Looking at the last few days' worth of emails lying around, I see a
pattern emerging: announcements of events are quickly followed by
reminders for those same events! I think it may be time to jump on the
bandwagon.
Be astounded! Be amazed! For one night only, we bring you the final
Compsoc talk this term:
Hardware Virtualization Technology
==================================
Date: Wednesday 29th November
Time: 20:00
Place: Denis Sciama Lecture Theatre, Denys Wilkinson Building
Martyn Spink and Geraint North will speak about Transitive[0]'s
QuickTransit®[1] technology, which allows software compiled for one
processor and operating system to run transparently on a different
processor and operating system without recompilation or patching.
The most famous use of this technology is probably Apple's
Rosetta[2], which allows applications compiled for PowerPC Macs to
run on the new Intel-based Macs. Martyn and Geraint will show this
in action as well as demonstrating another use of the technology.
[0] http://www.transitive.com/
[1] http://www.transitive.com/products/
[2] http://www.apple.com/rosetta/
If you are unsure where the Denys Wilkinson Building is, then
http://tinyurl.com/yeqtzg should help!
You have 85 minutes to prepare yourself!
wjt
--
Will Thompson, Oxford University Computer Society President
<http://www.ox.compsoc.net/>
Morning, Compsoccers!
We seem to have reached 8th week, which is slightly surprising. Here at
Compsoc Towers, we have one final talk for you this term, which is...
tomorrow night!
Hardware Virtualization Technology
==================================
Date: Wednesday 29th November
Time: 20:00
Place: Denis Sciama Lecture Theatre, Denys Wilkinson Building
Martyn Spink and Geraint North will speak about Transitive[0]'s
QuickTransit®[1] technology, which allows software compiled for one
processor and operating system to run transparently on a different
processor and operating system without recompilation or patching.
The most famous use of this technology is probably Apple's
Rosetta[2], which allows applications compiled for PowerPC Macs to
run on the new Intel-based Macs. Martyn and Geraint will show this
in action as well as demonstrating another use of the technology.
[0] http://www.transitive.com/
[1] http://www.transitive.com/products/
[2] http://www.apple.com/rosetta/
I'm still in a small amount of shock that it's even possible to do this
at a reasonable speed. (They even manage to use hardware graphics
acceleration on the new platform in some cases!) The PPC -> Intel
switch seemed to work without any major hiccups for Apple, and tomorrow
we can find out why. :-)
If you are unsure where the Denys Wilkinson Building is, then
http://tinyurl.com/yeqtzg should help!
Right, I should stop sitting here deleting all messages with the subject
line "$person wrote:" every five minutes. I was planning to include
some more abysmal poetry here, but I fear the angry mob congregating
outside my door with pitchforks and vats of boiling oil...
See you tomorrow,
wjt
--
Will Thompson, Oxford University Computer Society President
<http://www.ox.compsoc.net/>
Ahoy!
Unfortunately,
chilly weather seems to make
the Big Bang busy.
I claimed we would start
sometime after seven, but
this was not to be!
The table is booked
from six until half seven.
I hope that's okay.
There will be two spare
places, in case more people
appear than we thought.
Termly General Meeting
======================
Date: Thursday 23rd November (tonight!)
Time: 18.00 - 19.30
Place: The Big Bang, 124 Walton Street[0]
Come along, hear the committee report on how the term has been for
Compsoc, raise and discuss any issues facing the society, then eat
sausages! The idea is to arrive at Big Bang, order food, and conduct
the meeting while waiting for it to arrive.
You can read the minutes from past meetings at
http://www.ox.compsoc.net/info/minutes/ if you like!
[0] http://oxford.openguides.org/wiki/?Big_Bang
I wonder if I should apologise; my haikus weren't exactly very slick.
