Tag Archives: conference

Nov 13 2017
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Daily Post, Interior

Cider tasting

Monday 13th November 2017, 7.40pm (day 2,272)

Cider tasting, 13/11/17

First day of the academic conference that has brought me to the east coast. I could picture the intellectual efforts, but let’s go with the evening’s alcohol consumption instead. These guys (from the Hedge Hoggers company) not only served us samples of their product but engaged us in its manufacture as well, hence the barrel of apples captured in the background. I don’t even like cider particularly, and I’m not saying I was converted, but it was a damn good effort.

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Jun 29 2017
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Daily Post, Interior

Gobinder sorts the blinds out

Wednesday 28th June 2017, 8.45am (day 2,134)

Working the blinds, 28/6/17

Even if one is a professor of information science (as Gobinder is), one may still take on the responsibility of getting the lighting in the room right, prior to the opening session on day 2 of the i3 conference…

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Jun 09 2017
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Daily Post, Friend, Portrait

Daria the translator

Thursday 8th June 2017, 1.35pm (day 2,114)

Daria, 8/6/17

Election day of course — but I’m still in Russia, this being the last day of the conference here in Khanty-Mansiysk. Daria here was one of the two simultaneous translators who worked throughout the two and a half days. I cannot help but be amazed by the talent of translators generally, but to do it simultaneously — like a Babel fish — now that really is astonishing. Will machines ever be able to do this? I seriously doubt it. Imagine a computer that can translate a joke from one language to another on the spot.

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Jun 07 2017
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Daily Post, Interior

United Nations (sort of)

Wednesday 7th June 2017, 11.45am (day 2,113)

United Nations, 7/6/17

The conference I’m attending here has been organised by UNESCO (as was the one I went to four years ago in Moscow) so we get to feel like the United Nations with our own little flags marking our place on the table: spot my Union Jack, there on the left… Cynics might also say that the general absence of activity is also redolent of the real UN, but hey, even they need refreshment breaks now and again I am sure.

If there are any chess fans out there you might like to know that in this room the Chess Olympiad was held in 2010 and will be again, in 2020.

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Oct 13 2016
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Dina and Ellie present at ECIL2016

Wednesday 12th October 2016, 1.05pm (day 1,875)

Dina and Ellie, 12/10/16

Dina is from Greece but works in Scotland. Ellie is from Iran and works in Australia (she helped look after me when I went to Brisbane back in 2013). Both are here presenting in the Czech Republic at the  same conference session as me (from the UK) and other delegates from Croatia and Belgium, helping, in our small ways, to advance knowledge worldwide.

This is why Brexit and the isolationist, racist mentality it provokes is so utterly stupid. I don’t just mean that as a random insult. I mean vicious, ridiculous stupidity of the most damaging kind.

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Jan 08 2016
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Daily Post, Interior

Audience for keynote speech

Friday 8th January 2016, 9.35am (day 1,596)

Before keynote, 7/1/16

My, have all these people come to hear me talk? Well, me and some other people anyway. But I was on first. Ange (far left) is introducing me at this point. It went very well, and a keynote at Cambridge, I guess there’s a certain distinction in that.

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Sep 30 2015
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Daily Post, Interior

ENWI symposium

Wednesday 30th September 2015, 11.25am (day 1,497)

ENWI seminar, 30/9/15

A classic symposium/conference scene. The speaker emotes to present his point to a bunch of guys looking at their laptops. Ah well, probably the rest of the audience were paying attention; although your humble diarist can’t criticise seeing as he’s just taking a photo at this point.

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Jun 26 2015
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Daily Post, Interior

Ceilidh

Thursday 25th June 2015, 10.20pm (day 1,400)

Ceilidh, 25/6/15

i3 (Information, Interactions and Impact) has been a good conference, and though Aberdeen, and particularly the Robert Gordon University campus, has done its bit to help, conferences are in the end about the people. So here are some of them, giving it a right old Scottish knees-up at the conference dinner.

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May 30 2015
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Daily Post, Portrait, Stranger

Sat at the back

Friday 29th May 2015, 9.55am (day 1,373)

Sat at the back, 29/5/15

We are all paying attention, honest. Not an exciting photo (with due respect to the people in it) but I should somehow depict the conference which actually got me to Paris. Last day here, a mixed break, to put it mildly, but life goes on. It’s certainly a fine city, undeniably a world centre.

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Apr 04 2015
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Daily Post, Portrait, Stranger

Conference welcome desk, Friday afternoon

Friday 3rd April 2015, 2.20pm (day 1,317)

Welcome desk, 3/4/15

Staffing the ‘welcome desk’ halfway through the last day of the conference is not the most exciting job in the world, I am sure.

Last day in California — it’s been an interesting and enjoyable week. Can I take the weather home, please?

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