Hello CSC,
MathSoc has decided not collect fees for the Winter 2021 term. Due to
this:
* If have already paid for Winter 2021 membership, your membership will
be extended by one term.
* If your membership is expired for the Winter 2021 term, you can email
exec at csclub.uwaterloo.ca to have your membership renewed for the term
at no cost.
Winter 2021 elections have also concluded. Here are your executives for
the term.
- President: Kallen Tu (k4tu)
- VP: Gordon Le (g2le)
- AVP: Nakul Vijhani (nvijhani)
- Treasurer: Neil Parikh (n3parikh)
- Sysadmin: Max Erenberg (merenber)
--
Neil Parikh
CRO, UWaterloo CSC
Hello all,
Here are are a few updates for the start of the W21 term:
Mathsoc has currently not decided on whether club fees will be collected
for the Winter 2021 term. Therefore, we will not process renewals and
new member signups until MathSoc makes a decision, likely 1-2 weeks into
the term. If you are a current CSC member whose account was active last
term, you will retain access to CSC systems for all of January.
We will send another email once MathSoc has made a decision.
---------------
Due to the closure of campus this term, the Computer Science Club will
be holding elections for Winter 2021 virtually. The president,
vice-president, treasurer and assistant vice-president (formerly
secretary) will be elected and the sysadmin will be appointed. The
librarian and office manager will not be appointed, since the office
will be closed for the Winter term.
If you'd like to run for any of these positions, please email
cro(a)csclub.uwaterloo.ca. Nominations will close on Wednesday, January 20
2021 at midnight EDT.
If you'd like to get involved with CS Club, but don't want to run for an
elected position, we are also accepting applications for roles on the
Programme Committe! You can apply here:
https://forms.gle/d2mTDAhf1D15Yyk27
---------------
We're holding a event on Thursday at 7 PM where we'll cover tips and
tricks for creating a resume, as well as general tricks on how to
approach WaterlooWorks. More details are available at
https://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/events/Online-2021-01-14-7:00_pm
--
Neil Parikh
CRO, UWaterloo CSC
Hello programs,
Dr. Richard M. Stallman (rms) will be delivering a live presentation
today (Friday, November 27, 2020) at 3:30pm, on "Why operating systems
and other software should be free". You can watch the livestream using
Firefox- or Chromium-based browsers from the following page, at 3:30pm:
https://live.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/2020-11-27-rms.html
Dr. Stallman led the development of the GNU operating system, founded
the Free Software Foundation, and launched the free software movement.
Audience members can ask questions via the #csc IRC channel on the
freenode IRC network, and I will pass them on to rms. CSC members can
easily access IRC and join #csc by logging into the CSC-hosted instance
of The Lounge web IRC client at https://chat.csclub.uwaterloo.ca using
their CSC credentials. Non-CSC members may use other The Lounge
instances available to the public, such as https://chat.emacsconf.org.
Some useful resources related to topics from rms's talk:
- The GNU Operating System: https://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu.html
- What is free software? https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
- Why Software Should Be Free:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/shouldbefree.html
- Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html
rms's presentation will be delivered and streamed using only free/libre
software. Note that Apple devices may not be able to play the stream,
as they may still not be supporting the free patent-unencumbered WebM
format to this day. On such devices, you may be able to watch the talk
using the VLC player. A recording of the presentation will be made
available afterwards for folks who are not able to watch the talk live.
Yours in freedom,
Amin Bandali
Systems Committee
Computer Science Club of the University of Waterloo
Hello all,
Come join the UW Computer Science Club (CSC) and Women in Computer
Science (WiCS) on Thursday, November 19th (today) from 5-7PM EST for
Alt-Tab!
Alt-Tab is a lightning tech talk series presented by students and
alumni. This term's Alt-Tab event will comprise of 4 different speakers
who will be talking about topics including Ethereum NFT gaming, proof
assistants and vanity Tor URLS. There will also be a raffle to win $20
gift cards!
