- csc-general - CSC Mailman

Three more events!
by Computer Science Club 20 Nov '14

20 Nov '14

Hello everyone! The exec has organized three events to wrap up the term: 1. *Code Party 1 / SE Hack Day #13* [Nov.21 (TOMORROW), 18:00, M3 1006] Why sleep when you could be hacking on $SIDE_PROJECT, or working on $THE_NEXT_BIG_THING with some cool people? Come when you want, hack on something cool, demo before you leave. If you don't have a project, don't worry - we have a list of ideas, and people will be looking for a helping hand on their projects. *NOTE*: Due to the high interest, dinner and snacks will only be served to those working on projects/demoing during the event. 2. *TALK: C++ ABI (Sean Hunt)* [Nov.25 (Tuesday), 17:30, MC 4041] Our own sysadmin, Sean Hunt, will be giving a talk on the C++ compiler ABI, and how all of the magic in C++ is implemented at the binary level. 3. *TALK: Heroic Android HTTP (Jesse Wilson)* [Nov.27 (Thursday), 18:00, MC 4020] The network is unreliable. 3G networking is slow. Using WiFi drains your battery. The NSA is spying on you. Different versions of HttpURLConnection have different bugs. Jesse Wilson, a software developer at Square, will be talking about OkHttp, a library that he maintains, and how to use it to make your app's networking work even when conditions aren't ideal. He will talk about how to configure caching to improve behavior and save resources, cryptography, and he will give advice on which libraries to use to make good networking easy. *NOTE*: You *must* RSVP via this website <https://www.ticketfi.com/event/77/heroic-android-http> if you are attending! We need to have an accurate count for food. :) That's all, folks! Thanks for coming out to our events, and hope to see you next term! Cheers, Jinny Kim President, Computer Science Club <http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/> University of Waterloo <https://uwaterloo.ca/>

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Fwd: Upcoming Events, Nov. 12, 17
by Computer Science Club 11 Nov '14

11 Nov '14

Greetings, programs, We have upcoming events! 1. Machine Learning at Bloomberg [Tomorrow, Wednesday Nov 12th, 5:30 PM, EIT 1015] The financial world reacts very quickly to news. We will illustrate some examples that demonstrate this phenomenon and the difficulties involved. We will also show some of the machine learning applications at Bloomberg that are useful in this environment. (Food from Subway) 2. Why Pattern Recognition is Hard, and Why Deep Neural Networks Help [Monday, Nov 17th, 6:00 PM, QNC 1502] In the last few years, there has been breakthrough progress in pattern recognition -- problems like computer vision and voice recognition. This sudden progress has come from a powerful class of models called deep neural networks. This talk will explore what it means to do pattern recognition, why it is a hard problem, and why deep neural networks are so effective. We will also look at exciting and strange recent results, such as state of the art object recognition in images, neural nets playing video games, neural nets proving theorems, and neural nets learning to run python programs! 3. Code Party 1 [Nov 21st, 5:30pm, M3 1006] Come out, code, learn, mentor. We're partnering with SE Hackday to make this the best event we can.

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UW firewall may affect CSC servers
by Computer Science Club 10 Nov '14

10 Nov '14

Greetings programs, The University of Waterloo is currently in the process of putting a perimeter firewall in place around the campus, which will block incoming traffic on all but selectively-enabled ports. It will be enabled for the MC, including all CSC machines, sometime this week. We will be working with UW IST to ensure that exceptions are added to the firewall for the services normally operated by the CSC; however, if you run a server on a different port, or otherwise depend on incoming connections, this will no longer work. Connections from inside UW will continue to work normally. If you have a specific service for which you would like CSC systems committee to consider an exception to the firewall, please contact syscom(a)csclub.uwaterloo.ca and explain: - Which server(s) your service needs to be given exceptions on - Which port(s) you need opened - The purpose of the service Syscom will take each request under consideration, but please be aware that since we have not yet decided on a policy for exceptions, we cannot offer any guarantees that your request will be granted. Thanks for your patience, Sean Hunt CSC Sysadmin

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UW firewall may affect CSC servers
by Computer Science Club 10 Nov '14

10 Nov '14

Greetings programs, The University of Waterloo is currently in the process of putting a perimeter firewall in place around the campus, which will block incoming traffic on all but selectively-enabled ports. We will be working with UW IST to ensure that exceptions are added to the firewall for the services normally operated by the CSC, however, if you run a server on a different port or otherwise depend on incoming connections, this will no longer work. Connections from inside UW will continue to work normally. If you have a specific service that you would like CSC Syscom to consider for an exception to the firewall, please contact syscom(a)csclub.uwaterloo.ca and explain: - Which server(s) your service needs to be given exceptions on - Which port(s) you need opened - The purpose of the service Syscom will consider all requests but as we have not yet decided on a policy for exceptions, I cannot offer any guarantees that syscom will make a decision one way or another. Thanks for your patience, Sean Hunt CSC Sysadmin

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Upcoming Women in CS Events: Nov. 7, 13, 20
by Computer Science Club 06 Nov '14

