TUCS Tech Talks

TUCS Tech Talks are a series of talks on topics that the membership of TUCS is likely to find interesting.  We aim to deliver talks on a roughly fortnightly basis.

Past Talks

Prior tech talks will be made available from our web site, via the Tech Talks category of posts.

We also have our Tech Talks Podcast

Upcoming Talks

Two Short Talks

  • Presenter: Paul Fenwick
  • Venue: Centenary 473
  • Time: Friday, October 2, 14:00

This week, TUCS will be joined by Paul Fenwick of Perl Training Australia.

Paul Fenwick is the managing director of Perl Training Australia, an internationally acclaimed speaker, and a long time contributor to Perl. Paul is well known for his many conference talks on various topics and off-beat humour.

In his spare time, Paul’s interests include security, mycology, cycling, coffee, scuba diving, dressing like a pirate, social hacking, and lexically-scoped user pragmata.

Paul will be presenting two half-hour talks for us:

  • Facebook Privacy: Stalking 2.0

Facebook. Your friends are using it. Your workmates are using it. Chances are you’re using it. Facebook is already well known one of the world’s most popular social networking platforms, but it’s also rapidly becoming one of the world’s most popular application platforms too.

The popularity of Facebook applications is unsurprising. They’re easy to write, as well as being easy to share and install. However most users remain unaware of what information can be accessed by their applications, and more surprisingly, by their friend’s applications.

Join researcher Paul Fenwick as he examines just how much information he can extract from friends using only the Facebook API.

  • An Illustrated History of Failure

The average individual is given little scope for failure, at least not the type that really matters. The opportunity for catastrophic failure, that influences nations or continents, has been traditionally reserved for royalty, parliament, and others in a position of great leadership.

However in recent times we have developed a profession who have the opportunity to fail like never before. A profession that can make mistakes that are so monumental, so wide-reaching, and so costly they can shake civilisation to its very core. This elite group, rarely seen by every day society, are the foundation upon which modern society depends. The few, the proud, the Software Developers.

Join us for a voyage of discovery as we examine some of the world’s greatest software failures, from ancient times to modern day.

Detailed Programmatic Specificity

  • Presenter: Paris Buttfield-Addison
  • Venue: Centenary 473
  • Time: Friday, October 9, 14:00

Lightning Talks

  • Venue: Centenary 473
  • Time: Friday, October 16, 14:00

Our traditional Lightning Talks are being held as the final Tech Talk for semester 2 — give a 3-minute (strictly-enforced) talk on any topic — expect it to be run somewhat similarly to the 2008 and 2009 talks.