5 <eventitem date="2003-05-14" time="4:30 PM" room="MC3001 Comfy Lounge"
6 title="Spring 2003 Elections">
7 <short>Come on out and vote for your exec!</short>
9 <p>Elections will be held on Wednesday, May 14, 2003 at 4:30 PM in the
10 Comfy Lounge, MC3001.</p>
12 <p>I invite you to nominate yourself or others for executive positions,
13 starting immediately. Simply e-mail me at sjdutoit@uwaterloo.ca or
14 cro@csclub.uwaterloo.ca with the name of the person who is to be
15 nominated and the position they're nominated for.</p>
17 <p>Nominees must be full-time undergraduate students in Math. Sorry!</p>
19 <p>Positions open for elections are:</p>
23 President: Organises the club, appoints committees, keeps everyone busy.
24 If you have lots of ideas about the club in general and like bossing
25 people around, go for it!
29 Vice President: Organises events, acts as the president if he's not
30 available. If you have lots of ideas for events, and spare time, go
35 Treasurer: Keeps track of the club's finances. Gets to sign cheques
36 and stuff. If you enjoy dealing with money and have ideas on how to
41 Secretary: Takes care of minutes and outside correspondence. If you
42 enjoy writing things down and want to use our nifty new letterhead
47 <p>Nominations will be accepted until Tuesday, May 13 at 4:30 PM.</p>
49 <p>Additionally, a Sysadmin will be appointed after the elections. If you
50 like working with unix systems and have experience setting up and
51 maintaining them, go for it!</p>
53 <p>I hope that lots of people will show up; hopefully we'll have a great
54 term with plenty of events. We always need other volunteers, so if you
55 want to get involved just talk to the new exec after the
56 meeting. Librarians, webmasters, poster runners, etc. are always
59 <p>There will also be free pop, and if I remember, timbits :).</p>
61 <p>Memberships can be purchased at the elections. Only undergrad math
62 members can vote, but anyone can become a member.</p>
64 <p>Don't forget! Mark it on your calendar/wrist watch/PDA/brain implant!</p>
71 <eventitem date="2003-02-04" time="4:30 PM" room="MC2037"
72 title="Unix 101 Tutorial">
73 <short>Learn Unix and be the envy of your friends!</short>
76 <p>This is the first in a series of seminars that cover the use of the
77 UNIX Operating System. UNIX is used in a variety of applications, both
78 in academia and industy. We will provide you with hands-on experience
79 with the Math Faculty's UNIX environment in this seminar.</p>
81 <p>Topics that will be discussed include:</p>
84 <li> Navigating the UNIX environment</li>
85 <li> Using common UNIX commands</li>
86 <li>Using the PICO text editor</li>
87 <li>Reading electronic mail and news with PINE</li>
90 <p>If you do not have a Math computer account, don't panic; one will be lent
91 to you for the duration of this class.</p>
96 <eventitem date="2003-02-11" time="4:30 PM" room="MC2037"
97 title="Unix 102 Tutorial">
98 <short>Learn more Unix and be the envy of your friends!</short>
101 <p>Abstract to come soon.</p>
106 <eventitem date="2003-02-18" time="4:30 PM" room="MC2037"
107 title="Unix 103 Tutorial">
108 <short>Learn more Unix and be the envy of your friends!</short>
111 <p>Abstract to come soon. </p>
116 <eventitem date="2003-01-13" time="6:00 PM" room="MC3001"
117 title="W03 Elections">
118 <short>Come out and vote for the new exec!</short>
121 <p>This term's elections will take place on Monday, January 13 at 6:00 PM in the
122 MC "comfy lounge" (MC3001). Nominations are open from now on (Thursday,
123 January 2) until 4:30 PM of the day before elections (Sunday, January 12).
124 In order to nominate someone you can either e-mail me directly, by depositing
125 a form with the required information in the CSC mailbox in the Mathsoc office
126 or by writing the nomination and clearly marking it as such on the large
127 whiteboard in the CSC office. E-mail is probably the best choice.
128 Please include the name of the person to be nominated as well as the position
129 you wish to nominate them for.</p>
131 <p>Candidates must be full members of the club. This means they must have paid
132 their membership for the given term and (due to recent changes in the
133 constitution) must be full-time undergraduate math students.
134 The same requirements hold for those voting. Please bring your Watcard to
135 the elections so that I can verify this. I will have a list of members with
138 <p>The positions open are:</p>
140 <p><b>President</b> -- appoints all commitees of the club, calls and presides at all
141 meetings of the club and audits the club's financial records. Really, this
142 is the person in charge.</p>
144 <p><b>Vice President</b> -- assumes President's duties in case he/she is absent,
145 plans and coordinates events with the programmes committee and assumes any
146 other duties delegated by the President.
147 This is a really fun job if you enjoy coordinating events!</p>
149 <p><b>Secretary</b> -- keeps minutes of the meetings and cares for any correspondence.
150 A fairly light job, good choice if you just want to see what being an exec
153 <p><b>Treasurer</b> -- maintains all the finances of the club.
154 If you like money and keeping records, this is the job for you!</p>
156 <p>Additionally a Systems Administrator will be picked by the new executive.</p>
158 <p>Last term was a great term for the CSC -- many events, some office renovations
159 and a much improved image were all part of it. I hope to see the next term's
160 exec continue this. If you're interested in seeing this happen, do consider
161 going for a position, or helping out as office staff or on one of the
164 <p>Anyways, hopefully I'll see many of you at the elections.
165 Remember: Monday, January 13, 6:00 PM, MC3001/Comfy Lounge.</p>
167 <p>If you have any further questions don't hesitate to contact the CRO,
168 Stefanus Du Toit <a href="mailto:sjdutoit@uwaterloo.ca">by e-mail</a>.</p>
172 <eventitem date="2003-01-23" time="6:30 PM" room="MC1085"
173 title="Regular Expressions">
174 <short>Find your perfect match</short>
177 <p>Stephen Kleene developed regular expressions to describe what he
178 called <q>the algebra of regular sets.</q> Since he was a pioneering
179 theorist in computer science, Kleene's regular expressions soon made
180 it into searching algorithms and from there to everyday tools.</p>
182 <p>Regular expressions can be powerful tools to manipulate text.
183 You will be introduced to them in this talk. As well, we will go
184 further than the rigid mathematical definition of regular
185 expressions, and delve into POSIX regular expressions which are
186 typically available in most Unix tools.</p>
191 <eventitem date="2003-01-30" time="6:30 PM" room="MC1085"
192 title="sed & awk">
193 <short>Unix text editing</short>
196 <p><i>sed</i> is the Unix stream editor. A powerful way to
197 automatically edit a large batch of text. <i>awk</i> is a
198 programming language that allows you to manipulate structured data
199 into formatted reports.</p>
201 <p>Both of these tools come from early Unix, and both are still
202 useful today. Although modern programming languages such as Perl,
203 Python, and Ruby have largely replaced the humble <i>sed</i> and
204 <i>awk</i>, they still have their place in every Unix user's
210 <eventitem date="2003-02-06" time="6:30 PM" room="MC1085"
211 title="LaTeX: A Document Processor">
212 <short>Typesetting beautiful text</short>
215 <p>Unix was one of the first electronic typesetting platforms. The
216 innovative AT&T <i>troff</i> system allowed researches at Bell
217 Labs to generate high quality camera-ready proofs for their papers.
218 Later, Donald Knuth invented a typesetting system called
219 T<small>E</small>X, which was far superior to other typesetting
220 systems in the 1980s. However, it was still a typesetting language,
221 where one had to specify exactly how text was to be set.</p>
223 <p>L<sup><small>A</small></sup>T<small>E</small>X is a macro package
224 for the T<small>E</small>X system that allows an author to describe
225 his document's function, thereby typesetting the text in an
226 attractive and correct way. In addition, one can define semantic
227 tags to a document, in order to describe the meaning of the
228 document; rather than the layout.</p>
233 <eventitem date="2003-02-13" time="6:30 PM" room="MC1085"
234 title="LaTeX: Reports">
235 <short>Writing reports that look good.</short>
238 <p>Work term reports, papers, and other technical documents can be
239 typeset in L<sup><small>A</small></sup>T<small>E</small>X to great
240 effect. In this session, I will provide examples on how to typeset
241 tables, figures, and references. You will also learn how to make
242 tables of contents, bibliographics, and how to create footnotes.</p>
244 <p> I will also examine various packages of
245 L<sup><small>A</small></sup>T<small>E</small>X that can help you
246 meet requirements set by users of inferior typesetting systems.
