Hi All,
I hope everyone has had a good 1st week and settled back in to Oxford life. It was great to see so many people at Freshers' Drinks on Tuesday.
This week we have two events planned, a talk on 'Using Machine Learning To Solve Real-World Problems' on Tuesday and a film screening on Saturday.
Read more below to find out about these events and this weeks technology challenge (which is open to anyone, but only members can win prizes) - as well as last weeks solution.
Ben and Alex CompSoc Co-Presidents
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The Oxford Computer Society
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Using Machine Learning To Solve Real-World Problems: Tuesday 18, 20.00-22.00 St Catz JCR Lecture Theatre Link: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=266683403374448
How do you approach a classification problem involving thousands of categories rather than the 'usual' five or six? What happens when your data-set is several gigabytes and growing? What open-source tools are available, are they any good, and can they be put to commercial use? How do you measure the system's effectiveness when you're not allowed to see the real data because of client confidentiality?
David North and Richard Ashby, from local software company CoreFiling, will aim to answer all these questions and more in their talk on machine learning from an industry perspective. There will be free drinks afterwards.
David has for some time been a CompSoc Systems Administration Co-ordinator (http://compsoc.net/network/), if you think you might be interested in taking over this role or just want to know what it is then after the talk would be an excellent opportunity to ask about it.
Here is a handy map for finding Catz: http://g.co/maps/eeut2 And here is another one for finding the JCR lecture theatre (it joins on to the PDR): http://compsoc.dartoxia.com/map.png
If you get truly lost in Catz, you can call Ben on 0754 999 3401. We will meet at the lodge in Catz at 2000 for a 2015 start.
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Film Screening: Saturday 22, 19.30-22.00 St Catz JCR Lecture Theatre Link: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=302974333051482
We will be screening a film to be decided by Doodle poll. Refreshments will be provided.
Free for members, £2 for non members - got to cover pizza costs!
Here is a handy map for finding Catz: http://g.co/maps/eeut2 And here is another one for finding the JCR lecture theatre (it joins on to the PDR): http://compsoc.dartoxia.com/map.png
Doodle Poll: http://compsoc.dartoxia.com/poll.html
If you get truly lost in Catz, you can call Ben on 0754 999 3401. We will meet at the lodge in Catz at 1930 for a 1945 start.
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Technology Competition: Challenge 2:
This weeks challenge is to determine what the code below does: def f(b):n=b.find('0');~n or exit(b);[m in[(n-j)%9*(n/9^j/9)*(n/27^j/27|n%9/3^j%9/3) or b[j]for j in range(81)]or f(b[:n]+m+b[n+1:]) for m in'%d'%5**18]
Once you have figured it out go to http://compsoc.dartoxia.com/answer/<ANSWER GOES HERE>.
Anyone (with a .ox.ac.uk email address) can sign up to the competition through the http://compsoc.dartoxia.com website, but only members can receive prizes.
Compsoc.dartoxia.com isn't connected to the compsoc network, and so you will need to make a new account to participate.
For more details about the competition see http://compsoc.net/technology_competition or contact committee@ox.compsoc.net
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Technology Competition: Challenge 1 Result:
Congratulations to Alaric Stephen for solving the first challenge the quickest - we will get in touch separately to arrange your prize.
Last weeks challenge was "What does our logo mean?". The correct answer was OX. This answer is found if you interpret each dot to be a 0 or 1 depending on shade and for the columns into values: 0100 1111 0101 1000 = 4 F 5 8. Now if you look up the ASCII symbols for 4F and 58 you get OX.
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Membership:
Our current membership rates are £5 for life and £3 for a year. Being a member entitles you to free socials, prizes in the technology competition and you can attend (obviously) members only events - such as the upcoming Bank of America dinner. You will also receive a CompSoc membership card!