We're now halfway through the academic year! This week we have Hash Code signups (closing Tuesday - see below), a talk on the oddities of computers, and our regular events.

Want to take part in Google's annual online programming challenge Hash Code on the 20th of February from 17:30 to 21:30?

HackSoc will be forming several teams to enter. If you'd like to be part of a HackSoc team, please fill in this short form by this Tuesday, when we'll be allocating teams!

CoffeeScript - 12:30, Wed 12/02 - Hub Café, Ron Cooke Hub

Our weekly social on Hes East; enjoy some lunch and have a good chat.

Talk - "The program counter is always off by 2" and other strange computer design choices by Daniel Bailey - 19:00, Thu 13/02 - The Pod (CSE/082&083)

When people design CPUs and software interfaces, they make decisions. Decisions that cut costs, simplify hardware, provide backwards compatibility, or shave a few cycles off a time consuming task. This talk will be a fun and [hopefully] insightful tour of some decisions that, in hindsight, were a little bit ... "funky". Excitement includes:

• Why is the PC value always off by 2?
• What!? A reboot is triggered by deliberately causing three unrecoverable faults in a row?
• Setting this bit to 0 makes every instruction cause an unrecoverable fault

Board Games and Cake - 19:00, Fri 14/02 - The Pod (CSE/082&083)

One of HackSoc's oldest traditions, where we play many board games and eat plenty of cake! Members are encouraged to bring their own board games and cake if they enjoy the events.

Make sure you're in HackSoc's Slack workspace! We have over 100 members, and it's free to join the conversation, so sign up now!

If you'd like to become a member of the society, simply sign up here! If you aren't sure yet, we'd love you to come along to any of our events and chat to us. If you have any questions, get in touch over social media or Slack!

Have a great week,

Aaron 🤖