"The Basics"
Peter Wesselius, Undecided, Freshman

I haven't been to a meeting yet, but I decided to join because I am interested in meeting new people who share an interest in computer science. I discovered the ACM club through NAU's club directory.

Favorite Programming Language
My favorite programming language usually depends on what I'm trying to do; for practical hacks, I usually choose Python (surprise!). Cross platform, "batteries included", and tons of easily accessible modules - what's not to love? But for "programming reasons," my favorite language is Lisp. I like it because it's a very natural language for expressing complex algorithms, but it's also very unique and I'm still learning how to use it properly.

Favorite Development Environment
My favorite development environment is Emacs.

Operating System
I use GNU/Linux exclusively and change distributions fairly frequently. My favorite distro is Gentoo, because it exposes many compilation options to the user during install, so you end up with a kernel that can match your preferences, even if you're running esoteric hardware.

Name: Ben "Lizard" Liszewski
Major: Computer Science, Senior
Why I joined ACM: I got bored one day and ended up hanging out with ACM.

If you had a superpower/mutant power, what would it be?
Time Control, with some creativity I could make crazy things happen.
Favorite Programming Language
English. People are so much easier to convince to do things than computers.
Console vs. PC: Which is better?
PC, but consoles have their place.
Which Operating System(s) do you use? (Mac OSX, Flavor of *Nix, Windows ME...)
*nix for work, Windows for play.
Favorite Development Environment: (vim, emacs, TextMate, eclipse, etc.)
vim ninja in training.
P=NP? (explain...)
The Shakespeare Problem states that an infinite number of monkeys typing for an infinite amount of time would eventually produce the complete works of William Shakespeare.
Let us assume that the monkeys are working with the standard ASCII table of 128 characters, that the monkeys are not educated in typing or the language and will thus enter arbitrary characters, but that the monkeys will never enter the exact same sequence of characters twice, and finally that it takes the monkeys 1 second on average, for simplicity sake, to enter a character.
Therefore, if the monkeys are asked to produce a single specific character there are 128 possible results, and thus the time it will take for the monkeys to produce the correct character is at most 128 seconds. If we ask to produce two characters there are 128**2 possibilities, or 16384, thus it could take up to 16384 seconds. In for these cases the time it will take for any number of characters (N) is at most:
T = 128**N
We should not always assume the monkeys will use 128 characters or that it will usually take 1 second to enter a character, however we can usually assume the number of characters is constant and that the time to enter a character can be averaged to a constant as well, thus they can be ignored when finding an asymptotic bound. Is this case, the asymptotic upper bound is simple:
T = O(K**N) for some natural number (K)
However, to verify that the monkeys have entered the correct sequence, we need only match each character, thus if there is 1 character it will only take 1 instant to verify and with 2 characters 2 instants, and so on. Thus, the run time for verification is:
T = N
and the asymptotic run-time is:
T = O(N)
While finding the solution to Shakespeare's Problem is not polynomial time, verifying the problem is and thus Shakespeare's Problem is NP.

Therefore, if we can show that Shakespeare's Problem can be solved in polynomial time and that any similar problem can be transformed the into Shakespeare's Problem we can thus show that any problem of NP complexity can be solved in polynomial time, and thus P = NP.

First, lets show that any problem can be turned into the Shakespeare Problem.

We assume that Shakespeare's works are used because it it would take a large amount of time for a monkey to randomly produce meaningful text, and supposedly Shakespeare has a lot of meaningful text.
Of course, while producing Shakespeare's works the monkeys would also have a chance to complete an infinite amount of other works, known to the problem solvers or not. Among these we safely can assume, in an infinite amount of time, the monkeys could produce any problem and its solutions. Failing the production of the desired problem infinity would continue until they successfully produced the right work.
Thus, any problem can be turned into the Shakespeare problem.

Now let us tackle the more difficult part, solving Shakespeare's Problem in polynomial time.

