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Week 0 Newsletter: Hilary termcard, workshop with Semmle and more!
by Edward Hart 10 Jan '18

10 Jan '18

Welcome back! There's a lot to look forward to this term, with exciting *talks*, *Learn to Code* and a *40th Anniversary dinner*! Learn to Code is our annual introductory Python programming course. If you've never programmed before, then this is going to be a fantastic opportunity to get started. The course starts on Thursday Week 2 and will continue until seventh week, by which point we'll have introduced core programming concepts. As this mailing list goes out to CompSoc members, I'm sure that many of you have experience programming in Python. If you would like to share some of your time and enthusiasm please get in contact with us or join the *CompSoc helper Facebook group* <https://www.facebook.com/groups/OXLearnToCodeHelpers/>, as we'd love to see as many volunteers as possible. Next week, we'll be hosting a workshop by *Semmle*, a code analysis firm based in Oxford, where we'll be using their QL query language to *find security vulnerabilities*. Those who do best will get *prizes*. Other upcoming events in Oxford include a *drinks event on Big Data* at Somerville College and a *Capture the Flag* event with BAE Systems and OUEngSoc in Week 2. Also, our sponsor Microsoft is opening registrations for the *Imagine Cup*. See you soon, *Edward and the rest of the committee* Events Geek Night 0 <https://www.facebook.com/events/1677877558914732/> *19:00 Saturday 0th Week – Undergraduate Social Area, Department of Computer Science* Celebrate surviving your Hilary collections by joining us for a well-earnt, relaxing evening of chatting, programming and pizza. Workshop with Semmle: The Zero-Day Machine <https://www.facebook.com/events/172334296854579> *19:00 Wednesday 1st Week – Undergraduate Social Area, Department of Computer Science* On Wednesday of 1st week (17 January), engineers from Oxford University spin-off Semmle will visit CompSoc to give a workshop (with competition!) about *code security analysis using the QL query language*. Using QL, it is possible to write accurate and intricate queries that find security vulnerabilities and various other problems in code. We started as a research group at the Department of Computer Science, and have grown to an international company with offices in Oxford, San Francisco, Seattle, New York, Copenhagen, and Valencia. The QL language and analyses are now *used on a daily basis* by security teams *at both Google and Microsoft* (among many others) to find security vulnerabilities in their code. *We recently made our analysis technology freely available for open source projects*; find your own favourite projects on https://lgtm.com! As of today, lgtm has analysed over 10 million commits by more than 300,000 developers to over 55,000 open source projects. Our security researchers are constantly working with the community to find and disclose new vulnerabilities; have a look on https://lgtm.com/blog for some examples. Our queries are open source and available on GitHub: https://github.com/lgtmhq. The workshop will be given by recent Oxford Comp Sci graduates Sam Lanning and Aditya Sharad. We'll start with an introduction to 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 at on 17 January at 19:00 in the Social Area! Future events Learn to Code *19:00 Thursdays from 2nd Week – Lecture Theatres A & B, Department of Computer Science* Learn to Code is back! If you've ever wanted to learn the basics of programming, refresh your Python knowledge, or get an idea of what computer scientists actually do all day then this is going to be a great course for you ☺️. We aren't going to assume any prior programming experience, although to get the best out of the sessions we highly recommend that you bring a laptop so that you can follow along with some of the examples. It doesn't matter whether you use Windows, Mac, or Linux, and in the first session we'll explain how to get started on any of these platforms. In this course we are going to be using the programming language Python, which is one of the easiest languages to pick up if you've never programmed before and it is widely used in the technology industry – YouTube, NASA, and Wikipedia are just three examples. If you need to learn R at some point during your degree you may find that an introduction to Python will help you pick up basic computational thinking ideas faster. We do expect demand to be very high for this course, so please try to arrive before the advertised start time as we need to register everyone (for fire regulations). You'll need to enter via the back door on Parks Road; there are CompSoc signs up at the department. 40th Anniversary Dinner <https://www.facebook.com/events/601485016909802/> *Drinks reception from 19:00, Wednesday 8th Week – Foyer B, St Anne's College* CompSoc turns 40 next year and we're celebrating in style! A sumptuous three-course dinner at St Anne's (Domino's was booked up), joined by CompSoc members spanning the society's 40-year history. All for just £20. Reserve your place here <https://ox.compsoc.net/dinner/> (don't worry about the donation bit –that's just for old members who are in full-time employment). There are a limited number of places, so act quickly! Other notices The True Value of Big Data *15:30–19:00, Friday 1st Week – Flora Anderson Hall, Somerville College* ‘Big Data’ as a term is hot property but what does it actually mean... to you? To business? To society? Join Met Office and Alibaba Cloud as we cut through the ambiguity of Big Data and demonstrate the real-life value of analytics, algorithms and balloons(!) at Somerville College on Friday, 19th January. Speakers include Alberto Arribas, Head of UK Informatics Lab at Met Office, Dr Wang Ning, Senior Research Fellow at Oxford University and Data Scientists from Alibaba Cloud. Includes drinks and canapés. *Sign up here.* <http://bit.ly/BigDataEvent-Oxford> *Agenda* - 15:30: Welcome Reception - 16:00–18:10: Presentations by Oxford University, Met Office & Alibaba Cloud - 18:10: Introduction to Future Challenge data mining contest - 18:25–19:30: Contest registration, drinks and networking BAE Capture the Flag *09:30–16:30, Saturday 2nd Week – location TBC* OUEngSoc have kindly shared this event with us: This is a team-based challenge for teams of 2 to 6 players, but individual entries are also fine and teams will be assigned later. The challenges will involve breaking into vulnerable websites, cracking ciphers, forensic searches, reverse engineering and much more. *No previous experience* of these kinds of challenge is *necessary*; they are designed *for students who like taking things apart and seeing how they work*. *Lunch* will be provided and there will be *prizes* for the winners! *For more information or to sign up, email ctf(a)baesystems.com <ctf(a)baesystems.com>.* Sponsor notices The Microsoft Imagine Cup The Imagine Cup is back for its 16th year and you can be part of it! Want to be in with the chance of winning the latest *Xbox One X console* and *cash prizes* at the UK National Finals? Or do you think you can bag up to *$100,000* at the Worldwide Finals in Seattle? Enter Microsoft’s annual student developer competition to find out… *How to enter:* - Create your team (1 to 3 people) - Register <http://aka.ms/UKimaginecup> - Develop a project that utilises Microsoft Azure - Submit your entry before the 16th of March 2018 – 00:00 GMT Previous years have seen games, charitable applications, education services and many more enter the competition. It is a great opportunity for you as a student developer to showcase your idea, whether that be a great hackathon submission, a University project, or even a start-up idea. Form your team and enter... What have you got to lose! See what the 2017 Worldwide Finals were like. <https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Imagine-Cup/Imagine-Cup-World-Finals-2017> *Enter here.* <https://imagine.microsoft.com/en-us/uk> ------------------------------ 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. Edward Hart Secretary - Oxford University Computer Society secretary(a)ox.compsoc.net

