student environment and elsewhere.
1100 </p><p>If you aren't interested or feel comfortable with these taskes, watch out for
1101 Unix 103 and 104 to get more depth in power programming tools on Unix.
1106 <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">
1108 <short><p>Come learn how to write an intelligent game-playing program.
1109 No past experience necessary. Submit your program using the <a href="http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/contest/">online web interface</a>
1110 to watch it battle against other people's programs. Beginners and experts welcome! Prizes provided by google,
1111 including the delivery of your resume to google recruiters.
1115 <abstract><p>Come learn how to write an intelligent game-playing program.
1116 No past experience necessary. Submit your program using the <a href="http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/contest/">online
1117 web interface</a> to watch it battle against other people's programs.
1118 Beginners and experts welcome!
1119 </p><p>The contest is sponsored by Google, so be sure to compete for a chance
1120 to get noticed by them.
1121 </p><p>Prizes for the top programs:
1122 <ul><li>$100 in Cash Prizes</li>
1123 <li> Google t-shirts</li>
1124 <li>Fame and recognition</li>
1125 <li>Your resume directly to a Google recruiter</li>
1130 <eventitem date="2009-09-24" time="4:30 PM" room="MC3003" title="UNIX 101">
1133 New to Unix? No problem, we'll teach you to power use circles around your friends!
1138 New to Unix? No problem, we'll teach you to power use circles around your friends!
1140 This first tutorial is an introduction to the Unix shell environment, both on the student
1141 servers and on other Unix environments. Topics covered include: using the shell, both basic
1142 interaction and advanced topics like scripting and job control, the filesystem and manipulating
1143 it, and ssh. If you feel you're already familiar with these topics don't hesitate to come
1144 to Unix 102 to learn about documents, editing, and other related tasks, or watch out
1145 for Unix 103 and 104 that get much more in depth into power programming tools on Unix.
1149 <eventitem date="2009-09-15" time="5:00PM" edate="2009-09-15" etime="6:00 PM"
1150 room="Comfy Lounge" title="Elections">
1152 Nominations are open now, either place your name on the nominees board or
1153 e-mail <a href="mailto:cro@csclub.uwaterloo.ca">the CRO</a>
1154 to nominate someone for a position.
1155 Come to the Comfy Lounge to elect your fall term executive. Contact
1156 <a href="mailto:cro@csclub.uwaterloo.ca">the CRO</a> if you have questions.
1161 <!-- Spring 2009 -->
1162 <eventitem date="2009-07-23" time="4:30 PM" edate="2009-07-23" etime="6:00 PM"
1163 room="MC 3003" title="Unix 103">
1165 In this long-awaited third installment of the popular Unix Tutorials the dark
1166 mages of the CSC will train you in the not-so-arcane magick of version control.
1167 You will learn the purpose and use of two different Version Control Systems
1168 (git and subversion). This tutorial will advise you in the discipline of
1169 managing the source code of your projects and enable you to quickly learn new
1170 Version Control Systems in the work place -- a skill that is much sought after
1175 <eventitem date="2009-07-17" time="7:00 PM" edate="2009-07-18" etime="4:00 AM"
1176 room="MC 3001" title="Code Party">
1178 Have an assignment or project you need to work on? We
1179 will be coding from 7:00pm until 4:00am starting on Friday, July 17th
1180 in the Comfy lounge. Join us!
1184 <eventitem date="2009-07-07" time="3:00 PM" etime="5:00 PM" room="DC 1302"
1185 title="History of CS Curriculum at UW">
1187 This talk provides a personal overview of the evolution of the
1188 undergraduate computer science curriculum at UW over the past forty
1189 years, concluding with an audience discussion of possible future
1194 <eventitem date="2009-06-22" time="4:30 PM" etime="6:30 PM" room="MC 4041"
1196 <short><p> Come and drink tea and read an academic CS paper with
1197 the Paper Club. We will be meeting from 4:30pm until 6:30pm on
1198 Monday, June 22th on the 4th floor of the MC (exact room number
1199 TBA). See http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~paper
1203 <eventitem date="2009-06-19" time="5:30 PM" room="Dooly's" title="Dooly's Night">
1205 The CSC will be playing pool at Dooly's. Join us for only a few dollars.
1209 <eventitem date="2009-06-05" time="7:00 PM" edate="2009-06-06" etime="4:00 AM"
1210 room="MC 3001" title="Code Party">
1212 Have an assignment or project you need to work on? We
1213 will be coding from 7:00pm until 7:00am starting on Friday, June 5th
1214 in the Comfy lounge. Join us!
1218 <eventitem date="2009-06-02" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 2037" title="Unix 101">
1220 Need to use the UNIX environment for a course, want to overcome your fears of
1221 the command line, or just curious? Come and learn the arcane secrets of the
1222 UNIX command line interface from CSC mages. After this tutorial you will be
1223 comfortable with the essentials of navigating, manipulating and viewing files,
1224 and processing data at the UNIX shell prompt.
1228 <eventitem date="2009-05-12" time="12:00 PM" room="MC 2034" title="PHP on Windows">
1229 <short><p>PHP Programming Contest Info Session</p></short>
1231 Port or create a new PHP web application and you could win a prize
1232 of up to $10k. Microsoft is running a programming contest for PHP
1233 developers willing to support the Windows platform. The contest is
1234 ongoing; this will be a short introduction to it by
1235 representatives of Microsoft and an opportunity to ask questions.
1236 Pizza and pop will be provided.
1241 <!-- Winter 2009 -->
1242 <eventitem date="2009-04-02" time="4:30 PM" room="DC1302" title="Rapid prototyping and mathematical art">
1244 <short><p>A talk by Craig S. Kaplan.</p></short>
1247 <abstract><p>The combination of computer graphics, geometry, and rapid
1248 prototyping technology has created a wide range of exciting
1249 opportunities for using the computer as a medium for creative
1250 expression. In this talk, I will describe the most popular
1251 technologies for computer-aided manufacturing, discuss
1252 applications of these devices in art and design, and survey
1253 the work of contemporary artists working in the area (with a
1254 focus on mathematical art). The talk will be primarily
1255 non-technical, but I will mention some of the mathematical
1256 and computational techniques that come into play.
1260 <eventitem date="2009-04-03" time="6:00 PM" edate="2009-04-04"
1261 etime="6:00 AM" room="TBA" title="CTRL-D">
1264 Join the Club That Really Likes Dinner for the End Of Term
1265 party! Inquire closer to the date for details.
1270 This is not an official club event and receives no funding.
1271 Bring food, drinks, deserts, etc.
1276 <eventitem date="2009-03-27" time="6:00 PM" edate="2009-03-28"
1277 etime="12:00 PM" room="Comfy Lounge (MC)"
1281 CSC Code Party! Same as always - no sleep, lots of caffeine,
1282 and really nerdy entertainment. Bonus: Free Cake!
1287 This code party will have the usual, plus it will double as the
1288 closing of the programming contest. Our experts will be
1289 available to help you polish off your submission.
1294 <eventitem date="2009-03-19" time="4:30 PM" edate="2009-03-28"
1295 etime="12:00 PM" room="MC2061"
1296 title="Artificial Intelligence Contest">
1299 Come out and try your hand at writing a computer program that
1300 plays Minesweeper Flags, a two-player variant of the classic
1301 computer game, Minesweeper. Once you're done, your program
1302 will compete head-to-head against the other entries in a
1303 fierce Minesweeper Flags tournament. There will be a contest
1304 kick-off session on Thursday March 19 at 4:30 PM in room
1305 MC3036. Submissions will be accepted until Saturday March 28.
1310 Come out and try your hand at writing a computer program that
1311 plays Minesweeper Flags, a two-player variant of the classic
1312 computer game, Minesweeper. Once you're done, your program
1313 will compete head-to-head against the other entries in a
1314 fierce Minesweeper Flags tournament. There will be a contest
1315 kick-off session on Thursday March 19 at 4:30 PM in room
1316 MC3036. Submissions will be accepted until Saturday March 28.
1321 <eventitem date="2009-03-05" time="4:30 PM" edate="2009-03-05"
1322 etime="6:30 PM" room="Comfy Lounge"
1323 title="SIGGRAPH Night">
1326 Come out and watch the SIGGRAPH (Special Interest Group on
1327 Graphics) conference video review. A video of insane, amazing,
1328 and mind blowing computer graphics. .
1333 The ACM SIGGRAPH (Special Interest Group on Graphics) hosts a
1334 conference yearly in which the latest and greatest in computer
1335 graphics premier. They record video and as a result produce a
1336 very nice Video Review of the conference. Come join us watching
1337 these videos, as well as a few professors from the UW Computer
1338 Graphics Lab. There will be some kind of food and drink, and its
1339 guranteed to be dazzling.
1344 <eventitem date="2009-03-12" time="8:00 AM" edate="2009-03-13"
1345 etime="9:00 PM" room="Toronto Hilton"
1346 title="Canadian Undergraduate Technology Conference">
1349 See <a href="http://www.cutc.ca">cutc.ca</a> for more details.
1354 The Canadian Undergraduate Technology Conference is Canada's
1355 largest student-run conference. From humble roots it has emerged
1356 as a venue that offers an environment for students to grow
1357 socially, academically, and professionally. We target to exceed
1358 our past record of 600 students from 47 respected institutions
1359 nationwide. The event mingles ambitious as well as talented
1360 students with leaders from academia and industry to offer
1361 memorable experiences and valuable opportunities.
1366 <eventitem date="2009-03-09" time="3:00 PM" room="DC1302"
1367 title="Prabhakar Ragde">
1369 Functional Lexing and Parsing</p></short>
1372 This talk will describe a non-traditional functional approach
1373 to the classical problems of lexing (breaking a stream of
1374 characters into "words" or tokens) and parsing (identifying
1375 tree structure in a stream of tokens based on a grammar,
1376 e.g. for a programming language that needs to be compiled or
1377 interpreted). The functional approach can clarify and organize
1378 a number of algorithms that tend to be opaque in their
1379 conventional imperative presentation. No prior background in
1380 functional programming, lexing, or parsing is assumed.
1385 <eventitem date="2009-03-12" time="5:00 PM" etime="7:00 PM" room="RAC2009"
1386 title="IQC - Programming Quantum Computers">
1389 A brief intro to Quantum Computing and why it matters,
1390 followed by a talk on programming quantum computers. Meet at
1391 the CSC at 4:00PM for a guided walk to the RAC.
1396 Raymond Laflamme is the director of the Institute for Quantum
1397 Computing at the University of Waterloo and holds the Canada
1398 Research Chair in Quantum Information. He will give a brief
1399 introduction to quantum computing and why it matters, followed
1400 by a talk on programming quantum computers. There will be
1401 tours of the IQC labs at the end, and pizza will be provided
1402 back at the CSC for all attendees.
