A couple of weeks ago I gave a talk at the Third Annual UK System Research Challenges Workshop. This was my first conference attendance (let alone talk) in a while (3 years!), and my first ever academic conference, although the talk I gave was work-related: Containerizing Middleware Applications, (abstract, PDF slides, paper/notes). I also did a brief impromptu lightning-talk about software preservation, with Chocolate Doom as a case study.

The venue was a Country Club/Spa Hotel quite near to where I live. For the first time I managed to fit a swim in every morning I was there, something I'd like to repeat next time I'm away at a hotel with a pool.

It was great to watch some academic talks. The workshop is designed to be small and welcoming to new researchers. It was very useful to see what quality and level of detail fellow PhD students (further along with their research) are producing, and there were some very interesting talks (here's the programme)

Thanks to the sponsors (including my own employer) who made it possible.

I had considered giving a talk on my PhD topic, but it was not quite at the stage where I had something ready to share. I'm also aware I haven't written a word on it here either, and that's something I urgently want to address. My proposal is due quite soon and so I should have much to write about afterwards.