- csc-general - CSC Mailman

Jane Street Talk & Power Outage
by Computer Science Club 07 Oct '18

07 Oct '18

Hi everyone! Jane Street's Yaron Minsky is coming to Waterloo to give a talk aimed at undergraduate students. The talk titled Data Driven UIs, Incrementally will be held in DC 1302 on Oct. 15th 5:30-6:30pm. Yaron Minsky got his BA in Mathematics from Princeton and his PhD in Computer Science from Cornell, where he studied distributed systems. He joined Jane Street in 2003, where he started out developing quantitative trading strategies, going on to found the firm's quantitative research group. Here's a brief description of the talk: Trading in financial markets is a data-driven affair, and as such, it requires applications that can efficiently filter, transform and present data to users in real time. But there's a difficult problem at the heart of building such applications: finding a way of expressing the necessary transformations of the data in a way that is simultaneously easy to understand and efficient to execute over large streams of data. This talk will show how we've approached this problem using Incremental, an OCaml library for constructing dynamic computations that update efficiently in response to changing data. We'll show how Incremental can be used throughout the application, from the servers providing the data to be visualized, to the JavaScript code that generates DOM nodes in the browser. We'll also discuss how these applications have driven us to develop ways of using efficiently diffable data structures to bridge the worlds of functional and incremental computing. Also, we have been informed of a planned power outage that will affect CSC equipment on Oct. 9 at 11pm until Oct. 10 at 5am. During this time, all CSC systems and services will be unavailable Please ensure that you have saved all work before then and that you have a backup of any important files. We expect that most services will recover automatically once power is restored, however anything requiring manual intervention will be restored later in the day. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the Systems Committee by email at syscom(a)csclub.uwaterloo.ca. Thanks! Calum exec(a)csclub.uwaterloo.ca

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CSC & WiCS & MathSoc go outside!
by Computer Science Club 30 Sep '18

30 Sep '18

Hi all, The CSC is having our first event of the term, co-hosted with WiCS and MathSoc. We will be having a bonfire this Wednesday, Oct 3rd 7-10pm, at Columbia Lake Firepit 2 (NW of CIF). Smores and snacks will be provided! Here's a map that shows the firepit location: https://uwaterloo.ca/economics/sites/ca.economics/files/uploads/files/firep… Come by and socialize with fellow members! -- Neil Parikh AVP Computer Science Club

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Fall 2018 Election Results
by Computer Science Club 18 Sep '18

18 Sep '18

Hi all, Elections took place tonight, here is the list of results: President: Zichuan Wei (z34wei) Vice-President: Uday Barar (ubarar) Treasurer: Alex Tomala (actomala) Secretary: Neil Parikh (n3parikh) Systems Administrator: Jennifer Zhou (c7zou) Office Manager: Alexander Zvorygin (azvorygi) Librarian: Neil Parikh (n3parikh) The position of Fridge Regent/IMAPD is still open. Please contact exec(a)csclub.uwaterloo.ca if you are interested. Neil Parikh Secretary Computer Science Club

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F18 Elections Nominations Closing
by Computer Science Club 17 Sep '18

17 Sep '18

Hello everyone, The nominations period for the CSC election will end at 6:30pm today. The election event will be tomorrow on Tuesday, September 18th at 6:30pm in the MC Comfy Lounge. There will be food. You can find the list of nominations so far at https://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/elections/. If you can't attend the election, you can vote remotely by sending (using either your @csclub.uwaterloo.ca or @edu.uwaterloo.ca address) a list of candidates you approve of for each position to cro(a)csclub.uwaterloo.ca. Note that you need to be a member to vote or to be elected. You will have an opportunity to sign up at the start of the election event. -- Jennifer Zhou System Administrator Computer Science Club | University of Waterloo

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Fall 2018 Elections
by Computer Science Club 10 Sep '18

