compsoc-freshers

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Re: [compsoc-freshers] Belated Week 7 Newsletter: G-Research Coding Challenge, Foundry Events, Tech Connect
by Edward Hart 26 Nov '18

26 Nov '18

Hi there, We forgot one thing: to register for the G-Research Coding Challenge, please email graduates(a)gresearch.co.uk detailing whether you are registering as an individual or a team and, if you have any, what dietary requirements you have. See you then! Edward Hart President - Oxford University Computer Society president(a)ox.compsoc.net On Mon, 26 Nov 2018 at 17:22, Joe Gardiner <secretary(a)ox.compsoc.net> wrote: > Good evening, CompSoc! > > And a merry (belated) Oxmas to you all. This upcoming Wednesday is the > final event of term: a *coding challenge* with Silver sponsor *G-Research*! > See below for details. > > The trip to Bletchley Park and TNMoC yesterday (two days ago) went very > well! A huge thank you to everyone who was able to make it. > > Ed’s going to be in Oxford these next three weeks, so there’ll be an > unofficial Geek Night running as normal this Saturday for anyone who’s > still around! > > Good evening, CompSoc. > > *The CompSoc Committee - Joe G, Edward H, Ben S* > Events > > *G-Research Coding Challenge* > <https://www.facebook.com/events/351205168786461/> - 6:30 pm 28th > November, UGSA, Department of Computer Science > > This challenge is for Computer Sciences/Computer Sciences + Maths students > in any year of your degree. > > The challenge - Building a natural language processing engine! > > A series of increasingly difficult challenges based on small teams or > individuals, building a natural language calculation engine. The challenges > will cover aspects such as evaluation of arithmetic expressions to unit > conversions and equation solving. Decided by a point system, prizes will be > given to groups who come 1st and 2nd place. There will be food and > refreshments provided. We will allocate teams when you arrive, you don’t > need to find a team beforehand, you are welcome to work alone or bring your > own team if you like. > > Languages for the challenges - .NET Core 2, Java and Maven or Python 3 > with client starter kits provided when you login. Any coding background is > welcome. > > Please also bring a laptop per team. > ------------------------------ > Sponsor Notices > > *The following notices are from Semmle.* > > Thank you very much to the CompSoc committee for hosting me and my > colleagues for the talk and hackathon at the beginning of term, and thank > you to those that came. It was great to talk to you about finding variants > of security vulnerabilities by writing program analyses as queries. > > If any of you are interested in more examples of variant analysis, or > missed the talk, one of our security researchers recently published an > account of how he found a “ping of death” style vulnerability in XNU (the > kernel of macOS, iOS, and watchOS): > > https://lgtm.com/blog/apple_xnu_icmp_error_CVE-2018-4407 > > Thanks again, and if any of you are looking for an internship or job, > Semmle is always hiring <http://semmle.com/careers>. > [image: Semmle logo]Semmle logo > > Have you always wanted to be a security researcher? Are you a big believer > in open source? Do you love program analysis and compilers? Do you have a > knack for machine learning and data science? > > If any or all of the above apply to you then you definitely need to drop > us a message about an internship or career at Semmle! > > Based around the world and in the centre of Oxford, we’re the team behind > LGTM.com and the QL query technology for variant analysis. By crunching > millions of commits from over 100,000 open source repositories, we’ve > uncovered critical security vulnerabilities in the Apple kernel, Apache > code (including Hadoop and Struts), the Microsoft Edge browser, Spring, and > many other codebases. The full list of CVEs is here: > https://lgtm.com/security/disclosures > > We’re always looking for security researchers, compiler engineers, UX > designers, ML/DM experts, software engineers, and developer advocates. > Talent and enthusiasm are much more important to us than experience! We > have a large team of talented people (including many from Oxford) who will > support you from day one. > > Interested? Have a look at https://semmle.com/careers and drop us a line > on careers(a)semmle.com. You’re very welcome to join us for lunch any day > (or drinks on Friday evening) and a game of pool, foosball, or table > tennis! Want to try out our tech first? Have a look at https://lgtm.com, > and don’t forget to check out the blog: https://lgtm.com/blog. > > *The following notice is from JP Morgan.* > > *Featured Program:* > > *2019 Tech Connect Program - Full-time - Bournemouth & Glasgow* > > Launch your career with Tech Connect, a program tailor-made for aspiring > software engineers without backgrounds in computer science. > > Our global team of 50,000 technologists creates the technical innovations > that fuel our firm’s future – and yours. We need diverse and bright minds > to help bring us fresh perspectives and innovative thinking. > > Are you interested in coding but haven’t studied it before? If so, we > created our Tech Connect program for motivated students, like you, who want > to learn how to code and are interested in becoming a part of our > Technology business. > > Find out how technology drives our business and impacts the lives of > customers, clients and businesses around the world. Visit our website to > discover more. > > http://www.jpmorgan.com/techconnect > > Application deadlines: > > - EMEA Application Deadline – November 25 2018 > > Register: http://www.jpmorgan.com/careers > > We look forward to seeing how far your thinking can go. > > The J.P. Morgan Campus Recruitment Team > ------------------------------ > Other Notices Idea Exploration - Building the ecosystem around the > business > > 26th November 18.00-20.00, The Oxford Foundry > > This workshop, delivered by Katrina Cruz from Anthemis > <https://www.anthemis.com/people/katrina-cruz/> will help you to > understand WHY building a business ecosystem is so important in the early > stages of developing an idea as well as WHO matters when it comes to > helping you build a successful, resilient business from scratch. > > Katrina will also introduce the concept of the ‘network effect’ and help > you to understand how you can harness the ‘network effect’, effectively. > > Link to sign up: > https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/idea-exploration-building-the-ecosystem-arou… > Mindfulness and Resilience > > 26th November 18.00-19.30, The Oxford Foundry > > Wondering how you could use mindfulness to boost your resilience? > > Mindfulness is a well-researched, non-religious and effective means of > alleviating stress, anxiety and depression and further to this, enhancing > personal and professional growth. This introductory workshop will introduce > mindfulness – in theory, practice and research - and offer a few tips to > keep you grounded and steady in the midst of a busy schedule. It will also > focus specifically on how you can use the practise to help boost your > resilience. > > Link to sign up: > https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/mindfulness-and-resilience-tickets-505272664… > Digital Design and Making: Get started with the tools! > > 27th November 18.00-21.00, The Oxford Foundry > > Join Robot Wars judge, and Guild of Makers founder, Dr Lucy Rogers at Make > Oxford, one of the area’s best equipped creative spaces, for an evening of > 3D printing, Laser cutting, micro:bit coding and a general convivial > conversation about turning your ideas into physical prototypes! This > session is suitable for attendees of earlier Make Oxford events, if you are > looking for a potential place to carry out projects or just curious about > entrepreneurial making. > > Link to sign up: > https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/digital-design-and-making-get-started-with-t… > Building Programmes with Python > > 28th November 18.00-21.00, The Oxford Foundry > > Do you have beginner experience in Python? Would you like an opportunity > to practise your skills with the support of experienced coders? > > Join us at the Oxford Foundry where CodeSoc will be running a session > which will give you the opportunity to build python programs from scratch. > Come along and work through a python tutorial together, guided by members > of CodeSoc. You can choose from building a tweetbot, automate email > sending, a program to play web games, or writing personal schedulers! > > Link to sign up: > https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/building-programmes-with-python-tickets-5295… > ------------------------------ > > The Oxford University Computer Society (CompSoc) aims to organise meetings > and events for our members to use and further their computing interests. > See all of our upcoming events on our Facebook Page > <https://facebook.com/oxcompsoc/> or visit our Website > <https://ox.compsoc.net> for more information about the society. > > Want to unsubscribe or manage your subscription preferences? Go to > http://lists.ox.compsoc.net/mailman/listinfo/. >

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Belated Week 7 Newsletter: G-Research Coding Challenge, Foundry Events, Tech Connect
by Joe Gardiner 26 Nov '18

