ervin's piece of web

Some of you might remember that I graduated in october 2007. I finally managed to get the paper version of my diploma yesterday... Yes, more than two years after the facts. The best part is they managed to insert a typo in the title of my thesis on the diploma, so it seems I worked on "mulit-agent systems" and not "multi-agent systems", why not after all. :-) Let's talk about some more interesting information now. I remember when I graduated that some people out there would have loved to get an english version of my thesis. If you're one of those people, I have a good news for you. Just after graduating I worked on a long paper which covers the most core parts of my thesis, and adds some more information about a potential use in information search. This paper got accepted and published in the Journal of Logic and Computation issue of October 2009 (yes the review process is kind of slow). If you're interested in it, you can find more information about it in the [page for the corresponding issue of the journal](http://logcom.oxfordjournals.org/content/vol19/issue5/index.dtl).

My defence was today... at last! I got very good feedback about my researches work for the last three years. That's why I now have a Ph.D. in Computer Science with honors. I guess my official title now would be "Doctor" in some countries, but it's definitely unused in France. In any case it's just nice to see this "complete". I undertook to work on my research topic for three whole years, hoping to add a small piece to the human knowledge, and I apparently succeeded. It's a very nice feeling despite all the difficulties along the path. It was definitely worth it. On another note, that means that I'm now officially unemployed... Well, at least it gives me time to do the stupid amount of paperwork generated by my change of status. We all love bureaucracy, don't we?

Yesterday was an important day for me. I sent the last draft of my PhD thesis to the official reviewers. That means that the purely scientific work is now done, and most of the editing work is behind me. Now I have to wait a few weeks to get their reports and know if I'll be allowed to defend (and hopefully get my diploma) or not. To be honest, I was really looking forward this particular day. Most of the pressure I had because of the PhD is gone, what I need is patience now, which also means I suddenly have more time to spend on KDE. But now, I'm feeling dry. This morning, I managed to get nothing done on KDE. I knew what I should do, I have a few important post-aKademy tasks to do, but I can't seem to find the energy for them. Then, today, my morning was a big nothing... Great way to start... How disappointing. So I decided to go for a walk downtown. Took the bus, and had lunch in a small shop. A bottle of water, a veggie sandwich and a chocolate muffin and I was feeling better already. I don't know why I chose this place, I got there only once I think. The food is not outstanding, but pretty ok... there's something retro in the place which makes me like the atmosphere. I kept wandering in the city: store, bookshop, computer shop, another bookshop... This little "waste time" game lasted for a bit more than two hours I think. Then I decided it was enough, and walked to the bus stop. But, I didn't feel like waiting for the bus, so I kept walking to the next stop. I don't know if I missed it, but at one point it was feeling easy to skip this one too, and the next one, etc. Halfway to my home, I suddenly realized I was close to a park and an area I used to spend time when I was much younger. So my feet led me to the park, completely forgetting the bus line... I was back fifteen years ago. Everything was still here, as if it was waiting for me. Of course, it changed too. I felt like someone who was in a coma and was rediscovering the place. And I kept walking in the steps of my younger self, ended up in front of my old school. The front changed a lot, but it's still here... Too bad it's closed for the summer, I'd like to see it from inside again. And I kept walking, followed the same path than when I finished my day at school... This very long and unexpected walk actually led me close to my flat, so I ended up there, finally reaching home. I knew when I moved in this flat that I was moving close to those old memories... But I didn't realize it until today, walking with no real purpose. It was nice to follow again the steps of my younger self. I'm generally proud of the fact that I kept a child in me, but apparently I lost some of the memories of this child along the path. And now, those memories are back... at last! The only downside of this walk was that I kept a part of me feeling guilty because I was doing "nothing". But I think it was worth it, and it's definitely something I have to do in order to have more energy again for the coming years. I need to enjoy the summer, I want it to be a calm period in my life to prepare a new beginning...

