March 2010 - csc-general

NUI: The future of robotics and automated systems
by Computer Science Club 29 Mar '10

29 Mar '10

Hello, the CSC is hosting a talk entitled "Catch a Glimpse of the Future" on 2010-03-30 at 4:30 PM in DC1304. It will be presented by Sam Pasupalak. Bill Gates in his article “A Robot in every home” in the Scientific American describes how the current robotics industry resembles the 1970’s of the Personal Computer Industry. In fact it is not just Microsoft which has already taken a step forward by starting the Microsoft Robotics studio, but robotics researchers around the world believe that robotics and automation systems are going to be ubiquitous in the next 10-20 years (similar to Mark Weiser’s analogy of Personal Computers 20 years ago). Natural User Interfaces (NUIs) are going to revolutionize the way we interact with computers, cellular phones, household appliances, automated systems in our daily lives. Just like the GUI made personal computing a reality, I believe natural user interfaces will do the same for robotics. During the presentation I will be presenting my ongoing software project on natural user interfaces as well as sharing my goals for the future, one of which is to provide an NUI SDK and the other to provide a common Robotics OS for every hardware vendor that will enable people to make applications without worrying about underlying functionality. If time permits I would like to present a demo of my software prototype. Light refreshments will be served and I hope to see you there. If you have any questions about the event e-mail the executive or check http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca.

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A Final Party of Code
by Computer Science Club 25 Mar '10

25 Mar '10

Hello, the CSC is hosting A Final Party of Code on 2010-03-26 at 7:00 PM in MC7001. There is a CSC/CMC Code Party Friday starting at 7:00PM (1900) until we get bored (likely in the early in morning). Come out for fun hacking times, spreading Intertube memes (optional), hacking on open source projects, doing some computational math, and other general classiness. There will be free energy drinks for everyone's enjoyment. This is the last of the term so don't miss out. Hope to see you there. If you have any questions about the event e-mail the executive or check http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca.

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Memory-Corruption Security Holes: How to exploit, patch and prevent them.
by Computer Science Club 18 Mar '10

18 Mar '10

Hello, the CSC is hosting a talk entitled "Memory-Corruption Security Holes: How to exploit, patch and prevent them." on 2010-03-23 at 4:30 PM in MC5158. It will be presented by Peter Barfuss. Despite it being 2010, code is still being exploited due to stack overflows, a 40+ year old class of security vulnerabilities. In this talk, I will go over several common methods of program exploitation, both on the stack and on the heap, as well as going over some of the current mitigation techniques (i.e. stack canaries, ASLR, etc.) for these holes, and similarly, how some of these can be bypassed as well. Light refreshments will be served and I hope to see you there. If you have any questions about the event e-mail the executive or check http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca.

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Another Party of Code
by Computer Science Club 18 Mar '10

18 Mar '10

Hello, the CSC is hosting Another Party of Code on 2010-03-18 at 7:00 PM in Comfy Lounge. There is a CSC Code Party Friday starting at 7:00PM (1900) until we get bored (likely in the early in morning). Come out for fun hacking times, spreading Intertube memes (optional), hacking on the OpenMoko, creating music mixes, and other general classiness. There will be free energy drinks for everyone's enjoyment. Hope to see you there. If you have any questions about the event e-mail the executive or check http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca.

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Approximation Hardness and the Unique Games Conjecture
by Computer Science Club 13 Mar '10

13 Mar '10

Hello, the CSC is hosting a talk entitled "Approximation Hardness and the Unique Games Conjecture" on 2010-03-16 at 4:30 PM in MC5158. It will be presented by Elyot Grant. Talk Abstract: The theory of NP-completeness suggests that some problems in CS are inherently hard—that is, there is likely no possible algorithm that can efficiently solve them. Unfortunately, many of these problems are ones that people in the real world genuinely want to solve! How depressing! What can one do when faced with a real-life industrial optimization problem whose solution may save millions of dollars but is probably impossible to determine without trillions of years of computation time? One strategy is to be content with an approximate (but provably "almost ideal") solution, and from here arises the theory of approximation algorithms. However, this theory also has a depressing side, as many well-known optimization problems have been shown to be provably hard to approximate well. This talk shall focus on the depressing. We will prove that various optimization problems (such as traveling salesman and max directed disjoint paths) are impossible to approximate well unless P=NP. These proofs are easy to understand and are REALLY COOL thanks to their use of very slick reductions. We shall explore many NP-hard optimization problems and state the performance of the best known approximation algorithms and best known hardness results. Tons of open problems will be mentioned, including the unique games conjecture, which, if proven true, implies the optimality of many of the best known approximation algorithms for NP-complete problems like MAX-CUT and INDEPENDENT SET. I promise fun times and no gruesome math. Basic knowledge of graph theory and computational complexity might help but is not required. Light refreshments will be served and I hope to see you there. If you have any questions about the event e-mail the executive or check http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca.