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Week 8 Newsletter: Michaelmas TGM
by Edward Hart 27 Nov '17

27 Nov '17

Hi everyone, This week is the *Michaelmas TGM*. Come for the *cheese and wine* and stay for the minor constitutional amendments and committee reports. This is the last day left to buy (cheap) CompSoc hoodies and t-shirts! Order at http://www.customclubclothing.co.uk/shop/index.php?c=259. Have a great week and enjoy your well-earned vac! *Edward and the rest of the committee* EventsMichaelmas TGM and Cheese & Wine Evening <https://www.facebook.com/events/143856889671573/> *19:00 Wednesday 8th Week - Lecture Theatre A, Department of Computer Science* The first half of the evening will be for the TGM, the agenda for which is attached. The constitutional changes proposed are the adoption of the Proctor's new standard constitution, code of conduct and complaint procedure, and clarifications of the CompSoc by-laws. There will be reports from the President, Secretary and Treasurer. *If you can't come and you're a member, please contact me with your intention to vote by proxy.* After (or maybe during), will be copious amounts of cheese and wine. We will have a fine range of cheese from across Europe, a variety of red wines and a few exciting new compotes. There will still be pizza, but it will much less refined. Geek Night 8: Unofficial *19:00 Saturday 8th Week - Undergraduate Social Area, Department of Computer Science* If you're still in Oxford, a committee member may be in the department to run a mini, unofficial Geek Night. Other noticesHack Cambridge applications are open! On the 20th of January when Hack Cambridge will welcome 300 of the most talented students in the country to the third instalment of Hack Cambridge. It's an amazing opportunity for you to bring your ideas to life alongside hundreds of other creative hackers. Applications close on the 1st of December and all the important event details and news can be found over on our Facebook event <www.facebook.com/events/548375982170832/>. Give it a quick read before you take the plunge and apply! Apply here. <hackcambridge.com/apply> ------------------------------ 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. Edward Hart Secretary - Oxford University Computer Society secretary(a)ox.compsoc.net

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Re: [compsoc-freshers] Week 7 Newsletter: Facebook talk and Oxmas Geek Night
by Edward Hart 18 Nov '17

