Berlin, Berlin

Two busy days being a tourist in Berlin. Yesterday Paul took me touring - we walked over to the check-point Charlie Museum, but didn’t go in. Then up Friedrichstraße - one of the main streets. Stopped for coffee and cake on the way (yum). Looked briefly the vw car dealership/museum - they have a classic combi hippie van on display. It was too clean and tidy to be a real hippie van. Then caught an S train across town to the radio tower (like sky tower) to book for dinner - unfortunately no availability. We then rented a couple of bikes and biked from there through to the Brandenburg gate, stopped at the Dom (church) and had a look inside and walked up to the top of the dome - good view. Then the length of the Tiergarten - a huge, and lovely park. Had lunch it a Bier Garten. Then back through the park to the parliament buildings - the queue was a couple of hours so we moved on. Some of the new govt buildings in this are really cool. At the river there is a 'beach' - really. Here is Paul on a sun lounger - notice how little competition he had to find a chair - it was about 12C.

Then looked at the DTR museum - a new, really little museum showing 'normal' life in East Germany in the 70's- 80's. Paul grew up in East Germany - though he was only 6-7 when the wall went down - he said it was pretty realistic. There was an interesting propaganda film of them building new housing areas, again Paul lived in one of these flats when he was very young. Got me thinking about what they are like now - more on that soon.

At 7pm (8 hours later) we returned our bikes and met up with Adam for a drink and dinner. A really enjoyable day.

This morning it was raining (as forecast), I excused Paul from tour guide duties for the morning and went shopping - it would be too cruel to ask him to go shopping. We meet up at lunch time and worked, yes worked (well I gave Paul a whole heap of work to do) till about 4. We had an hour or so to kill before we were due to meet up with Adam and Paul's mum, so I asked Paul if we could go out and look at the East German housing as depicted in the film. It is high density 'efficient' housing, but way better than the equivalent in the UK or Otara. The neighbourhoods and buildings look well maintained and like people care about their environment.

The public transport is fantastic - we took tram and trains back into the city and met up with the others to go to the bluemen show. Its mime - come drums/rock, very entertaining. We then all had dinner together and I said goodbye to Adam. Tomorrow I head for home.

Lab Visits today

Today was the day for visiting research labs. In the morning Paul Schmieder and I went to Patrick Baudisch's HCI lab at an institute on the northern side of Potsdam. We saw lots of cool interaction tools that this group are working on and I gave a talk on our work. Hopefully they understood some of my Kiwi English - Paul helped with translation a couple of times. We had lunch there and looked at a nice project with multi-line braille displays.

Paul and I then took the train to the absolute opposite side of Potsdam to Adam's lab. The first pic is his room - it is looking so clean and tidy because today was the annual cleaning day. We then went down to the basement to look at some of his slime. It looked various shades of bright green but the light was red, hence the funny colour in the photo. And we also up to the top floor to the slime factory. Its a pretty amazing setup - a building full of labs and equipment, liquid nitrogen tanks in the foyer of each floor.

Paul and I then went back past my hotel to pickup my bag and on into Berlin. It was great having a Paul as local guide to get here - much easier than reading subway maps and coping with the language etc, etc.

I am having a night off tonight in preparation for another couple of days of hard touristing!

I arrived in Potsdam in time for dinner last night. Adam met me at the train station and we took my bag to the hotel and booked in. Then went back into the main street and had Sushi for dinner (so German).

Today I hired a bike and we biked the Park Sanssouci - the summer palaces of the Prussians. It's huge with a couple of large palaces and lots of little ones. Also a big imposing building to keep the delicate plants warm for the winter. Today they were hauling them out. Palms, bay trees etc.

We toured several of the palaces - they all have parquet floors and you have to put on very elegant slippers so you don’t mark the floor. Adam's bike got a puncture at the far end of the park, but close to the bus route so we locked his bike up and wandered back to my hotel.

with Alice

I watched the changing of the guard at Buckingham Place, with Alice - at least there probably was an Alice or two among the 100's of spectators.

I went back up to London today to go the the Victoria and Albert Museum to see the quilt exhibition. The Brighton train arrives at Victoria Station which is quite close to Buckingham Place so I wandered over and watched the new guard assembling in the forecourt of Wellington Barracks. The band played a medley of numbers including the star wars theme. The then marched across to the palace - swapped with the old guards, didn't see much of this, too many people and then the old ones marched back. I then walked up theGreen Park side of the palace to go to the V&A. About 1/2 way up a group of horse guards (well guards on horses) came trotting by - cool.

