[compsoc-announce] Week 5

[Will Thompson]

Greetings,

No CompSoc events this week; there is, however, a BCS event tonight:

    AGM followed by "The Semantic Web: too smart for its own good?"
    Date: Thursday 25 May 2006
    Time: 19:30 (Cheese and Wine buffet from 19:00)
    Location: ComLab
    
    After the business of the Annual General Meeting, preceded as usual
    by a light cheese and wine buffet, Dan Zambonini will talk about the
    Semantic web.

    The Semantic Web is the natural next evolutionary step of the Web.
    By adding computer digestible semantics and logic to the currently
    available information, we can create software that helps us work
    more efficiently and discover new patterns and relationships.

    The enabling technologies have been around for some time - XML, RDF
    and OWL - together with the software to process and analyse this
    exciting new information. So why isn't the Semantic Web a reality
    today? Will we see the Semantic Web in our lifetimes? And, most
    importantly, what are the technical and non-technical issues holding
    it back? This talk will attempt to answer these questions, to
    discover if the Semantic Web will be relegated to the Betamax and
    MiniDisc of history - great technologies with little impact.

I shamelessly lifted all of that from the BCS web site[0], which has
more information should you want more information.

[0] http://www.oxon.bcs.org/program2005-6.htm#May

Also, I have a job advert from Jacari, a student-run charity providing
volunteer home teachers for children who do not speak English as a first
language and are therefore disadvantaged at school.

    JOB DESCRIPTION: COMPUTING OFFICER

    As the Jacari Computing Officer, you will have a wide variety of
    different responsibilities.  On the IT side of things, you will need
    to manage the database, back-up Jacari's data on a weekly basis,
    manage the mailing lists, and update the website. The website is an
    exciting project to undertake, which allows you a large degree of
    artistic freedom and innovation, and has great scope for
    improvement. As well as these tasks, you will be required to liaise
    with outside organisations such as OUCS and 1&1.co.uk, who together
    host our website. Your other responsibilities are less related to
    computing: manning the office for one hour a week, attending
    committee meetings, and helping out at socials. This is a fun and
    important role on the committee, with plenty of opportunities to get
    involved in many different aspects of Jacari.

    The computer officer is essential to the success of Jacari and we
    are currently looking for someone to fill this role in the committee
    of 2006/2007.  If you are interested in applying, please email
    Jacari[1].  For more information about Jacari, please visit our
    website[2] or email our current computing officer Katie Oliver[3].

    [1] jacari at herald.ox.ac.uk
    [2] http://www.jacari.org/
    [3] computing at jacari.org.uk

Also, someone fixed the leaks in the clouds!

wjt