1407 <eventitem date="2009-02-27" time="5:00 PM" etime="7:00 PM" room="CSC Office: MC3036" title="Dooly's Night">
1409 Come join the CSC as we head to Dooly's.</p></short>
1411 Meet us at the Club office as we head to Dooly's for cheap tables and good times.</p></abstract>
1414 <eventitem date="2009-02-05" time="5:30 PM" room="MC2062 and MC2063" title="UNIX 101 and 102">
1416 Continuing the popular Unix Tutorials with a rerun of 101 and the debut of 102.</p></short>
1418 Unix 101 is an introduction to the Unix shell environment, both on the student
1419 servers and on other Unix environments. Topics covered include: using the shell, both basic
1420 interaction and advanced topics like scripting and job control, the filesystem and manipulating
1421 it, and ssh. </p><p>
1422 Unix 102 is a follow up to Unix 101, requiring basic knowledge of the shell.
1423 If you missed Unix101 but still know your way around you should be fine.
1424 Topics covered include: "real" editors, document typesetting with LaTeX
1425 (great for assignments!), bulk editing, spellchecking, and printing in the
1426 student environment and elsewhere. </p><p>
1427 If you aren't interested or feel comfortable with these taskes, watch out for
1428 Unix 103 and 104 to get more depth in power programming tools on Unix. </p></abstract>
1432 <eventitem date="2009-02-03" time="5:30 PM" room="MC3003" title="UNIX 101">
1433 <short><p> New to Unix? No problem, we'll teach you to power use circles around your friends!</p></short>
1434 <abstract><p>This first tutorial is an introduction to the Unix shell environment, both on the student
1435 servers and on other Unix environments. Topics covered include: using the shell, both basic
1436 interaction and advanced topics like scripting and job control, the filesystem and manipulating
1437 it, and ssh. If you feel you're already familiar with these topics don't hesitate to come
1438 to Unix 102 to learn about documents, editing, and other related tasks, or watch out
1439 for Unix 103 and 104 that get much more in depth into power programming tools on Unix.</p></abstract>
1442 <eventitem date="2009-02-06" time="7:00 PM" room="Comfy Lounge" title="Code Party!">
1445 There is a CSC Code Party starting at 7:00PM (19:00). Come out
1446 and enjoy some good old programming and meet others interested
1447 in writing code! Free energy drinks and snacks for all. Plus,
1448 we have lots of things that need to be done if you're looking
1449 for a project to work on!
1454 Code Party. Awesome. Need we say more?
1459 <eventitem date="2009-01-16" time="7:30 PM" room="Comfy Lounge" title="Code party !!11!!1!!">
1461 <short><p>There is a CSC Code Party Tonight starting at 7:30PM
1462 (1930) until we get bored (likely in the early in morning). Come
1463 out for fun hacking times, spreading Intertube memes (optional),
1464 hacking on the OpenMoko, creating music mixes, and other general
1465 classyness. If we manage to swing it, there will be delicious
1466 energy drinks for your consumption! Alternatively, if we don't we
1467 will have each other as well as some delicious tea and
1468 coffee. Perhaps a crumpet
1472 <abstract><p>There is a CSC Code Party Tonight starting at 7:30PM
1473 (1930) until we get bored (likely in the early in
1474 morning). Come out for fun hacking times, spreading Intertube
1475 memes (optional), hacking on the OpenMoko, creating music
1476 mixes, and other general classyness. If we manage to swing it,
1477 there will be delicious energy drinks for your consumption!
1478 Alternatively, if we don't we will have each other as well as
1479 some delicious tea and coffee. Perhaps a crumpet
1484 <eventitem date="2009-01-29" time="6:30 PM" room="Modern Languages Theatre" title="Richard M. Stallman">
1485 <short><p> The Free Software Movement and the GNU/Linux Operating System </p>
1489 Richard Stallman will speak about the Free Software Movement, which
1490 campaigns for freedom so that computer users can cooperate to
1491 control their own computing activities. The Free Software Movement
1492 developed the GNU operating system, often erroneously referred to as
1493 Linux, specifically to establish these freedoms.</p>
1494 <p><b>About Richard Stallman:</b>
1495 Richard Stallman launched the development of the GNU operating system (see
1496 <a href="http://www.gnu.org">www.gnu.org</a>) in 1984. GNU is free
1497 software: everyone has the freedom to copy it and redistribute it,
1498 as well as to make changes either large or small. The GNU/Linux
1499 system, basically the GNU operating system with Linux added, is used
1500 on tens of millions of computers today. Stallman has received the
1501 ACM Grace Hopper Award, a MacArthur Foundation fellowship, the
1502 Electronic Frontier Foundation's Pioneer award, and the the Takeda
1503 Award for Social/Economic Betterment, as well as several honorary
1508 <eventitem date="2009-01-22" time="12:00 PM" room="MC5136" title="Joel Spolsky">
1509 <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>
1511 <abstract><p><b>About Joel Spolsky:</b> Joel Spolsky is a
1512 globally-recognized expert on the software development process. His
1513 website <em>Joel on Software</em>
1514 (<a href="http://www.joelonsoftware.com/">www.joelonsoftware.com</a>)
1515 is popular with software developers around the world and has been
1516 translated into over thirty languages. As the founder
1517 of <a href="http://www.fogcreek.com/">Fog Creek Software</a> in New
1519 created <a href="http://www.fogcreek.com/FogBugz">FogBugz</a>, a
1520 popular project management system for software teams. He is the
1521 co-creator of <a href="http://stackoverflow.com/">Stack
1522 Overflow</a>, a programmer Q&A site. Joel has worked at
1523 Microsoft, where he designed VBA as a member of the Excel team, and
1524 at Juno Online Services, developing an Internet client used by
1526 written <a href="http://www.joelonsoftware.com/BuytheBooks.html">four
1527 books</a>: <em>User Interface Design for Programmers</em> (Apress,
1528 2001), <em>Joel on Software</em> (Apress, 2004), <em>More Joel on
1529 Software </em>(Apress, 2008), and <em>Smart and Gets Things Done:
1530 Joel Spolsky's Concise Guide to Finding the Best Technical
1531 Talent </em>(Apress, 2007). He also writes a monthly column
1532 for<strong> </strong><em><a href="http://www.inc.com/">Inc
1533 Magazine</a>. </em>Joel holds a BS from Yale in Computer
1534 Science. Before college he served in the Israeli Defense Forces as a
1535 paratrooper, and he was one of the founders of Kibbutz Hanaton.</p>
1539 <eventitem date="2009-01-13" time="4:20 PM" room="Comfy Lounge" title="Term Elections">
1540 <short><p>Winter Elections</p>
1545 <eventitem date="2008-11-15" time="6:30 AM" room="Toronto" title="Changing the World Conference">
1547 <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.
1551 <abstract><p>Organized by Queen's students, Changing the World
1552 aims to bring together the world's greatest visionaries to
1553 inspire people to innovate and better our world. Among these
1554 speakers include Nobel Peace Prize winner, Eric Chivian. He
1555 was a recipient for his work on stopping nuclear war.
1556 </p><p>The conference is modeled after TED (Technology,
1557 Entertainment, Design), an annual conference uniting the
1558 world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, and like TED,
1559 each speaker is given 18 minutes to give the talk of their
1561 </p><p>Specifically for students in CS/Math, 50 tickets have
1562 been reserved (non-students: $500). For those who would like
1563 to attend, please pick up your ticket in the Computer Science
1564 Club office. The tickets are limited and they are first come
1570 <eventitem date="2008-11-06" time="10:00 AM" room="SLC Multipurpose Room" title="Linux Install Fest">
1572 <short><p>Come join the CSC in celebrating the new releases of
1573 Ubuntu Linux, Free BSD and Open BSD, and get a hand installing one
1574 of them on your own system.
1578 <abstract><p>Come join the CSC in celebrating the new releases of
1579 Ubuntu Linux, Free BSD and Open BSD, and get a hand installing
1580 one of them on your own system.
1581 </p><p>This is an event to celebrate the releases of new
1582 versions of Ubuntu Linux, OpenBSD, and FreeBSD. CDs will be
1583 available and everyone is invited to bring their PC or laptop
1584 to get help installing any of these Free operating
1585 systems. Knowledgeable CSC members will be available to help
1586 with any installation troubles, or to troubleshooting any
1587 existing problems that users may have.
1588 </p><p>This event will also promote gaming on Linux, as well as
1589 FLOSS (Free/Libre and Open Source Software) in general. We may
1590 also have a special guest (Ian Darwin, of OpenBSD and OpenMoko
1595 <eventitem date="2008-11-10" time="4:30 PM" room="MC4061" title="Functional Programming">
1597 <short><p>This talk will survey concepts, techniques, and
1598 languages for functional programming from both historical and
1599 contemporary perspectives, with reference to Lisp, Scheme, ML,
1600 Haskell, and Erlang. No prior background is assumed.
1604 <abstract><p>This talk will survey concepts, techniques, and
1605 languages for functional programming from both historical and
1606 contemporary perspectives, with reference to Lisp, Scheme, ML,
1607 Haskell, and Erlang. No prior background is assumed.
1612 <eventitem date="2008-10-24" time="6:00 PM" room="Comfy Lounge" title="Code Party">
1614 Come join us for a night of coding. Get in touch with more experianced coders,
1615 advertize for/bug squash on your favourite open source project, write that personal
1616 project you were planning to do for a while but haven't found the time. Don't
1617 have any ideas but want to sit and hack? We can find something for you to do.
1620 A fevered night of code, friends, fun, free energy drinks, and the CSC.
1624 <eventitem date="2008-10-16" time="4:30 PM" room="Comfy Lounge" title="SIGGRAPH Night">
1626 Come out and watch the SIGGRAPH (Special Interest Group on Graphics) conference video
1627 review. A video of insane, amazing, and mind blowing computer graphics.
1630 The ACM SIGGRAPH (Special Interest Group on Graphics) hosts a conference yearly
1631 in which the latest and greatest in computer graphics premier. They record video
1632 and as a result produce a very nice Video Review of the conference. Come join us
1633 watching these videos, as well as a few professors from the UW Computer Graphics
1634 Lab. There will be some kind of food and drink, and its guranteed to be dazzling.
1638 <eventitem date="2008-09-12" time="4:30 PM" room="Comfy Lounge" title="Meet the CSC">
1640 Come out and meet other CSC members, find out about the CSC, meet the executive
1641 nominees, and join if you like what you see. Nominees should plan on attending.
1645 <eventitem date="2008-09-16" time="4:30 PM" room="Comfy Lounge" title="CSClub Elections">
1647 Elections are scheduled for Tues, Sep 16 @ 4:30 pm in the comfy lounge.
1648 The nomination period closes on Mon, Sep 15 @ 4:30 pm. Nominations may be
1649 sent to cro@csclub.uwaterloo.ca. Candidates should not engage in
1650 campaigning after the nomination period has closed.
