GGD#54 ‘ Virtual Machine vs. Container’ with Kate Mallichan

Our September Girl Geek Dinner is hosted by HP labs

Wednesday September 21st 

Kate Mallichan graduated in 2007 from the University of Bristol with an MEng in Computer Science. She worked for 5 years in industrial software engineering across a broad spectrum of fields that included mobile apps, aerospace systems and roadside sensor equipment. She has experience in an equally wide range of software development languages and tools. A thirst for more creative freedom led her to join HP Labs  in 2012 as a Research Engineer. Since that time her focus has been on rapid prototyping in the areas of cloud computing, cyber-security and more recently container technologies.

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Virtual Machine vs. Container

Virtual machines are essentially a software emulation of a complete computer system, including hardware and OS. They have existed in some form since the 1960s, though they were not widely adopted until technologies matured in the 2000s and they became a primary enabler of the cloud computing paradigm.

Containers can be thought of as a light-weight form of virtualisation. Like virtual machines, they have existed for some time, but their widespread adoption is more recent and still rapidly growing and evolving. Containers bring exciting benefits in terms of performance, portability and more agile computing paradigms, but also certain trade-offs, the most commonly acknowledged being their security.

In this talk Kate will summarise the key differences between virtual machines and containers and identify their main pros and cons over a cross-section of applications. I will then look to the future and explore the potential I see to address new and increasingly complex technological challenges with container technology as it continue to mature.

 

After the presentation and any questions we will open the floor up for a discussion,  if anyone feels like they would like to bring along any ppt’s or links that they want to share for discussion then please bring it along on a USB or mail the team with info and we can share this during the discussion period. Don’t forget – you don’t have to work in the industry or be a geek, this is a group for anyone with an interest in the subject!

Please sign up on our meetup page here MEETUP

Do come along for pre-presentation mingling as we will be there from 6.30pm. As always, we welcome men to our group, but to keep our audience predominantly female, we ask that all men are accompanied by a woman (just add a +1 on the meetup).

Where

The food and hosting is kindly sponsored by regular GGD supporters HP, there is free parking and feel free to mail or comment on the meetup if you need a lift.

Directions to HP Lab: http://www.hpl.hp.com/downloads/HP_Labs_Bristol.pdf

When

Wednesday 21st  September 6.30/7  – 9pm

Oracle and Bristol GGD talk #52

As promised I am going to try and get a bit more active with the blogs for the GGD’s so heres the first of hopefully many!

We had a great talk last night – kindly hosted by Oracle in their new swish offices, Thom Legget was kindly given the pleasure of managing us as Jude and Phil who set it up had run off to Glastonbury, looking at the mud pics earlier in the day I think I was happier with free wine and pizza and talking Data!  So Thanks Thom!

We had talks from Jen Williams from Networked Planets, Martha King from Knowle West media Centre and Katherine Rooney Bristol City council and managing the Cuncils Open Data work.

The Dinners are only a success thanks to members attending and we had a great turnout last night – we had a lot of interest in the data management, Helen Woodcock was there discussing their free training offer KETL training

Oracle also have a free training offer – we’ll follow up on whats involved there as they are just putting it together.

Katherine Rooney from Bristol City Council’s ‘City Innovation team’ manages the Council’s Open Data work, offered up our members a special free open data institute membership ODI membership

“When asked if you are affiliated with a Node, please select Bristol! – It may look just like the normal ODI membership page, but it’s a unique link for the Bristol complimentary membership so you should be able to complete your membership without making any payment.” (i’ve just joined and she’s right it is free!!)

Lastly we introduced Dana who regularly attends our affiliate support group Womens Tech Hubs F3F see the events page WTH events page.  Dana is helping set up the TEDx Bristol event next year and they are looking for speakers and helpers so please take a look TEDx Bristol WTH post

We have next months talk planned – but currently nothing planned for post the summer break, HP are looking to host one but if anyone has any offers for speakers or hosting then please get in touch with us.

 

Hopefully see you all at the next event

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GGD#53 ‘Body as Interface’ and ‘Interpreting the body’

Our July Girl Geek Dinner is hosted by Scott Logic 

Wednesday July 20th

In July Tamara Chehayeb Makarem will be presenting on, ‘Body as Interface’, exploring that notion in user interactions. Jennifer Gaudion will be presenting on ‘Interpreting the Body’ examining the ways we can interpret data from the body.”

Tamara

TamaraChehayebMakarem-PhotoTamara Chehayeb Makarem is a User Experience Designer at Scott Logic. Before moving to London, she worked in New York where she designed cross-platform mobile applications for clients such as Microsoft, MDLIVE, and Songza.

At the Bristol Girl Geek Dinner, Tamara will be presenting her talk ‘Body as Interface’, exploring that notion in user interactions.

