- csc-general - CSC Mailman

Next week's talks: In the Beginning & Cooking for Geeks
by Computer Science Club 17 Sep '10

17 Sep '10

Hello, the CSC is hosting two talks this week. The first is entitled 'In the Beginning' and will be on 2010-09-21 at 04:30 PM in MC4061. It will be presented by Dr. Prabhakar Ragde, Cheriton School of Computer Science. Abstract: I'll be workshopping some lecture ideas involving representations of numbers, specification of computation in functional terms, reasoning about such specifications, and comparing the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches. No prior background is needed; the talk should be accessible to anyone attending the University of Waterloo and, I hope, interesting to both novices and experts. The second is entitled 'Cooking for Geeks' and will be on 2010-09-22 at 06:00 PM in MC4045. It will be presented by Jeff Potter. The CSC is happy to be hosting Jeff Potter, author of "Cooking for Geeks" for a presentation on the finer arts of food science. Jeff's book has been featured on NPR, BBC and his presentations have wowed audiences of hackers & foodies alike. We're happy to have Jeff joining us for a hands on demonstration. But you don't have to take our word for it... here's what Jeff has to say: Hi! I'm Jeff Potter, author of Cooking for Geeks (O'Reilly Media, 2010), and I'm doing a "D.I.Y. Book Tour" to talk about my just-released book. I'll talk about the food science behind what makes things yummy, giving you a quick primer on how to go into the kitchen and have a fun time turning out a good meal. Depending upon the space, I’ll also bring along some equipment or food that we can experiment with, and give you a chance to play with stuff and pester me with questions. If you have a copy of the book, bring it! I’ll happily sign it. Hope to see you there. If you have any questions about the event e-mail the executive or check http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca.

1 0

CS Club Fall 2010 Preview
by Computer Science Club 16 Sep '10

16 Sep '10

Hello Members, Welcome to the Fall 2010 term. In this message we hope to give you a preview of what the club will be doing this term, and let you know how you can help out if you so choose. -- Membership Remember to renew your membership! If you can't remember if you have paid dues for this term just ask. Note that you can pay for several terms in advance. -- Election Results Our election for Fall 2010 was last Tuesday, the following were elected/appointed: President: Jacob Parker Vice President: Edgar Bering Treasurer: Rebecca Putinski Secretary: Kyle Spaans Systems Administrator: Jeremy Roman Office Manager: Sayed Khader Librarian: Matthew McPherrin -- Talks Each term we run a bunch of talks. This term we're planning to have a seminar every Tuesday at 4:30, starting next week. The seminar will have a mix of local professors, members, and out of town speakers presenting. If you have suggestions for speakers to invite, e-mail the program committee (progcom(a)csclub.uwaterloo.ca) If you would like to give a talk, the Vice President will be sending out instructions on what to do in the next few days. -- Unix Tutorials New to Unix? Need a hand in figuring out what to do? We will once again be running our popular Unix tutorials. Experienced with Unix and want to help teach? We can always use more tutors, e-mail progcom(a)csclub.uwaterloo.ca to find out how to help. -- Trips, Socials, Code Parties, etc. Last winter we promised a "CSC Invades U of T" or similar trip, but plans fizzled. We're going to try again. As you may or may not be aware, TRON: Legacy comes out this December. If there is enough interest we will look into going to a showing as a club, possibly getting discount tickets. We're also planning a code party or two, and there's a possibility there will be mini-contests at them. Stay tuned. -- And More! This is quite an ambitious program. If you would like to help run events or have an idea for an event you'd like to run with the help of the club, contact the Vice President (veep(a)csclub.uwaterloo.ca) and ask about helping out with the program committee, who run the events. In addition to events, the club maintains an office, and we'll be looking for good office staff once again. Stay tuned for information on how to become an office staffer. Office staff keep the office functioning and clean, as well as check out library books and sign up members and are otherwise helpful to people coming by. If systems administration is more your bent, contact the Systems Administrator (sysadmin(a)csclub.uwaterloo.ca) for information on how to join the systems committee, who administer the club's computing environment. -- Fall 2010 Executive