1654 <eventitem date="2008-09-25" time="4:30 PM" room="MC2037" title="Unix 101">
1656 New to Unix? No problem, we'll teach you to power use circles around your friends!
1659 This first tutorial is an introduction to the Unix shell environment, both on the student
1660 servers and on other Unix environments. Topics covered include: using the shell, both basic
1661 interaction and advanced topics like scripting and job control, the filesystem and manipulating
1662 it, and ssh. If you feel you're already familiar with these topics don't hesitate to come
1663 to Unix 102 to learn about documents, editing, and other related tasks, or watch out
1664 for Unix 103 and 104 that get much more in depth into power programming tools on Unix.
1668 <eventitem date="2008-10-07" time="4:30 PM" room="MC2037" title="Unix 101">
1670 New to Unix? No problem, we'll teach you to power use circles around your friends!
1673 This first tutorial is an introduction to the Unix shell environment, both on the student
1674 servers and on other Unix environments. Topics covered include: using the shell, both basic
1675 interaction and advanced topics like scripting and job control, the filesystem and manipulating
1676 it, and ssh. If you feel you're already familiar with these topics don't hesitate to come
1677 to Unix 102 to learn about documents, editing, and other related tasks, or watch out
1678 for Unix 103 and 104 that get much more in depth into power programming tools on Unix.
1682 <eventitem date="2008-10-09" time="4:30 PM" room="MC2037" title="Unix 102">
1684 Want more from Unix? No problem, we'll teach you to create and quickly edit high quality documents.
1687 This is a follow up to Unix 101, requiring basic knowledge of the shell. If you missed
1688 Unix101 but still know your way around you should be fine. Topics covered include: "real" editors,
1689 document typesetting with LaTeX (great for assignments!), bulk editing, spellchecking, and printing
1690 in the student environment and elsewhere. If you aren't interested or feel comfortable with these
1691 taskes, watch out for Unix 103 and 104 to get more depth in power programming tools on Unix. If you
1692 don't think you're ready go to Unix 101 on Tuesday to get familiarized with the shell environment.
1696 <eventitem date="2008-10-03" time="4:30 PM" room="MC2065" title="Game Sketching">
1697 <short><p>Juancho Buchanan, CTO Relic Entertainment</p></short>
1699 In this talk I will give an overview of the history of Relic and our
1700 development philosophy. The Talk will then proceed to talk about work
1701 that is being pursued in the area of early game prototyping with the
1702 introduction of game sketching methodology.
1707 Fired from his first job for playing Video Games Juancho Buchanan is
1708 currently the director of Technology for Relic Entertainment. Juancho
1709 Buchanan Wrote his first game in 1984 but then pursued other interests
1710 which included a master's in Program Visualization, A Doctorate in
1711 Computer Graphics, a stint as a professor at the University of Alberta
1712 where he pioneered early work in Non photo realistic rendering, A stint
1713 at Electronic Arts as Director, Advanced Technology, A stint at EA as
1714 the University Liaison Dude, A stint at Carnegie Mellon University where
1715 he researched the Game Sketching idea. His current role at Relic has
1716 him working with the soon to be released Dawn of War II.
1721 <eventitem date="2008-10-02" time="4:30 PM" room="MC4021" title="General Meeting 2">
1723 The second official general meeting of the term. Items on the adgenda are CSC Merch,
1724 upcoming talks, and other possible planned events, as well as the announcement of
1725 a librarian and planning of an office cleanout and a library organization day.
1729 <!-- Spring 2008 -->
1731 <!-- Winter 2008 -->
1733 <eventitem date="2008-02-08" time="4:30 PM" room="MC4042" title="A Brief History of Blackberry and the Wireless Data Telecom Industry">
1734 <short>Tyler Lessard</short>
1736 Tyler Lessard from RIM will present a brief history of BlackBerry
1737 technology and will discuss how the evolution of BlackBerry as an
1738 end-to-end hardware, software and services platform has been
1739 instrumental to its success and growth in the market. Find out how the
1740 BlackBerry service components integrate with wireless carrier networks
1741 and get a sneak peek at where the wireless data market is going.
1745 <eventitem date="2008-02-29" time="5:00 PM" room="BFG2125" title="Quantum Information Processing">
1746 <short>Raymond Laflamme</short>
1748 Information processing devices are pervasive in our society; from the 5
1749 dollar watches to multi-billions satellite network. These devices have
1750 allowed the information revolution which is developing around us. It has
1751 transformed not only the way we communicate or entertain ourselves but
1752 also the way we do science and even the way we think. All this
1753 information is manipulated using the classical approximation to the laws
1754 of physics, but we know that there is a better approximation: the
1755 quantum mechanical laws. Would using quantum mechanics for information
1756 processing be an impediment or could it be an advantage? This is the
1757 fundamental question at the heart of quantum information processing
1758 (QIP). QIP is a young field with an incredible potential impact reaching
1759 from the way we understand fundamental physics to technological
1760 applications. I will give an overview of the Institute for Quantum
1761 Computing, comment on the effort in this field at Waterloo and in
1762 Canada and, time permitted visit some of the IQC labs.
1766 <eventitem date="2008-02-14" time="4:00PM" room="MC2061" title="CSC Programming Contest 1">
1767 <short>Yes, we know this is Valentine's Day.</short>
1769 Contestants will be writing an artificial intelligence to play Risk. The
1770 prize will be awarded to the intelligence which wins the most
1771 head-to-head matches against competing entries. We're providing easy
1772 APIs for several languages, as well as full documentation of the game
1773 protocol so contestants can write wrappers for any additional language
1774 they wish to work in.
1777 We officially support entries in Scheme, Perl, Java, C, and C++. If you
1778 would like help developing an API for some other language contact us
1779 through the systems committee mailing list (we will require that your API
1780 is made available to all entrants).
1783 To kick off the contest we're hosting an in-house coding session starting
1784 at 4:00PM on Thursday, February 14th in MC2061. Members of our contest
1785 administration team will be available to help you work out the details of
1786 our APIs, answer questions, and provide the necessities of life (ie,
1787 pizza). Submissions will open no later than 5:00PM on February 14th
1788 and will close no earlier than 12:00PM on February 17th.
1791 Visit our contest site <a href="http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/contest/"> here!</a>
1796 <eventitem date="2008-01-23" time="5:00 PM" room="MC 4020" title="Creating Distributed Applications with TIPC">
1797 <short>Elmer Horvath</short>
1799 The problem: coordinating and communicating between multiple processors
1800 in a distributed system (possibly containing heterogeneous elements)
1802 The open source TIPC (transparent interprocess communication) protocol
1803 has been incorporated into the Linux kernel and is available in VxWorks
1804 and, soon, other OSes. This emerging protocol has a number of
1805 advantages in a clustered environment to simplify application
1806 development while maintaining a familiar socket programming interface.
1807 The service oriented capabilities of TIPC help in applications easily
1808 finding required services in a system. The location transparent aspect
1809 of TIPC allows services to be located anywhere in the system as well as
1810 allowing redundant services for both load reduction and backup.
1812 Learn about the emerging cluster protocol.
1816 <eventitem date="2008-01-15" time="4:30 PM" room="Comfy Lounge" title="CSClub Elections">
1818 Elections are scheduled for Tues, Jan 15 @ 4:30 pm in the comfy lounge.
1819 The nomination period closes on Mon, Jan 14 @ 4:30 pm. Candidates should
1820 not engage in campaigning after the nomination period has closed.
1827 <eventitem date="2007-10-19" time="5:00 PM" room="MC4058" title="General Meeting">
1830 There is a general meeting scheduled for Friday, October 19, 2007 at 17:00.
1833 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>
1838 <eventitem date="2007-09-25" time="1:30 PM" room="DC 1302" title="Virtual Reality, Real Law: The regulation of Property in Video Games">
1839 <short>Susan Abramovitch</short>
1842 This talk is run by the School of Computer Science
1845 How should virtual property created in games, such as weapons used in
1846 games like Mir 3 and real estate or clothing created or acquired in
1847 games like Second Life, be treated in law. Although the videogaming
1848 industry continues to multiply in value, virtual property created in
1849 virtual worlds has not been formally recognized by any North American
1850 court or legislature. A bridge has been taking shape from gaming's
1851 virtual economies to real world economies, for example, through
1852 unauthorized copying of designer clothes sold on Second Life for in-game
1853 cash, or real court damages awarded against deletion of player-earned
1854 swords in Mir 3. The trading of virtual property is important to a
1855 large number of people and property rights in virtual property are
1856 currently being recognized by some foreign legal bodies.
1859 Susan Abramovitch will explain the legal considerations in determining
1860 how virtual property can or should be governed, and ways it can be
1861 legally similar to tangible property. Virtual property can carry both
1862 physical and intellectual property rights. Typically video game
1863 developers retain these rights via online agreements, but Ms.
1864 Abramovitch questions whether these rights are ultimately enforceable
1865 and will describe policy issues that may impact law makers in deciding
1866 how to treat virtual property under such agreements.
1871 <eventitem date="2007-10-02" time="4:30 PM" room="MC4061" title="Putting the fun into Functional Languages and Useful Programming with OCaml/F#">
1872 <short>Brennan Taylor</short>
1874 <p>A lecture on why functional languages are important, practical applications, and some neat examples. Starting with an introduction to
1875 basic functional programming with ML syntax, continuing with the strengths of OCaml and F#, followed by some exciting examples. Examples include GUI
1876 programming with F#, Web Crawlers with F#, and OpenGL/GTK programming with OCaml. This lecture aims to display how powerful functional languages can
1880 <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">
1881 <short>Brennan Taylor</short>
1884 A lecture on the fundamentals of Pi-Calculus followed by an introduction
1885 to Join-Calculus in JoCaml with some great examples. Various concurrent
1886 control structures are explored, as well as the current limitations of
1887 JoCaml. The examples section will mostly be concurrent programming,
1888 however some basic distributed examples will be explored. This lecture
1889 focuses on how easy concurrent programming can be.
1894 <eventitem date="2007-10-15" time="4:30 PM" room="MC4041" title="Off-the-Record Messaging: Useful Security and Privacy for IM">
1895 <short>Ian Goldberg</short>
1898 Instant messaging (IM) is an increasingly popular mode of communication
1899 on the Internet. Although it is used for personal and private
1900 conversations, it is not at all a private medium. Not only are all of
1901 the messages unencrypted and unauthenticated, but they are all
1902 routedthrough a central server, forming a convenient interception point
1903 for an attacker. Users would benefit from being able to have truly
1904 private conversations over IM, combining the features of encryption,
1905 authentication, deniability, and forward secrecy, while working within
1906 their existing IM infrastructure.