247 These include double-spacing, hyphenation and specific margin
253 <eventitem date="2003-02-20" time="6:30 PM" room="MC1085"
254 title="LaTeX: Beautiful Mathematics">
255 <short>LaTeX => fun</short>
258 <p>It is widely acknowledged that the best system by which to
259 typeset beautiful mathematics is through the T<small>E</small>
260 typesetting system, written by Donald Knuth in the early 1980s.</p>
262 <p>In this talk, I will demonstrate
263 L<sup><small>A</small></sup>T<small>E</small>X and how to typeset
264 elegant mathematical expressions.</p>
269 <eventitem date="2003-02-27" time="6:00 PM" room="MC1085"
270 title="The BSD License Family">
271 <short>Free for all</short>
274 <p>Before the GNU project ever existed, before the phrase
275 "Free Software" was ever coined, students and researchers
276 at the University of California, Berkeley were already
277 practising it. They had acquired the source cdoe to a
278 little-known operating system developed at AT&T
279 Bell Laboratories, and were creating improvments at a
282 <p>These improvements were sent back to Bell Labs, and
283 shared to other Universities. Each of them were licensed
284 under what is now known as the "Original BSD license". Find
285 out what this license means, its implications, and what are
286 its decendents by attending this short talk.</p>
291 <eventitem date="2003-02-27" time="6:30 PM" room="MC1085"
292 title="The GNU General Public License">
293 <short>The teeth of Free Software</short>
296 <div style="font-style: italic"><blockquote>
297 The licenses for most software are designed to take away your
298 freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General
299 Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and
300 change free software---to make sure the software is free for all
303 <div style="text-align:right">--- Excerpt from the GNU GPL</div>
306 <p> The GNU General Public License is one of the most influencial
307 software licenses in this day. Written by Richard Stallman for the
308 GNU Project, it is used by software developers around the world to
309 protect their work.</p>
311 <p>Unfortunately, software developers do not read licenses
312 thoroughly, nor well. In this talk, we will read the entire GNU GPL
313 and explain the implications of its passages. Along the way, we
314 will debunk some myths and clarify common misunderstandings.</p>
316 <p>After this session, you ought to understand what the GNU GPL
317 means, how to use it, and when you cannot use it. This session
318 should also give you some insight into the social implications of
324 <eventitem date="2003-03-13" time="6:30 PM" room="MC1085"
326 <short>Give your documents more markup</short>
329 <p>XML is the <q>eXtensible Markup Language,</q> a standard
330 maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium. A descendant of IBM's
331 SGML. It is a metalanguage which can be used to define markup
332 languages for semantically describing a document.</p>
334 <p>This talk will describe how to generate correct XML documents,
335 and auxillary technologies that work with XML.</p>
340 <eventitem date="2003-03-20" time="6:30 PM" room="MC1085"
342 <short>Transforming your documents</short>
345 <p>XSLT is the <q>eXtended Stylesheet Language Transformations,</q>
346 a language for transforming XML documents into other XML
349 <p>XSLT is used to manipulate XML documents into other forms: a sort
350 of glue between data formats. It can turn an XML document into an
351 XHTML document, or even an HTML document. With a little bit of
352 hackery, it can even be convinced to spit out non-XML conforming
358 <eventitem date="2003-03-24" time="8:00 PM"
359 room="Humanities Theatre, Hagey Hall"
360 title="Judy, or What Is It Like To Be A Robot?">
361 <short>Held in co-operation with the UW Cognitive Science Club</short>
364 <p>A lot of claims have been made lately about the intelligence of
365 computers. Some researchers say that computers will eventually attain
366 super-human intelligence. Others call thse claims... um, poppycock.
367 Oddly enough, in the search for the truth of the matter, both camps
368 have overlooked an obvious strategy: interviewing a computer and asking
371 <p>"Judy is as much fun as a barrel of wind-up cymbal-monkeys, and
372 lots more entertaining." --- Bill Rodriguez, <i>Providence Phoenix</i></p>
374 <p>"Tom Sgouros's witty play, co-starring the charming robot Judy, is an
375 imagination stretcher that delights while it exercises your mind. If you
376 think you can't imagine a conscious robot, you're wrong---you can,
377 especially once you've met Judy." --- Daniel C. Dennett,
378 author of <i>Consciousness Explained</i>, <i>Brainchildren</i>,
381 <p>"...an engrossing evening... Real questions about
382 consciousness, freedom to act, the relationship between the creator
383 and the created are woven into a bravura performance." --- Will
384 Stackman, <i>Aislesay.com</i></p>
386 <p>Sponsored by the Mathematics Society, the Federation of Students, the
387 Arts Student Union, the Graduate Student Association, and the Department of
388 Philosophy. Tickets available at the Humanities box office (888-4908) and
389 the offices of the Psychology Society and the Computer Science Club for
392 href="http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/cogsci/">http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/cogsci</a>.</p>
397 <eventitem date="2003-03-25" time="4:30 PM" room="MC2065"
398 title="Stream Processing">
399 <short>A talk by Assistant Professor Michael McCool</short>
402 <p>Stream processing is an enhanced version of SIMD processing that
403 permits efficient execution of conditionals and iteration. Stream
404 processors have many similarities to GPUs, and a hardware prototype,
405 the Imagine processor, has been used to implement both OpenGL and
408 <p>It is possible that GPUs will acquire certain properties
409 of stream processors in the future, which should make them easier
410 to use and more efficient for general-purpose computation that includes
411 data-dependent iteration and conditionals.</p>
416 <eventitem date="2003-03-26" time="6:00 PM" room="MC2065"
417 title="Abusing the C++ Compiler">
418 <short>Abusing template metaprogramming in C++</short>
421 <p>Templates are a useful feature in C++ when it comes to writing
422 type-independent data structures and algorithms. But that's not all
423 they can be used for. Essentially, it is possible to write certain
424 programs in C++ that execute completely at compile-time rather
425 than run-time. Combined with some optimisations this is an interesting
426 twist on regular C++ programming.</p>
428 <p>This talk will give a short overview of the features of templates
429 and then go on to describe how to "abuse" templates to perform complex
430 computations at compile time. The speaker will present three programs of
431 increasing complexity which execute at compile time. First a factorial
432 listing program, then a prime listing program will be presented. Finally
433 the talk will conclude with the presentation of a <i>Mandelbrot
434 generator running at compile time.</i></p>
436 <p>Some basic knowledge of C++ will be assumed.</p>
441 <eventitem date="2003-03-27" time="6:30 PM" room="MC1085"
442 title="SSH and Networks">
443 <short>Once more into the breach</short>
446 <p>The Secure Shell (SSH) has now replaced traditional remote login
447 tools such as <i>rsh</i>, <i>rlogin</i>, <i>rexec</i> and
448 <i>telnet</i>. It is used to provide secure, authenticated,
449 encrypted communications between remote systems. However, the SSH
450 protocol provides for much more than this.</p>
452 <p>In this talk, we will discuss using SSH to its full extent. Topics
453 to be covered include:</p>
455 <li>Remote logins</li>
456 <li>Remote execution</li>
457 <li>Password-free authentication</li>
458 <li>X11 forwarding</li>
459 <li>TCP forwarding</li>
460 <li>SOCKS tunnelling</li>
468 date="1994-09-13" time="9:00 PM"
469 room="Princess Cinema"
470 title="Movie Outing: Brainstorm">
472 No description available.
476 The first of this term's CSC social events, we will be going to see
477 the movie ``Brainstorm'' at the Princess Cinema. This outing is
478 intended primarily for the new first-year students.