10 Sep '18

Hello CSC members. The CSC elections will be held on Tuesday, September 18th at 6:30pm in the MC Comfy lounge. We will be electing a President, Vice President, Assistant Vice President (formerly Secretary), and a Treasurer. The elected exec will appoint a System Administrator, Office Manager, Librarian, and IMAPd. You must be a MathSoc social member (e.g., a math faculty undergrad) to run for an elected position or System Administrator, or to vote. If you'd like to run or nominate someone for a position, please put a piece of paper with their name and user id in the nominations box in the CSC or email that information to cro(a)csclub.uwaterloo.ca. The nomination period will end one week from now, on Monday. A full description of the positions and procedures are in the CSC constitution. We need at least 15 members to start the meeting. There will be food. Direct questions to cro(a)csclub.uwaterloo.ca.

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Update on August Power Outage - taurine and sucrose unavailable
by Computer Science Club 04 Sep '18

04 Sep '18

Hello all, As of Saturday, Sept. 1, power has been restored to the machine room and the Systems Committee has restored most systems and services following the power outage in August. Unfortunately, we are currently unable to boot taurine and sucrose. We are unable to estimate if/when they will be repaired, so you should consider using alternate general use systems (corn-syrup and high-fructose-corn-syrup). If you have any questions/concerns, please contact systems-committee(a)csclub.uwaterloo.ca. Further information will be shared when available. Thanks, Zachary Seguin Systems Committee Computer Science Club | University of Waterloo syscom(a)csclub.uwaterloo.ca

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StarCon CFP
by Computer Science Club 13 Aug '18

13 Aug '18

Hi all! Hope everyone is joining the break between terms. With your time off, consider applying to speak at StarCon, a lightning talk conference here at UW. StarCon is returning to Waterloo next January 19 & 20, and you can now submit an application to speak at the conference. Conferences and technical talks are wonderful ways to share experiences and pick up something new, so if you've never given a talk, StarCon *still* wants to hear from you! Last year, half of their speakers were first-time speakers and 40% were students! (Check out the 2018 talks for inspiration: https://starcon.io/talks/) If your talk is selected, you will be provided with mentorship opportunities as well as $100 to recognize you for the time and effort you put into working on your talk. Learn more and apply at https://starcon.io/cfp. Talk proposals are due September 1st. Cheers, melted CSC Prez

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Downtime (August 19-30) due to planned power outage
by Computer Science Club 02 Aug '18

02 Aug '18

Hello all, We have been informed of planned power outages that will affect the availability of Computer Science Club systems during the month of August. The Math & Computer (MC) building will be without power from Tuesday, August 21st until Thursday, August 30th. As most of our equipment is located in this building, club machines will be unavailable during this time. The Systems Committee will begin shutting down club equipment after 12pm EDT Sunday, August 19th. Please ensure that you have saved all work before then and that you have copied any important files out of your CSC home directory. We are hoping to maintain the availability of our Open Source Software Mirror (mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca) throughout the entire outage. The following services will be hosted in Davis Centre (DC) during the MC outage. However, DC will also experience short outages on August 25th (7am - 3pm) and August 29-30th (7pm - 3am), where these services may also be temporarily unavailable: - Email (see the notice at the bottom of this email) - Web hosting (CSC website and outage notifications for member/club websites) We will begin to restart machines once power has been restored and is stable. Please note that it will take some time to restore 100% of our computing infrastructure. Updates to this notice will be available on the CSC homepage (https://csclub.uwaterloo.ca) If you have any concerns or questions, please contact syscom(a)csclub.uwaterloo.ca. EMAIL NOTICE: Since our home directories will not be available during the outage, we will be temporarily making a copy of everyone's .forward, .procmailrc and .maildir directories on our mail server. In order to ensure successful mail delivery, please ensure that your .procmailrc does not reference any executables located in your home directory. If your email is not forwarded to another email address, it will only be available via IMAP or webmail (https://mail.csclub.uwaterloo.ca) Thank you, Systems Committee Computer Science Club | University of Waterloo syscom(a)csclub.uwaterloo.ca