First, let us show for simplicity sake that the Shakespeare Problem can in fact be solved by one monkey. We can find the total amount of work done by the monkeys (W) by taking the work done by the monkey in an amount of time (V) and multiplying it by the time we give they work (T):
W = V * T
Now, if we just assume a monkey can produce one unit of work in one unit of time we can show that one monkey can produce the same amount of work in a infinite amount of time as infinitely-many monkeys:
1 * [infinity] = [infinity]
and
[infinity] * [infinity] = [infinity]
Thus, one monkey can produced the same amount of work as infinitely-many monkeys in an infinite amount of time. Therefore we can use one monkey without changing the problem.

Then, if we assume my super/mutant power is that I can control time then, by applying Lizard's Law (which states: If I can control time I can make crazy things happen), I could make crazy things happen. For instance, I could make an infinite amount of time take a matter of seconds. If the monkey's infinite amount of time was reduced to a matter of seconds then the finite number of works would take a very limited, and finite amount of time.
If we assume the average Shakespeare play has approximately 20,000 words and that I reduce the infinite amount of time into segments of one second per completed piece of work than the monkey will complete one work per second. We can find the time to complete the works (T) with Shakespeare's number of works (N) by:
T = N * 1 second
This function, reduced to O-notation conforms to linear time, or O(n). This is clearly within polynomial time, and thus the problem can be solved within polynomial time.

Therefore, because my super/mutant power would let me control time, we can solve any problem using Shakespeare's Problem, and the Shakespeare Problem can be solved in polynomial time, P = NP.

Matthew Wray, Electrical engineering, Freshman!

I joined ACM because Meaghan dragged me into the room, and said something profound like "This is the ACM". Then she expected me to go to the meetings. I had been to the digital carnivals, and perhaps due to Meaghan's insistence I found myself joining for the love of technology and the hope that I can osmosis vast amounts of information from those who know know than me.

My super power would be invisibility. There are times I feel I have this one down to a T, and sometimes when my power malfunctions on me.

The only programming language I have somewhat under my belt is Matlab.

It depends for me on the game. I like consoles because they are pretty stable compared to my computer. I like computers better for shooters (point and click mouse), and I also like the fact that computer games are largely made for Windows, so I don't have to worry about a game I really want only being for the wrong console.

I use both Mac OS X and Windows XP quite often, and sometimes at the same time. Mac OS X is my fav.

P=NP?
I think this quote about sums it up: "We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!" - Vroomfondle from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Major: Criminal Justice/Pre Law
Year: Junior

Why I joined ACM: The people. The people in ACM are remarkable individuals who never cease to amaze me. ACM is pretty much the only place I can go to meet with people that share my love of technology and computing. The people have been incredibly helpful and I've learned a great deal.

My mutant power: I would like to be able to kill people with my brain

Favorite Programming Language: Well, I'm a beginner, so whatever language I use while programming is explicit.

Console vs. PC: PC. Consoles don't easily allow me to pause, alt tab and go to web pages.

Operating Systems: Windows and various *nix flavors (generally ubuntu). I don't like using mac; It's a great OS unless you're general tech support.

Development environment: I've only used vim, but it seems pretty awesome.

P=NP: If I knew this, I would have $1,000,000

Name: Kevin Theiss.
Major: Computer Science.
Year in College: Sophomore, First Semester.
Superpower: Peter Petrelli's (from Heroes) ability to copy other people's powers into himself. Why settle for one when you can have them all? However, if no one else had superpowers, that would be pretty useless. So, if no one else had superpowers, I would want to be able to control time. There's a lot you can do with that. Stop time, speed up time, slow down time, time travel, etc. You could have a lot of fun with that!
Favorite Programming Language: All I know right now is Java, so I can't really make a valid decision on this. Although I really want to learn Slag.
Console vs. PC: It depends on what the game is. Games that were built from the ground up for the PC should be played on the PC (Half-Life, TF2, Portal, Left 4 Dead, StarCraft, pretty much all MMOs, etc.). However, if the game was built from the ground up for consoles, that's where it should be played (Mario, Zelda, Final Fantasy, Halo, BioShock, Smash Bros., etc.).
Operating System: Mostly, I use Windows because I can use it well and more games are available on it than on a Mac. I have nothing against Mac users, though. Except for the Apple fanboys who hate people who use anything made by Microsoft.
Favorite Development Environment: Guess what? I don't have to use BlueJ anymore! CS 136 is pushing Eclipse as the main development environment. I can honestly say, Eclipse is now my favorite IDE. If I had to choose a text editor, I would pick Vim, since it's the only text editor I've ever used. If I had to choose between Eclipse and Vim, though, right now I would choose Eclipse, because I'm having a hard time getting anything to compile in Vim. The javac command isn't working.