With any luck your eyes will not be scarred. With practice maybe I'll
improve in time!
wjt
--
Will Thompson, Oxford University Computer Society President
<http://www.ox.compsoc.net/>
Hi all,
You might be interested to know that David and Katherine have uploaded
the slides[0] from their talk on Wednesday. They're in OpenDocument[1]
format, so you might want to get a copy of OpenOffice.org[2] if your
normal presentation software can't handle that format. You might also
be interested in reading a number of more detailed introductions and
guides[3] to some of the tools they mentioned.
[0] http://www.palepurple.co.uk/files/php-oxford-compsoc-talk-November-2006.odt
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument
[2] http://download.openoffice.org/
[3] http://codepoets.co.uk/docs
This week, you might be interested in:
* A talk by Ian Livingstone of Eidos at the Said Business School (which
is not actually anything to do with Compsoc :-)) tonight,
* The Compsoc Termly General Meeting (with sausages) on Thursday, and
* Murray Stokely (of Google's) talk on Friday.
I'll deal with them in reverse chronological order!
Google's Distributed Computation Infrastructure
===============================================
Date: Friday 24rd November
Time: 20:00
Place: Denis Sciama Lecture Theatre, Denys Wilkinson Building
Murray Stokely of Google will introduce four of the key components
used to build massively parallel applications on Google's
infrastructure: GFS, MapReduce, Sawzall, and Bigtable. The talk will
also describe the recent Summer of Code[4] program which several
Oxford students participated in.
[4] http://code.google.com/soc/
If you are unsure where the Denys Wilkinson Building is, then
http://tinyurl.com/yeqtzg should help! Also, Murray mentioned that he's
bringing some Google swag "to give out to anyone that wants one at the
talk".
Termly General Meeting
======================
Date: Thursday 23rd November
Time: Sometime after 19.00 --- to be confirmed!
Place: The Big Bang, 124 Walton Street[5]
Come along, hear the committee report on how the term has been for
Compsoc, raise and discuss any issues facing the society, then eat
sausages! The idea is to arrive at Big Bang, order food, and conduct
the meeting while waiting for it to arrive.
I'm going to book a table later today, so if you haven't already said
you want to come, push that Reply button!
You can read the minutes from past meetings at
http://www.ox.compsoc.net/info/minutes/ if you like!
[5] http://oxford.openguides.org/wiki/?Big_Bang
Ian Livingstone OBE, Exec Chairman Eidos and Director at SCi
============================================================
Oxford Enterpreneurs sent us the following:
Entrepreneur Seminar - Ian Livingstone OBE, Exec Chairman Eidos and
Director at SCi
Wednesday the 22nd of Nov 2006 @ 7:15pm to 8:45pm
Renown computer games entrepreneur, founder of Lara Croft's Tomb
Raider, Ian Livingstone's 30-year entrepreneurial career in games
includes the founding of The Games Workshop and White Dwarf. He is
now the Executive Chairman of Eidos and a Director at SCi
Entertainment plc. SCi has a market capitalization of £330m and an
iconic games portfolio including Conflict, The Great Escape and Tomb
Raider. Ian will be sharing his thoughts on trends and opportunities
in the games industry.
All welcome - please arrive at 7:15 for registration. The talk will
begin at 7:30.
Venue: Said Business School
Event type: OE Speaker Event
Provided by: Oxford Entrepreneurs
Email: events(a)oxfordentrepreneurs.co.uk
Please Login at www.bouncewithit.com to book a place.
I don't know you actually need to book, or indeed anything other than
what you just read!
Thanks for reading all the way down here! :-)
wjt
--
Will Thompson, Oxford University Computer Society President
<http://www.ox.compsoc.net/>
G'day folks,
Yes! Thursday is the Termly General Meeting! As I mentioned a few
weeks ago, we're planning to have a meal afterwards in the Big Bang[0].
We were planning to have the meeting in a pub beforehand, but someone
pointed out that we could just hold the meeting in the Big Bang between
ordering food and said food arriving, which sounds like an excellent
idea to me. The only drawback I can see is that it makes it harder to
come to the meeting and not to the meal. Was anyone planning to do
that?