It was quite a walk up to the museum - but a pleasant day so enjoyable. I spent a couple of hours looking around the quilts. Some were 300 years old, others were made for the exhibition. Then wandered back towards the station.

Stopping on the way for afternoon tea at Harrods. Went up the Egyptian escalators - what is at the top? A 2m high brass head of Mohamed al-Fayed, owner of Harrods and father of Dodi (as in Dinah an Dodi). How sad is that?





The rest of my return trip was through the well-heeled squares of South Kensington, where you can buy a town house for a cool 3-7 mill.

Last work day in Brighton tomorrow - off to Berlin on Saturday.

Sun!

Yes it was a sunny day today, and a bit warmer. About 5pm I decide a trip to the beach was in order. I wandered down the pier - I guess you need to do this at least once per visit to Brighton. Then wandered down the beach and dipped my toes in the water - it was cold, but not freezing.

Otherwise it has been a good coding day at work. Most of the abstract model is done now.

A day in London

Yesterday I went to up to London to see the Royal Ballet. The weather didn't look that good so I didn't leave Brighton till after lunch. I did a whirlwind tour of the 'best monopoly streets' - Park Lane, Oxford St, Regent St, Piccadilly Circus, - managed to buy a couple of pairs of shoes on the way. All the clothes were summer stuff, they don't look very appealing when its 10C.

I then wandered down to Trafalgar Sq where there were lots of groups of Morrismen performing - there is always something interesting going on. It was rather cool standing around so I visited my favourite Constable paintings in the National Gallery (right on Trafalgar sq) and wandered through the impressionists section. Then over to Covent garden for a bite to eat before the ballet.

The ballet was three modern pieces - all really enjoyable. It is interesting to see modern ballet from a classical perspective, we don't get much like that. The opera house is, of course, fabulous - the curtains had the most amazing embroider E R II on the corners. Afterwards it was a brisk walk to the underground station (200-300m), underground to Victoria Station and then train to Brighton. Taxi from the station home. I was home in just over an hour! Reading a tourist brochure on the way home I found there is a quilt exhibition on at the Victoria and Albert Musuem - apparently the first British quilt exhibition. I might just have to go back up during the week to see it.

This morning I slept in - didn't wake until after 9! In fact I have had a pretty lazy day. My one outing was down to the sports club for a swim. They have good wireless down there (no firewalls like the uni) so I did some work in the lounge and had dinner there.

Why did it take so long?

I has taken me all day today to produce the little text list "bda b bdc bd" in the window on the left of the image.

What is it you may well ask?

It's the abstract description of the diagram. Ok I can only do containment so far - ie bda means 'a' is within 'd' which is within 'b'. Next is intersections so the diagram of a few days ago (below) can be describe as 'a b c ab ac bc abc' but thats for another day!

Work days

Just been working the last couple of days. Seems to be a million things to do and too little time to do them. The most interesting thing was doing a seminar today - it must have been advertised across the uni as there was a guy there from architecture and another from somewhere in the medical field that does medical records systems.

Brrr - trying to be a tourist

It is a long weekend here so I have been doing tourist stuff - or trying to, the weather hasn't been to kind.

Yesterday I went up to Royal Tumbridge Wells - a place where the London ladies used to go to 'take the waters'. I had a little drink from the well (50p), it tasted of iron - it's full of iron and other minerals. The fashion was to spend 6 weeks there. I guess 6 weeks of R&R would cure many ills.

The weather was pretty horrid, my car said it was 6C and it was raining. By about 3 I had wandered the town and gardens (nice gardens), got wet, dry again in the shopping center, and wet again. I had thought to go visit a stately home and gardens, there are lots around that area, however it didn't seem so appealing in the rain. I drove back to Brighton.

Gem and Jean invited me for dinner at their home. Had a lovely dinner and long chat till rather late.

Today it was till cold, but only showers. I had planned to go to Arundel and then Chichester - I only made it to Arundel. It is the seat of the Duke of Norfolk. A 'real' castle and supporting little town. The castle has an old Norman Castle within and various wings that were built at different times. The oldest part is about 1000 years old. The family still live there and I think were in residence. There are one of the powerful (rich) old families. It was really interesting but did make me feel like turning socialist. It made me think again about some of the reasons our great-grandparents had for leaving the UK.

The walled garden was beautiful - really nice layout and proportions. Someone must like tulips, they were everywhere.

Back to work tomorrow.

