dotAstronomy: first day impressions

a colleague of mine joked before i came to this dotAstronomy workshop, that it would be a bunch of science, technology, and astronomy dorks sitting in a room twittering to each other and the world. i chuckled and reluctantly agreed, but really, i had no idea:


the laptop to human ratio in the main conference room is very nearly 1! the mac to human ratio is only slightly less than one, and i'm guessing the iPhone to human ratio is quite high too, but cant be exactly one because i dont own one! i admit it, i'm not an iPerson. i kinda wish i had one though, because there are all sorts of great sessions this week on various applications.

anyway, the venue for the workshop is amazing! i have my own office:


but i'm a bit worried that the elevator has a "gravity" switch!?


they keep us properly loaded with coffee.


we heard a nice talk by chris lintott and arfon smith about the galaxy zoo.


and ironically, there is a constantly-morphing schedule of events on a white board in the coffee room. there is NO accurate digital version of this plan of events!


and riding bicycles with a group of astronomers back to the hotel was amusing; the rental bikes here in holland only have foot breaks. the process of locking the bikes was even more hilarious....