1 0

Talk: Elyot Grant: The Incompressibility Method: Tuesday July20th, 4:30pm, MC2066
by Computer Science Club 17 Jul '10

17 Jul '10

Elyot Grant is giving a talk on Tuesday July 20th at 4:30pm in MC2066. The information follows below: Title: The Incompressibility Method Abstract: Heapsort. It runs in $\Theta(n \log n)$ time in the worst case, and in $O(n)$ time in the best case. Do you think that heapsort runs faster than $O(n \log n)$ time on average? Could it be possible that on most inputs, heapsort runs in $O(n)$ time, running more slowly only on a small fraction of inputs? Most students would say no. It "feels" intuitively obvious that heapsort should take the full $n \log n$ steps on most inputs. However, proving this rigourously with probabilistic arguments turns out to be very difficult. Average case analysis of algorithms is one of those icky subjects that most students don't want to touch with a ten foot pole; why should it be so difficult if it is so intuitively obvious? In this talk, we shall explore the incompressibility method---an interesting and extremely powerful framework for determining the average-case runtime of algorithms. Within the right background knowledge, the heapsort question can be answered with an elegant 3-line proof. The crucial fact is that an overwhelmingly large fraction of randomly generated objects are incompressible. We can show that the inputs to heapsort that run quickly correspond to inputs that can be compressed, thereby proving that heapsort can't run quickly on average. Of course, "compressible" is something that must be rigourously defined, and for this we turn to the fascinating theory of Kolmogorov complexity. In this talk, we'll briefly discuss the proof of the incompressibility theorem and then see a number of applications. We won't dwell too much on gruesome mathemtical details. No specific background is required, but knowledge of some of the topics in CS240 will be helpful in understanding some of the applications.

1 0

CSCTalk: Tuesday July 13th 4:30pm MC2066: Halftoning and Digital Art
by Computer Science Club 12 Jul '10

12 Jul '10

Edgar Bering will be giving a talk tomorrow in MC2066 at 4:30pm. Title: Halftoning and Digital Art Abstract: Halftoning is the process of simulating a continuous tone image with small dots or regions of one colour. Halftoned images may be seen in older newspapers with a specled apperance, and to this day colour halftoning is used in printers to reproduce images. In this talk I will present various algorithmic approaches to halftoning, with an eye not toward exact image reproduction but non-photorealistic rendering and art. Included in the talk will be an introduction to digital paper cutting and a tutorial on how to use the CSC's paper cutter to render creations. -- Brennan Taylor b4taylor at uwaterloo dot ca Computer Science Club http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~b4taylor University of Waterloo Waterloo, Ontario CANADA N2L 3G1

1 0

Friday Code Party!
by Computer Science Club 08 Jul '10

08 Jul '10

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. -- Brennan Taylor b4taylor at uwaterloo dot ca Computer Science Club http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~b4taylor University of Waterloo Waterloo, Ontario CANADA N2L 3G1

1 0

How would you like to hear about your upper-year education?
by Computer Science Club 06 Jul '10

06 Jul '10

The question has been passed onto us here at the CSC. How do students want to hear about the opportunities they have for their upper-year education? In the past a number of approaches have been attempted: 1) Professors teaching the classes will give a 10 minute introduction and answer questions. 2) Students will answer questions and talk about their experiences. 3) A couple of Professors will talk about upper-year courses in general. How would you like to hear about the upper-year courses? Do you want to know the horrors of Real-Time? The shininess of Graphics? The ridiculous things compiler writers do? Send your responses to veep(a)csclub.uwaterloo.ca please! -- Brennan Taylor b4taylor at uwaterloo dot ca Computer Science Club http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~b4taylor University of Waterloo Waterloo, Ontario CANADA N2L 3G1

