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Week 7 Newsletter
by Joe Fowler 02 Mar '15

02 Mar '15

Hi All! Here is our event line-up for this week. Note that some of the times/days are irregular! The Role of Computer Scientists in Mass Surveillance Tom Leinster - Tuesday, 4pm, Lecture Theatre A We learned from Edward Snowden that our intelligence agencies are intercepting and storing everyone's communications, of every possible form, all the time. We also learned that they make extensive use of malware, attacking, among others, IT professionals not suspected of any connection to any kind of crime. I will summarize what we now know, and describe some of the damage that the intelligence agencies have done - both to our individual freedoms and to the functioning of democracy. Computer scientists, however, are uniquely well-placed to change this situation for the better. I will explain how. Annual General Meeting <https://www.facebook.com/events/1549165502000856/> Wednesday, 7pm, Undergraduate Social Area Our AGM will be happening*this Wednesday <http://tlear.co.uk/isthecompsocagmthisweek.html>*, at which each of the elected roles for the society will be re-elected. For clarification, these roles are: * *President* - Ultimately in charge, responsible for event organisation and relations with sponsors. * *Secretary* - Interchangeable responsibilities with the president, and with re-registering the society with the Proctors each term. * *Treasurer* - Responsible for keeping track of the accounts, and producing summaries for each term. Additional roles may be assigned at the discretion of the President/Secretary. Ultimately, the positions do not require a vast amount of time to be invested, but they *do* require good organisational skills. *Only society members can vote on motions. If you are a member, and you are unable to attend, you may arrange to vote by proxy. * *LAN Party - Unconfirmed Friday, 7pm, Undergraduate Social Area/Room 051 * Geek Night 7 Saturday, 7pm, Undergraduate Social Area Kind Regards, -- Joe Fowler President - Oxford University Computer Society president(a)ox.compsoc.net <mailto:president@ox.compsoc.net>

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Week 6 Newsletter - Palantir
by Joe Fowler 23 Feb '15

23 Feb '15

Palantir - Building trusted infrastructure in the cloud <https://www.facebook.com/events/1404173943222015> Lecture Theatre A - 7:00pm Wednesday How do you gain the benefits of cloud computing without handing over your data? Come and learn how Palantir hosts customers in the cloud without them handing over control of their data, all while still automating management of large clusters of machines Speaker: Huw Pryce Huw has been a Software Engineer at Palantir since 2012 after graduating with a Masters in Computer Science from the University of Oxford. He currently works on the Deployment Infrastructure team at Palantir where you’ll find him worrying about how we scale out to more customers and more data without increasing the burden on our Forward Deployed Engineers. Geek Night 6 <https://www.facebook.com/events/779549255468925/> Undergraduate Social Area - 7:00pm Saturday Annual General Meeting Next Week <https://www.facebook.com/events/1549165502000856/> Undergraduate Social Area - 7:00pm Wednesday Week 7 Our AGM will be happening on*Wednesday of Week 7*, at which each of the elected roles for the society will be re-elected. For clarification, these roles are: * *President* - Ultimately in charge, responsible for event organisation and relations with sponsors. * *Secretary* - Interchangeable responsibilities with the president, and with re-registering the society with the Proctors each term. * *Treasurer* - Responsible for keeping track of the accounts, and producing summaries for each term. Additional roles may be assigned at the discretion of the President/Secretary. Ultimately, the positions do not require a vast amount of time to be invested, but they *do* require good organisational skills. If you are interested in running for any of these roles, you have one more week to make up your mind! Kind Regards, Joe -- Joe Fowler President - Oxford University Computer Society president(a)ox.compsoc.net <mailto:president@ox.compsoc.net>

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Week 5 Newsletter - AGM Announcement!
by Joe Fowler 16 Feb '15

16 Feb '15

Here are our events for this week, as well as the announcement for the *AGM* in week 7. Ensoft - How to Break the Internet <https://www.facebook.com/events/1555814134698779/> Lecture Theatre A - 7:00pm Wednesday The Internet itself is under constant attack from hairy hackers, authoritarian agencies, fat fingers and boring bugs. Core routers stand alone in the hurricane of harm, far beyond the capacity of any protective firewall, and left to defend themselves. How can they do this? And how safe is the Internet really? This talk will reveal all. The presenter is CTO of Ensoft Ltd, whose experience includes helping to bring into existence the Guinness Book of Records' "World's Highest Capacity Internet Router". Geek Night 5 <https://www.facebook.com/events/405605016275380/> Undergraduate Social Area - 7:00pm Saturday No introduction necessary - casual gaming and snacks as usual. __________________________________________________________________________________________ Annual General Meeting <https://www.facebook.com/events/1549165502000856/> Undergraduate Social Area - 7:00pm Wednesday, Week 7 Our AGM will be happening in *week 7, Wednesday*, at which each of the elected roles for the society will be re-elected. For clarification, these roles are: * *President* - Ultimately in charge, responsible for event organisation and relations with sponsors. * *Secretary* - Interchangeable responsibilities with the president, and with re-registering the society with the Proctors each term. * *Treasurer* - Responsible for keeping track of the accounts, and producing summaries for each term. Additional roles may be assigned at the discretion of the President/Secretary. Ultimately, the positions do not require a vast amount of time to be invested, but they *do* require good organisational skills. If you are interested in running for any of these roles, you have two weeks to make up your minds! To reiterate: the AGM is NOT taking place THIS week, it's in WEEK 7, which is the week after the week after this week, *NOT* this week, which is not the week of the AGM. Kind Regards, Joe