481 The Princess Cinema is Waterloo's repertoire theatre. This month
482 and next, they are featuring a ``Cyber Film Festival''. Upcoming
487 <li>Bladerunner (director's cut)</li>
488 <li>2001: A Space Odyssey</li>
492 Admission is $4.25 for a Princess member, $7.50 for a non-member.
493 Membership to the Princess is $7.00 per year.
498 date="1994-09-16" time="4:30 PM"
500 title="CSC Elections">
501 <short>No description available</short>
502 <abstract>No abstract available</abstract>
505 date="1994-09-19" time="4:30 PM"
507 title="UNIX I Tutorial">
508 <short>No description available</short>
509 <abstract>No abstract available</abstract>
512 date="1994-09-21" time="6:30 PM"
514 title="SIGGRAPH Video Night">
515 <short>No description available</short>
516 <abstract>No abstract available</abstract>
519 date="1994-09-22" time="4:30 PM"
521 title="UNIX I Tutorial">
522 <short>No description available</short>
523 <abstract>No abstract available</abstract>
526 date="1994-09-26" time="4:30 PM"
528 title="UNIX II Tutorial">
529 <short>No description available</short>
530 <abstract>No abstract available</abstract>
533 date="1994-10-13" time="5:00 PM"
535 title="Prograph: Picture the Future">
536 <short>No description available</short>
539 What is the next step in the evolution of computer languages?
540 Intelligent agents? Distributed objects? or visual languages?
543 Visual languages overcome many of the drawbacks and limitations
544 of the textual languages that software development is based on
545 today. Do you think about programming in a linear fashion? Or do
546 you draw a mental picture of your algorithm and then linearize it
547 for the benefit of your compiler? Wouldn't it be nice if you could
548 code the same way you think?
551 Visual C++ and Visual BASIC aren't visual languages, but Prograph
552 is. Prograph is a commercially available, visual, object-oriented,
553 data-flow language. It is well suited to graphical user interface
554 development, but is as powerful for general-purpose programming as
555 any textual language.
558 The talk will comprise a discussion of the problems of textual
559 languages that visual languages solve, a live demonstration of
560 Prograph, and some of my observations of the applications of
561 Prograph to software development.
566 date="1994-10-15" time="10:00 AM"
568 title="ACM-Style Programming Contest">
569 <short>No description available</short>
571 <h3>Big Money and Prizes!</h3>
573 So you think you're a pretty good programmer? Pit your skills
574 against others on campus in this triannual event! Contestants will
575 have three hours to solve five programming problems in either C or
579 Last fall's winners went on to the International Finals and came
580 first overall! You could be there, too!
585 date="1994-10-20" time="4:30 PM"
587 title="Exploring the Internet">
588 <short>No description available</short>
590 <h3>Need something to do between assignments/beers?</h3>
592 Did you know that your undergrad account at Waterloo gives you
593 access tothe world's largest computer network? With thousands
594 of discussion groups, gigabytes of files to download, multimedia
595 information browsers, even on-line entertainment?
598 The resources available on the Internet are vast and wondrous, but
599 the tools for navigating it are sometimes confusing and arcane. In
600 this hands-on tutorial you will get the chance to get your feet wet
601 with the world's most mind-bogglingly big computer network, the
602 protocols and programs used, and how to use them responsibly and
608 date="1994-11-02" time="4:30 PM"
611 <short>No description available</short>
613 <h3>From the Minimax Theorem, through Alpha-Beta, and beyond...</h3>
615 This will be a descussion of the pitfalls of using mathematics and
616 algorithms to play classical board games. Thorough descriptions
617 shall be presented of the simple techniques used as the building
618 blocks that make all modern computer game players. I will use
619 tic-tac-toe as a control for my arguements. Other games such as
620 Chess, Othello and Go shall be the be a greater measure of progress;
621 and more importantly the targets of our dreams.
624 To enhance the discussion of the future, Barney Pell's Metagamer
625 shall be introduced. His work in define classes of games is
626 important in identifying the features necessary for analysis.
633 <eventitem date="1999-10-18" time="2:30 PM" room="DC1304"
634 title="Living Laboratories: The Future Computing Environments at
636 <short>By Blair MacIntyre and Elizabeth Mynatt</short>
638 <p>by Blair MacIntyre and Elizabeth Mynatt</p>
639 <p>The Future Computing Environments (FCE) Group at Georgia Tech
640 is a collection of faculty and students that share a desire to
641 understand the partnership between humans and technology that
642 arises as computation and sensing become ubiquitous. With
643 expertise covering the breadth of Computer Science, but
644 focusing on HCI, Computational Perception, and Machine
645 Learning, the individual research agendas of the FCE faculty
646 are grounded in a number of shared "living laboratories" where
647 their research is applied to everyday life in the classroom
648 (Classroom 2000), the home (the Aware Home), the office
649 (Augmented Offices), and on one's person. Professors
650 MacIntyre and Mynatt will discuss a variety of these projects,
651 with an emphasis on the HCI and Computer Science aspects of
655 In addition to their affiliation with the FCE group,
656 Professors Mynatt and MacIntyre are both members of the
657 Graphics, Visualization and Usability Center (GVU) at Georgia
658 Tech. This interdisciplinary center brings together research
659 in computer science, psychology, industrial engineering,
660 architecture and media design by examining the role of
661 computation in our everyday lives. During the talk, they will
662 touch on some of the research and educational opportunities
663 available at both GVU and the College of Computing.
668 <eventitem date="1999-10-19" time="4:30 PM" room="DC1304"
669 title="GDB, Purify Tutorial">
670 <short>No description available.</short>
673 Debugging can be the most difficult and time consuming part of
674 any program's life-cycle. Far from an exact science, it's more
675 of an art ... and close to some kind of dark magic. Cryptic
676 error messages, lousy error checking, and icky things like
677 implicit casts can make it nearly impossible toknow what's
678 going on inside your program.
681 Several tools are available to help automate your
682 debuggin. GDB and Purify are among the most powerful
683 debugging tools available in a UNIX environment. GDB is an
684 interactive debugger, allowing you to `step' through
685 aprogram, examine function calls, variable contents, stack
686 traces and let you look at the state of a program after it
687 crashes. Purify is a commercial program designed to help find
688 and remove memory leaks from programs written inlanguages
689 without automatic garbage collection.