1909 In this talk, I will discuss "Off-the-Record Messaging" (OTR), a widely
1910 used software tool for secure and private instant messaging. I will
1911 outline the properties of Useful Security and Privacy Technologies that
1912 motivated OTR's design, compare it to other IM security mechanisms, and
1913 talk about its ongoing development directions.
1916 Ian Goldberg is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the
1917 University of Waterloo, where he is a founding member of the
1918 Cryptography, Security, and Privacy (CrySP) research group. He holds a
1919 Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, where he discovered
1920 serious weaknesses in a number of widely deployed security systems,
1921 including those used by cellular phones and wireless networks. He also
1922 studied systems for protecting the personal privacy of Internet users,
1923 which led to his role as Chief Scientist at Zero-Knowledge Systems (now
1924 known as Radialpoint), where he commercialized his research as the
1931 <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*">
1932 <short>Andrei Barbu</short>
1936 <eventitem date="2007-11-22" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 4041" title="More Haskell functional programming fun!">
1937 <short>Andrei Barbu</short>
1939 Haskell is a modern lazy, strongly typed functional language with type inferrence. This talk will focus on multiple monads, existential types,
1940 lambda expressions, infix operators and more. Along the way we'll see a parser and interpreter for lambda calculus using monadic parsers. STM,
1941 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
1942 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!
1947 <eventitem date="2007-11-29" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 4061" title="Concurrent / Distributed programming with JoCaml">
1948 <short>Brennan Taylor</short>
1951 A lecture on the fundamentals of Pi-Calculus followed by an introduction to Join-Calculus in JoCaml with some great examples.
1952 Various concurrent control structures are explored, as well as the current limitations of JoCaml. The examples section will
1953 mostly be concurrent programming, however some basic distributed examples will be explored. This lecture focuses on how easy
1954 concurrent programming can be.
1959 <eventitem date="2007-12-04" time="4:30 PM" room="TBA" title="PE Executable Translation: A solution for legacy games on linux (Postponed)">
1960 <short>David Tenty</short>
1963 With today's fast growing linux user base, a large porportion of legacy applications have established open-source equivalents or ports.
1964 However, legacy games provided an intresting problem to gamers who might be inclinded to migrate to linux or other open platforms.
1965 PE executable translation software will be presented that provides a solution to this dilema and will be contrasted with the windows compatiblity framwork Wine.
1966 Postponed to a later date.
1971 <eventitem date="2007-12-01" time="1:30 PM" room="MC 2037" title="Programming Contest">
1972 <short>Win Prizes!</short>
1975 The Computer Science club is holding a programming contest from 1:00 to 6:30 open to all! C++,C,Perl,Scheme are allowed.
1976 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>
1979 And Free Pizzaa for all who attend!
1983 <eventitem date="2007-12-02" time="2:30 PM" room="TBA" title="Multi-Player Linux games for Linux awarness week">
1984 <short>Multi-Player Gaming with Linux [Possibly Pizza!]</short>
1987 Come out for multi-player gaming on Linux. If you don't have linux on your machine, we will have LiveCDs available.
1988 Lots of fun! Possible Pizzaa!
1993 <eventitem date="2007-10-04" time="4:30 PM" room="TBA" title="Distributed Programming with Erlang">
1994 <short>Brennan Taylor</short>
1997 A quick introduction on the current state of distributed programming and various grid computing projects. Followed by some
1998 history and features of the Erlang language and finishing with distributed examples including operating on a cluster.
2003 <eventitem date="2007-12-05" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 4061" title="Google Summer of Code, a look back on 2007">
2004 <short>Holden Karau</short>
2007 An overview on Google Summer of Code 2007. This talk will look at some of the Summer of Code projects, the project organization, etc.
2010 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
2020 <eventitem date="2007-07-17" time="7:00 PM" room="AL 116" title="C++0x - An Overview">
2021 <short>Bjarne Stroustrup</short>
2023 A good programming language is far more than a simple collection of
2024 features. My ideal is to provide a set of facilities that smoothly work
2025 together to support design and programming styles of a generality beyond
2026 my imagination. Here, I briefly outline rules of thumb (guidelines,
2027 principles) that are being applied in the design of C++0x. Then, I
2028 present the state of the standards process (we are aiming for C++09) and
2029 give examples of a few of the proposals such as concepts, generalized
2030 initialization, being considered in the ISO C++ standards committee.
2031 Since there are far more proposals than could be presented in an hour,
2032 I'll take questions.
2036 <eventitem date="2007-07-06" time="4:30 PM" room="AL 116" title="Copyright vs Community in the Age of Computer Networks">
2037 <short>Richard Stallman</short>
2039 Copyright developed in the age of the printing press, and was designed
2040 to fit with the system of centralized copying imposed by the printing
2041 press. But the copyright system does not fit well with computer
2042 networks, and only draconian punishments can enforce it.
2044 The global corporations that profit from copyright are lobbying for
2045 draconian punishments, and to increase their copyright powers, while
2046 suppressing public access to technology. But if we seriously hope to
2047 serve the only legitimate purpose of copyright--to promote progress, for
2048 the benefit of the public--then we must make changes in the other
2051 The CSC would like to thank MEF and Mathsoc for funding this talk.
2053 <a href="http://www.fsf.org/events/waterloo20070706">The Freedom Software Foundation's description</a><br />
2054 <a href="http://www.defectivebydesign.org">FSF's anti-DRM campaign</a><br />
2055 <a href="http://www.badvista.org">Why you shouldn't use Microsoft Vista</a><br />
2056 <a href="http://www.gnu.org">The GNU's Not Unix Project</a><br />
2060 <eventitem date="2007-06-27" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 4042" title="Usability in the wild">
2061 <short>A talk by Michael Terry</short>
2063 What is the typical monitor resolution of a GIMP user? How many monitors
2064 do they have? What size images do they work on? How many layers are in
2065 their images? The answers to these questions are generally unknown: No
2066 means currently exist for open source applications to collect usage
2067 data. In this talk, I will present ingimp, a version of GIMP that has
2068 been instrumented to automatically collect usage data from real-world
2069 users. I will discuss ingimp's design, the type of data we collect, how
2070 we make the data available on the web, and initial results that begin to
2071 answer the motivating questions.
2073 ingimp can be found at http://www.ingimp.org.
2077 <eventitem date="2007-06-22" time="4:30 PM"
2079 title="Email encryption for the masses">
2080 <short>Ken Ho</short>
2082 E-mail transactions and confirmations have become commonplace and the
2083 information therein can often be sensitive. We use email for purposes as
2084 mundane as inbound marketing, to as sensitive as account passwords and
2085 financial transactions. And nearly all our email is sent in clear text;
2086 we trust only that others will not eavesdrop or modify our messages. But
2087 why rely on the goodness or apathy of your fellow man when you can
2088 ensure your message's confidentiality with encryption so strong not even
2089 the NSA can break? Speaker (Kenneth Ho) will discuss email encryption,
2090 and GNU Privacy Guard to ensure that your messages are sent, knowing
2091 that only your intended recipient can receive it.
2092 </p><p>An optional code-signing party will be held immediately
2093 afterwards; if you already have a PGP or GPG key and wish to
2094 participate, please submit the public key to
2095 <a href="mailto:gpg-keys@csclub.uwaterloo.ca">
2096 gpg-keys@csclub.uwaterloo.ca</a>.
2098 Laptop users are invited also to participate in key-pair sharing
2099 on-site, though it is preferable to send keys ahead of time.
2103 <eventitem date="2007-06-18" time="4:30 PM"
2104 room="DC 4040" title="Fedspulse.ca, Web 3.0, Portals and the Metaverse">
2105 <short>Peter Macdonald</short>
2107 The purpose of the talk is to address how students interact with the
2108 internet, and possibilities for how they could do so more efficiently.
2109 Information on events and happenings on UW campus is currently hosted
2110 on a desperate, series of internet applications. Interactions with
2111 WatSFIC is done over a Yahoo! mailing list, GLOW is organized through a
2112 Facebook group, campus information at large comes from
2113 <a href="http://imprint.uwaterloo.ca">imprint.uwaterloo.ca</a>. There
2114 has been historical pressures from various bodies, including some
2115 thinkers in feds and the administration, to centralize these issues. To
2116 create a one stop shop for students on campus.
2118 It is not through confining data in cages that we will finally link all
2119 student activities together, instead it is by truly freeing it. When
2120 data can be anywhere, then it will be everywhere students need it. This
2121 is the underlying concept behind metadata, data that is freed from the
2122 confines of it's technical imprisonment. Metadata is the extension of
2123 people, organizations, and activities onto the internet in a way that is
2124 above the traditional understanding of how people interact with their
2125 networks. The talk will explore how Metadata can exist freely on the
2126 internet, how this affects concepts like Web 3.0, and how the university
2127 and the federation are poised to take advantage of this burgeoning new
2128 technology through adoptions of portals which will allow students to
2129 interact with a metaverse of data.
2133 <!-- Winter 2007 -->
2135 <eventitem date="2007-04-11" time="3:30 PM" room="Hagey Hall" title="The Free Software Movement and the GNU/Linux Operating System">
2136 <short>A talk by Richard M. Stallman (RMS) <b>[CANCELLED]</b></short>
2138 Richard Stallman has cancelled his trip to Canada.
2142 <eventitem date="2007-04-08" time="4:30pm" room="MC 4041" title="Loop Optimizations">
2143 <short>A talk by Simina Branzei</short>
2145 Abstract coming soon!
2149 <eventitem date="2007-04-01" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 3036" title="Surprise
2153 While reading Slashdot, Bill came across the recently digitized audio
2154 recording of his 1989 talk at the Computer Science Club. As Bill has always
2155 had a soft-spot for the Computer Science Club, he has decided to pay us a
2158 Bill promises to give away free copies of Windows Vista Ultimate, because
2159 frankly, nobody here (except j2simpso) wants to pay for a frisbee. Be sure
2160 to bring your resumes kids, because Bill will be recruiting for some
2161 exciting new positions at Microsoft, including Mindless Drone, Junior Code
2162 Monkey, and Assistant Human Cannonball.
2167 <eventitem date="2007-03-28" time="5:30 PM"
2168 room="MC 1056" title="Computational Physics Simulations">
2169 <short>A talk by David Tenty and Alex Parent</short>
2179 <eventitem date="2007-03-29" time="4:30 PM"
2180 room="MC 1056" title="All The Code">
2181 <short>A demo/introduction to a new source code search engine. A talk by Holden Karau</short>
2184 Source code search engines are a relatively new phenomenon . The general idea of most source code search engines is helping programmers find
2185 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.
