- csc-general - CSC Mailman

Spring Term Nominations and Elections
by Computer Science Club 04 May '10

04 May '10

Hello everyone, The Spring term is now upon us, and with it comes a new CS Club executive. Nominations for President, Vice President, Treasurer, and Secretary are now open, and will remain open until Monday May 10 at 5:30pm. Elections will be Tuesday May 11 at 5:30pm, location TBA. If you would like to nominate yourself or a friend write their CSC username on the whiteboard in the club, or send the nomination to cro(a)csclub.uwaterloo.ca. Information on absentee voting will be sent out along with a final list of nominees at 5:30pm on Monday. The election location will be posted soon. -- Edgar Bering, Chief Returning Officer 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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Reminder: Windows Azure Lab Tomorrow
by Computer Science Club 06 Apr '10

06 Apr '10

Hi everyone, This is just a reminder that the Microsoft-sponsored Windows Azure lab is tomorrow at 1pm in MC2037. Come on out to: - Learn about cloud computing systems in the context of Windows Azure - Learn about a cloud computing contest Microsoft is hosting on Azure - Get a free key for temporary Azure access - Enter a raffle for an Xbox360 - provided by Microsoft As usual, if you have questions feel free to e-mail the executive: exec(a)csclub.uwaterloo.ca Thanks, -- 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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Collaboration requested Hinton
by Computer Science Club 03 Apr '10

03 Apr '10

Dear Hinton, I will like to solicit your help in a business proposition, I know that a transaction of this magnitude will make any one worried and apprehensive but I am assuring you not to worry, as all will be well at the end of this endeavor. View attached email for details. Regards, Hugo Collins.

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Brush-Based Constructive Solid Geometry
by Computer Science Club 03 Apr '10

03 Apr '10

Hello, the CSC is hosting a talk entitled "Brush-Based Constructive Solid Geometry" on 2010-04-06 at 04:30 PM in DC1304. It will be presented by Jordan M. Saunders. For some would-be graphics programmers, the biggest barrier-to-entry is getting data to render. This is why there exist so many terrain renderers: by virtue of the fact that rendering height-fields tends to give pretty pictures from next to no "created" information. However, it becomes more difficult when programmers want to do indoor rendering (in the style of the Quake and Unreal games). Ripping map information from the Quake games is possible (and fairly simple), but their tool-chain is fairly clumsy from the point of view of adding a conversion utility. My talk is about Constructive Solid Geometry from a Brush-based perspective (nearly identical to Unreal's and still very similar to Quake's). The basic idea is that there are brushes (convex volumes in 3-space) and they can either be additive (solid brushes) or subtractive (hollow, or air brushes). The entire world starts off as an infinite solid lump and you can start removing sections of it then adding them back in. The talk pertains to fast methods of taking the list of brushes and generating world geometry. I may touch on interface problems with the editor, but the primary content will be the different ways I generated the geometry and what I found to be best. 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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Windows Azure Lab
by Computer Science Club 02 Apr '10

02 Apr '10

Hello, the CSC is hosting a Windows Azure Lab on 2010-04-07 at 1:00 PM in MC2037. It will be presented by Colin Melia. We are in the midst of an industry shift as developers and businesses embrace the Cloud. Technical innovations in the cloud are dramatically changing the economics of computing and reducing barriers that keep businesses from meeting the increasing demands of today's customers. The cloud promises choice and enables scenarios that previously were not economically practical. Microsoft's Windows Azure is an internet-scale cloud computing services platform hosted in Microsoft data centers. The Windows Azure platform, allows developers to build and deploy production ready cloud services and applications. With the Windows Azure platform, developers can take advantage of greater choice and flexibility in how they develop and deploy applications, while using familiar tools and programming languages. Get the opportunity to learn about Microsoft's Cloud Services Platform, Windows Azure. Attend the Hands-on-lab session sponsored by Microsoft. 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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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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