692 This talk will cover how to compile your C and C++ programs
693 for use with GDB and Purify, as well as how to use the
694 available X interfaces. If a purify license is available on
695 undergrad at the time of the talk, we will cover how to use it
701 <eventitem date="1999-12-01" time="4:30 PM" room="MC2066"
702 title="Homebrew Processors and Integrated Systems in FPGAs">
703 <short>By Jan Gray</short>
707 <p> With the advent of large inexpensive field-programmable gate
708 arrays and tools it is now practical for anyone to design and
709 build custom processors and systems-on-a-chip. Jan will discuss
710 designing with FPGAs, and present the design and implementation
711 of xr16, yet another FPGA-based RISC computer system with
712 integrated peripherals.</p>
714 <p> Jan is a past CSC pres., B.Math. CS/EEE '87, and wrote
715 compilers, tools, and middleware at Microsoft from 1987-1998. He
716 built the first 32-bit FPGA CPU and system-on-a-chip in
721 <eventitem date="1999-12-01" time="7:00 PM" room="Golf's Steakhouse"
723 <short>End-of-term dinner</short>
725 No abstract available.
729 <eventitem date="1999-12-02" time="1:30 PM" room="DC1302"
730 title="Calculational Mathematics">
731 <short>By Edgar Dijkstra</short>
733 <p> By Edgar Dijkstra</p>
735 <p> This talk will use partial orders, lattice theory, and, if
736 time permits, the Galois connection as carriers to illustrate
737 the use of calculi in mathematics. We hope to show the brevity
738 of many calculations (in order tofight the superstition that
739 formal proofs are necessarily unpractically long), and the
740 strong heuristic guidance that is available for their
743 <p> Dijkstra is known for early graph-theoretical algorithms,
744 the first implementation of ALGOL 60, the first operating system
745 composed of explicitly synchronized processes, the invention of
746 guarded commands and of predicate transformers as a means for
747 defining semantics, and programming methodology in the broadest
748 sense of the word. </p>
750 <p> His current research interests focus on the formal
751 derivation of proofs and programs, and the streamlining of the
752 mathematical argument in general.</p>
754 <p> Dijkstra held the Schlumberger Centennial Chair in Computer
755 Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin until retiring in
761 <eventitem date="1999-12-03" time="10:00 AM" room="Siegfried Hall,
762 St Jerome's" title="Proofs and Programs">
763 <short>By Edsger Dijkstra</short>
765 <p> This talk will show the use of programs for the proving of
766 theorems. Its purpose is to show how our experience gained in
767 the derivations of programs might be transferred to the
768 derivation of proofs in general. The examples will go beyond the
769 (traditional) existence theorems. </p>
771 <p> Dijkstra is known for early graph-theoretical algorithms,
772 the first implementation of ALGOL 60, the first operating system
773 composed of explicitly synchronized processes, the invention of
774 guarded commands and of predicate transformers as a means for
775 defining semantics, and programming methodology in the broadest
776 sense of the word. </p>
778 <p> His current research interests focus on the formal
779 derivation of proofs and programs, and the streamlining of the
780 mathematical argument in general.</p>
782 <p> Dijkstra held the Schlumberger Centennial Chair in Computer
783 Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin until retiring in
789 <eventitem date="1999-12-03" time="3:00 PM" room="DC1351"
790 title="Open Q&A session">
791 <short>By Edsger Dijkstra</short>
792 <abstract>No description available.</abstract>
797 <eventitem date="2000-03-24" time="4:30 PM" room="DC1304"
798 title="Enterprise Java APIs and Implementing a Web Portal">
799 <short>No description available.</short>
801 <h3>by Floyd Marinescu
805 The first talk will be an introduction to the Enterprise Java
806 API's: Servlets, JSP, EJB, and how to use them to build
811 The second talk will be about how these technologies were used
812 to implement a real world portal. The talk will include an
813 overview of the design patterns used and will feature
814 architectural information about the yet to be release portal
815 (which I am one of the developers) called theserverside.com.
820 <eventitem date="2000-03-30" time="4:30 PM" room="DC1304"
821 title="Enterprise Java APIs and Implementing a Web Portal (1)">
822 <short>No description available.</short>
824 <p>Real World J2EE - Design Patterns and architecture behind the
825 yet to be released J2EE portal: theserverside.com</p>
827 <p>This talk will feature an exclusive look at the architecture
828 behind the new J2EE portal: theserverside.com. Join Floyd
829 Marinescu in a walk-through ofthe back-end of the portal,
830 while learning about J2EE and its real world patterns,
831 applications, problems and benefits.</p>
837 <eventitem date="2000-07-20" time="7:00 PM" room="Ali Babas Steak
838 House, 130 King Street S, Waterloo" title="Ctrl-D">
839 <short>End-of-term dinner</short>
840 <abstract>No abstract available.</abstract>
845 <eventitem date="2000-09-14" time="6:00 PM" room="DC1302"
846 title="CSC Elections">
847 <short>Fall 2000 Elections for the CSC.</short>
850 Would you like to get involved in the CSC? Would you like to have a
851 say in what the CSC does this term? Come out to the CSC Elections!
852 In addition to electing the executive for the Fall term, we will be
853 appointing office staff and other positions. Look for details in
857 <p>Nominations for all positions are being taken in the CSC office, MC
862 <eventitem date="2000-09-14" time="7:00 PM" room="DC1302"
863 title="SIGGraph Video Night">
864 <short> SIGGraph Video Night Featuring some truly awesome computer
865 animations from Siggraph '99. </short>
867 <p> Interested in Computer Graphics?
870 <p> Enjoy watching state-of-the-art Animation?
873 <p> Looking for a cheap place to take a date?
876 <p> SIGGraph Video Night -
877 Featuring some truly awesome computer animations from Siggraph '99.
880 <p>Come out for the Computer Science Club general elections at 6:00
881 pm, right before SIGGraph!</p>
885 <eventitem date="2000-09-25" time="2:30 PM" room="DC1302"
886 title="Realising the Next Generation Internet">
887 <short>By Frank Clegg of Microsoft Canada</short>
893 <dd>President, Microsoft Canada</dd>
896 <dd>Monday, September 25, 2000</dd>
898 <dd>14:30 - 16:00</dd>
901 <dd>(Davis Centre, Room 1302, University of Waterloo)</dd>
905 <dt>Pre-registration</dt>
907 <dd><a HREF="http://infranet.uwaterloo.ca:81/infranet/semform.htm">http://infranet.uwaterloo.ca:81/infranet/semform.htm</a></dd>
908 <dd>(519) 888-4004</dd>
913 <p>The Internet and the Web have revolutionized our communications, our access
914 to information and our business methods. However, there is still much room
915 for improvement. Frank Clegg will discuss Microsoft's vision for what is
916 beyond browsing and the dotcom. Microsoft .NET (pronounced "dot-net") is a
917 new platform, user experience and set of advanced software services planned
918 to make all devices work together and connect seamlessly. With this next
919 generation of software, Microsoft's goal is to make Internet-based
920 computing and communications easier to use, more personalized, and more
921 productive for businesses and consumers. In his new position of president
922 of Microsoft Canada Co., Frank Clegg will be responsible for leading the
923 organization toward the delivery of Microsoft .NET. He will speak about
924 this new platform and the next generation Internet, how software developers
925 and businesses will be able to take advantage of it, and what the .NET
926 experience will look like for consumers and business users.</p>
929 <p>Frank Clegg was appointed president of Microsoft Canada Co. this month.
930 Prior to his new position, Mr. Clegg was vice-president, Central Region,
931 Microsoft Corp. from 1996 to 2000. In this capacity, he was responsible for
932 sales, support and marketing activities in 15 U.S. states. Mr. Clegg joined
933 Microsoft Corp. in 1991 and headed the Canadian subsidiary until 1996.
934 During that time, Mr. Clegg was instrumental in introducing several key
935 initiatives to improve company efficiency, growth and market share. Mr.