2186 <a href="http://www.allthecode.com/">All The Code</a> is a
2187 next generation source code search engine. Unlike earlier generations of source code search engines, it considers how code is used to help determine
2191 The talk will primarily be a demo of <a href="http://www.allthecode.com">All The Code</a>,
2192 along with a brief discussion of some of the technology behind it.
2198 <eventitem date="2007-04-04" time="4:00 PM"
2199 room="MC 1056" title="Data Analysis with Kernels: [an introduction]">
2200 <short>A talk by Michael Biggs. This talk is RESCHEDULED due to unexpected
2201 circumstances</short>
2204 I am going to take an intuitive, CS-style approach to a discussion about the
2205 use of kernels in modern data analysis. This approach often lends us
2206 efficient ways to consider a dataset under various choices of inner product,
2207 which is roughly comparable to a measure of "similarity". Many new tools in
2208 AI arise from kernel methods, such as the infamous Support Vector Machines for
2209 classification, and kernel-PCA for nonlinear dimensionality reduction. I will
2210 attempt to highlight, and provide visualization for some of the math involved
2211 in these methods while keeping the material at an accessible, undergraduate
2219 <eventitem date="2007-02-26" time="4:30 pm"
2220 room="DC 1350" title="ReactOS: An Open Source OS Platform for Learning">
2221 <short>A talk by Alex Ionescu</short>
2224 The ReactOS operating system has been in development for over eight years and aims to provide users
2225 with a fully functional and Windows-compatible distribution under the GPL license. ReactOS comes with
2226 its own Windows 2003-based kernel and system utilities and applications, resulting in an environment
2227 identical to Windows, both visually and internally.
2229 More than just an alternative to Windows, ReactOS is a powerful platform for academia, allowing
2230 students to learn a variety of skills useful to software testing, development and management, as well as
2231 providing a rich and clean implementation of Windows NT, with a kernel compatible to published
2232 internals book on the subject.
2234 This talk will introduce the ReactOS project, as well as the various software engineering challenges
2235 behind it. The building platform and development philosophies and utilities will be shown, and
2236 attendees will grasp the vast amount of effort and organization that needs to go into building an
2237 operating system or any other similarly large project. The speaker will gladly answer questions related to
2238 his background, experience and interests and information on joining the project, as well as any other
2239 related information.
2241 <strong>Speaker Bio</strong>
2243 Alex Ionescu is currently studying in Software Engineering at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec
2244 and is a Microsoft Technical Student Ambassador. He is the lead kernel developer of the ReactOS Project
2245 and project leader of TinyKRNL. He regularly speaks at Linux and Open Source conferences around the
2246 world and will be a lecturer at the 8th International Free Software Forum in Brazil this April, as well as
2247 providing hands-on workshops and lectures on Windows NT internals and security to various companies.
2253 <eventitem date="2007-02-15" time="4:30 PM"
2254 room="MC 2065" title="An Introduction to Recognizing Regular Expressions in Haskell">
2255 <short>A talk by James deBoer</short>
2259 This talk will introduce the Haskell programming language and and walk
2260 through building a recognizer for regular languages. The talk will
2261 include a quick overview of regular expressions, an introduction to
2262 Haskell and finally a line by line analysis of a regular language
2268 <eventitem date="2007-02-09" time="4:30 PM"
2269 room="MC 4041" title="Introduction to 3-d Graphics">
2270 <short>A talk by Chris "The Prof" Evensen</short>
2273 A talk for those interested in 3-dimensional graphics but unsure of where to
2274 start. Covers the basic math and theory behind projecting 3-dimensional
2275 polygons on screen, as well as simple cropping techniques to improve
2276 efficiency. Translation and rotation of polygons will also be discussed.
2281 <eventitem date="2007-02-09" time="8:30 PM"
2282 room="DC 1351" title="Writing World Class Software">
2283 <short>A talk by James Simpson</short>
2286 A common misconception amongst software developers is that top quality software
2287 encompasses certain platforms, is driven by a particular new piece of
2288 technology, or relies solely on a particular programming language. However as
2289 developers we tend to miss the less hyped issues and techniques involved in
2290 writing world class software. These techniques are universal to all
2291 programming languages, platforms and deployed technologies but are often times
2292 viewed as being so obvious that they are ignored by the typical developer. The
2293 topics covered in this lecture will include:
2295 - Writing bug-free to extremely low bug count software in real-time<br/>
2296 - The concept of single-source, universal platform software<br/>
2297 - Programming language interoperability<br/>
2299 ... and other less hyped yet vitally important concepts to writing
2300 World Class Software
2305 <eventitem date="2007-02-08" time="4:30 PM"
2306 room="MC 2066" title="UW Software Start-ups: What Worked and What Did Not">
2307 <short>A talk by Larry Smith</short>
2310 A discussion of software start-ups founded by UW students and what they did
2311 that helped them grow and what failed to help. In order to share the most
2312 insights and guard the confidences of the individuals involved, none of the
2313 companies will be identified.
2319 <eventitem date="2007-02-07" time="4:30 PM"
2320 room="MC 4041" title="Riding The Multi-core Revolution">
2321 <short>How a Waterloo software company is changing the way people program computers.
2322 A talk by Stefanus Du Toit</short>
2325 For decades, mainstream parallel processing has been thought of as
2326 inevitable. Up until recent years, however, improvements in
2327 manufacturing processes and increases in clock speed have provided
2328 software with free Moore's Law-scale performance improvements on
2329 traditional single-core CPUs. As per-core CPU speed increases have
2330 slowed to a halt, processor vendors are embracing parallelism by
2331 multiplying the number of cores on CPUs, following what Graphics
2332 Processing Unit (GPU) vendors have been doing for years. The Multi-
2333 core revolution promises to provide unparalleled increases in
2334 performance, but it comes with a catch: traditional serial
2335 programming methods are not at all suited to programming these
2336 processors and methods such as multi-threading are cumbersome and
2337 rarely scale beyond a few cores. Learn how, with hundreds of cores in
2338 desktop computers on the horizon, a local software company is looking
2339 to revolutionize the way software is written to deliver on the
2340 promise multi-core holds.
2343 Refreshments (and possible pizza!) will be provided.
2348 <!-- <eventitem date="2007-01-24" time="4:00 PM"
2349 room="TBA" title="TBA">
2350 <short>A talk by Reg Quinton</short>
2358 <eventitem date="2007-01-31" time="4:00 PM"
2359 room="MC 4041" title="Network Security -- Intrusion Detection">
2360 <short>A talk by Reg Quinton</short>
2363 IST monitors the campus network for vulnerabilities and scans
2364 systems for security problems.
2365 This informal presentation will look behind the scenes to show the
2366 strategies and technologies used and to show the problem magnitude. We
2367 will review the IST Security web site with an emphasis on these pages
2369 <a href="http://ist.uwaterloo.ca/security/vulnerable/">http://ist.uwaterloo.ca/security/vulnerable/</a><br/>
2370 <a href="http://ist.uwaterloo.ca/security/security-wg/reports/20061101.html">http://ist.uwaterloo.ca/security/security-wg/reports/20061101.html</a><br/>
2371 <a href="http://ist.uwaterloo.ca/security/position/20050524/">http://ist.uwaterloo.ca/security/position/20050524/</a><br/>
2376 <eventitem date="2007-01-31" time="4:30 PM"
2377 room="TBA" title="An Brief Introduction to Projection Graphics">
2378 <short>A talk by Christopher Evensen</short>
2388 <!-- Nothing happened :( -->
2390 <!-- Spring 2006 -->
2393 <eventitem date="2006-07-29" title="CTRL D" time="7:00pm" room="East Side Mario">
2394 <short>Come out for the Club that Really Likes Dinner</short>
2397 Summer: the sparrows whistle through the teapot-steam breeze. The
2398 ubiquitous construction team tears the same pavement up for the third
2399 time, hammering passers-by with dust and noise: our shirts, worn for
2400 the third time, noisome from competing heat and shame. As Nature
2401 continues her Keynesian rotation of policy, and as society decrees yet
2402 another parting of ways, it is proper for the common victims to have
2403 an evening to themselves, looking both back and ahead, imagining new
2404 opportunities, and recognising those long since missed. God fucking
2408 This term's CTRL-D end-of-term dinner is taking place tomorrow
2409 (Saturday) at 7:00 P.M. at East Side Mario's, in the plaza. Meet in
2410 the C.S.C. fifteen minutes beforehand, so they don't take away our
2411 seats or anything nasty like that.
2414 A lot of people wanted to go to the Mongolian Grill, but I'm pretty
2415 sure this place has a similar price-to-tasty ratio; what's more,
2416 they'll actually grant us a reservation more than four nights a week.
2417 I've confirmed that the crazy allergenic peanuts no longer exist
2418 (sad), and they have a good vegetarian selection, which is likely
2419 coincides with their kosher and halal menus.
2422 Come out for the tasty and the awesome! If you pretend it's your
2423 birthday, everyone's a loser! Tell your friends, because I told the
2424 telephone I wanted to reserve for 10 to 12 people, and I don't wish to
2425 sully Calum T. Dalek's good name!
2432 <eventitem date="2006-07-26" title="Lemmings Day" time="3:30pm" room="MC Comfy Lounge">
2433 <short>Come out for some retro Amiga-style Lemmings gaming action!</short>
2436 Does being in CS make you feel like a lemming? Is linear algebra driving you
2437 into walls? Do you pace back and forth, constantly, regardless of whatever's
2438 in your path? Then you should come out to CSC Lemmings Day. This time, we're
2439 playing the pseudo-sequel: Oh No! More Lemmings!
2442 <li>Old-skool retro gaming, Amiga-style (2 mice, 2 players!)</li>
2443 <li>Projector screen: the pixels are man-sized!</li>
2444 <li>Enjoy classic Lemmings tunes</li>
2449 <eventitem date="2006-07-25" title="Linux Installfest!" time="1:00pm" room ="DC Fishbowk">
2450 <short>A part of Linux Awareness Week</short>
2453 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
2454 fine distributions of Linux for you.
2457 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
2461 Install Linux on your machine-install fear in your opponents!
2467 <eventitem date="2006-07-24" title="Software development gets on the Cluetrain" time="4:30pm" room ="MC 4063">
2468 <short>or How communities of interest drive modern software development.</short>
2471 Simon Law leads the Quality teams for Ubuntu, a free-software operating
2472 system built on Debian GNU/Linux. As such, he leads one of the largest
2473 community-based testing efforts for a software product. This does get a
2477 In this talk, we'll be exploring how the Internet is changing how
2478 software is developed. Concepts like open source and technologies like
2479 message forums are blurring the lines between producer and consumer.
2480 And this melting pot of people is causing people to take note, and
2481 changing the way they sling code.