06 Nov '14

Dear CSC, Your friends on the Women in Computer Science Undergrad Committee would like to remind you of/invite you to a few of our upcoming events! MOVIE NIGHT: HACKERS: Fri. Nov. 7, 7PM, Comfy Lounge (MC 3001) --- A reminder that we'll be meeting to watch Hackers tomorrow night. Check out the event description: http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/events/MC_Comfy-2014-11-07-7:00_PM TECH FEMINISM 101 PANEL: Thu. Nov. 13, 5PM, MC 2065 --- WiCS is hosting our first educational panel on tech feminism. If you are curious about the claims of sexism and discrimination in STEM and the software industry, we highly recommend you attend; there will be an open Q&A following the panel session. You can find more information about the event and speakers here: https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/events/tech-feminism-101-panel SARAH SHARP PUBLIC LECTURE: Thu. Nov. 20, 5:30PM, ML Theatre of the Arts --- We are pleased to introduce Sarah Sharp, author of the Linux USB 3.0 driver and Linux kernel maintainer to give a talk on breaking into Linux development. The talk is intended for all students interested in learning more about kernel development. For more info and tickets, See https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/events/talk-sarah-sharp-breaking-open-source-and-li… Hope to see you there! Please send questions or comments to myself or WiCS-ugrad at wics-ugrad(a)lists.uwaterloo.ca. -- Elana Hashman Undergraduate Representative Women in Computer Science Committee David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science ehashman(a)uwaterloo.ca

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Nov. 7, 7PM: WiCS and CSC watch Hackers!
by Computer Science Club 04 Nov '14

04 Nov '14

Greetings, programs, This Friday night at 7PM, Women in Computer Science (WiCS) and the Computer Science Club (CSC) will meet up in the Comfy Lounge to watch a favourite cult classic: Hackers. Join us as we relive our 90s teenage hacking fantasies and stuff our faces with popcorn and junk food. Hackers of the world, unite! -- Elana Hashman Undergraduate Representative Women in Computer Science Committee David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science ehashman(a)uwaterloo.ca

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Book Cataloguing
by Computer Science Club 23 Oct '14

23 Oct '14

Hey guys, Gianni <glgambet(a)csclub.uwaterloo.ca> is cataloguing all of the books in the office. He will be done by *Wednesday, November 5, 2014*. Please do not rearrange the books or remove books from the shelves/office until after that date. If you have any questions, please email me or Gianni. Thanks! Jinny Kim President, Computer Science Club <http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/> University of Waterloo <https://uwaterloo.ca/>

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Prof Talk TONIGHT! UNIX 101/Code Party 0 Friday!
by Computer Science Club 22 Oct '14

22 Oct '14

Hello everyone, We hope that you are surviving midterm/cold and flu season! If you'd like a break from studying, here are three events happening this week: 1. *In Pursuit of the Travelling Salesman* [*TONIGHT*, 5:00PM, MC 4041] For those of you unfamiliar with TSP, it is the problem where you are given a number of cities with the cost of travel between each pair of them, and you have to find the cheapest way to visit all of the cities and return to your starting point. It sounds simple, but it is very difficult to solve. This problem has many interesting applications from genome sequencing to arranging music on iPods. Professor Bill Cook is one of the leading experts on TSP, and he will be discussing the history, applications, and computation of this fascinating problem during this talk. 2. *UNIX 101* [Friday, 5:00PM, MC 3003] In this tutorial, we will be teaching you how to use the shell, why we use it, some simple commands, and more. If you are already a whiz, why not come out and help out fellow members? 3. *Code Party 0* [Friday, 6:00PM, MC Comfy] Code Party immediately follows UNIX 101, and CSC will be taking over the MC Comfy to work on side projects, discuss cool topics in computer science, and enjoy some free dinner! If you would like to work on a side project but don't have any ideas, we'll have some ideas you can tackle. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me. Cheers, Jinny Kim President, Computer Science Club <http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/> University of Waterloo <https://uwaterloo.ca/>

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Office Staff Training
by Computer Science Club 07 Oct '14

07 Oct '14

Hi, If you are member of the CSC and are interested in becoming Office Staff, I will be holding training sessions on the follow dates: Date #1: Wednesday October 8th, 2014 10:30 AM - 11:15 AM Date #2: Wednesday October 15th, 2014 5:30 PM - 6:15 PM Information about Office Staff: http://wiki.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/Office_Staff

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Fall 2014 Election Nominations Closed
by Computer Science Club 18 Sep '14

18 Sep '14

Nominations for the Fall 2014 elections have closed. The candidates are: President: - yj7kim - srcreigh Vice President: - srcreigh - tbelaire Treasurer - s7au - srcreigh - dchlobow - scshunt - jj2baile Secretary - m4farrel - srcreigh If you nominated someone and they are not in this list, they probably withdrew their candicacy. If there is an error in the above, contact be at cro(a)csclub.uwaterloo.ca immediately. The election will be held at 6:00 PM tomorrow (Friday, September 19) in the MC Comfy Lounge (MC 3001). The voting system is approval voting; you can vote for nobody, or as many people as you want to for each position. The person with the most votes will be elected. You can vote either by showing up to the election, or by sending an absentee ballot to cro(a)csclub.uwaterloo.ca, where you specify your vote for each position. You should send your ballot by 5PM Friday at the latest. Thanks, Bryan Coutts Chief Returning Officer

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