936 Clegg graduated from the University of Waterloo in 1977 with a B. Math.</p>
938 <h3>For More Information</h3>
941 The infraNET Project<br />
942 University of Waterloo<br />
943 519-888-4567 ext. 5611<br />
944 <a HREF="http://infranet.uwaterloo.ca/">http://infranet.uwaterloo.ca/</a>
952 <eventitem date="2001-01-15" time="4:30 PM" room="MC3036"
953 title="Executive elections">
954 <short>Winter 2001 CSC Elections.</short>
956 <p>Would you like to get involved in the CSC? Would you like to
957 have a say in what the CSC does this term? Come out to the CSC
958 Elections! In addition to electing the executive for the
959 Winter term, we will be appointing office staff and other
960 positions. Look for details in uw.csc.
963 Nominations for all positions are being taken in the CSC
968 <eventitem date="2001-01-22" time="3:30 PM" room="MC3036"
970 <short>Second CSC meeting for Winter 2001.</short>
972 <h3>Proposed agenda</h3>
974 <dt>Book purchases</dt>
976 <p>They haven't been done in 2 terms.
977 We have an old list of books to buy.
978 Any suggestions from uw.csc are welcome.</p>
983 <p>For doing linux burns. It was allocated money on the budget
984 request - about $300. We should be able to get a decent 12x
985 burner with that (8x rewrite).</p>
986 <p>The obvious things to sell are Linux Distros and BSD variants.
987 Are there any other software that we can legally burn and sell
992 <p>Just a talk of the topics to be covered, when, where, whatnot.
993 Mike was right on this one, this should have been done earlier
994 in the term. Oh well, maybe we can fix this for next fall term.</p>
997 <dt>Game Contest</dt>
999 <p>We already put a bit of work into planning the Othello contest
1000 before I read Mike's post. I still think it's viable. I've got
1001 at least 2 people interested in writing entries for it. This
1002 will be talked about more on monday. Hopefully, Rory and I will
1003 be able to present a basic outline of how the contest is going
1004 to be run at that time.</p>
1006 <dt>Peri's closet cleaning</dt>
1009 <p>Current sysadmin (jmbeverl) and I (kvijayan) and
1010 President (geduggan) had a nice conversation about this 2
1011 days ago, having to do with completely erasing all of
1012 peri, installing a clean stable potato debian on it, and
1013 priming it for being a gradual replacement to calum. We'll
1014 probably discuss how much we want to get done on this
1015 front on Monday.</p>
1019 <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>
1023 <eventitem date="2001-01-27" time="10:30 AM" room="MC3006"
1024 title="ACM-Style programming contest">
1025 <short>Practice for the ACM international programming
1028 <p>Our ACM-Style practice contests involve answering five questions in three
1029 hours. Solutions are written in Pascal, C or C++. Seven years in a row,
1030 Waterloo's teams have been in the top ten at the world finals.
1031 For more information, see
1032 <a HREF="http://plg.uwaterloo.ca/~acm00/">the contest web page</a>.</p>
1034 <h3>Easy Question:</h3>
1035 <p>A palindrome is a sequence of letters that reads the same backwards and
1036 forwards, such as ``Madam, I'm Adam'' (note that case doesn't matter and
1037 only letters are important). Your task is to find the longest palindrome in
1038 a line of text (if there is a tie, print the leftmost one).</p>
1042 asfgjh12dsfgg kj0ab12321BA wdDwkj abBA
1043 abcbabCdcbaqwerewq abCdcba
1046 <h3>Hard Question:</h3>
1047 <p>An anagram is a word formed by reordering the letters of another word.
1048 Find all sets of anagrams that exist within a large dictionary. The
1049 input will be a sorted list of words (up to 4000 words), one per line.
1050 Output each set of anagrams on a separate line. Each set should be
1051 in alphabetical order, and all lines of sets should be in alphabetical
1052 order. A word with no anagrams is a set of anagrams itself, and should
1053 be displayed with no modifications.</p>
1066 <eventitem date="2001-01-29" time="02:39 PM" room="MC3036"
1068 <short>No description available.</short>
1069 <abstract>No abstract available.</abstract>
1072 <eventitem date="2001-02-05" time="03:30 PM" room="MC3036"
1074 <short>No description available.</short>
1075 <abstract>No abstract available.</abstract>
1078 <eventitem date="2001-02-12" time="03:30 PM" room="MC3036"
1080 <short>No description available.</short>
1081 <abstract>No abstract available.</abstract>
1084 <!-- Spring 2001 -->
1086 <eventitem date="2001-06-02" time="10:30 AM" room="MC3006"
1087 title="ACM-Style programming contest">
1088 <short>Practice for the ACM international programming
1091 <p>Our ACM-Style practice contests involve answering five questions in three
1092 hours. Solutions are written in Pascal, C or C++. Seven years in a row,
1093 Waterloo's teams have been in the top ten at the world finals.
1094 For more information, see
1095 <a HREF="http://plg.uwaterloo.ca/~acm00/">the contest web page</a>.</p>
1097 <h3>Easy Question:</h3>
1098 <p>A palindrome is a sequence of letters that reads the same backwards and
1099 forwards, such as ``Madam, I'm Adam'' (note that case doesn't matter and
1100 only letters are important). Your task is to find the longest palindrome in
1101 a line of text (if there is a tie, print the leftmost one).</p>
1105 asfgjh12dsfgg kj0ab12321BA wdDwkj abBA
1106 abcbabCdcbaqwerewq abCdcba
1109 <h3>Hard Question:</h3>
1110 <p>An anagram is a word formed by reordering the letters of another word.
1111 Find all sets of anagrams that exist within a large dictionary. The
1112 input will be a sorted list of words (up to 4000 words), one per line.
1113 Output each set of anagrams on a separate line. Each set should be
1114 in alphabetical order, and all lines of sets should be in alphabetical
1115 order. A word with no anagrams is a set of anagrams itself, and should
1116 be displayed with no modifications.</p>
1130 <!-- Winter 2002 -->
1132 <eventitem date="2002-01-26" time="2:00 PM"
1133 room="Comfy Lounge MC3001"
1134 title="An Introduction to GNU Hurd">
1135 <short>Bored of GNU/Linux? Try this experimental operating
1138 <p>GNU Hurd is an operating system kernel based on the microkernel
1139 architecture design. It was the original GNU kernel, predating Linux,
1140 and is still being actively developed by many volunteers.</p>
1141 <p>The Toronto-area Hurd Users Group, in co-operation with the Computer
1142 Science Club, is hosting an afternoon to show the Hurd to anyone
1143 interested. Jeff Bailey, a Hurd developer, will give a presentation on
1144 the Hurd, followed by a GnuPG/PGP keysigning party. To finish it off,
1145 James Morrison, also a Hurd developer, will be hosting a Debian
1146 GNU/Hurd installation session.</p>
1147 <p>All interested are invited to attend. Bring your GnuPG/PGP fingerprint
1148 and mail your key to sjdutoit@uwaterloo.ca with the subject
1149 ``keysigning'' (see separate announcement).</p>
1150 <p>Questions? Suggestions? Contact <a
1151 href="ja2morri@uwaterloo.ca">James Morrison</a>.</p>
1154 <eventitem date="2002-01-26" time="2:30 PM"
1155 room="Comfy Lounge MC3001"
1156 title="GnuPG/PGP Keysigning Party">
1157 <short>Get more signatures on your key!</short>
1160 GnuPG and PGP provide public-key based encryption for e-mail and
1161 other electronic communication. In addition to preventing others
1162 from reading your private e-mail, this allows you to verify that an
1163 e-mail or file was indeed written by its perceived author.
1166 In order to make sure a GnuPG/PGP key belongs to the respective
1167 person, the key must be signed by someone who has checked the
1168 user's key fingerprint and verified the user's identification.