North East of Brighton

Today I did a wee road trip up the coast northwards. First stop was the seven sisters - seven ridges that run down to the cliff. I walked 4 or 5 of them. It was rather chilly and windy, but the hills warmed me up.

What was kinda spooky was the abrupt edge, no fence, just a 100 ft or 2 down to the gravel.

Then I went on to Hastings, which is another seaside town. I had a wander round and had lunch. I then headed inland to Battle.

Battle is where the Battle of Hastings took place. What was the Battle of Hastings? It was THE battle in 1066 when William the Conqueror beat the Anglo-Saxon king and the Normans overtook England. About 6000 men died in the field in the picture - must have been some battle. William built a Abbey on the site a few years later (as penance apparently - or could have just been to rub it in - who knows). When Henry 8th split with the pope he gave it to one of his followers who promptly demolished the Abbey but lived in the rest of the place.

There is a little village at Battle, that grew up to support the Abbey. Some of the buildings date from that time - wobbly windowsills and roofs, but then they are rather old. I wandered along and brought a pork chop for my dinner from the local butcher, the pig was from their farm 1 mile from the village. That's buying local.

More Work - we are making progress

Gem, Aidan, Peter and I meet again today. We started with show and tell. It was really interesting to see their tools which can take an abstract definition of a diagram and generate the diagram. After several hours I had a much better feel and understanding of Euler diagram.

In the afternoon Gem and Peter started writing a project outline while Aidan and I did some coding. We managed to generate correctly sized and oriented regular shaped ellipses from the hand drawn ones - this is quite tricky you have to figure out the slope of the ellipse and then its size, create the regular ellipse on the horizontal and then rotate it to the right slope. After Aidan went off to collect his son from childcare I managed to fix a problem I had created yesterday - as usual it was a silly mistake. Feeling I had achieved something, I decided I could go home at about 6pm.

When I was looking out my kitchen window I realized the view was changing - I am on the 2nd floor and there is very big deciduous tree outside. Since I arrived I have been looking through the bare branches at the hills across the valley - today there are blossoms and leaf buds on the tree, I think my hill view is about to be replaced with green.

Today's pictures are my hand-drawn Euler diagram converted by SketchSet (our software) to a formal diagram. Notice how beautifully the ellipses reflect the hand-drawn version and all the regions are preserved - Gem's task for tomorrow is to see if she can break it. And just in case you are wondering, no we didn't do all this today. I had started on the program before I left home - but it is build on another program that Hong Yul (a research assistant) wrote for me in Auckland. So really I have just been hacking his code (and he won't like the mess).

Lots of working

I have got into work mode the last couple of days. Peter, the 4th member of our project team, came down from Kent yesterday and we spent the day discussing exactly what we are trying to do and then actually trying to do some of it. After work we went for dinner and a pint in a 'traditional' pub. They had a good selection of traditional pub meals - bangers and mash, pie pea and mash....

The next couple of days will be work too - then it is a long weekend here. I have rented a car and will do a bit of a wander around the SE of England. Not sure where, I think I will let the car decide :-)

Work day

I am now at Brighton Uni and working on our sketching Euler diagrams project. Its been a productive day getting things organized with Gem and Aidan - but I won't bore you with the technical details ....

Yesterday I wandered into town and brought a few bits and pieces - generally had a lazy day. Forgot to take my phone, so no photos. This morning I went for an early walk up on the downs, but it was foggy so no photos from that either.

beautiful sunny Saturday in Brighton

I am adjustmenting to things being the 'right way round' . Cars on the left, switches down for on, tips for good service rather than just added to the bill.......

Gen and her partner took me to a National Trust Garden today. It was a fabulous day for it, warm and sunny. And they have a bluebell wood. I have always wanted to see wild bluebells and now I have and they are very nice. They should be at peak flowering now, but it was a cold winter and they are a week or two late. There were lots of other spectacular flowers around, daffs rhododendron, huge white and pink tulip magnolia trees. Above Gem and me outside the door of my new home (not)

Miracle - I am in Brighton

The planes went, pretty uneventful, a small delay landing at Heathrow, but that isn't out of the ordinary.

Gem and Aidan from Brighton Uni have been fantastic - met me at the bus in Brighton. Feed me, took me supermarket shopping and brought me up to my flat. It's a student flat on the uni's Falmer Campus, a bit up the hill from the town. They got me set up and then went off for a well earned beer.

