Sabbatical Diary: Weeks 16/17 / Months 2—4

More personal and suchlike stuff going on the last two weeks, hence the week’s gap. Felt less productive as a result, though some things got done I guess.

I engaged with a range of students:

• some Ph.D. supervising of my newest student, Yaman Kalaji (more later)
• helped out the SRCF for which I appear to have become Senior Treasurer
• did some more Ph.D. and M.Phil. assessment and interviewing

I started wrapping up the EDGELESS project in the sense of getting the no-cost extension sorted out, signing off on the (almost) final timesheets, and other exciting administrative tasks. I also think I’ve unblocked (finally!) the industrial funding project proposal I’ve mentioned previously.

I participated in a visit by a Ukrainian Teachers’ association, answering questions about Christ’s and Computer Science.

I finished the review process for EuroSys 2026—just one of my batch of five from this round accepted (but I think 20% is about usual for EuroSys).

I circulated and got initial feedback from several people on the writing previously mentioned in which I try to give an overview of how undergraduate education works at the University. Feedback was both less bad than I’d feared and more useful than I’d hoped (!) in that I didn’t think it was close to being ready for detailed feedback, but apparently it was. Though it’s already eight pages and counting; looks like it’ll be about ten by the time it’s done.

I also fed into a consultation about end-to-end encryption and law enforcement activity, largely repeating many of the things said to the COSI meeting, which was an interesting chat.

I even did some Actual Science™ by walking the William Gates Building to validate that the building management system’s temperature sensors really were behaving themselves as we’d spotted room temperatures ranging from 12—25°C on a cold day a couple of weeks ago, which seemed rather a wide range. But they did seem to be. Possibly more evidence that sorting the heating out really could have some useful impact on energy consumption (and thus both bills and carbon output).

…And finally! Earlier today I travelled to lovely Brussels to attend FOSDEM 2026 for the first time in a decade. Due to visa issues it looks like I’ll be presenting Amjad’s work¹ on Sunday—maybe see you there :)