26 Nov '18

Good evening, CompSoc! And a merry (belated) Oxmas to you all. This upcoming Wednesday is the final event of term: a *coding challenge* with Silver sponsor *G-Research*! See below for details. The trip to Bletchley Park and TNMoC yesterday (two days ago) went very well! A huge thank you to everyone who was able to make it. Ed’s going to be in Oxford these next three weeks, so there’ll be an unofficial Geek Night running as normal this Saturday for anyone who’s still around! Good evening, CompSoc. *The CompSoc Committee - Joe G, Edward H, Ben S* Events *G-Research Coding Challenge* <https://www.facebook.com/events/351205168786461/> - 6:30 pm 28th November, UGSA, Department of Computer Science This challenge is for Computer Sciences/Computer Sciences + Maths students in any year of your degree. The challenge - Building a natural language processing engine! A series of increasingly difficult challenges based on small teams or individuals, building a natural language calculation engine. The challenges will cover aspects such as evaluation of arithmetic expressions to unit conversions and equation solving. Decided by a point system, prizes will be given to groups who come 1st and 2nd place. There will be food and refreshments provided. We will allocate teams when you arrive, you don’t need to find a team beforehand, you are welcome to work alone or bring your own team if you like. Languages for the challenges - .NET Core 2, Java and Maven or Python 3 with client starter kits provided when you login. Any coding background is welcome. Please also bring a laptop per team. ------------------------------ Sponsor Notices *The following notices are from Semmle.* Thank you very much to the CompSoc committee for hosting me and my colleagues for the talk and hackathon at the beginning of term, and thank you to those that came. It was great to talk to you about finding variants of security vulnerabilities by writing program analyses as queries. If any of you are interested in more examples of variant analysis, or missed the talk, one of our security researchers recently published an account of how he found a “ping of death” style vulnerability in XNU (the kernel of macOS, iOS, and watchOS): https://lgtm.com/blog/apple_xnu_icmp_error_CVE-2018-4407 Thanks again, and if any of you are looking for an internship or job, Semmle is always hiring <semmle.com/careers>. [image: Semmle logo]Semmle logo Have you always wanted to be a security researcher? Are you a big believer in open source? Do you love program analysis and compilers? Do you have a knack for machine learning and data science? If any or all of the above apply to you then you definitely need to drop us a message about an internship or career at Semmle! Based around the world and in the centre of Oxford, we’re the team behind LGTM.com and the QL query technology for variant analysis. By crunching millions of commits from over 100,000 open source repositories, we’ve uncovered critical security vulnerabilities in the Apple kernel, Apache code (including Hadoop and Struts), the Microsoft Edge browser, Spring, and many other codebases. The full list of CVEs is here: https://lgtm.com/security/disclosures We’re always looking for security researchers, compiler engineers, UX designers, ML/DM experts, software engineers, and developer advocates. Talent and enthusiasm are much more important to us than experience! We have a large team of talented people (including many from Oxford) who will support you from day one. Interested? Have a look at https://semmle.com/careers and drop us a line on careers(a)semmle.com. You’re very welcome to join us for lunch any day (or drinks on Friday evening) and a game of pool, foosball, or table tennis! Want to try out our tech first? Have a look at https://lgtm.com, and don’t forget to check out the blog: https://lgtm.com/blog. *The following notice is from JP Morgan.* *Featured Program:* *2019 Tech Connect Program - Full-time - Bournemouth & Glasgow* Launch your career with Tech Connect, a program tailor-made for aspiring software engineers without backgrounds in computer science. Our global team of 50,000 technologists creates the technical innovations that fuel our firm’s future – and yours. We need diverse and bright minds to help bring us fresh perspectives and innovative thinking. Are you interested in coding but haven’t studied it before? If so, we created our Tech Connect program for motivated students, like you, who want to learn how to code and are interested in becoming a part of our Technology business. Find out how technology drives our business and impacts the lives of customers, clients and businesses around the world. Visit our website to discover more. http://www.jpmorgan.com/techconnect Application deadlines: - EMEA Application Deadline – November 25 2018 Register: http://www.jpmorgan.com/careers We look forward to seeing how far your thinking can go. The J.P. Morgan Campus Recruitment Team ------------------------------ Other NoticesIdea Exploration - Building the ecosystem around the business 26th November 18.00-20.00, The Oxford Foundry This workshop, delivered by Katrina Cruz from Anthemis <https://www.anthemis.com/people/katrina-cruz/> will help you to understand WHY building a business ecosystem is so important in the early stages of developing an idea as well as WHO matters when it comes to helping you build a successful, resilient business from scratch. Katrina will also introduce the concept of the ‘network effect’ and help you to understand how you can harness the ‘network effect’, effectively. Link to sign up: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/idea-exploration-building-the-ecosystem-arou… Mindfulness and Resilience 26th November 18.00-19.30, The Oxford Foundry Wondering how you could use mindfulness to boost your resilience? Mindfulness is a well-researched, non-religious and effective means of alleviating stress, anxiety and depression and further to this, enhancing personal and professional growth. This introductory workshop will introduce mindfulness – in theory, practice and research - and offer a few tips to keep you grounded and steady in the midst of a busy schedule. It will also focus specifically on how you can use the practise to help boost your resilience. Link to sign up: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/mindfulness-and-resilience-tickets-505272664… Digital Design and Making: Get started with the tools! 27th November 18.00-21.00, The Oxford Foundry Join Robot Wars judge, and Guild of Makers founder, Dr Lucy Rogers at Make Oxford, one of the area’s best equipped creative spaces, for an evening of 3D printing, Laser cutting, micro:bit coding and a general convivial conversation about turning your ideas into physical prototypes! This session is suitable for attendees of earlier Make Oxford events, if you are looking for a potential place to carry out projects or just curious about entrepreneurial making. Link to sign up: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/digital-design-and-making-get-started-with-t… Building Programmes with Python 28th November 18.00-21.00, The Oxford Foundry Do you have beginner experience in Python? Would you like an opportunity to practise your skills with the support of experienced coders? Join us at the Oxford Foundry where CodeSoc will be running a session which will give you the opportunity to build python programs from scratch. Come along and work through a python tutorial together, guided by members of CodeSoc. You can choose from building a tweetbot, automate email sending, a program to play web games, or writing personal schedulers! Link to sign up: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/building-programmes-with-python-tickets-5295… ------------------------------ The Oxford University Computer Society (CompSoc) aims to organise meetings and events for our members to use and further their computing interests. See all of our upcoming events on our Facebook Page <https://facebook.com/oxcompsoc/> or visit our Website <https://ox.compsoc.net> for more information about the society. Want to unsubscribe or manage your subscription preferences? Go to http://lists.ox.compsoc.net/mailman/listinfo/.

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Week 6 Newsletter: LAN Night Tonight, Internships, TPP Pub Quiz
by Joe Gardiner 16 Nov '18

