6 <eventitem date="2006-05-25" time="4:00 PM" room="MC 4060" title="Eighteen Years in the Software Tools Business">
7 <short>Eighteen Years in the Software Tools Business at Microsoft, a talk by Rico Mariani, (BMath CS/EEE 1988)</short>
10 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
11 evolution of software tools for microcomputers. This talk promises to be a little bit about history and perspective (at least from
12 the Microsoft side of things) as well as the evolution of software engineers, different types of programmers and their needs, and what
13 it's like to try to make the software industry more effective at what it does, and sometimes succeed!
16 Expect a video of the talk next week!
22 <eventitem date="2006-05-14" time="1:00 PM" room="CSC" title="Unix 101 and 102 Recording">
23 <short>Unix 101 and 102 recording</short>
26 Have you heard of our famous Unix 101 and Unix 102 tutorials. We've decided to try
27 and put them on the web. This sunday we will be doing a first take.
28 At the same time, we're going to be looking at adding new material
29 that we haven't covered in the past. </p>
31 Why should you come out? Not only will you get to hang out with a wonderful group of people,
32 you can help impart your knowledge to the world. Don't know anything about unix? Thats cool too,
33 we need people to make sure its easy to follow along and hopefully keep us from leaving something
39 <eventitem date="2006-05-13" time="1:00 PM" room="CSC" title="Video 4 Linux Day">
40 <short> We don't know enough about V4L</short>
43 We don't know Video 4 Linux, but increasingly people are wanting to do interesting stuff with our webcam which
44 could benefit from a better understanding of Video 4 Linux. So, this saturday a number of us will be trying to learn
45 as much as possible about Video 4 Linux and doing wierd things with webcam(s).
50 <eventitem date="2006-05-08" time="4:30 PM" room="The Comfy Lounge" title="CSC
52 <short>Come out and vote for the Spring 2006 executive!</short>
55 The Computer Science Club will be holding its elections for the Spring 2006
56 term on Monday, May 8th. The elections will be held at 4:30 PM in the
57 Comfy Lounge, on the 3rd floor of the MC. Please remember to come out and
61 We are accepting nominations for the following positions: President,
62 Vice-President, Treasurer, and Secretary. The nomination period continues
63 until 4:30 PM on Sunday, May 7th. If you are interested in running for
64 a position, or would like to nominate someone else, please email
65 cro@csclub.uwaterloo.ca before the deadline.
72 <eventitem date="2006-03-06" time="4:45 PM"
73 room="Physics 145" title="Creating Killer Applications">
74 <short>A talk by Larry Smith</short>
77 A discussion of how software creators can identify application opportunities
78 that offer the promise of great social and commercial significance. Particular
79 attention will be paid to the challenge of acquiring cross domain knowledge
80 and setting up effective collaboration.
86 <eventitem date="2006-02-09" time="5:30 PM" room="Bombshelter Pub" title="Pints With Profs">
87 <short>Come out and meet your professors. Free food provided!</short>
89 <p>Come out and meet your professors! This is a great opportunity to
90 mingle with your professors before midterms or find out who you might
91 have for future courses. All are welcome!</p>
93 <p>Best of all, there will be <strong>free food!</strong></p>
95 <p>You can pick up invitations for your professors at the Computer Science
96 Club office in MC 3036.</p>
98 <p>Pints with Profs will be held this term on Thursday, 9 February 2006
99 from 5:30 to 8:00 PM in the Bombshelter.</p>
105 <eventitem date="2005-11-29" time="5:30 PM"
106 room="TBA" title="Programming Contest">
107 <short>Come out, program, and win shiney things!</short>
110 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.
114 <p>And best of all... free food!!!</p>
119 <eventitem date="2005-10-17" time="5:30 PM"
120 room="Fishbowl" title="Party with Profs!">
121 <short>Get to know your profs and be the envy of your
125 Come out and meet your professors!! This is a great opportunity to
126 meet professors for Undergraduate Research jobs or to find out who
127 you might have for future courses. One and all are welcome!
130 <p>And best of all... free food!!!</p>
135 <eventitem date="2005-10-11" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 2037" title="UNIX 103: Scripting Unix">
136 <short>You Too Can Be a Unix Taskmaster</short>
139 This is the third in a series of seminars that cover the use of the
140 UNIX Operating System. UNIX is used in a variety of applications, both
141 in academia and industry. We will provide you with hands-on experience
142 with the Math Faculty's UNIX environment in this tutorial.
144 Topics that will be discussed include:
146 <li>Shell scripting</li>
147 <li>Searching through text files</li>
148 <li>Batch editing text files</li>
151 If you do not have a Math computer account, don't panic; one will be lent to
152 you for the duration of this class.
158 <eventitem date="2005-10-06" time="4:30 PM" room="MC3D 2037" title="UNIX 102">
159 <short>Fun with Unix</short>
162 This is the second in a series of seminars that cover the use of the
163 Unix Operating System. Unix is used in a variety of
164 applications, both in academia and industry. We will provide you with hands-on
165 experience with the Math Faculty's Unix environment in this tutorial.
168 Topics that will be discussed include:
170 <li>Interacting with Bourne and C shells</li>
171 <li>Editing text using the vi text editor</li>
172 <li>Editing text using the Emacs display editor</li>
173 <li>Multi-tasking and the screen multiplexer</li>
177 If you do not have a Math computer account, don't panic; one will be lent to
178 you for the duration of this class.
183 <eventitem date="2005-10-04" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 2037" title="UNIX 101">
184 <short>First UNIX tutorial</short>
187 The CSC UNIX tutorials are intended to help first year CS and other
188 interested learn UNIX and the CS UNIX environment.
191 This is the first in a series of two or three tutorials. It will cover basic shell
192 use, and simple text editors.
199 <eventitem date="2005-06-02" time="3:30 PM" room="DC 1302" title="Programming and Verifying the Interactive Web">
200 <short>Shriram Krishnamurthi will be talking about continuations in Web Programming</short>
203 Server-side Web applications have grown increasingly common, sometimes
204 even replacing brick and mortar as the principal interface of
205 corporations. Correspondingly, Web browsers grow ever more powerful,
206 empowering users to attach bookmarks, switch between pages, clone
207 windows, and so forth. As a result, Web interactions are not
208 straight-line dialogs but complex nets of interaction steps.
211 In practice, programmers are unaware of or are unable to handle these
212 nets of interaction, making the Web interfaces of even major
213 organizations buggy and thus unreliable. Even when programmers do
214 address these constraints, the resulting programs have a seemingly
215 mangled structure, making them difficult to develop and hard to
219 In this talk, I will describe these interactions and then show how
220 programming language ideas can shed light on the resulting problems
221 and present solutions at various levels. I will also describe some
222 challenges these programs pose to computer-aided verification, and
223 present solutions to these problems.
227 <eventitem date="2005-06-07" time="4:00 PM" room="MC 4042" title="UW's CS curriculum: past, present, and future">
228 <short>Come out to here Prabhakar Ragde talk about our UW's CS curriculum</short>
231 I'll survey the evolution of our computer science curriculum over the
232 past thirty-five years to try to convey the reasons (not always entirely
233 rational) behind our current mix of courses and their division into core
234 and optional. After some remarks about constraints and opportunities in
235 the near future, I'll open the floor to discussion, and hope to hear
236 some candid comments about the state of CS at UW and how it might be
239 About the speaker:<br></br>
241 Prabhakar Ragde is a Professor in the School of Computer Science at UW.
242 He was Associate Chair for Curricula during the period that saw the
243 creation of the Bioinformatics and Software Engineering programs, the
244 creation of the BCS degree, and the strengthening of the BMath/CS degree.
250 <eventitem date="2005-03-15" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 4060" title="Oh No! More Lemmings Day!">
251 <short>Come out for some retro Amiga-style Lemmings gaming action!</short>
254 Does being in CS make you feel like a lemming? Is linear algebra driving you
255 into walls? Do you pace back and forth, constantly, regardless of whatever's
256 in your path? Then you should come out to CSC Lemmings Day. This time, we're
257 playing the pseudo-sequel: Oh No! More Lemmings!
260 <li>Old-skool retro gaming, Amiga-style (2 mice, 2 players!)</li>
261 <li>Projector screen: the pixels are man-sized!</li>
262 <li>Live-Action Lemmings (the rules are better this time)</li>
263 <li>Lemmings look-alike contest</li>
264 <li>Enjoy classic Lemmings tunes</li>
269 <eventitem date="2005-02-01" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 2037" title="UNIX 102">
270 <short>Fun with Unix</short>
273 This is the second in a series of seminars that cover the use of the
274 Unix Operating System. Unix is used in a variety of
275 applications, both in academia and industry. We will provide you with hands-on
276 experience with the Math Faculty's Unix environment in this tutorial.
279 Topics that will be discussed include:
281 <li>Interacting with Bourne and C shells</li>
282 <li>Editing text using the vi text editor</li>
283 <li>Editing text using the Emacs display editor</li>
284 <li>Multi-tasking and the screen multiplexer</li>
288 If you do not have a Math computer account, don't panic; one will be lent to
289 you for the duration of this class.
295 <eventitem date="2005-01-25" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 2037" title="UNIX 101">
296 <short>First UNIX tutorial</short>
299 The CSC UNIX tutorials are intended to help first year CS and other
300 interested learn UNIX and the CS UNIX environment.
303 This is the first in a series of two or three tutorials. It will cover basic shell
304 use, and simple text editors.
310 <eventitem date="2005-01-13" time="4:30 PM" room="The Comfy Lounge" title="CSC
312 <short>Come out and vote for the Winter 2005 executive!</short>
315 The Computer Science Club will be holding its elections for the Winter 2005
316 term on Thursday, January 13. The elections will be held at 4:30 PM in the
317 Comfy Lounge, on the 3rd floor of the MC. Please remember to come out and
321 We are accepting nominations for the following positions: President,
322 Vice-President, Treasurer, and Secretary. The nomination period continues
323 until 4:30 PM on Wednesday, January 12. If you are interested in running for
324 a position, or would like to nominate someone else, please email
325 cro@csclub.uwaterloo.ca before the deadline.
333 <eventitem date="2004-12-08" time="4:30 PM" room="Mongolian Grill"
335 <short> This semesters CTRL-D (or the club that really likes
336 dinner) is going to be at mongolian grill. Be there or be square</short>
339 Come to the end of term CTRL-D (club that really likes dinner) meeting.
340 Remember : food is good
346 <eventitem date="2004-12-01" time="2:30 PM" room="MC 4058" title="Knitting needles, hairpins and other tangled objects">
347 <short>In this talk, I'll study linkages (objects built from sticks that are connected with flexible joints), and explain some
348 interesting examples that can or cannot be straightened out</short>
351 In this talk, I'll study linkages (objects built from sticks that are connected with flexible joints), and explain some
352 interesting examples that can or cannot be straightened out</p>
358 <eventitem date="2004-11-24" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 2066" title="Eclipse">
359 <short>How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the IDE</short>
362 How I stopped worrying and Learned to Love the IDE
365 Audience: anyone who as ever used the Java programming language to do anything. Especially if you don't like
366 the IDEs you've seen so far or still use (g)Vi(m) or (X)Emacs.
370 I'll go through some of the coolest features of the best IDE (which stands for "IDEs Don't Eat" or
371 "Integrated Development Environment") I've seen. For the first year and seasoned almost-grad alike!
378 <eventitem date="2004-11-18" time="5:00 PM" room="MC 2066" title="GracefulTavi">
379 <short>Wiki software in PHP+MySQL</short>
382 GracefulTavi is an open source wiki programmed by Net Integration
383 Technologies Inc. It is used internally by more than 25 people, and is
384 the primary internal wiki for NITI's R&D and QA.
387 I'll start with a very brief introduction to wikis in general, then
388 show off our special features: super-condensed formatting syntax,
389 hierarchy management, version control, highlighted diffs, SchedUlator,
390 the Table of Contents generator. As part of this, we'll explain the
391 simple plugin architecture and show people how to write a basic wiki
396 As well, I will show some of the "waterloo specific" macros that have
397 been coded, and explain future plans for GracefulTavi.
401 If time permits, I will explain how gracefulTavi can be easily used
402 for a personal calendar and notepad system on your laptop.
409 <eventitem date="2004-11-12" time="2:30 PM" room="MC 4063" title="Lemmings Day!">
410 <short>Everyone else is doing it!</short>
413 Does being in CS make you feel like a lemming? Is linear algebra driving you into walls? Do you pace back and forth , constantly ,
414 regardless of whatever's in your path? Then you should come out to CSC Lemmings Day!
417 <li>Play some old-skool Lemmings, Amiga-style</li>
418 <li>Live-action lemmings</li>
419 <li>Lemmings look-alike contest</li>
420 <li>Enjoy classic Lemmings tunes</li>
423 Everyone else is doing it!
429 <eventitem date="2004-10-23" time="11:00 PM" room="MC 2037" title="CSC Programming Contest">
430 <short>CSC Programming Contest</short>
433 The Computer Science Clib will be hosting a programming competition.
434 You have the entire afternoon to design and implement an AI for a simple
435 game. The competition will run until 5pm.
441 <eventitem date="2004-10-18" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 2037" title="UNIX 103: Scripting Unix">
442 <short>You Too Can Be a Unix Taskmaster</short>
445 This is the third in a series of seminars that cover the use of the
446 UNIX Operating System. UNIX is used in a variety of applications, both
447 in academia and industry. We will provide you with hands-on experience
448 with the Math Faculty's UNIX environment in this tutorial.
450 Topics that will be discussed include:
452 <li>Shell scripting</li>
453 <li>Searching through text files</li>
454 <li>Batch editing text files</li>
457 If you do not have a Math computer account, don't panic; one will be lent to
458 you for the duration of this class.
463 <eventitem date="2004-10-04" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 2037" title="UNIX 102">
464 <short>Fun with Unix</short>
467 This is the second in a series of seminars that cover the use of the
468 Unix Operating System. Unix is used in a variety of
469 applications, both in academia and industry. We will provide you with hands-on
470 experience with the Math Faculty's Unix environment in this tutorial.
473 Topics that will be discussed include:
475 <li>Interacting with Bourne and C shells</li>
476 <li>Editing text using the vi text editor</li>
477 <li>Editing text using the Emacs display editor</li>
478 <li>Multi-tasking and the screen multiplexer</li>
482 If you do not have a Math computer account, don't panic; one will be lent to
483 you for the duration of this class.
490 <eventitem date="2004-09-27" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 2037" title="UNIX 101">
491 <short>First UNIX tutorial</short>
494 The CSC UNIX tutorials are intended to help first year CS and other
495 interested learn UNIX and the CS UNIX environment.
498 This is the first in a series of three tutorials. It will cover basic shell
499 use, and simple text editors.
