Events Archive: Winter 2002

Computer Go, The Ultimate

| 5:00 PM EST | MC4060

Thomas Wolf from Brock University will be holding a talk on the Asian game of Go. All are welcome.

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The Asian game go is unique in a number of ways. It is the oldest board game known. It is a strategy game with very simple rules. Computer programs are very weak despite huge efforts and prizes of US$ > 1.5M for a program beating professional players. The talk will quickly explain the rules of go, compare go and chess, mention various attempts to program go and describe our own efforts in this field. Students will have an opportunity to solve computer generated go problems. Prizes will be available.

DVD-Video Under Linux

| 4:00 PM EST | MC4060

Billy Biggs will be holding a talk on DVD technology (in particular, CSS and playback issues) under Linux, giving some technical details as well as an overview of the current status of Free Software efforts. All are welcome.

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DVD copy protection: Content Scrambling System (CSS)

  • A technical introduction to CSS and an overview of the ongoing legal battle to allow distribution of non-commercial DVD players
  • The current Linux software efforts and open issues
  • How applications and Linux distributions are handling the legal issues involved

DVD-Video specifics: Menus and navigation

  • An overview of the DVD-Video standard
  • Reverse engineering efforts and their implementation status
  • Progress of integration into Linux media players

Unix 102: Fun With UNIX

| 6:00 PM EST | MC2037

This the second in a series of UNIX tutorials. Simon Law and James Perry will be presenting some more advanced UNIX techniques. All are welcome. Accounts will be provided for those needing them.

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This is the second in a series of seminars that cover the use of the UNIX Operating System. UNIX is used in a variety of applications, both in academia and industry. We will provide you with hands-on experience with the Math Faculty's UNIX environment in this tutorial.

Topics that will be discussed include:

  • Interacting with Bourne and C shells
  • Editing text using the vi text editor
  • Editing text using the Emacs display editor
  • Multi-tasking and the screen multiplexer

If you do not have a Math computer account, don't panic; one will be lent to you for the duration of this class.

UNIX 101: First Steps With UNIX

| 6:00 PM EST | MC2037

This is the first in a series of seminars that cover the use of the UNIX Operating System. UNIX is used in a variety of applications, both in academia and industry. We will be covering the basics of the UNIX environment, as well as the use of PINE, an electronic mail and news reader.

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This is the first in a series of seminars that cover the use of the UNIX Operating System. UNIX is used in a variety of applications, both in academia and industry. We will be covering the basics of the UNIX environment, as well as the use of PINE, an electronic mail and news reader.

GnuPG/PGP Keysigning Party

| 2:30 PM EST | Comfy Lounge MC3001

Get more signatures on your key!

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GnuPG and PGP provide public-key based encryption for e-mail and other electronic communication. In addition to preventing others from reading your private e-mail, this allows you to verify that an e-mail or file was indeed written by its perceived author.

In order to make sure a GnuPG/PGP key belongs to the respective person, the key must be signed by someone who has checked the user's key fingerprint and verified the user's identification.

A keysigning party is an ideal occasion to have your key signed by many people, thus strengthening the authority of your key. Everyone showing up exchanges key signatures after verifying ID and fingerprints. The Computer Science Club will be hosting such a keysigning party together with the Hurd presentation by THUG (see separate announcement). See the keysigning party homepage for more information.

Before attending it is important that you mail your key to sjdutoit@uwaterloo.ca with the subject ``keysigning.'' Also make sure to bring photo ID and a copy of your GnuPG/PGP fingerprint on a sheet of paper to the event.

An Introduction to GNU Hurd

| 2:00 PM EST | Comfy Lounge MC3001

Bored of GNU/Linux? Try this experimental operating system!

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GNU Hurd is an operating system kernel based on the microkernel architecture design. It was the original GNU kernel, predating Linux, and is still being actively developed by many volunteers.

The Toronto-area Hurd Users Group, in co-operation with the Computer Science Club, is hosting an afternoon to show the Hurd to anyone interested. Jeff Bailey, a Hurd developer, will give a presentation on the Hurd, followed by a GnuPG/PGP keysigning party. To finish it off, James Morrison, also a Hurd developer, will be hosting a Debian GNU/Hurd installation session.

All interested are invited to attend. Bring your GnuPG/PGP fingerprint and mail your key to sjdutoit@uwaterloo.ca with the subject ``keysigning'' (see separate announcement).

Questions? Suggestions? Contact James Morrison.