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Computer Science Table

Computer science table is a weekly meeting of Grinnell College community members (students, faculty, staff, etc.) interested in discussing topics related to computing and computer science. Students on meal plans, faculty, and staff are expected to cover the cost of their meals. Visitors to the College and students not on meal plans can charge their meals to the department.

Current Schedule

Spring 2019

CS Table meets Tuesdays from 12:00–12:50pm. Most CS Tables for the spring semester will meet in JRC 224B inside the Marketplace, though a small number will be in an alternate location, so watch each week for the location.

  • 1/29 - JRC 224B: Thompson's "Reflections on Trusting Trust"
  • 2/5 - CS Commons: Machine learning
  • 2/12 - JRC 224B: Location data
  • 2/19 - JRC 224B: Who owns 3D scans
  • 2/26 - JRC 224B: MOOCs
  • 3/5 - CS Commons: Moonshots
  • 3/12 - JRC 224B: "The Story of Mel"
  • Spring Break 3/19 and 3/26: No CS Table
  • 4/2: No CS Table
  • 4/9 - JRC 224B: The Autocrat's New Tool Kit
  • 4/16 - JRC 224B: The Therac-25, lessons for safety-critical software
  • 4/23 - JRC 224B: "The Cathedral and the Bazaar"
  • 4/30 - JRC 224B: Facebook, big data, and the social sciences
  • 5/7 - JRC 224B: TBA

Fall 2018

  • 9/11: Fixing Facebook
  • 9/18: No CS Table
  • 9/25: Debrief from Tapia 2018
  • 10/2: Debrief from Grace Hopper 2018
  • 10/9: The Big Hack
  • 10/16: Experience of blind software engineers
  • Fall break 10/23: No CS Table
  • 10/30: Secure voting
  • 11/6: Tech company jobs, then and now
  • 11/13: SEPC and student lunch
  • 11/20: open discussion
  • 11/27: No CS Table
  • 12/4: Open source and security
  • 12/11: No CS Table
  • 12/18: Software failures

Contact

For questions, comments, and recommendations on topics to cover in CS table, please contact Charlie Curtsinger or Peter-Michael Osera.

Archived Topics for CS Table

2017-2018 series

  • 8/29: Welcome Back
  • 9/5: Doxing, the public broadcasting of someone's personally identifiable information (PII)
  • 9/12: Machine Ethics
  • 9/19: Activism
  • 9/26: No Topic (concurrent Google session)
  • 10/3: Tapia 2017 Debrief
  • 10/10: Grace Hopper Celebration 2017 Debrief
  • Fall break 10/17: No CS Table
  • 10/24: Interactive and connected toys
  • 10/31: The Google memo criticizing workplace diversity
  • 11/7: Computer-aided gerrymandering
  • 11/14: Robot citizenship
  • 11/21: Games and the Gig Economy
  • 11/28: No CS Table
  • 12/5: Esoteric programming languages
  • 1/23: Welcome back; topic discussion
  • 1/30: Security vulnerabilities (Spectre and Meltdown)
  • 2/6: Digital ownership
  • 2/13: Computer science accessibility
  • 2/20: Privacy, security, and revenue on the Web
  • 2/27: SIGCSE debrief
  • 3/6: Artificial Intelligence
  • 3/13: open discussion
  • 4/3: Paris Talks
  • 4/10: Skepticism and regulation in tech
  • 4/17: Oracle v. Google
  • 4/24: Rise and fall of OLPC (one-laptop per child)
  • 5/1: SESTA and FOSTA (human trafficking and digital privacy)
  • 5/8: Classic computers

