Yo!
Today’s Geek Night is sure to be a fun one! I’ve been down to the farmers’
market in Cowley and grabbed us some delicious cheeses - the perfect fuel
for ’golfing! If you’d like to come prepared, I’d highly recommend checking
GolfScript out - though feel free to use any language(s) of your choice.
We’ve got a talk with Gold sponsor Palantir coming up next week. It’s on
Machine learning and ethics in data science - a highly relevant topic in
this age!
Metaswitch’s Insight Night event is still upcoming, feel free to check that
out. HSBC also has an event running on the 30th October.
*====ALMOST COMPLETELY OUT OF SPACES!!====* for our all-day Bletchley Park
trip, *kindly sponsored by Silver sponsor Ensoft!* Bletchley Park, once the
top-secret home of the World War Two Codebreakers is now a vibrant heritage
attraction. Explore, experience and enjoy the once top-secret world of
iconic Codebreaking Huts and Blocks set within an atmospheric Victorian
estate. We’re also visiting the National Museum of Computing on that
trip. *Free for
members*, and *£10 for non-members* - so you’ve got a pretty good deal
regardless! *NOTICE: If you aren’t in the first 50 then you will be placed
onto a waiting list, with members taking priority spots.*
Push your interest onto this stack here.
<https://goo.gl/forms/IaoSgoD51W7iHO212>
Here’s the link to our Discord, just in case you’re not there already for
some reason. <https://discord.gg/xA9PFvy> Please let me know who you are
when you join (like, your name and surname).
Come along!
*The CompSoc Committee - Joe G, Edward H, Ben S*
Events
*Geek Night 3: CodeGolf*
<https://www.facebook.com/events/1076012762567772/?event_time_id=1076012789234436>
-
7:00 pm 27th October, Undergraduate Social Area, Department of Computer
Science
CodeGolf, like normal golf, is all about getting the lowest score.
This is where the similarities end.
By “score”, we do of course mean bytes (characters)! For example, consider
a typical “Hello, World!” PHP (yes the dreaded!) program:
<?php
print "Hello, World!";
?>
Ugh, a whole 29 bytes! But we can do better:
Hello, World!
There. A nice 13 bytes! (Yes, this works.)
By now you probably get the gist: in order to reduce code as much as
possible, you may take advantage of any of the esoteric properties or
features a language may have.
Try GolfScript <http://www.golfscript.com/golfscript/> (uses Ruby) if you’d
like an easy introduction to programming with very few bytes.
Bring your laptops, we’ll provide the pizza - and some *very* nice cheese!!
*Tech talk with Palantir: Ethics and Machine Learning*
<https://www.facebook.com/events/344484319461053/> - 7:00 pm 31st October,
Lecture Theatre A, Department of Computer Science
Machine Learning (ML) is a ubiquitous tool enabling better decision making
for Businesses and Governments but carries many hidden costs – technical,
societal, ethical and legal. Palantir’s approach to ML is strongly
influenced by the early days of the company regarding the merits of
augmented intelligence in sensitive data environments and has tended to be
cautious, even reserved - with amplifying Human agency as a primary
objective. In this event Courtney Bowman (Lead of Palantir’s Privacy and
Civil Liberties Team) invites you to join him in a discussion examining the
pitfalls of naïve ML approaches, the practical and ethical virtues of
augmented intelligence, and principles of good data science that we believe
should be infused across machine learning work writ large.
Food and drinks provided.
Join us!
*CS Essentials Session 3* <https://www.facebook.com/events/735287826805251/> -
7:00 pm 1st November, Lecture Theatre A, Department of Computer Science
*This week’s CS Essentials session is the first of a two-part series on
Bash.*
CS Essentials is a brand new course that CompSoc organises for beginners.
If you are into either exploring the Linux command line or learning how to
create a beautiful document using LaTeX, this is just the course for you!
You do not need any prior experience, just come along and have some fun!
All you need is a laptop to get through the exercises. What we will be
teaching is:
- basic and more advanced Linux commands;
- Bash scripting;
- Vim text editor;
- LaTeX.
If you need directions to the department, send us a message and we’ll be
more than happy to help!
