Corridors and Fingernails

I have spent a decent bit of time wandering the corridors of Heriot Watt buildings trying to find cafeterias, bathrooms, exits, and the like. Why do they design their buildings like mazes? They make Sloan Annex and even Dartington House seem easy to navigate. (Yes, the last two buildings in which I have offices are both rat mazes. That says something about my lot in life, doesn't it?)

Also, I am the early leader in our brand-new Study Group injury pool. I managed to savage one of my fingernails trying to lift an empty lunch tray (in fact, two empty lunch trays). Ouch!

This conference also has its version of Housequotes, which are apparently supposed to be collected for a final presentation on Friday. These objects are described in this article. I already uttered a comment about the well-known "vegetable kingdom" that may or may not have any staying power.

Oh, and I found out a paper on which I played an ancillary role as a grad student apparently just got published in a collection---only 6 years after I ceased to have any involvement in it. I always just thought it was going to just remain a preprint, but I think the book ended up being partly a conference proceedings for a conference from back then where one of my coauthors presented the paper. I got an e-mail about it today, and this was a paper that had been out of my radar for so long and to such an extent that I hadn't even included it in my CV since before my first postdoc.

Quote of the Day (Zurich seminar edition)

Today's quote comes from a seminar I saw a couple of hours ago:

"In this graph, you see this lovely lady in different body positions."


I believe the quote in question is also a Housequote (or perhas a "seminarquote"), as I'm pretty sure the meaning my mind went towards was not intended by the speaker. In case you're wondering about the context, the talk concerned isospectral problems (given a spectrum, determine the shape) and the graph being shown was talking about conformational changes (say, dancing or bending over) that shouldn't prevent you from identifying something as the same object. None of the depicted positions were dirty ones. Anyway, the phrasing was lovely.

Right now, we're having the reception for the Prandtl lecture. It's sponsored by Beck's, so their beer is the only drink available. This is really annoying, because I am thirsty (and possibly a bit dehydrated) and don't drink alcohol. One thing I am finding at this conference is that the quality of certain things is occasionaly being adversely affected by such sponsorship, and it's surprising and shameful to see this at a math conference. I know we see it in many (just about every?) walk of life, but would it be such a crime to have water?

On a similar note, the only water one can buy is sparkling water. Grrrrr.... I can't stand sparkling water. Bring on the tap!

Update to a prior post: I got my missing sheet today, which was simply an official certificate indicating that I had participated. Some organizations require that for reimbursement, though I doubt I'll need it. They reversed my first and last names despite my identifying which is which, but se la vie. (Ooh, Dido's "Here With Me" is playing in the background, though the crowd noise is mostly drowning it out.) Also, I was trying to refind the registration area yesterday to deal with it then but spent a lot of time searching outside and wondering where it was. I asked about it this morning, and the helpers gave me the info but treated me like I was stupid for asking this piece of information. Well, as it turns out, the registration area was moved to a smaller location after the first day even though this wasn't announced in any obvious spot. (I assume it's somewhere and that I just didn't see it.) I didn't even bother to explain to them that when I registered, the place do it was different than where they directed me because there was no point. As long as I could get where I needed to go... Anyway, my point here is that my question was obviously not stupid (given the move), despite the way it was treated.