[0] http://oxford.openguides.org/wiki/?Big_Bang
In any case, can you let me know in the next couple of days if you want
to come to the Big Bang? This'll let me book a table so that they're
not surprised when an army of computer enthusiasts appear and start
demanding food.
I'll let you know more about this week's talk (which is on Friday, and
involves Murray Stokely of Google talking about their distributed
computing infrastructure) soon!
Thanks,
wjt
--
Will Thompson, Oxford University Computer Society President
<http://www.ox.compsoc.net/>
Hi all,
Just a quick reminder that our talk tonight is "Applying Good
Practice to a Misused Language" [0]. I know I personally have written
some _hideous_ PHP, so it'll definitely be good to see how they suggest
doing it better.
If you aren't a member yet, and are planning on turning up, this is an
_ideal_ time to become a member. Life membership is only £10, and
is definitely worth it (for a start, it lets us afford to pay people's
travel expenses, which makes people more likely to come and talk to us.
You also get to turn up to our TGMs and tell us what you'd like to see
more or less of, and the list would go on if I wasn't already late.).
Feel free to grab any of the committee if you want to become a member.
While plugging talks, there's also a BCS [1] talk on Thursday:
"Extending existing applications for secure mobile use - how tough can
that be?" "Industry analyst research reflects that mobile working is a
key priority for European enterprises this year. Stef Coetzee, Senior
VP International, NetMotion Wireless, will cover the many challenges
which include performance and reliability, network coverage - and
keeping those corporate bean-counters happy.." More info can be found at
http://www.oxon.bcs.org/program2006-7.htm#Nov (I'm sure I know that
speaker's name, I just can't think why...)
Apologies for the slightly rushed email - lectures call.
Michael
0: http://www.ox.compsoc.net/events/termcards/current/
1: http://www.oxon.bcs.org/
--
Michael Howe
Treasurer and Sysadmin, Oxford University Computer Society
http://www.ox.compsoc.net/
i'm in ur inboxes, announcin ur events!
Calling all web developers:
Applying Good Practice to a Misused Language
============================================
Date: Wednesday 15th November
Time: 20.00
Place: Comlab, room 051
Over the past few years, PHP has become the tool of choice for
aspiring web developers everywhere — picked up and misused by
millions. As a language that is easy to get started with, through
examples and code snippets across the web, it is cut and pasted to
death, leaving a legacy of unreadability and insecurity and a
reputation as a 'bad' language.
David and Katherine Goodwin of Pale Purple[0] will discuss some of
the pitfalls of PHP development and introduce a range of tools and
techniques that can be used to transform a lacklustre PHP amateur
into a polished professional. It will focus mainly on applying good
design and testing to projects, and introduce some of the popular
tools that will help developers to achieve clean, secure,
maintainable code.
[0] http://www.palepurple.co.uk/http://oxford.openguides.org/wiki/?Computing_Laboratory has some
information about Comlab (in case you're not familiar with it). There
is a door into the basement to the left of the door into the main
reception, which we will be using.
This talk is fresh from LinuxWorld Expo a few weeks ago (where Katherine
was also a judge at the 2006 Linux Awards[1]). Should be enlightening!
[1] http://www.linuxawards.co.uk/
The true date of Murray Stokely
===============================
Last time I mailed you all I said:
> Also, while I'm here, Murray Stokely (of Google)'s talk in 7th week has
> been moved from Friday 24th to Wednesday 22nd.
This is, in fact, a lie. It was originally on Wednesday 22nd, and is
now on Friday 24th. That'll teach me to write emails in a hurry in a
coffee shop without actually reading what I've been told.
Pizza for breakfast
===================
Before, during and after Andy Stanford-Clark's talk, people were
performing calculations on pizza. Suppose you have a θ-degree sector of
pizza (which I believe is colloquially known as a "slice") and wish to
share it evenly between two people. The sensible thing to do is of
course to bisect the angle, but we don't care. Where should you slice
the pizza horizontally to create two pieces of equal area?