2016-2017 series

  • 8/30: Meet and greet
  • 9/6: Passphrases, multi-factor authentication, and security hygiene
  • 9/13: Data privacy in higher education
  • 9/27: Tapia 2016 Debrief
  • 10/11: The intersection of music and computing
  • 11/1: Echochambers
  • 11/8: The state of JavaScript
  • 11/15: Algorithmic bias
  • 11/22: CS education initiatives
  • 11/29: Election hacking
  • 12/5: Health, technology, and regulation
  • 12/12: One-line programs
  • 1/31: Current events and topics for future CS Tables
  • 2/7: Privacy and security
  • 2/14: On technology, slots, and whales (gambling industry)
  • 2/21: Net neutrality
  • 2/28: Facial analysis
  • 3/7: Can computers write poetry?
  • 4/4: Project Gadfly (scripts for contacting elected officials)
  • 4/11: Technical interview process
  • 4/18: Automation
  • 4/25: Algorithmic accountability
  • 5/2: Random number generation
  • 5/9: Comics

2015-2016 series

  • 9/1: Google and elections
  • 9/15: Automobile hacking and cybersecurity
  • 10/27: Debrief after Grace Hopper Celebration
  • 11/10: Cryptographic back doors
  • 11/24: Trans-Pacific Partnership implications for computing and intellectual property
  • 12/8: Comics
  • 2/2: Facebook's Free Basics
  • 2/9: U.S. Copyright duration and fair use: Mickey Mouse, the NFL, and David Bowie
  • 2/16: Data science
  • 2/23: Software patents
  • 3/1: The FBI and Apple
  • 3/8: Public key cryptography
  • 3/15: End-to-end verifiable internet voting
  • 4/12: Data science and elections
  • 4/19: Scrubbing search results, SEO, and the right to be forgotten
  • 4/26: The left-pad kerfluffle (JavaScript node package management)
  • 5/3: Property and ownership of digital media
  • 5/10: End-of-year discussion

2014-2015 series

  • 8/29: Meet and greet
  • 9/12: Social robots and autistic children
  • 9/19: Browser fingerprinting and web tracking
  • 9/26: Privacy, anonymity, and big data in the social sciences
  • 10/3: Serendipity and computing
  • 10/10: Evolutionary art
  • 10/17: Debrief for Grace Hopper Celebration
  • 11/14: "Shellshock" bug
  • 12/5: Back to basics: strings, memory allocation, and databases
  • 1/30: Redundant arrays of inexpensive disks (RAID)
  • 2/20: Onion routing
  • 2/25: "Research priorities for robust and beneficial artificial intelligence"
  • 4/3: Terac-25 incidents (computerized medical devices)
  • 4/24: HTTP 2.0 Standard

2013-2014 series

  • 8/30: What I did this summer
  • 9/6: Turing on artificial intelligence
  • 9/13: Trusting trust
  • 9/20: Pair programming
  • 9/27: "The story of Mel"
  • 10/4: Software-based legal assistance systems
  • 11/8: The network time protocol
  • 12/6: "Beyond efficiency"
  • 12/13: "The reactive manifesto"
  • 1/24: 3-D printing
  • 1/31: The ACM Code of Ethics
  • 2/7: The classic "P vs. NP" problem
  • 2/21: Skip lists
  • 4/11: Lambda expressions in Java 8
  • 4/18: Privacy in the age of big data and analytics

2012-2013 series

  • 9/7: Radical bricolage
  • 9/14: Generative art
  • 9/21: Computers and creativity
  • 10/5: Aesthetic computimg
  • 10/12: Live coding (performance art)
  • 10/19: Digital pioneers
  • 11/2: Computer art and constructivism
  • 11/9: Early computer artists' writings on computer art
  • 11/16: Programming language for artists
  • 2/1: Women in computing (WIC)
  • 2/15: WIC: Mentors and role models
  • 2/29: WIC: Perceptions of (under)enrollment in CS
  • 4/5: WIC: Women and games
  • 4/12: WIC: "Brogramming"
  • 4/19: WIC: K-12 computer science education
  • 4/26: WIC: Adria Richards incident
  • 5/3: WIC: Recruiting and hiring technical women