16 Nov '18

Hello, CompSoc! Goodness me! Is that the time? But what is time, and what does it taste like? <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dwu4iVA1yo> It’s LAN Night tonight. We’ll be up late playing games of your choice. Tomorrow is Film Night! Don’t forget to vote for a tech-y film you’d like to see! Gold sponsor *Semmle* have a notice for careers. If you’re into open source, security and program analysis and compilers, do check them out! Gold sponsor *JP Morgan* has dropped a reminder that the deadline for all their intern and graduate applications is *25 November*, which is fast approaching. Silver sponsor *Ensoft* have done the same, with their deadline at *midnight 21 November*. Their opportunities include grad positions (£40k p.a.), summer internships (£25k pro rata) and micro-internship this vac (£100 per day). Silver sponsor and startup builder *EF* have also done the same, with their early application deadline *18 November*. Discord. <https://discord.gg/xA9PFvy> Give your full name when join - most of the channels are for members only. Adieu, CompSoc. *The CompSoc Committee - Joe G, Edward H, Ben S* Events *LAN Night* <https://www.facebook.com/events/899957480209674/> - 7:00 pm 16th November, UGSA (expect to stay very, very late!) LAN Night returns to Fridays! (At least for this term.) We’re going to perform our termly ritual of staying up all night and playing any sorts of games of your choosing! Bring your laptop, any game controllers and/or consoles, and we’ll provide the nosh. The Geek Night *directly after this* is a film night, to wash away the fatigue of staying up all night playing LAN games. *Geek Night 6: Film Night* <https://www.facebook.com/events/1076012762567772/?event_time_id=10760127859…> - 7:00 pm 17th November, LTA Here’s a poll for what films we’re going to be watching. <https://goo.gl/forms/CfNuVxXW11N76zWc2> A list of things on the poll: - Kung Fury - Terminator - The Matrix - Hackers - Ready, Player One - TRON (the original!) We aim to wash away the fatigue of a long, long LAN night from the night before. Come, and watch a film in our very own beloved Lecture Theatre A. We’ll provide the pizza, which may be consumed within the undergraduate social area (eating pizza in a lecture theatre is not permitted). We may watch some 1950s-60s films about computers, which could be interesting too. *Coding Pub Quiz with TPP* <https://www.facebook.com/events/1983823405012224/> - 7:00 pm 21st November, The Mitre pub, 17 High Street TPP is excited to announce a Coding Challenge on Wednesday 21st November, in collaboration with CompSoc! Unlike a typical pub quiz, you’ll need to exercise your problem solving skills to tackle the range of challenges set instead of applying your general knowledge. There will be free food and drinks, both soft and alcoholic, available for attendees throughout the whole event. There will also be great prizes on offer for the winning teams (Such as Raspberry Pi Computers and a Hotel Chocolat hamper). We recommend teams of about 5-6 people, but smaller groups are welcome too, and if you’re unsure who to come with then we’ll be happy to match you up with other keen problem solvers on the day. Some questions require specific knowledge so you will want a programmer on your team! Entry is free of charge and doesn’t require a ticket, so feel free to just show up on the day! *CS Essentials: Session 6* <https://www.facebook.com/events/735287826805251/> - 7:00 pm 22nd November, LTA *This week’s session is the final session, and the second of a two-part series on LaTeX!* CS Essentials is a brand new course that CompSoc organises for beginners. If you are into either exploring the Linux command line or learning how to create a beautiful document using LaTeX, this is just the course for you! You do not need any prior experience, just come along and have some fun! All you need is a laptop to get through the exercises. What we will be teaching is: - basic and more advanced Linux commands; - Bash scripting; - Vim text editor; - LaTeX. If you need directions to the department, send us a message and we’ll be more than happy to help! The course is open to all members of the University of Oxford. P.S. If you have any experience in any of the topics and a little spare time, you can volunteer to help during the event. *Bletchley Park Trip* <https://www.facebook.com/events/644067932656384/> - 9:00 am 24th November, Keble Road CompSoc is visiting Bletchley Park, home of World War 2 codebreakers and of the National Museum of Computing. During World War 2, codebreakers including Alan Turing worked to defeat the Enigma and Lorenz cyphers. For this, they developed Colossus, the world’s first programmable, electronic digital computer, and Bombe, a huge electro-mechanical computer to bruteforce Enigma. The work at Bletchley Park was secret for many years, but is now thought to have shortened the war by two years. The National Museum of Computing holds a huge range of devices spanning the history of computing: from WITCH, the world’s oldest working digital computer, to the sprawling ICL 2996 mainframe, to the gallery of 80’s microcomputers you can play with. Also in Bletchley Park is the National Radio Centre. We have 50 spaces in total, *nearly all of which are filled*; CompSoc members can go free, non-members can come for £10. Sign up now! Our trip is generously supported by Silver sponsor Ensoft. Transport and lunch will be provided! Here’s a tentative schedule for the day: - 09:00. Coach pick up outside the Computer Science Department on Keble Road. Please arrive at least 15 minutes beforehand. - 10:30. Arrive at Bletchley Park. - 12:30. Lunch at the National Museum of Computing. - 16:00. Coach pick up at Bletchley Park. - 17:30. Arrive back at Keble Road. We’ll let you know if any times change. *Geek Night 7 - Oxmas Eve Turing wind-down* <https://www.facebook.com/events/1076012762567772/?event_time_id=10760127825…> - 7:00 pm 24th November, UGSA, Department of Computer Science Since many of us will have spent a full day in Bletchley, this geek night will be a very chill Oxmas wind-down, people are free to code or chat as they please. If there’s anything anyone would particularly like to do, please let us know! Since we’ll be landing back right at the department from the Bletchley Park trip, Bring your laptops if you want to, pizza will commence as usual. We’ll also be doing mince pies and various Oxmassy treats! *G-Research Coding Challenge* <https://www.facebook.com/events/351205168786461/> - 6:30 pm 28th November, UGSA, Department of Computer Science This challenge is for Computer Sciences/Computer Sciences + Maths students in any year of your degree. The challenge - Building a natural language processing engine! A series of increasingly difficult challenges based on small teams or individuals, building a natural language calculation engine. The challenges will cover aspects such as evaluation of arithmetic expressions to unit conversions and equation solving. Decided by a point system, prizes will be given to groups who come 1st and 2nd place. There will be food and refreshments provided. We will allocate teams when you arrive, you don’t need to find a team beforehand, you are welcome to work alone or bring your own team if you like. Languages for the challenges - .NET Core 2, Java and Maven or Python 3 with client starter kits provided when you login. Any coding background is welcome. Please also bring a laptop per team. ------------------------------ Sponsor Notices *The following notice is from JP Morgan.* Hello, We just wanted to give you a reminder that the deadline for all JP Morgan intern and graduate applications is 25 November 2018, and is fast approaching. For more information on how to apply, as well as other helpful job search hints, please visit our website <http://careers.jpmorgan.com/student/jpmorgan/careers?jp_cmp=en/jpm_program_…> . We look forward to hearing from you soon. The J.P. Morgan Campus Recruitment Team *The following notice is from Semmle.* [image: Semmle logo]Semmle logo Have you always wanted to be a security researcher? Are you a big believer in open source? Do you love program analysis and compilers? Do you have a knack for machine learning and data science? If any or all of the above apply to you then you definitely need to drop us a message about an internship or career at Semmle! Based around the world and in the centre of Oxford, we’re the team behind LGTM.com and the QL query technology for variant analysis. By crunching millions of commits from over 100,000 open source repositories, we’ve uncovered critical security vulnerabilities in the Apple kernel, Apache code (including Hadoop and Struts), the Microsoft Edge browser, Spring, and many other codebases. The full list of CVEs is here: https://lgtm.com/security/disclosures We’re always looking for security researchers, compiler engineers, UX designers, ML/DM experts, software engineers, and developer advocates. Talent and enthusiasm are much more important to us than experience! We have a large team of talented people (including many from Oxford) who will support you from day one. Interested? Have a look at https://semmle.com/careers and drop us a line on careers(a)semmle.com. You’re very welcome to join us for lunch any day (or drinks on Friday evening) and a game of pool, foosball, or table tennis! Want to try out our tech first? Have a look at https://lgtm.com, and don’t forget to check out the blog: https://lgtm.com/blog. *The following notice is from Ensoft.* We are a small UK company that writes software that connects the world. Our 70 engineers specialise in developing all aspects of networking software. Ensoft-developed technology is a critical part of many of the largest routers that make up the Internet. Graduate positions available, September 2019, starting salary £40,000. 2019 summer internships, £25,000 pro-rata Week-long micro-internship <https://ensoft.us13.list-manage.com/track/click?u=8658f71b95ede053e3ff45ea9…>, £100/day w/c Mon 3rd Dec 2018 To apply for any of these available positions, upload a CV here <https://ensoft.us13.list-manage.com/track/click?u=8658f71b95ede053e3ff45ea9…> by midnight on Wednesday 7th week (21st Nov 18). More details via our website <https://ensoft.us13.list-manage.com/track/click?u=8658f71b95ede053e3ff45ea9…> , Twitter <https://ensoft.us13.list-manage.com/track/click?u=8658f71b95ede053e3ff45ea9…> or Facebook <https://ensoft.us13.list-manage.com/track/click?u=8658f71b95ede053e3ff45ea9…> . *The following notice is from EF.* The early application deadline to join EF’s 11th cohort (beginning in April 2019) is on November 18th! Entrepreneur First are Europe’s leading startup builder, and always looking for innovative, talented individuals to support in building their first technology company - they are especially really keen to bring in those who haven’t previously considered founding their own startup, but who have skills and enthusiasm and just need the right environment to flourish. They’re also encouraging more women to apply, and try to narrow the gender gap between male and female founders. The uniqueness of EF comes from the fact that they build companies pre-team, and pre-idea; they select individuals based on pure talent, then work with them to develop teams, ideas, technology, and help them raise funding. If this sounds like an opportunity which interests you then please please apply and you could be building your startup with us in April 2019! It’s a really exciting time to be at Entrepreneur First too, as they’ve recently closed a $12.4 million round of funding, with LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, and a handful of EF alumni from earlier cohorts also investing, including the founders of Magic Pony Technology, who built the company through EF and exited eighteen months later for $150 million. Entrepreneur First is on the hunt for its next cohort of exceptional people who are ready to become founders of their own deep-tech company. If you have rare technical skills or deep industry experience, and want to build a globally important tech company, we will help you build a company from scratch - no need for an idea, just your skills, ambition and commitment. The cohort starts in April 2019. To be fast-tracked through the Admissions process, apply by this Sunday (18th Nov) https://lnkd.in/dY2W2nT. This might be particularly relevant if you are finishing your PhD or recently left university. If you have any questions or want to get in touch with EF, send an email over to ali(a)joinef.com. You can also find more details on the programme here https://www.joinef.com/ ------------------------------ Other Notices *The following notice is from Oxford Foundry.* *Idea Exploration: What is the value proposition?* *19th November 18.00-20.00, The Oxford Foundry* This workshop a part of the wider ‘Idea Exploration’ series focuses on step one of that journey, and will help you work with your idea to gain an in depth understanding of who your customer is. You have an idea and you have a strong understanding of who your customer is. Having an in depth understanding of the value you are adding to your customers is vital in effectively communicating about your product or service. Link to sign up: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/idea-exploration-what-is-the-value-propositi… *The following notice regards a talk at St Catherine’s College, and is a transcription of a poster describing such.* Mathematics and its Applications: The Alan Tayler Lecture *The Mathematics behind the AI Revolution*: Prof. Christopher Bishop, Microsoft Research Cambridge. - Monday 19 November, 5:00 pm. - Bernard Sunley Theatre, St Catherine’s College - Tea from 4:15 pm. The Alan Tayler lecture is sponsored by the Smith Institute. ------------------------------ The Oxford University Computer Society (CompSoc) aims to organise meetings and events for our members to use and further their computing interests. See all of our upcoming events on our Facebook Page <https://facebook.com/oxcompsoc/> or visit our Website <https://ox.compsoc.net> for more information about the society. Want to unsubscribe or manage your subscription preferences? Go to http://lists.ox.compsoc.net/mailman/listinfo/.

