Termcard for Trinity Term 2003

Apple Day

Wednesday 30th April, 08:15
Comlab

In probably our biggest event this term, Ken Tabb from Apple will be coming to talk to us about Mac OS X, in the context of it being the "new desktop UNIX". Topics covered will include the UNIX-like foundations of OS X, its command-line interface and filesystem, as well as the "Quartz Extreme graphics layer".

OxLUG

Sunday 4th May, 06:30
Comlab

Note: This event is not organised by Compsoc.

This month's OxLUG has not yet been organised.

See OxLUG's website for more details.

Perl

Thursday 8th May, 08:00
Comlab

Following on from the introductory talk last term, Ganesh will cover various more advanced topics, including: a brief overview of regexps, how to make your own modules, references and how to use them to make complicated data structures, higher-order functions and why they're useful, and neat tricks you can do with "tie".

Oxford Supercomputing Centre

Wednesday 14th May, 08:30
Comlab

The Oxford Supercomputing Centre (OSC) was established as the result of support from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) Joint Research Equipment Initiative 1997 and Silicon Graphics UK Ltd. The main computer resource installed under this grant, known as Oscar, was deployed in a wide variety of research studies covering biological, medical, chemical, mathematical, physical and engineering topics including parallel computing itself. The talk will cover a wide range of their activities.

Video Night

Tuesday 20th May, 08:00
(venue to be announced)

"Matrix Reloaded" is coming out this week, so one good option for our traditional video night might be to show the original. Other common favourites have been Hackers and Wargames. If you've a particular request, just let us know (we should be DVD and VHS capable).

comp.sys.sinclair meet

Saturday 24th May, 12:30
Gloucester Arms

Note: this event is not organised by Compsoc.

The comp.sys.sinclair newsgroup holds irregular, informal meetings at which they reminisce about the good ol' bad ol' days, demonstrate that they never mastered the basic skill that is playing Rainbow Islands, and generally get reasonably ratarsed. Optionally, meet at the train station at 12.20.

Source Code Management

Tuesday 27th May, 08:00
Comlab

Alasdair Kergon will give a talk on SCM systems including Bitkeeper and CVS. An SCM is a useful tool in the armoury of anybody who works on substantial projects on a computer. It can keep track of old versions of files and keep a log of who made changes, when and why they did so.

Ruby

Thursday 29th May, 08:00
Comlab

No doubt Simon Cozens' talk last term fired you with enthusiasm for Ruby. Now John Swinbank will explore some aspects of the language in a little more detail. The aim isn't so much to be a tutorial as to explore some of the exciting ideas and techniques in the language -- he'll take a look at object orientation, modules, mixins, reflection, ObjectSpace, distributed Ruby, and whatever else seems like fun when he gets round to writing the talk.

OxLUG

Sunday 1st June, 18:30
Comlab

Note: This event is not organised by Compsoc.

This month's OxLUG has not yet been organised.

See OxLUG's website for more details.

Hands-on: Perl and Ruby

Tuesday 3rd June, 08:00
NAPL

Once again this term, we've looked at the two scripting languages, Perl and Ruby, and in a little more depth this time. This session will give you a chance to try out the new exciting features Ganesh and John have told you about.

From Xerox to OS X

Thursday 5th June, 08:00
Comlab

Charles Wiles, systems manager of the Physics Teaching Course, is coming to give a talk to Compsoc on the history of Mac OS X, taking a look back over NeXT and the like.

SUCS beach party

Saturday 7th June, 12:34
Swansea

A few Compsoc members will be travelling to Swansea to SUCS's annual beach party and barbecue. Let us know ASAP if you would like to participate.

TGM

Thursday 12th June, 07:00
Magdalen

This meeting, and the curry afterwards, are usually among our most popular events. Come along and tell the new committee what a great job they've done!

Punting

Saturday 14th June, 01:30
(venue to be announced)

Enjoy our traditional sunny (hopefully!) afternoon on (or in) the Cherwell. We need some idea of numbers, for punt booking, so please email committee@ox.compsoc.net by the end of fifth week if you'd like to come. A meeting place will be arranged nearer the date.

Compsoc Barbecue

Tuesday 17th June, 06:00
11 Goodson Walk, Marston

It's 8th week of Trinity. It's sunny. There's food. There's drink. People are talking about computers. This can only mean you're at the annual Compsoc Barbecue :-)

Please bring your own drink (food will be provided).

Laserquest

Thursday 19th June, 08:00
Gloucester Green

End the term in the traditional manner, by running round in the dark shooting at people. Meet outside Laserquest at Gloucester Green. We need to know numbers to book, so it would be great if you could email committee@ox.compsoc.net by the end of sixth week, if you want to come.

Cory Doctorow

Wednesday 25th June, 12:34
Graves Room, St Johns College

Cory Doctorow is a Canadian techno-sage who, amongst other things, writes SF. As a day job, he is Outreach Coordinator for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and by night is a celebrated blogger. He is coming to Oxford to talk about his activities. His only novel so far is 'Down And Out In The Magic Kingdom'. He has collaborated with Charlie Stross online (it's a bit experimental!) We really need to have a good idea of how many people will come before we confirm it, though. The meeting is open to all - members, non-members, people from outside the university, anyone. So, if you're interested, sign up at http://urchin.earth.li/cgi-bin/twic/wiki/view.pl?page=CoryDoctorow