Sabbatical Diary: Weeks 6—9 / Month 2

Hmm. So that was a blogging hiatus, not for any particularly good reason – just a little busier than expected with a little less time in front of a computer than needed.

Spent the time reading dissertations and then carrying out Ph.D. vivas – one at Lancaster University, one at Imperial College. Currently en route to the third, at TU Delft. Having done Ph.D. vivas at a rate of slightly less than one every ~2 years since doing my own, this has been a bit of a burst load. I think I might need to slow it back down again!

We wrote and submitted a rebuttal¹ for our ASPLOS 2026 submission on Amjad’s excellent work. I largely managed to manage my temper while doing so—it’s rare I get a set of paper reviews without at least one of them saying something I consider enraging, and this set was no exception.² Inevitably it made no difference—onwards and upwards to OSDI. This is starting to feel like the Unikernels ASPLOS’13 paper, which I shall choose to treat as a good omen, for now at least.

Took part in the final plenary meeting for the EU EDGELESS project, which was fun. Gennevilliers may not be the most picturesque part of Paris—though the electric pylons did have a slightly Eiffel Tower-ish feel at times—but I enjoyed having dinner in the most French truck-stop I’ve ever been into.³

I also managed to (finally!) nail a complete draft of that writing I mentioned. Time to start circulating for feedback.

Somewhat unexpected work came along: some initially promising interest in picking up some of the work we originally did for CDBB but targeted specifically at in-building heating and energy optimisation. Several useful conversations already, looking forward to taking this further through December and January. Will be interesting to see where we get to.

Less unexpected, though not anticipated, was that I won £14,000 from the School to take Amjad’s work further with the intent to complete on some industrial funding proposals currently in discussion. Unfortunately⁴ at the same time Amjad managed to land a role elsewhere so we’re now in handover mode. C’est la vie.

Next: finally make a start on the two research proposals originally planned, and get the one on Amjad’s work that’s in development through to completion. And to emit some of the posts currently trapped, half-written, in the pipeline.

We’ll see.