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CompSoc: Our emails are being sent to junk??
by Joseph Gardiner 10 Nov '18

10 Nov '18

Hello CompSoc, Lately my emails sent from secretary(a)ox.compsoc.net have been going to everyone's Junk Email folders. Please check there to see vital info about upcoming events today and in the upcoming week - there are lots of them - and I've cc'd IT services here so that they can hopefully resolve this issue. Regards, Joe

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Week 5 Newsletter: Core Wars, LAN Night, Google Talk
by Joe Gardiner 10 Nov '18

10 Nov '18

*CAPTAIN’S LOG, NOVEMBER 10th, 2018* Many days have passed. I don't know when the last time I saw daylight was, but all I am certain of is that it is far too late to turn back. There is no leaving this place. I hear the corpses of RedCode warriors hurtling through space and I pray that the Dread King of pMARS doesn't launch one of those foul, impish crafts in my direction. I see them. They are wretched scum that will speed by at full pelt, turning everything it meets into a copy of itself. I pray that Dread King does not find me. Even if he doesn't... the imps will. My DWARF unit covering my back can only hold up for so long. Wait. Here it comes. BRACE FOR IMPACT- MOV 0 1 MOV 0 1 MOV 0 1 ... *END LOG.* Today sees the return of Core Wars. Please familiarise yourself with the basics of RedCode <http://vyznev.net/corewar/guide.html> - you’ll need them! In the coming week, we’ve got a grand old Tech Talk in the Maths Institute (L2) with the almighty *Silver sponsor, Google!* Please RSVP via their form. <https://goo.gl/MjUnMB> The talk now has a title and abstract! We also have the penultimate session of CS Essentials coming up, ending on a two-part series on LaTeX, *LAN Night* on Friday, followed by *Film Night* on Saturday! Make sure you get enough sleep early enough in the week ;) If you scroll down a little, perhaps you’ll find a *poll* for which films people want to see? Silver sponsor *Ensoft* has a lecture coming up on Tuesday and a micro-internship scheme you may be interested in. Check them out! *The Bletchley trip sign-ups are all full and finalised now. Thanks for signing up, hope people are looking forwards to a nice long trip in a couple of weeks!* Silver sponsor Ensoft has long been a supporter of the National Museum of Computing and its educational goals, which you can learn about here. <http://www.tnmoc.org/news/news-releases/ensoft-boosts-learning-opportunitie…> Here’s the link to our Discord, because you’re worth it. <https://discord.gg/xA9PFvy> Give me your full name when you’re in. Members get full member access. DEPLOYING FIGHTERS… *The CompSoc Committee - Joe G, Edward H, Ben S* Events *Geek Night 5: Core War* <https://www.facebook.com/events/1076012762567772/?event_time_id=10760127792…> - 7:00 pm 10th November, Undergraduate Social Area, Department of Computer Science This is the best thing ever. No really, it is. Core War <http://vyznev.net/corewar/guide.html> is a game played between two or more programs written in Redcode, a low-level language similar to assembly. Players write a program to eliminate all opponents in the memory of the MARS virtual computer. Core War can also be used as a platform to experiment with genetic programming. I *highly* recommend checking the link as it contains a guide to the instruction set. Here’s another link <https://www.corewars.org/information.html> to an information homepage. The MARS (Memory Array Redcode Simulator) executes one instruction at a time, proceeding to the next unless a JMP specified where to jump to. Addresses are all relative, so an OpCode may not know where *specifically* it is in memory, though it may affect, say, the Kth cell in front or behind it. There are nineteen operations used in Redcode: DAT, MOV, ADD, SUB, MUL, DIV, MOD, JMP, JMZ, JMN, DJN, SPL, CMP, SEQ, SNE, SLT, LDP, STP and NOP. An instruction (OpCode) will be of the form OP A B, with A being the source address and B being the target address. To get the ball rolling, let’s take a look at the “Hello, world!” of this thing, the *imp*: MOV 0 1 This pesky little warrior will simply roll along the memory, overwriting everything in its path with its own OpCode. MOV A B simply moves instruction A to B. Since addressing is relative, it moves current instruction to the next cell in memory, then the warrior’s instruction pointer moves to that new instruction and repeats. It alone cannot *kill* another warrior, however. If an imp catches up to and overwrites the next instruction another warrior was going to execute, then that will become an imp, the whole memory will fill with MOV 0 1 and they’ll all continue to run around the memory ad infinitum. Boring right? Don’t you want to make a warrior who will win? Let’s take a quick look at a simple warrior who can fight somewhat, the *dwarf*. ADD #4, 3 ; execution begins here MOV 2, @2 JMP -2 DAT #0, #0 If you think hard about what this is doing, you can see that it’s essentially throwing a “DAT bomb” in increments of 4 in front of itself. The idea is that if you can overwrite a part of someone’s warrior with a DAT instruction, they’ll try to read it and terminate. The # symbol is used for immediate addressing, and @ for indirect addressing. In fact, there are eight such addressing modes. Please read this - it’s vital to understanding this game! <http://vyznev.net/corewar/guide.html> Bring your laptops, get coding these brave warriors, and we’ll provide the pizza! *Tech talk with Google: Clean Coding at Google* <https://www.facebook.com/events/273264239996714/> - 7:00 pm 14th November, L2 Andrew Wiles Building Why does “clean code” matter? Join us for this interactive workshop with Peter, a software engineer at Google London, to learn about Google’s approach to coding. We will explain what coding at Google is like, and share best practices for coding to help you with your projects and coursework, as well as with your internship and full-time engineering futures. Please RSVP here! https://goo.gl/MjUnMB *CS Essentials: Session 5* <https://www.facebook.com/events/735287826805251/> - 7:00 pm 15th November, LTA *This week’s session is the first of a two-part series on LaTeX!* CS Essentials is a brand new course that CompSoc organises for beginners. If you are into either exploring the Linux command line or learning how to create a beautiful document using LaTeX, this is just the course for you! You do not need any prior experience, just come along and have some fun! All you need is a laptop to get through the exercises. What we will be teaching is: - basic and more advanced Linux commands; - Bash scripting; - Vim text editor; - LaTeX. If you need directions to the department, send us a message and we’ll be more than happy to help! The course is open to all members of the University of Oxford. P.S. If you have any experience in any of the topics and a little spare time, you can volunteer to help during the events. *LAN Night* <https://www.facebook.com/events/899957480209674/> - 7:00 pm 16th November, UGSA (expect to stay very, very late!) LAN Night returns to Fridays! (At least for this term.) We’re going to perform our termly ritual of staying up all night and playing any sorts of games of your choosing! Bring your laptop; any game controllers and/or consoles, and we’ll provide the nosh. The Geek Night *directly after this* is a film night, to wash away the fatigue of staying up all night playing LAN games. *Geek Night 6: Film Night* <https://www.facebook.com/events/1076012762567772/?event_time_id=10760127859…> - 7:00 pm 17th November, LTA Here’s a poll for what films we’re going to be watching. <https://goo.gl/forms/CfNuVxXW11N76zWc2> A list of things on the poll: - Kung Fury - Terminator - The Matrix - Hackers - Ready, Player One - TRON (the original!) We aim to wash away the fatigue of a long, long, long, long LAN night from the night before. Come, and watch a film in our very own beloved Lecture Theatre A. We’ll provide the pizza, which may be consumed within the undergraduate social area (eating pizza in a lecture theatre is not permitted). We may watch some 1950s-60s films about computers, which could be interesting too. *Coding Pub Quiz with TPP* <https://www.facebook.com/events/1983823405012224/> - 7:00 pm 21st November, The Mitre pub TPP is excited to announce a Coding Challenge on Wednesday 21st November, in collaboration with CompSoc! Unlike a typical pub quiz, you’ll need to exercise your problem solving skills to tackle the range of challenges set instead of applying your general knowledge. There will be free food and drinks, both soft and alcoholic, available for attendees throughout the whole event. There will also be great prizes on offer for the winning teams (Such as Raspberry Pi Computers and a Hotel Chocolat hamper). We recommend teams of about 5-6 people, but smaller groups are welcome too, and if you’re unsure who to come with then we’ll be happy to match you up with other keen problem solvers on the day. Some questions require specific knowledge so you will want a programmer on your team! Entry is free of charge and doesn’t require a ticket, so feel free to just show up on the day! ------------------------------ Sponsor Notices *The following notice is from JP Morgan.* Hello, If you want to be a leader in this industry, who better to learn from than the women who are already driving our business forward? Meet with some of our most influential and inspirational leaders at our Winning Women Front office Insight Day in London. Listen to their stories and get their advice – after all, they were once in your shoes. Be part of it. You’ll participate in panel discussions, hear from our senior female leaders, learn about personal branding and interview skills and develop an interactive insight into our front office lines of business: - Asset Management - Investment Banking - Markets - Wealth Management Winning Women <http://tinyurl.com/yadj69w2> is being hosted at our London offices. Come see for yourself how we build diverse and inclusive teams that will make you feel valued and motivated. Places are limited. Apply <http://tinyurl.com/yadj69w2> by *12th November* – all majors welcome! This event is open to female students graduating in 2020 with an interest in applying to our 2019 summer internship programmes. Successful applicants will be notified of full details in advance of the event. We look forward to hearing from you. The J.P. Morgan Campus Recruitment Team *The following notices are from Ensoft.* Ensoft Technical Lecture: How to Break the Internet - Date: Tuesday 13th November 2018 (6th week) - Time: 1pm - Venue: Lecture Theatre A, Wolfson Building, Department of Computer Science - Speaker: Simon Chatterjee (Ensoft Ltd) - Title: How to Break the Internet Abstract: The Internet itself is under constant attack from hating hackers, authoritarian agencies, boring bugs and annoying accidents. Core routers stand alone in the hurricane, far beyond the capacity of any protective firewall, left to defend themselves. How can they do this? And how safe is the Internet really? This talk will reveal all. - Bio: The presenter is Director & CTO of Ensoft, whose experience includes helping to bring into existence the Guinness Book of Records’ “World’s Highest Capacity Internet Router”. - Free food and drink will also be provided, at 12.45pm in the social area, for those attending the lecture. Ensoft Micro-Internship <https://www.ensoft.co.uk/pdfs/2018_Nov_Micro-Intern.pdf> - Placement date: w/c Mon 3rd Dec 2018 - Pay: £100/day - Summary: Through this micro-internship you will integrate Ensoft’s VoIP phone system with an internal web application, allowing the phone system to be automatically updated simply by using the app. - Applicant profile: Familiarity with Python programming and administering Linux systems is highly desirable. ------------------------------ Other Notices *The following notices are from Oxford Foundry.* *Idea Exploration: Who is your customer?* *12th November 18.00-20.00, The Oxford Foundry* This workshop a part of the wider ‘Idea Exploration’ series focuses on step one of that journey, and will help you work with your idea to gain an in depth understanding of who your customer is. You will build an end-user profile so that you can start to define your target audience and understand specifically how your idea addresses their needs. You will then look at how to size and segment that market and which segment you should focus on first. Link to sign up: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/idea-exploration-who-is-your-customer-ticket… *Introduction to Design and Making: Getting started with microcomputers* *13th November 19.00-21.00* Get Creative, Get Connected, Get Coding What is a is a microcomputer? Why should you learn to use them? This session will introduce you to the rapidly expanding world of the microcomputer; a crucial tool in learning to code and prototype devices to achieve real world solutions. Understanding this small but powerful kit is essential learning. Register now: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/digital-design-and-making-getting-started-wi… *Idea Exploration: What is the value proposition?* *19th November 18.00-20.00, The Oxford Foundry* This workshop a part of the wider ‘Idea Exploration’ series focuses on step one of that journey, and will help you work with your idea to gain an in depth understanding of who your customer is. You have an idea and you have a strong understanding of who your customer is. Having an in depth understanding of the value you are adding to your customers is vital in effectively communicating about your product or service. Link to sign up: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/idea-exploration-what-is-the-value-propositi… *The Foundry is hosting a film screening of General Magic on Wednesday 14 Nov from 12pm-2pm.* “General Magic is a feature documentary about how great vision and epic failure changed the world as we now know it - from the smartphones that sit in our pockets to an array of technologies we now take for granted today.” *If you would like to come, please sign up on Eventbrite:* https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/silicon-valley-comes-to-the-uk-oxford-screen… *The following notice is from the Geography Society.* The Geography society are running this event about what3words- a digital mapping start up where the founders coded the entire world into 3x3m grids each labelled by 3 words- he’ll be disucssing some of the computing behind it as well as it’s applications: https://www.facebook.com/events/755326061481995/ *The following notice regards a talk at St Catherine’s College, and is a transcription of a poster describing such.* Mathematics and its Applications: The Alan Tayler Lecture *The Mathematics behind the AI Revolution*: Prof. Christopher Bishop, Microsoft Research Cambridge. - Monday 19 November, 5:00 pm. - Bernard Sunley Theatre, St Catherine’s College - Tea from 4:15 pm. The Alan Tayler lecture is sponsored by the Smith Institute. ------------------------------ The Oxford University Computer Society (CompSoc) aims to organise meetings and events for our members to use and further their computing interests. See all of our upcoming events on our Facebook Page <https://facebook.com/oxcompsoc/> or visit our Website <https://ox.compsoc.net> for more information about the society. Want to unsubscribe or manage your subscription preferences? Go to http://lists.ox.compsoc.net/mailman/listinfo/.