18 Nov '17

The TGM is in fact on Wednesday *8th* Week, not 7th Week. Sorry, Edward Hart Secretary - Oxford University Computer Society secretary(a)ox.compsoc.net On 18 November 2017 at 17:47, Edward Hart <secretary(a)ox.compsoc.net> wrote: > Hi everyone, > > This week *Facebook* are visiting and telling us how about the *type > system* of their new language Hack, which they have been using to replace > their old PHP codebase. RSVP here. > <https://business.facebook.com/events/129238224371422/> We'll also have > our *Oxmas Geek Night*, which will be the last one this term. > > In week 8, we have the *Michaelmas TGM*. Come for the *cheese and wine* and > stay for the minor constitutional amendments and committee reports. > > Elsewhere in Oxford, *Jane Street* are running an *estimathon* for > aspiring data scientists (there will be prizes!) and *Facebook* are > hosting a talk for those interested in *internships* with their product > analytics team. > > Have a great week! > > *Edward and the rest of the committee* > > P.S. There's a still a week left to get cheap CompSoc stash > <http://www.customclubclothing.co.uk/shop/index.php?c=259>. > EventsGeek Night 6: LAN Night > <https://www.facebook.com/events/1973643662893781/> > > *19:00 Saturday 6th Week - Undergraduate Social Area, Department of > Computer Science* > > Join us for an evening of video games and pizza! You'll need to bring your > own laptop, but we'll provide everything else. We aren't planning to play > any particular games in advance - so it will just be whatever people fancy. > Facebook tech talk: The Hack programming language: Types for PHP > <https://business.facebook.com/events/129238224371422/> > > *19:00 Wednesday 7th Week - Lecture Theatre A, Department of Computer > Science* > > Facebook’s main website, ads platform, and much of its internal tooling is > implemented in PHP, a language not known for elegance or best practice in > programming language design. Over the last five years Facebook has embarked > on an ambitious project to migrate its code base to Hack, which takes the > syntax of PHP, removes the worst features, and adds static typing and > modern constructs for asynchronous programming and typed UI components. In > this talk I will focus on Hack’s type system, which combines OCaml-like > type inference, object-oriented generics in the style of C# or Java, and > flow-based typing of local variables. > > Andrew Kennedy is a software engineer at Facebook London working on the > Hack team. Before joining Facebook in 2016 he spent 16 years at Microsoft > Research, during which time he helped design and implement the generics > feature for the .NET Common Language Runtime and polymorphic > units-of-measure inference for the F# programming language, in addition to > making many research contributions in type systems, semantics, formal > verification and compilation. > > RSVP here. <https://business.facebook.com/events/129238224371422/> > Geek Night 7: Oxmas <https://www.facebook.com/events/139116163515202/> > > *19:00 Saturday 7th Week - Undergraduate Social Area, Department of > Computer Science* > > Bring your laptop for some Christmas themed programming (and food!) to > celebrate the final (official) Geek Night of the year. > Michaelmas TGM and Cheese & Wine Evening > <https://www.facebook.com/events/143856889671573/> > > *19:00 Wednesday 7th Week - Lecture Theatre A, Department of Computer > Science* > > The first half of the evening will be for the TGM, the agenda for which is > attached. The constitutional changes proposed are the adoption of the > Proctor's new standard constitution, code of conduct and complaint > procedure, and clarifications of the CompSoc by-laws. There will be reports > from the President, Secretary and Treasurer. > > After (or maybe during), will be copious amounts of cheese and wine. We > will have a fine range of cheese from across Europe, a variety of red wines > and a few exciting new compotes. There will still be pizza, but it will > much less civilised. > Sponsor noticesJane Street estimathon > > What's an Estimathon" you ask?! It's a team contest where the goal is to > create confidence intervals to difficult maths and science questions. e.g., > what's the volume of the earth's oceans (in cubic km); or, how many prime > numbers contain strictly increasing digits. > > It's a very interactive game and focuses on some ideas that are central to > what we do at Jane Street: thinking about hard problems, assessing > confidence levels, trying to strike a balance between quick-and-rough > estimates versus more refined solutions. > > *Time and date:* Tuesday 21st November, 18:30-21:00 > > *Location:* Old Bank Hotel, 92-94 High Street, Oxford, OX1 4BJ > > *How to register:* visit https://www.janestreet.com/join-jane- > street/events/. > > There'll be prizes for the winning team and of course food and drinks will > be provided. > > We look forward to seeing you there. > Internship opportunities in Data at Facebook > > *Facebook London* have intern openings in Summer 2018 in the *Product > Analytics team*, and are looking for *analytical, technical, data-savvy, > and entrepreneurial*students with 1 year of academia remaining after > Summer 2018. > > A panel of Data Scientists and Data Engineers from Facebook's London > office will be at *Rewley House (OX1 2JA) at 5pm on Wednesday 22nd > November*, and will be running an event talking about the exciting > Product Analytics work that is taking place right now on a variety of > Facebook products in London. > > This session is designed for students who are eligible to apply for the > Data Science/Engineering intern roles (one year of further study/research > after the internship is required, links to more details below). We will > cover what the roles involve, deep-dive on how data is driving several > projects we are working on in London, and run a short interactive session > exploring the types of questions we ask in interview. Refreshments will be > available! > > *Venue:* 5pm Weds 22nd November @ Rewley House, 1 Wellington Square, > Oxford, OX1 2JA > *Event signup:* https://datasciencetalkoxford.splashthat.com/ > *FB event:* https://www.facebook.com/events/538849883116401/ > > *Data Science intern applications:* https://www.facebook.com/careers/jobs/ > a0I1H00000LTdF1UAL > *Data Science blog post:* https://www.facebook. > com/careers/life/demystifying-data-science-in-facebook-london > > *Data Engineering intern applications:* https://www. > facebook.com/careers/jobs/a0I1H00000LTdErUAL > *Data Engineering blog post:* https://www.facebook. > com/careers/life/making-meaningful-connections- > through-data-engineering-with-shachar-m/ > ------------------------------ > > 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. >

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Week 7 Newsletter: Facebook talk and Oxmas Geek Night
by Edward Hart 18 Nov '17

