Table Of Contents
If all my months were like August 2024, I’d be really successful in research. We had heard from Onward! in June with an unconditional accept, though the technical accept date is in August. Our SCAM paper got in, as well as the workshop submission for HATRA (which was surprisingly selective for a workshop). I didn’t mention it in July, but there was also a demo of the GobPie tool that serves as a proof of concept for our Onward! paper accepted to the DEBT workshop. So, my publications page has a bunch of new entries.
- Alex Le Blanc and Patrick Lam. To appear at HATRA 2024: Surveying the Rust Verification Landscape. [bib]
- Mohammad Mahdi Abdollahpour, Jens Dietrich, and Patrick Lam. To appear in SCAM 2024: Enhancing Security through Modularization: A Counterfactual Analysis of Vulnerability Propagation and Detection Precision. [bib]
- Karoliine Holter, Juhan-Oskar Hennoste, Patrick Lam, Simmo Saan, Vesal Vojdani. To appear in Onward! 2024: Abstract Debuggers: Exploring Program Behaviors Using Static Analysis Results. [bib]
- Karoliine Holter, Juhan-Oskar Hennoste, Simmo Saan, Patrick Lam, Vesal Vojdani. To appear in DEBT 2024: Abstract Debugging with GobPie (Demo). [video, bib]
On the non-research front, photos processed in August are up. Had a trip up to the mountain (Whakapapa) to help with a Snowcraft course, went to Rotorua and hurt my back mountain biking after the judo tournament, and visited the Catlins. But, no long trip reports from August.
COVID
The North American wave is on the way down. The new KP.2 vaccine is currently available in the US, but not yet in Canada. Apparently no vaccines are currently available in Canada until the KP.2 vaccine is approved (‽‽‽). Getting a vaccine in the US for uninsured people now takes cash.
New Zealand is still not having a wave. KP.2 vaccine also not availble yet in New Zealand. Probably not the best time to get that vaccine for people currently in New Zealand.
I’ll be hoping that the KP.2 vaccine will be available when I’m in Ontario in mid-October. Until then, with the travel coming up, I’ll be trying hard to avoid it again. I think I can.
Mucosal vaccines are continuing through the clinical trial process, with one about to enter phase 2b. There are also human challenge trials being planned.
- Absolutely Maybe August 2024 vaccine update
- University of Houston nasal vaccine completes animal trials (not the most advanced one!)
I guess there is some chance that a nasal vaccine will complete phase 3 trials in 2025, but it’s by no means a sure thing. Could well work, though. I’m optimistic (but I always am.)
Professional
There was a day that I was working on 3 “camera-ready” (somewhat dated) papers. Good problem to have. Also worked on the TOPLAS submission. It would really be ideal to have 2 more publications this year.
Finished a draft of the revised Discovery Grant proposal, with a lot more related work—this time, I made sure to use up all the allowed space for references.
The turnaround time between the SCAM notification (a day later than promised) and camera-ready deadline was only 2 weeks, which is quite short. Fortunately, we didn’t have to do too many changes. The artifact isn’t quite finalized yet, but we included the Zenodo doi and are continuing to refine it.
We did send in the camera-ready versions for SCAM and Onward!, which I linked above.
There were 17 days with work, which were definitely not evenly distributed through the month. Much more work in the second half of the month when not travelling. There are in principle 21 work days in August, but it’s also Dean Vacation Season and things are usually quiet at the University in August.
Grad students/mentees/collaborators
Another high-collaboration month with mostly calls and some meetings on 13 days. The interesting thing is that, unlike July, the interactions were evenly split among a bunch of the projects that I’m working on. In October I’ll actually meet more people in person at conferences and on campus. September will be preparing for the conferences in October.
Collegiality
I did the TOSEM review that was requested in July, which was really useful to read and clarified my thinking about the subject. Now I think I really know what’s going on there. Just at the beginning of September another review request arrived.
Thanks to Michael Coblenz (running the HATRA organizing committee) for chatting with us and giving suggestions about improving the HATRA paper for this audience.
Trips
Two weekend getaways this month. Neither actually a city break, since Rotorua is not quite a city, and the Catlins definitely not a city.
Rotorua, August 9–12
This was a trip to referee the Waikato Bays Open. I think that is the second-smallest Area Open in New Zealand, with the North Wellingtons at the beginning of the year smaller. Flights were relatively expensive, too, at NZD300 for the round trip. Feels expensive for the flight that you are getting, especially since I chose the least expensive times to fly—including a Monday flight back to Wellington rather than Sunday afternoon.