503 <eventitem date="2004-09-17" time="4:00 PM" room="The Comfy Lounge" title="CSC
505 <short>Come out and vote for the Fall 2004 executive!</short>
508 The Computer Science Club will be holding its elections for the Fall 2004
509 term on Friday, September 17. The elections will be held at 4:00 PM in the
510 Comfy Lounge, on the 3rd floor of the MC. Please remember to come out and
514 We are accepting nominations for the following positions: President,
515 Vice-President, Treasurer, and Secretary. The nomination period continues
516 until 4:30 PM on Thursday, September 16. If you are interested in running
517 for a position, or would like to nominate someone else, please email
518 cro@csclub.uwaterloo.ca before the deadline.
523 <eventitem date="2004-07-27" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 2065"
524 title="Game Complexity Theorists Ponder, by Jonathan Buss">
525 <short>Attention AI buffs: Game Complexity presentation</short>
528 Why are some games hard to play well? The study of computational
529 complexity gives one answer: the games encode long computations.</p>
531 <p>Any computation can be interpreted as an abstract game. Playing the
532 game perfectly requires performing the computation. Remarkably, some
533 natural games can encode these abstract games and thus simulate
534 general computations. The more complex the game, the more complex the
535 computations it can encode; games that can encode intractable problems
536 are themselves intractable.</p>
539 I will describe how games can encode computations, and discuss some
540 examples of both provably hard games (checkers, chess, go, etc.) and
541 games that are believed to be hard (hex, jigsaw puzzles, etc.).
546 <eventitem date="2004-07-17" time="11:30 AM" room="RCH 308"
547 title="Case Modding Workshop!">
548 <short>Come and learn how to make your computer 1337!</short>
551 Are you bored of beige?<br />
552 Tired of an overheating computer?<br />
553 Is your computer's noise level on par with a jet engine?
556 Got a nifty modded case?<br />
560 The Computer Science Club will be holding a Case Modding Workshop
561 to help answer these questions.
564 There will be demonstrations on how to make a case window, how
565 to paint your case, managing cables and keeping your computer
569 The event is FREE and there will be FREE PIZZA. All are welcome!
572 To help you on your way to getting a wicked computer case, we have a limited
573 number of "Case Modding Starters Kits" available. They come with an LED fan,
574 a fan grill, a sheet of Plexan, thumbscrews, wire ties, and more! They're
575 only $10 and will be on sale at the event. Here's a <a
576 href="redkit.jpg">picture</a>.
579 If you already have a modded case, we encourage you to bring it out
580 and show it off! There will be a prize for the best case!!
583 We hope to see you there!
586 This event is sponsored by Bigfoot Computers.
591 <eventitem date="2004-06-17" time="4:00 PM" room="MC 2066"
592 title="``Optical Snow'': Motion parallax and heading computation in densely cluttered scenes. -or- Why Computer Vision needs the Fourier Transform!">
593 <short>A talk by Richard Mann; School of Computer Science</short>
596 When an observer moves through a 3D scene, nearby surfaces move faster in the
597 image than do distant surfaces. This effect, called motion parallax, provides
598 an observer with information both about their own motion relative the scene,
599 and about the spatial layout and depth of surfaces in the scene.
602 Classical methods for measuring image motion by computer have concentrated on
603 the cases of optical flow in which the motion field is continuous, or layered
604 motion in which the motion field is piecewise continuous. Here we introduce a
605 third natural category which we call ``optical snow''. Optical snow arises in
606 many natural situations such as camera motion in a highly cluttered 3-D scene,
607 or a passive observer watching a snowfall. Optical snow yields dense motion
608 parallax with depth discontinuities occurring near all image points. As such,
609 constraints on smoothness or even smoothness in layers do not apply.
612 We present a Fourier analysis of optical snow. In particular we show that,
613 while such scenes appear complex in the time domain, there is a simple
614 structure in the frequency domain, and this may be used to determine the
615 direction of motion and the range of depths of objects in the scenes. Finally
616 we show how Fourier analysis of two or more image regions may be combined to
617 estimate heading direction.
620 This talk will present current research at the undergraduate level. All are
627 <eventitem date="2004-05-26" time="5:30 PM"
628 room="DC 1350" title="Computing's Next Great Empires: The True Future of Software">
629 <short>A talk by Larry Smith</short>
632 Larry will challenge conventional assumptions about the directions of
633 computing and software. The role of AI, expert systems, communications
634 software and business applications will be presented both from a
635 functional and commercial point of view. The great gaps in the
636 marketplace will be highlighted, together with an indication of how
637 these vacant fields will become home to new empires.
641 <eventitem date="2004-05-12" time="4:30 PM"
642 room="The Comfy Lounge" title="CSC Elections">
643 <short>Come out and vote for the Spring 2004 executive!</short>
646 The Computer Science Club will be holding its elections for the Spring
647 2004 term on Wednesday, May 12. The elections will be held at 4:30 PM in
648 the Comfy Lounge, on the 3rd floor of the MC. Please remember to come out
652 We are accepting nominations for the following positions: President,
653 Vice-President, Treasurer, and Secretary. The nomination period continues
654 until 4:30 PM on Tuesday, May 11. If you are interested in running
655 for a position, or would like to nominate someone else, please email
656 cro@csclub.uwaterloo.ca before the deadline.
663 <eventitem date="2004-03-29" time="6:00 PM"
664 room="MC 4058" title="LaTeXing your work report">
665 <short>A talk by Simon Law</short>
668 The work report is a familiar chore for any co-op student. Not only is
669 there a report to write, but to add insult to injury, your report is
670 returned if you do not follow your departmental guidelines.
674 Fear no more! In this talk, you will learn how to use LaTeX and a
675 specially developed class to automatically format your work reports.
676 This talk is especially useful to Mathematics, Computer Science,
677 Electrical & Computer Engineering, and Software Engineeering co-op
678 students about to go on work term.
683 <eventitem date="2004-03-30" time="5:30 PM"
684 room="The Grad House" title="Pints with Profs!">
685 <short>Get to know your profs and be the envy of your
689 Come out and meet your professors!! This is a great opportunity to
690 meet professors for Undergraduate Research jobs or to find out who
691 you might have for future courses. One and all are welcome!
694 <p>And best of all... free food!!!</p>
698 <eventitem date="2004-03-23" time="6:00 PM"
699 room="MC4058" title="Extending LaTeX with packages">
700 <short>A talk by Simon Law</short>
703 LaTeX is a document processing system. What this means is you describe
704 the structure of your document, and LaTeX typesets it appealingly.
705 However, LaTeX was developed in the late-80s and is now showing its age.
709 How does it compete against modern systems? By being easily extensible,
710 of course. This talk will describe the fundamentals of typesetting in
711 LaTeX, and will then show you how to extend it with freely available
712 packages. You will learn how to teach yourself LaTeX and how to find
713 extensions that do what you want.
717 As well, there will be a short introduction on creating your own
718 packages, for your own personal use.
723 <eventitem date="2004-03-16" time="6:00 PM"
724 room="MC4058" title="Distributed programming for CS and Engineering
726 <short>A talk by Simon Law</short>
729 If you've ever worked with other group members, you know how difficult
730 it is to code simultaneously. You might be working on one part of your
731 assignment, and you need to send your source code to everyone else. Or
732 you might be fixing a bug in someone else's part, and need to merge in
733 the change. What a mess!
737 This talk will explain some Best Practices for developing code in a
738 distributed fashion. Whether you're working side-by-side in the lab, or
739 developing from home, these methods can apply to your team. You will
740 learn how to apply these techniques in the Unix environment using GNU
741 Make, CVS, GNU diff and patch.
746 <eventitem date="2004-03-15" time="5:30 PM"
747 room="MC4040" title="SPARC Architecture">
748 <short>A talk by James Morrison</short>
751 Making a compiler? Bored? Think CISC sucks and RISC rules?
755 This talk will run through the SPARC v8, IEEE-P1754, architecture.
756 Including all the fun that can be had with register windows and the
757 SPARC instruction set including the basic instructions, floating
758 point instructions, and vector instructions.
763 <eventitem date="2004-03-09" time="6:00 PM"
764 room="MC4062" title="Managing your home directory using CVS">
765 <short>A talk by Simon Law</short>
768 If you have used Unix for a while, you know that you've created
769 configuration files, or dotfiles. Each program seems to want its own
770 particular settings, and you want to customize your environment. In a
771 power-user's directory, you could have hundreds of these files.
775 Isn't it annoying to migrate your configuration if you login to another
776 machine? What if you build a new computer? Or perhaps you made a
777 mistake to one of your configuration files, and want to undo it?
781 In this talk, I will show you how to manage your home directory using
782 CVS, the Concurrent Versions System. You can manage your files, revert
783 to old versions in the past, and even send them over the network to
784 another machine. I'll also discuss how to keep your configuration files
785 portable, so they'll work even on different Unices, with different
791 <eventitem date="2004-03-02" time="6:00 PM"
792 room="MC4042" title="Graphing webs-of-trust">
793 <short>A talk by Simon Law</short>
796 In today's world, people have hundreds of connexions. And you can
797 express these connexions with a graph. For instance, you may wish to
798 represent the network of your friends.
802 Originally, webs-of-trust were directed acyclic graphs of people who had
803 identified each other. This way, if there was a path between you and
804 the person who want to identify, then you could assume that each person
805 along that path had verified the next person's identity.
809 I will show you how to generate your own web-of-trust graph using Free
810 Software. Of course, you can also use this knowledge to graph anything
816 <eventitem date="2004-02-18" time="7:00 PM"
817 room="DC2305" title="KW Perl Mongers">
818 <short>Perl Modules: A look under the hood</short>
821 <p>In Perl, a module is the basic unit of code-reuse. The talk will be
822 mostly a look into GD::Text::Arc, a module written to draw TrueType text
823 around the edge of a circle. The talk will consider:</p>
826 <li>using and writing object-oriented perl code</li>
827 <li>the Virtue of Laziness: or, reusing other peoples' code.</li>
828 <li>writing tests while coding</li>
829 <li>beer coasters</li>
835 <eventitem date="2004-02-05" time="3:30 PM"
836 room="MC4041" title="Constitutional Change">
837 <short>Vote to change the CSC Constitution</short>
840 <p>During the General Meeting on 19 January 2004, a proposed constitution
841 change was passed around. This change is in response to a change in the
842 MathSoc Clubs Policy (Policy 4, Section 3, Sub-section f).</p>
844 <p>This general meeting is called to vote on this proposed change. We must
845 have quorum of 15 Full Members vote on this change. The following text was
846 presented at the CSC Winter 2004 Elections.</p>
848 <pre>We propose to make a Constitutional change on this day, 19 January 2004.
849 The proposed change is to section 3.1 of the constitution which
852 In compliance with MathSoc regulations and in recognition of the
853 club being primarily targeted at undergraduate students, full
854 membership is open to all undergraduate students in the Faculty of
855 Mathematics and restricted to the same.
857 Since MathSoc has changed its requirements for club membership, we
858 propose that it be changed to:
860 In compliance with MathSoc regulations and in recognition of the
861 club being primarily targeted at undergraduate students, full
862 membership is open to all Social Members of the Mathematics Society
863 and restricted to the same.</pre>
867 <eventitem date="2004-01-12" time="3:00 PM"
868 room="DC1301" title="InstallFest">
869 <short>See <a href="http://uw-dig.uwaterloo.ca/installfest/">http://uw-dig.uwaterloo.ca/installfest/</a></short>
872 <p>An Installfest is an opportunity to install software on your computer.