I did a bit of unpacking and then decided I should go check out the pool. Gem organized membership to the sports club here - gym, racket sports, pool, classes, all very nice. About 15 mins up and down the outdoor pool (nice) and I was knackered. But at the same time it feels really great to have my first swim for 3 weeks.

I think it's nearly time to crash!

Last morning at Blue Ridge (I hope)

We went for a proper bush walk yesterday - 5.7 miles. It was very pleasant, we didn't see any bears :(, but we did see a few impressive centipedes.

Its a beautiful morning here. I have just been for a stroll up the road and taken this photos. Now its time to get busy and pack!

Sure hope we get to Heathrow tonight - Steve is on the same flights as me.

London looks possible

Today was rainy here, but very pleasant. The dogwoods are flowering. There are some like the one here that look like they were planted, and others are scattered through the forest. Between the three of us we have seen a variety of wild life. Deer, porcupine, and some sort of anteater thing. lots of butterflies and birds and a pretty cool centipede - unfortunately I didn't have my camera.

Looking like I might actually make it to the UK!

Still in Mountains

So this is what geeks do when they are stranded in the mountains. We found a cable on 1 TV that would link to Steve's computer and went and brought 2 more for Ann and me. My bedroom TV is now my big screen. Yeah!

Seems like airports are opening so an end might be insight. With a bit of luck we will have timed it right. We are all on Thursday flights - people who had flights canceled today are re booked for 1-2 May.

cross fingers!

Chi Refugee Camp

Kicked around Atlanta yesterday. Went to the coke museum - Atlanta is the home of coke - it was kinda depressing, felt like they were trying to brain wash you (every bottle of coke is full of love, happiness and joy or some such drivel). However you could do a study on the history of marketing there because they had coke signage, packaging etc for the last 120 years.


Also toured the hotels around where we were staying with Ann Morrision, a Kiwi who has been working in Finland. They are quite spectacular - above is the inside of the Marriott from the 45th floor. Spent too much time looking at airport reports and wondering what to do - go home or stay, when is it going to end? I have a booking for Thursday - who knows if it is going to happen. In the end decided to stay and reassess if nothing has changed by Thursday.

Anyway Ann, Steve Brewster from Glasgow and I have joined up rented a 'cabin 'in the blue ridge mountains, hired a car and headed out of town. It is wonderfully peaceful, not another house in sight, although there are many tucked into the trees. Clink the link on cabin to see - yes it really does look like that, but better cause the leaves are just out and brilliant green. We have heaps of room, and it is fantastically set up - and cheaper per night than one hotel room in Atlanta. It has internet so we plan to just hang and work.

Darn Volcanos

so conference started the morning with the news that all flights to the UK today were cancelled. Then it went to half of Europe. A good percent of the UK people were supposed to fly out tonight so there was a great flurry of people going to rebook flights, find hotels etc.

After the usual presentations the conference finished this evening with a keynote on the ethics of robots by an English professor Noel Sharkey. Seriously thought provoking stuff. Questions like what are the roles of robots in war? Do they conform to the Geneva Convention? (sometimes) When is robot care appropriate for children and elderly? All very interesting.

I am supposed to fly out tomorrow evening. Can't figure out at the moment whether flights are likely go or not. Think I will just go to bed and worry about it in the morning.

Conference Day 3

Chi is a busy, crazy conference. There is always such and amazing array of the weird and wonderful. I have been hopping from session to session. Seems to be yet more on-screen pie menus and keyboards. Quite a bit of mobile, as you would expect. Not as much touch and multi-touch as I thought.

Tonight was the conference reception at the Atlanta aquarium - amazing place. I think there were 4 huge tanks, topical, whales, Atlantic coast and rivers. Then lots and lots of little tanks - best were the jellyfish and sea dragons.

Sorry if I haven't replied to emails, the Internet access here is pretty hit and miss. Too many Computer Scientists around

Conference Day 1

Today started with a keynote address. It was an Anthropologist named Genevieve Bell who works for intel. She looks at how people are using technology in their everyday lives, in their homes, at work, play etc. She is an Australian, though she has lived in the US for years. She was amusing, knowledgeable and challenging all at the same time - great keynote. I gather she has a book coming out soon. It will be worth reading.

Then there were paper sessions and breaks where there is lots of socializing. The exhibition hall opened after the last session of the day with nibbles and drinks and more socializing. A good chance to catch up with all sorts of people, from all round the world. I didn't look at the exhibitions, too many people, will do this another day. I did do the rounds of the day's posters and photographed a few of interest - easier than writing titles down. Will feed them back to the relevant people when I get to the UK, the Internet connection here is too slow.