I flew to Rotorua on Friday morning. This gave me a chance to visit the Redwoods Treewalk, which is one of those elevated walkways that exist in some places. I later saw pictures at night and the night pictures look way better, though I’m not sure whether bookme discounts exist for that time. It was built without harming the trees in the forest: the infrastructure is nondestructively attached to the trees. (I write “without harming the trees in the forest” because it is also made of trees, as well as metal.)
My airbnb hosts, who are about to do the vanlife thing, had a lot of bicycles and lent me an old bicycle to get around. It wasn’t the best fit, but it is a lot faster than walking the 2km to the Energy Events Centre, as I usually do. Not really a problem for getting around town.
My flight back to Wellington was on Monday at 1630, so I figured I’d try mountain biking. The airbnb host mentioned that Torpedo7 had pretty bad rental bikes, but I figured “how bad could it be?” It turns out that somehow the fit was very bad and took my back out for 2 weeks afterwards. Oops. Anyway, I biked the Forest Loop Track, which was 35km of somewhat technical terrain, plus 15km to get there and back. About an hour in, I was like “this is really uncomfortable” and it didn’t get better from there.
When I arrived back at Torpedo7 at 2, I got a notification from Air New Zealand about potential flight disruptions due to wind at Wellington and offering free flight changes. Somehow I couldn’t quite work out if there was any earlier routing to Wellington; I suspected not, and that was correct. But I panicked and took an Uber to the airport, which I totally didn’t need to do. The city bus would have worked fine and saved me some money. Oh well.
Catlins, August 15–19
The Catlins, outside Dunedin, is one of the last major areas of New Zealand that I haven’t been to. It is known for being unpopulated and having beaches and waterfalls.
After flying back to Wellington on Monday, we then left for Dunedin on Friday. (I had gotten this ticket because I had booked flights to Auckland for the wrong weekend; Air New Zealand will let you change ticket destinations for the same change $50 fee as if you were just changing dates.)
Especially over the next few weeks there are going to be a couple of times where I’m away for the weekends but back during the week. Rotorua/Catlins was an example of this. The mountain trips were going to be like this too, but they’re just getting cancelled by bad weather. The overseas trips all happen during the week.
DUD is the least walkable major airport in New Zealand, located 30km out of town. Not as bad as Mirabel (YMX) was, but that’s not saying much. There is also no transit. We rented a car from Dunedin Rental Cars and in fact never interacted with any rental car staff, which is just fine with me!
Around Dunedin
Although I have seen the hoiho, or yellow-eyed penguin, before, I didn’t really like the pictures that I had. There is a sanctuary that used to be known as the Penguin Place, but now The OPERA, which has hoiho viewing infrastructure and tours. (Good thing there is no Dunedin Opera, only the Opera Otago). Along with the Royal Albatross Centre (highly recommended) and other wildlife viewing in the area, The OPERA is on the Otago Peninsula.
I’d booked a penguin tour for 15:45 and we were staying at a holiday park near St. Kilda (I splurged and got a self-contained unit with ensuite bathroom), so we had to figure out what to do before that. Didn’t feel like going into the city itself.
After getting the best empanadas and donuts at Casa Valencia, we went to Tunnel Point Walk. This walk has a really excellent effort-to-reward ratio (“easiest: short walk”). It’s basically a sidewalk but has expansive views of the sea and smooth sandstone pillars in the sea. At the end, there is a tunnel built in the 1870s that provides access to a secluded beach. The waves are intimidating.
For lunch, we went to Dunedin South and had some tasty-enough Japanese food at Hashi. The tempura was not really battered right, but I still always like fried shrimp. We were then super early for our tour, but decided to go there anyway and just be early. I napped in OPERA’s parking lot.
These yellow-eyed penguins nest in the forest, after walking across the beach. So the Penguin Place staff had dug a lot of tunnels in the sand, providing easy access to penguin hides. On our tour we walked by a number of fur seals before waiting in a hide. Just as we were about to leave, one hoiho came walking in, and I managed to take some pictures. It really needs the big zoom lens to get OK pictures though.
After the tour we drove off to our airbnb in Papatowai, right in the middle of the Catlins, where we’d stay for the next 2 nights. There was a stop at Kai Chow on the road, in Milton NZ. Food options on a Saturday evening are limited. Kai Chow had a (large) table where we could eat our decent seafood chow mein, but wasn’t really set up for eat-in service.
