Git : Things you should know about Git but never bothered to ask, by Marco Biazzini

Howdy y’all,

The next coffee is all Spaghetti Western [1] style. Yup, we’re in for a wild ride with the sharp-shooting, fast-drawing, dirty talking, injun huntin’…. (wait for it)… Marco “Snakeeyes” Bulettzini [2].

Marco’s gonna round us up an overview of data structures and shoot through some low level functions that Git is built on. It’s all stuff you thought you could skip but turns out to be useful to live happily and peacefully back on the ranch.

Gosh Marco, using Git sure sounds like a love-hate relationship!

Bring your tin cups ‘cus this time the coffee’s ready when the horseshoe floats [3].

Giddy up! Yee-haw!
Walter Rudametkin

PS. A little somethin’ from Nico for y’all: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MqTlo1laA0

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghetti_Western
[2] http://cinemur.fr/personnes/mario-brega-32114/photos/161766-3
[3] http://www.specialty-coffee-advisor.com/cowboy-coffee.html

Update: Here’s the presentation.

Dear all,

Normally the Russiano-grenoblois-mexicano wrote an amazing email for introducing the speakers, but he is travelling these days

Using evolutionary computation to synthesize software applications by Kwaku Yeboah-Antwi

Hi everybody,

Don’t miss the next DiverSE Coffee because it’s going to be *Formidable*, with a capital F!

Our recently imported genius from the Americas… wait… imported from England… no, hold on… from Ghana… hmm…. Yes, as I was saying, our only black team member—who successfully and grandiosely increased both our inner-team diversity and uniqueness in a single swipe—will be competing for the ultimate prize of Best Coffee Presenter in Hiiiistoorrryyyyy (iiiistooryyy, stoooryyy, toorryyy, yyy, y, …).

Kwaku Yeboah-Antwi, also known as Mr. Wednesday [1], is going to present his work on evolutionary computation techniques (specifically genetic programming) to automatically synthesize software applications. Kwaku will present the methodology and challenges involved in synthesizing a simple calculator, completely from scratch. I agree, this looks like the workings of a “Social Autistic Savant”, if ever an autistic savant was social. Kwaku will surely achieve his lifetime goal of producing the world’s first living ArmBird in the years to come [2].

Let’s give Kwaku a warm welcome!

Best regards,
Walter Rudametkin

PS. Double dose your coffee and brush up on your english ‘cus Kwaku ain’t gonna wait for no slow minds! [3]

[1] Kwaku means something like “Boy Born on a Wednesday” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akan_names#Day_names
[2] http://www.funnyjunk.com/funny_pictures/1867808/ARMBIRDS%20/
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFEoMO0pc7k

Maxime Tricoire presents Kevoree web demo

Hi Everybody,

Today’s DiverSE coffee is going to be totally frickin’ awesome… It’s demo time with Maxime!

Maxime, a.k.a Pretty Boy, is one of our smartest and hardest working engineers. In case you don’t know him, he’s timid, he’s pretty, and he’s brilliant. I’m particularly glad to see him present because Maxime is what I call a coffee-dodger: he has managed to avoid at least 3 coffee presentations in the past. But finally, he has been caught. No more escaping from the coffee gods Maxime, you must present!

Maxime has been diligently working on the Kevoree component framework and, more specifically, on the Kevoree JS project for a long time now. We all think that Javascript is a crappy language that can’t be tested or used to build complex systems (right Johann?), but Maxime is here to prove us wrong. He will show us what can and can’t be done, once and for all! Maxime will present the latest evolutions of Kevoree and the new management framework that has been written in Javascript.

Let’s all give a warm welcome to the pretty boy, Maxime Tricoire!

Best regards,
Walter Rudametkin

PS. Please note that the coffee will be extraordinarily held in the _Markov_ room.

openMOLE presented by André’s friends

Hi Everybody,

Today’s DiverSE coffee is special, so please behave (or you’ll scare the normal people). We have people coming to present Open Mole. The presenters might be coming from Paris, and open mole might be a genetic project to release the mole genome, or it might be a robotic swarm technology built to destroy your Grandma’s flower garden, or it might be the open-source workflow engine designed to leverage the computing power of distributed execution environments (i.e., Open MOdeL Experiment [1]).

It’s hard to be precise because André forgot to send me the summary (probably all of those beers didn’t help, right André). All I know for sure is that these are André’s friends (yes, the guy has friends… really, he does… and they actually seem smart, too!).

So let’s give a nice, warm, DiverSE welcome to whoever is coming to present.
Walter Rudametkin

PS. Maxime, be prepared, we are coming for _you_!

[1] http://www.openmole.org/

Variability management in metaheuristics-based algorithms by David Méndez-Acuña

Hi Everybody,

Today’s presentation will be about variability management in metaheuristics-based algorithms, such as simulated annealing or taboo search (oh, sounds so dirty!). The presentation will be given by our newly incorporated Ph.D. student and colombian national, David Méndez-Acuña, a.k.a., the guy that is always cold.

In particular, the talk will explore the case study of a family of algorithms where the members share some commonalities and where the variability can be modeled through feature models. We will also talk about how to use these ideas for building an experimentation platform that allows algorithms to be compared each other in order to find the one offering the best results for a specific problem.

This work was funded by the University of Los Andes (in Bogotá, Colombia). The objective was to find good algorithms for solving some combinatorial problems in the context of sustainable mobility in big Latin-American cities.

Don’t forget your coffee cups and your scientific spirit.

Best regards,
Walter Rudametkin

Update: here’s David’s presentation.