873 People come with computers. Other people come with experience. The people
874 get together and (when all goes well) everybody leaves satisfied.</p>
876 <p>You are invited to our first installfest of the year. Come to get some
877 software or to learn more about Open Source Software and why it is relevant
878 to your life. The event is free, but you may want to bring blank CDs and/or
879 money to purchase some open source action for your computer at home.</p>
881 <p>See the <a href="http://uw-dig.uwaterloo.ca/installfest/">UW-DIG
882 website</a> for more details.</p>
889 <eventitem date="2003-12-01" time="7:00 PM"
890 room="RCH 101" title="Jon 'maddog' Hall: Free and Open Source: Its uses in Business and Education">
891 <short> Free and Open Source software has been around for a long
892 time, even longer then shrink-wrapped code.</short>
894 <p>Free and Open Source software has been around for a long time, even
895 longer then shrink-wrapped code. It has a long and noble history in the annals
896 of education. Even more than ever, due to the drop of hardware prices and the
897 increase of worldwide communications, Free and Open Source can open new
898 avenues of teaching and doing research, not only in computer science, but in
899 other university fields as well.</p>
900 <p>Learn how Linux as an operating system can
901 run on anything from a PDA to a supercomputer, and how Linux is reducing the
902 cost of computing dramatically as the fastest growing operating system in the
903 world. Learn how other Free and Open Source projects, such as office suites,
904 audio and video editing and playing software, relational databases, etc. are
905 created and are freely available.</p>
907 <p><a href="http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~cpbell/">Map and directions</a></p>
908 <h3>Speaker's Biography</h3>
909 <p>Jon "maddog" Hall is the Executive Director of <a href="http://www.li.org/">Linux International</a>,
910 a non-profit association of computer vendors who wish to support and promote
911 the Linux Operating System. During his career which spans over thirty years,
912 Mr. Hall has been a programmer, systems designer, systems administrator,
913 product manager, technical marketing manager and educator. He has
914 worked for such companies as Western Electric Corporation, Aetna Life and
915 Casualty, Bell Laboratories, Digital Equipment Corporation, VA Linux Systems,
916 and is currently funded by SGI.</p>
918 <p>He has taught at Hartford State Technical College, Merrimack College and
919 Daniel Webster College. He still likes talking to students over pizza and beer
920 (the pizza can be optional).</p>
922 <p>Mr. Hall is the author of numerous magazine and newspaper articles, many
923 presentations and one book, "Linux for Dummies".</p>
925 <p>Mr. Hall serves on the boards of several companies, and several non-profit
926 organizations, including the USENIX Association.</p>
928 <p>Mr. Hall has traveled the world speaking on the benefits of Open Source
929 Software, and received his BS in Commerce and Engineering from Drexel
930 University, and his MSCS from RPI in Troy, New York.</p>
932 <p>In his spare time maddog is working on his retirement project:</p>
934 <center>maddog's monastery for microcomputing and microbrewing</center>
939 <eventitem date="2003-11-05" time="4:30 PM - 8:30 PM"
940 room="Grad House Pub (Green Room)" title="CS Pints With Profs">
941 <short>Come have a pint with your favourite CS profs!</short>
943 <p>Come meet CS profs in a relaxed atmosphere this Wednesday at
944 the Grad House (by South Campus Hall). This is your chance to meet those CS profs
945 you enjoyed in lectures in person, have a chat with them
946 and find out what they're doing outside the lecture halls.</p>
948 <p>We'll be providing free food, including hamburgers and nachos,
949 and the Grad House offers a great selection of drinks.</p>
951 <p>If you'd like to invite a particular prof, stop by on the third
952 floor of the MC (outside of the Comfy) to pick up an invitation.</p>
954 <p>Persons of all ages are welcome!</p>
959 <eventitem date="2003-10-21" time="4:30 PM - 5:30 PM" room="MC2065"
960 title=".NET & Linux: When Worlds Collide">
961 <short>A talk by James Perry</short>
964 <p>.NET is Microsoft's new development platform, including amongst
965 other things a language called C# and a class library for various
966 operating system services. .NET aims to be portable, although it is
967 currently mostly only used on Windows systems.</p>
969 <p>With the full backing of Microsoft, it seems unlikely that .NET
970 will disappear any time soon. There are several efforts underway to
971 bring .NET to the GNU/Linux platform. Hosted by the Computer Science
972 Club, this talk will discuss a number of the issues surrounding .NET
978 <eventitem date="2003-10-22" time="4:30 PM - 5:30 PM" room="MC4061"
979 title="Real-Time Graphics Compilers">
980 <short>Sh is a GPU metaprogramming language developed at the UW
981 Computer Graphics Lab</short>
984 <p>Sh is a GPU metaprogramming language developed at the University of
985 Waterloo Computer Graphics Lab. It allows graphics programmers to
986 write programs which run directly on the GPU (Graphics Processing
987 Unit) using familiar C++ syntax. Furthermore, it allows
988 metaprogramming of such programs, that is, writing programs which
989 generate other programs, in an easy and natural manner.</p>
991 <p>This talk will give a brief overview of how Sh works, the design of
992 its intermediate representation and the (still somewhat simplistic)
993 optimizer that the current reference implementation has and problems
994 with applying traditional compiler optimizations.</p>
996 <p>Stefanus Du Toit is an undergraduate student at the University of
997 Waterloo. He is also a Research Assistant for Michael McCool from the
998 University of Waterloo Graphics Lab. Over the Summer of 2003 Stefanus
999 reimplemented the Sh reference implementation and designed and
1000 implemented the current Sh optimizer.</p>
1004 <eventitem date="2003-10-17" time="3:00 PM" room="MC3001 (Comfy)"
1005 title="Poster Team Meeting">
1006 <short>More free pizza from the Poster Team</short>
1008 <p>Are you interested in getting involved in the Computer Science
1011 <p>Come on out to the second meeting of our Poster Team, a bunch of
1012 students helping out with promotion for our events. The agenda for
1013 this meeting will include painting posters, designing event
1014 invitations, and organizing poster runs. Once again, we will be
1015 serving free pizza!</p>
1017 <p>See you there!</p>
1021 <eventitem date="2003-10-16" time="4:00 PM - 5:30 PM" room="MC2037"
1022 title="UNIX 103: Development Tools">
1023 <short>GCC, GDB, Make</short>
1025 <p>This tutorial will provide you with a practical introduction to GNU
1026 development tools on Unix such as the gcc compiler, the gdb debugger
1027 and the GNU make build tool.</p>
1029 <p>This talk is geared primarily at those mostly unfamiliar with these
1030 tools. Amongst other things we will introduce:</p>
1033 <li>gcc options, version differences, and peculiarities</li>
1034 <li>using gdb to debug segfaults, set breakpoints and find out what's
1036 <li>tiny Makefiles that will compile all of your 2nd and 3rd year CS
1040 <p>If you're in second year CS and unfamiliar with UNIX development it
1041 is highly recommended you go to this talk. All are welcome, including
1042 non-math students.</p>
1044 <p>Arrive early!</p>
1048 <eventitem date="2003-10-02" time="4:00 PM - 5:30 PM" room="MC2037"
1049 title="UNIX 101: Text Editors">
1050 <short>vi vs. emacs: The Ultimate Showdown</short>
1053 Have you ever wondered how those cryptic UNIX text editors work? Have you
1054 ever woken up at night with a cold sweat wondering "Is it CTRL-A, or CTRL-X
1055 CTRL-A?" Do you just hate pico with a passion?</p>
1057 <p>Then come to this tutorial and learn how to use vi and emacs!</p>
1059 <p>Basic UNIX commands will also be covered. This tutorial will be especially
1060 useful for first and second year students.</p>
1065 <eventitem date="2003-10-06" time="4:00 PM" room="MC3001 (Comfy)"
1066 title="Poster Team Meeting">
1067 <short>Join the Poster Team and get Free Pizza!</short>
1070 <li>Do you like computer science?</li>
1071 <li>Do you like posters?</li>
1072 <li>Do you like free pizza?</li>
1074 <p>If the answer to one of these questions is yes, then come
1075 out to the first meeting of the Computer Science Club Poster Team! The
1076 CSC is looking for interested students to help out with promotion and
1077 publicity for this term's events. We promise good times and free
1082 <eventitem date="2003-09-17" time="4:30 PM" room="MC3001 (Comfy)"
1083 title="CSC Elections">
1084 <short>CSC Fall 2003 Elections</short>
1086 <p>Elections will be held on Wednesday, September 17, 2003 at 4:30 PM in the
1088 Comfy Lounge, MC3001.</p>
1090 <p>I invite you to nominate yourself or others for executive positions,
1091 starting immediately. Simply e-mail me at cro@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
1092 with the name of the person who is to be nominated and the position
1093 they're nominated for.</p>
1095 <p>Nominees must be full-time undergraduate students in Math. Sorry!</p>
1097 <p>Positions open for elections are:</p>
1099 <ul><li>President: Organises the club, appoints committees, keeps everyone busy.
1100 If you have lots of ideas about the club in general and like bossing
1101 people around, go for it!</li>
1103 <li>Vice President: Organises events, acts as the president if he's not
1104 available. If you have lots of ideas for events, and spare time, go
1107 <li>Treasurer: Keeps track of the club's finances. Gets to sign cheques
1108 and stuff. If you enjoy dealing with money and have ideas on how to
1109 spend it, go for it!</li>
1111 <li>Secretary: Takes care of minutes and outside correspondence. If you
1112 enjoy writing things down and want to use our nifty new letterhead
1113 style, go for it!</li></ul>
1115 <p>Nominations will be accepted until Tuesday, September 16 at 4:30 PM.</p>
1117 <p>Additionally, a Sysadmin will be appointed after the elections. If you
1118 like working with unix systems and have experience setting up and
1119 maintaining them, go for it!</p>
1121 <p>I hope that lots of people will show up; hopefully we'll have a great
1122 term with plenty of events. We always need other volunteers, so if you
1123 want to get involved just talk to the new exec after the
1124 meeting. Librarians, webmasters, poster runners, etc. are always
1127 <p>There will also be free pop.</p>
1129 <p>Memberships can be purchased at the elections or at least half an hour
1130 prior to at the CSC. Only undergrad math members can vote, but anyone can
1131 become a member.</p>
1135 <!-- Spring 2003 -->
1137 <eventitem date="2003-07-31" time="4:30 PM" room="MC4064"
1138 title="LaTeX and Work Reports">
1139 <short>Writing beautiful work reports</short>
1142 <p>The work report is a familiar chore for any co-op student. Not only is
1143 there a report to write, but to add insult to injury, your report is
1144 returned if you do not follow your departmental guidelines.</p>
1146 <p>Fear no more! In this talk, you will learn how to use LaTeX and a
1147 specially developed class to automatically format your work reports.
1148 This talk is especially useful to Mathematics, Computer Science,
1149 Electrical & Computer Engineering, and Software Engineeering co-op
1150 students about to go on work term.</p>
1153 href="http://www.eng.uwaterloo.ca/~sfllaw/programs/uw-wkrpt/">http://www.eng.uwaterloo.ca/~sfllaw/programs/uw-wkrpt/</a></p>
1158 <eventitem date="2003-07-24" time="4:30 PM" room="MC2037"
1159 title="vi: the visual editor">
1160 <short>It's not 6.</short>
1163 <p>In 1976, a University of California Berkeley student by the name of
1164 Bill Joy got sick of his text editor, ex. So he hacked it such that
1165 he could read his document as he wrote it. The result was "vi", which
1166 stands for VIsual editor. Today, it is shipped with every modern
1167 Unix system, due to its global influence.</p>
1169 <p>In this talk, you will learn how to use vi to edit documents
1170 quickly and efficiently. At the end, you should be able to:</p>
1173 <li>Navigate and search through documents</li>
1174 <li>Cut, copy, and paste across documents</li>
1175 <li>Search and replace regular expressions</li>
1178 <p>If you do not have a Math computer account, don't panic; one will be lent
1179 to you for the duration of this class.</p>
1184 <eventitem date="2003-07-24" time="3:00 PM" room="CSC Office" title="July
1186 <short> See Abstract for minutes </short>
1189 --paying Simon for Sugar
1192 Expense this to MathSoc in lieu of foreign speaker.
1194 --We currently have (including CD-R and pop-income not
1195 currently in safe) $972.85
1196 -We have $359.02 on budget that we can expense to MathSoc.
1198 --We got MEF money for books and video card. Funding for
1199 wireless microphone is dependent on whether MFCF is
1201 -Funding for casters was denied.
1202 -Shopping for the Video card.
1203 -Expecting it after auguest (Stefanus shopping for it.)
1204 -Will have to hear back regarding the microphone, best to
1205 delay that now, discuss it with MEF.
1206 -Better to do it this term, so it doesn't get lost.
1207 -Let MFCF know about this concern.
1208 -Regarding books, can be done anytime before September.
1211 -Generally, Jim Eliot talk when really well.
1212 -Apparently he was generally offensive.
1213 -When was the LaTeX talk? End of the month.
1214 -Kegger at Jim's place on the 16th.
1216 --Getting people in on the 6th, 7th, 8th for csc commercials
1218 -Hang out in here, and he'll make a CSC commercial.
1219 -Co-ordinate when everyone should be in here, so we can email Jason.
1222 -CEO needs it's database changed to use ISBN as a primary key.
1223 -Needs functionality to take out/return books.
1225 --Mark just entered financial stuff into GNUcash
1227 --Choose CRO for next term.
1228 -Stefanus has expressed desire not to be CRO.
1229 -Gary Simmons was suggested (and he accepted)
1232 --Mike Biggs has to get here naked.
1233 -Four unanimous votes.
1234 -Nakedness only applies to getting here, not being here.
1238 ACTION ITEM: Biggs and Cass
1239 -get labelmaker tape, masking tape
1240 whiteboard makers, coloured paper, CD sleeves
1241 -keep reciepts for CSC office expenses.
1243 How is the progess on allowing executives and voters to be non-math
1245 -The vote is coming up Monday.
1246 -Proposal: Anyone who is a paying member can be a member
1247 -So you can either do two things:
1248 Pay MathSoc fees, or
1249 Get your faculty society to recognize CSC as a club.
1251 Stefanus wanted to mention that we shoudl talk to Yolanda,
1252 Craig or Louie about a EYT event for frosh week.
1254 -Sugar Mountain trying to hook all the Frosh
1258 Reminder for Next Year's executive.
1259 -September 16th @ 5:00pm, get a table for Clubs day, and 17th
1260 and 18th, maintain the booth (full day events).
1263 -There should be executive before then
1265 Note: There needs to be a private section in the CSC Procedures Manual.
1266 (Only accessible by shell)
1271 -Talk to Plantops about:
1273 -Mounting corkboard.
1274 -Talk about CSC Sign
1279 <eventitem date="2003-06-27" time="2:30 PM" room="DC1302"
1280 title="Friday Flicks">
1281 <short> SIGGRAPH Electronic Theatre Showing </short>
1284 SIGGRAPH is the ACM's Special Interest Group for Graphics and
1285 simultaneously the world's largest graphics conference and
1286 exhibition, where the cutting edge of graphics research is presented
1289 With support from UW's Computer Graphics Lab, the CSC invites you to
1290 capture a glimpse of SIGGRAPH 2002. We will be presenting the
1291 Electronic Theatre showings from 2002, demonstrating the best of the
1292 animated, CG-produced movies presented at SIGGRAPH.
1293 </p><p> Don't miss this free showing!</p>
1296 <eventitem date="2003-07-08" time="4:00 PM" room="MC2065"
1297 title="Mainframes and Linux">
1298 <short>A talk by Jim Elliott. Jim is responsible for IBM's in Open Source
1299 activities and IBM's mainframe operating systems for Canada and the
1303 Linux and Open Source have become a significant reality in the
1304 working world of Information Technology. An indirect result has been a
1305 "rebirth" of the mainframe as a strategic platform for enterprise
1306 computing. In this session Jim Elliott, IBM's Linux Advocate, will provide
1307 an overview of these technologies and an inside look at IBM's participation
1308 in the community. Jim will examine Linux usage on the desktop, embedded
1309 systems and servers, a reality check on the common misconceptions that
1310 surround Linux and Open Source, and an overview of the history and current
1311 design of IBM's mainframe servers.</p>
1313 Jim Elliott is the Linux Advocate for IBM Canada. He is responsible
1314 for IBM's participation in Linux and Open Source activities and IBM's
1315 mainframe operating systems in Canada and the Caribbean. Jim is a popular
1316 speaker on Linux and Open Source at conferences and user groups across the
1317 Americas and Europe and has spoken to over 300 organizations over the past
1318 three years. Over his 30 years with IBM he has been the co-author of over
1319 15 IBM publications and he also coordinated the launch of Linux on IBM
1320 mainframes in the Americas. In his spare time, Jim is addicted to reading
1321 historical mystery novels and travel to their locales.
1323 <p><a href="http://www.vm.ibm.com/devpages/jelliott/events.html">Slides</a>
1327 <eventitem date="2003-07-04" time="3:30 PM" room="University of Guelph"
1328 title="Guelph Trip">
1329 <short>Come Visit the University of Guelph's Computer Science Club</short>
1331 The University of Waterloo Computer Science Club is going to visit the
1332 University of Guelph Computer Science Club. There will be a talk given
1333 as well as dinner with a fun social atmosphere.</p><p>Drivers Wanted</p>
1334 <p>Cancelled -- sorry Guelph cancelled on us.</p>
1337 <eventitem date="2003-07-17" time="4:30 PM" room="MC4064"
1339 <short>Metaprogramming your way to stunning effects.</short>
1342 Modern graphics processors allow developers to upload small "shader
1343 programs" to the GPU, which can be executed per-vertex or even
1344 per-pixel during the rendering. Such shaders allow stunning effects to
1345 be performed in real-time, but unfortunately aren't very easy to
1346 program since one generally has to write them at the assembly level.
1348 Recently a few high-level languages for shader programming have become
1349 available. Sh, a result of research at UW, is one such language. It
1350 allows programming powerful shaders in simple and intuitive ways. Sh
1351 is particularily interesting because of the way it is
1352 implemented. Instead of coming up with a language grammar and writing
1353 a full-fledged compiler, Sh is implemented as a C++ library, and
1354 shader programs are effectively written in C++. The actual compilation
1355 then takes place in a manner similar to JIT (Just-in-time)
1356 compilers. This has many advantages over the traditional approach,
1357 including C++'s familiar syntax for users, and much less work for the
1360 In this talk I will give an overview of GPUs and the Sh language as
1361 well as some interesting details on how Sh was implemented.
1362 </p><p> <!-- Is there a bio tag -->
1363 Stefanus Du Toit is a research assistant at the University of
1364 Waterloo. He has implemented the current version of Sh from scratch
1365 and is actively developing it under supervision of Michael McCool, the
1366 original designer of the language.