1171 A keysigning party is an ideal occasion to have your key signed by
1172 many people, thus strengthening the authority of your key. Everyone
1173 showing up exchanges key signatures after verifying ID and
1174 fingerprints. The Computer Science Club will be hosting such a
1175 keysigning party together with the Hurd presentation by THUG (see
1176 separate announcement). See
1177 <a href="http://www.student.math.uwaterloo.ca/~sjdutoit/"> the
1178 keysigning party homepage</a> for more information.
1181 Before attending it is important that you mail your key to
1182 sjdutoit@uwaterloo.ca with the subject ``keysigning.'' Also make
1183 sure to bring photo ID and a copy of your GnuPG/PGP fingerprint on
1184 a sheet of paper to the event.
1188 <eventitem date="2002-01-31" time="6:00 PM" room="MC2037"
1189 title="UNIX 101: First Steps With UNIX">
1191 This is the first in a series of seminars that cover the use of
1192 the UNIX Operating System. UNIX is used in a variety of
1193 applications, both in academia and industy. We will be covering
1194 the basics of the UNIX environment, as well as the use of PINE, an
1195 electronic mail and news reader.
1198 <eventitem date="2002-02-13" time="4:00 PM" room="MC4060"
1199 title="DVD-Video Under Linux">
1200 <short>Billy Biggs will be holding a talk on DVD technology
1201 (in particular, CSS and playback issues) under Linux, giving some
1202 technical details as well as an overview of the current status of
1203 Free Software efforts. All are welcome.</short>
1205 <p>DVD copy protection: Content Scrambling System (CSS)</p>
1207 <li>A technical introduction to CSS and an overview of the ongoing
1208 legal battle to allow distribution of non-commercial DVD
1210 <li>The current Linux software efforts and open issues</li>
1211 <li>How applications and Linux distributions are handling the
1212 legal issues involved</li>
1214 <p>DVD-Video specifics: Menus and navigation</p>
1216 <li>An overview of the DVD-Video standard</li>
1217 <li>Reverse engineering efforts and their implementation status</li>
1218 <li>Progress of integration into Linux media players</li>
1222 <eventitem date="2002-02-07" time="6:00 PM" room="MC2037"
1223 title="Unix 102: Fun With UNIX">
1224 <short>This the second in a series of UNIX tutorials. Simon Law and
1225 James Perry will be presenting some more advanced UNIX
1226 techniques. All are welcome. Accounts will be provided for those
1227 needing them.</short>
1230 This is the second in a series of seminars that cover the use of
1231 the UNIX Operating System. UNIX is used in a variety of
1232 applications, both in academia and industry. We will provide you
1233 with hands-on experience with the Math Faculty's UNIX environment
1236 <p>Topics that will be discussed include:</p>
1238 <li>Interacting with Bourne and C shells</li>
1239 <li>Editing text using the vi text editor</li>
1240 <li>Editing text using the Emacs display editor</li>
1241 <li>Multi-tasking and the screen multiplexer</li>
1244 If you do not have a Math computer account, don't panic; one will
1245 be lent to you for the duration of this class.
1249 <eventitem date="2002-03-01" time="5:00 PM" room="MC4060"
1250 title="Computer Go, The Ultimate">
1251 <short>Thomas Wolf from Brock University will be holding a talk on
1252 the asian game of Go. All are welcome.</short>
1255 The asian game go is unique in a number of ways. It is the oldest
1256 board game known. It is a strategy game with very simple
1257 rules. Computer programs are very weak despite huge efforts and
1258 prizes of US$ > 1.5M for a program beating professional
1259 players. The talk will quickly explain the rules of go, compare go
1260 and chess, mention various attempts to program go and describe our
1261 own efforts in this field. Students will have an opportunity to
1262 solve computer generated go problems. Prizes will be available.
1267 <!-- Spring 2002 -->
1269 <eventitem date="2002-05-11" time="7:00 PM" room="MC3036" title="S02
1271 <short>Come and vote for this term's exec</short>
1274 Vote for the exec this term. Meet at the CSC office.
1282 <eventitem date="2002-09-16" time="5:30 PM" room="Comfy lounge"
1283 title="F02 elections">
1284 <short>Come and vote for this term's exec</short>
1287 Vote for the exec this term. Meet at the comfy
1288 lounge. There will be an opportunity to obtain or renew
1289 memberships. This term's CRO is Siyan Li
1290 (s8li@csclub.uwaterloo.ca).
1295 <eventitem date="2002-09-30" time="6:30 PM" room="Comfy lounge, MC3001"
1296 title="Business Meeting">
1297 <short>Vote on a constitutional change.</short>
1300 The executive has unanimously decided to try to change our
1301 constitution to comply with MathSoc policy. The clause we are trying
1302 to change is the membership clause. The following is the proposed new
1303 reading of the clause.
1306 In compliance with MathSoc regulations and in recognition of
1307 the club being primarily targeted at undergraduate students, full
1308 membership is open to all undergraduate students in the Faculty of
1309 Mathematics and restricted to the same.</i>
1313 The proposed change is illustrated <a
1314 href="http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/docs/constitution-change-20020920.html">on
1319 There will be a business meeting on 30 Sept 2002 at 18:30 in
1320 the comfy lounge, MC 3001. Please come and vote
1325 <eventitem date="2002-09-26" time="5:30 PM" room="MC3006"
1327 <short>First Steps with UNIX</short>
1330 Get to know UNIX and be the envy of your friends!
1333 This is the first in a series of seminars that cover the use
1334 of the UNIX Operating System. UNIX is used in a variety of
1335 applications, both in academia and industy. We will provide
1336 you with hands-on experience with the Math Faculty's UNIX
1337 environment in this seminar.
1340 Topics that will be discussed include:
1343 <li>Navigating the UNIX environment</li>
1344 <li>Using common UNIX commands</li>
1345 <li>Using the PICO text editor</li>
1346 <li>Reading electronic mail and news with PINE</li>
1349 If you do not have a Math computer account, don't panic; one will be
1350 lent to you for the duration of this class.
1355 <eventitem date="2002-10-01" time="6:30 PM-9:30 PM" room="The Bomber"
1356 title="Pints with the Profs">
1357 <short>Get to know your profs and be the envy of your friends!</short>
1359 <p>Come out and meet your professors. This is a great opportunity to
1360 meet professors for Undergraduate Research jobs or to find out who you might
1361 have for future courses.</p>
1363 <p>Profs who have confirmed their attendance are:</p>
1365 <li>Troy Vasiga, School of Computer Science</li>
1366 <li>J.P. Pretti, St. Jerome's and School of Computer Science</li>
1367 <li>Michael McCool, School of Computer Science, CGL</li>
1368 <li>Martin Karsten, School of Computer Science, BBCR</li>
1369 <li>Gisli Hjaltason, School of Computer Science, DB</li>
1372 <p>There will also be...</p>
1381 <eventitem date="2002-10-03" time="5:30 PM" room="MC3006"
1383 <short>Talking to your UNIX can be fun and profitable.</short>
1385 <p>This is the second in a series of seminars that cover the use of
1386 the UNIX Operating System. UNIX is used in a variety of applications,
1387 both in academia and industry. We will provide you with hands-on
1388 experience with the Math Faculty's UNIX environment in this
1391 <p>Topics that will be discussed include:</p>
1392 <ul><li>Interacting with Bourne and C shells</li>
1393 <li>Editing text using the vi text editor</li>
1394 <li>Editing text using the Emacs display editor</li>
1395 <li>Multi-tasking and the screen multiplexer</li>
1398 <p>If you do not have a Math computer account, don't panic; one will be
1399 lent to you for the duration of this class.</p>
1404 <eventitem date="2002-10-08" time="4:30PM" room="MC4045"
1405 title="Video cards, Linux display drivers and the Kernel Graphics Interface (KGI)">
1406 <short>A talk by Filip Spacek, KGI developer</short>
1408 Linux has proven itself as a reliable operating system but arguably,
1409 it still lacks in support of high performance graphics
1410 acceleration. This talk will describe basic components of a PC video
1411 card and the design and limitations the current Linux display driver
1412 architecture. Finally a an overview of a new architecture, the Kernel
1413 Graphics Interface (KGI), will be given. KGI attempts to solve the
1414 shortcomings of the current design, and provide a lightweight and
1415 portable interface to the display subsystem.