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Computer Science Club
by Computer Science Club 16 Jul '18

16 Jul '18

Hi all, Tomorrow (Tuesday July 17th) at 6:00pm the CSC will be hosting a prof talk by Richard Mann on "Sound: From microphones to speakers and everything in between", in MC 4041. Come listen to the talk and enjoy some free food. Abstract When you hit record on your phone how is the sound recorded? Air pressure changes come to a microphone, which converts electricity to voltage. The analog signal is digitized by an analog to digital converter (ADC), and finally stored as a digital file in memory. For playback, the process is reversed, and output to head phones or a (tiny) speaker. In a loud room does your phone distort? Can you hear the sound clearly? Phones are getting better. But what is needed to achieve professional quality sound recording? Dhruv Jauhar Vice President Computer Science Club

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Capture the Flag This Evening (July 11th) at 6pm and TerribleHack this Saturday
by Computer Science Club 11 Jul '18

11 Jul '18

Hi all, Just a reminder that this evening at 6pm in STC 0010, there will be a Capture the Flag competition hosted by the CTF Club in collaboration with the CACR and the CSC. It's a fun way to test your programming, web, networking and trivia skills in the context of computer security. No prior experience is required, it will be a fun event (I really enjoyed the last one of these I did). The event will start at 6pm in STC 0010, food will be provided, bring your laptops. For more information, see ctf.uwaterloo.ca. Also, TerribleHack is this Saturday (July 14th). Unlike most hackathons that are focused on innovative and practical ideas, TerribleHack is solely about programming for the sake of programming and having fun - even if that means reinventing less efficient wheels. TerribleHack will run from 9am to 7pm in M3 1006. For more information, see terriblehack.website. Marc Mailhot Secretary Computer Science Club

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Alt-Tab Tomorrow (July 4th) at 6:00pm and other upcoming events
by Computer Science Club 03 Jul '18

03 Jul '18

Hi all, Tomorrow (Wednesday July 4th) at 6:00pm the CSC will be hosting Alt-Tab, a series of short talks from CSC members, in MC 4058. Currently planned talks include: - Abstract Machines, what a PL person thinks a computer looks like! - Rendering with Signed Distance Fields - Strength, weaknesses, and applications of genetic algorithms Come listen to what fellow CSC members are interested in, and enjoy some free food. There are also two more exciting events coming up this month. Next Wednesday, July 11th, there will be a Capture the Flag competition hosted by the CTF Club in collaboration with the CACR and the CSC. It's a fun way to test your programming, web, networking and trivia skills in the context of computer security. No prior experience is required, it will be a fun event (I really enjoyed the last one of these I did). The event will start at 6pm in STC 0010, food will be provided, bring your laptops. For more information, see ctf.uwaterloo.ca. On Saturday July 14th, TerribleHack returns for its 10th iteration. Unlike most hackathons that are focused on innovative and practical ideas, TerribleHack is solely about programming for the sake of programming and having fun - even if that means reinventing less efficient wheels. TerribleHack will run from 9am to 7pm in M3 1006. For more information, see terriblehack.website. Marc Mailhot Secretary Computer Science Club

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Alt-Tab Request for Talks
by Computer Science Club 22 Jun '18

22 Jun '18

CSC will be hosting Alt-Tab, a slightly longer version of lightning talks. It will be a night full of friendly talks on Wednesday, July 4th, 6:00 PM until late. We need talks! Contact djauhar(a)edu.uwaterloo.ca, with your tentative talk title and a short abstract if you would like to give a talk. Slides are not required. Please aim for a 10-15 minute talk. I'll send an email with the list of talks closer to the date of the event. Here are some topics that our members have presented before. The titles make them seem more technical than they actually were. - Overview of SAT solvers - Communication complexity - Register allocation in compilers as graph colouring - Web application security - PXE booting - UI and UX - Train signalling and sensing - Typed Racket - Modern GPU architecture - The comment that took Stack Exchange down and the algorithm that could have saved them - Register Allocation With Graphs There will be food. Marc Mailhot Secretary Computer Science Club