1370 <eventitem date="2003-06-19" time="4:30 PM" room="MC2037"
1371 title="vi: the visual editor">
1372 <short>It's not 6.</short>
1375 <p>In 1976, a University of California Berkeley student by the name of
1376 Bill Joy got sick of his text editor, ex. So he hacked it such that
1377 he could read his document as he wrote it. The result was "vi", which
1378 stands for VIsual editor. Today, it is shipped with every modern
1379 Unix system, due to its global influence.</p>
1381 <p>In this talk, you will learn how to use vi to edit documents
1382 quickly and efficiently. At the end, you should be able to:</p>
1385 <li>Navigate and search through documents</li>
1386 <li>Cut, copy, and paste across documents</li>
1387 <li>Search and replace regular expressions</li>
1390 <p>If you do not have a Math computer account, don't panic; one will be lent
1391 to you for the duration of this class.</p>
1396 <eventitem date="2003-06-12" time="3:30 PM" room="MC3036 CSC Office" title="June 12 Exec Meeting">
1397 <short>Have an issue that should be brought up? We'd love to hear it!</short>
1401 Budget: All the money we requested
1402 --No money from Pints from Profs
1403 --MathSoc has promised us $1250
1405 Feedback from Completed Events
1406 UNIX Talks: 17 people for first
1407 --12 people for second
1413 --People Jim didn't know talked to him for 1/2 hour
1415 History of CSC talk went well
1416 --Good variety of people
1420 --Only 1 E& CE prof
1422 --Jim will harrass the profs at the School of CS Council meeting.
1424 We're starting to fall behind in planning
1428 --Might have to move RSB back
1429 --International site has a few test samples
1430 --Stefanus had some ideas
1431 --Coding will probably take an afternoon/evening
1432 --We need volunteers to run the competition
1433 --We have volunteers to code: Phil and Stefanus
1435 ACTION ITEM: Phil and Stefanus
1436 --code whatever you volunteered to code for.
1438 --Mike intends to visit classes and directly advertise
1439 --Email Christina Hotz
1441 --GH guy: Mike has an abstract, will have posters by tomorrow
1444 --Mathnet, Hackers, Wargames, Tron
1445 --Mike will get a room
1446 --Will be closed member
1448 Mike McCool is offering rooms for showing SIGGRAPH
1450 -check with Mike McCool.
1453 -Make posters for Movie Nights
1455 When is other movie night? (Will plan some time in July)
1457 Who is our foreign speaker?
1458 Action Item: jelliot@ca.ibm.com (Check name first) about
1459 getting a foreign speaker -- Note: Has already been contacted.
1461 Simon got money from Engsoc
1463 Cass meeds coloured paper (CSC is out)
1465 ACTION ITEM: Cass and Mark
1466 --get labelmaker tape, masking tape,
1467 whiteboard makers, coloured paper
1468 --keep reciepts for CSC office expenses
1470 NOTICE: Mike is now Imapd
1472 Simon distibuted budget list
1473 Mark got the money from Mathsoc for last budget, deposited it.
1476 --Get MEF funding by July 4th (equipment)
1478 --Get WEEF funding by June 27th (book)
1480 Jim still working on allowing executives and voters to be
1483 We get free photocopying from MathSoc
1485 --write down code for free photocopying from MathSoc
1487 Simon has been able to get into the cscdisk account, still
1488 looking into getting into the cscceo account.
1490 Damien got an e-mail stating that the files for cscdisk are
1494 --provide SSH key to Phil for getting into cscdisk, cscceo, etc...
1495 --Renumber bootup scripts for sugar and powerpc so that they
1498 ACTION ITEM: Mike needs to do all the plantops stuff again.
1500 ACTION ITEM: Mike -- "Stapler if you say please" sign.
1502 CVS Tree for CEO has been exported.
1503 Damien has volunteered to finish CEO (found by Cass)
1505 All books with barcodes have been scanned
1506 All books without barcodes need to be bar-coded.
1509 --Find a Credit-card with a $500 or less limit.
1511 Note: There needs to be a private section in the
1512 CSC Procedures Manual. (Only accessible by shell)
1514 Stefanus Wanted to mention that we should talk to
1515 Yolanda, Craig or Louie about a EYT event for Frosh Week.
1520 <eventitem date="2003-06-10" time="4:30 PM" room="MC2066"
1521 title="A Brief History of Computer Science">
1524 <p>War, insanity, espionage, beauty, domination, sacrifice, and tragic
1525 death... not what one might associate with the history of computer
1526 science. In this talk I will focus on the origin of our discipline in
1527 the fields of engineering, mathematics, and science, and on the
1528 complicated personalities that shaped its evolution. No advanced
1529 technical knowledge is required.</p>
1534 <eventitem date="2003-06-09" time="5:00 - 9:00 PM" room="The Grad House"
1535 title="Pints with Profs!">
1536 <short>Get to know your profs and be the envy of your friends!</short>
1539 <p>Come out and meet your professors!! This is a great opportunity to
1540 meet professors for Undergraduate Research jobs or to find out who you might
1541 have for future courses. One and all are welcome!</p>
1543 <p>Best of all... free food!!!</p>
1548 <eventitem date="2003-05-29" time="4:30 PM" room="MC2037"
1549 title="Unix 101: First Steps With Unix">
1550 <short>Learn Unix and be the envy of your friends!</short>
1553 <p>This is the first in a series of seminars that cover the use of the
1554 Unix Operating System. Unix is used in a variety of applications, both
1555 in academia and industry. We will provide you with hands-on experience
1556 with the Math Faculty's Unix environment in this seminar.</p>
1558 <p>Topics that will be discussed include:</p>
1561 <li>Navigating the Unix environment</li>
1562 <li>Using common Unix commands</li>
1563 <li>Using the PICO text editor</li>
1564 <li>Reading electronic mail and news with PINE</li>
1567 <p>If you do not have a Math computer account, don't panic; one will be lent
1568 to you for the duration of this class.</p>
1573 <eventitem date="2003-06-05" time="4:30 PM" room="MC2037"
1574 title="Unix 102: Fun With Unix">
1575 <short>Talking to your Unix can be fun and profitable</short>
1578 <p>This is the second in a series of seminars that cover the use of the
1579 Unix Operating System. Unix is used in a variety of applications, both in
1580 academia and industry. We will provide you with hands-on experience with
1581 the Math Faculty's Unix environment in this tutorial.</p>
1583 <p>Topics that will be discussed include:</p>
1586 <li>Interacting with Bourne and C shells</li>
1587 <li>Editing text with the vi text editor</li>
1588 <li>Editing text with the Emacs display editor</li>
1589 <li>Multi-tasking and the screen multiplexer</li>
1592 <p>If you do not have a Math computer account, don't panic; one will be
1593 lent to you for the duration of this class</p>
1598 <eventitem date="2003-06-12" time="4:30 PM" room="MC2037"
1599 title="Unix 103: Scripting Unix">
1600 <short>You too can be a Unix taskmaster</short>
1603 <p>This is the third in a series of seminars that cover the use of the
1604 Unix Operating System. Unix is used in a variety of applications, both in
1605 academia and industry. We will provide you with hands-on experience with
1606 the Math Faculty's Unix environment in this tutorial.</p>
1608 <p>Topics that will be discussed include:</p>
1611 <li>Shell scripting</li>
1612 <li>Searching through text files</li>
1613 <li>Batch editing text files</li>
1616 <p>If you do not have a Math computer account, don't panic; one will be
1617 lent to you for the duration of this class</p>
1622 <eventitem date="2003-05-22" time="4:30 PM" room="MC3036 CSC Office" title="May 22 Exec Meeting">
1623 <short>The execs discuss what needs discussion</short>
1627 Minutes for CSC Exec Meeting
1631 * Add staff to burners group.
1632 -- Only office staff (people who do stuff) on burners list
1633 -- No objections from executives
1635 * We still need a webmaster, imapd
1636 -- Action Item: Mike
1637 --Check for pop delivery services (Like Grocery Gateway)
1638 so that we can replace imapd with an automated cronjob
1639 -- If this gets implemented, we must make sure that
1640 someone is around to receive the pop whenever it is
1645 -- Make sure execs receive a copy of the proposed budget
1647 -- Look into claiming money from Mathsoc for the last
1649 --Will be looked over the week after next Monday at the Mathsoc
1651 --June 27th is the WEF (Engineering Endowment Fund) deadline
1652 --EngSoc proposal for donations by the end of the month
1653 -- Around 15 events planned
1655 --CS Departmant will pay for flight
1656 -- We can pay local expenses
1660 *Changes in the MathSoc Clubs Policy
1661 Action Item: Jim and Stefanus
1662 --Bring thus up with MathSoc
1663 --Might be good to talk to Bioinformatics about this, as
1664 they have science faculty members to take care of as well.
1665 --Major issue: People who revoke their Mathsoc fees can still be
1667 --We want it so that only people who have paid dues to Mathsoc
1669 --Execs should not take back fees, as that is bad form.
1670 --All execs unanimously agreed with this proposal
1672 *Confirming that we have free printing and photocopying
1674 --Does Faculty of Math billing code apply to CSC
1675 (as Faculty of Math department?)
1676 -- Procedures manual has a billing code, but it should
1678 -- Ask MUO, then Shirley after that.
1680 --Apparently there is a special Watcard that provides
1681 free printing from MFCF
1682 --We do not know what account it is mapped to,
1685 * Getting csc_disk, csc, csc_ceo accounts on undergrad to work again.
1687 -- Get csc-disk back up for student use.
1688 -- What group permissions do we need?
1689 -- CSC-Disk should be used as a repository for custom
1690 window managers, Mozilla, etc... (selling factor for
1692 -- We should also have an announcement (MOTD, perhaps?)
1693 that we are providing and supporting this software.
1694 --Consider: Having university-wide accessible
1695 binaries might be a pain, as different machines
1696 might require different compilations.
1697 -- CSC-Disk is full of user data. Should that be blown away?
1699 *Getting locker #7 from MathSoc (Don't we already have lockers 788 and
1701 --Why were the locks snipped? (Bring up at council meeting)
1702 --We would prefer one combo-lock and one key-lock.
1704 * Review of the CSC office organization
1706 --Give Mike sudo access for shutdown
1707 --Will be rewiring stuff on Saturday
1708 --involves re-plugging machines
1710 --Get rubber wheels for chairs
1713 -- Ask PlantOps about:
1715 --Installing Electronic Lock (asap)
1716 --According to Faculty of Math,
1717 we shouldn't need keys.
1718 --Currently, we still need keys
1719 --It is kosher to install Electronic lock
1720 --This provides access right control as
1721 compared to key-control.
1722 --Might be long term project.
1723 --Will green men do it?
1724 --Steam-clean chairs (at least once a term)
1726 --Making ugly wall prettier
1727 --PlantOps knows about office
1728 organization, making environment better.
1729 --Whiteboards need to be put up
1730 --Proposal: Cork-board on pillar (no objections)
1731 --Metal frames on Whiteboard will be in least annoying place
1733 *Do we provide public stapler access?
1734 --People are often unappreciative and rude
1735 --Sign - "Stapler if you say please" -- Unanimously voted
1740 --Find out where to get CSC sign before Monday so we
1741 can claim it in old budget.
1743 * Librarian's Report
1745 --Find perl volunteer to finish CEO
1746 --Force Stefanus to export CVS tree and put onto Peri
1748 --Books were scanned into system with help of Mark
1749 --All books with valid barcodes entered into system on
1751 --Books without valid barcodes are not in system
1752 --Someone needs to do it
1753 --Plan is to implement Dewey decimal system
1754 --May be inefficient as all books are about CS
1755 --We will figure out a system later
1756 --No plans to purchase new books
1757 --Librarian's Request: Office Staff should not lend out books
1758 that do not have barcodes (No objects to request)
1759 --We are still using /media/iso/request to track books
1760 --Should be charge late fees for books?
1761 --We should have money in budget for repairing,maintaining books
1762 --Before spending money on maintaining books, check if DC will
1764 --will it be cheaper/easier/better?
1766 *Setting up extra quota for fun and profit.
1767 -- We don't implement quota properly right now
1768 -- Low demand for extra quota
1769 -- Counterpoint: Old CSC made tons of money
1770 -- Counter-counter-point: It's not that necessary for extra
1772 -- Executives voted against proposal.
1774 *Jim will spam with an update about the term
1775 --Consider making it opt-in
1776 --One email from a service you are using should be considered
1777 reasonable mass mailing
1779 *Should Jim bring anything up at the MathSoc meeting?**
1782 * Student branches for ACM and IEEE
1784 --Contact IEEE Computing Society in UW and ask if they want
1785 to merge or transfer society to us
1786 --Simon volunteers to be put down as exec for ACM
1787 --ACM rules state requirement that exec is a ACM member
1788 --Do we renew Calum's ACM membership?
1789 --Yes (3 Yes; 1 No; 1 Abstention)
1790 --ACM membership money in budget
1791 --ACM Student chapter form has not come in
1793 * What to do with the donated Procedures Manual?
1794 --Term Task for webpage:
1795 --Put procedures manual on web-page.
1796 --Merge with current manual
1797 --We don't have a hard copy
1798 --Would be a good thing to read.
1799 --Many parts need updating
1805 <eventitem date="2003-05-14" time="4:30 PM" room="MC3001 Comfy Lounge"
1806 title="Spring 2003 Elections">
1807 <short>Come on out and vote for your exec!</short>
1809 <p>Elections will be held on Wednesday, May 14, 2003 at 4:30 PM in the
1810 Comfy Lounge, MC3001.</p>
1812 <p>I invite you to nominate yourself or others for executive positions,
1813 starting immediately. Simply e-mail me at sjdutoit@uwaterloo.ca or
1814 cro@csclub.uwaterloo.ca with the name of the person who is to be
1815 nominated and the position they're nominated for.</p>
1817 <p>Nominees must be full-time undergraduate students in Math. Sorry!</p>
1819 <p>Positions open for elections are:</p>
1823 President: Organises the club, appoints committees, keeps everyone busy.
1824 If you have lots of ideas about the club in general and like bossing
1825 people around, go for it!
1829 Vice President: Organises events, acts as the president if he's not
1830 available. If you have lots of ideas for events, and spare time, go
1835 Treasurer: Keeps track of the club's finances. Gets to sign cheques
1836 and stuff. If you enjoy dealing with money and have ideas on how to
1837 spend it, go for it!
