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 - 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 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@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 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-around-the-business-tickets-50533604371
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-50527266414
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-the-tools-tickets-51504553506
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-52957803215
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 or visit our Website for more information about the society.
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