Events for Fall 2010

The events for Fall 2010 are listed here. You can also download an ICS of them.

Elections

Comfy Lounge, 2010-09-14, 04:30 PM: Fall term executive elections and general meeting.

MC4061, 2010-09-21, 04:30 PM: by Dr. Prabhakar Ragde, Cheriton School of Computer Science. I'll be workshopping some lecture ideas involving representations of numbers, specification of computation in functional terms, reasoning about such specifications, and comparing the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches.

Cooking for Geeks

MC4045, 2010-09-22, 06:00 PM: The CSC is happy to be hosting Jeff Potter, author of "Cooking for Geeks" for a presentation on the finer arts of food science. Jeff's book has been featured on NPR, BBC and his presentations have wowed audiences of hackers & foodies alike. We're happy to have Jeff joining us for a hands on demonstration.

Calling all CS Frosh

DC1301 (The Fishbowl), 2010-09-23, 04:30 PM: Come meet and greet your professors, advisors, and the heads of the school. Talk to the CSC executive and other upper year students about CS at Waterloo. Free food and beverages will also be available, so there is really no excuse to miss this.

A Brief Introduction to Video Encoding

MC4061, 2010-09-28, 04:30 PM: By Peter Barfuss. In this talk, I will go over the concepts used in video encoding (such as motion estimation/compensation, inter- and intra- frame prediction, quantization and entropy encoding), and then demonstrate these concepts and algorithms in use in the MPEG-2 and the H.264 video codecs. In addition, some clever optimization tricks using SIMD/vectorization will be covered, assuming sufficient time to cover these topics.

Unix 101

MC3003, 2010-09-29, 04:30 PM: Need to use the Unix environment for a course, want to overcome your fears of the command line, or just curious? Attend the first installment in the CSC's popular series of Unix tutorials to learn the basics of the shell and how to navigate the unix environment. By the end of the hands on workshop you will be able to work efficiently from the command line and power-use circles around your friends.

BareMetal OS

MC4021, 2010-10-04, 04:30 PM: By Ian Seyler, Return to Infinity. BareMetal is a new 64-bit OS for x86-64 based computers. The OS is written entirely in Assembly, while applications can be written in Assembly or C/C++. High Performance Computing is the main target application.

UNIX 103

MC3003, 2010-10-06, 04:30 PM: Unix 103 will cover version control systems and how to use them to manage your projects. Unix 101 would be helpful, but all that is needed is basic knowledge of the Unix command line (how to enter commands).

How to build a brain: From single neurons to cognition

MC4061, 2010-10-12, 04:30 PM: By Dr. Chris Eliasmith. Theoretical neuroscience is a new discipline focused on constructing mathematical models of brain function. It has made significant headway in understanding aspects of the neural code. However, past work has largely focused on small numbers of neurons, and so the underlying representations are often simple. In this talk I demonstrate how the ideas underlying these simple forms of representation can underwrite a representational hierarchy that scales to support sophisticated, structure-sensitive representations.

UNIX 102

MC3003, 2010-10-13, 04:30 PM: This installment in the CS Club's popular Unix tutorials UNIX 102 introduces powerful text editing tools for programming and document formatting.

Machine learning vs human learning - will scientists become obsolete?

RCH 306, 2010-10-19, 04:30 PM: by Dr. Shai Ben-David.

Analysis of randomized algorithms via the probabilistic method

MC4040, 2010-10-26, 04:30 PM: In this talk, we will give a few examples that illustrate the basic method and show how it can be used to prove the existence of objects with desirable combinatorial properties as well as produce them in expected polynomial time via randomized algorithms. Our main goal will be to present a very slick proof from 1995 due to Spencer on the performance of a randomized greedy algorithm for a set-packing problem. Spencer, for seemingly no reason, introduces a time variable into his greedy algorithm and treats set-packing as a Poisson process. Then, like magic, he is able to show that his greedy algorithm is very likely to produce a good result using basic properties of expected value.

Hackathon

CnD Lounge (MC3002), 2010-11-05, 07:00 PM: Come join the CSC for a night of code, music with only 8 bits, and comradarie. We will be in the C&D Lounge from 7pm until 7am working on personal projects, open source projects, and whatever else comes to mind. If you're interested in getting involved in free/open source development, some members will be on hand to guide you through the process.

CSC Invades Toronto

Outside DC, 2010-11-13, 12:00 PM: The CSC is going to Toronto to visit UofT's CSSU, see what they do, and have beer with them. If you would like to come along, please come by the office and sign up. The cost for the trip is $2 per member. The bus will be leaving from the Davis Center (DC) Saturday Nov. 13 at NOON (some people may have been told 1pm, this is an error). Please show up a few minutes early so we may board.

Mathematics and aesthetics in maze design

MC4061, 2010-11-17, 04:30 PM: by Dr. Craig S. Kaplan. In this talk, I discuss the role of the computer in the process of designing mazes. I present some well known algorithms for maze construction, and more recent research that attempts to novel mazes with non-trivial mathematical or aesthetic properties.