1841 Secretary: Takes care of minutes and outside correspondence. If you
1842 enjoy writing things down and want to use our nifty new letterhead
1847 <p>Nominations will be accepted until Tuesday, May 13 at 4:30 PM.</p>
1849 <p>Additionally, a Sysadmin will be appointed after the elections. If you
1850 like working with unix systems and have experience setting up and
1851 maintaining them, go for it!</p>
1853 <p>I hope that lots of people will show up; hopefully we'll have a great
1854 term with plenty of events. We always need other volunteers, so if you
1855 want to get involved just talk to the new exec after the
1856 meeting. Librarians, webmasters, poster runners, etc. are always
1859 <p>There will also be free pop, and if I remember, timbits :).</p>
1861 <p>Memberships can be purchased at the elections. Only undergrad math
1862 members can vote, but anyone can become a member.</p>
1864 <p>Don't forget! Mark it on your calendar/wrist watch/PDA/brain implant!</p>
1869 <!-- Winter 2003 -->
1871 <eventitem date="2003-02-04" time="4:30 PM" room="MC2037"
1872 title="Unix 101 Tutorial">
1873 <short>Learn Unix and be the envy of your friends!</short>
1876 <p>This is the first in a series of seminars that cover the use of the
1877 UNIX Operating System. UNIX is used in a variety of applications, both
1878 in academia and industy. We will provide you with hands-on experience
1879 with the Math Faculty's UNIX environment in this seminar.</p>
1881 <p>Topics that will be discussed include:</p>
1884 <li> Navigating the UNIX environment</li>
1885 <li> Using common UNIX commands</li>
1886 <li>Using the PICO text editor</li>
1887 <li>Reading electronic mail and news with PINE</li>
1890 <p>If you do not have a Math computer account, don't panic; one will be lent
1891 to you for the duration of this class.</p>
1896 <eventitem date="2003-02-11" time="4:30 PM" room="MC2037"
1897 title="Unix 102 Tutorial">
1898 <short>Learn more Unix and be the envy of your friends!</short>
1901 <p>Abstract to come soon.</p>
1906 <eventitem date="2003-02-18" time="4:30 PM" room="MC2037"
1907 title="Unix 103 Tutorial">
1908 <short>Learn more Unix and be the envy of your friends!</short>
1911 <p>Abstract to come soon. </p>
1916 <eventitem date="2003-01-13" time="6:00 PM" room="MC3001"
1917 title="W03 Elections">
1918 <short>Come out and vote for the new exec!</short>
1921 <p>This term's elections will take place on Monday, January 13 at 6:00 PM in the
1922 MC "comfy lounge" (MC3001). Nominations are open from now on (Thursday,
1923 January 2) until 4:30 PM of the day before elections (Sunday, January 12).
1924 In order to nominate someone you can either e-mail me directly, by depositing
1925 a form with the required information in the CSC mailbox in the Mathsoc office
1926 or by writing the nomination and clearly marking it as such on the large
1927 whiteboard in the CSC office. E-mail is probably the best choice.
1928 Please include the name of the person to be nominated as well as the position
1929 you wish to nominate them for.</p>
1931 <p>Candidates must be full members of the club. This means they must have paid
1932 their membership for the given term and (due to recent changes in the
1933 constitution) must be full-time undergraduate math students.
1934 The same requirements hold for those voting. Please bring your Watcard to
1935 the elections so that I can verify this. I will have a list of members with
1938 <p>The positions open are:</p>
1940 <p><b>President</b> -- appoints all commitees of the club, calls and presides at all
1941 meetings of the club and audits the club's financial records. Really, this
1942 is the person in charge.</p>
1944 <p><b>Vice President</b> -- assumes President's duties in case he/she is absent,
1945 plans and coordinates events with the programmes committee and assumes any
1946 other duties delegated by the President.
1947 This is a really fun job if you enjoy coordinating events!</p>
1949 <p><b>Secretary</b> -- keeps minutes of the meetings and cares for any correspondence.
1950 A fairly light job, good choice if you just want to see what being an exec
1953 <p><b>Treasurer</b> -- maintains all the finances of the club.
1954 If you like money and keeping records, this is the job for you!</p>
1956 <p>Additionally a Systems Administrator will be picked by the new executive.</p>
1958 <p>Last term was a great term for the CSC -- many events, some office renovations
1959 and a much improved image were all part of it. I hope to see the next term's
1960 exec continue this. If you're interested in seeing this happen, do consider
1961 going for a position, or helping out as office staff or on one of the
1964 <p>Anyways, hopefully I'll see many of you at the elections.
1965 Remember: Monday, January 13, 6:00 PM, MC3001/Comfy Lounge.</p>
1967 <p>If you have any further questions don't hesitate to contact the CRO,
1968 Stefanus Du Toit <a href="mailto:sjdutoit@uwaterloo.ca">by e-mail</a>.</p>
1972 <eventitem date="2003-01-23" time="6:30 PM" room="MC1085"
1973 title="Regular Expressions">
1974 <short>Find your perfect match</short>
1977 <p>Stephen Kleene developed regular expressions to describe what he
1978 called <q>the algebra of regular sets.</q> Since he was a pioneering
1979 theorist in computer science, Kleene's regular expressions soon made
1980 it into searching algorithms and from there to everyday tools.</p>
1982 <p>Regular expressions can be powerful tools to manipulate text.
1983 You will be introduced to them in this talk. As well, we will go
1984 further than the rigid mathematical definition of regular
1985 expressions, and delve into POSIX regular expressions which are
1986 typically available in most Unix tools.</p>
1991 <eventitem date="2003-01-30" time="6:30 PM" room="MC1085"
1992 title="sed & awk">
1993 <short>Unix text editing</short>
1996 <p><i>sed</i> is the Unix stream editor. A powerful way to
1997 automatically edit a large batch of text. <i>awk</i> is a
1998 programming language that allows you to manipulate structured data
1999 into formatted reports.</p>
2001 <p>Both of these tools come from early Unix, and both are still
2002 useful today. Although modern programming languages such as Perl,
2003 Python, and Ruby have largely replaced the humble <i>sed</i> and
2004 <i>awk</i>, they still have their place in every Unix user's
2010 <eventitem date="2003-02-06" time="6:30 PM" room="MC1085"
2011 title="LaTeX: A Document Processor">
2012 <short>Typesetting beautiful text</short>
2015 <p>Unix was one of the first electronic typesetting platforms. The
2016 innovative AT&T <i>troff</i> system allowed researches at Bell
2017 Labs to generate high quality camera-ready proofs for their papers.
2018 Later, Donald Knuth invented a typesetting system called
2019 T<small>E</small>X, which was far superior to other typesetting
2020 systems in the 1980s. However, it was still a typesetting language,
2021 where one had to specify exactly how text was to be set.</p>
2023 <p>L<sup><small>A</small></sup>T<small>E</small>X is a macro package
2024 for the T<small>E</small>X system that allows an author to describe
2025 his document's function, thereby typesetting the text in an
2026 attractive and correct way. In addition, one can define semantic
2027 tags to a document, in order to describe the meaning of the
2028 document; rather than the layout.</p>
2033 <eventitem date="2003-02-13" time="6:30 PM" room="MC1085"
2034 title="LaTeX: Reports">
2035 <short>Writing reports that look good.</short>
2038 <p>Work term reports, papers, and other technical documents can be
2039 typeset in L<sup><small>A</small></sup>T<small>E</small>X to great
2040 effect. In this session, I will provide examples on how to typeset
2041 tables, figures, and references. You will also learn how to make
2042 tables of contents, bibliographics, and how to create footnotes.</p>
2044 <p> I will also examine various packages of
2045 L<sup><small>A</small></sup>T<small>E</small>X that can help you
2046 meet requirements set by users of inferior typesetting systems.
2047 These include double-spacing, hyphenation and specific margin
2053 <eventitem date="2003-02-20" time="6:30 PM" room="MC1085"
2054 title="LaTeX: Beautiful Mathematics">
2055 <short>LaTeX => fun</short>
2058 <p>It is widely acknowledged that the best system by which to
2059 typeset beautiful mathematics is through the T<small>E</small>
2060 typesetting system, written by Donald Knuth in the early 1980s.</p>
2062 <p>In this talk, I will demonstrate
2063 L<sup><small>A</small></sup>T<small>E</small>X and how to typeset
2064 elegant mathematical expressions.</p>
2069 <eventitem date="2003-02-27" time="6:00 PM" room="MC1085"
2070 title="The BSD License Family">
2071 <short>Free for all</short>
2074 <p>Before the GNU project ever existed, before the phrase
2075 "Free Software" was ever coined, students and researchers
2076 at the University of California, Berkeley were already
2077 practising it. They had acquired the source cdoe to a
2078 little-known operating system developed at AT&T
2079 Bell Laboratories, and were creating improvments at a
2082 <p>These improvements were sent back to Bell Labs, and
2083 shared to other Universities. Each of them were licensed
2084 under what is now known as the "Original BSD license". Find
2085 out what this license means, its implications, and what are
2086 its decendents by attending this short talk.</p>
2091 <eventitem date="2003-02-27" time="6:30 PM" room="MC1085"
2092 title="The GNU General Public License">
2093 <short>The teeth of Free Software</short>
2096 <div style="font-style: italic"><blockquote>
2097 The licenses for most software are designed to take away your
2098 freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General
2099 Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and
2100 change free software---to make sure the software is free for all
2103 <div style="text-align:right">--- Excerpt from the GNU GPL</div>
2106 <p> The GNU General Public License is one of the most influencial
2107 software licenses in this day. Written by Richard Stallman for the
2108 GNU Project, it is used by software developers around the world to
2109 protect their work.</p>
2111 <p>Unfortunately, software developers do not read licenses
2112 thoroughly, nor well. In this talk, we will read the entire GNU GPL
2113 and explain the implications of its passages. Along the way, we
2114 will debunk some myths and clarify common misunderstandings.</p>
2116 <p>After this session, you ought to understand what the GNU GPL
2117 means, how to use it, and when you cannot use it. This session
2118 should also give you some insight into the social implications of
2124 <eventitem date="2003-03-13" time="6:30 PM" room="MC1085"
2126 <short>Give your documents more markup</short>
2129 <p>XML is the <q>eXtensible Markup Language,</q> a standard
2130 maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium. A descendant of IBM's
2131 SGML. It is a metalanguage which can be used to define markup
2132 languages for semantically describing a document.</p>
2134 <p>This talk will describe how to generate correct XML documents,
2135 and auxillary technologies that work with XML.</p>
2140 <eventitem date="2003-03-20" time="6:30 PM" room="MC1085"
2142 <short>Transforming your documents</short>
2145 <p>XSLT is the <q>eXtended Stylesheet Language Transformations,</q>
2146 a language for transforming XML documents into other XML
2149 <p>XSLT is used to manipulate XML documents into other forms: a sort
2150 of glue between data formats. It can turn an XML document into an
2151 XHTML document, or even an HTML document. With a little bit of
2152 hackery, it can even be convinced to spit out non-XML conforming
2158 <eventitem date="2003-03-24" time="8:00 PM"
2159 room="Humanities Theatre, Hagey Hall"
2160 title="Judy, or What Is It Like To Be A Robot?">
2161 <short>Held in co-operation with the UW Cognitive Science Club</short>
2164 <p>A lot of claims have been made lately about the intelligence of
2165 computers. Some researchers say that computers will eventually attain
2166 super-human intelligence. Others call thse claims... um, poppycock.
2167 Oddly enough, in the search for the truth of the matter, both camps
2168 have overlooked an obvious strategy: interviewing a computer and asking
2171 <p>"Judy is as much fun as a barrel of wind-up cymbal-monkeys, and
2172 lots more entertaining." --- Bill Rodriguez, <i>Providence Phoenix</i></p>
2174 <p>"Tom Sgouros's witty play, co-starring the charming robot Judy, is an
2175 imagination stretcher that delights while it exercises your mind. If you
2176 think you can't imagine a conscious robot, you're wrong---you can,
2177 especially once you've met Judy." --- Daniel C. Dennett,
2178 author of <i>Consciousness Explained</i>, <i>Brainchildren</i>,
2181 <p>"...an engrossing evening... Real questions about
2182 consciousness, freedom to act, the relationship between the creator
2183 and the created are woven into a bravura performance." --- Will
2184 Stackman, <i>Aislesay.com</i></p>
2186 <p>Sponsored by the Mathematics Society, the Federation of Students, the
2187 Arts Student Union, the Graduate Student Association, and the Department of
2188 Philosophy. Tickets available at the Humanities box office (888-4908) and
2189 the offices of the Psychology Society and the Computer Science Club for
2191 more information: <a
2192 href="http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/cogsci/">http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/cogsci</a>.</p>
2197 <eventitem date="2003-03-25" time="4:30 PM" room="MC2065"
2198 title="Stream Processing">
2199 <short>A talk by Assistant Professor Michael McCool</short>
2202 <p>Stream processing is an enhanced version of SIMD processing that
2203 permits efficient execution of conditionals and iteration. Stream
2204 processors have many similarities to GPUs, and a hardware prototype,
2205 the Imagine processor, has been used to implement both OpenGL and
2208 <p>It is possible that GPUs will acquire certain properties
2209 of stream processors in the future, which should make them easier
2210 to use and more efficient for general-purpose computation that includes
2211 data-dependent iteration and conditionals.</p>
2216 <eventitem date="2003-03-26" time="6:00 PM" room="MC2065"
2217 title="Abusing the C++ Compiler">
2218 <short>Abusing template metaprogramming in C++</short>
2221 <p>Templates are a useful feature in C++ when it comes to writing
2222 type-independent data structures and algorithms. But that's not all
2223 they can be used for. Essentially, it is possible to write certain
2224 programs in C++ that execute completely at compile-time rather
2225 than run-time. Combined with some optimisations this is an interesting
2226 twist on regular C++ programming.</p>
2228 <p>This talk will give a short overview of the features of templates
2229 and then go on to describe how to "abuse" templates to perform complex
2230 computations at compile time. The speaker will present three programs of
2231 increasing complexity which execute at compile time. First a factorial
2232 listing program, then a prime listing program will be presented. Finally
2233 the talk will conclude with the presentation of a <i>Mandelbrot
2234 generator running at compile time.</i></p>
2236 <p>Some basic knowledge of C++ will be assumed.</p>
2241 <eventitem date="2003-03-27" time="6:30 PM" room="MC1085"
2242 title="SSH and Networks">
2243 <short>Once more into the breach</short>
2246 <p>The Secure Shell (SSH) has now replaced traditional remote login
2247 tools such as <i>rsh</i>, <i>rlogin</i>, <i>rexec</i> and
2248 <i>telnet</i>. It is used to provide secure, authenticated,
2249 encrypted communications between remote systems. However, the SSH
2250 protocol provides for much more than this.</p>
2252 <p>In this talk, we will discuss using SSH to its full extent. Topics
2253 to be covered include:</p>
2255 <li>Remote logins</li>
2256 <li>Remote execution</li>
2257 <li>Password-free authentication</li>
2258 <li>X11 forwarding</li>
2259 <li>TCP forwarding</li>
2260 <li>SOCKS tunnelling</li>
2268 date="1994-09-13" time="9:00 PM"
2269 room="Princess Cinema"
2270 title="Movie Outing: Brainstorm">
2272 No description available.
2276 The first of this term's CSC social events, we will be going to see
2277 the movie ``Brainstorm'' at the Princess Cinema. This outing is
2278 intended primarily for the new first-year students.