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No talk tonight; and Bloomberg CodeCon
by Edward Hart 07 Nov '18

07 Nov '18

Hi all, I'm just emailing to remind you that our *talk with EF is cancelled*. We aim to reschedule it for next Hilary. We meant to say so in the last newsletter; the *TGM is now tonight instead* (agenda attached). Sorry for the short notice. By the way, our Gold sponsor *Bloomberg* still has plenty of space at their *CodeCon programming contest* this Friday! - Register here to attend: http://tinyurl.com/y946efnk - Date: Friday 9th November - Time: 17:30–20:30 - Location: Saïd Business School, Classroom 2 – West Wing Entrance (i.e., by the train station taxi rank) - Food and drink provided Finally, we have *two spaces left on the Bletchley Park trip*. Sign up now! <https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeuKjz4u0cYcyzIi_rTdDNfOCysqsYY3x-…> (The form is now working.) Best of luck with the last half of 5th week, Edward Hart President - Oxford University Computer Society president(a)ox.compsoc.net Tired of marking this email as spam? Find the unsubscribe pages here. <http://lists.ox.compsoc.net/mailman/listinfo/>

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Week 4 Newsletter: More Bletchley spaces, Esolangs, TGM, CodeCon
by Joe Gardiner 03 Nov '18

03 Nov '18

+++++++[>++++++++++<-]>++.---.+++++++..+++.<+++++++[>-------<-]>+++... Oh, sorry! I hope you're excited as we are for *esoteric programming languages* (a.k.a. esolangs) tonight! (Personally, I think this is the best thing ever.) Prepare to twist your mind into some topologically weird contortion as you, for example, write code entirely using whitespace characters. <http://web.archive.org/web/20150623025348/http://compsoc.dur.ac.uk/whitespa…> I'd also recommend you start having a look at Core War <http://vyznev.net/corewar/guide.html> before we do that next week. By the way, the *Michaelmas TGM* is coming up this Wednesday!! Gold sponsor Bloomberg is advertising CodeCon, a global programming contest developed by Bloomberg Engineers on Friday 9th November in Said Business School - do check it out. In two weeks time, Gold sponsor Google will be giving a talk with us at the Maths Institute. The title is pending, but expect a fascinating view into what they're working on. *Some more LAST MINUTE SPACES have reopened* for our all-day Bletchley Park trip on Saturday of 7th week, *kindly sponsored by Silver sponsor Ensoft!* Bletchley Park, once the top-secret home of the World War Two codebreakers is now a vibrant heritage attraction. Explore, experience and enjoy the once top-secret world of iconic codebreaking Huts and Blocks set within an atmospheric Victorian estate. We're also visiting the National Museum of Computing on that trip. *Free for members*, and *£10 for non-members* - so you've got a pretty good deal regardless! *FIRST COME FIRST SERVED!!!* The trip is right around the corner - only 3 weeks 'til we go! Here's the form; *please* make sure you're free! <https://goo.gl/forms/IaoSgoD51W7iHO212> Here's the link to our Discord. You use Discord, right? Right? Ehhhh??? <https://discord.gg/xA9PFvy> Please let me know who you are when you join (like, your name and surname). +++++++[>++++++++++<-]>+.++++++++..-----------.--.<+++++[>+++++<-]>--.<++++[>-----<-]>.<+++++[>-----<-]>. *The CompSoc Committee - Joe G, Edward H, Ben S* Events *Geek Night 4: Esoteric Languages* <https://www.facebook.com/events/1076012762567772/?event_time_id=10760128025…> - 7:00 pm 3rd November, Undergraduate Social Area, Department of Computer Science Tired of things making sense? Want to try a language that breaks *all* the conventions and destroys the very foundations of what you think it means to write a program? How about a language that's Turing complete (can do anything computable) with only eight symbols? <https://esolangs.org/wiki/brainfuck> What about six? <https://esolangs.org/wiki/JSFuck> (I mean, it's just JavaScript.) What about one?? <https://esolangs.org/wiki/Unary> Tired of writing your code line-to-line? How about it be flowing about in two dimensions? <https://esolangs.org/wiki/Befunge> What about the source file being a MIDI score? <https://esolangs.org/wiki/Velato> Or a recipe? <https://esolangs.org/wiki/Chef> Or a Shakespeare play? <http://shakespearelang.sourceforge.net/> The possibilities do not end! <https://esolangs.org/wiki/MarioLANG> Use any skills you learned from the CodeGolf geek night last week to your advantage, you might find they prove useful! *Maybe you've even got an idea for an esolang of your own?* Perhaps you could define an implementation, make an interpreter... Bring your laptops, we'll provide the pizza. *Michaelmas Termly General Meeting* <https://www.facebook.com/events/249948445681070/> - 7:00 pm 7th November, Undergraduate Social Area, Department of Computer Science Hey all! We've got the Michaelmas termly general meeting coming up. The agenda is attached. Come along for democracy! If you've anything you'd like to propose, please e-mail it to us. *CS Essentials Session 4* <https://www.facebook.com/events/735287826805251/> - 7:00 pm 1st November, Lecture Theatre A, Department of Computer Science *This week's CS Essentials session is the second of a two-part series on Bash.* CS Essentials is a brand new course that CompSoc organises for beginners. If you are into either exploring the Linux command line or learning how to create a beautiful document using LaTeX, this is just the course for you! You do not need any prior experience, just come along and have some fun! All you need is a laptop to get through the exercises. What we will be teaching is: - basic and more advanced Linux commands; - Bash scripting; - Vim text editor; - LaTeX. If you need directions to the department, send us a message and we'll be more than happy to help! The course is open to all members of the University of Oxford. P.S. If you have any experience in any of the topics and a little spare time, you can volunteer to help during the events. *Geek Night 5: Core War* <https://www.facebook.com/events/1076012762567772/?event_time_id=10760128025…> - 7:00 pm, 8th November, Undergraduate Social Area, Department of Computer Science OK, maybe this is actually the best thing ever. Core War <http://vyznev.net/corewar/guide.html> is a game played between two or more programs written in Redcode, a low-level language similar to assembly. Players write a program to eliminate all opponents in the memory of the MARS virtual computer. Core War can also be used as a platform to experiment with genetic programming. I *highly* recommend checking the link as it contains a guide to the instruction set. Here's another link <https://www.corewars.org/information.html> to an information homepage. The MARS (Memory Array Redcode Simulator) executes one instruction at a time, proceeding to the next unless a JMP specified where to jump to. Addresses are all relative, so an OpCode may not know where *specifically* it is in memory, though it may affect, say, the Kth cell in front or behind it. There are nineteen operations used in Redcode: DAT, MOV, ADD, SUB, MUL, DIV, MOD, JMP, JMZ, JMN, DJN, SPL, CMP, SEQ, SNE, SLT, LDP, STP and NOP. An instruction (OpCode) will be of the form OP A B, with A being the source address and B being the target address. To get the ball rolling, let's take a look at the "Hello, world!" of this thing, the *imp*: MOV 0 1 This pesky little warrior will simply roll along the memory, overwriting everything in its path with its own OpCode. MOV A B simply moves instruction A to B. Since addressing is relative, it moves current instruction to the next cell in memory, then the warrior's instruction pointer moves to that new instruction and repeats. It alone cannot *kill* another warrior, however. If an imp catches up to and overwrites the next instruction another warrior was going to execute, then that will become an imp, the whole memory will fill with MOV 0 1 and they'll all continue to run around the memory ad infinitum. Boring right? Don't you want to make a warrior who will win? Let's take a quick look at a simple warrior who can fight somewhat, the *dwarf*. ADD #4, 3 ; execution begins here MOV 2, @2 JMP -2 DAT #0, #0 If you think hard about what this is doing, you can see that it's essentially throwing a "DAT bomb" in increments of 4 in front of itself. The idea is that if you can overwrite a part of someone's warrior with a DAT instruction, they'll try to read it and terminate. The # symbol is used for immediate addressing, and @ for indirect addressing. In fact, there are eight such addressing modes. Please read this - it's vital to understanding this game! <http://vyznev.net/corewar/guide.html> Bring your laptops, get coding these brave warriors, and we'll provide the pizza! *Tech talk with Google* <https://www.facebook.com/events/273264239996714/> - 7:00 pm, L2, Mathematical Institute *Note we will be in a different venue!* Silver sponsor Google are giving out a talk. Abstract and title pending. There'll most likely be an interesting tech bit followed by questions. Come along! ------------------------------ Sponsor Notices *The following notice is from Bloomberg.* CodeCon Open to all coders, CodeCon is a Global programming contest developed by Bloomberg Engineers. Solve as many problems as you can to win an all-expenses trip to London for the Finals! Compete in C, C++, Java, Python, C#, JavaScript, Scala, Rust or Ruby. Push your programming and problem solving skills to the limit and race against the clock to win the title of Bloomberg CodeCon Champion! - Date: Friday 9th November - Time: 5:30pm - 8:30pm - Location: Said Business School - Room: Classroom 2 - West Wing Entrance - Food and drinks will be served Register for CodeCon now: http://tinyurl.com/y946efnk Strategize on purpose. ------------------------------ The Oxford University Computer Society (CompSoc) aims to organise meetings and events for our members to use and further their computing interests. See all of our upcoming events on our Facebook Page <https://facebook.com/oxcompsoc/> or visit our Website <https://ox.compsoc.net> for more information about the society. Want to unsubscribe or manage your subscription preferences? Go to http://lists.ox.compsoc.net/mailman/listinfo/.