1419 <eventitem date="2002-10-10" time="5:30pm" room="MC3006"
1422 <abstract>No abstract available yet.</abstract>
1425 <eventitem date="2002-11-05" time="4:30 PM" room="MC 2065"
1426 title="The Evil Side of C++">
1427 <short>Abusing template metaprogramming in C++; aka. writing a
1428 Mandelbrot generator that runs at compile time</short>
1430 <p>Templates are a useful feature in C++ when it comes to writing
1431 type-independent data structures and algorithms. Relatively soon
1432 after their appearance it was realised that they could be used to
1433 do much more than this. Essentially it is possible to write
1434 certain programs in C++ that execute <i>completely at compile
1435 time</i> rather than run time. Combined with constant-expression
1436 optimisation this is an interesting twist on regular C++
1438 <p>This talk will give a short overview of the features of
1439 templates and then go on to describe how to "abuse"
1440 templates to perform complex computations at compile time. The
1441 speaker will present three programs of increasing complexity which
1442 execute at compile time. First a factorial listing program, then a
1443 prime listing program will be presented. Finally the talk will
1444 conclude with the presentation of a <b>Mandelbrot generator running
1445 at compile time</b>.</p>
1447 <p>If you are interested in programming for the fun of it, the C++
1448 language or silly tricks to do with languages, this talk is for
1449 you. No C++ knowledge should be necessary to enjoy this talk, but
1450 programming experience will make it more worthwile for you.</p>
1452 </abstract> </eventitem>
1454 <eventitem date="2002-11-02" time="11:00AM-3:00PM"
1455 room="MC3002 (Math Coffee and Donut Store)"
1456 title="GNU/Linux InstallFest with KW-LUG and UW-DIG">
1457 <short>Bring over your computer and we'll help you install GNU/Linux</short>
1459 <p>The <a href="http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/">CSC</a>, the <a
1460 href="http://www.kwlug.org/">KW-Linux User Group</a>, and the <a
1461 href="http://uw-dig.uwaterloo.ca/">UW Debian Interest Group</a>
1462 are jointly hosting a GNU/Linux InstallFest. GNU/Linux is a
1463 powerful, free operating system for your computer. It is mostly
1464 written by talented volunteers who like to share their efforts
1465 and help each other.</p>
1467 <p>Perhaps you have are you interested in installing GNU/Linux.
1468 If so, bring your computer, monitor and keyboard; and we will
1469 help you install GNU/Linux on your machine. You can also find
1470 knowledgable people who can answer your questions about
1475 <h3>Frequently Asked Questions</h3>
1477 <p><b>Q: </b>What is GNU/Linux?<br />
1478 <b>A: </b>GNU/Linux is a free operating system for your computer. It is mostly
1479 written by talented volunteers who like to share their efforts.
1482 <p><b>Q: </b>Free?<br />
1483 <b>A: </b>GNU/Linux is available for zero-cost. As well, it allows you such
1484 freedom to share it with your friends, or to modify the software to
1485 your own needs and share that with your friends. It's very friendly.
1488 <p><b>Q: </b>What is an InstallFest?<br />
1489 <b>A: </b>An InstallFest is a meeting where volunteers help people install
1490 GNU/Linux on their computers. It's also a place to meet users, and
1491 talk to them about running GNU/Linux.
1494 <p><b>Q: </b>What kind of computer do I need to use GNU/Linux?<br />
1495 <b>A: </b>Almost any recent computer will do. If you have an old machine
1496 kicking around, you can install GNU/Linux on it as well. If it is
1497 at least 5 years old, it should be good enough.
1500 <p><b>Q: </b>Can I have Windows and GNU/Linux on the same computer?<br />
1501 <b>A: </b>If you can run Windows now, and you have an extra gigabyte (GB) of
1502 disk space to spare; then it should be possible.
1505 <p><b>Q: </b>What should I bring if I want to install GNU/Linux?<br />
1506 <b>A: </b>You will want to bring:</p>
1509 <li>Monitor and monitor cable</li>
1510 <li>Power cords</li>
1511 <li>Keyboard and mouse</li>
1517 <eventitem date="2002-11-07" time="5:30pm" room="MC4063"
1518 title="The GNU General Public License">
1519 <short>The teeth of Free Software</short>
1524 The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom
1525 to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public License
1526 is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free
1527 software---to make sure the software is free for all its users.
1528 </i><br/>--- Excerpt from the GNU GPL
1531 <p>The GNU General Public License is one of the most influencial
1532 software licenses in this day. Written by Richard Stallman for the
1533 GNU Project, it is used by software developers around the world to
1537 Unfortunately, software developers do not read licenses thoroughly, nor
1538 well. In this talk, we will read the entire GNU GPL and explain the
1539 implications of its passages. Along the way, we will debunk some myths
1540 and clarify common misunderstandings.
1543 After this session, you ought to understand what the GNU GPL means, how
1544 to use it, and when you cannot use it. This session should also give
1545 you some insight into the social implications of this work.
1550 <eventitem date="2002-11-19" time="4:30pm" room="MC4058"
1551 title="Metaprogramming GPUs">
1552 <short>A talk by Michael McCool of the Computer Graphics Lab.</short>
1555 Modern graphics accelerators, or "GPUs", have embedded high-performance
1556 programmable components in the form of vertex and fragment shading units.
1557 Recently, these units have evolved from 8-bit computations to floating-point,
1558 and other operations provide array gather, scatter, and summation.
1559 These capabilities make GPUs akin to array processors of the
1560 past, but with a difference: every PC now has one! I am interested
1561 in finding the best way to exploit this computational capacity for not
1562 only graphics but for general-purpose computation.
1564 Current APIs permit specification of the programs for GPUs
1565 using an assembly-language level interface. Compilers for high-level
1566 shading languages are available, such as NVIDIA's Cg, and OpenGL 2.0 and
1567 DirectX will also include standardized shading languages. This talk will
1568 review these. However, compilers for these languages read in an external
1569 string specification, which can be inconvenient.
1571 However, it is possible, using standard C++, to define a high-level
1572 shading language directly in the API. Such a language can be nearly
1573 indistinguishable from a special-purpose programming language, yet
1574 permits more direct interaction with the specification of textures
1575 (arrays) and parameters, simplifies implementation, and enables
1576 on-the-fly generation, manipulation, and specialization of shader programs.
1577 A shading language built into the API also permits the lifting of
1578 C++ host language type, modularity, and scoping constructs into the shading
1579 language without any additional implementation effort. Such an
1580 embedded language could be used to program other embedded processors
1581 (such as DSP chips in sound cards) or even to generate machine language
1582 on the fly for the host CPU.