This event will be hosted on Zoom, at
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85836317055
--
Neil Parikh
Treasurer, UWaterloo CSC
Hello CSC members,
Join the Computer Science Club (CSC) and Women in Computer Science
(WiCS) on Thursday, November 19th for Alt-Tab, a lightning tech talk
series presented by students! Alt-Tab consists of 10 to 15-minute talks
about anything related to tech. They can be about cool new features, a
fun project you made or really anything that you are excited about! We
will be hosting it virtually this term!
We are currently looking for speakers! If you’re passionate about a
technical topic and interested in public speaking, apply by filling out
the form below. We’d LOVE to hear from you. Speakers don't need to have
prior experience and Alt-Tab is a great way to get started with giving
talks!
Here are some topics that past talks have covered:
- Unicode
- Virtual Escape Rooms
- Quantum Computers
- GraphQL
- Pathfinding
You can apply here: https://forms.gle/o86BkuD3iqCL4jve7
Applications are due on Sunday, November 1st, at 11:59PM ET.
Hope to see you there!
Neil Parikh
Treasurer, UWaterloo CSC
Hello CSC,
Fall 2020 elections have concluded. Here are your executives for the
term.
- President: Mokai Xu (m92xu)
- VP: Anastassia Gaikovaia (agaikova)
- AVP: Edwin Yang (e37yang)
- Treasurer: Neil Parikh (n3parikh)
- Sysadmin: Murphy Berzish (mtrberzi)
Thanks,
Stacy Gaikovaia, CRO
Hello programs,
On behalf of the CSC Systems Committee I am pleased to announce the
availability of the CSC's own installation of the ZNC IRC bouncer for
our members, at <https://znc.csclub.uwaterloo.ca>. To learn how to
configure and use your CSC ZNC account to connect to IRC networks,
please see the 'Client setup' section of the new ZNC page on the CSC
wiki at <https://wiki.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/ZNC>.
This is the second of several steps we at the CSC Systems Committee are
taking to bring modern user freedom- and privacy-respecting
communication tools to our members. This is now more crucial than ever,
as we have all grown our dependence on remote communication tools due to
the ongoing global crisis, and as Fall 2020 starts with classes held
online.
Starting today, CSC members can use their CSC account credentials to log
into znc.csclub.uwaterloo.ca to access the CSC-hosted version of the ZNC
IRC bouncer [0]. ZNC is free/libre software [1-2] under the Apache 2.0
license, and self-hostable by anyone. The CSC ZNC was set up with the
help of the Systems Committee's newest member, Max Erenberg (merenber).
Thanks for all your help and work on this, Max!
[0]: <https://wiki.znc.in/ZNC>
[1]: <https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html>
[2]: <https://github.com/znc/znc>
Upon your first login to CSC ZNC's web interface, it will automatically
create an account for you, with the freenode network pre-configured,
where you can join our #csc channel along with channels of many other
free software projects. As an IRC bouncer, ZNC keeps you connected and
logged into the IRC networks you configure it for and the channels you
join in, so that when you close your IRC client or turn off your
computer you won't miss any of the conversations that took place while
you were gone. After configuring your CSC ZNC account, you would then
change your IRC client's configuration to connect to the CSC ZNC instead
of the IRC networks directly.
The CSC-hosted instance of The Lounge [3] announced earlier [4] covers
part of a bouncer's use-case while providing a user-friendly web IRC
client. Since IRC bouncers most often implement their functionality on
top of the IRC protocol, they can be used with any IRC client and not
bound to the browser like The Lounge is.
[3]: <https://chat.csclub.uwaterloo.ca>
[4]: https://mailman.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/pipermail/csc-general/2020-July/000837.html
We will be updating the "How to IRC" page [5] of the CSC Wiki with
information about the newly introduced CSC The Lounge and CSC ZNC
services as the easiest and most flexible ways of connecting to IRC
respectively for CSC members going forward.
[5]: <https://wiki.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/How_to_IRC>
Want to learn more or find more user freedom- and privacy-respecting
remote communication tools? See [6] for a large list of free software
tools you can use to communicate with your peers and/or loved ones in
privacy and freedom.
