Thursday Extra: "Computational linguistics: crawling the Web for non-English data"

Mon, 2013-09-16 12:55 — stone

On Thursday, September 19, Kim Spasaro 2014 will discuss the construction of an digital collection of written text in a specific language. She writes:

This summer I interned with Carnegie Mellon's Language Technologies Institute. While there, I was part of a project working to enable machine translation for Bantu languages. More specifically, I was responsible for building a corpus of Kinyarwanda phrases to be used for machine learning. At this talk, I will discuss how I used the Apache Nutch web crawler to launch a large-scale web crawl in search of Kinyarwanda data.

Refreshments will be served at 4:15 p.m. in the Computer Science Commons (Noyce 3817). The talk, “Computational linguistics: crawling the Web for non-English data,” will follow at 4:30 p.m. in Noyce 3821. Everyone is welcome to attend!

CS Table: Trusting Trust

Thu, 2013-09-12 07:21 — rebelsky

On Friday, 13 September 2013, the readings for CS Table will be two papers on trust.

The first is a classic paper, written as a Turing Award Speech

Ken Thompson. 1984. Reflections on trusting trust. Commun. ACM 27, 8 (August 1984), 761-763. DOI=10.1145/358198.358210 http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/358198.358210

The second is a recent article from The New York Times

Nicole Perlroth, Jeff Larson, and Scott Shane. September 5, 2013. N.S.A. Able to Foil Basic Safeguards of Privacy on Web. The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/06/us/nsa-foils-much-internet-encryption.html

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. CS Table meets Fridays at noon in the Day PDR. Contact Sam Rebelsky (rebelsky@grinnell.edu) for the weekly reading. Students on meal plans, faculty, and staff are expected to pay the cost of their meals. Students not on meal plans can charge their meals to the department.

Computer Science Table: "Turing on artificial intelligence"

Tue, 2013-09-03 13:31 — stone

For this week's Computer Science Table (at noon on Friday, September 6, in Rosenfield 224A), the reading is a classic paper on artificial intelligence:

Turing, A. M. (1950). Computing Machinery and Intelligence. Mind 59: 433-460.
http://www.csee.umbc.edu/courses/471/papers/turing.pdf

Come learn the real scoop on the “Turing test”!

Computer Science Table: "What I did this summer"

Wed, 2013-08-28 12:52 — stone

Welcome back!

Our first CS Table of the year will be Friday, 30 August 2013 in Rosenfield 224A. Our topic will be “What I did this summer and will give folks a chance to report on what they've done while away from Grinnell (or at least away from classes) and what they hope to do in the coming year. It will also be an opportunity to discuss potential topics and readings for the year in CS 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. CS Table meets Fridays at noon. Contact Sam Rebelsky for the weekly reading. Students on meal plans, faculty, and staff are expected to pay the cost of their meals. Students not on meal plans can charge their meals to the department.

Congratulations to our graduates!

Mon, 2013-05-20 16:35 — stone

The Computer Science majors of the class of 2013 are:

  • Toluwaloju Elizabeth Alabi (with honors; Joseph F. Wall Scholarship)
  • Zachary Simkin Butler (with honors)
  • David William Cowden
  • Akshay Arun Gulati
  • Sarah Christen Henney
  • Katherine Leigh Ingersoll (with honors)
  • Alexander James Marrs
  • April Lynn O'Neill
  • Austin Russell Redick
  • David Scott Rosen
  • Aditi Roy (ACM Nick Adams Short Story Contest, honorable mention)
  • Isaiah Azibo Sarju
  • Dilan Üstek
  • Emircan Uysaler (with honors)

Congratulations to all!

First Annual Pledge of the Computing Professional

Mon, 2013-05-20 15:25 — davisjan
On Sunday, May 19, 2013, the Grinnell Computer Science Department hosted its first annual Pledge of the Computing Professional, a rite of passage ceremony that provides graduating seniors with an opportunity to reflect on their ethical and social responsibilities. Grinnell College is the second node in the state of Iowa. We were honored by the presence of Nathaniel Borenstein '80, who is one of this year's honorary degree recipients.

Women in computing / Computer Science Table: Recruiting and hiring technical women

Thu, 2013-05-02 15:30 — stone

At this Friday's session of Women in Computing / CS Table, we'll discuss efforts to recruit and hire technical women. We will consider a variety of resources related to this issue.

First, two popular press articles on Etsy's efforts to build its staff of women technologists:

Second, an article on “affirmative effort”:

Finally, we will consider a series of short approaches from the National Center for Women in Technology's “Pacesetters” program:

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. CS Table meets Fridays at noon in the Day PDR (the first PDR at the top of the stairs in the Marketplace/Cafeteria, also known as Rosenfield 224A). Faculty, staff, and students on meal plans are expected to pay the cost of their meals. Students not on meal plans can charge their meals to the department.

Thursday Extra: "Generative art and the computer collaborator"

Wed, 2013-05-01 17:43 — stone

On Thursday, May 2, Colin Brooks 2013 will speak on “Generative art and the computer collaborator.” Refreshments will be served at 4:15 p.m. in the Computer Science Commons (Noyce 3817). The talk will follow at 4:30 p.m. in Noyce 3821. Everyone is welcome to attend!

Computer Science Table / Women in computing: "Adria Richards"

Thu, 2013-04-25 14:05 — stone

At this Friday's session of Women in Computing / CS Table, we'll discuss the recent Adria Richards fiasco. If you don't know about it, any of the readings below will give you a quick overview.

Our primary reading is

This reading includes a number of forum comments. You should take the time to read some of them. Since the case involves the way people behave publicly and using online communication tools, forum comments are particularly relevant.

This reading also includes a number of links which you may find it useful to follow.

Other relevant articles:

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. CS Table meets Fridays at noon in the Day PDR (the first PDR at the top of the stairs in the Marketplace/Cafeteria, also known as Rosenfield 224A). Faculty, staff, and students on meal plans are expected to pay the cost of their meals. Students not on meal plans can charge their meals to the department.

Thursday Extra: "wot they shoulda bin dun learned me in SKule"

Fri, 2013-04-19 11:48 — stone

On Thursday, April 25, Professor Rhys Price Jones will challenge conventional wisdom about elementary education, encompass the cosmos in a combinatory nutshell, and suggest how hardware designers could teach processors to sing the λ-calculus like birds.

The talk includes an overview of how combinators epitomize all of the complex interactions of the living world, every single atom in the universe and absolutely everything else we care about. We’ll show how just two of these combinators encompass all of creation. And finally, we’ll recommend a change in the direction of computer design and manufacture to properly recognize and leverage these amazing birds.

See the poster or attachment for more details.

Refreshments will be served at 4:15 p.m. in the Computer Science Commons (Noyce 3817). The talk, “wot they shoulda bin dun learned me in SKule,” will follow at 4:30 p.m. in Noyce 3821. Everyone is welcome to attend!

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