2281 The Princess Cinema is Waterloo's repertoire theatre. This month
2282 and next, they are featuring a ``Cyber Film Festival''. Upcoming
2287 <li>Bladerunner (director's cut)</li>
2288 <li>2001: A Space Odyssey</li>
2289 <li>Naked Lunch</li>
2292 Admission is $4.25 for a Princess member, $7.50 for a non-member.
2293 Membership to the Princess is $7.00 per year.
2298 date="1994-09-16" time="4:30 PM"
2300 title="CSC Elections">
2301 <short>No description available</short>
2302 <abstract>No abstract available</abstract>
2305 date="1994-09-19" time="4:30 PM"
2307 title="UNIX I Tutorial">
2308 <short>No description available</short>
2309 <abstract>No abstract available</abstract>
2312 date="1994-09-21" time="6:30 PM"
2314 title="SIGGRAPH Video Night">
2315 <short>No description available</short>
2316 <abstract>No abstract available</abstract>
2319 date="1994-09-22" time="4:30 PM"
2321 title="UNIX I Tutorial">
2322 <short>No description available</short>
2323 <abstract>No abstract available</abstract>
2326 date="1994-09-26" time="4:30 PM"
2328 title="UNIX II Tutorial">
2329 <short>No description available</short>
2330 <abstract>No abstract available</abstract>
2333 date="1994-10-13" time="5:00 PM"
2335 title="Prograph: Picture the Future">
2336 <short>No description available</short>
2339 What is the next step in the evolution of computer languages?
2340 Intelligent agents? Distributed objects? or visual languages?
2343 Visual languages overcome many of the drawbacks and limitations
2344 of the textual languages that software development is based on
2345 today. Do you think about programming in a linear fashion? Or do
2346 you draw a mental picture of your algorithm and then linearize it
2347 for the benefit of your compiler? Wouldn't it be nice if you could
2348 code the same way you think?
2351 Visual C++ and Visual BASIC aren't visual languages, but Prograph
2352 is. Prograph is a commercially available, visual, object-oriented,
2353 data-flow language. It is well suited to graphical user interface
2354 development, but is as powerful for general-purpose programming as
2355 any textual language.
2358 The talk will comprise a discussion of the problems of textual
2359 languages that visual languages solve, a live demonstration of
2360 Prograph, and some of my observations of the applications of
2361 Prograph to software development.
2366 date="1994-10-15" time="10:00 AM"
2368 title="ACM-Style Programming Contest">
2369 <short>No description available</short>
2371 <h3>Big Money and Prizes!</h3>
2373 So you think you're a pretty good programmer? Pit your skills
2374 against others on campus in this triannual event! Contestants will
2375 have three hours to solve five programming problems in either C or
2379 Last fall's winners went on to the International Finals and came
2380 first overall! You could be there, too!
2385 date="1994-10-20" time="4:30 PM"
2387 title="Exploring the Internet">
2388 <short>No description available</short>
2390 <h3>Need something to do between assignments/beers?</h3>
2392 Did you know that your undergrad account at Waterloo gives you
2393 access tothe world's largest computer network? With thousands
2394 of discussion groups, gigabytes of files to download, multimedia
2395 information browsers, even on-line entertainment?
2398 The resources available on the Internet are vast and wondrous, but
2399 the tools for navigating it are sometimes confusing and arcane. In
2400 this hands-on tutorial you will get the chance to get your feet wet
2401 with the world's most mind-bogglingly big computer network, the
2402 protocols and programs used, and how to use them responsibly and
2408 date="1994-11-02" time="4:30 PM"
2410 title="Game Theory">
2411 <short>No description available</short>
2413 <h3>From the Minimax Theorem, through Alpha-Beta, and beyond...</h3>
2415 This will be a descussion of the pitfalls of using mathematics and
2416 algorithms to play classical board games. Thorough descriptions
2417 shall be presented of the simple techniques used as the building
2418 blocks that make all modern computer game players. I will use
2419 tic-tac-toe as a control for my arguements. Other games such as
2420 Chess, Othello and Go shall be the be a greater measure of progress;
2421 and more importantly the targets of our dreams.
2424 To enhance the discussion of the future, Barney Pell's Metagamer
2425 shall be introduced. His work in define classes of games is
2426 important in identifying the features necessary for analysis.
2433 <eventitem date="1999-10-18" time="2:30 PM" room="DC1304"
2434 title="Living Laboratories: The Future Computing Environments at
2436 <short>By Blair MacIntyre and Elizabeth Mynatt</short>
2438 <p>by Blair MacIntyre and Elizabeth Mynatt</p>
2439 <p>The Future Computing Environments (FCE) Group at Georgia Tech
2440 is a collection of faculty and students that share a desire to
2441 understand the partnership between humans and technology that
2442 arises as computation and sensing become ubiquitous. With
2443 expertise covering the breadth of Computer Science, but
2444 focusing on HCI, Computational Perception, and Machine
2445 Learning, the individual research agendas of the FCE faculty
2446 are grounded in a number of shared "living laboratories" where
2447 their research is applied to everyday life in the classroom
2448 (Classroom 2000), the home (the Aware Home), the office
2449 (Augmented Offices), and on one's person. Professors
2450 MacIntyre and Mynatt will discuss a variety of these projects,
2451 with an emphasis on the HCI and Computer Science aspects of
2455 In addition to their affiliation with the FCE group,
2456 Professors Mynatt and MacIntyre are both members of the
2457 Graphics, Visualization and Usability Center (GVU) at Georgia
2458 Tech. This interdisciplinary center brings together research
2459 in computer science, psychology, industrial engineering,
2460 architecture and media design by examining the role of
2461 computation in our everyday lives. During the talk, they will
2462 touch on some of the research and educational opportunities
2463 available at both GVU and the College of Computing.
2468 <eventitem date="1999-10-19" time="4:30 PM" room="DC1304"
2469 title="GDB, Purify Tutorial">
2470 <short>No description available.</short>
2473 Debugging can be the most difficult and time consuming part of
2474 any program's life-cycle. Far from an exact science, it's more
2475 of an art ... and close to some kind of dark magic. Cryptic
2476 error messages, lousy error checking, and icky things like
2477 implicit casts can make it nearly impossible toknow what's
2478 going on inside your program.
2481 Several tools are available to help automate your
2482 debuggin. GDB and Purify are among the most powerful
2483 debugging tools available in a UNIX environment. GDB is an
2484 interactive debugger, allowing you to `step' through
2485 aprogram, examine function calls, variable contents, stack
2486 traces and let you look at the state of a program after it
2487 crashes. Purify is a commercial program designed to help find
2488 and remove memory leaks from programs written inlanguages
2489 without automatic garbage collection.
2492 This talk will cover how to compile your C and C++ programs
2493 for use with GDB and Purify, as well as how to use the
2494 available X interfaces. If a purify license is available on
2495 undergrad at the time of the talk, we will cover how to use it
2501 <eventitem date="1999-12-01" time="4:30 PM" room="MC2066"
2502 title="Homebrew Processors and Integrated Systems in FPGAs">
2503 <short>By Jan Gray</short>
2507 <p> With the advent of large inexpensive field-programmable gate
2508 arrays and tools it is now practical for anyone to design and
2509 build custom processors and systems-on-a-chip. Jan will discuss
2510 designing with FPGAs, and present the design and implementation
2511 of xr16, yet another FPGA-based RISC computer system with
2512 integrated peripherals.</p>
2514 <p> Jan is a past CSC pres., B.Math. CS/EEE '87, and wrote
2515 compilers, tools, and middleware at Microsoft from 1987-1998. He
2516 built the first 32-bit FPGA CPU and system-on-a-chip in
2521 <eventitem date="1999-12-01" time="7:00 PM" room="Golf's Steakhouse"
2523 <short>End-of-term dinner</short>
2525 No abstract available.
2529 <eventitem date="1999-12-02" time="1:30 PM" room="DC1302"
2530 title="Calculational Mathematics">
2531 <short>By Edgar Dijkstra</short>
2533 <p> By Edgar Dijkstra</p>
2535 <p> This talk will use partial orders, lattice theory, and, if
2536 time permits, the Galois connection as carriers to illustrate
2537 the use of calculi in mathematics. We hope to show the brevity
2538 of many calculations (in order tofight the superstition that
2539 formal proofs are necessarily unpractically long), and the
2540 strong heuristic guidance that is available for their
2543 <p> Dijkstra is known for early graph-theoretical algorithms,
2544 the first implementation of ALGOL 60, the first operating system
2545 composed of explicitly synchronized processes, the invention of
2546 guarded commands and of predicate transformers as a means for
2547 defining semantics, and programming methodology in the broadest
2548 sense of the word. </p>
2550 <p> His current research interests focus on the formal
2551 derivation of proofs and programs, and the streamlining of the
2552 mathematical argument in general.</p>
2554 <p> Dijkstra held the Schlumberger Centennial Chair in Computer
2555 Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin until retiring in
2561 <eventitem date="1999-12-03" time="10:00 AM" room="Siegfried Hall,
2562 St Jerome's" title="Proofs and Programs">
2563 <short>By Edsger Dijkstra</short>
2565 <p> This talk will show the use of programs for the proving of
2566 theorems. Its purpose is to show how our experience gained in
2567 the derivations of programs might be transferred to the
2568 derivation of proofs in general. The examples will go beyond the
2569 (traditional) existence theorems. </p>
2571 <p> Dijkstra is known for early graph-theoretical algorithms,
2572 the first implementation of ALGOL 60, the first operating system
2573 composed of explicitly synchronized processes, the invention of
2574 guarded commands and of predicate transformers as a means for
2575 defining semantics, and programming methodology in the broadest
2576 sense of the word. </p>
2578 <p> His current research interests focus on the formal
2579 derivation of proofs and programs, and the streamlining of the
2580 mathematical argument in general.</p>
2582 <p> Dijkstra held the Schlumberger Centennial Chair in Computer
2583 Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin until retiring in
2589 <eventitem date="1999-12-03" time="3:00 PM" room="DC1351"
2590 title="Open Q&A session">
2591 <short>By Edsger Dijkstra</short>
2592 <abstract>No description available.</abstract>
2595 <!-- Winter 2000 -->
2597 <eventitem date="2000-03-24" time="4:30 PM" room="DC1304"
2598 title="Enterprise Java APIs and Implementing a Web Portal">
2599 <short>No description available.</short>
2601 <h3>by Floyd Marinescu
2605 The first talk will be an introduction to the Enterprise Java
2606 API's: Servlets, JSP, EJB, and how to use them to build
2611 The second talk will be about how these technologies were used
2612 to implement a real world portal. The talk will include an
2613 overview of the design patterns used and will feature
2614 architectural information about the yet to be release portal
2615 (which I am one of the developers) called theserverside.com.
2620 <eventitem date="2000-03-30" time="4:30 PM" room="DC1304"
2621 title="Enterprise Java APIs and Implementing a Web Portal (1)">
2622 <short>No description available.</short>
2624 <p>Real World J2EE - Design Patterns and architecture behind the
2625 yet to be released J2EE portal: theserverside.com</p>
2627 <p>This talk will feature an exclusive look at the architecture
2628 behind the new J2EE portal: theserverside.com. Join Floyd
2629 Marinescu in a walk-through ofthe back-end of the portal,
2630 while learning about J2EE and its real world patterns,
2631 applications, problems and benefits.</p>
2635 <!-- Spring 2000 -->
2637 <eventitem date="2000-07-20" time="7:00 PM" room="Ali Babas Steak
2638 House, 130 King Street S, Waterloo" title="Ctrl-D">
2639 <short>End-of-term dinner</short>
2640 <abstract>No abstract available.</abstract>
2645 <eventitem date="2000-09-14" time="6:00 PM" room="DC1302"
2646 title="CSC Elections">
2647 <short>Fall 2000 Elections for the CSC.</short>
2650 Would you like to get involved in the CSC? Would you like to have a
2651 say in what the CSC does this term? Come out to the CSC Elections!
2652 In addition to electing the executive for the Fall term, we will be
2653 appointing office staff and other positions. Look for details in
2657 <p>Nominations for all positions are being taken in the CSC office, MC
2662 <eventitem date="2000-09-14" time="7:00 PM" room="DC1302"
2663 title="SIGGraph Video Night">
2664 <short> SIGGraph Video Night Featuring some truly awesome computer
2665 animations from Siggraph '99. </short>
2667 <p> Interested in Computer Graphics?
2670 <p> Enjoy watching state-of-the-art Animation?
2673 <p> Looking for a cheap place to take a date?
2676 <p> SIGGraph Video Night -
2677 Featuring some truly awesome computer animations from Siggraph '99.
2680 <p>Come out for the Computer Science Club general elections at 6:00
2681 pm, right before SIGGraph!</p>
2685 <eventitem date="2000-09-25" time="2:30 PM" room="DC1302"
2686 title="Realising the Next Generation Internet">
2687 <short>By Frank Clegg of Microsoft Canada</short>
2692 <dd>Frank Clegg</dd>
2693 <dd>President, Microsoft Canada</dd>
2696 <dd>Monday, September 25, 2000</dd>
2698 <dd>14:30 - 16:00</dd>
2701 <dd>(Davis Centre, Room 1302, University of Waterloo)</dd>
2705 <dt>Pre-registration</dt>
2706 <dd>Recommended</dd>
2707 <dd><a HREF="http://infranet.uwaterloo.ca:81/infranet/semform.htm">http://infranet.uwaterloo.ca:81/infranet/semform.htm</a></dd>
2708 <dd>(519) 888-4004</dd>
2713 <p>The Internet and the Web have revolutionized our communications, our access
2714 to information and our business methods. However, there is still much room
2715 for improvement. Frank Clegg will discuss Microsoft's vision for what is
2716 beyond browsing and the dotcom. Microsoft .NET (pronounced "dot-net") is a
2717 new platform, user experience and set of advanced software services planned
2718 to make all devices work together and connect seamlessly. With this next
2719 generation of software, Microsoft's goal is to make Internet-based
2720 computing and communications easier to use, more personalized, and more
2721 productive for businesses and consumers. In his new position of president
2722 of Microsoft Canada Co., Frank Clegg will be responsible for leading the
2723 organization toward the delivery of Microsoft .NET. He will speak about
2724 this new platform and the next generation Internet, how software developers
2725 and businesses will be able to take advantage of it, and what the .NET
2726 experience will look like for consumers and business users.</p>
2728 <h3>The Speaker</h3>
2729 <p>Frank Clegg was appointed president of Microsoft Canada Co. this month.
2730 Prior to his new position, Mr. Clegg was vice-president, Central Region,
2731 Microsoft Corp. from 1996 to 2000. In this capacity, he was responsible for
2732 sales, support and marketing activities in 15 U.S. states. Mr. Clegg joined
2733 Microsoft Corp. in 1991 and headed the Canadian subsidiary until 1996.
2734 During that time, Mr. Clegg was instrumental in introducing several key
2735 initiatives to improve company efficiency, growth and market share. Mr.