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Week 3 Newsletter: CodeGolf, Palantir Talk
by Joe Gardiner 27 Oct '18

27 Oct '18

Yo! Today’s Geek Night is sure to be a fun one! I’ve been down to the farmers’ market in Cowley and grabbed us some delicious cheeses - the perfect fuel for ’golfing! If you’d like to come prepared, I’d highly recommend checking GolfScript out - though feel free to use any language(s) of your choice. We’ve got a talk with Gold sponsor Palantir coming up next week. It’s on Machine learning and ethics in data science - a highly relevant topic in this age! Metaswitch’s Insight Night event is still upcoming, feel free to check that out. HSBC also has an event running on the 30th October. *====ALMOST COMPLETELY OUT OF SPACES!!====* for our all-day Bletchley Park trip, *kindly sponsored by Silver sponsor Ensoft!* Bletchley Park, once the top-secret home of the World War Two Codebreakers is now a vibrant heritage attraction. Explore, experience and enjoy the once top-secret world of iconic Codebreaking Huts and Blocks set within an atmospheric Victorian estate. We’re also visiting the National Museum of Computing on that trip. *Free for members*, and *£10 for non-members* - so you’ve got a pretty good deal regardless! *NOTICE: If you aren’t in the first 50 then you will be placed onto a waiting list, with members taking priority spots.* Push your interest onto this stack here. <https://goo.gl/forms/IaoSgoD51W7iHO212> Here’s the link to our Discord, just in case you’re not there already for some reason. <https://discord.gg/xA9PFvy> Please let me know who you are when you join (like, your name and surname). Come along! *The CompSoc Committee - Joe G, Edward H, Ben S* Events *Geek Night 3: CodeGolf* <https://www.facebook.com/events/1076012762567772/?event_time_id=10760127892…> - 7:00 pm 27th October, Undergraduate Social Area, Department of Computer Science CodeGolf, like normal golf, is all about getting the lowest score. This is where the similarities end. By “score”, we do of course mean bytes (characters)! For example, consider a typical “Hello, World!” PHP (yes the dreaded!) program: <?php print "Hello, World!"; ?> Ugh, a whole 29 bytes! But we can do better: Hello, World! There. A nice 13 bytes! (Yes, this works.) By now you probably get the gist: in order to reduce code as much as possible, you may take advantage of any of the esoteric properties or features a language may have. Try GolfScript <http://www.golfscript.com/golfscript/> (uses Ruby) if you’d like an easy introduction to programming with very few bytes. Bring your laptops, we’ll provide the pizza - and some *very* nice cheese!! *Tech talk with Palantir: Ethics and Machine Learning* <https://www.facebook.com/events/344484319461053/> - 7:00 pm 31st October, Lecture Theatre A, Department of Computer Science Machine Learning (ML) is a ubiquitous tool enabling better decision making for Businesses and Governments but carries many hidden costs – technical, societal, ethical and legal. Palantir’s approach to ML is strongly influenced by the early days of the company regarding the merits of augmented intelligence in sensitive data environments and has tended to be cautious, even reserved - with amplifying Human agency as a primary objective. In this event Courtney Bowman (Lead of Palantir’s Privacy and Civil Liberties Team) invites you to join him in a discussion examining the pitfalls of naïve ML approaches, the practical and ethical virtues of augmented intelligence, and principles of good data science that we believe should be infused across machine learning work writ large. Food and drinks provided. Join us! *CS Essentials Session 3* <https://www.facebook.com/events/735287826805251/> - 7:00 pm 1st November, Lecture Theatre A, Department of Computer Science *This week’s CS Essentials session is the first of a two-part series on Bash.* CS Essentials is a brand new course that CompSoc organises for beginners. If you are into either exploring the Linux command line or learning how to create a beautiful document using LaTeX, this is just the course for you! You do not need any prior experience, just come along and have some fun! All you need is a laptop to get through the exercises. What we will be teaching is: - basic and more advanced Linux commands; - Bash scripting; - Vim text editor; - LaTeX. If you need directions to the department, send us a message and we’ll be more than happy to help! The course is open to all members of the University of Oxford. P.S. If you have any experience in any of the topics and a little spare time, you can volunteer to help during the events. *Geek Night 4: Esoteric Languages* <https://www.facebook.com/events/1076012762567772/?event_time_id=10760128025…> - 7:00 pm 3rd November, Undergraduate Social Area, Department of Computer Science Tired of things making sense? Want to try a language that breaks *all* the conventions and destroys the very foundations of what you think it means to write a program? How about a language that’s Turing complete (can do anything computable) with only eight symbols? <https://esolangs.org/wiki/brainfuck> What about six? <https://esolangs.org/wiki/JSFuck> (I mean, it’s just JavaScript.) What about one?? <https://esolangs.org/wiki/Unary> Tired of writing your code line-to-line? How about it be flowing about in two dimensions? <https://esolangs.org/wiki/Befunge> What about the source file being a MIDI score? <https://esolangs.org/wiki/Velato> Or a recipe? <https://esolangs.org/wiki/Chef> Or a Shakespeare play? <http://shakespearelang.sourceforge.net/> The possibilities do not end! <https://esolangs.org/wiki/MarioLANG> Use any skills you learned from the CodeGolf geek night to your advantage, you might find they prove useful! Bring your laptops, we’ll provide the pizza. *Tech talk with EF: Title pending* <https://www.facebook.com/events/344484319461053/> - 7:00 pm 7th November, Lecture Theatre A, Department of Computer Science We have a talk from Silver sponsor Entrepreneur First. A self-description from their site: *Entrepreneur First is where outliers come together.* Ambitious individuals leave places like Google, Goldman Sachs and Stanford to join EF. Why? Because starting a startup is the highest impact thing you can do with your life. EF is the best place to find a co-founder, build a company and access the world’s best investors. We’ve helped build over 140 technology companies, collectively worth over $1bn. EF is backed by Reid Hoffman (founder of LinkedIn) and Greylock Partners, Mosaic Ventures, Founders Fund, Lakestar and some of the world’s best entrepreneurs. ------------------------------ Sponsor Notices *Metaswitch - Oxford Insight Night Event* Thursday 1st November 2018 - 7:30pm-9pm Modern Art Oxford, 30 Pembroke Street, Oxford OX1 1BP *YOU ARE EXCLUSIVELY INVITED TO OUR OXFORD INSIGHT NIGHT!* The event will give you a great introduction to careers in Software Engineering, and a taste of graduate and intern life at Metaswitch. Come and meet a diverse selection of our current employees to hear about their inspirational career stories and any recommendations they have about working in the industry. Free food and drinks and a chance to win some great prizes on the day! To attend, please sign up via our website <https://www.metaswitch.com/careers-events>. Please feel free to encourage your friends to sign up to – the more the merrier. ------------------------------ Other NoticesHSBC: Join the Dealing Room of Tomorrow Date: Tuesday 30th October Time: 18:00 – 20:30 Venue: Examination Schools, Oxford You are invited to join a discussion hosted by HSBC around the Dealing Room of Tomorrow. This will be a discussion led by senior Sales, Traders, Structurers and Quants from the Global Markets floor at HSBC. If you are interested in exploring what a role in Sales, Trading, Structuring, Quantitative Analytics or Data Science could look like for you, then you should sign up to this event. There will be plenty of opportunity to ask questions and to find out about the challenges and opportunities for Global Markets and how this may affect your career. It will also give you an opportunity to find out which part of the business might suit your character and skills best. In the last hour you will have the opportunity to network with a number of people at all levels across the Global Markets business. To attend this event you need to apply by clicking the link. Places will be allocated on a first come first served basis, and are only open to University of Oxford students. Please arrive from 18:00 for registration and a 18:30 start. We look forward to meeting you! ------------------------------ The Oxford University Computer Society (CompSoc) aims to organise meetings and events for our members to use and further their computing interests. See all of our upcoming events on our Facebook Page <https://facebook.com/oxcompsoc/> or visit our Website <https://ox.compsoc.net> for more information about the society. Want to unsubscribe or manage your subscription preferences? Go to http://lists.ox.compsoc.net/mailman/listinfo/.

