Beyond Monopoly!

Beyond Monopoly: so much to play!

Transforming an SDF model to an Uppaal model is a relatively straightfoward powerset construction. It will be interesting to see if and how that can be formulated as a rule in Epsilon though. If it can't, there is my first research question. If it can, then the same principle should be applicable to pretty much any operational semantics, so maybe we can make something out of that. Either way, progress!

This morning, still barefoot, I stepped into a puddle of rather cool water. This was the outcome of turning off the freezer. So, you will say, now you know why you shouldn't turn it off! Hah I say, you just mixed up cause and effect: the thing had been running continuously for so long that a good deal of ice had accrued - it was in bad need of defrosting.

Stepping barefoot into a puddle of rather cool water will wake you up like nothing else. So, very much awake and with no other agenda points until about 17:00 (see below) I got quite a bit further with my case study; the main insight of which (if it deserves that word) I summarised in the first paragraph above.

As usual, the day was interspersed with other activities, although a lot fewer of them than back at home. There has been a trial visitation of the Computer Science curriculum yesterday at which the Examination Board was grilled and apparently could have given a better show. Well, that will save us from becoming too complacent, but since we are actually running pretty smoothly I think we will have our act together when the time is there. Then there is the FASE 2014 paper deadline tonight for which 150 or so final manuscripts are being uploaded by 150 teams of authors polishing their work until the last possible moment: we have had to refuse about 10 deadline extensions and 1 page limit extension.

At lunch (pumpkin soup) I met some more PhD students, among others Yasmin Rafiq, a student of Radu's (with whom I had lunch yesterday). She seemed very quick and clever and helped me sharpen my understanding of what they are trying to achieve on a technical level, and where they are with that right now. Let's say that some people are better at explaining the dividing line between vision and fact than others.

During the soup Suzanne showed up with a home-baked cake that we absolutely had to finish. This was no punishment, and took care of the hunger pangs for a while - which in turn was a good thing, for at 17:00 my agenda showed a visit to "York's friendliest boardgame club", Beyond Monopoly! (slogan and exclamation mark theirs). It's pretty much opposite "York's shabbiest cinema" which I visited last Sunday - but this time of course I was by bike, which saves about 50% off the travel time during rush hour.

Gaming hours are from 17:00 to 21:00 (strict), which is early but apparently dictated by the venue, the Bar Convent. (Does that name sound like a contradiction in terms to you? The word "bar" here means something else than you might think, it's inspired by the gates in the medieval wall which are called bars.) They kindly allowed me to put my bike in a small courtyard inside, which was good since Blossom Street is wide and full of cars, with no place to put a bike.

The atmosphere was quite exactly what I'm used to, though the average age is a lot higher - surprisingly this is not at all a student club. I played Richelieu (a bit tame), Krakow 1325 AD (absolutely pointless, despite having been designed by a Dutchman) and Medici (simple and elegant, by far the best of the three), topped off by a quick game of 7 Wonders, which I won by Willem-Jan's strategy of grabbing every science card I could lay my hands on - which can only succeed if the other players aren't on to you, meaning only once.

At 21:00 the effects of Suzanne's cake had definitely evaporated, so it was off to Morrisons to walk those new food avenues, then back home to turn the freezer back on and try the microwave on Steak & Ale with Cheesy Mash. I have to admit that this did nothing at all for my conviction that instant food could form the backbone of my diet for the next three and a half months: though the package says "tastes of home" my primary associations were with airplanes and/or hospitals - you take your pick.