18 Nov '17

Hi everyone, This week *Facebook* are visiting and telling us how about the *type system* of their new language Hack, which they have been using to replace their old PHP codebase. RSVP here. <https://business.facebook.com/events/129238224371422/> We'll also have our *Oxmas Geek Night*, which will be the last one this term. In week 8, we have the *Michaelmas TGM*. Come for the *cheese and wine* and stay for the minor constitutional amendments and committee reports. Elsewhere in Oxford, *Jane Street* are running an *estimathon* for aspiring data scientists (there will be prizes!) and *Facebook* are hosting a talk for those interested in *internships* with their product analytics team. Have a great week! *Edward and the rest of the committee* P.S. There's a still a week left to get cheap CompSoc stash <http://www.customclubclothing.co.uk/shop/index.php?c=259>. EventsGeek Night 6: LAN Night <https://www.facebook.com/events/1973643662893781/> *19:00 Saturday 6th Week - Undergraduate Social Area, Department of Computer Science* Join us for an evening of video games and pizza! You'll need to bring your own laptop, but we'll provide everything else. We aren't planning to play any particular games in advance - so it will just be whatever people fancy. Facebook tech talk: The Hack programming language: Types for PHP <https://business.facebook.com/events/129238224371422/> *19:00 Wednesday 7th Week - Lecture Theatre A, Department of Computer Science* Facebook’s main website, ads platform, and much of its internal tooling is implemented in PHP, a language not known for elegance or best practice in programming language design. Over the last five years Facebook has embarked on an ambitious project to migrate its code base to Hack, which takes the syntax of PHP, removes the worst features, and adds static typing and modern constructs for asynchronous programming and typed UI components. In this talk I will focus on Hack’s type system, which combines OCaml-like type inference, object-oriented generics in the style of C# or Java, and flow-based typing of local variables. Andrew Kennedy is a software engineer at Facebook London working on the Hack team. Before joining Facebook in 2016 he spent 16 years at Microsoft Research, during which time he helped design and implement the generics feature for the .NET Common Language Runtime and polymorphic units-of-measure inference for the F# programming language, in addition to making many research contributions in type systems, semantics, formal verification and compilation. RSVP here. <https://business.facebook.com/events/129238224371422/> Geek Night 7: Oxmas <https://www.facebook.com/events/139116163515202/> *19:00 Saturday 7th Week - Undergraduate Social Area, Department of Computer Science* Bring your laptop for some Christmas themed programming (and food!) to celebrate the final (official) Geek Night of the year. Michaelmas TGM and Cheese & Wine Evening <https://www.facebook.com/events/143856889671573/> *19:00 Wednesday 7th Week - Lecture Theatre A, Department of Computer Science* The first half of the evening will be for the TGM, the agenda for which is attached. The constitutional changes proposed are the adoption of the Proctor's new standard constitution, code of conduct and complaint procedure, and clarifications of the CompSoc by-laws. There will be reports from the President, Secretary and Treasurer. After (or maybe during), there will be copious amounts of cheese and wine. We will have a fine range of cheese from across Europe, a variety of red wines and a few exciting new compotes. There will still be pizza, but it will much less civilised. Sponsor noticesJane Street estimathon What's an Estimathon" you ask?! It's a team contest where the goal is to create confidence intervals to difficult maths and science questions. e.g., what's the volume of the earth's oceans (in cubic km); or, how many prime numbers contain strictly increasing digits. It's a very interactive game and focuses on some ideas that are central to what we do at Jane Street: thinking about hard problems, assessing confidence levels, trying to strike a balance between quick-and-rough estimates versus more refined solutions. *Time and date:* Tuesday 21st November, 18:30-21:00 *Location:* Old Bank Hotel, 92-94 High Street, Oxford, OX1 4BJ *How to register:* visit https://www.janestreet.com/join-jane-street/events/ . There'll be prizes for the winning team and of course food and drinks will be provided. We look forward to seeing you there. Internship opportunities in Data at Facebook *Facebook London* have intern openings in Summer 2018 in the *Product Analytics team*, and are looking for *analytical, technical, data-savvy, and entrepreneurial*students with 1 year of academia remaining after Summer 2018. A panel of Data Scientists and Data Engineers from Facebook's London office will be at *Rewley House (OX1 2JA) at 5pm on Wednesday 22nd November*, and will be running an event talking about the exciting Product Analytics work that is taking place right now on a variety of Facebook products in London. This session is designed for students who are eligible to apply for the Data Science/Engineering intern roles (one year of further study/research after the internship is required, links to more details below). We will cover what the roles involve, deep-dive on how data is driving several projects we are working on in London, and run a short interactive session exploring the types of questions we ask in interview. Refreshments will be available! *Venue:* 5pm Weds 22nd November @ Rewley House, 1 Wellington Square, Oxford, OX1 2JA *Event signup:* https://datasciencetalkoxford.splashthat.com/ *FB event:* https://www.facebook.com/events/538849883116401/ *Data Science intern applications:* https://www.facebook.com/careers/jobs/a0I1H00000LTdF1UAL *Data Science blog post:* https://www.facebook.com/careers/life/demystifying-data-science-in-facebook… *Data Engineering intern applications:* https://www.facebook.com/careers/jobs/a0I1H00000LTdErUAL *Data Engineering blog post:* https://www.facebook.com/careers/life/making-meaningful-connections-through… ------------------------------ 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. Edward Hart Secretary - Oxford University Computer Society secretary(a)ox.compsoc.net

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Week 6 newsletter: Google, LAN Night and Facebook
by Edward Hart 12 Nov '17