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Week 2 Newsletter: QL Coding Challenge, JP Morgan Talk, Alan Davies
by Joe Gardiner 20 Oct '18

20 Oct '18

Generic greeting In a land of myth, and a time of computers, the destiny of a great society rests… …zzz… Tonight, gold sponsor *Semmle* is doing their *QL Coding Challenge!* Come down to the UGSA as usual and come and *win prizes for finding bugs!* Upcoming is gold sponsor *JP Morgan*’s tech talk on their trading technology that’s impacting the global markets, with an *interactive trading simulation.* Also, find attached the slides from Bloomberg’s Hashing talk. Bloomberg also has a plethora of *software engineering opportunities* for aspiring interns or people looking for placements, along with *on-campus interviews*. TPP is also hosting an evening with renowned comedian *Alan Davies* on Tuesday - so act fast! Metaswitch are also advertising their Oxford Insight Night event taking place on 1st November. *We still have many spaces* for our all-day Bletchley Park trip, *kindly sponsored by Gold sponsor Ensoft!* Bletchley Park, once the top-secret home of the World War Two Codebreakers is now a vibrant heritage attraction. Explore, experience and enjoy the once top-secret world of iconic Codebreaking Huts and Blocks set within an atmospheric Victorian estate. We’re also visiting the National Museum of Computing on that trip. *Free for members*, and *£10 for non-members* - so you’ve got a pretty good deal regardless! *Places are going fast!!!* Push your interest onto this stack here. <https://goo.gl/forms/IaoSgoD51W7iHO212> As usual, here’s the link to our Discord. <https://discord.gg/xA9PFvy> Please let me know who you are when you join so I can verify your membership and grant access to the rest of the server! Generic sign off *The CompSoc Committee - Joe G, Edward H, Ben S* Events *Geek Night 2: Semmle Coding Challenge* <https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1076012799234435&ref=br_rs> - 7:00 pm 20th October, Undergraduate Social Area, Department of Computer Science Join Semmle on the evening of Saturday 20 October for a hackathon using QL, Semmle’s query language for semantic code analysis. QL treats code as data, allowing security response teams and individual developers to quickly and accurately explore their code through simple, powerful queries that find all variants of zero-days, as well as other severe security problems and coding mistakes. In this event, Semmle engineers will teach you how to use QL to find correctness bugs and security vulnerabilities in open-source software, using freely-available tools that we provide the open-source community (bring a laptop!). Work together in teams to analyse the chosen software, with *prizes awarded for finding the most bugs!* *Tech talk with JP Morgan: Trading Technologies* <https://www.facebook.com/events/329102674564406/> - 7:00 pm 24th October, Lecture Theatre A, Department of Computer Science Take a deeper dive into how technology impacts the global markets. You’ll meet current employees, learn about our programs and discover if a career in Technology is right for you. Register your interest in attending our upcoming trading simulation and informal networking event where you will have the opportunity to: - Take part in an interactive trading simulation to learn more about JP Morgan’s trading technologies. - Meet and network with employees from across the firm in an informal, intimate setting. - Find out what it’s like to work with us. - Ask questions you really want answered. We’ll be hosting a range of exciting events and programs around the globe throughout the year. We encourage you to look for communications about our upcoming events and programs and to check our careers website regularly for updates. Register via this link. <https://jpmc.recsolu.com/external/events/edOF7kI3Pz3MQzwvmsZ97g/sign_up> *CS Essentials Session 2* <https://www.facebook.com/events/735287826805251/?event_time_id=735287840138…> - 7:00 pm 25th October, Lecture Theatre A, Department of Computer Science *This week’s CS Essentials session is on Vim.* CS Essentials is a brand new course that CompSoc organises for beginners. If you are into either exploring the Linux command line or learning how to create a beautiful document using LaTeX, this is just the course for you! You do not need any prior experience, just come along and have some fun! All you need is a laptop to get through the exercises. What we will be teaching is: - basic and more advanced Linux commands; - Bash scripting; - Vim text editor; - LaTeX. Please arrive a bit earlier just so we can register everyone before the lectures begin. (This is mandatory for fire regulations.) If you need directions to the department, send us a message and we’ll be more than happy to help! The course is open to all members of the University of Oxford. P.S. If you have any experience in any of the topics and a little spare time, you can volunteer to help during the events. *Geek Night 3: CodeGolf* <https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1076012799234435&ref=br_rs> - 7:00 pm 27th October, Undergraduate Social Area, Department of Computer Science CodeGolf, like normal golf, is all about getting the lowest score. This is where the similarities end. By “score”, we do of course mean bytes (characters)! For example, consider a typical “Hello, World!” PHP (yes the dreaded!) program: <?php print "Hello, World!"; ?> Ugh, a whole 29 bytes! But we can do better: Hello, World! There. A nice 13 bytes! (Yes, this works.) By now you probably get the gist: in order to reduce code as much as possible, you may take advantage of any of the esoteric properties or features a language may have. Try GolfScript <http://www.golfscript.com/golfscript/> (uses Ruby) if you’d like an easy introduction to programming with very few bytes. *Tech talk with Palantir: Ethics and Machine Learning* <https://www.facebook.com/events/344484319461053/> - 7:00 pm 31st October, Lecture Theatre A, Department of Computer Science Machine Learning (ML) is a ubiquitous tool enabling better decision making for Businesses and Governments but carries many hidden costs – technical, societal, ethical and legal. Palantir’s approach to ML is strongly influenced by the early days of the company regarding the merits of augmented intelligence in sensitive data environments and has tended to be cautious, even reserved - with amplifying Human agency as a primary objective. In this event Courtney Bowman (Lead of Palantir’s Privacy and Civil Liberties Team) invites you to join him in a discussion examining the pitfalls of naïve ML approaches, the practical and ethical virtues of augmented intelligence, and principles of good data science that we believe should be infused across machine learning work writ large. Food and drinks provided. Join us! ------------------------------ Sponsor Notices *The following notice is from Bloomberg.* 2019 Bloomberg Software Engineering Opportunities Bloomberg’s Software Opportunities for 2019 are now open for application. Click on the links below to find out more about our graduate, internship and placement programmes. 2019 Software Engineer - Graduate Programme. https://careers.bloomberg.com/job/detail/70145 2019 Software Engineer - Internship Programme. https://careers.bloomberg.com/job/detail/70146 2019 Software Engineer - Industrial Placement Programme. https://careers.bloomberg.com/job/detail/70148 On-Campus Interviews: Bloomberg will also be holding on-campus interviews in the Careers Service on the following dates below. Please apply to our opportunities to allow us time to schedule you in. Dates of Interview: - Friday 26th October 2018 - Thursday 1st November 2018 - Tuesday 20th November 2018 - Wednesday 28th November 2018 *The following notice is from TPP.* *TPP’s ‘An Evening with Alan Davies’* *Renowned comedian, television personality and QI panellist Alan Davies will be performing at the Exam Schools North on 23rd October! Join TPP for an evening of comedy, free drinks and food!* *Click here <https://www.eventbrite.com/e/tpps-an-evening-with-alan-davies-tickets-50599…> to book.* *The following notice is from Metaswitch.* *Metaswitch - Oxford Insight Night Event* Thursday 1st November 2018 - 7:30pm-9pm Modern Art Oxford, 30 Pembroke Street, Oxford OX1 1BP *YOU ARE EXCLUSIVELY INVITED TO OUR OXFORD INSIGHT NIGHT!* The event will give you a great introduction to careers in Software Engineering, and a taste of graduate and intern life at Metaswitch. Come and meet a diverse selection of our current employees to hear about their inspirational career stories and any recommendations they have about working in the industry. Free food and drinks and a chance to win some great prizes on the day! To attend, please sign up via our website <www.metaswitch.com/careers-events>. Please feel free to encourage your friends to sign up to – the more the merrier. ------------------------------ The Oxford University Computer Society (CompSoc) aims to organise meetings and events for our members to use and further their computing interests. See all of our upcoming events on our Facebook Page <https://facebook.com/oxcompsoc/> or visit our Website <https://ox.compsoc.net> for more information about the society. Want to unsubscribe or manage your subscription preferences? Go to http://lists.ox.compsoc.net/mailman/listinfo/.

