- csc-general - CSC Mailman

REMINDER: Gerald Sussman: Today and Tomorrow
by Computer Science Club 25 May '10

25 May '10

Hello everyone, Just a quick reminder: Gerald Sussman is down for today and tomorrow for a series of events. Full details can be found at http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/misc/sussman/ . As always, if you have questions just reply to this email. Thanks, Calum T. Dalek

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Speaker: Gerald Jay Sussman
by Computer Science Club 18 May '10

18 May '10

Hello CSCers! We've got a big event happening next week. Gerald Sussman is coming in from MIT to give a couple of public lectures. Gerald Sussman is, among other things, the creator of Scheme - a programming language many of you are no doubt familiar with. There will be two talks and a public reception. Come out to the reception for the free food and meet some people. If you have a copy of Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs bring it to the reception to get it signed! All of the details are located at http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/misc/sussman/ . For those of you not able to attend due to distance: there is a non-zero probability that the lectures will be posted online in video form. If you have any questions reply to this email.

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Spring 2010 Term Preview
by Computer Science Club 17 May '10

17 May '10

Hello Members, Welcome to the Spring 2010 term. This is the term Preview. We have a surprising amount of stuff happening in a Spring term. -- Membership Remember to renew! If you can't remember if your membership is arranged for the term, just ask. -- Gerald Sussman This is very cool. There will be an email very shortly with full details but I'll let you in on a sneak peek. Gerald Sussman is coming to UW to give a few talks and hang out next week. A coauthor of SICP, an ACM winner of the Karl Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award in 1990 and the Amar G. Bose award for teaching in 1991, and a laundry list of other very cool stuff. He's a man worth meeting. Keep your eyes peeled. -- Election Results Our election for the Spring 2010 term was last Tuesday. The results and appointments follow: Prez - Jeff Cameron Veep - Brennan Taylor Trez - Vardhan Mudunuru Sec - Matt Lawrence Sysadmin - Mike Ellis Office Manager - Edgar Bering Librarian - Tapan Oza -- Prof and Member Talks We want lots of them! We are planning on running them like last semester where we will run a talk every Tuesday at 4:30pm. But we need your help. Don't worry it is easy. Give us suggestions for professors you would like to hear from. Or better yet, volunteer to give a talk on whatever you find interesting within the vast and exciting field of Computer Science. Send veep(a)csclub.uwaterloo.ca an abstract by May 28th. Past suggestions from members about topics the members would like to hear about are: *Prabhakar Ragde - A topic of his choice *Ray Laflamme - Quantum Computing things *Kate Larson - AI whatnot *Ian Goldberg - Being Awesome *Tim Brecht - OS Hotness *Michael Best - Portfolio Optimization -- Contest - Call for Volunteers Zero experience required! Our President, Jeff Cameron, has worked hard in previous terms to run a number of AI contests and as always he needs people to help him out. There is so much to do and anyone that can contribute even in a small way is much appreciated help. But there is more to it than that. You'll be hooked! You'll be working in a decent sized team to make something great and fun. You don't even need to know what the contest is or how our contests have run in the past to help out. -- Code Parties We will be having them. They will be on Fridays on dates yet to be determined. But if you keep your eye on the website we will give you plenty of notice. They are always fun, and there is so much hacking of code to be done this term -- Brennan Taylor b4taylor at uwaterloo dot ca Computer Science Club http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~b4taylor University of Waterloo Waterloo, Ontario CANADA N2L 3G1

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Elections and General Meeting 5:30PM Tuesday, in the Comfy Lounge
by Computer Science Club 10 May '10

10 May '10

Hello everyone, The spring 2010 elections will be at 5:30PM on Tuesday, May 11 in the Comfy lounge. Nominees are: - President: Jeff Cameron (j3camero), Kevin Farnworth (kfarnwor) - Vice President: Brennan Taylor (b4taylor) - Treasurer: Vardhan Mudunuru (vmudunur) - Secretary: Matt Lawrence (m3lawren), Qifan Xi (qxi) If you would like to vote absentee, please send your ballot to cro(a)csclub.uwaterloo.ca with one vote per position before 5:30pm on Tuesday, May 11. In addition, at this meeting the new executive will select a Systems Administrator, decide on various appointed positions (Librarian, Webmaster, Office Manager), and organize and add members to the standing committees (Program Committee, Systems Committee). So, if you want to get involved in running the club in some way or another, come out to elections and volunteer. As a reminder, membership dues must be paid termly, and you must be registered for this term to vote. To renew you can come by the office in MC3036, pay via paypal (instructions are here: http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/about/donations) or come to the elections, there will be time to renew memberships before the voting starts. -- 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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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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