12 Nov '17

Hi everyone, Congratulations on surviving week 5! Why not celebrate at CompSoc? In week 6, *Google* will be telling us about the *frontiers of the tech industry*. The *Metaswitch talk has been postponed* to Hilary term. After that we have our termly *LAN night* on Saturday. The week after, *Facebook* are visiting and telling us how about the *type system* of their new language Hack, which they have been using to replace their old PHP codebase. RSVP here. <https://business.facebook.com/events/129238224371422/> And if that's not enough, *Ensoft* is in the CS department talking about *mobile networking*. *CompSoc stash is now a thing!* You have all the t-shirts: Palantir, Metaswitch, Microsoft, Jane Street, Google, Ensoft, ... But there's a void in your wardrobe. A void that can only be filled by something Oxford Blue and saying Oxford University on it. Before today, you'd have to do go mad and do rowing to get such a thing. No more! CompSoc t-shirts for £5. CompSoc hoodies for £10. Personalisation for £1.50. Order them now! <http://www.customclubclothing.co.uk/shop/index.php?c=259> Order before November 27 to get our subsidised prices. All orders made before that will be distributed at the start of Hilary. Have a great week! *Edward and the rest of the committee* EventsGoogle talk: Frontiers of the tech industry <https://www.facebook.com/events/1995264674088416> *19:00 Monday 6th Week - Lecture Theatre A, Department of Computer Science* Come learn about Engineering at Google from Software Engineer Jonathan Wellons. Jonathan graduated from Vanderbilt University where he earned a Ph.D. in Computer Science focused on wireless networks. He started at Google in 2013 with JavaScript on a Front-end team in California, now works here in Europe at Google Zurich. His current focus is Big Data storage and retrieval problems in Google Shopping. This talk will review a few of the frontiers generating a lot of investment and buzz in the tech industry. Besides the well-known examples of Machine Learning and Cloud Computing, we'll dive into some of the technical details of Blockchain platforms, Reactive Frameworks, Self-Driving vehicles and others. Geek Night 6: LAN Night <https://www.facebook.com/events/1973643662893781/> *19:00 Saturday 6th Week - Undergraduate Social Area, Department of Computer Science* Join us for an evening of video games and pizza! You'll need to bring your own laptop, but we'll provide everything else. We aren't planning to play any particular games in advance - so it will just be whatever people fancy. Facebook tech talk: The Hack programming language: Types for PHP <https://business.facebook.com/events/129238224371422/> *19:00 Wednesday 7th Week - Lecture Theatre A, Department of Computer Science* Facebook’s main website, ads platform, and much of its internal tooling is implemented in PHP, a language not known for elegance or best practice in programming language design. Over the last five years Facebook has embarked on an ambitious project to migrate its code base to Hack, which takes the syntax of PHP, removes the worst features, and adds static typing and modern constructs for asynchronous programming and typed UI components. In this talk I will focus on Hack’s type system, which combines OCaml-like type inference, object-oriented generics in the style of C# or Java, and flow-based typing of local variables. Andrew Kennedy is a software engineer at Facebook London working on the Hack team. Before joining Facebook in 2016 he spent 16 years at Microsoft Research, during which time he helped design and implement the generics feature for the .NET Common Language Runtime and polymorphic units-of-measure inference for the F# programming language, in addition to making many research contributions in type systems, semantics, formal verification and compilation. RSVP here. <https://business.facebook.com/events/129238224371422/> Geek Night 7: Oxmas <https://www.facebook.com/events/139116163515202/> *19:00 Saturday 7th Week - Undergraduate Social Area, Department of Computer Science* Bring your laptop for some Christmas themed programming (and food!) to celebrate the final (official) Geek Night of the year. Sponsor noticesEnsoft department talk: Saving the world one handset a time: mobile phones and building the Internet *13:00 Tuesday 6th Week - Lecture Theatre A, Department of Computer Science* Speaker: Simon Chatterjee (Ensoft Ltd) The mobile phone is transforming lives across the planet, and is becoming the primary gateway to the Internet for billions of people. Beyond the handset, this evolution poses daunting technical challenges for building the Internet itself, and the complex software that brings the network itself to life. This talk is an accessible introduction to large-scale mobile networking today, from both real-world and computer science perspectives. Bio: Simon Chatterjee 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. ------------------------------ 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. Edward Hart Secretary - Oxford University Computer Society secretary(a)ox.compsoc.net

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Week 5 Newsletter: Palantir & Google talks
by Thomas Denney 04 Nov '17

04 Nov '17

Hi everyone, We have lots of things coming up in the next two weeks to kick the fifth week blues! Thank you to everyone that came to the Bloomberg talk this week - for those of you that couldn't make it, materials from the talk are now available on GitHub <https://github.com/dietmarkuehl/presentation-files/tree/master/parallel-par…>. On Wednesday, *Palantir* will be speaking on *building a secure search engine* and the week after *Google* will be coming round (RSVP here <https://goo.gl/Sh5mxb>). Not to mention our usual geek nights... Our sponsor *Ensoft* is also active in Oxford next week, hosting a free *drinks event* and a giving a *talk* in the department. Have a great week! *Thomas and the rest of the committee* EventsGeek Night 4 <https://www.facebook.com/events/956134894534495> *19:00 Saturday 4th Week – Undergraduate Social Area, Department of Computer Science* This week, we'll be trying to implement UNIX utilities in the language of your choice. Who knew grep could be so complex? Bring your laptop for an evening of relaxing, chatting, games, coding and a selection of food and drink. Palantir tech talk: Building Secure Search at Palantir <https://www.facebook.com/events/1410719555717660> *19:00 Wednesday 5th Week - Lecture Theatre A, Department of Computer Science* How do you design a search engine when different users only have permission to view specific documents? In this workshop we will explore how object level authorisation can be used to take care of privacy in these times of Big Data. Who we are: Today’s critical institutions don’t just protect public safety or provide vital goods and services—they also deal with astonishing amounts of data. At Palantir, our mission is to help the world’s government agencies, Fortune 500 companies, and nonprofits transform how they understand and use that data.We build software that lets organisations integrate and analyse their data so they can solve problems they couldn’t before. Geek Night 5: Ballot stuffing <https://www.facebook.com/events/887641581401830> *19:00 Saturday 5th Week – Undergraduate Social Area, Department of Computer Science* This week stuffing ballots as well as ourselves in this week's Geek Night. At the last termly general meeting, a ballot was held to decide what food to buy for Geek Nights. The results still haven't been counted, but rumour has it people had different opinions to you. At this Geek Night, the challenge is to find an underhanded way to get your choices to win. Bring your laptop and we'll provide the pizza. 😉 Google talk: Frontiers of the tech industry <https://www.facebook.com/events/1995264674088416> *19:00 Monday 6th Week - Lecture Theatre A, Department of Computer Science* [NB: Note this talk is on Monday and is in addition to our usual tech talk.] Come learn about Engineering at Google from Software Engineer Jonathan Wellons. Jonathan graduated from Vanderbilt University where he earned a Ph.D. in Computer Science focused on wireless networks. He started at Google in 2013 with JavaScript on a Front-end team in California, now works here in Europe at Google Zurich. His current focus is Big Data storage and retrieval problems in Google Shopping. This talk will review a few of the frontiers generating a lot of investment and buzz in the tech industry. Besides the well-known examples of Machine Learning and Cloud Computing, we'll dive into some of the technical details of Blockchain platforms, Reactive Frameworks, Self-Driving vehicles and others. Pizza and drinks will be provided after the talk; it is essential that you RSVP here <https://goo.gl/Sh5mxb>. Sponsor noticesEnsoft drinks *18:30-20:30 Monday 5th Week - The House Bar, Blue Boar Street* Looking to start a career next September in technology? Or looking for an internship? Interested in a small company with a great culture, that's also very successful and offers graduate remuneration of £40,000, or £25,000 pro-rata for interns? Read more below... Ensoft develops software that connects the world. The Internet depends every day on the code we write - it's challenging work that matters. It’s also fun - being really good at writing complex software is what we enjoy. We've grown by taking a few of the best Oxbridge graduates each year, and investing heavily in their training. It's an ideal environment for bright, creative people who want to develop rapidly. If you bring the computer science knowledge and coding skills needed to tame Internet-scale complex systems, you can solve challenging problems as part of a world-class software engineering team. Do you want to find out more? *Please join us <https://ensoft.us13.list-manage.com/track/click?u=8658f71b95ede053e3ff45ea9…> at The House Bar, Blue Boar Street on Monday 6th November.* Pop in for free early evening drinks and snacks (at any time from 6.30pm to 8.30pm). This will be a chance for you to meet recent graduates as well as senior members of the company, and learn more about Ensoft in an informal setting. Our application process is very simple: Email a CV to recruitment(a)ensoft.co.uk by midnight on Wednesday 22nd November 2017 (7th week). Interviews (lasting no more than 2 hours) are held on Friday 1st December (8th week) at The Saïd Business School, Park End Street, Oxford. If successful, you'll have a firm offer quickly. You can find more details on www.ensoft.co.uk/careers <https://ensoft.us13.list-manage.com/track/click?u=8658f71b95ede053e3ff45ea9…>, or get reminders by following us on Twitter (@ensoftuk) or on Facebook (ensoftuk, to see the event click here <https://ensoft.us13.list-manage.com/track/click?u=8658f71b95ede053e3ff45ea9…>). But I would encourage you to apply soon. Whilst everything is designed to take up as little of your time as we can, it is still very competitive for places. We hope you can join us at our drinks evening on Monday 6th November. Thanks for your time, *Jon Turnbull* *Chief Executive Officer, Ensoft* *Find out more details here* <https://ensoft.us13.list-manage.com/track/click?u=8658f71b95ede053e3ff45ea9…> Ensoft department talk: Saving the world one handset a time: mobile phones and building the Internet *13:00 Tuesday 6th Week - Lecture Theatre A, Department of Computer Science* Speaker: Simon Chatterjee (Ensoft Ltd) The mobile phone is transforming lives across the planet, and is becoming the primary gateway to the Internet for billions of people. Beyond the handset, this evolution poses daunting technical challenges for building the Internet itself, and the complex software that brings the network itself to life. This talk is an accessible introduction to large-scale mobile networking today, from both real-world and computer science perspectives. Bio: Simon Chatterjee 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. ------------------------------ 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. Thomas Denney President - Oxford University Computer Society president(a)ox.compsoc.net