The Catlins
Apparently August is hookup time for kererū. There were at least 3 of them, checking out mating options, sitting on the balcony, and flying around.
The Internet suggests that the Catlins waterfalls might be crowded, but they aren’t in August. There were more than 0 other people, but not many more. We went to Matai and Purukanui Falls. Definitely no crowds. We also went to the Curio Bay petrified forest; there could be hoiho there, and you can’t go walking near the water when it’s penguin time, but we were a bit early. Also we visited the Tautuku Estuary Walkway. Fernbirds possible, but no birds for us. Just rain.
We went to Peake’s Kitchen a lot. The burger I had for lunch was great. Also picked up gnocchi to cook for supper. Not cheap, though. I definitely spent more than $150 there over the two days. Apparently they also get busy in summer, but when we were there, just one other party at a time.
On our second day in the Catlins, we went and did the Old Coach Road walk in Papatowai; not super impressive. Also Nugget Point/Roaring Bay, which is. There is a lighthouse with a super scenic view. There was a sign saying that there used to be 20 hoiho on the beach just 20 years ago, but now there were 4.
On the way back, we stopped at the Catlins Cafe where I had a Sunday roast (cheap). Also, Thai food is available. This cafe is in Owaka, the biggest town in the Catlins, population 320.
Back to Wellington
DUD does not have an airport hotel. The closest hotels are in Mosgiel, still 15km away. We stayed at an airbnb in Green Island, 20km away, and ate at Indian Mahharani, with Hakka food that exceeded expectations. Would eat again! An early morning flight the next day got us back to WLG in time for MP to go to work on Monday morning.
So, what did I think of the Catlins? Not many people, though food could be quite good. There aren’t really mountains. There are lots of beaches and waterfalls. There is a 2-day tramp which we didn’t do; I wouldn’t mind going back to do it. It’s pretty scenic, but not my favourite type of terrain. I guess I prefer there to be mountains. (Sucks to be in Ontario!)
Travel planning
At the start of the month, I realized that we needed to plan the fast-approaching Dunedin trip, so we did that. Fortunately, it wasn’t too complicated. I’d already booked the rental car, so it was just a matter of finding somewhere to stay and figuring what to visit. (People like visiting beaches, but it certainly wasn’t lounging-on-beach weather, and I don’t like that anyway).
I was also doing some planning for a trip to Te Heu Heu, but that got blown away by severe gales, as did my trip to Ringatoto.
The main thing I had to figure out was how I was going to get to SCAM and then the NZ Nationals immediately afterwards. I am going to fly to Phoenix, arriving 1.5 days before the conference starts, and then directly back to Rotorua, leaving the day after the conference. MP is going to be on the same AKL-ROT flight (her flight is going to be WLG-AKL-ROT).
I also worked out some details for Toronto/Pasadena/Winnipeg. LAX to YWG involves an overnight stop in Vancouver. There was a Sea Island airbnb (trailer) that I used to stay at a few times, but I haven’t seen it available lately. There is, however, a pod hotel a few SkyTrain stops from YVR which I’ll try out. Not too expensive. Bit farther than Sea Island, which I’ve walked from.
Movement statistics
- 🚶 Walking: 96km on 29 days (10% less than July; no real hikes)
- 🚲 Biking: 140km on 13 days, 26km ebike
- 🚗 Driving: 1135km on 9 days (mostly Catlins and driving to Whakapapa)
- 🚗 Taxi: 8km (unnecessary ride to ROT)
- 🚌 Bus: 36km on 6 days (airports, plus one rainy ride to judo)
- ✈ Plane: 2078km (WLG-ROT-WLG, WLG-DUD-WLG)
Most of the month was in Wellington, except for two weekends away (which accounted for most of the driving).
WalksBike rides
Pictures
I thought that August had only 30 days, but that’s September. Maybe I could have processed one more set. Nevertheless, let’s get this post out. I added 5 new unprocessed sets and removed 8 sets from the queue, so I’m ahead in terms of sets here, which is better than July’s result.
Picture logs still available. As always, pictures are clickable to go to the full gallery.
- Sets of pictures posted: 12 (July: 20)
- Total pictures posted: 523 (648)
- Total pictures in selection pool: 2064 (1828)
- Accept rate: 25% (min 16%, max 47%) (July: 35%)
- Pictures posted on photos summary page: 66
August posts
No Overland Track parts posted this month. I did write some short posts, but most of my writing was for work (and you can see it above!) It doesn’t hurt to link things multiple times, so I’ll start with the trip report that was part of last month’s report.