1 0

Talk: Nomair Naeem on Dataflow Analysis on Tuesday July 6th, MC2054
by Computer Science Club 03 Jul '10

03 Jul '10

Tell your friends! Again the talk is Tuesday July 6th, 4:30pm in MC2054. Nomair A. Naeem - Dataflow Analysis === Abstract After going through an introduction to Lattice Theory and a formal treatment to Dataflow Analysis Frameworks, we will take an in-depth view of the Interprocedural Finite Distributive Subset (IFDS) Algorithm which implements a fully context-sensitive, inter-procedural static dataflow analysis. Then, using a Variable Type Analysis as an example, I will outline recent extensions that we have made to open up the analysis to a larger variety of static analysis problems and making it more efficient. The talk is self-contained and no prior knowledge of program analysis is necessary. -- Brennan Taylor b4taylor at uwaterloo dot ca Computer Science Club http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~b4taylor University of Waterloo Waterloo, Ontario CANADA N2L 3G1

1 0

Talk: Prabhakar Ragde: Compiling to Combinators
by Computer Science Club 18 Jun '10

18 Jun '10

There is a talk coming up Tuesday June 22 at 4:30pm. It is in MC2066. Light refreshments will be supplied. The title is: Compiling To Combinators Abstract: Number theory was thought to be mathematically appealing but practically useless until the RSA encryption algorithm demonstrated its considerable utility. I'll outline how combinatory logic (dating back to 1920) has a similarly unexpected application to efficient and effective compilation, which directly catalyzed the development of lazy functional programming languages such as Haskell. The talk is self-contained; no prior knowledge of functional programming is necessary. -- Brennan Taylor b4taylor at uwaterloo dot ca Computer Science Club http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~b4taylor University of Waterloo Waterloo, Ontario CANADA N2L 3G1

1 0

Talk Tomorrow.
by Computer Science Club 14 Jun '10

14 Jun '10

There is a talk at 4:30pm tomorrow, Tuesday June 15th in MC2066. The title and abstract follows: === Do programmers need MBAs? What value (if any) does an MBA provide? Isn't it enough to be smart and get stuff done? Hear from a Waterloo alum who struggled to figure this out. Ian Tien is currently a Stanford MBA student and was formerly a senior product manager at Microsoft developing consumer cloud computing offerings extending Windows to the web. His portfolio included Office Web Applications, SkyDrive, Live Mesh, Windows Live Photos, FrameIt, and Favorites. In 2009, he served as interim lead for the Hotmail product management group. Previously, he led and managed engineering teams in the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server division, and is first inventor on multiple Microsoft patent applications covering Excel, Sharepoint, Visio and SQL Server product lines. He's an alumnus of Cornell University and the University of Waterloo with degrees in computer science, cognitive science and computer engineering. -- Brennan Taylor b4taylor at uwaterloo dot ca Computer Science Club http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~b4taylor University of Waterloo Waterloo, Ontario CANADA N2L 3G1

1 0

Copyright Bill C-32 Activism Party!
by Computer Science Club 11 Jun '10

11 Jun '10

Hello CSCers, The Canadian government recently proposed Bill C-32, which would change how copyright works in Canada. As stated, the bill would make it illegal for Canadians to circumvent "digital locks". The affects of this change would be drastic, as many ordinary freedoms would be taken away from the public. For example, it would become illegal to watch legally-purchased DVDs with open-source software, illegal to modify video games or consoles for personal entertainment, illegal to circumvent the copy-protection on many PDFs in order to quote from a document, etc. I strongly recommend that you read over the proposed bill and make an informed decision. Then you can contact your MPs and local newspapers to request change where it is due. Please read: [*] http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/crp-prda.nsf/eng/home [*] http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/5097/125/ Furthermore, the CSC is hosting a meeting/party this Saturday to discuss the bill, and write letters to MPs and the media. Please join us: Saturday, June 12th 18:30 - 21:00 PM MC 2017 I hope that you will get involved in this important matter. Regards, Calum T. Dalek

1 0