Tenser, said the Tensor

LSA Update

It's on!  I'm at the Anaheim Hilton, and it's absolutely crawling with linguists.  As promised, I've checked out the various bars and restaurants.  The Avenue Bar looks like a good place for The Linguistics Blogger Spot—specifically, the back-right corner as you're facing the bar (the southwest corner, if I'm not turned around).  I'll be down there later tonight—look for the guy without the purple hair (though it's grown out a bit), wearing all black, looking relieved because his talk went smoothly earlier (thanks for asking), either using a laptop or reading, drinking a Shirley Temple.

Both the Italian and Japanese (sushi) restaurants look reasonably tasty, but the prices are pretty high, geared for Disneyland tourists.  This may argue for having the Friday get-together at the bar as well.  I'll do a little research on local restaurants and bars and see if anything is nearby—the area around the hotel looks pretty spread out, and we don't want to have to walk too far between sessions.

More on LSA 2007

As previously mentioned, we linguistics bloggers are organizing a get-together at the upcoming LSA meeting in Anaheim.  So far, it looks like there's no evening time slot that works well for everyone.  The best one seems to be Friday from 5 to 7, but that conflicts with the ADS word-of-the-year extravaganza.  Various other suggestions have included lunch on Friday or Saturday and having a "spot", perhaps in the hotel lounge, where whoever happens to be free at any given moment can gather and hang out.

I propose the following, then: drinks (and dinner, if you care to order it) from 5-7 on Friday in one of the hotel restaurants (maybe the sushi place) with whoever can make it, plus a hang-out spot to be announced.  I suggest that, as happened last year, the 5-7 crowd on Friday plan to hook up with the ADS word-of-the-year folks after their moment in the sun.  (BTW, I wager 100 quatloos on macaca.)

How does that sound?  If you have any final suggestions or strong opinions, leave a comment.  Otherwise, check back here for details late on Thursday the 4th, when I will have had a chance to scout out the hotel restaurants and bars.

Gathering at LSA 2007

I propose we have another get-together of linguistics and language bloggers at LSA this year.  That would make it the Third Annual Linguist Blogger Social, and since previous installments have been wildly popular, with literally halves of dozens of attendees, I think we'd better start getting organized.  I put these three questions to you:

1. What kind of gathering?  The last couple of years we've done dinner, which I'm certainly amenable to doing again, but I know dinner can be hard to schedule around.  Should we make it drinks in the hotel bar instead?
2. Where?  This obviously depends on the answer to the previous question.
3. When?  A glance at the LSA 2007 schedule shows that conference events finish at 8:30 on Thursday the 4th and at 8:00 on Saturday the 6th.  Sunday is presumably out because everyone will be gone.  Friday seems pretty full: a plenary address at 7:00, a grad student panel at 8:00, and a student mixer at 9:30; however, if you/we aren't planning to attend the business meeting, there is a window between 5:00 and 7:00.

The sooner we can decide on these details, the better we'll be able to plan.  Who's in?

LSA 2007 Schedule

As anyone who has attended can tell you (and I've mentioned before), the annual Linguistic Society of America meeting offers a daunting array of events.  This year on Saturday afternoon, for example, it looks like there are going to be about a dozen parallel talks, poster sessions, symposia, and workshops, so it's important to plan ahead to make the most of the conference.  To help you do so, I emailed the nice people at the LSA, got a copy of the schedule of events, put it into a consistent file format, figured out the iCal format, wrote a few (dozen) lines of Perl code, et voila!  The entire schedule for the conference is available as a public calendar on Google Calendar.

DNA Filter Plates

Today at The Institute I received an email from one of the geneticists that read (slightly edited for anonymity):

Hi, all, sorry for the mass mailing, but do any of you have the DNA filter plates?  Either the Footech XYZ-123 or THX-1138.  We need them  urgently.  Thanks!

Have a nice day!

I am happy to be able to report that the email did not read as follows:

...we need them urgently down in Subterranean Containment Vault 3.  There's a tiny little issue with the Eadly-day Uper-say Irus-vay.

Have a nice day!  Don't forget to use your hand sanitizer!

(Because that would be bad.)

Friends in High Places

Quietly and without any fanfare, an important milestone has been reached.  Can you feel it?  As of a couple of weeks ago, every one of the linguists on my Ph.D. committee has been mentioned on Language Log.

Can you say the same?  No.  No, you can't.  (Unless you can, in which case feel free to leave a comment and declare your membership in my exclusive club.)

Proceeding Apace

On Thursday, I had my general examination, which I passed.  Passed, do you hear me, passed!  They laughed at me at the academy, you know, but soon I will show them all—by proposing and then writing a dissertation.  Yeah, that'll show 'em.

Until then, I'll be basking in the warm, comforting glow of candidacy.

[Note to myself:  Must scribble out "M.A." on all my business cards and replace it with "Ph.C.". ]

[Note to myself:  Must get business cards made.]

Academia in a Nutshell

This last weekend was the retirement party for one of the pillars of our department, though "retirement" may be a little strong—it sounds like he's planning to remain fairly active as an emeritus professor, which is good news because he's on my committee.  I waffled about whether to attend or not—I was (and still am) up to my eyeballs in a language modeling project—but finally decided to put in an appearance.  When I got there, about an hour late, I immediately ran into a group of four other grad students with a worrisome scheming look in their eyes.  They were planning something.

Mountain Surmounted

I don't do New Year's resolutions—I have enough deadlines and unfinished projects already, thanks—but if I did then my first one for this year would definitely have been to do my backed-up school-related filing.  In a fit of industry, I've gone ahead and done it anyway.  I collected the various piles of documents from around the house, put them into one big pile, and started categorizing, stacking, and labeling.  Two and a half hours later, the deed is done.

LSA Gathering?

[Update: Mark Liberman of Language Log has taken on the task of organizing the get-together.  Send him email if you're interested.]

Claire of Anggarrgoon, in a comment on a recent post here, asks:

Is there going to be a bloggers meeting in Albuquerque this year? I don't know who's going apart from you and me. I'm happy to organise something if there's interest, although my regular anggarrgoon site is down (I think someone turned off the server for the holidays...).

I hadn't given it any thought, but it's a good idea.  Who's in?