2484 Co-Sponsored with CS-Commons Committee
2489 <eventitem date="2006-07-21" time="5:30 PM"
2490 room="MC1085" title="March of the Penguins">
2491 <short>The Computer Science Club will be showing March of the Penguins</short>
2494 <a href="http://wip.warnerbros.com/marchofthepenguins/">March of the Penguins</a> , an epic nature documentary, as dictated
2495 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
2496 whole Linux awareness week that forgot to tell people about].
2502 <eventitem date="2006-07-20" time="5:30 PM"
2503 room="MC4041" title="Cool Stuff to do With Python">
2504 <short>Albert O'Connor will be introducing the joys of programming in python</short>
2507 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
2508 object-oriented programming language which is most awesome.
2513 <eventitem date="2006-07-20" time="4:30 PM"
2514 room="MC4041" title="Simulating multi-tasking on an embedded architecture">
2515 <short>Alex Tsay will look at the common hack used to simulate multi-processing in a real time embedded environment.</short>
2518 In an embedded environment resources are fairly limited, especially. Typically an embedded system has strict time constraints in which it must
2519 respond to hardware driven interrupts and do some processing of its own. A full fledged OS would consume most of the available resources, hence
2520 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
2521 in a real time embedded environment.
2527 <eventitem date="2006-07-19" title="Semacode: Image recognition on mobile camera phones" time="4:30 PM" room ="MC1085">
2528 <short>Simon Woodside, founder of Semacode, comes to discuss image what it is like to start a business and how imaging code works</short>
2531 Could you write a good image recognizer for a 100 MHz mobile phone
2532 processor with 1 MB heap, 320x240 image, on a poorly-optimized Java
2533 stack? It needs to locate and read two-dimensional barcodes made up of
2534 square modules which might be no more than a few pixels in size. We
2535 had to do that in order to establish Semacode, a local start up
2536 company that makes a software barcode reader for cell phones. The
2537 applications vary from ubiquitous computing to advertising. Simon
2538 Woodside (founder) will discuss what it's like to start a business and
2539 how the imaging code works.
2548 <eventitem date="2006-07-17" time="11:59 PM"
2549 room="MC3036" title="Midnight Madness, Alpha Edition">
2550 <short>Come out to discuss current & future plans/projects for the Club</short>
2553 The Computer Science Club (CSClub) has "new" DEC Alphas which are most awesome. Come out, help take them part, put them back
2554 together, solder, and eat free food (probably pizza).
2560 <eventitem date="2006-06-21" time="4:30 PM"
2561 room="MC4042" title="CSC General Meeting">
2562 <short>Come out to discuss current & future plans/projects for the Club</short>
2565 The venue will include:</p>
2567 <li><p>Computer usage agreement discussion (Holden has some changes he'd like to propose)</p></li>
2568 <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>
2569 <li><p>Frosh Linux cd's that could be put in frosh math faculty kits.</p></li>
2570 <li><p>VoIP "not phone services" ideas.</p></li>
2571 <li><p>Ideas for talks (people, topics, etc...). We requested Steve Jobs and Steve Balmer, so no idea is too crazy.</p></li>
2572 <li><p>Ideas for books.</p></li>
2573 <li><p>General improvements/comments for the club.</p></li>
2576 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.
2582 <eventitem date="2006-05-25" time="4:00 PM" room="MC 4060" title="Eighteen Years in the Software Tools Business">
2583 <short>Eighteen Years in the Software Tools Business at Microsoft, a talk by Rico Mariani, (BMath CS/EEE 1988)</short>
2586 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
2587 evolution of software tools for microcomputers. This talk promises to be a little bit about history and perspective (at least from
2588 the Microsoft side of things) as well as the evolution of software engineers, different types of programmers and their needs, and what
2589 it's like to try to make the software industry more effective at what it does, and sometimes succeed!
2592 A video of the talk is available for download in our <a href="media/">media</a> section.
2597 <eventitem date="2006-05-14" time="1:00 PM" room="CSC" title="Unix 101 and 102 Recording">
2598 <short>Unix 101 and 102 recording</short>
2601 Have you heard of our famous Unix 101 and Unix 102 tutorials. We've decided to try
2602 and put them on the web. This Sunday we will be doing a first take.
2603 At the same time, we're going to be looking at adding new material
2604 that we haven't covered in the past. </p>
2606 Why should you come out? Not only will you get to hang out with a wonderful group of people,
2607 you can help impart your knowledge to the world. Don't know anything about Unix? That's cool too,
2608 we need people to make sure its easy to follow along and hopefully keep us from leaving something
2614 <eventitem date="2006-05-13" time="1:00 PM" room="CSC" title="Video 4 Linux Day">
2615 <short> We don't know enough about V4L</short>
2618 We don't know Video 4 Linux, but increasingly people are wanting to do interesting stuff with our webcam which
2619 could benefit from a better understanding of Video 4 Linux. So, this Saturday a number of us will be trying to learn
2620 as much as possible about Video 4 Linux and doing weird things with webcam(s).
2625 <eventitem date="2006-05-08" time="4:30 PM" room="The Comfy Lounge" title="CSC
2627 <short>Come out and vote for the Spring 2006 executive!</short>
2630 The Computer Science Club will be holding its elections for the Spring 2006
2631 term on Monday, May 8th. The elections will be held at 4:30 PM in the
2632 Comfy Lounge, on the 3rd floor of the MC. Please remember to come out and
2636 We are accepting nominations for the following positions: President,
2637 Vice-President, Treasurer, and Secretary. The nomination period continues
2638 until 4:30 PM on Sunday, May 7th. If you are interested in running for
2639 a position, or would like to nominate someone else, please email
2640 cro@csclub.uwaterloo.ca before the deadline.
2645 <!-- Winter 2006 -->
2647 <eventitem date="2006-03-06" time="4:45 PM"
2648 room="Physics 145" title="Creating Killer Applications">
2649 <short>A talk by Larry Smith</short>
2652 A discussion of how software creators can identify application opportunities
2653 that offer the promise of great social and commercial significance. Particular
2654 attention will be paid to the challenge of acquiring cross domain knowledge
2655 and setting up effective collaboration.
2661 <eventitem date="2006-02-09" time="5:30 PM" room="Bombshelter Pub" title="Pints With Profs">
2662 <short>Come out and meet your professors. Free food provided!</short>
2664 <p>Come out and meet your professors! This is a great opportunity to
2665 mingle with your professors before midterms or find out who you might
2666 have for future courses. All are welcome!</p>
2668 <p>Best of all, there will be <strong>free food!</strong></p>
2670 <p>You can pick up invitations for your professors at the Computer Science
2671 Club office in MC 3036.</p>
2673 <p>Pints with Profs will be held this term on Thursday, 9 February 2006
2674 from 5:30 to 8:00 PM in the Bombshelter.</p>
2680 <eventitem date="2005-11-29" time="5:30 PM"
2681 room="TBA" title="Programming Contest">
2682 <short>Come out, program, and win shiny things!</short>
2685 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.
2689 <p>And best of all... free food!!!</p>
2694 <eventitem date="2005-10-17" time="5:30 PM"
2695 room="Fishbowl" title="Party with Profs!">
2696 <short>Get to know your profs and be the envy of your
2700 Come out and meet your professors!! This is a great opportunity to
2701 meet professors for Undergraduate Research jobs or to find out who
2702 you might have for future courses. One and all are welcome!
2705 <p>And best of all... free food!!!</p>
2710 <eventitem date="2005-10-11" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 2037" title="UNIX 103: Scripting Unix">
2711 <short>You Too Can Be a Unix Taskmaster</short>
2714 This is the third in a series of seminars that cover the use of the
2715 UNIX Operating System. UNIX is used in a variety of applications, both
2716 in academia and industry. We will provide you with hands-on experience
2717 with the Math Faculty's UNIX environment in this tutorial.
2719 Topics that will be discussed include:
2721 <li>Shell scripting</li>
2722 <li>Searching through text files</li>
2723 <li>Batch editing text files</li>
2726 If you do not have a Math computer account, don't panic; one will be lent to
2727 you for the duration of this class.
2733 <eventitem date="2005-10-06" time="4:30 PM" room="MC3D 2037" title="UNIX 102">
2734 <short>Fun with Unix</short>
2737 This is the second in a series of seminars that cover the use of the
2738 Unix Operating System. Unix is used in a variety of
2739 applications, both in academia and industry. We will provide you with hands-on
2740 experience with the Math Faculty's Unix environment in this tutorial.
2743 Topics that will be discussed include:
2745 <li>Interacting with Bourne and C shells</li>
2746 <li>Editing text using the vi text editor</li>
2747 <li>Editing text using the Emacs display editor</li>
2748 <li>Multi-tasking and the screen multiplexer</li>
2752 If you do not have a Math computer account, don't panic; one will be lent to
2753 you for the duration of this class.
2758 <eventitem date="2005-10-04" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 2037" title="UNIX 101">
2759 <short>First UNIX tutorial</short>
2762 The CSC UNIX tutorials are intended to help first year CS and other
2763 interested learn UNIX and the CS UNIX environment.
2766 This is the first in a series of two or three tutorials. It will cover basic shell
2767 use, and simple text editors.
2773 <!-- Summer 2005 -->
2774 <eventitem date="2005-06-02" time="3:30 PM" room="DC 1302" title="Programming and Verifying the Interactive Web">
2775 <short>Shriram Krishnamurthi will be talking about continuations in Web Programming</short>
2778 Server-side Web applications have grown increasingly common, sometimes
2779 even replacing brick and mortar as the principal interface of
2780 corporations. Correspondingly, Web browsers grow ever more powerful,
2781 empowering users to attach bookmarks, switch between pages, clone
2782 windows, and so forth. As a result, Web interactions are not
2783 straight-line dialogs but complex nets of interaction steps.
2786 In practice, programmers are unaware of or are unable to handle these
2787 nets of interaction, making the Web interfaces of even major
2788 organizations buggy and thus unreliable. Even when programmers do
2789 address these constraints, the resulting programs have a seemingly
2790 mangled structure, making them difficult to develop and hard to
2794 In this talk, I will describe these interactions and then show how
2795 programming language ideas can shed light on the resulting problems
2796 and present solutions at various levels. I will also describe some
2797 challenges these programs pose to computer-aided verification, and
2798 present solutions to these problems.
2802 <eventitem date="2005-06-07" time="4:00 PM" room="MC 4042" title="UW's CS curriculum: past, present, and future">
2803 <short>Come out to here Prabhakar Ragde talk about our UW's CS curriculum</short>
2806 I'll survey the evolution of our computer science curriculum over the
2807 past thirty-five years to try to convey the reasons (not always entirely
2808 rational) behind our current mix of courses and their division into core
2809 and optional. After some remarks about constraints and opportunities in
2810 the near future, I'll open the floor to discussion, and hope to hear
2811 some candid comments about the state of CS at UW and how it might be
2818 Prabhakar Ragde is a Professor in the School of Computer Science at UW.
2819 He was Associate Chair for Curricula during the period that saw the
2820 creation of the Bioinformatics and Software Engineering programs, the
2821 creation of the BCS degree, and the strengthening of the BMath/CS degree.
