Hi All,

I hope everyone enjoyed the fireworks last night - I didn't realise how many displays there were in Oxford!

This week Dr Michael Spivey is presenting a talk titled "The Beauty of Bootstrapping and The Joy of JIT", a summary is copied below. Please note, this talk will be in the Department of Computer Science, due to its favourable proximity to the pub.

Read more below to find out about this event and this week's technology challenge (which is open to anyone, but only members can win prizes) - as well as last weeks solution.

Ben and Alex CompSoc Co-Presidents

************************************************************************

The Oxford Computer Society

************************************************************************

The Beauty of Bootstrapping and The Joy of JIT: Wednesday 9, 18.00 Lecture Theatre A, The Department of Computer Science Link: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=270345939673763

Dr Michael Spivey, Oxford University Department of Computer Science will be presenting this talk. Summary below:

A compiler written in its own input language that generates code for a non-existent machine? Surely that's hopelessly impractical! I will talk about my recent experiences in improving GeomLab, a simple functional language, by using a bootstrapped compiler to generate code for the Java Virtual Machine. Good results are surprisingly easy to obtain.

After the talk we will be heading down to the Lamb and Flag for drinks and 'intellectual discussion' with Dr Spivey - anyone is welcome to join us, we may even buy you a drink.

If you don't know where the department is there are handy directions here: http://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/contact/directions.html. Once you have found the department enter the shadowy door behind the bins in http://g.co/maps/p4nqr. Then follow the signs =]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The following is a message from Becky Jowsey who is organising an exciting Elder Scrolls event:

Elder Scrolls : Skyrim Video Game Launch Party On 11/11/11, as I am sure you are all aware, the next chapter of the Elder Scrolls video game series: SKYRIM is coming out! We are very excited about this and so are having a Skyrim launch party in the Jean Robinson Room of Keble College from around 8.00pm until around 10.40ish. It promises be a friendly and fun evening of gaming, chatting, party food and hopefully, a few competitions! Bring along your console and a copy of Skyrim if you have one (not a problem if you don't) and unite with fellow gamers to share and celebrate this latest chapter of one of our favourite franchises. This should be a great opportunity to meet other people who share your hobby, exchange gamer-tags, chat, relax and generally have a nice informal evening of gaming.

If this sounds like a friendly and relaxing way to spend a Friday night, then please send a quick email to becky.jowsey@keble.ox.ac.uk expressing an interest and with the following information: Which console platform are you bringing? Xbox, PS3, PC, none etc Will you have a copy of Skyrim on 11.11.11? Y / N Can you bring other games, plug-banks, extra controllers etc? With these preliminary details sorted out I can send you an invite and an outline of all the fun stuff we hoping to have on the night.We hope to hear from you soon!

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Technology Competition: Challenge 5:

This weeks challenge is to write a simple crawler to find the cumulative filesize of all the files in http://garbage.dartoxia.com/s/ (or do it by hand, but that is boring and tedious - yet not infeasible).

A few hints: the answer ignores the size of folders - so you can too, all folders have the prefix folder, no file is greater than 999B in size, there are no urls in any of the files (just garbage).

Once you have calculated it go to http://compsoc.dartoxia.com/answer/<ANSWER GOES HERE>, the answer should be in bytes.

Anyone (with a .ox.ac.uk email address) can sign up to the competition through the http://compsoc.dartoxia.com website, but only members can receive prizes.

Compsoc.dartoxia.com isn't connected to the compsoc network, and so you will need to make a new account to participate.

For more details about the competition see http://compsoc.net/technology_competition or contact committee@ox.compsoc.net

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Technology Competition: Challenge 4 Result:

Congratulations to Jonathan Tuckwell who solved the challenge with impressive speed - next time a challenge of this type will have to be much harder! We will get in touch separately to arrange your prize.

The challenge last week was to find a 'vulnerability' in http://compsoc.dartoxia.com and exploit it. The solution was to change the value of a cookie (found_exploit) which was stored on log in to 1 and then visit the answer page.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Membership:

Our current membership rates are £5 for life and £3 for a year. Being a member entitles you to free socials, prizes in the technology competition and you can attend (obviously) members only events - such as the upcoming Bank of America dinner. You will also receive a CompSoc membership card!

Membership forms can be downloaded from http://compsoc.net/forms/Compsoc_Membership_Application.pdf - please return them completed and money to a committee member.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

CompSoc jobs mailing list:

The society receives a number of advertisements each week from companies and individuals interested in employing our members. The jobs range from graduate positions, to a bit of help with another societies website.

If you would like to receive these emails just email compsoc-jobs-request@lists.ox.compsoc.net with 'subscribe' in the subject line.