Showing posts with label ICALP. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ICALP. Show all posts
Friday, July 11, 2008
Talk
I gave my talk today. It went reasonably well! No hiking to report today, though I did go to a bar called Boston. Alas, no Sam Adams.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Hike 3: Straight to RU
Also, I walked to the conference on Wednesday, attempting to take the shortest path instead of the longest, as usually appears to be my goal, I know. Just for kicks, here it is.
Conference photos
I'm told that there are a bunch of official conference photos. If you find me in any of them, let me know!
Golden Circle Tour
Yesterday was a bad day to forget my camera. It was the day of ICALP's Golden Circle Tour, a six-hour driving tour around the countryside near Reykjavik. However, Wikipedia has pictures of everything.
First, we went to a volcanic crater - a very regular crater formed by a volcano's top collapsing into its emptying magma crater.
Second, we went to see Geysir (the geyser geysers are named after) and Strokkur, which are in the same place.
Third, we went to see Gullfoss, an amazing waterfall. At one point there was this magnificent effect where the persistent rainbow appeared to be a few feet in front of me to the left and to be out over the falls to the right - I had the distinct impression of finding the end of the rainbow.
Finally, we went to Þingvellir (read: thingveller) where the tour guides claimed, tectonically speaking, that you could put "one foot in America and one in Europe." Obviously this is crap, such a phenomena being impossible to specify that precisely, but it was a cute thought, and it was interesting to see the site of the Alþingi (read: all thing or al thing), one of the oldest parliaments in the world.
When we got back I rehearsed my presentation a bit, but I got frustrated and so I took a walk down the hill to the north shore to clear my head. I give the talk at 3 PM GMT. Wish me luck! Tonight we go to Perlan, which I hiked around on Monday.
First, we went to a volcanic crater - a very regular crater formed by a volcano's top collapsing into its emptying magma crater.
Second, we went to see Geysir (the geyser geysers are named after) and Strokkur, which are in the same place.
Third, we went to see Gullfoss, an amazing waterfall. At one point there was this magnificent effect where the persistent rainbow appeared to be a few feet in front of me to the left and to be out over the falls to the right - I had the distinct impression of finding the end of the rainbow.
Finally, we went to Þingvellir (read: thingveller) where the tour guides claimed, tectonically speaking, that you could put "one foot in America and one in Europe." Obviously this is crap, such a phenomena being impossible to specify that precisely, but it was a cute thought, and it was interesting to see the site of the Alþingi (read: all thing or al thing), one of the oldest parliaments in the world.
When we got back I rehearsed my presentation a bit, but I got frustrated and so I took a walk down the hill to the north shore to clear my head. I give the talk at 3 PM GMT. Wish me luck! Tonight we go to Perlan, which I hiked around on Monday.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
On a bus through permafrost
At 5:30 PM (EDT) on July 5, I left my girlfriend Rachel and her sister Rebecca on a train platform in the southwest suburbs of Boston. Maybe 10 hours later, my clocks had been reset to 7:30 AM (GMT) and I was sitting next to a researcher from TTI Chicago, Prahladh Harsha on a bus to Reykjavik for ICALP 2008.
He mentioned that Iceland's population was smaller than Pittsburgh's - but it tuns out that Pittsburgh is a tiny, tiny bit smaller - essentially they are the same size, a bit over 310,000 people. His hometown of Hyderabad, on the other hand, has almost 10 million people. I had to prod just a little bit to get him to tell me where he was from - most American researchers on a bus in Iceland don't know where Hyderabad is. Most of them haven't worked in Bangalore for three months either. We talked about Hampi and air pollution in Bangalore as the bus drove past raw, cracked volcanic earth. And that's when it occurred to me to maybe write a thing or two in this while I'm in Iceland.
He mentioned that Iceland's population was smaller than Pittsburgh's - but it tuns out that Pittsburgh is a tiny, tiny bit smaller - essentially they are the same size, a bit over 310,000 people. His hometown of Hyderabad, on the other hand, has almost 10 million people. I had to prod just a little bit to get him to tell me where he was from - most American researchers on a bus in Iceland don't know where Hyderabad is. Most of them haven't worked in Bangalore for three months either. We talked about Hampi and air pollution in Bangalore as the bus drove past raw, cracked volcanic earth. And that's when it occurred to me to maybe write a thing or two in this while I'm in Iceland.
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