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Week 1 Newsletter: Bletchley Park Trip, CS Essentials, Milner Award Lecture
by Joe Gardiner 13 Oct '18

13 Oct '18

G’day, me ol’ CompSoc! The academic year has begun! To all those who’ve just signed up - welcome! We *still* have a Discord! Please feel free to join us <https://discord.gg/xA9PFvy>! *If you are an official member of CompSoc*, ping @Secretary and I’ll give you the Member role so that you can take part in conversation outside the #welcome channel. Non-members can still feel free to use #welcome as they like, however. Membership is £5 and will last you a lifetime! Would you like to go to Bletchley Park? *We have 50 spaces* for our all-day Bletchley Park trip on *Saturday of Week 7*. Bletchley Park, once the top-secret home of the World War Two Codebreakers is now a vibrant heritage attraction. Explore, experience and enjoy the once top-secret world of iconic Codebreaking Huts and Blocks set within an atmospheric Victorian estate. We’re also visiting the National Museum of Computing on that trip. *Free for members*, and *£10 for non-members* - so you’ve got a pretty good deal regardless! Push your interest onto this stack here. <https://goo.gl/forms/IaoSgoD51W7iHO212> These next couple of weeks feature a *Geek Night co-run with CodeSoc*, a talk from Semmle on QL and LGTM with a related *hackathon* the following Saturday, *CS essentials is starting up* - starting with an introductory session on command line, and we’ll be having a talk in week 3 from JP Morgan. Cheers, *The CompSoc Committee - Joe G, Edward H, Ben S* Events *Week 1 Geek Night: Wikipedia Game* <https://www.facebook.com/events/1076012762567772/?event_time_id=10760127759…> - 13th October, Undergraduate Social Area It is a well known fact of *most* Wikipedia pages that if you click on the first link in a page’s body, and continue to do so for the next page and so on, you will eventually land on Philosophy. Using this, you could form a crude strategy for finding a *path* from one source page A to target page B: - Find manually a path from Philosophy to B. - Click the first link from A until you reach Philosophy. - Append the path from Philosophy to B to the path so far. This will of course not necessarily find the shortest path from A to B, however. The Wikipedia Game is to write a program that will find a path as short as possible! This Geek Night is in collaboration with CodeSoc. Bring your laptops and pizza will be provided ;) By the by, should you find yourself locked out and need to enter and are a CS student (or joint schools CS student), swiping your bod card and entering this code <https://www.youtube.com/embed/OR4N5OhcY9s?start=13&end=19> followed by # may help you… (note: this may require several attempts) *Semmle Tech Talk: QL* <https://www.facebook.com/events/307662036696271/> - 17th October, Lecture Theatre A, Department of Computer Science Semmle will be giving a tech talk on LGTM and QL. LGTM is the software engineering analytics platform that combines deep semantic code search and data science insights from a community of hundreds of thousands of developers to help everyone involved in software development better understand their code, engineering processes and people. The LGTM software engineering analytics platform combines deep semantic code search and data science insights from a community of hundreds of thousands of developers to help everyone involved in software development better understand their code, engineering processes and people. QL treats code as data, allowing security response teams and individual developers to quickly and accurately explore their code through simple, powerful queries that find all variants of zero-days, as well as other severe security problems and coding mistakes. The same kinds of logical coding mistakes are made over and over again, sometimes repeatedly within a single project, and sometimes across the whole software ecosystem. These mistakes are the source of many of today’s critical software vulnerabilities. Using QL, you can codify such mistakes as queries, find logical variants of the same mistake elsewhere in the code, and prevent similar mistakes from being introduced in the future by automatically catching them before code gets merged. QL’s deep semantic code search allows you to find security vulnerabilities, and much more. The key: QL treats code as data. By writing queries customised to your needs, you can drive major architecture transformations and refactorings, enforce coding standards, and explore your code. QL ships with extensive libraries and abstraction features that enable you to write advanced queries without having to worry about low-level language concepts and compiler specifics; instead you can focus on investigating and interrogating your own codebases. Use QL in the most effective way for you. Our QL plugins for your favourite IDE allow you to write queries and execute them locally. The results appear directly in your development environment. Or use LGTM’s Query Console to write QL directly in your web browser, and query your entire portfolio for security vulnerabilities. You can also make use of your custom QL queries with LGTM’s automatic code review for pull requests in GitHub and BitBucket: find those critical issues early and prevent them from ever getting merged or deployed. Every development organisation struggles with finding enough security experts and with finding more effective ways of sharing their security expertise. *CS Essentials Session 1* <https://www.facebook.com/events/735287826805251/?event_time_id=735287850138…> - 7:00 pm 18th October, Lecture Theatre A, Department of Computer Science CS Essentials is a brand new course that CompSoc organises for beginners. If you are into either exploring the Linux command line or learning how to create a beautiful document using LaTeX, this is just the course for you! You do not need any prior experience, just come along and have some fun! All you need is a laptop to get through the exercises. What we will be teaching is: - basic and more advanced Linux commands; - Bash scripting; - Vim text editor; - LaTeX. Please arrive a bit earlier just so we can register everyone before the lectures begin. (This is mandatory for fire regulations.) If you need directions to the department, send us a message and we’ll be more than happy to help! The course is open to all members of the University of Oxford. P.S. If you have any experience in any of the topics and a little spare time, you can volunteer to help during the events. *Geek Night 2: Semmle Coding Challenge* <https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1076012799234435&ref=br_rs> - 7:00 pm 20th October, Undergraduate Social Area, Department of Computer Science The workshop will be given by Oxford Comp Sci graduates *Julian Tibble* and *Aditya Sharad*. We’ll start with an *introduction to lgtm.com <http://lgtm.com> and QL*, and tell you about some of the technological challenges we faced when developing the query language and engine. After that, there’ll be a workshop on how to write queries to *find your own security vulnerabilities*. Various prizes will be awarded, and of course there’ll be drinks and pizzas. See you all there! *Tech talk with JP Morgan* <https://www.facebook.com/events/329102674564406/> - 7:00 pm 24th October, Lecture Theatre A, Department of Computer Science Abstract from JP Morgan: Ever wonder how you can carve out a successful career in financial services with a technology background? Are you curious to find out how we can match your interests to our opportunities? In partnership with the Oxford University Computer Society, join us for a Tech Talk where you can meet our technologists and see how technology at JP Morgan inspires change and makes a difference in our communities. Join us for food, drink and interesting conversations! We encourage you to look for communications about our upcoming events and programs and to check our careers website regularly for dates and deadlines. SIGN UP HERE <https://jpmc.recsolu.com/external/events/edOF7kI3Pz3MQzwvmsZ97g/sign_up> ------------------------------ Other Notices 2018 Milner Award Lecture <https://royalsociety.org/science-events-and-lectures/2018/11/milner-lecture/> - 18:30 pm 20th November, The Royal Society, London How can we ensure system correctness in the presence of uncertainty? Computing devices support us in almost all everyday tasks, from mobile phones and online banking to wearable and implantable medical devices. We are now experimenting with self–driving cars and robots. Since embedded software at the heart of these devices must behave correctly in presence of uncertainty, probabilistic verification techniques have been developed to guarantee their safety, reliability and resource efficiency. Using illustrative examples, this lecture will give an overview of the role that probabilistic modelling and verification can play in a variety of applications, including security, medical devices, self-driving cars and DNA computing. It will also describe recent developments towards model synthesis, which aims to build these systems so that they are correct by construction. Finally, it will explore the problems of ensuring that systems that rely on learning will behave correctly, both in situations that they have seen in training, and in situations that they haven’t. The prize lecture will be webcast live and the video recording of the event will be available shortly after the event. Attending this event - Free to attend - No registration required - Doors open from 18:00, and seats are allocated on a first-come, first-served basis - This event may be popular, and entry cannot be guaranteed - Live subtitles will be available - British Sign Language interpretation will be available on request. Please let the Scientific Programmes Team <Events(a)royalsociety.org> know if you plan to attend at least two weeks prior to the event. - Travel and accessibility information <https://royalsociety.org/about-us/contact-us/carlton-house-terrace-london> ------------------------------ The Oxford University Computer Society (CompSoc) aims to organise meetings and events for our members to use and further their computing interests. See all of our upcoming events on our Facebook Page <https://facebook.com/oxcompsoc/> or visit our Website <https://ox.compsoc.net> for more information about the society. Want to unsubscribe or manage your subscription preferences? Go to http://lists.ox.compsoc.net/mailman/listinfo/.

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