Two other posts besides that one:
- Book review: Ru by Kim Thúy. Culturally relevant for me.
- Case study: making air travel things complicated. A travel day from 2023.
Miscellaneous
Just some weekend trips (on 3 weekends), but they did not get in the way of maintaining routine.
Medical system
I’d had this cough for 3 weeks and MP wanted me to go to the doctor. The doctor said everything looked fine except for wax buildup. I applied some anti-earwax drops and they seemed to help. (She had actually suggested pouring golden syrup down my ear, but that seems weird).
I had also noticed a swollen lymph node, which the doctor confirmed (“grape-sized”). The NZ health system will actually pay for scans for people with visas that are valid for more than 2 years, and mine is valid indefinitely. So that saved me $300 for a scan that found nothing wrong. There was some faffing with the referral actually having to state the proper immigration status and Pacific Radiology not being able to adjust it on their own.
Courses
I signed up for an online course in te reo Māori. There are a lot of people signed up for the course. Staff seem to be located not far away from Wellington, in Otaki, about 100km from here. I’m plugging away at the lessons, keeping a notebook, and using Anki to do flashcards. Yesterday, instead of doing course material, I thought I would follow along with some of the coverage of the funeral of the late Māori King, which looked to have tens of thousands of people watching live.
Acquisitions
Picked up fixed headlamp charger. I guess it works now? I also got the same approach shoes I’ve bought 4 times before. It seems to keep on being on sale for less. Now I have 3 pairs of them that I am rotating, though the oldest pair is probably due to be thrown out.
I sent two cameras for repair. My RX-100 Mark IV has been broken for a while (water, I guess) and won’t turn on. And I cracked the viewfinder on the a6000 on the Snowcraft course; it’s just esthetic but annoys me, and I can get it fixed for under $300.
Sports
Judo practice 8× plus a tournament; did not take it easy the first day after mountain biking, tweaked my back, and then took it easy for two weeks. Climbing 4× because of a two-week back rest period.
Food
Quite a collection this month.
Snowcraft course
I got to organize the cooking for 25 at the MTSC lodge. I didn’t do much of the actual cooking or prep, but I did bring the food to the kitchen. I underestimated the amount of pasta sauce needed for the first dinner, oops.
In Bulls, Iyara Thai was good.
Rotorua
Pinoy Tres in Rotorua was a counter-style restaurant. I almost never get to Filipino restaurants, but if they’re as good as this one, I’d go back all the time. There was a stew that reminded me of my mom’s.
The other restaurant that I went to for dinner was Yamato. Excellent Japanese food, though I wish there was more air exchange with outdoor air.
Other places:
- Kai Caff Aye: hāngī pie for Sunday morning, when Patrick’s Pies was closed.
- Patrick’s Pies Gold Star Bakery Rotorua: I go there whenever I can; in this case, Saturday and Monday mornings. The garlic & prawn pie was notable.
- The Vnam Kitchen: small banh mi for dinner, pretty good.
- Terrace Airside: after 50km of biking I was thirsty and the smoothie was nice; the baguette-looking sandwich was very much not on baguette bread.
Not going to mention the very average burger from the fish and chips place near the airbnb.
Wellington
Burger Wellington was on as part of Wellington on a Plate and I had three of the burgers:
- Little Beer Quarter (medieval-themed for August)
- Winner Winner (chicken of course)
- Old Quarter (burger wasn’t that Vietnamese, but it was good)
Aside from that, a few other places:
- Angry Ramen: not just ramen, I had good dumplings; they seem to have many Asian cuisines.
- Kind Wish cafe just opened in Kelburn in the old Caffe Mode space.
- Master Kong: I like the decor and the views, but the prices are kind of high for something that calls itself “street food”, and it’s just not as good as Mr. Go’s.
- Pho Viet: legit pho and banh mi
Dunedin/Catlins
See above.
Volunteering
A lot this month! In addition to organizing food and gear at the Snowcraft trip (which was pretty intense for someone who also goes out on the mountain, pretty breezy if not), I also planned a climbing trip to Te Heu Heu which got blown away by the gale-force winds.
On the OAC side, there was the Beaver Valley Climbing Festival which didn’t get too rained out, but then I helped run the post-festival survey. Less fun was fixing the captcha on the web site before Labour Day weekend, which somehow randomly broke. Software is terrible!
Conclusion
Stayed put within New Zealand, but still got around to various places (Catlins, Rotorua, and Whakapapa), and managed to stay on routine for the month, with good work on publications. I don’t mind months like this.