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Office Training - Spring 2018
by Computer Science Club 20 Jun '18

20 Jun '18

Hello Everyone, I'll be conducting a group office training session on Monday June 25 at 3:00 pm in the CSClub office (MC 3036). Please attend if you would like to become office staff. If you can't make it, contact me directly. Thank you, Aditya Thakral Office Manager

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CSC and WiCS Go Outside
by Computer Science Club 29 May '18

29 May '18

Hi all, This coming Monday, June 4, the CSC and WiCS will be heading outside to the Laurel Creek firepit at 6:00pm. There will be a bonfire, good company, smores and other snacks. The firepit we will be using is in the bottom right of https://uwaterloo.ca/economics/sites/ca.economics/files/uploads/files/firep…. Hope to see you there, Marc Mailhot Secretary Computer Science Club

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Code Party 0 this Monday
by Computer Science Club 22 May '18

22 May '18

Hi all, This Monday (May. 28), Code Party 0 will be happening starting at 6:30pm in STC 0020. Come work on personal projects, schoolwork, or anything else with other CSC members. Food will be served. Marc Mailhot Secretary Computer Science Club

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Spring 2018 Election Results
by Computer Science Club 14 May '18

14 May '18

Hi all, Elections took place tonight, here is the list of results: President: Melissa Tedesco (matedesc) Vice President: Dhruv Jauhar (djauhar) Treasurer: Tristan Hume (tghume) Secretary: Marc Mailhot (mnmailho) Sysadmin: Jennifer Zhou (c7zou) Office Manager: Aditya Thakral (a3thakra) Librarian: Archer Zhang (z577zhan) Fridge Regent: Marc Mailhot (mnmailho) Marc Mailhot Secretary Computer Science Club

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CSC elections tonight! 7pm Comfy
by Computer Science Club 14 May '18

14 May '18

Greetings programs, especially those of you who joined this term! We sent out an email a couple weeks ago about elections. They're happening tonight at 7pm in the Comfy! There will be Timmies. For those who didn't get the email, we need *15* people to hold an election, and we'll be electing who will run our club for the Spring term. Also, we'll be amending our Constitution and Code of Conduct (https://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~pj2melan/csc/about/amendments-explanation) Details at the event, or reply to this email with questions. These people were nominated: President: Melissa (matedesc), Haoran (h594wang) VP: Dhruv (djauhar), Haoran (h594wang) Secretary: Dhruv (djauhar), Marc (mnmailho) Treasurer: Tristan (tghume) These people were nominated for non-elected positions: Office Manager: Aditya (a3thakra), Archer (z577zhan), Haoran (h594wang), Yash (y2mathur) Pop/Fridge Regent: Marc (mnmailho) Librarian: Aditya (a3thakra), Archer (z577zhan), Anamaya (agarodia) Sysadmin: Jennifer (c7zou) This club can do some cool things (like new furniture or fun social events!) But we can only do them with the help of individual members (and especially new members!) Looking forward to seeing any of you at MC Comfy lounge tonight, 7pm! Facebook event: https://m.facebook.com/events/190562591585612/permalink/190562604918944/ -- Gestalt Embodiment of the CSC

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CSC s18elxns Monday 14th, 7pm in the Comfy
by Computer Science Club 02 May '18

