Sync

On my way to the final day of the ALT conference I was driving along the Derby Road at about 8.45 whan I heard a bang behind me. A white van had hit a post at the zebra crossing. People ran towards it, presumably to help. I was grateful that I had been in front of it as I imagined the hold-up to the rush hour traffic.
Musing over this and the importance of timing. Right place, right time vs right place, wrong time. How consequences change according to their relative timing.

Our bodies it seems like things to be in sync : psychological science publications
so maybe we get a particular buzz when we share experiences and connections with others? Certainly seems the case for me at ALT-C.

end of day 2 alt-c

Time really does fly when you are enjoying yourself. Have enjoyed all my conversations here whether they were work or social. Am I detecting signs of the drawing together of techies, geeks, academics, technologists ( who may overlap the aforementioned categories!) uniting in a common purpose? I admin I'm an optimist but what a lovely bunch of people. Maybe austerity does bring out the best in us, let's hope so :)

ALT-C conference from a linguist perspective

A couple of matters mentioned at today's proceedings were red flags to me so they can't go unmentioned! Blackboard presentation: mention was made of the psychological impact of voice in provoking greater response. (Yes, people connect through their voices, I seem to remember being unable to ignore my childrens' cries! its a primal thing)
Assessment presentation: Physicist remarks that if you try to create algorithms for marking passages of human writing you could lose the will to live (LOL)

At last! are people getting it? Language is one of the most complex human phenomena (and the most unlikely, to quote Pinker) could it be EVEN more complex than Physics :)

journey to alt-c

Helpfully smooth journey to conference this morning. Highlights included getting my Chris Evans fix and singing along to "Build me up buttercup" God, my kids would be embarassed! But then I am probably one of the oldest geeks in town! Relieved to hear (several times)  that Donald Clark is 54 (or will be in Dec) He's setting the bar for growing old disgracefully, love it!! Certainly got everyone talking and tweeting...

la rentrée

Only had a week off but got so chilled that the thought of getting back to work is quite scary! So much to do, so many people to meet and plans to execute...deep breath!
Created first ever cloud http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloud/view/4545 ready for ALT-C 2010.