That is a LONG Dom clock tower. 

Can we get 12 beers and a social life?

I had my demo today. It went pretty well and a couple of guys stopped by that want to distribute it (take it from me and make money off of it). But a lot of people seemed interested and I hope it continues tomorrow for my poster talk. The highlight of it all was when this local man and his son came by. I was introduced and told that he had just read about the conference in the newspaper and wanted to show his son some of this stuff and decided to stop by. So I immediately introduced myself to the child, who was about 7 and his name was Detre (or something close). Then I started talking to him in a pretty high level about what was going on. All of a sudden, his Dad started translating and I figured out that this kid didn't know english at all. So that's how it worked for a few minutes and then I could tell that the kid was not satisfied. Then I had it: "Would he like to try and use the 3d viewer?" His dad started laughing and said, "Of course!" Detre began zooming in and out of fires and fire trucks and playing with different views. He was mesmerized. It was fun to watch and I would want to do the same kind of thing one day for my hypothetical child.

Well the Stroop Waffeltje was good, but the real reason I put it up was to signify how much we waffled early in the night as a large group. The larger the group, the harder it is for that group to coordinate (which is actually very close to most of what we research on). But not that we actually learn from any of our work, we attempt to have these immense groups of 18 (tonight) try and meet and go get something to eat. We had to wait for some people for quite a while, but we ended up all finally meeting by the canal and picking this Indian food place. Now I saw someone go over and ask if they could accomodate such a large group and the fellow seemed to gesture something like a yes. Boy was he wrong. They stuck in the back of the restaurant where it was hot and humid and no ventilation, yet adjacent to the kitchen. The guy that we waited for to join our group ended up quickly ditching us to follow a girl to another restaurant. Everyone had to take turns walking outside to cool off. We didn't get our drinks until 30 minutes after ordering and didn't get our food until an hour after that. I finally convinced them to let us sit outside for dessert. I don't think that they got much tip.

Well after that we did a bit of bar hopping. We made our way over to a section of bars for the university students. Vittorio and I tried our luck with the chicks and it didn't work out. I sat the bench to wallow about my girl problems, but Vittorio took on Jay as a new wing man and they got a succession of shut downs, my favorite of which was: "Can't you go and talk to some other girls?" Though I think we all learned a valuable lesson from their brave exploits: The first rule of AAMAS is, 1. You do not talk about AAMAS! (when approaching women remember this, as much as you make think that mentioning AI is a turn on, it's not) I think the second rule is 2. Don't tell them that you are from Italy, but I could be wrong.

Luckily, I don't have to get up that early tomorrow.

Dutch-style Demo. Notice the beamer where the projector would normally be. 

Found a good dutch snack: Stroop Wafeltje. Imagine this: caramel sandwiched between waffle cones.  

Look for the familiar hexagons in the background. 

Settling for Catan

Today seemed liked such a long day. I got up for the 7:30am breakfast which meant that we had to leave the hotel at 7:00am! No place opens that early for breakfast, but we got this greek restaurant to open up at 7:30 instead of 10am for the 20 of us. We ended up having greek appetizers for breakfast, but it worked out better than expected.

Unfortunately it was pouring rain on the way back from breakfast, so Janusz and I ran all the way back to the hotel and then went back to bed :) I needed some sleep, because I haven't been getting much. Been wasting too much time blogging... That and having fun. That and working I mean.

Then stopped by AAMAS and went to a few talks and the invited speaker's talk on Cooperative Game Theory commitments. He was basically trying to design non-cooperative games that endedup resulting in a more optimal cooperative end state. I initially thought that the talk was too trivial, but after discussing it with others, I am a little uncertain.

Then we had the conference banquet. It was pretty good. Lots of casseroles, probably traditional. The highlight was cooking your own meat on these outside grills. I, being the nerdy optimizer I am, threw my meat on the grill and went and got other food and came back and it was almost done. The banquet had this Utrecht cover band, the lead singer of which was donning this shirt that said, "Barbie is a slut." Which I have to disagree with, because she has been around for quite a while and has always remained monogamous with Ken. Which is a coincidence because their music disagreed with me ;)

Well, those of you that know I love board games, might also know that I really enjoy Settlers of Catan. I knew that it was popular in Europe so I was upset when I passed a game shop and couldn't find it in the window. Fortunately, Dimitri was with me, who is Dutch and he said, "What do you mean? It's right there." I leave you with the Dutch Settlers of Catan (pic above).

Dutch cover bands rule... kinda 

Everything is blurry at 7:30 in the morning. 

bet you can't guess the weather!