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Week 4 Newsletter
by Joe Fowler 09 Feb '15

09 Feb '15

Hi all, Here are our events this week: The Hut Group <https://www.facebook.com/events/1536406883278781/> Real World Lessons from building a search engine for e-commerce <https://www.facebook.com/events/1536406883278781/> Wednesday 7pm - Lecture Theatre A How do you help your customers find products that they want to buy? How do you build a search engine that handles several thousand queries per minute, in multiple languages, over a heavily diversified product set that includes DVDs, dietary supplements, clothing, makeup and more? This talk covers the real-world challenges we faced in building such a search engine and how we solved them with insights from software engineering, information retrieval and natural language processing. We will also announce the launch details of highly anticipated 2014/2015 Computer Science Challenge, following on from our very successful 2013/2014 recommendation challenge http://www.thehutchallenge.com/ Open to university students across the UK/Europe, the challenge carries a 1st prize of £5000 and offers of highly paid graduate technology jobs and internships. * **(Pizza /drinks provided!)* Speaker details: Dhruv Kumar joined THG in Jan 2014 and has worked on the in-house search system since then. Before joining THG , he has worked for HP Autonomy as a software developer and as a researcher assistant at the Computer Vision Group of the University of Reading. Dhruv holds an MPhil in Computer Science from Cambridge and a BEng from the University of Reading. Shaun Hall joined THG ’s Growth & Innovation team in July 2013 and has spent most of his time working on our search and browse algorithms. Prior to this, he worked on an algorithmic trading platform at an Investment Bank. Shaun graduated with a first class degree in Computer Science from the University of Cambridge in 2011. Geek Night 4 <https://www.facebook.com/events/343510472507055/>Video games + stuff <https://www.facebook.com/events/343510472507055/> Saturday 7pm - Undergraduate Social Area No description is really necessary.. -- Joe Fowler President - Oxford University Computer Society president(a)ox.compsoc.net <mailto:president@ox.compsoc.net>

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Talk tonight POSTPONED
by Joe Fowler 04 Feb '15

04 Feb '15

Hi all, Unfortunately, due to an unfortunate series of events, The Hut Group is unable to host their talk tonight; they wish to postpone the event until a later date, and say that they "will supply extra pizza and drinks to compensate ;)" Kind Regards, Joe -- Joe Fowler President - Oxford University Computer Society president(a)ox.compsoc.net <mailto:president@ox.compsoc.net>

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Week 3 Newsletter
by Joe Fowler 02 Feb '15

02 Feb '15

Hi all, Here are our events for this week: The Hut Group - Real World Lessons from building a search engine for e-commerce Wednesday 2015/02/02, 7pm - Lecture Theatre A, Department of Computer Science How do you help your customers find products that they want to buy? How do you build a search engine that handles several thousand queries per minute, in multiple languages, over a heavily diversified product set that includes DVDs, dietary supplements, clothing, makeup and more? This talk covers the real-world challenges we faced in building such a search engine and how we solved them with insights from software engineering, information retrieval and natural language processing. We will also announce the launch details of highly anticipated 2014/2015 Computer Science Challenge, following on from our very successful 2013/2014 recommendation challenge http://www.thehutchallenge.com. Open to university students across the UK/Europe, the challenge carries a 1st prize of £5000 and offers of highly paid graduate technology jobs and internships. *(Pizza /drinks provided!)* Speaker details: Dhruv Kumar joined THG in Jan 2014 and has worked on the in-house search system since then. Before joining THG , he has worked for HP Autonomy as a software developer and as a researcher assistant at the Computer Vision Group of the University of Reading. Dhruv holds an MPhil in Computer Science from Cambridge and a BEng from the University of Reading. Shaun Hall joined THG ’s Growth & Innovation team in July 2013 and has spent most of his time working on our search and browse algorithms. Prior to this, he worked on an algorithmic trading platform at an Investment Bank. Shaun graduated with a first class degree in Computer Science from the University of Cambridge in 2011. Geek Night 3 Saturday 2015/02/07, 7pm - Undergraduate Social Area, Department of Computer Science Regards, Joe -- Joe Fowler President - Oxford University Computer Society president(a)ox.compsoc.net <mailto:president@ox.compsoc.net>

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eth0 hackathon venue changed, Geek Night this Saturday
by Joe Fowler 28 Jan '15

28 Jan '15

Hello all, The venue for the Jane Street hackathon *eth0 is no longer in the Undergraduate Social Area*. Those who have RSVP'd to the event will receive the venue details from Jane Street once they have been confirmed. Due to this change, *Geek night will now be running* for anybody who does not wish to attend the hackathon. Kind Regards, Joe -- Joe Fowler President - Oxford University Computer Society president(a)ox.compsoc.net <mailto:president@ox.compsoc.net>