Correct answers from people who weren't at the talk get a copy of Linux
Magazine pidged to them! I hope you don't get stuck at calculating the
area of a triangle like I did...
Enough. Oh, and if you didn't understand my greeting, you could read
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/11/11/i_am_in_thy_library_.html and be
enlightened. I never get bored of photos of cats.
wjt
--
Will Thompson, Oxford University Computer Society President
<http://www.ox.compsoc.net/>
Hi all,
Just a quick reminder about tonight's talk!
Mice, llamas and IBM Pervasive Messaging middleware
===================================================
Date: Wednesday 8th November (TONIGHT!)
Time: 20:00
Venue: Denis Sciama Lecture Theatre, Denys Wilkinson Building (Physics,
off Keble Road)
Dr Andy Stanford-Clark, IBM Master Inventor, will talk about some of
the more unusual applications of the Pervasive Messaging software
that he and his team are developing at IBM. From monitoring oil
pipelines in Alaska, to tracking llamas on the Isle of Wight!
To further incentivize you to attend, Alasdair Kergon will be bringing
some Linux magazines and DVDs swiped from LinuxWorld Expo!
Also, while I'm here, Murray Stokely (of Google)'s talk in 7th week has
been moved from Friday 24th to Wednesday 22nd.
Did you like my enterprise-speak two paragraphs ago?
See you tonight,
wjt
--
Will Thompson, Oxford University Computer Society President
<http://www.ox.compsoc.net/>
Evening all,
I was accosted in a lecture the other day by an angry member demanding
to know why my relentless barrage of emails had abruptly ended. I do
actually have a good reason: there wasn't anything to say. But this
week we're back in action!
Mice, llamas and IBM Pervasive Messaging middleware
===================================================
Date: Wednesday 8th November
Time: 20:00
Place: Denys Wilkinson Building (in the Engineering Area[0])
"What do mice and llamas have to do with IBM Pervasive Messaging
middleware?" Dr Andy Stanford-Clark, IBM Master Inventor, will talk
about some of the more unusual applications of the Pervasive
Messaging software that he and his team are developing at IBM:from
monitoring oil pipelines in Alaska, to tracking llamas on the Isle
of Wight!
I went on about this talk at freshers' fair, and at pretty much any
opportunity I've had. Everyone knows that llamas are cool, but rarely
do you see them actually involved in technology. I suspect that this
will be good fun.
[0] http://oxford.openguides.org/wiki/?Engineering_Area
Termly General Meeting
======================
We're currently talking about having the General Meeting (which is in
Week 7) in a pub before migrating to a foodery. (I believe Michael
favours a repeat visit to the Big Bang[1]...) If you're planning to
come to the meeting and have a strong preference against the meeting
being in a pub or the meal being in the Big Bang, let us know and we'll
ignore Michael!
[1] http://oxford.openguides.org/wiki/?Big_Bang
Help build a free postcode database!
====================================
I thought I should take this opportunity to mention New Popular Edition
Maps, which show maps of the UK from the sixties with a slick interface,
allowing you to take a look at how your area used to look. While you're
doing this, you can add the postcodes of buildings (or places where
buildings now are), and help to build a free postcode database. (The
Royal Mail's one starts at a few thousand pounds a year.) Wander on
over to http://www.npemap.org.uk/, find your house, add its postcode,
browse around, find entertaining route plans scribbled in pencil, and so
on. It's pretty addictive. Also, ex-Compsoc people are involved, so it
must be a good thing.
That's enough from me. See you on Wednesday,
wjt
PS. The underlining of titles looks just great in mutt, but I'm aware
that not all of you read emails with a monospaced font. How bad does it
look in pointy-clicky mail clients and whatever webmail system people
think is cool these days?
--
Will Thompson, Oxford University Computer Society President
<http://www.ox.compsoc.net/>