[6]: <https://libreplanet.org/wiki/Remote_Communication>
Have a question or suggestion? Do not hesitate to write to us at the
Systems Committee <syscom(a)csclub.uwaterloo.ca>; we look forward to
hearing from you!
Amin Bandali
Systems Committee
Computer Science Club
University of Waterloo
Hello programs,
Due to the closure of campus this term, the Computer Science Club will
be holding elections for Fall 2020 virtually. The president,
vice-president, treasurer and assistant vice-president (formerly
secretary) will be elected, the sysadmin will be ratified. The librarian
and office manager will not be appointed, since the office will be
closed for the Spring term.
If you'd like to run for any of these positions, please email
cro(a)csclub.uwaterloo.ca. Nominations will close on Saturday, September
19 2020 at midnight EDT.
Additionally, due to campus closure, MathSoc has decided not collect
fees for the Fall 2020 term. Due to this:
* If have already paid for Fall 2020 membership, your membership will be
extended by one term.
* If your membership is expired for the Fall 2020 term, you can email
exec(a)csclub.uwaterloo.ca to have your membership renewed for the term at
no cost.
Stacy Gaikovaia
CRO, Computer Science Club
Greetings programs,
On behalf of the CSC Systems Committee I am pleased to announce the
availability of the CSC's very own installation of The Lounge web IRC
client, available to our members at <https://chat.csclub.uwaterloo.ca>.
This is the first of several steps we at the CSC Systems Committee are
taking to bring modern user freedom- and privacy-respecting
communication tools to our members. This is now more crucial than ever,
as we have all grown our dependence on remote communication tools due to
the ongoing global crisis.
Starting today, CSC members can use their CSC account credentials to log
into <https://chat.csclub.uwaterloo.ca> to access the CSC-hosted version
of The Lounge web IRC client [0]. The Lounge is free software [1],
under the Expat License (also referred to as the MIT License) [2] and
self-hostable by anyone.
[0]: <https://thelounge.chat>
[1]: <https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html>
[2]: <https://github.com/thelounge/thelounge>
On your first login to the web IRC client, it will automatically create
an account for you, saving and keeping your settings even when you close
your browser. The Lounge acts similarly to an IRC bouncer, keeping you
connected and logged into the IRC networks you connect to and the
channels you join in, even when you close your browser or turn off your
computer. This helps avoid missing chat history due to your computer
not being always connected to the IRC server(s) directly.
The new web IRC client's default suggested connection uses a secure
encrypted connection method (over TLS) for connecting to IRC servers.
However, even if you don't use the web client, and e.g. run a TUI client
on one of our servers (e.g. neotame), please be sure to update your
client connection configuration and always use TLS to avoid sending your
IRC account password and other data to the IRC network(s) in cleartext.
We are excited to share more news about IRC-based communication tools
for our members in the coming weeks. Be sure to keep an eye on your
inbox and/or the csc-general list [3] for our upcoming announcements.
Further, we will be updating the "How to IRC" page [4] of the CSC Wiki
to recommend using the new web IRC client going forward.
[3]: <https://mailman.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/listinfo/csc-general>
[4]: <https://wiki.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/How_to_IRC>
Want to learn more or find more user freedom- and privacy-respecting
remote communication tools? See [5] for a large list of free software
tools you can use to communicate with your peers and/or loved ones in
privacy and freedom.
[5]: <https://libreplanet.org/wiki/Remote_Communication>
Have a question or suggestion? Do not hesitate to write to us at the
Systems Committee <syscom(a)csclub.uwaterloo.ca>; we look forward to
hearing from you!
Amin Bandali
System Administrator, Systems Committee
Computer Science Club, University of Waterloo
Hello CSC,
Spring 2020 elections have concluded. Here are your executives for the
term.
- President: Neil Parikh (n3parikh)
- Vice President: Anastassia Gaikovaia (agaikova)
- Sysadmin: Amin Bandali (abandali)
Stacy Gaikovaia, CRO