Atlanta day 2

Two days of workshops has been pretty full on.

The first day was on multi-touch interfaces which is not central to my research. It was interesting to see some of the different things that people are doing. There is much more happening in this area with the iphones and lots of touch screens on desktops etc. Much of the research presented was on public displays. Perhaps we could do more in this area. We went to restaurants for lunch and dinner - more on this later.

Today's workshop was on sketching - it was interesting to meet some of the people in the community who I haven't meet before. We had lots of lively discussion, which is great. Out for lunch and dinner again.

To the meals - I have a new approach to ordering. First select something that looks like it will be small, an appetizer is a good choice. Then eat about 1/2 of it. This is more than sufficient. That said most of the food is nicely presented and pretty tasty - just too much.

I am tired, still not in the zone - probably get it about sorted by time I leave :-) Its 9.30 here so I will try for an early night. Conference proper starts tomorrow.

NY - Atlanta

Now I am in Atlanta. Talk about a change of pace!

They have a great train from the airport that goes right through downtown - cost $2 (better than the $50 taxi from JFK). I arrived at 6pm and the station was nearly deserted.

There are gaps between the buildings.

My bed is about the size of the whole room in NY and the shower the size of the bathroom - no I am not joking. And it costs about 1/2 as much a night. I have a corner room with a view in two directions - high rise one way, out to green treed suburbia the other. NY was cool to visit, but why would people want to make it home? Enough already.

Went and registered for the conference - Rachel & Paul, met Sonja from Munich at registration. Finished my presentation for tomorrow on the plane, so all ready for the next phase of the trip.

NY Day 3

Did the bus around Brooklyn today - I hadn't realized it was a completely separate city untill not long ago. it even has its own zoo. Then walked all the way up Broadway from Battery Park at the south tip of Manhattan to Time Square where I as staying - 8kms - it keeps on going for another ~12kms. It's the longest street in NY (just a bit of trivia you really need to know). It was interesting, through the financial district (wall st). Past ground zero, which is well and truly a construction site now. Then there is a bit which is $2 shoppish. Then home stores and a few antique shops. Then back into department and chain stores. There were some really interesting looking people along the way. Would have loved to have taken photos of a few, but thought 'better not'.

Tonight I went on a Harlem tour. Dinner at a Harlem restraurant and then to a jazz club. Most ot the people on the tour were French.

Grant asked what I have been eating - I have been trying to do the NY thing. Bagel and coffee for breakfast. NY Deli lunch, but today was hotdog from a street stand. Dinners have been Italian pasta, steak, and tonight soul food. Tried a couple of cakes - there's lots of bakery shops. I have decided that there is an inverse relationship between the look and the taste.

Best go to bed and try to go to sleep. It's 1am and I'm wide awake - I haven't been waking up till about 9.00, but that will have to change cause the conference starts on Saturday. Leave here tomorrow afternoon for Atlanta.

NY Day 2

Thank you to the inventor of zip off pants! Today was hot - 85f (29C). I started with the hop-on-hop off bus and went all the way round central park this very tame little squirrel was hard at work.

Amazing how the people change block-by-block. First its the apartments of the rich and famous - then suddenly its the Spanish and then the African Americans - its like changing countries -- no foreigners allowed. Back down the other side of the park, museum alley :-)




After that it was 5th ave - the apple store (didn't buy an ipad, but I was tempted), Tiffany's, saks 5th Ave, magnolia bakery (made famous by sex in the city) - nice not very German, German chocolate cake, the Rockefeller centre - the ice was melting.

And tonight a Broadway show starring Catherine Zeta-Jones, then I just sat in Time Square and people watched. There were 100's may be 1000's, just hanging out. New Years eve must be crazy.

NY Day 1

It's spring here - blossoms, tulips, daffodils everywhere. Macy's had a flower show all through the ground floor.... it enticed me in and I shopped (just a wee bit).

Feel like I walked miles today, wandered down Broadway and 5th avenue and then got on one of the hop-on buses and finished the downtown loop. also across the bridge to Brooklyn. Tomorrow maybe uptown.

Bagel for Breakfast

I am in the big apple - there was only one thing to have for breakfast, bagel and coffee. Picture of me in times sqaure - ok, i need to practice self portrait photography!

Trip over uneventful, room would double as a shoebox (but I guess that's to be expected). Time to go out and explore.

New Blog

From time to time I will put trivia here.