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Köln: Day Eight (RWOT Day Four)
Sep. 22nd, 2023 10:35 pmWe are done. I will be doing some traveling on Saturday, then all traveling on Sunday, so it pretty much feels like I'm on the way home.
I feel like the workshop ended well. Due to the bifurcation of one group, we ended up with eight papers in process, and everyone was still making enough progress that they were able to upload a current draft of their paper at the end of the day (https://github.com/WebOfTrustInfo/rwot12-cologne/blob/main/draft-documents/README.md). I think we're going to end up with some papers interesting & important for the continued evolution of decentralized identity on the internet. We had some issues with some groups being too small (including a group that ended up singleton) and some not having enough varied presence, which was ultimately a result of the workshop being smaller than our other recent endeavors, but I did my best to encourage even the small groups to take advantage of the larger community of experts we had available at the workshop, so I hope it will come out right.
Our goal is 3-5 papers (or other artifacts) minimum from any workshop, and our recent completion rate has been 50%. Given the challenges, I think 4 will be about right for this workshop, but it'd be lovely to see 5. (I mean it'd be lovely to see 8, even though I have to edit them all, but that's of course much less likely.)
We closed out at about 3.30 or so this afternoon, and I stuck around to get some final pictures and files in place. Since I opted to just keep my editor-in-chief hat on this year, I spent extra time trying to make our record of the event the best ever. I think I'll record that as a success and seriously consider maintaining this new focus in the future. I always supported a paper at previous workshops because it gave me sometime to do, but if I spend 60% of that time instead giving extra support to the workshop, it's just to the workshop's benefit, and I have soooo much of my own work going on that it's easy to fill the other 40%. (I edited one chapter of the Traveller manuscript and cleaned up the two maps associated with us, which will tell you how much free time I had after I'd done all the supportive work I wanted — which is to say a few hours.)
==
I know I spoke a number of times about how horrible the internet was in Köln (and Hürth), but I'm not sure I ever expressed the ubiquity of that horribleness.
I mean obviously I have scarcely any internet at my AirBnB. I'm lucky to be able to upload these text journals.
But that was true for everyone I talked to. Every hotel and AirBnB seemed to have at the least very slow internet. (I don't think most others were as entirely non-functional as mine.)
The facility that was kind enough to lend us (GREAT!) space for the workshop also had very slow internet, at least on their "GAST" network. Several times I set a handful of pictures to upload to our repo, and then walked away for 5 minutes.
And the data on the cell network was horrible too. It was often slow, to the point where pages (and maps!) wouldn't load. A few times I couldn't even buy train tickets through their app.
When that big conference was going on midweek, things were even worse!
I have no idea how a whole modern European city could universally have such awful internet, but that really seemed to be the case here in Köln. I'm hoping things will be better in Frankfurt, and at my hotel there tomorrow, just to bring the frustration to an end.
(F., my friend in Frankfurt, says it'll be just as bad there because it's a German problem, but that the hotel should be fine since it's "airport people".)
==
After the workshop I as usual got a train that only went to Köln Sud (because Köln's currently broken railway network isn't running trains from Hürth to Köln West during the day for at least this week).
But I had a new destination: A GAME STORE
The walk there was great. I started to have some aching tendons or something yesterday, but I hit them with anti-inflammatories and they were 80% better today and so I enjoyed a walk through new neighborhoods, which included some nice old buildings and a big walking arcade caleld the Schildergasse. I was thrilled to see this district, so different from what I'd visited before.
The store is called "Brave New World", and it's a pretty great store. Two floors of board games (and a tiny room of RPGs), all stored with spine out and carefully alphabetized. The store is just slightly labyrinthine and the end result is an amazing amount of gaming. I don't think I've ever seen a board game store so well stocked (though I've visited some in other European countries that were close).
They had a lot of stuff in their RPG section that was pretty old, and perhaps I should have browsed longer there. But what I really wanted was a fun board game to remember this trip, so I picked up Iello's _Little Town_ and its _Artisans_ expansion. Not quite as unique as what I got in The Hague last year, but hopefully a fun game!
(I didn't pick it up entirely blind; it was a SdJ recommendation n 2020.)
==
And that was about it for the day.
Tomorrow my travel begins. I'm going to head out at 9am to catch a 10.15 train (and have enough time to walk to the Central Station if the trains aren't running from West, which now seems like an option after a week here). That should have me dropping off my luggage around 11.30 and into the city center of Frankfurt by 12.30 or so. I think I've figured out my train ticketing there (a little easier after a week in Köln), so I should be able to just go. I have plans to meet an old friend at a coffee shop at 16.00, and afterward head back to the hotel to see how early I can get to sleep for my 7am flight on Sunday. That should allow me 3 or 4 hours to see a bit of central Frankfurt, which is terrific.
