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

Also, someone fixed the leaks in the clouds!

wjt