02 May '18

Hello CSC programs, new and old! Want to decide what snacks the office gets? Want to eat Kismet instead of Twice the Deal at events? The CSC elections are coming up in two weeks, if you nominate yourself for a position you can wield this unimaginable power and more! Elections are Monday the 14th, at 7pm in the MC Comfy lounge. We need 15 members to start the meeting, and we will be bribing you __with food!__ We'll be electing the positions of President, VP, Secretary, and Treasurer. Those four exec will appoint a sysadmin (ratified by the meeting), office manager, librarian, and IMAPd. If you're interested but not sure which position to run for, reply to this email about running for secretary, librarian, or IMAPd. After we elect everyone, we'll make some amendments to our Constitution and Code of Conduct. The summary is here: https://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~pj2melan/csc/about/amendments-explanation If you would like to run or nominate someone for any of the elected positions, you can put your/their name and Quest ID as well as a list of positions on a piece of paper into the nominations box in the CSC office (MC 3036/3037) or send an email to Aditya Thakral at cro(a)csclub.uwaterloo.ca. We'll periodically empty the nominations box and notify the people nominated via their @csclub.uwaterloo.ca (or failing that, @edu.uwaterloo.ca) email address. Please note that club officer positions (elected positions, plus Systems Administrator) are restricted to MathSoc social members. Nominations will close at 7:00pm on Sunday, May 13th (24 hours prior to the start of elections). At this time, I will publish the list of nominations via the CSC mailing list. If a position has no nominees, you can nominate yourself during the meeting. Voting will be done in a heads-down, hands-up manner and is restricted to MathSoc social members. A full description of the roles and the election procedure are listed in our Constitution, available at https://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/about/constitution. Any questions related to the election can be directed to cro(a)csclub.uwaterloo.ca. See you there! -- Gestalt embodiment of CS Club Consciousness

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HFCS Maintenance next Tuesday
by Computer Science Club 27 Apr '18

27 Apr '18

Hello everyone, I'm scheduling maintenance on high-fructose-corn-syrup from 14:30 to 16:30 on Tuesday, May 1. This is a continuation of the maintenance work from last Thursday to resolve ECC errors on one of the memory modules. The server will be down at this time so please ensure all your work is saved. -- Jennifer Zhou Systems Committee Computer Science Club | University of Waterloo

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HFCS will be down for maintenance
by Computer Science Club 16 Apr '18

16 Apr '18

Hello everyone, I'm scheduling maintenance on high-fructose-corn-syrup from 14:30 to 16:30 on Thursday April 19. The server will be down at this time so please ensure all your work is saved. Any questions can be directed to the Systems Committee at syscom(a)csclub.uwaterloo.ca. -- Jennifer Zhou Systems Committee Computer Science Club | University of Waterloo

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EOT food & dessert! And office policies and amendments
by Computer Science Club 30 Mar '18

30 Mar '18

Hello CSC members and robots, This very well may be the last email of term! It's been a big term, so why don't you come on down to the comfy and hang out. We're ordering in pitas (and dessert?????) and just hanging out. Literally no other activities, just hanging out. 6pm in the Comfy, Wednesday (April 4, last day of classes). Good food and company! Two more things, First, we're going to be amending our Constitution and Code of Conduct in a month and a half (at the S18 elections). Here's the summary: https://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~pj2melan/csc/about/amendments-explanation And finally, it's come to our attention recently that there have been situations where people have left the office open without office staff present. This goes against office policies and is explicitly forbidden. Since we depend on office staff to sign up/renew memberships, oversee our library, and keep an eye on the office, we're unable to operate normally without office staff present and have to close. Last term after similar issues we sent out an email to then-current office staff detailing that this is not allowed, so they should be aware of it. We also note that office staff should be aware of this as it is the very first policy listed in the Office Policies, which are explained to them during training and also posted in the office and on our wiki. As there is a certain level of trust instilled in office staff and a certain level of responsibility expected, we have decided that anyone who is found to be leaving the office open without office staff present is breaching that trust and will be removed from office staff. In this particular incident the comment made by one of the students who was still in the office without staff present was that "they said they would be back soon". This is not sufficient, an office staff member must be present at all times. If the last office staff member present needs to leave at all - even if it's just down the hall or to C&D or the washroom - they need to close the office. Similarly, if you are not a member of office staff and are in the office without office staff present, you need to leave. Lights should be turned off and both doors should be closed. We also ask that you email offsck(a)csclub.uwaterloo.ca to report it. If you would like to stay in the office even after office staff leave, then talk to the Office Manager about getting trained for office staff (usually they will send out an email for training). Please remember that we provide the space to CSC members and as members and users of said space, you have agreed to abide by said policies. Thank you for a big term! -- The Exec team