Tamara came up with the notion of using the Body as an interface while analyzing the work of artists in the field of Design and Technology and creating her interactive art installations. While people usually associate interfaces with devices or applications, Tamara suggests that the body itself is an interface.

In her talk, Tamara will expand on her idea of “Body as Interface” and link it to the body senses to show how it can allow us to create alternative experiences for users. She will explore the plausibility of the use of the body as an Interface and how it might have practical effect using examples in art installations, wearable technology and day-to-day interactions.

Tamara believes that there are two categories in which the body is used as an interface: the first one is within a controlled environment. The second one is when the device becomes part of the body. She believes that by viewing the body as an interface, we can stop designing interfaces and start designing experiences. She has recently published a blog post articulating her view http://blog.scottlogic.com/2016/05/25/Body-as-Interface.html

Jenny

SL-B-31Jenny Gaudion will be presenting her talk “Interpreting the Body” examining the ways we can interpret data from the body. Jenny is a Software Developer for Scott Logic and helps find solutions to real-life problems using software. Having got into computing from a degree in Maths and a love of puzzles she thinks that interpreting the body presents an exciting challenge and is looking forward to innovations in this area making it feel like we are living in the future.

After the presentation and any questions we will open the floor up for a discussion,  if anyone feels like they would like to bring along any ppt’s or links that they want to share for discussion then please bring it along on a USB or mail the team with info and we can share this during the discussion period. Don’t forget – you don’t have to work in the industry or be a geek, this is a group for anyone with an interest in the subject!

Please sign up on our meetup page here MEETUP

Do come along for pre-presentation mingling as we will be there from 6.30pm. As always, we welcome men to our group, but to keep our audience predominantly female, we ask that all men are accompanied by a woman (just add a +1 on the meetup).

Where

Scott Logic, 25 King Street, Bristol, BS1 4PB map

When

Wednesday 20th  July 6.30/7  – 9pm

 

GGD#52 The World of Linked Open Data

Our June GIrl Geek Dinner is hosted by Oracle 

Weds June 22nd

The “Web of Data” is growing – we’re here to explain what it is, how it works, and shows the Girl Geeks how to be a part of it. This session will be 3 short presentations about 15 minutes long each, followed by a Q&A.

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Jen Williams is Senior Software Developer at Networked Planet and builds Semantic Web tech to help organisations take control of their data. Jen will be introducing the evening and doing a short #101 talk about linked and open data on the web.

Martha King from Knowle West Media Centre will be telling us about Bristol’s “Citizen Sensing” project, which has seen artists and communities across Bristol exploring city issues that could be addressed using sensor technologies. The issue that has gained most momentum is tackling damp in homes.

Katherine Rooney from Bristol City Council’s ‘City Innovation team’ manages the Council’s Open Data work. With a background in community engagement, behaviour change, business development and innovation within the UK environmental charity sector, Katherine believes that Smart Cities are really all about people and not technology, and comes to the open data scene from quite a non-techy angle.

 

After the presentation and any questions we will open the floor up for a discussion,  if anyone feels like they would like to bring along any ppt’s or links that they want to share for discussion then please bring it along on a USB or mail the team with info and we can share this during the discussion period. Don’t forget – you don’t have to work in the industry or be a geek, this is a group for anyone with an interest in the subject!
Please sign up on our meetup page here MEETUP
Do come along for pre-presentation mingling as we will be there from 6.30pm. As always, we welcome men to our group, but to keep our audience predominantly female, we ask that all men are accompanied by a woman (just add a +1 on the meetup).

Where

Oracle Corporation UK Ltd

Tower Wharf

Cheese Lane

Bristol

BS2 0JJ

When

Wednesday 22nd  June 7  – 9pm
*photo credit Nigel Bishop

GGD#52 – Girl Geeks to be announced shortly

Oracle will be hosting us in their new offices on Wednesday the 22nd June and the subject is data – open & link and smart cities.  We’ll update with full details shortly but please save the date.

Just a reminder that it is the open data camp unconference link this weekend also in Bristol if there are any tickets left they will be here eventbrite

GGD#51 – Girl Geeks @ Bristol Digital Week

Our May Girl Geek Dinner is hosted by University of Bristol as part of Bristol Digital Week being organised by the BBC
Weds May 11th

We will introduce what Girl Geek Dinners are all about and hear from a range of our members – sharing stories of what they do, why they chose their careers and what their passions are. We will also share what we like about where we work, what we’d change, and whether we are where we thought we’d be. The intention is to give an idea of the breadth of experience of the girl geeks and why we come to the meetups.

