Kyle Rankin will be giving a talk at the November North Bay Linux Users' Group meeting on the differences between Ubuntu and earlier Linux distributions. The talk is titled "Where'd my Files Go? A guide to the Modern Ubuntu Distribution".

While you might not be able to tell at a cursory glance, a lot has changed behind the scenes on a modern Ubuntu system from what you might be used to if you have used Linux for years. For example, did you know Ubuntu is phasing out System V init? That you can't loopback-mount the initrd? In this talk I would discuss the current changes Ubuntu is making to what we might consider the traditional Linux system. There's a little something for everyone on the talk: For Linux newbies who are curious about what's under the hood I will cover the traditional and modern boot process including how init works and follow up with a guide to where important files are in Ubuntu. For the experienced Linux user I'll show you how (and why) things have changed and where you can look now when you want to, for instance, change the default runlevel on an Ubuntu system.

The meeting is at O'Reilly and Associates in Sebastopol on Tuesday, November 11 at 7:30 PM.

Local company Teknovus, which recruits heavily from SSU, is giving a presentation in Salazar 2009A from 11AM to 1PM on Friday, October 24. Food will be provided. See the flyer [PDF] for more information.

CS375 (Computer Graphics) is hosting guest speakers Mike Farnsworth and Joel Davis from Tippett Studios on the 28th to discuss computer animation. Pizza will be provided; Ledin said he was buying for 30 people, but there are far fewer than that in the class, so feel free to drop in. The class is in Darwin 37.

Michael King, Joe Muller, and Dylan Field will be presenting on the subject of encryption as it applies to e-mail security.

Do you ever wonder how the messages you send over the internet are secure? Speakers will give a brief introduction to cryptography using RSA; an overview of PGP and how it is used to secure communication over the internet; and an overview of hash functions (with MD5 algorithm as an example) used for password protection and message integrity. This is a student project from the Fall 2007 Math 485 class (Introduction to Cryptography).

The presentation will be at Wednesday November 5 at 4:00 PM in Darwin 103. Come early (3:45) for coffee and cookies. Pizza will be provided after the talk.

Visit the Math Colloquium page for more information about the weekly Math colloquiums.

Our own Bala Ravikumar will be giving a talk on how to approximate the computation of extremely large numbers that physically cannot be represented as plain binary code.

Numbers like 2^2^1000 are so large that even if every elementary particle in the universe is used to store one of its digits, it is still not possible to store the number. We address the problem of computing some of the specified digits of such numbers. Some interesting mathematical issues related to such computations will be discussed in this talk.

The presentation will be Wednesday October 1 at 4:00 PM in Darwin 103. Come early (3:45) for coffee and cookies. Pizza will be provided after the talk.

Visit the Math Colloquium page for more information about the weekly Math colloquiums.

Tom Barclay's presentation on Microsoft Terraserver has been canceled. HOWEVER: Students in the CS Colloquium class are still expected to turn in a paper on the subject.

The Case For Infrastructure Maintenance - a presentation by Jim Horning of SPARTA.

Civilization and infrastructure are intimately intertwined. Rising civilizations build and benefit from their infrastructures in a virtuous cycle. As civilizations decline, their infrastructures decay. Dependence on critical infrastructures is increasing worldwide. This is true not only of information systems and network services, but also of energy, water, sanitation, transportation, and others that we rely on for our livelihood and well-being. These critical infrastructures are becoming more interrelated, and more heavily dependent on information technology. People demand ever more and better services, but understand ever less about what it takes to provide those services. Engineers know that physical infrastructures decay without regular maintenance, and prepare for aging (e.g., corrosion and erosion) that requires inspections and repairs. Proper maintenance is generally the cheapest form of insurance against failures. However, it has a definite present cost that must be balanced against the unknown future cost of possible failures. Although computer software does not rust, it is subject to incompatibilities and failures caused by evolving requirements, changing environments, changes in underlying hardware and software, changing user practices, and malicious exploitation of discovered vulnerabilities. Therefore, it requires maintenance. Yet the costs of maintenance are often ignored in the planning, design, construction, and operation of critical systems. Incremental upgrades to software are error-prone. Software engineers receive little training in preparing for software aging, in supporting legacy software, or in knowing when and how to terminate decrepit legacy systems.

The presentation will be at noon in Salazar 2016.

The event will be in Salazar 2016 at noon. Food will be provided.

SSU CS students will be giving a presentation on the special projects that they have been working on over the semester. Details to come.

The presentation will be at noon in Salazar 2016. Pizza will be provided after the talk.

Using Python In Embedded Applications - a presentation by Chris Ramstad, Joe Miguel, and Stephen West of CyanOptic.

Python is a high level dynamic programming language with a large selection of built-in and third party libraries. It has become a mature and well tested language over the last 17 years. Traditionally, Python has not been considered as a primary tool for implementation of core functionality on an embedded product. It is often either not considered because it is a 'scripting language' or rejected due to concern about poor performance. However, given the ever growing complexity of software requirements, pressure to shorten time to market, and the continual drop of cost in computing power, leveraging Python makes more sense. Python can now be considered as a viable alternative to C/C++/java in many high performance embedded applications.

The presentation will be at noon in Salazar 2016.