2826 <!-- Winter 2005 -->
2827 <eventitem date="2005-03-15" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 4060" title="Oh No! More Lemmings Day!">
2828 <short>Come out for some retro Amiga-style Lemmings gaming action!</short>
2831 Does being in CS make you feel like a lemming? Is linear algebra driving you
2832 into walls? Do you pace back and forth, constantly, regardless of whatever's
2833 in your path? Then you should come out to CSC Lemmings Day. This time, we're
2834 playing the pseudo-sequel: Oh No! More Lemmings!
2837 <li>Old-skool retro gaming, Amiga-style (2 mice, 2 players!)</li>
2838 <li>Projector screen: the pixels are man-sized!</li>
2839 <li>Live-Action Lemmings (the rules are better this time)</li>
2840 <li>Lemmings look-alike contest</li>
2841 <li>Enjoy classic Lemmings tunes</li>
2846 <eventitem date="2005-02-01" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 2037" title="UNIX 102">
2847 <short>Fun with Unix</short>
2850 This is the second in a series of seminars that cover the use of the
2851 Unix Operating System. Unix is used in a variety of
2852 applications, both in academia and industry. We will provide you with hands-on
2853 experience with the Math Faculty's Unix environment in this tutorial.
2856 Topics that will be discussed include:
2858 <li>Interacting with Bourne and C shells</li>
2859 <li>Editing text using the vi text editor</li>
2860 <li>Editing text using the Emacs display editor</li>
2861 <li>Multi-tasking and the screen multiplexer</li>
2865 If you do not have a Math computer account, don't panic; one will be lent to
2866 you for the duration of this class.
2872 <eventitem date="2005-01-25" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 2037" title="UNIX 101">
2873 <short>First UNIX tutorial</short>
2876 The CSC UNIX tutorials are intended to help first year CS and other
2877 interested learn UNIX and the CS UNIX environment.
2880 This is the first in a series of two or three tutorials. It will cover basic shell
2881 use, and simple text editors.
2887 <eventitem date="2005-01-13" time="4:30 PM" room="The Comfy Lounge" title="CSC
2889 <short>Come out and vote for the Winter 2005 executive!</short>
2892 The Computer Science Club will be holding its elections for the Winter 2005
2893 term on Thursday, January 13. The elections will be held at 4:30 PM in the
2894 Comfy Lounge, on the 3rd floor of the MC. Please remember to come out and
2898 We are accepting nominations for the following positions: President,
2899 Vice-President, Treasurer, and Secretary. The nomination period continues
2900 until 4:30 PM on Wednesday, January 12. If you are interested in running for
2901 a position, or would like to nominate someone else, please email
2902 cro@csclub.uwaterloo.ca before the deadline.
2910 <eventitem date="2004-12-08" time="4:30 PM" room="Mongolian Grill"
2912 <short> This semesters CTRL-D (or the club that really likes
2913 dinner) is going to be at Mongolian grill. Be there or be square</short>
2916 Come to the end of term CTRL-D (club that really likes dinner) meeting.
2917 Remember : food is good
2923 <eventitem date="2004-12-01" time="2:30 PM" room="MC 4058" title="Knitting needles, hairpins and other tangled objects">
2924 <short>In this talk, I'll study linkages (objects built from sticks that are connected with flexible joints), and explain some
2925 interesting examples that can or cannot be straightened out</short>
2928 In this talk, I'll study linkages (objects built from sticks that are connected with flexible joints), and explain some
2929 interesting examples that can or cannot be straightened out</p>
2935 <eventitem date="2004-11-24" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 2066" title="Eclipse">
2936 <short>How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the IDE</short>
2939 How I stopped worrying and Learned to Love the IDE
2942 Audience: anyone who as ever used the Java programming language to do anything. Especially if you don't like
2943 the IDEs you've seen so far or still use (g)Vi(m) or (X)Emacs.
2947 I'll go through some of the coolest features of the best IDE (which stands for "IDEs Don't Eat" or
2948 "Integrated Development Environment") I've seen. For the first year and seasoned almost-grad alike!
2955 <eventitem date="2004-11-18" time="5:00 PM" room="MC 2066" title="GracefulTavi">
2956 <short>Wiki software in PHP+MySQL</short>
2959 GracefulTavi is an open source wiki programmed by Net Integration
2960 Technologies Inc. It is used internally by more than 25 people, and is
2961 the primary internal wiki for NITI's R&D and QA.
2964 I'll start with a very brief introduction to wikis in general, then
2965 show off our special features: super-condensed formatting syntax,
2966 hierarchy management, version control, highlighted diffs, SchedUlator,
2967 the Table of Contents generator. As part of this, we'll explain the
2968 simple plugin architecture and show people how to write a basic wiki
2973 As well, I will show some of the "waterloo specific" macros that have
2974 been coded, and explain future plans for GracefulTavi.
2978 If time permits, I will explain how gracefulTavi can be easily used
2979 for a personal calendar and notepad system on your laptop.
2986 <eventitem date="2004-11-12" time="2:30 PM" room="MC 4063" title="Lemmings Day!">
2987 <short>Everyone else is doing it!</short>
2990 Does being in CS make you feel like a lemming? Is linear algebra driving you into walls? Do you pace back and forth , constantly ,
2991 regardless of whatever's in your path? Then you should come out to CSC Lemmings Day!
2994 <li>Play some old-skool Lemmings, Amiga-style</li>
2995 <li>Live-action lemmings</li>
2996 <li>Lemmings look-alike contest</li>
2997 <li>Enjoy classic Lemmings tunes</li>
3000 Everyone else is doing it!
3006 <eventitem date="2004-10-23" time="11:00 PM" room="MC 2037" title="CSC Programming Contest">
3007 <short>CSC Programming Contest</short>
3010 The Computer Science Club will be hosting a programming competition.
3011 You have the entire afternoon to design and implement an AI for a simple
3012 game. The competition will run until 5pm.
3018 <eventitem date="2004-10-18" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 2037" title="UNIX 103: Scripting Unix">
3019 <short>You Too Can Be a Unix Taskmaster</short>
3022 This is the third in a series of seminars that cover the use of the
3023 UNIX Operating System. UNIX is used in a variety of applications, both
3024 in academia and industry. We will provide you with hands-on experience
3025 with the Math Faculty's UNIX environment in this tutorial.
3027 Topics that will be discussed include:
3029 <li>Shell scripting</li>
3030 <li>Searching through text files</li>
3031 <li>Batch editing text files</li>
3034 If you do not have a Math computer account, don't panic; one will be lent to
3035 you for the duration of this class.
3040 <eventitem date="2004-10-04" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 2037" title="UNIX 102">
3041 <short>Fun with Unix</short>
3044 This is the second in a series of seminars that cover the use of the
3045 Unix Operating System. Unix is used in a variety of
3046 applications, both in academia and industry. We will provide you with hands-on
3047 experience with the Math Faculty's Unix environment in this tutorial.
3050 Topics that will be discussed include:
3052 <li>Interacting with Bourne and C shells</li>
3053 <li>Editing text using the vi text editor</li>
3054 <li>Editing text using the Emacs display editor</li>
3055 <li>Multi-tasking and the screen multiplexer</li>
3059 If you do not have a Math computer account, don't panic; one will be lent to
3060 you for the duration of this class.
3065 <!-- Spring 2004 -->
3067 <eventitem date="2004-09-27" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 2037" title="UNIX 101">
3068 <short>First UNIX tutorial</short>
3071 The CSC UNIX tutorials are intended to help first year CS and other
3072 interested learn UNIX and the CS UNIX environment.
3075 This is the first in a series of three tutorials. It will cover basic shell
3076 use, and simple text editors.
3080 <eventitem date="2004-09-17" time="4:00 PM" room="The Comfy Lounge" title="CSC
3082 <short>Come out and vote for the Fall 2004 executive!</short>
3085 The Computer Science Club will be holding its elections for the Fall 2004
3086 term on Friday, September 17. The elections will be held at 4:00 PM in the
3087 Comfy Lounge, on the 3rd floor of the MC. Please remember to come out and
3091 We are accepting nominations for the following positions: President,
3092 Vice-President, Treasurer, and Secretary. The nomination period continues
3093 until 4:30 PM on Thursday, September 16. If you are interested in running
3094 for a position, or would like to nominate someone else, please email
3095 cro@csclub.uwaterloo.ca before the deadline.
3100 <eventitem date="2004-07-27" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 2065"
3101 title="Game Complexity Theorists Ponder, by Jonathan Buss">
3102 <short>Attention AI buffs: Game Complexity presentation</short>
3105 Why are some games hard to play well? The study of computational
3106 complexity gives one answer: the games encode long computations.</p>
3108 <p>Any computation can be interpreted as an abstract game. Playing the
3109 game perfectly requires performing the computation. Remarkably, some
3110 natural games can encode these abstract games and thus simulate
3111 general computations. The more complex the game, the more complex the
3112 computations it can encode; games that can encode intractable problems
3113 are themselves intractable.</p>
3116 I will describe how games can encode computations, and discuss some
3117 examples of both provably hard games (checkers, chess, go, etc.) and
3118 games that are believed to be hard (hex, jigsaw puzzles, etc.).
3123 <eventitem date="2004-07-17" time="11:30 AM" room="RCH 308"
3124 title="Case Modding Workshop!">
3125 <short>Come and learn how to make your computer 1337!</short>
3128 Are you bored of beige?<br />
3129 Tired of an overheating computer?<br />
3130 Is your computer's noise level on par with a jet engine?
3133 Got a nifty modded case?<br />
3137 The Computer Science Club will be holding a Case Modding Workshop
3138 to help answer these questions.
3141 There will be demonstrations on how to make a case window, how
3142 to paint your case, managing cables and keeping your computer
3146 The event is FREE and there will be FREE PIZZA. All are welcome!
3149 To help you on your way to getting a wicked computer case, we have a limited
3150 number of "Case Modding Starters Kits" available. They come with an LED fan,
3151 a fan grill, a sheet of Plexan, thumbscrews, wire ties, and more! They're
3152 only $10 and will be on sale at the event. Here's a <a
3153 href="redkit.jpg">picture</a>.
3156 If you already have a modded case, we encourage you to bring it out
3157 and show it off! There will be a prize for the best case!!
