I didn't enjoy CTAC as much as I could have, but mainly due to the weather. Sydney was cold and rainy...not fun. The conference itself was not bad though, especially since I'm no computational mathematician, so it is kind of out of my interest zone. If anything, my interest would be tied to computational linear algebra, but there wasn't much on offer. It was quite heavily focussed on computational fluid dynamics. Although, there is a rumour that it will be better next time because we are most likely hosting CTAC in Brisbane in 2012.Talks of interest
Some good talks that I saw included Qianqian Yang's - numerics for fractional diffusion equations. I think I've basically seen it before, but I think it's cool stuff, so it was good to watch again. Eventually I will understand that stuff. I didn't get to see Tim Moroney, Michael Dallaston or Julian Back though. My student Masoum did pretty well. Unfortunately she had to follow me and I already explained chlamydial infection in my talk, which took away from her description I think. However she did well in that her description was more detailed than mine and also more specific to her problem, so I was very pleased with it. She also showed that she knows what she is talking about, both in the biology and in the simulation area.
My own talk went pretty well considering I wrote the entire thing about 12 hours (most sleeping hours) prior to delivering it. I went with the "I'm a research group leader and don't actually do any work, so here's an overview of the problem before my student actually tells you something" method. It seemed to go ok. I think it was good for me too to actually get back into thinking about the basics of the problem.
Chairing
I chaired one of the three (simultaneous) final contributed talk sessions, featuring Fawang Liu, Mike Hsieh and a Professor Watanabe from Japan. It turns out that people who you expect to be troublesome and go over time, aren't/don't always! So that was good. We were basically on time. Not many questions though for the speakers, except Mike who got a couple.
Venue
I have been to UNSW before, so I knew what to expect. It's an interesting campus in that it is a hybrid between a technical institute and a Go8 university. The hybridisation being over time rather than a current one.
It's nice to walk around and see these ugly old concrete blocks or really ugly brick buildings with the concrete crumbling away at the edges to reveal the steal formwork beneath, and then right next to it, see a beautiful (faux?) sandstone building or modern architecturally designed building full of glass and weird angles. Plus, knowing that it used to be NSWUT and is now one of the top 5 unis in the country on pretty much any measure you can find makes me wonder where QUT will be 60 years into its life... Oh, and they had blackboards in the main lecture room! Vive la chalkdust!
Lodgings
I stayed at the Parade Lodge, just down ANZAC Parade about two blocks away from the main entrance to UNSW. In reality, it wasn't that bad. There was plenty of room, private bathroom, a fridge, a window and relative peace and quiet. It was by no means fancy, it was very simple like a big dorm room I guess (not that I've really been in one of them), reasonably clean...but: the internet was super shoddy AND I had to pay for it. I hate that in Australia, internet is not free in hotels/lodges. Horrible. Fortunately I had my tetherable phone and 1G of available data - which I more or less used up.Food and Culture
Was great, if only because I found a Colombian restaurant staffed by actual Colombians!!! I had a huge feast of empanadas and very spicy salsa, then a big plate of Bandeja Paisa (see picture) with a lulo juice. Great first day. On the Sunday I took the day off essentially and went into Sydney to see the Annie Liebovitz exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art. It's not really my thing, but she does interest me a little (although Susan Sontag is much more interesting to me...but they have an obvious connection) plus Charisse went when she was in Sydney, so I went for a look. I didn't really like the portrait shots, but the real action photos of her and Susan I found really interesting and enjoyed those.
Sunday also featured a solo meal at the Lowenbrau cafe at the Rocks - yummy preserved meats and veges with bread a litre of beer. Yum. And also dinner with A/Prof Wilson and Mrs Wilson at Surry Hills - tasty pizza at Pizza e Birra. Also yum. On the way to the Wilson's I took refuge in a corner pub while it rained - I love these little pubs they have in Surry Hills (and I'm sure, other places that I haven't been to). They are just like a lounge room that happens to have a bar behind it. I managed to come in just as three Aussies gave some poor pom a hard time for supporting a soccer team that wasn't his home town team, but a more successful side. Very amusing. Although, we were copping it on the tv screen in the test cricket at the time, so the pom was ok with it.
The conference dinner was good but nothing amazing. Italian food - not bad...poor beer selection. Afterwards, the boss tried to convince us to walk to the SCG (about 3km away) to do a nudey run...but some party pooper (cough-Elliot) made us turn around. So we just had some beers at the Doncaster.-----
I guess not much else of interest happened. That will do!
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