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A Party of Code
by Computer Science Club 11 Mar '10

11 Mar '10

Hello, the CSC is hosting A Party of Code on 2010-03-12 at 7:00 PM in Comfy Lounge. A fevered night of code, friends, fun, energy drinks, and the CSC. Come join us for a night of coding. Get in touch with more experianced coders, advertize for/bug squash on your favourite open source project, write that personal project you were planning to do for a while but haven't found the time. Don't have any ideas but want to sit and hack? We can find something for you to do. Hope to see you there. If you have any questions about the event e-mail the executive or check http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca.

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Registration for the 17th Annual Canadian Undergraduate Mathematics Conference is now open
by Computer Science Club 07 Mar '10

07 Mar '10

A word from the CSC Exec: The CUMC is not just about Pure Mathematics, Computer Science as a mathematical discipline is also welcome and a part of the conference, keep that in mind as you read the following message from the organizers: Registration for the 17th Annual Canadian Undergraduate Mathematics Conference is now open! Don't miss an exciting opportunity this summer! Travel to the University of Waterloo from July 6th to July 10th, and take part in the premier Undergraduate Mathematics event in North America. Visit the conference website at: http://cumc.math.ca Click on the Registration tab to sign up early! Registration fees will be going up at the beginning of the summer. If you are an Undergraduate student who is interested in Mathematics, don't miss this year's conference. It's a fantastic opportunity to travel, learn more mathematics and meet other talented students. -What is the Canadian Undergraduate Mathematics Conference: The Canadian Undergraduate Mathematics Conference (CUMC) is an annual gathering of undergraduate students with interests in the mathematical sciences. It is the largest event of its kind in North America. Each year it attracts over a hundred students of all abilities, from diverse fields such as pure math, applied math, physics, economics, bioinformatics, statistics, computer science, mathematical finance, and actuarial science. The 17th CUMC will be held at the University of Waterloo (located in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada) from July 6 to July 10, 2010. We encourage students who are interested in any math-related field to participate. This is a great opportunity to not only learn about new areas of mathematics, but also to meet students from across the country with similar interests, and to practice giving a mathematical talk (which is encouraged but not required). -Why attend the CUMC? The CUMC is a unique event in North America. No other conference has run seventeen consecutive years for undergraduate students, by undergraduate students. The conference provides an inclusive, non-competitive environment for students with interests in Mathematics. There students of all abilities can meet, exchange ideas and socialize with others interested in math. The conference is an invaluable opportunity to learn, travel and become exposed to the broader mathematical world. Signed: the 2010 CUMC organizing committee

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Software Transactional Memory and Using STM in Haskell
by Computer Science Club 04 Mar '10

04 Mar '10

Hello, the CSC is hosting a talk entitled "Software Transactional Memory and Using STM in Haskell" on 2010-03-09 at 4:30 PM in DC1304. It will be presented by Brennan Taylor. Concurrency is hard. Well maybe not hard, but it sure is annoying to get right. Even the simplest of synchronization tasks are hard to implement correctly when using synchronization primitives such as locks and semaphores. In this talk we explore what Software Transactional Memory (STM) is, what problems STM solves, and how to use STM in Haskell. We explore a number of examples that show how easy STM is to use and how expressive Haskell can be. The goal of this talk is to convince attendees that STM is not only a viable synchronization solution, but superior to how synchronization is typically done today. Light refreshments will be served and I hope to see you there. If you have any questions about the event e-mail the executive or check http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca.

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Bowling
by Computer Science Club 03 Mar '10

03 Mar '10

Hi everyone, The CSC is going bowling this Saturday (March 6th) at the Waterloo Bowling Lanes. We'll be bowling from 5pm-7pm. The bowling alley is located at 14 Princess Street West, but if you don't feel like navigating we will be meeting at the CSC Office starting at 4pm and going to the bowling alley some time after that. If you go bring $9.75; this covers 2 games and shoe rental, which is what we'll be staying for, though you are welcome to continue bowling after the first two games. -- Edgar Bering, Vice President ebering at uwaterloo dot ca Computer Science Club http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~ebering Mathematics Society MC 3036, (519)888-4567,x33870 University of Waterloo Waterloo, Ontario CANADA N2L 3G1

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