I feel like the workshop ended well. Due to the bifurcation of one group, we ended up with eight papers in process, and everyone was still making enough progress that they were able to upload a current draft of their paper at the end of the day (https://github.com/WebOfTrustInfo/rwot12-cologne/blob/main/draft-documents/README.md). I think we're going to end up with some papers interesting & important for the continued evolution of decentralized identity on the internet. We had some issues with some groups being too small (including a group that ended up singleton) and some not having enough varied presence, which was ultimately a result of the workshop being smaller than our other recent endeavors, but I did my best to encourage even the small groups to take advantage of the larger community of experts we had available at the workshop, so I hope it will come out right.
Our goal is 3-5 papers (or other artifacts) minimum from any workshop, and our recent completion rate has been 50%. Given the challenges, I think 4 will be about right for this workshop, but it'd be lovely to see 5. (I mean it'd be lovely to see 8, even though I have to edit them all, but that's of course much less likely.)
We closed out at about 3.30 or so this afternoon, and I stuck around to get some final pictures and files in place. Since I opted to just keep my editor-in-chief hat on this year, I spent extra time trying to make our record of the event the best ever. I think I'll record that as a success and seriously consider maintaining this new focus in the future. I always supported a paper at previous workshops because it gave me sometime to do, but if I spend 60% of that time instead giving extra support to the workshop, it's just to the workshop's benefit, and I have soooo much of my own work going on that it's easy to fill the other 40%. (I edited one chapter of the Traveller manuscript and cleaned up the two maps associated with us, which will tell you how much free time I had after I'd done all the supportive work I wanted — which is to say a few hours.)
==
I know I spoke a number of times about how horrible the internet was in Köln (and Hürth), but I'm not sure I ever expressed the ubiquity of that horribleness.
I mean obviously I have scarcely any internet at my AirBnB. I'm lucky to be able to upload these text journals.
But that was true for everyone I talked to. Every hotel and AirBnB seemed to have at the least very slow internet. (I don't think most others were as entirely non-functional as mine.)
The facility that was kind enough to lend us (GREAT!) space for the workshop also had very slow internet, at least on their "GAST" network. Several times I set a handful of pictures to upload to our repo, and then walked away for 5 minutes.
And the data on the cell network was horrible too. It was often slow, to the point where pages (and maps!) wouldn't load. A few times I couldn't even buy train tickets through their app.
When that big conference was going on midweek, things were even worse!
I have no idea how a whole modern European city could universally have such awful internet, but that really seemed to be the case here in Köln. I'm hoping things will be better in Frankfurt, and at my hotel there tomorrow, just to bring the frustration to an end.
(F., my friend in Frankfurt, says it'll be just as bad there because it's a German problem, but that the hotel should be fine since it's "airport people".)
==
After the workshop I as usual got a train that only went to Köln Sud (because Köln's currently broken railway network isn't running trains from Hürth to Köln West during the day for at least this week).
But I had a new destination: A GAME STORE
The walk there was great. I started to have some aching tendons or something yesterday, but I hit them with anti-inflammatories and they were 80% better today and so I enjoyed a walk through new neighborhoods, which included some nice old buildings and a big walking arcade caleld the Schildergasse. I was thrilled to see this district, so different from what I'd visited before.
The store is called "Brave New World", and it's a pretty great store. Two floors of board games (and a tiny room of RPGs), all stored with spine out and carefully alphabetized. The store is just slightly labyrinthine and the end result is an amazing amount of gaming. I don't think I've ever seen a board game store so well stocked (though I've visited some in other European countries that were close).
They had a lot of stuff in their RPG section that was pretty old, and perhaps I should have browsed longer there. But what I really wanted was a fun board game to remember this trip, so I picked up Iello's _Little Town_ and its _Artisans_ expansion. Not quite as unique as what I got in The Hague last year, but hopefully a fun game!
(I didn't pick it up entirely blind; it was a SdJ recommendation n 2020.)
==
And that was about it for the day.
Tomorrow my travel begins. I'm going to head out at 9am to catch a 10.15 train (and have enough time to walk to the Central Station if the trains aren't running from West, which now seems like an option after a week here). That should have me dropping off my luggage around 11.30 and into the city center of Frankfurt by 12.30 or so. I think I've figured out my train ticketing there (a little easier after a week in Köln), so I should be able to just go. I have plans to meet an old friend at a coffee shop at 16.00, and afterward head back to the hotel to see how early I can get to sleep for my 7am flight on Sunday. That should allow me 3 or 4 hours to see a bit of central Frankfurt, which is terrific.