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Week 4: G-Research coding challenge tonight & Bloomberg talk next Wednesday
by Thomas Denney 28 Oct '17

28 Oct '17

Hi everyone, Today we'll be hosting the *G-Research Coding Challenge*, where teams will be competing to perform sentiment analysis. Winning team members will win £50 Amazon vouchers! Make sure to register (link below). On Wednesday, in *Bloomberg's tech talk*, we'll be learning about parallelising the partition sort algorithm and how to get the most out of it. Have a great week! *Thomas and the rest of the committee* EventsG-Research Coding Challenge 2018 <https://www.facebook.com/events/222378784963112> *18:00 Saturday, 3rd Week - Room 051, Department of Computer Science* G-Research is a leading quantitative research and technology company. We apply scientific techniques to find patterns in large, noisy and real-world data sets, using the latest statistical and "big data" analysis methodologies to predict global financial markets. Please join us for our annual coding challenge where you will *compete in teams in a series of progressively more difficult sentiment analysis challenges*. This is a great chance to test your problem solving and coding skills and a *chance to win a £50 Amazon vouchers per team member* (plus prizes for runners up!). - Where: Oxford Computer Science Department, Room 051 - Date: Saturday 28th October 2017 - When: 18:00-21:00 To take part all you need is at least one laptop per team and have a development environment set up for C#, Java or Python and you must be able to provide your own internet access. Afterwards we will provide food and drinks and a chance for you to talk to our employees informally about internships, graduate roles and life at G-Research! *To register your interest, please email graduates(a)gresearch.co.uk <graduates(a)gresearch.co.uk>.* You can register alone or as part of a team of up to 4 members, if you register individually you will be allocated a team at the event. [This event replaces our usual Geek Night. Note that it begins one hour earlier than usual.] Bloomberg tech talk: Parallel partition <https://www.facebook.com/events/140611299909511> *19:00 Wednesday 4th Week - Lecture Theatre A, Department of Computer Science* The partition algorithm is an important building block for other algorithms, especially for sorting. It seems like partition is inherently sequential but there are ways to parallelize the algorithm. This presentation shows a way to do so. It also discusses a few variations on the interface to the algorithm to show how these affect performance. Geek Night 4 <https://www.facebook.com/events/956134894534495> *19:00 Saturday 4th Week - Undergraduate Social Area, Department of Computer Science* This week, we'll be trying to implement UNIX utilities in the language of your choice. Who knew grep could be so complex? Bring your laptop for an evening of relaxing, chatting, games, coding and a selection of food and drink. Palantir tech talk: Building Secure Search at Palantir <https://www.facebook.com/events/1410719555717660> *19:00 Wednesday 5th Week - Lecture Theatre A, Department of Computer Science* How do you design a search engine when different users only have permission to view specific documents? In this workshop we will explore how object level authorization can be used to take care of privacy in these times of Big Data. Pizza and drinks will be provided after the talk. Who we are: Today's critical institutions don't just protect public safety or provide vital goods and services - they also deal with astonishing amounts of data. At Palantir, our mission is to help the world's government agencies, Fortune 500 companies, and nonprofits transform how they understand and use that data.We build software that lets organizations integrate and analyze their data so they can solve problems they couldn't before. Sponsor noticesEntrepreneur First Early Application Deadline The early application deadline to join EF's 10th cohort (beginning in April 2018) is on October 31st! 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 2018! 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. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask EF's student partner Sienna Rothery <sienna.rothery(a)stcatz.ox.ac.uk>. ------------------------------ 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. Thomas Denney President - Oxford University Computer Society president(a)ox.compsoc.net