A generic poster for girl geek dinners in Bristol

The motto of Girl Geek Dinners is eat-drink-geek! We like to create a space to share interesting ideas, often over pizza, sometimes with wine. This Digital Bristol Week event hosted at the University of Bristol is a chance to meet Bristol’s Girl Geeks and find out where we’re from, what our passions are and what sort of work we do. Whether you’re studying, working or coming back from a career break, come and meet an interesting bunch of women working in a wide range of local companies. nb this event is open to women and men.

Our mission should we choose to accept it:

·        To break down old fashioned social stereotypes.
·        To identify routes around barriers to entry for anyone to get into technology.
·        To encourage and nurture those interested in technology.
·        To work with local schools, colleges and universities to encourage more women into the technology industry.
·        To support those currently in the industry and work together to figure out the issues and the solutions.
·        To include men, women and children in this journey…. and not exclude men from Girl Geek Dinner Events

If you want to join us more often then head on over to our meetup group.

We do allow men to come to our usual events if they are invited to come along by a woman. For this Digital Bristol Week event we are open to all and you can signup here on  eventbrite

We are meeting in room 1.11 in the Merchant Venturer’s Building, which is No.25 on this University precinct map:map

When

Wednesday, 11 May 2016 from 19:00 to 21:30 (BST) – Add to Calendar

Where

Room 1.11, Merchant Venturers building, Woodland Rd, Clifton BS81UB – View Map

Next event: Wednesday April 20th GGD #50 – Girl Geeks get Agile Sheep-dipped!*

GGD#50 – Girl Geeks get Agile Sheep-dipped!*

Wednesday 20th April

Ever wondered what that ‘Agile’ stuff is all about? Seen a lot of Post-It notes on boards in your office and wondered what that was for? At a bit of a loose end and fancy finding out a bit more about Agile while eating free pizza to boot?

Then this months’ Girl Geek Dinner is for YOU!

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Penny and Claire both think the best way to ‘learn’ about Agile is to experience it, so after a short introduction on the fundamentals, we’ll be diving straight in with some games to help you get to grips with the principles of Agile.  We aren’t giving too much away here, but expect audience participation and gratuitous use of children’s’ toys to help understand how Agile works.

Come and join us, no prior knowledge or experience is necessary.  Bloomberg are sponsoring pre workshop food and drink, you can network, play games without judgement and hopefully learn a bit about Agile in the process.

About our speakers

Claire is a Agile enthusiast with too much IT experience to fit in a paragraph; but she has worked for some big companies (Hewlett-Packard, Nokia, Microsoft) as well as some others that you might also have heard of (National Trust, MixRadio) and learnt quite a bit while doing that. During her time at MixRadio she has been on a massive Agile journey of her own, going from ITIL Release Manager to Technical Programme Management, and so she has quite a bit to say on Agile transformations (and other stuff too, probably best not to get her on the topic of ‘travel’ unless you have some time to kill) and due to the fact we couldn’t get anyone else/she was free on the night/she wanted to share some of that experience with you all, we are lucky enough to have her co-present this event.

Penny attended Leeds University to do a Mech Eng BSc; she was sponsored through university by Rolls Royce, Bristol. After graduating, she returned to Bristol to work with them. But this was the 80s. Not a great time to be female in engineering. Soft porn on the walls, wolf whistles in the factory, snide comments in the offices. She greatly admires the women who stuck it out and made a career there, but she decided to get out, to the relative civilisation of software development.

She started in FORTRAN (she doesn’t look that old, we must get her secret), moved to C then C++.

But in the early 2000s Penny realised she needed either to invest some considerable time updating her skill set, or she would have to move out of tech. With 2 small children at the time, working extra hours didn’t seem possible, so she edged slowly toward project management.

After living the lie of Gant charts and Big Upfront Planning for a few years she transitioned from PM to Scrum Master – and found a method of working with people to deliver great things.

*Please note: No actual immersion in liquid required for this event

After the presentation and any questions we will open the floor up for a discussion,  if anyone feels like they would like to bring along any ppt’s or links that they want to share for discussion then please bring it along on a USB or mail the team with info and we can share this during the discussion period. Don’t forget – you don’t have to work in the industry or be a geek, this is a group for anyone with an interest in the subject!
Please sign up on our meetup page here MEETUP
Do come along for pre-presentation mingling as we will be there from 6.30pm. As always, we welcome men to our group, but to keep our audience predominantly female, we ask that all men are accompanied by a woman (just add a +1 on the meetup).

Where

Bristol Marriott Hotel City Centre

2 Lower Castle Street, Old Market, Bristol BS1 3AD

 

Next event: Wednesday March 16th GGD #49 – Mrudula Gore from XMOS discusses machine intelligence

Mrudula “At school, Maths was my favourite subject, because I could think more and write less! And I was fascinated by small electronic gaming consoles that had come out newly then (20 years ago!) I thought it would be great fun to develop these games and the opportunities that lie ahead; the plan then was to be a computer engineer.