My recent life is so unusual to the pattern it had in the last few years: work, hack, sleep, work, hack, sleep, hack, work, sleep... ad nauseam. 2007 has obviously something special, I didn't envision my life changing so much when I turn 27, but it happened. I'm traveling much more than usual, and it shows on the way I'm looking at the world. It seems smaller than I thought. I guess the trip to Hawaii had something to do with it, it was really different than the places I got before, it's such a mix of cultures. Really, I think I enjoyed it more for the [interesting cultures](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Bishop_Museum_front-600px.jpg) and the [wild nature](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:D50_007609.jpg), than for the stereotyped beaches most people have in mind when you talk about Hawaii. So after being back at home, I had no time for working on KDE and no time for [procrastination](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procrastination) either. You probably wonder why I focus that much on procrastination... That's simply because it's an important part of the PhD student life (well, at least that's what most people say). And, I got a nice gift from my friends here, some of them being also PhD students. I got probably the [best resource about procrastination and the academic world](http://www.phdcomics.com/book.htm). For those who don't know [Piled Higher & Deeper](http://www.phdcomics.com/) it's the best [webcomic about grad students life](http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php). When you're preparing a PhD you have to read it, it makes you laugh a lot... and cry a lot because it pictures really well your current life. So, what was the reason for not procrastinating, and not working on the [changes I planned for yesterday](http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-core-devel&m=118021590631281&w=2)? Basically, because I had only two weeks to prepare the second draft of my PhD thesis, and that consumed most of my time. Why two weeks? why so much time pressure? Well, you probably got it already, I'm travelling again. Tomorrow, I'm leaving for [Calgary](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calgary) and visit [Aaron](http://aseigo.blogspot.com/)... Furious hacking, hiking and working on the final draft of my PhD thesis are on the schedule for this trip. 2007 has obviously something special, I didn't envision my life changing so much when I turn 27, but I learned something earthshaking (which will justify the title of this post): *Travelling has a direct influence on procrastination. If you travel more, procrastination is inhibited.* Unfortunately, it seems it also has a direct impact on your Free Software contributions... But I'm looking forward to the coming trip to confirm or not this point. I hope to prove it wrong.

Damn! I didn't even finish my blogging about the Oslo sprint... so much stuff to do. Well, I'll probably make another post about it, more focused on the results we obtained regarding [Solid](http://solid.kde.org) and what I learned there (in short: a lot!). The three weeks which followed were quite exhausting. First just after the Oslo sprint, we still had quite some work to finish the required refactoring in time for the freeze on the 1st May. But we managed to merge the branch, do the work and have it working for the Alpha1. So you'll get nice Solid and Phonon with kdelibs 4.0 Alpha1. There's probably a couple of cleanups to do until the 4.0 release, but nothing huge. In my opinion, the APIs matured quite a bit thanks to the trolls expertise. Once again it proves that when you work next to other people next door you can achieve far more in less time. We should really keep in mind that more sprints are good for the project! After that I spent most of my time on my PhD... My life was the one of a monomaniac: sleep, eat, write, sleep eat write, etc. But now I have issued the first draft of my PhD thesis! Was hard but worth it, there's only half a chapter missing because I'm waiting for someone else data. That's just nice to finally see something that looks like a thesis, not a bunch of notes and files scattered on my disks. It's now in the lab for internal review. When it'll be done I'll write the missing bit (hopefully it should be straightforward) and be able to enter the official review process... and maybe get my diploma. That's still a few months away though, since because of the length of the review process and the summer coming the (potential) diploma won't be delivered before september or october. Administration takes holidays very seriously here. :-) And now? Well, I'm going to travel again! Actually I noticed that I'm only spending two or three weeks at home between my trips this year... It's going to last like this until [aKademy](http://akademy.kde.org). But, the coming trip has something special, I'll be on the other side of the globe this time, the first time I go that far. I got a paper accepted to [AAMAS 2007](http://www.aamas2007.org) and since I'll attend tomorrow morning I'll travel to [Honolulu](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honolulu) by plane. Since I'm staying longer [for](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Oahu_from_air2.jpg) [obvious](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Oahu_windward_side_beach.jpg) [reasons](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Valley_Oahu.png), I'll be back home in two weeks. I don't know since I'll probably have trouble having internet access (depends a lot on the conference organisation): see you in two weeks!

Ok, this is the first post in my new blog... I still don't fully understand why blogging is so hype recently. Maybe by trying I'll understand. Lot of people don't know me, that's why I'm going to elaborate a bit on myself. **\*gasp\*** I hate this part. So I'm a student in computer science. I try to contribute more and more to [KDE](http://www.kde.org) but recently I didn't have the time to work on it a lot. Recently I used most of my free time working on the [Kalyxo project](http://www.kalyxo.org). I'm really confident that it'll take off sooner or later and the recent news mentioning us recently are another proof that it has a lot of potential. From the title of this entry... you should expect some good news. Ok, it's very good news for me. The doctoral school of my university had just decided to give me a PhD funding. I've gained the right to work in a lab for three years. I'll be underpaid, etc. Ah! The great life of a french PhD student! Ok, I'm sarcastic but it's really really really good news for me! I'll have an interesting job, the opportunity to teach my passion to students, etc.