The course is open to all members of the University of Oxford.
P.S. If you have any experience in any of the topics and a little spare
time, you can volunteer to help during the events.
*Geek Night 4: Esoteric Languages*
<https://www.facebook.com/events/1076012762567772/?event_time_id=1076012802567768>
-
7:00 pm 3rd November, Undergraduate Social Area, Department of Computer
Science
Tired of things making sense? Want to try a language that breaks *all* the
conventions and destroys the very foundations of what you think it means to
write a program?
How about a language that’s Turing complete (can do anything computable)
with only eight symbols? <https://esolangs.org/wiki/brainfuck> What about
six? <https://esolangs.org/wiki/JSFuck> (I mean, it’s just JavaScript.)
What about one?? <https://esolangs.org/wiki/Unary> Tired of writing your
code line-to-line? How about it be flowing about in two dimensions?
<https://esolangs.org/wiki/Befunge>
What about the source file being a MIDI score?
<https://esolangs.org/wiki/Velato> Or a recipe?
<https://esolangs.org/wiki/Chef> Or a Shakespeare play?
<http://shakespearelang.sourceforge.net/> The possibilities do not end!
<https://esolangs.org/wiki/MarioLANG>
Use any skills you learned from the CodeGolf geek night to your advantage,
you might find they prove useful!
Bring your laptops, we’ll provide the pizza.
*Tech talk with EF: Title pending*
<https://www.facebook.com/events/344484319461053/> - 7:00 pm 7th November,
Lecture Theatre A, Department of Computer Science
We have a talk from Silver sponsor Entrepreneur First. A self-description
from their site:
*Entrepreneur First is where outliers come together.*
Ambitious individuals leave places like Google, Goldman Sachs and Stanford
to join EF. Why? Because starting a startup is the highest impact thing you
can do with your life.
EF is the best place to find a co-founder, build a company and access the
world’s best investors. We’ve helped build over 140 technology companies,
collectively worth over $1bn.
EF is backed by Reid Hoffman (founder of LinkedIn) and Greylock Partners,
Mosaic Ventures, Founders Fund, Lakestar and some of the world’s best
entrepreneurs.
------------------------------
Sponsor Notices
*Metaswitch - Oxford Insight Night Event*
Thursday 1st November 2018 - 7:30pm-9pm Modern Art Oxford, 30 Pembroke
Street, Oxford OX1 1BP
*YOU ARE EXCLUSIVELY INVITED TO OUR OXFORD INSIGHT NIGHT!*
The event will give you a great introduction to careers in Software
Engineering, and a taste of graduate and intern life at Metaswitch.
Come and meet a diverse selection of our current employees to hear about
their inspirational career stories and any recommendations they have about
working in the industry. Free food and drinks and a chance to win some
great prizes on the day!
To attend, please sign up via our website
<https://www.metaswitch.com/careers-events>.
Please feel free to encourage your friends to sign up to – the more the
merrier.
------------------------------
Other NoticesHSBC: Join the Dealing Room of Tomorrow
Date: Tuesday 30th October
Time: 18:00 – 20:30
Venue: Examination Schools, Oxford
You are invited to join a discussion hosted by HSBC around the Dealing Room
of Tomorrow. This will be a discussion led by senior Sales, Traders,
Structurers and Quants from the Global Markets floor at HSBC.
If you are interested in exploring what a role in Sales, Trading,
Structuring, Quantitative Analytics or Data Science could look like for
you, then you should sign up to this event.
There will be plenty of opportunity to ask questions and to find out about
the challenges and opportunities for Global Markets and how this may affect
your career. It will also give you an opportunity to find out which part of
the business might suit your character and skills best.
In the last hour you will have the opportunity to network with a number of
people at all levels across the Global Markets business.
To attend this event you need to apply by clicking the link. Places will be
allocated on a first come first served basis, and are only open to
University of Oxford students. Please arrive from 18:00 for registration
and a 18:30 start.
We look forward to meeting you!
------------------------------
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.
Want to unsubscribe or manage your subscription preferences? Go to
http://lists.ox.compsoc.net/mailman/listinfo/.