2736 Clegg graduated from the University of Waterloo in 1977 with a B. Math.</p>
2738 <h3>For More Information</h3>
2740 Shirley Fenton<br />
2741 The infraNET Project<br />
2742 University of Waterloo<br />
2743 519-888-4567 ext. 5611<br />
2744 <a HREF="http://infranet.uwaterloo.ca/">http://infranet.uwaterloo.ca/</a>
2750 <!-- Winter 2001 -->
2752 <eventitem date="2001-01-15" time="4:30 PM" room="MC3036"
2753 title="Executive elections">
2754 <short>Winter 2001 CSC Elections.</short>
2756 <p>Would you like to get involved in the CSC? Would you like to
2757 have a say in what the CSC does this term? Come out to the CSC
2758 Elections! In addition to electing the executive for the
2759 Winter term, we will be appointing office staff and other
2760 positions. Look for details in uw.csc.
2763 Nominations for all positions are being taken in the CSC
2768 <eventitem date="2001-01-22" time="3:30 PM" room="MC3036"
2770 <short>Second CSC meeting for Winter 2001.</short>
2772 <h3>Proposed agenda</h3>
2774 <dt>Book purchases</dt>
2776 <p>They haven't been done in 2 terms.
2777 We have an old list of books to buy.
2778 Any suggestions from uw.csc are welcome.</p>
2783 <p>For doing linux burns. It was allocated money on the budget
2784 request - about $300. We should be able to get a decent 12x
2785 burner with that (8x rewrite).</p>
2786 <p>The obvious things to sell are Linux Distros and BSD variants.
2787 Are there any other software that we can legally burn and sell
2792 <p>Just a talk of the topics to be covered, when, where, whatnot.
2793 Mike was right on this one, this should have been done earlier
2794 in the term. Oh well, maybe we can fix this for next fall term.</p>
2797 <dt>Game Contest</dt>
2799 <p>We already put a bit of work into planning the Othello contest
2800 before I read Mike's post. I still think it's viable. I've got
2801 at least 2 people interested in writing entries for it. This
2802 will be talked about more on monday. Hopefully, Rory and I will
2803 be able to present a basic outline of how the contest is going
2804 to be run at that time.</p>
2806 <dt>Peri's closet cleaning</dt>
2809 <p>Current sysadmin (jmbeverl) and I (kvijayan) and
2810 President (geduggan) had a nice conversation about this 2
2811 days ago, having to do with completely erasing all of
2812 peri, installing a clean stable potato debian on it, and
2813 priming it for being a gradual replacement to calum. We'll
2814 probably discuss how much we want to get done on this
2815 front on Monday.</p>
2819 <p>Any <a HREF="nntp://news.math.uwaterloo.ca/uw.csc/8305">comments</a> from <a HREF="news:uw.csc">the newsgroup</a> are welcome.</p>
2823 <eventitem date="2001-01-27" time="10:30 AM" room="MC3006"
2824 title="ACM-Style programming contest">
2825 <short>Practice for the ACM international programming
2828 <p>Our ACM-Style practice contests involve answering five questions in three
2829 hours. Solutions are written in Pascal, C or C++. Seven years in a row,
2830 Waterloo's teams have been in the top ten at the world finals.
2831 For more information, see
2832 <a HREF="http://plg.uwaterloo.ca/~acm00/">the contest web page</a>.</p>
2834 <h3>Easy Question:</h3>
2835 <p>A palindrome is a sequence of letters that reads the same backwards and
2836 forwards, such as ``Madam, I'm Adam'' (note that case doesn't matter and
2837 only letters are important). Your task is to find the longest palindrome in
2838 a line of text (if there is a tie, print the leftmost one).</p>
2842 asfgjh12dsfgg kj0ab12321BA wdDwkj abBA
2843 abcbabCdcbaqwerewq abCdcba
2846 <h3>Hard Question:</h3>
2847 <p>An anagram is a word formed by reordering the letters of another word.
2848 Find all sets of anagrams that exist within a large dictionary. The
2849 input will be a sorted list of words (up to 4000 words), one per line.
2850 Output each set of anagrams on a separate line. Each set should be
2851 in alphabetical order, and all lines of sets should be in alphabetical
2852 order. A word with no anagrams is a set of anagrams itself, and should
2853 be displayed with no modifications.</p>
2866 <eventitem date="2001-01-29" time="02:39 PM" room="MC3036"
2868 <short>No description available.</short>
2869 <abstract>No abstract available.</abstract>
2872 <eventitem date="2001-02-05" time="03:30 PM" room="MC3036"
2874 <short>No description available.</short>
2875 <abstract>No abstract available.</abstract>
2878 <eventitem date="2001-02-12" time="03:30 PM" room="MC3036"
2880 <short>No description available.</short>
2881 <abstract>No abstract available.</abstract>
2884 <!-- Spring 2001 -->
2886 <eventitem date="2001-06-02" time="10:30 AM" room="MC3006"
2887 title="ACM-Style programming contest">
2888 <short>Practice for the ACM international programming
2891 <p>Our ACM-Style practice contests involve answering five questions in three
2892 hours. Solutions are written in Pascal, C or C++. Seven years in a row,
2893 Waterloo's teams have been in the top ten at the world finals.
2894 For more information, see
2895 <a HREF="http://plg.uwaterloo.ca/~acm00/">the contest web page</a>.</p>
2897 <h3>Easy Question:</h3>
2898 <p>A palindrome is a sequence of letters that reads the same backwards and
2899 forwards, such as ``Madam, I'm Adam'' (note that case doesn't matter and
2900 only letters are important). Your task is to find the longest palindrome in
2901 a line of text (if there is a tie, print the leftmost one).</p>
2905 asfgjh12dsfgg kj0ab12321BA wdDwkj abBA
2906 abcbabCdcbaqwerewq abCdcba
2909 <h3>Hard Question:</h3>
2910 <p>An anagram is a word formed by reordering the letters of another word.
2911 Find all sets of anagrams that exist within a large dictionary. The
2912 input will be a sorted list of words (up to 4000 words), one per line.
2913 Output each set of anagrams on a separate line. Each set should be
2914 in alphabetical order, and all lines of sets should be in alphabetical
2915 order. A word with no anagrams is a set of anagrams itself, and should
2916 be displayed with no modifications.</p>
2930 <!-- Winter 2002 -->
2932 <eventitem date="2002-01-26" time="2:00 PM"
2933 room="Comfy Lounge MC3001"
2934 title="An Introduction to GNU Hurd">
2935 <short>Bored of GNU/Linux? Try this experimental operating
2938 <p>GNU Hurd is an operating system kernel based on the microkernel
2939 architecture design. It was the original GNU kernel, predating Linux,
2940 and is still being actively developed by many volunteers.</p>
2941 <p>The Toronto-area Hurd Users Group, in co-operation with the Computer
2942 Science Club, is hosting an afternoon to show the Hurd to anyone
2943 interested. Jeff Bailey, a Hurd developer, will give a presentation on
2944 the Hurd, followed by a GnuPG/PGP keysigning party. To finish it off,
2945 James Morrison, also a Hurd developer, will be hosting a Debian
2946 GNU/Hurd installation session.</p>
2947 <p>All interested are invited to attend. Bring your GnuPG/PGP fingerprint
2948 and mail your key to sjdutoit@uwaterloo.ca with the subject
2949 ``keysigning'' (see separate announcement).</p>
2950 <p>Questions? Suggestions? Contact <a
2951 href="ja2morri@uwaterloo.ca">James Morrison</a>.</p>
2954 <eventitem date="2002-01-26" time="2:30 PM"
2955 room="Comfy Lounge MC3001"
2956 title="GnuPG/PGP Keysigning Party">
2957 <short>Get more signatures on your key!</short>
2960 GnuPG and PGP provide public-key based encryption for e-mail and
2961 other electronic communication. In addition to preventing others
2962 from reading your private e-mail, this allows you to verify that an
2963 e-mail or file was indeed written by its perceived author.
2966 In order to make sure a GnuPG/PGP key belongs to the respective
2967 person, the key must be signed by someone who has checked the
2968 user's key fingerprint and verified the user's identification.
2971 A keysigning party is an ideal occasion to have your key signed by
2972 many people, thus strengthening the authority of your key. Everyone
2973 showing up exchanges key signatures after verifying ID and
2974 fingerprints. The Computer Science Club will be hosting such a
2975 keysigning party together with the Hurd presentation by THUG (see
2976 separate announcement). See
2977 <a href="http://www.student.math.uwaterloo.ca/~sjdutoit/"> the
2978 keysigning party homepage</a> for more information.
2981 Before attending it is important that you mail your key to
2982 sjdutoit@uwaterloo.ca with the subject ``keysigning.'' Also make
2983 sure to bring photo ID and a copy of your GnuPG/PGP fingerprint on
2984 a sheet of paper to the event.
2988 <eventitem date="2002-01-31" time="6:00 PM" room="MC2037"
2989 title="UNIX 101: First Steps With UNIX">
2991 This is the first in a series of seminars that cover the use of
2992 the UNIX Operating System. UNIX is used in a variety of
2993 applications, both in academia and industy. We will be covering
2994 the basics of the UNIX environment, as well as the use of PINE, an
2995 electronic mail and news reader.
2998 <eventitem date="2002-02-13" time="4:00 PM" room="MC4060"
2999 title="DVD-Video Under Linux">
3000 <short>Billy Biggs will be holding a talk on DVD technology
3001 (in particular, CSS and playback issues) under Linux, giving some
3002 technical details as well as an overview of the current status of
3003 Free Software efforts. All are welcome.</short>
3005 <p>DVD copy protection: Content Scrambling System (CSS)</p>
3007 <li>A technical introduction to CSS and an overview of the ongoing
3008 legal battle to allow distribution of non-commercial DVD
3010 <li>The current Linux software efforts and open issues</li>
3011 <li>How applications and Linux distributions are handling the
3012 legal issues involved</li>
3014 <p>DVD-Video specifics: Menus and navigation</p>
3016 <li>An overview of the DVD-Video standard</li>
3017 <li>Reverse engineering efforts and their implementation status</li>
3018 <li>Progress of integration into Linux media players</li>
3022 <eventitem date="2002-02-07" time="6:00 PM" room="MC2037"
3023 title="Unix 102: Fun With UNIX">
3024 <short>This the second in a series of UNIX tutorials. Simon Law and
3025 James Perry will be presenting some more advanced UNIX
3026 techniques. All are welcome. Accounts will be provided for those
3027 needing them.</short>
3030 This is the second in a series of seminars that cover the use of
3031 the UNIX Operating System. UNIX is used in a variety of
3032 applications, both in academia and industry. We will provide you
3033 with hands-on experience with the Math Faculty's UNIX environment
3036 <p>Topics that will be discussed include:</p>
3038 <li>Interacting with Bourne and C shells</li>
3039 <li>Editing text using the vi text editor</li>
3040 <li>Editing text using the Emacs display editor</li>
3041 <li>Multi-tasking and the screen multiplexer</li>
3044 If you do not have a Math computer account, don't panic; one will
3045 be lent to you for the duration of this class.
3049 <eventitem date="2002-03-01" time="5:00 PM" room="MC4060"
3050 title="Computer Go, The Ultimate">
3051 <short>Thomas Wolf from Brock University will be holding a talk on
3052 the asian game of Go. All are welcome.</short>
3055 The asian game go is unique in a number of ways. It is the oldest
3056 board game known. It is a strategy game with very simple
3057 rules. Computer programs are very weak despite huge efforts and
3058 prizes of US$ > 1.5M for a program beating professional
3059 players. The talk will quickly explain the rules of go, compare go
3060 and chess, mention various attempts to program go and describe our
3061 own efforts in this field. Students will have an opportunity to
3062 solve computer generated go problems. Prizes will be available.
3067 <!-- Spring 2002 -->
3069 <eventitem date="2002-05-11" time="7:00 PM" room="MC3036" title="S02
3071 <short>Come and vote for this term's exec</short>
3074 Vote for the exec this term. Meet at the CSC office.
3082 <eventitem date="2002-09-16" time="5:30 PM" room="Comfy lounge"
3083 title="F02 elections">
3084 <short>Come and vote for this term's exec</short>
3087 Vote for the exec this term. Meet at the comfy
3088 lounge. There will be an opportunity to obtain or renew
3089 memberships. This term's CRO is Siyan Li
3090 (s8li@csclub.uwaterloo.ca).
3095 <eventitem date="2002-09-30" time="6:30 PM" room="Comfy lounge, MC3001"
3096 title="Business Meeting">
3097 <short>Vote on a constitutional change.</short>
3100 The executive has unanimously decided to try to change our
3101 constitution to comply with MathSoc policy. The clause we are trying
3102 to change is the membership clause. The following is the proposed new
3103 reading of the clause.
3106 In compliance with MathSoc regulations and in recognition of
3107 the club being primarily targeted at undergraduate students, full
3108 membership is open to all undergraduate students in the Faculty of
3109 Mathematics and restricted to the same.</i>
3113 The proposed change is illustrated <a
3114 href="http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/docs/constitution-change-20020920.html">on
3119 There will be a business meeting on 30 Sept 2002 at 18:30 in
3120 the comfy lounge, MC 3001. Please come and vote
3125 <eventitem date="2002-09-26" time="5:30 PM" room="MC3006"
3127 <short>First Steps with UNIX</short>
3130 Get to know UNIX and be the envy of your friends!
3133 This is the first in a series of seminars that cover the use
3134 of the UNIX Operating System. UNIX is used in a variety of
3135 applications, both in academia and industy. We will provide
3136 you with hands-on experience with the Math Faculty's UNIX
3137 environment in this seminar.
3140 Topics that will be discussed include:
3143 <li>Navigating the UNIX environment</li>
3144 <li>Using common UNIX commands</li>
3145 <li>Using the PICO text editor</li>
3146 <li>Reading electronic mail and news with PINE</li>
3149 If you do not have a Math computer account, don't panic; one will be
3150 lent to you for the duration of this class.
3155 <eventitem date="2002-10-01" time="6:30 PM-9:30 PM" room="The Bomber"
3156 title="Pints with the Profs">
3157 <short>Get to know your profs and be the envy of your friends!</short>
3159 <p>Come out and meet your professors. This is a great opportunity to
3160 meet professors for Undergraduate Research jobs or to find out who you might
3161 have for future courses.</p>
3163 <p>Profs who have confirmed their attendance are:</p>
3165 <li>Troy Vasiga, School of Computer Science</li>
3166 <li>J.P. Pretti, St. Jerome's and School of Computer Science</li>
3167 <li>Michael McCool, School of Computer Science, CGL</li>
3168 <li>Martin Karsten, School of Computer Science, BBCR</li>
3169 <li>Gisli Hjaltason, School of Computer Science, DB</li>
3172 <p>There will also be...</p>
3181 <eventitem date="2002-10-03" time="5:30 PM" room="MC3006"
3183 <short>Talking to your UNIX can be fun and profitable.</short>
3185 <p>This is the second in a series of seminars that cover the use of
3186 the UNIX Operating System. UNIX is used in a variety of applications,
3187 both in academia and industry. We will provide you with hands-on
3188 experience with the Math Faculty's UNIX environment in this
3191 <p>Topics that will be discussed include:</p>
3192 <ul><li>Interacting with Bourne and C shells</li>
3193 <li>Editing text using the vi text editor</li>
3194 <li>Editing text using the Emacs display editor</li>
3195 <li>Multi-tasking and the screen multiplexer</li>
3198 <p>If you do not have a Math computer account, don't panic; one will be
3199 lent to you for the duration of this class.</p>
3204 <eventitem date="2002-10-08" time="4:30PM" room="MC4045"
3205 title="Video cards, Linux display drivers and the Kernel Graphics Interface (KGI)">
3206 <short>A talk by Filip Spacek, KGI developer</short>
3208 Linux has proven itself as a reliable operating system but arguably,
3209 it still lacks in support of high performance graphics
3210 acceleration. This talk will describe basic components of a PC video
3211 card and the design and limitations the current Linux display driver
3212 architecture. Finally a an overview of a new architecture, the Kernel
3213 Graphics Interface (KGI), will be given. KGI attempts to solve the
3214 shortcomings of the current design, and provide a lightweight and
3215 portable interface to the display subsystem.