1587 <eventitem date="2002-11-16" time="1:30pm" room="York University"
1588 title="Trip to York University">
1589 <short>Going to visit the York University Computer Club</short>
1590 <abstract><p>YUCC and the UW CSC have having a join meeting at York
1591 University. Dave Makalsky, the President of YUCC, will be giving a talk on
1592 Design-by-constract and Eiffel. Stefanus Du Toit, Vice-President of the UW
1593 CSC, will be giving a talk on the evil depths of the black art known as C++.
1595 <ul><li>1:30pm: Leave UW</li>
1596 <li>3:00pm: Arrive at York University.</li>
1597 <li>3:30pm: The Evil side of C++</li>
1598 <li>4:30pm: Design-by-Contract and Eiffel</li>
1599 <li>6:00pm: Dinner</li>
1600 <li>9:00pm: Arrive back at UW</li>
1605 <eventitem date="2002-11-21" time="6:00pm" room="MC2066"
1607 <short>A talk by Simon Law</short>
1610 Perl, the Practical Extraction and Reporting Language can only
1611 be described as an eclectic language, invented and refined by
1612 a deranged system administrator, who was trained as a
1613 linguist. This man, however, has declared:
1617 Perl 5 was my rewrite of Perl.
1618 I want Perl 6 to be the community's rewrite of Perl and of the
1620 </i><br/>--- Larry Wall
1623 Whenever a language is designed by a committee, it is common
1624 wisdom to avoid it. Not so with Perl, for it cannot get
1625 worse. However strange these Perl people seem, Perl 6 is a
1626 good thing coming. In this talk, I will demonstrate some Perl
1627 5 programs, and talk about their Perl 6 counterparts, to show
1628 you that Perl 6 will be cleaner, friendlier, and prettier.
1633 <eventitem date="2002-11-21" time="4:30pm" room="MC2066"
1634 title="Samba and You">
1635 <short>A talk by Dan Brovkovich, Mathsoc's Computing Director</short>
1637 Samba is a free implementation of the Server Message Block (SMB)
1638 protocol. It also implements the Common Internet File System (CIFS)
1639 protocol, used by Microsoft Windows 95/98/ME/2000/XP to share files and
1641 SMB was originally developed in the early to mid-80's by IBM and was
1642 further improved by Microsoft, Intel, SCO, Network Appliances, Digital
1643 and many others over a period of 15 years. It has now morphed into CIFS,
1644 a form strongly influenced by Microsoft. </p><p>
1645 Samba is considered to be one of the key projects for the acceptance of
1646 GNU/Linux and other Free operating systems (e.g. FreeBSD) in the
1647 corporate world: a traditional Windows NT/2000 stronghold. </p><p>
1648 We will talk about interfacing Samba servers and desktops with the
1649 Windows world. From a simple GNU/Linux desktop in your home to the
1650 corporate server that provides collaborative file/printer sharing,
1651 logons and home directories to hundreds of users a day. </p>
1655 <eventitem date="2002-10-26" time="1:30PM" room="MC2066"
1656 title="GNU/Linux on HPPA">
1657 <short>Carlos O'Donnell talks about "the last of the legacy processors to fall before the barbarian horde"</short>
1659 <p>This whirlwind talk is aimed at providing an overview of the
1660 GNU/Linux port for the HP PARISC processor. The talk will focus on
1661 the "intricacies" of the processor, and in particular the
1662 implementations of the Linux kernel and GNU Libc. After the talk
1663 you should be acutely aware of how little code needs to be written
1664 to support a new architecture! Carlos has been working on the port
1665 for two years, and enjoying the fruits of his labour on a 46-node
1670 Carlos is currently in his 5th year of study at the University
1671 of Western Ontario. This is his last year in a concurrent
1672 Computer Engineering and Computer Science degree. His research
1673 interest range from distributed and parallel systems to low
1674 level optimized hardware design. He likes playing guitar and
1675 just bought a Cort NTL-20, jumbo body, solid spurce top with
1676 a mahogany back. Carlos hacks on the PARISC Linux kernel, GNU libc,
1677 GNU Debugger, GNU Binutils and various Debian packages.
1684 <eventitem date="2002-10-26" time="3:00PM" room="MC2066"
1685 title="The Hurd Interfaces">
1686 <short>Marcus Brinkmann, a GNU Hurd developer, talks about the Hurd server interfaces, at the heart of a GNU/Hurd system</short>
1688 <p>The Hurd server interfaces are at the heart of the Hurd system. They
1689 define the remote procedure calls (RPCs) that are used by the servers, the
1690 GNU C library and the utility programs to communicate with the Hurd system
1691 and to implement the POSIX personality of the Hurd as well as other
1694 <p>This talk is a walk through the Hurd RPCs, and will give an overview of how
1695 they are used to implement the system. Individual RPCs will be used to
1696 illustrate important or exciting features of the Hurd system in general,
1697 and it will be shown how those features are accessible to the user at the
1698 command line, too.</p>
1702 <p>Marcus Brinkmann is a math student at the Ruhr-Universitaet Bochum in
1703 Germany. He is one of maintainers of the GNU Hurd project and the
1704 initiator of the Debian GNU/Hurd binary distribution. He designed and
1705 implemented the console subsystem of the Hurd, wrote the FAT filesystem
1706 server, and fixed a lot of bugs, thus increasing the stability and
1707 usability of the system.</p>
1712 <eventitem date="2002-10-26" time="4:30PM" room="MC2066"
1713 title="A GNU Approach to Virtual Memory Management in a Multiserver Operating System">
1714 <short>Neal Walfield, a GNU Hurd developer, talks about a possible Virtual Memory Management subsystem for the GNU Hurd</short>
1716 <p>Virtual memory management is one of the cornerstones of multiuser
1717 operating systems. Most systems available today place all of the
1718 policy in a monolithic virtual memory manager, VMM, isolated from the
1719 rest of the system. Although secure and lightweight, users have no
1720 way to communicate their anticipated memory needs and usage to the
1721 system pager. As a result, the VMM can only implement a global paging
1722 policy (typically, an approximation of LRU) which may be good on
1723 average but is best for nobody.</p>
1725 <p>With the port of Hurd to the L4 microkernel, this situation is being
1726 readdressed. Due to its more distributed nature, a centralized
1727 resource manager is not only more difficult to implement efficiently
1728 but also contrary to the philosophy of the rest of the system. We are
1729 currently exploring a model whereby each program is fully self-paged
1730 and all compete for memory from a physical memory server. This talk
1731 will first discuss how paging currently works in Mach and other
1732 systems. An argument for an external paging policy will then be
1733 presented followed by the requirements of such a design and the design
1738 <p>Neal Walfield, a GNU Hurd developer, is from the University of Massachusetts
1739 Lowell. Neal spent the summer of 2002 at University of Karlsruhe working
1740 on porting the GNU Hurd to L4.</p>
1745 <eventitem date="2002-10-17" time="5:30PM" room="MC2065"
1746 title="Debian in the Enterprise">
1747 <short>A talk by Simon Law</short>
1749 <p>The Debian Project produces a "Universal Operating System" that is
1750 comprised entirely of Free Software. This talk focuses on using Debian
1751 GNU/Linux in an enterprise environment. This includes:</p>
1753 <li>Where Debian can be deployed</li>
1754 <li>Strategic advantages of Debian</li>
1755 <li>Ways for business to give back to Debian</li>
1760 <eventitem date="2002-11-12" time="4:30PM" room="MC4058"
1761 title="Automatic Memory Management and Garbage Collection">
1762 <short>A talk by James A. Morrison</short>
1765 Do you ever wonder what java is doing while you wait? Have you ever used
1766 Modula-3? Do you wonder how lazily you can Mark and Sweep? Would you like to
1767 know how to Stop-and-Copy?
1769 Come out to this talk and learn these things and more. No prior knowledge of
1770 Garbage Collection or memory management is needed.