Hi All,
I hope everyone enjoyed the fireworks last night - I didn't realise how many displays
there were in Oxford!
This week Dr Michael Spivey is presenting a talk titled "The Beauty of Bootstrapping
and The Joy of JIT", a summary is copied below. Please note, this talk will be in the
Department of Computer Science, due to its favourable proximity to the pub.
Read more below to find out about this event and this week's 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
************************************************************************
The Oxford Computer Society
************************************************************************
The Beauty of Bootstrapping and The Joy of JIT:
Wednesday 9, 18.00 Lecture Theatre A, The Department of Computer Science
Link:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=270345939673763
Dr Michael Spivey, Oxford University Department of Computer Science will be presenting
this talk. Summary below:
A compiler written in its own input language that generates code for a non-existent
machine? Surely that's hopelessly impractical! I will talk about my recent experiences
in improving GeomLab, a simple functional language, by using a bootstrapped compiler to
generate code for the Java Virtual Machine. Good results are surprisingly easy to obtain.
After the talk we will be heading down to the Lamb and Flag for drinks and
'intellectual discussion' with Dr Spivey - anyone is welcome to join us, we may
even buy you a drink.
If you don't know where the department is there are handy directions here:
http://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/contact/directions.html. Once you have found the department enter
the shadowy door behind the bins in
http://g.co/maps/p4nqr. Then follow the signs =]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The following is a message from Becky Jowsey who is organising an exciting Elder Scrolls
event:
Elder Scrolls : Skyrim Video Game Launch Party
On 11/11/11, as I am sure you are all aware, the next chapter of the Elder Scrolls video
game series: SKYRIM is coming out! We are very excited about this and so are having a
Skyrim launch party in the Jean Robinson Room of Keble College from around 8.00pm until
around 10.40ish. It promises be a friendly and fun evening of gaming, chatting, party food
and hopefully, a few competitions! Bring along your console and a copy of Skyrim if you
have one (not a problem if you don't) and unite with fellow gamers to share and
celebrate this latest chapter of one of our favourite franchises. This should be a great
opportunity to meet other people who share your hobby, exchange gamer-tags, chat, relax
and generally have a nice informal evening of gaming.
If this sounds like a friendly and relaxing way to spend a Friday night, then please send
a quick email to becky.jowsey(a)keble.ox.ac.uk expressing an interest and with the following
information:
Which console platform are you bringing? Xbox, PS3, PC, none etc
Will you have a copy of Skyrim on 11.11.11? Y / N
Can you bring other games, plug-banks, extra controllers etc?
With these preliminary details sorted out I can send you an invite and an outline of all
the fun stuff we hoping to have on the night.We hope to hear from you soon!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Technology Competition:
Challenge 5:
This weeks challenge is to write a simple crawler to find the cumulative filesize of all
the files in
http://garbage.dartoxia.com/s/ (or do it by hand, but that is boring and
tedious - yet not infeasible).
A few hints: the answer ignores the size of folders - so you can too, all folders have the
prefix folder, no file is greater than 999B in size, there are no urls in any of the files
(just garbage).
Once you have calculated it go to
http://compsoc.dartoxia.com/answer/<ANSWER GOES
HERE>, the answer should be in bytes.
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(a)ox.compsoc.net
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Technology Competition:
Challenge 4 Result:
Congratulations to Jonathan Tuckwell who solved the challenge with impressive speed - next
time a challenge of this type will have to be much harder! We will get in touch separately
to arrange your prize.
The challenge last week was to find a 'vulnerability' in
http://compsoc.dartoxia.com and exploit it. The solution was to change the value of a
cookie (found_exploit) which was stored on log in to 1 and then visit the answer page.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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!
Membership forms can be downloaded from
http://compsoc.net/forms/Compsoc_Membership_Application.pdf - please return them completed
and money to a committee member.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CompSoc jobs mailing list:
The society receives a number of advertisements each week from companies and individuals
interested in employing our members. The jobs range from graduate positions, to a bit of
help with another societies website.
If you would like to receive these emails just email
compsoc-jobs-request(a)lists.ox.compsoc.net with 'subscribe' in the subject line.