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Week 2 Newsletter
by Joe Fowler 25 Jan '15

25 Jan '15

Hello, all! Here are the events that we have organised for this week. Note that the first is on *Tuesday*, and that there is *no Geek Night* this week, due to the hackathon. Tech Talk: Distracted? Let’s Demand a New Kind of Design that Helps Us Spend Our Time Well <http://ox.compsoc.net/events/2015/hilary/distracted/> Date: Tuesday Week 2 - 27 January 2015 Time: 07:00 PM Facebook Event <https://facebook.com/events/758205117596413/>Place: Lecture Theatre A - Dept. of Computer Science <http://ox.compsoc.net/events/venue/compsci_lta/>Tags: Guest Speaker <http://ox.compsoc.net/events/tags/guest_speaker/> Talk <http://ox.compsoc.net/events/tags/talk/> *Speakers:* * Tristan Harris - Product Philosopher, Google - www.tristanharris.com <http://www.tristanharris.com/> * James Williams - Google / Oxford PhD in Philosophy - http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/people/?id=275 *Event Description:* What if technology could distract us less, and respect our time & attention more? What would that world look like - and how could we build it? This question has been the focus of our Design Ethics work and thinking over the past two years at Google. In this talk we will give an overview of why we believe distraction, especially when it hijacks our collective psychological vulnerabilities, is one of the major unaddressed questions of the Information Age. In addition, we’ll suggest concrete steps you can take today - whether you’re a product engineer/designer, a business leader, or a user - to help technology design toward greater respect for users’ time and attention. For background information, see Tristan’s TEDx talk in Brussels last month:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jT5rRh9AZf4 Tech Talk with CoreFiling: IPv6 <http://ox.compsoc.net/events/2015/hilary/core_filing_ipv6/> Date: Wednesday Week 2 - 28 January 2015 Time: 05:00 PM Facebook Event <https://facebook.com/events/843599565682423/>Place: Lecture Theatre A - Dept. of Computer Science <http://ox.compsoc.net/events/venue/compsci_lta/>Tags: Guest Speaker <http://ox.compsoc.net/events/tags/guest_speaker/> Talk <http://ox.compsoc.net/events/tags/talk/> *Event Description:* IPv6 is the next generation of the Internet Protocol. We'll talk about some of the practical details of its use, and attempt to separate fact from fiction about the world running out of IPv4 addresses and the impact this will have. *Speakers:* David North and Stephen White are both CompSoc alumni and IPv6 early adopters, and now work for local software company CoreFiling. eth0: JaneStreet 12-hour hackathon <www.janestreet.com/eth0> Date:Saturday Week 2 - 28 January 2015 Time:10:00 AM - 10:00 PM Facebook Event <https://www.facebook.com/events/793185687413821/>Place: Lecture Theatre A - Dept. of Computer Science <http://ox.compsoc.net/events/venue/compsci_lta/>Tags: Guest Speaker <http://ox.compsoc.net/events/tags/guest_speaker/> Talk <http://ox.compsoc.net/events/tags/talk/> *Event Description**:* eth0: a day-long programming contest. Form teams and hack together software to compete against others and the markets. The winning prize will be *£0x1ff* per person. There'll be lots of *(free) food and drink available*. Absolutely no knowledge of finance, nor OCaml, required. You can use any language, but we'll provide some helper libraries in a few common ones. The contest is entirely technical in nature and you won't need any visual design skills. To sign up, or for any further queries, email: eth0(a)janestreet.com <mailto:eth0@janestreet.com> Further details will be announced to those signed up closer to the event. Teams of up to four will be accepted. You don't have to have a team to sign up — feel free to turn up as a singleton and we'll form teams on the fly. Regards, Joe Fowler President - Oxford University Computer Society president(a)ox.compsoc.net <mailto:president@ox.compsoc.net>

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Week 1 Newsletter
by Joe Fowler 20 Jan '15

20 Jan '15

Hi all, First off, welcome back! Secondly, regarding events: * There will be *n**o talk this Wednesday*, however there are some visitors from Google who are willing to give a talk on some day between Thursday and next Tuesday - we will let you know when! * *Learn To Code* *is not going to run this term*, as the attendance for most of last term was reasonably low. We are however discussing a replacement, so keep the time free in your calendar for now! * *Geek Night* will be running as usual in the Undergraduate Social Area from 7pm onwards. Hope to see some of you there! Regards, Joe -- Joe Fowler President - Oxford University Computer Society president(a)ox.compsoc.net <mailto:president@ox.compsoc.net>

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Week 0!
by Joe Fowler 16 Jan '15

16 Jan '15

Hello all! I hope you have all had a great winter break, and are ready for another term. Our first event this term will of course be Geek Night 0 in the undergraduate social area *this saturday*, so I hope to see some of you there! Kind Regards, Joe -- Joe Fowler President - Oxford University Computer Society president(a)ox.compsoc.net <mailto:president@ox.compsoc.net>

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