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Week 3 newsletter: Coding contests and MS tech talk
by Edward Hart 20 Oct '17

20 Oct '17

Hi everyone, Next Wednesday, we'll be hosting our first tech talk of the term with *Don Syme of Microsoft Research*, who'll be telling us about F#, Microsoft's functional programming language. A week Saturday, we have the *G-Research Coding Challenge*, where teams will be competing to perform sentiment analysis. Winning team members will win £50 Amazon vouchers! Make sure to register (link below). Tomorrow we will be hosting our usual geek night, when we'll be looking at esoteric programming languages. If you're interested in participating in a beginner friendly programming challenge, the first round of the *UK/IE Programming Contest* <http://ukiepc.info/#home> is being hosted in the department *tomorrow*. If you are interested in taking part please contact Nick Hu <nick.hu(a)stcatz.ox.ac.uk>. You do not need to register as a team; he can allocate you to a team if need be. *Edward and the rest of the committee* EventsGeek Night 2 <https://www.facebook.com/events/346289525782943> *19:00 Saturday 2nd Week - Undergraduate Social Area* This week we'll be exploring the weird and wonderful world of esoteric languages. Use languages like Brainfuck <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck>, Befunge <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Befunge> or Piet <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esoteric_programming_language#Piet> - or something of your own devising - to implement fiendishly simple programs like FizzBuzz and the Sieve of Eratosthenes. Bring your own laptop and we'll provide the pizza. Microsoft tech talk: The F# Path to Relaxation <https://www.facebook.com/events/533456163653843> *Lecture Theatre A, Department of Computer Science - 19:00 Wednesday (Week 3)* *Abstract:* Born in a lab, matured in the enterprise, and now fully baked as an open-source, cross-platform, professionally-supported language - the F# journey has always been about reconciling the apparently irreconcilable: Functional and Objects, Types and Dynamism, Company and Openness, Linux and Windows, Android and iOS, Programming and Data, GPU and CPU, Async and Sync, Server and Client - F# finds a way. Come along and take a journey with me through the modern programming landscape and the F# approach to research, language design, interoperability, tooling and community. *Bio:* Don Syme is a Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research, Cambridge, the designer and architect of the F# programming language and an F# community contributor. In 2015 he received the Royal Academy of Engineering Silver Medal for his work on programming languages. G-Research Coding Challenge 2018 <https://www.facebook.com/events/222378784963112> *Room 051, Department of Computer Science - 18:00 Saturday (Week 3)* G-Research is a leading quantitative research and technology company. We apply scientific techniques to find patterns in large, noisy and real-world data sets, using the latest statistical and "big data" analysis methodologies to predict global financial markets. Please join us for our annual coding challenge where you will *compete in teams in a series of progressively more difficult sentiment analysis challenges*. This is a great chance to test your problem solving and coding skills and a *chance to win a £50 Amazon vouchers per team member* (plus prizes for runners up!). - Where: Oxford Computer Science Department, Room 051 - Date: Saturday 28th October 2017 - When: 18:00-21:00 To take part all you need is at least one laptop per team and have a development environment set up for C#, Java or Python and you must be able to provide your own internet access. Afterwards we will provide food and drinks and a chance for you to talk to our employees informally about internships, graduate roles and life at G-Research! *To register your interest, please email graduates(a)gresearch.co.uk <graduates(a)gresearch.co.uk>.* You can register alone or as part of a team of up to 4 members, if you register individually you will be allocated a team at the event. [This event replaces our usual Geek Night. Note that it begins one hour earlier than usual.] ------------------------------ 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.

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Week 2 newsletter
by Edward Hart 16 Oct '17