Name: Patrick Kelley
Major: CS w/EE minor
Year in College: Senior^4
Why you joined ACM To join forces with other students in order to help myself in class and to aid incoming students get their bearings.
If you had a superpower/mutant power, what would it be? You mean I don't have one? Oh. Well, then, I'd like the ability to make my dreams come true.
Favorite Programming Language 80X86 Assembler. No, really. Ambiguity is for lawyer-types and liberal arts majors. Clear, crisp, one-to-one relations are for engineers and scientists.
Console vs. PC: Which is better? My PC's GPU can beat up a console GPU any day of the week. But I don't hate consoles; far from it.
Which Operating System(s) do you use?Windows. Yes, I know, but it works for what I need/want. But, like with consoles, I'm not an OS bigot. I got over that when OS/2 went under.
Favorite Development Environment:NetBeans. It's like a big, shiney console with all those buttons and controls you want to press and see what happens. Ooooo, what does that do?...
P=NP? Yes, once we really understand the domains. It may take millions of years while we evolve enough intelligence, though.

More: I'm the old biker guy you see sitting in the ACM room alot. Don't be scared; I'm really quite nice if a little bizarre. I took an early retirement from IBM, consulted a bit, tried to become a commercial pilot, and ended up in Flagstaff as a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer and no decent job prospects unless I wanted to commute - minimum to Phoenix. Instead, I decided to go to school with the ultimate ambition of teaching.

Other things to know about me: I play bass guitar, I have just finished building an airplane and am working on another, I have a huge interest in Japan and the Japanese language (and anime and old samurai movies and shows and...), and my motorcycle is *not* a Harley; it's a replica. I enjoy computer gaming, preferring strategy and shooters to others, though I also flight-sim a lot. I'm into blues, bluegrass, celtic, and rock. Lately, my favorite band is Dream Theater. I read a lot of Sci-Fi and War novels and I used to collect a lot of comics, though my collection ends about 10 years ago. If I have a favorite comic artist, it would have to be Matt Howarth - which probably creeps you out as much as it does me. There's more, but you'll have to explore that for yourself.

*Your Name, Major and Year in College (Freshman, Sophomore, etc.)
Talbert Tso, CS - Super Senior (6+ years)

* Why you joined ACM (To make friends, homework help, programming competitions, etc.) and where you heard about us :)
At first I wanted to have something to put on my resume. But I found a place where I could dive deeper in to the world of CS and found people more unique than my usual rag tag bunch of friends.

The Optionals! (if you want to answer these, go ahead!)

* If you had a superpower/mutant power, what would it be?
"...How about the power...to move you?" - Wonderboy, Tenacious D
But I definitely would like multiple kinesis powers; telekinesis, pyrokinesis, terrakinesis, hydrokinesis, aerokinesis, etc.

* Favorite Programming Language
Java - I like the strongly type definition and the great error handler.

* Console vs. PC: Which is better?
Depends on the game. MMOs and +5 versus, PC is superior. But for RPGs and two - four player versus are better on consoles.

* Which Operating System(s) do you use? (Mac OSX, Flavor of *Nix, Windows ME...)
Windows XP, but getting use to Vista.

* Favorite Development Environment: (vim, emacs, TextMate, eclipse, etc.)
<3 vim and eclipse

* P=NP? (explain...)
African or European?

* I am a Sophomore and a Modern Languages major, Linguistics minor.
* I joined ACM because it's awesome and contains nearly my entire group of friends. Plus, I am a gigantic nerd.
* I would really like to be able to fly, but in the interest of self-preservation, I think I would go with immunity from any form of robot attack.
* My favorite languages are French, Spanish, and Japanese.
* I prefer console, although it does bother me that there are so many different kinds and they are all pretty expensive.
* I use Mac OSX and Windows XP.
* I really like Pages. It has all the same positive functions as Word, plus an impressive library of useful templates, and spell check dictionaries and grammar proof reading for foreign languages.
* Only when N is equal to 1.