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Alt-Tab Tomorrow (Wednesday)
by Computer Science Club 27 Mar '18

27 Mar '18

Greetings Programs, Tomorrow (Wednesday) is our termly Alt-Tab event, where members give relatively accessible and short talks on a variety of topics. It will be in MC 4020 on Wednesday, March 28 from 6:00 PM until approximately 9:00 PM. This term's speakers and their talk titles can be found on the event webpage https://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/events/MC_4020-2018-03-28-6:00pm. We have a superstar lineup this term (hint: all of them). There will be food. Come and witness the frontier of computer science knowledge! No, not really, but come and listen to the nice talks. -- Charlie Wang Vice President, Computer Science Club

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Upcoming CSC events: Prof Talk, Uncode Party, Alt-Tab
by Computer Science Club 21 Mar '18

21 Mar '18

Greetings programs, We have three Computer Science Club events coming up. There will be food. Professor Richard Mann's talk on black box testing of audio gear is tomorrow (Thursday) at 6:00 PM in MC 4059. Details at http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/events/MC_4059-2018-03-22-6:00pm. There will be food. We are having a joint Code Party with Women in Computer Science (WiCS) next Monday, March 26 at 7:00 PM in QNC 2502. This time, it's an Uncode Party, where you try to find the worst solutions possible to programming problems that we will provide. For example, http://wiki.c2.com/?SlowSort. Come and write shoddy code with us. No prior experience required, but most of you probably have some. You can work on your projects or your assignments too. There will be food. Finally, Alt-Tab is on Wednesday, March 28 in MC 4020 at 6:00 PM until late. We will listen to at least seven confirmed talks from a variety of members. Expect another email with talk titles and a schedule soon. There will be food. See you all there! There will be food. Charlie Wang Vice President Computer Science Club

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Prof talk with Richard Mann this Thursday
by Computer Science Club 19 Mar '18

19 Mar '18

Hi all, Professor Richard Mann will be giving a talk this Thursday, March 22 at 6:00 PM in MC 4059: Black Box testing of Audio Gear. Come out and to see fancy audio gear, learn more about his Advanced Topics course, and eat free food! His abstract is as follows. Black box testing usually refers to computer testing, either software or hardware. In this talk I apply similar ideas to testing analog and digital audio gear. For example, given an audio device, such as a guitar effects pedal, can we stimulate the system with test signals and determine what processing is done inside? I will present our open source testing software to test the frequency response, time delay and distortion in audio systems. We will show several real world testing situations, including microphones, loud speakers, digital keyboards, digital audio mixing boards, and guitar effects pedals. Students are encouraged to bring their own musical instruments and/or sound processors for testing. Finally, I will present information about my current audio course, CS489/689 -- Advanced Topics in Computer Science -- Computational Sound. This is a project based course, normally offered in the Winter term. See also the event listing on our website and our Facebook event: https://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/events/MC_4059-2018-03-22-6:00pm https://www.facebook.com/events/579916839035782/ Hope to see you all there, Charlie Wang Vice President Computer Science Club

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CSC T-Shirts Have Arrived
by Computer Science Club 17 Mar '18

17 Mar '18

Greetings Programs, This term's order of CSC T-Shirts have now arrived and are available for pickup in our office. If you have preordered a shirt, come by the office when it's open and ask an office staff member to get it for you. If you have not preordered a shirt but still want one, we have some available in both fitted and unisex, in various sizes, for $15. Come by the office and talk to an office staff member to see what's still available. Zoe Laing Office Manager Computer Science Club

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