16 Oct '17

Hi everyone, It was wonderful to see so many people at the Welcome Drinks last Wednesday! Sadly, we won't be seeing on you Tuesday – the *Google talk has been postponed* because our speaker had to drop out (we'll be announcing a new date shortly). If you want to get your tech talk fix, there is a *Bloomberg talk* tomorrow on analysing tweets using machine learning. At this week's *Geek Night*, we'll be playing around with esoteric programming languages and, thanks to a generous donation from Sauyon Lee, we will also have a number of cheese available for tasting. Have a great week! *Edward and the rest of the committee* EventsGeek Night 2 <https://www.facebook.com/events/346289525782943> *19:00 Saturday 2nd Week – Undergraduate Social Area* This week we'll be exploring the weird and wonderful world of esoteric languages. Use languages like Brainfuck <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck>, Befunge <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Befunge> or Piet <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esoteric_programming_language#Piet>—or something of your own devising—to implement fiendishly simple programs like FizzBuzz and the Sieve of Eratosthenes. Bring your own laptop and we'll provide the pizza 😉. Other eventsBloomberg tech talk: Finding Signals in Tweets with ML/NLP at Bloomberg – Lunch Provided *13:00 Tuesday 2nd Week – Lecture Theatre A, Department of Computer Science* Talk Abstract: In the current social media era, Twitter has proven itself an indispensable source of information as we frequently see information posted or shared on Twitter become big market movers later on. Due to the mass volume, directly consuming the raw contents without any kind of refinements is undesirable, and, more importantly, the vast majority of the contents are irrelevant to what interests our clients. In this talk, we will discuss how to refine raw contents from Twitter and extract fruitful signals, e.g. Trending Topics, Company Sentiments, Social Velocity, etc from them. Furthermore, we will discuss challenges during developments of the business deliverables and how we solve them via the use of ML/NLP techniques. Finally, we will go over some applications which are built on top of these signals and used broadly by professionals in the finance domain. Iat Chong Chan – Profile: Iat Chong Chan is a software developer in Bloomberg Machine Learning Team. His interests mostly lie in the intersection of Computational Linguistics, Machine Learning, and High Performance Computing. He has been working on a scalable infrastructure to infer topics of social contents ingested to Bloomberg by statistical models, and also a set of tools to maintain and improve these classifiers. Iat Chong also leads the NLP guild inside Bloomberg, to advocate the use of ML/NLP techniques for new business problems. Before he joined the company, he was a MSc student in Dept. of Computer Science at University of Oxford, supervised by Prof. Stephen Pulman and Yishu Miao, and worked on building a better input method on small hand-held devices by a novel Bayesian Network with Variational Inference. ------------------------------ 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.

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Week 1 newsletter: Welcome drinks and the Wikipedia game
by Edward Hart 09 Oct '17

09 Oct '17

Hi everyone, Firstly, welcome to all our new members! Several hundred of you signed up over at the Freshers' Fair and we're really looking forward to meeting you all over the coming year. Thanks to all of those who helped out on the CompSoc stall. To everyone else, welcome back! We send out a weekly e-mail, but feel free to like us on Facebook <https://www.facebook.com/oxcompsoc/>. This term, we've got talks from Google, Microsoft, Bloomberg, Palantir, G-Research, Metaswitch and Facebook, along with regular geek nights, a coding challenge, and a LAN party. Our introductory Python course, Learn to Code, will be back in Hilary. *Edward and the rest of the committee* EventsIntroduction to Oxford University Computer Society <https://www.facebook.com/events/343011032777780/> *7pm Wednesday 1st Week - Undergraduate Social Area, Department of Computer Science* CompSoc is one of the oldest computer societies at any British university, and this year we're looking forward to welcoming our 40th intake of freshers! We welcome anyone passionate about computers, programming, or anything geeky and we're always happy to point beginners in the right direction. Regardless of whether you're a fresher or an existing member we'd love to welcome you to our society. We're holding a drinks and pizza reception to give you the chance to meet the committee and existing members before our first talk in week 2. The event is open to everyone and we'll have membership forms available if you're interested in joining (£3 for an annual membership, or £5 for life). Geek Night 1 <https://www.facebook.com/events/132785950704505> *Undergraduate Social Area - 19:00 Saturday (1st Week)* Geek Night meets Wikipedia: In the "Wikipedia Game" you click the random article link and aim for another Wikipedia page in the fewest clicks possible. We're going to be writing bots to play the game and compete with one another, but without downloading the entirety of Wikipedia. Bring your own laptop and we'll provide the pizza :). Please see here <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiki_Game> if you've never played the Wikipedia Game before. Other eventsBloomberg CodeCon Qualifiers - 13th October 2017 CodeCon is coming to the University of Oxford on the 13th of October! CodeCon is a live programming contest developed in-house at Bloomberg. Push your programming and problem solving skills to the limit against the clock to win the title of Bloomberg CodeCon champion against your peers across the UK and Europe! Your school's top winners will be invited to our Bloomberg CodeCon Global Finals in our London office in January 2018 for a chance to win an amazing prize and compete against the best students from Europe and the US! Please make sure you *register* with your *university email address* and *bring your laptop*. - The event will take place at: Saïd Business School Seminar Room A Park End Street OX1 1HP - Kick-off at 6.30pm, come early to get a seat! - Food and refreshments will be provided! - To sign up, please follow this link: http://tinyurl.com/ydd45ygr The Bloomberg CodeCon team look forward to seeing you there. Become a Microsoft Student Partner today! If you are considering a technical career at Microsoft, the Microsoft Student Partner (MSP) programme is for you! Get a head start over the competition and join the growing number of student ambassadors who partner with Microsoft to run hacks, tech talks and other technology focused events on campus. We will be looking out for outstanding MSPs to join our global team. *Reasons to be an MSP:* - Build your network - CV worthy experience - Expand your technical knowledge - Training from industry experts - Access to professional courses <https://academy.microsoft.com/en-us/professional-program/> for free - Publish blogs to our developer page <https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/uk_faculty_connection/> - Opportunities for international travel <https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/uk_faculty_connection/2016/11/21/a-view-fr…> - Enhanced recruitment opportunities This opportunity is exclusively available to technical students at Oxford, Cambridge, UCL and Imperial. We have between 10-20 MSPs at each University who work together to organise events on topics they are passionate about... All with technical speakers, promotional goodies and pizza provided by Microsoft. If you are ready to join the team send us your CV <https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/mailto:embyle@microsoft.com?subject=%3cIns…>. We will then invite you to a 20 minute Skype interview to understand more about you, your passions, as well as your motivations for applying. *The programme will start in October 2017*, with a trip to our Microsoft UK HQ in early November to meet the team, your MSP peers and to start training! *Send your CV to apply here <embyle@microsoft.com?subject=%3cInsert%20Name%3e,%20University%20of%20Oxford%20-%20MSP%20Application>* ------------------------------ 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.

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