My Engineering degree introduced me to electronics, digital design and algorithm development. Then I realised this is what I enjoy most. Fortunately I found work that let me play with my favourite subjects. Nearly two decades on, I am as excited about emerging technology as I was then.

At XMOS I work in silicon development, building a new breed of microprocessors with wide ranging applications including gaming, media processing and robotics! It is amazing how a bit of commonsense, a bit of maths, physics, chemistry can transform sand into machines that occupy all walks of our lives. Best bit about working in semiconductor industry, I’d say, is silently knowing that millions of people use little piece of silicon that I have contributed to.”

 

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Machine intelligence has come a long way from first program that passed Turing test. We have machine learning integrated in our life more than we may realise. I plan to have a loose discussion about what has been done, what is coming up soon and what is ultimately possible, touching upon philosophical implications of a truly ‘thinking machine’.

 

 

 

 

After Mrudulas presentation and any questions we will open the floor up for a discussion,  if anyone feels like they would like to bring along any ppt’s or links that they want to share for discussion then please bring it along on a USB or mail the team with info and we can share this during the discussion period.  Don’t forget – you don’t have to work in the industry or be a geek, this is a group for anyone with an interest in the subject!
Please sign up on our meetup page here MEETUP
Do come along for pre-presentation mingling as we will be there from 6.30pm. As always, we welcome men to our group, but to keep our audience predominantly female, we ask that all men are accompanied by a woman (just add a +1 on the meetup).

 

The event is kindly sponsored by MixRadio (sadly their last time) and will be at their offices
Prudential Buildings, 11-19 Wine St., Bristol, BS1 2PH, Bristol, Bristol*
from 6:30pm for 7pm on Wednesday 16th March.

*Find the Tesco Express on Wine St, and go through the large double doors to the right (between Tesco and Reed). Go up to the 6th floor via the lifts Bristol

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next event: Wednesday February 17th GGD #48 Susanne Klein from HP Labs talk on ‘The colour of glass’

Susanne Klein holds a Diploma in Physics and a PhD in Medical Physics from the University of Saarland. Since 1995 she has worked and lived in the UK, first as a Royal Society Research  Assistant at the University of Bristol and then as a member of HP Labs. She has worked on colloidal liquid crystals, colloids in liquid crystals and new materials for 3D printing and is now working on optical cryptography.

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‘The colour of glass’

3D-printing, along with other additive manufacturing (AM) and rapid prototyping (RP) techniques, involves building up structures in a layer-by-layer fashion based upon a computer design file.  Such techniques are well-suited to the production of one-off, complex structures that would often be difficult to produce using traditional manufacturing methods.  There has been rapid growth and interest in this field during recent years, and a range of techniques are now available which make use of many common materials such as plastic, metal, wood and ceramic. However, relatively little has been done to develop AM using glass.

Since glass was first made, thousands of years ago in Mesopotamia, it has been appreciated because of its vibrant colours. To allow a successful design and print of any glass object, these colours have to be captured and classified in such a way that they can be incorporated in the CAD design of the object and lead to the desired result in the print. The colours of architectural glass are often classified by RAL charts  or by BS4800:2100 colour codes. Both colour classification systems have been developed for paints and coatings, but are a good first approximation. What they cannot capture is, for example, that some glasses display different colours in reflection and transmission and/or the colour change occurring in glass when it is reheated. In 3D printed glass, gas inclusions are another source of colour changes. Scattering at the air/ gas interface leads to the addition of white to the underlying glass colour.

Using the CIE chromaticity coordinates, glass samples are characterized before and after processing. We used two different measurement methods to determine colour coordinates as a function of sample thickness and frit size to check how robust the results were as a function of the measurement method.

 

Details

After Suzannes presentation and any questions we will open the floor up for a discussion,  if anyone feels like they would like to bring along any ppt’s or links that they want to share for discussion then please bring it along on a USB or mail the team with info and we can share this during the discussion period.  Don’t forget – you don’t have to work in the industry or be a geek, this is a group for anyone with an interest in the subject!

Please sign up on our meetup page here MEETUP

Do come along for pre-presentation mingling as we will be there from 6.30pm. As always, we welcome men to our group, but to keep our audience predominantly female, we ask that all men are accompanied by a woman (just add a +1 on the meetup).

The food and hosting is kindly sponsored by regular GGD supporters HP, there is free parking and feel free to mail or comment on the meetup if you need a lift.

Directions to HP Lab: http://www.hpl.hp.com/downloads/HP_Labs_Bristol.pdf