3219 <eventitem date="2002-10-10" time="5:30pm" room="MC3006"
3222 <abstract>No abstract available yet.</abstract>
3225 <eventitem date="2002-11-05" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 2065"
3226 title="The Evil Side of C++">
3227 <short>Abusing template metaprogramming in C++; aka. writing a
3228 Mandelbrot generator that runs at compile time</short>
3230 <p>Templates are a useful feature in C++ when it comes to writing
3231 type-independent data structures and algorithms. Relatively soon
3232 after their appearance it was realised that they could be used to
3233 do much more than this. Essentially it is possible to write
3234 certain programs in C++ that execute <i>completely at compile
3235 time</i> rather than run time. Combined with constant-expression
3236 optimisation this is an interesting twist on regular C++
3238 <p>This talk will give a short overview of the features of
3239 templates and then go on to describe how to "abuse"
3240 templates to perform complex computations at compile time. The
3241 speaker will present three programs of increasing complexity which
3242 execute at compile time. First a factorial listing program, then a
3243 prime listing program will be presented. Finally the talk will
3244 conclude with the presentation of a <b>Mandelbrot generator running
3245 at compile time</b>.</p>
3247 <p>If you are interested in programming for the fun of it, the C++
3248 language or silly tricks to do with languages, this talk is for
3249 you. No C++ knowledge should be necessary to enjoy this talk, but
3250 programming experience will make it more worthwile for you.</p>
3252 </abstract> </eventitem>
3254 <eventitem date="2002-11-02" time="11:00AM-3:00PM"
3255 room="MC3002 (Math Coffee and Donut Store)"
3256 title="GNU/Linux InstallFest with KW-LUG and UW-DIG">
3257 <short>Bring over your computer and we'll help you install GNU/Linux</short>
3259 <p>The <a href="http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/">CSC</a>, the <a
3260 href="http://www.kwlug.org/">KW-Linux User Group</a>, and the <a
3261 href="http://uw-dig.uwaterloo.ca/">UW Debian Interest Group</a>
3262 are jointly hosting a GNU/Linux InstallFest. GNU/Linux is a
3263 powerful, free operating system for your computer. It is mostly
3264 written by talented volunteers who like to share their efforts
3265 and help each other.</p>
3267 <p>Perhaps you have are you interested in installing GNU/Linux.
3268 If so, bring your computer, monitor and keyboard; and we will
3269 help you install GNU/Linux on your machine. You can also find
3270 knowledgable people who can answer your questions about
3275 <h3>Frequently Asked Questions</h3>
3277 <p><b>Q: </b>What is GNU/Linux?<br />
3278 <b>A: </b>GNU/Linux is a free operating system for your computer. It is mostly
3279 written by talented volunteers who like to share their efforts.
3282 <p><b>Q: </b>Free?<br />
3283 <b>A: </b>GNU/Linux is available for zero-cost. As well, it allows you such
3284 freedom to share it with your friends, or to modify the software to
3285 your own needs and share that with your friends. It's very friendly.
3288 <p><b>Q: </b>What is an InstallFest?<br />
3289 <b>A: </b>An InstallFest is a meeting where volunteers help people install
3290 GNU/Linux on their computers. It's also a place to meet users, and
3291 talk to them about running GNU/Linux.
3294 <p><b>Q: </b>What kind of computer do I need to use GNU/Linux?<br />
3295 <b>A: </b>Almost any recent computer will do. If you have an old machine
3296 kicking around, you can install GNU/Linux on it as well. If it is
3297 at least 5 years old, it should be good enough.
3300 <p><b>Q: </b>Can I have Windows and GNU/Linux on the same computer?<br />
3301 <b>A: </b>If you can run Windows now, and you have an extra gigabyte (GB) of
3302 disk space to spare; then it should be possible.
3305 <p><b>Q: </b>What should I bring if I want to install GNU/Linux?<br />
3306 <b>A: </b>You will want to bring:</p>
3309 <li>Monitor and monitor cable</li>
3310 <li>Power cords</li>
3311 <li>Keyboard and mouse</li>
3317 <eventitem date="2002-11-07" time="5:30pm" room="MC4063"
3318 title="The GNU General Public License">
3319 <short>The teeth of Free Software</short>
3324 The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom
3325 to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public License
3326 is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free
3327 software---to make sure the software is free for all its users.
3328 </i><br/>--- Excerpt from the GNU GPL
3331 <p>The GNU General Public License is one of the most influencial
3332 software licenses in this day. Written by Richard Stallman for the
3333 GNU Project, it is used by software developers around the world to
3337 Unfortunately, software developers do not read licenses thoroughly, nor
3338 well. In this talk, we will read the entire GNU GPL and explain the
3339 implications of its passages. Along the way, we will debunk some myths
3340 and clarify common misunderstandings.
3343 After this session, you ought to understand what the GNU GPL means, how
3344 to use it, and when you cannot use it. This session should also give
3345 you some insight into the social implications of this work.
3350 <eventitem date="2002-11-19" time="4:30pm" room="MC4058"
3351 title="Metaprogramming GPUs">
3352 <short>A talk by Michael McCool of the Computer Graphics Lab.</short>
3355 Modern graphics accelerators, or "GPUs", have embedded high-performance
3356 programmable components in the form of vertex and fragment shading units.
3357 Recently, these units have evolved from 8-bit computations to floating-point,
3358 and other operations provide array gather, scatter, and summation.
3359 These capabilities make GPUs akin to array processors of the
3360 past, but with a difference: every PC now has one! I am interested
3361 in finding the best way to exploit this computational capacity for not
3362 only graphics but for general-purpose computation.
3364 Current APIs permit specification of the programs for GPUs
3365 using an assembly-language level interface. Compilers for high-level
3366 shading languages are available, such as NVIDIA's Cg, and OpenGL 2.0 and
3367 DirectX will also include standardized shading languages. This talk will
3368 review these. However, compilers for these languages read in an external
3369 string specification, which can be inconvenient.
3371 However, it is possible, using standard C++, to define a high-level
3372 shading language directly in the API. Such a language can be nearly
3373 indistinguishable from a special-purpose programming language, yet
3374 permits more direct interaction with the specification of textures
3375 (arrays) and parameters, simplifies implementation, and enables
3376 on-the-fly generation, manipulation, and specialization of shader programs.
3377 A shading language built into the API also permits the lifting of
3378 C++ host language type, modularity, and scoping constructs into the shading
3379 language without any additional implementation effort. Such an
3380 embedded language could be used to program other embedded processors
3381 (such as DSP chips in sound cards) or even to generate machine language
3382 on the fly for the host CPU.
3387 <eventitem date="2002-11-16" time="1:30pm" room="York University"
3388 title="Trip to York University">
3389 <short>Going to visit the York University Computer Club</short>
3390 <abstract><p>YUCC and the UW CSC have having a join meeting at York
3391 University. Dave Makalsky, the President of YUCC, will be giving a talk on
3392 Design-by-constract and Eiffel. Stefanus Du Toit, Vice-President of the UW
3393 CSC, will be giving a talk on the evil depths of the black art known as C++.
3395 <ul><li>1:30pm: Leave UW</li>
3396 <li>3:00pm: Arrive at York University.</li>
3397 <li>3:30pm: The Evil side of C++</li>
3398 <li>4:30pm: Design-by-Contract and Eiffel</li>
3399 <li>6:00pm: Dinner</li>
3400 <li>9:00pm: Arrive back at UW</li>
3405 <eventitem date="2002-11-21" time="6:00pm" room="MC2066"
3407 <short>A talk by Simon Law</short>
3410 Perl, the Practical Extraction and Reporting Language can only
3411 be described as an eclectic language, invented and refined by
3412 a deranged system administrator, who was trained as a
3413 linguist. This man, however, has declared:
3417 Perl 5 was my rewrite of Perl.
3418 I want Perl 6 to be the community's rewrite of Perl and of the
3420 </i><br/>--- Larry Wall
3423 Whenever a language is designed by a committee, it is common
3424 wisdom to avoid it. Not so with Perl, for it cannot get
3425 worse. However strange these Perl people seem, Perl 6 is a
3426 good thing coming. In this talk, I will demonstrate some Perl
3427 5 programs, and talk about their Perl 6 counterparts, to show
3428 you that Perl 6 will be cleaner, friendlier, and prettier.
3433 <eventitem date="2002-11-21" time="4:30pm" room="MC2066"
3434 title="Samba and You">
3435 <short>A talk by Dan Brovkovich, Mathsoc's Computing Director</short>
3437 Samba is a free implementation of the Server Message Block (SMB)
3438 protocol. It also implements the Common Internet File System (CIFS)
3439 protocol, used by Microsoft Windows 95/98/ME/2000/XP to share files and
3441 SMB was originally developed in the early to mid-80's by IBM and was
3442 further improved by Microsoft, Intel, SCO, Network Appliances, Digital
3443 and many others over a period of 15 years. It has now morphed into CIFS,
3444 a form strongly influenced by Microsoft. </p><p>
3445 Samba is considered to be one of the key projects for the acceptance of
3446 GNU/Linux and other Free operating systems (e.g. FreeBSD) in the
3447 corporate world: a traditional Windows NT/2000 stronghold. </p><p>
3448 We will talk about interfacing Samba servers and desktops with the
3449 Windows world. From a simple GNU/Linux desktop in your home to the
3450 corporate server that provides collaborative file/printer sharing,
3451 logons and home directories to hundreds of users a day. </p>
3455 <eventitem date="2002-10-26" time="1:30PM" room="MC2066"
3456 title="GNU/Linux on HPPA">
3457 <short>Carlos O'Donnell talks about "the last of the legacy processors to fall before the barbarian horde"</short>
3459 <p>This whirlwind talk is aimed at providing an overview of the
3460 GNU/Linux port for the HP PARISC processor. The talk will focus on
3461 the "intricacies" of the processor, and in particular the
3462 implementations of the Linux kernel and GNU Libc. After the talk
3463 you should be acutely aware of how little code needs to be written
3464 to support a new architecture! Carlos has been working on the port
3465 for two years, and enjoying the fruits of his labour on a 46-node
3470 Carlos is currently in his 5th year of study at the University
3471 of Western Ontario. This is his last year in a concurrent
3472 Computer Engineering and Computer Science degree. His research
3473 interest range from distributed and parallel systems to low
3474 level optimized hardware design. He likes playing guitar and
3475 just bought a Cort NTL-20, jumbo body, solid spurce top with
3476 a mahogany back. Carlos hacks on the PARISC Linux kernel, GNU libc,
3477 GNU Debugger, GNU Binutils and various Debian packages.
3484 <eventitem date="2002-10-26" time="3:00PM" room="MC2066"
3485 title="The Hurd Interfaces">
3486 <short>Marcus Brinkmann, a GNU Hurd developer, talks about the Hurd server interfaces, at the heart of a GNU/Hurd system</short>
3488 <p>The Hurd server interfaces are at the heart of the Hurd system. They
3489 define the remote procedure calls (RPCs) that are used by the servers, the
3490 GNU C library and the utility programs to communicate with the Hurd system
3491 and to implement the POSIX personality of the Hurd as well as other
3494 <p>This talk is a walk through the Hurd RPCs, and will give an overview of how
3495 they are used to implement the system. Individual RPCs will be used to
3496 illustrate important or exciting features of the Hurd system in general,
3497 and it will be shown how those features are accessible to the user at the
3498 command line, too.</p>
3502 <p>Marcus Brinkmann is a math student at the Ruhr-Universitaet Bochum in
3503 Germany. He is one of maintainers of the GNU Hurd project and the
3504 initiator of the Debian GNU/Hurd binary distribution. He designed and
3505 implemented the console subsystem of the Hurd, wrote the FAT filesystem
3506 server, and fixed a lot of bugs, thus increasing the stability and
3507 usability of the system.</p>
3512 <eventitem date="2002-10-26" time="4:30PM" room="MC2066"
3513 title="A GNU Approach to Virtual Memory Management in a Multiserver Operating System">
3514 <short>Neal Walfield, a GNU Hurd developer, talks about a possible Virtual Memory Management subsystem for the GNU Hurd</short>
3516 <p>Virtual memory management is one of the cornerstones of multiuser
3517 operating systems. Most systems available today place all of the
3518 policy in a monolithic virtual memory manager, VMM, isolated from the
3519 rest of the system. Although secure and lightweight, users have no
3520 way to communicate their anticipated memory needs and usage to the
3521 system pager. As a result, the VMM can only implement a global paging
3522 policy (typically, an approximation of LRU) which may be good on
3523 average but is best for nobody.</p>
3525 <p>With the port of Hurd to the L4 microkernel, this situation is being
3526 readdressed. Due to its more distributed nature, a centralized
3527 resource manager is not only more difficult to implement efficiently
3528 but also contrary to the philosophy of the rest of the system. We are
3529 currently exploring a model whereby each program is fully self-paged
3530 and all compete for memory from a physical memory server. This talk
3531 will first discuss how paging currently works in Mach and other
3532 systems. An argument for an external paging policy will then be
3533 presented followed by the requirements of such a design and the design
3538 <p>Neal Walfield, a GNU Hurd developer, is from the University of Massachusetts
3539 Lowell. Neal spent the summer of 2002 at University of Karlsruhe working
3540 on porting the GNU Hurd to L4.</p>
3545 <eventitem date="2002-10-17" time="5:30PM" room="MC2065"
3546 title="Debian in the Enterprise">
3547 <short>A talk by Simon Law</short>
3549 <p>The Debian Project produces a "Universal Operating System" that is
3550 comprised entirely of Free Software. This talk focuses on using Debian
3551 GNU/Linux in an enterprise environment. This includes:</p>
3553 <li>Where Debian can be deployed</li>
3554 <li>Strategic advantages of Debian</li>
3555 <li>Ways for business to give back to Debian</li>
3560 <eventitem date="2002-11-12" time="4:30PM" room="MC4058"
3561 title="Automatic Memory Management and Garbage Collection">
3562 <short>A talk by James A. Morrison</short>
3565 Do you ever wonder what java is doing while you wait? Have you ever used
3566 Modula-3? Do you wonder how lazily you can Mark and Sweep? Would you like to
3567 know how to Stop-and-Copy?
3569 Come out to this talk and learn these things and more. No prior knowledge of
3570 Garbage Collection or memory management is needed.