3160 We hope to see you there!
3163 This event is sponsored by Bigfoot Computers.
3168 <eventitem date="2004-06-17" time="4:00 PM" room="MC 2066"
3169 title="``Optical Snow'': Motion parallax and heading computation in densely cluttered scenes. -or- Why Computer Vision needs the Fourier Transform!">
3170 <short>A talk by Richard Mann; School of Computer Science</short>
3173 When an observer moves through a 3D scene, nearby surfaces move faster in the
3174 image than do distant surfaces. This effect, called motion parallax, provides
3175 an observer with information both about their own motion relative the scene,
3176 and about the spatial layout and depth of surfaces in the scene.
3179 Classical methods for measuring image motion by computer have concentrated on
3180 the cases of optical flow in which the motion field is continuous, or layered
3181 motion in which the motion field is piecewise continuous. Here we introduce a
3182 third natural category which we call ``optical snow''. Optical snow arises in
3183 many natural situations such as camera motion in a highly cluttered 3-D scene,
3184 or a passive observer watching a snowfall. Optical snow yields dense motion
3185 parallax with depth discontinuities occurring near all image points. As such,
3186 constraints on smoothness or even smoothness in layers do not apply.
3189 We present a Fourier analysis of optical snow. In particular we show that,
3190 while such scenes appear complex in the time domain, there is a simple
3191 structure in the frequency domain, and this may be used to determine the
3192 direction of motion and the range of depths of objects in the scenes. Finally
3193 we show how Fourier analysis of two or more image regions may be combined to
3194 estimate heading direction.
3197 This talk will present current research at the undergraduate level. All are
3204 <eventitem date="2004-05-26" time="5:30 PM"
3205 room="DC 1350" title="Computing's Next Great Empires: The True Future of Software">
3206 <short>A talk by Larry Smith</short>
3209 Larry will challenge conventional assumptions about the directions of
3210 computing and software. The role of AI, expert systems, communications
3211 software and business applications will be presented both from a
3212 functional and commercial point of view. The great gaps in the
3213 marketplace will be highlighted, together with an indication of how
3214 these vacant fields will become home to new empires.
3218 <eventitem date="2004-05-12" time="4:30 PM"
3219 room="The Comfy Lounge" title="CSC Elections">
3220 <short>Come out and vote for the Spring 2004 executive!</short>
3223 The Computer Science Club will be holding its elections for the Spring
3224 2004 term on Wednesday, May 12. The elections will be held at 4:30 PM in
3225 the Comfy Lounge, on the 3rd floor of the MC. Please remember to come out
3229 We are accepting nominations for the following positions: President,
3230 Vice-President, Treasurer, and Secretary. The nomination period continues
3231 until 4:30 PM on Tuesday, May 11. If you are interested in running
3232 for a position, or would like to nominate someone else, please email
3233 cro@csclub.uwaterloo.ca before the deadline.
3238 <!-- Winter 2004 -->
3240 <eventitem date="2004-03-29" time="6:00 PM"
3241 room="MC 4058" title="LaTeXing your work report">
3242 <short>A talk by Simon Law</short>
3245 The work report is a familiar chore for any co-op student. Not only is
3246 there a report to write, but to add insult to injury, your report is
3247 returned if you do not follow your departmental guidelines.
3251 Fear no more! In this talk, you will learn how to use LaTeX and a
3252 specially developed class to automatically format your work reports.
3253 This talk is especially useful to Mathematics, Computer Science,
3254 Electrical & Computer Engineering, and Software Engineeering co-op
3255 students about to go on work term.
3260 <eventitem date="2004-03-30" time="5:30 PM"
3261 room="The Grad House" title="Pints with Profs!">
3262 <short>Get to know your profs and be the envy of your
3266 Come out and meet your professors!! This is a great opportunity to
3267 meet professors for Undergraduate Research jobs or to find out who
3268 you might have for future courses. One and all are welcome!
3271 <p>And best of all... free food!!!</p>
3275 <eventitem date="2004-03-23" time="6:00 PM"
3276 room="MC4058" title="Extending LaTeX with packages">
3277 <short>A talk by Simon Law</short>
3280 LaTeX is a document processing system. What this means is you describe
3281 the structure of your document, and LaTeX typesets it appealingly.
3282 However, LaTeX was developed in the late-80s and is now showing its age.
3286 How does it compete against modern systems? By being easily extensible,
3287 of course. This talk will describe the fundamentals of typesetting in
3288 LaTeX, and will then show you how to extend it with freely available
3289 packages. You will learn how to teach yourself LaTeX and how to find
3290 extensions that do what you want.
3294 As well, there will be a short introduction on creating your own
3295 packages, for your own personal use.
3300 <eventitem date="2004-03-16" time="6:00 PM"
3301 room="MC4058" title="Distributed programming for CS and Engineering
3303 <short>A talk by Simon Law</short>
3306 If you've ever worked with other group members, you know how difficult
3307 it is to code simultaneously. You might be working on one part of your
3308 assignment, and you need to send your source code to everyone else. Or
3309 you might be fixing a bug in someone else's part, and need to merge in
3310 the change. What a mess!
3314 This talk will explain some Best Practices for developing code in a
3315 distributed fashion. Whether you're working side-by-side in the lab, or
3316 developing from home, these methods can apply to your team. You will
3317 learn how to apply these techniques in the Unix environment using GNU
3318 Make, CVS, GNU diff and patch.
3323 <eventitem date="2004-03-15" time="5:30 PM"
3324 room="MC4040" title="SPARC Architecture">
3325 <short>A talk by James Morrison</short>
3328 Making a compiler? Bored? Think CISC sucks and RISC rules?
3332 This talk will run through the SPARC v8, IEEE-P1754, architecture.
3333 Including all the fun that can be had with register windows and the
3334 SPARC instruction set including the basic instructions, floating
3335 point instructions, and vector instructions.
3340 <eventitem date="2004-03-09" time="6:00 PM"
3341 room="MC4062" title="Managing your home directory using CVS">
3342 <short>A talk by Simon Law</short>
3345 If you have used Unix for a while, you know that you've created
3346 configuration files, or dotfiles. Each program seems to want its own
3347 particular settings, and you want to customize your environment. In a
3348 power-user's directory, you could have hundreds of these files.
3352 Isn't it annoying to migrate your configuration if you login to another
3353 machine? What if you build a new computer? Or perhaps you made a
3354 mistake to one of your configuration files, and want to undo it?
3358 In this talk, I will show you how to manage your home directory using
3359 CVS, the Concurrent Versions System. You can manage your files, revert
3360 to old versions in the past, and even send them over the network to
3361 another machine. I'll also discuss how to keep your configuration files
3362 portable, so they'll work even on different Unices, with different
3368 <eventitem date="2004-03-02" time="6:00 PM"
3369 room="MC4042" title="Graphing webs-of-trust">
3370 <short>A talk by Simon Law</short>
3373 In today's world, people have hundreds of connexions. And you can
3374 express these connexions with a graph. For instance, you may wish to
3375 represent the network of your friends.
3379 Originally, webs-of-trust were directed acyclic graphs of people who had
3380 identified each other. This way, if there was a path between you and
3381 the person who want to identify, then you could assume that each person
3382 along that path had verified the next person's identity.
3386 I will show you how to generate your own web-of-trust graph using Free
3387 Software. Of course, you can also use this knowledge to graph anything
3393 <eventitem date="2004-02-18" time="7:00 PM"
3394 room="DC2305" title="KW Perl Mongers">
3395 <short>Perl Modules: A look under the hood</short>
3398 <p>In Perl, a module is the basic unit of code-reuse. The talk will be
3399 mostly a look into GD::Text::Arc, a module written to draw TrueType text
3400 around the edge of a circle. The talk will consider:</p>
3403 <li>using and writing object-oriented perl code</li>
3404 <li>the Virtue of Laziness: or, reusing other peoples' code.</li>
3405 <li>writing tests while coding</li>
3406 <li>beer coasters</li>
3412 <eventitem date="2004-02-05" time="3:30 PM"
3413 room="MC4041" title="Constitutional Change">
3414 <short>Vote to change the CSC Constitution</short>
3417 <p>During the General Meeting on 19 January 2004, a proposed constitution
3418 change was passed around. This change is in response to a change in the
3419 MathSoc Clubs Policy (Policy 4, Section 3, Sub-section f).</p>
3421 <p>This general meeting is called to vote on this proposed change. We must
3422 have quorum of 15 Full Members vote on this change. The following text was
3423 presented at the CSC Winter 2004 Elections.</p>
3425 <pre>We propose to make a Constitutional change on this day, 19 January 2004.
3426 The proposed change is to section 3.1 of the constitution which
3429 In compliance with MathSoc regulations and in recognition of the
3430 club being primarily targeted at undergraduate students, full
3431 membership is open to all undergraduate students in the Faculty of
3432 Mathematics and restricted to the same.
3434 Since MathSoc has changed its requirements for club membership, we
3435 propose that it be changed to:
3437 In compliance with MathSoc regulations and in recognition of the
3438 club being primarily targeted at undergraduate students, full
3439 membership is open to all Social Members of the Mathematics Society
3440 and restricted to the same.</pre>
3444 <eventitem date="2004-01-12" time="3:00 PM"
3445 room="DC1301" title="InstallFest">
3446 <short>See <a href="http://uw-dig.uwaterloo.ca/installfest/">http://uw-dig.uwaterloo.ca/installfest/</a></short>
3449 <p>An Installfest is an opportunity to install software on your computer.
3450 People come with computers. Other people come with experience. The people
3451 get together and (when all goes well) everybody leaves satisfied.</p>
3453 <p>You are invited to our first installfest of the year. Come to get some
3454 software or to learn more about Open Source Software and why it is relevant
3455 to your life. The event is free, but you may want to bring blank CDs and/or
3456 money to purchase some open source action for your computer at home.</p>
3458 <p>See the <a href="http://uw-dig.uwaterloo.ca/installfest/">UW-DIG
3459 website</a> for more details.</p>
3466 <eventitem date="2003-12-01" time="7:00 PM"
3467 room="RCH 101" title="Jon 'maddog' Hall: Free and Open Source: Its uses in Business and Education">
3468 <short> Free and Open Source software has been around for a long
3469 time, even longer then shrink-wrapped code.</short>
3471 <p>Free and Open Source software has been around for a long time, even
3472 longer then shrink-wrapped code. It has a long and noble history in the annals
3473 of education. Even more than ever, due to the drop of hardware prices and the
3474 increase of worldwide communications, Free and Open Source can open new
3475 avenues of teaching and doing research, not only in computer science, but in
3476 other university fields as well.</p>
3477 <p>Learn how Linux as an operating system can
3478 run on anything from a PDA to a supercomputer, and how Linux is reducing the
3479 cost of computing dramatically as the fastest growing operating system in the
3480 world. Learn how other Free and Open