Archive for July, 2007

Always nice to be in Edinburgh, although I’d prefer not to be in a hotel again so soon after ISMB.

Just been to George Hotel: posh, but lots of twiddly bits never impressed me; food was plausible, wine was indifferent, coffee was awful. Staying in the SAS Radisson: good points, free internet; bad points, they have authentic wooden windows to look nice, and a inner draw window which acts as, well, a window. Sounds fine, but it’s single, transparent sheet of glass, 10cm in front of the wooden frame and I nearly broke my nose on it trying to look out of the window.

Ouch.

p.s. there’s a 2cm step between bedroom and bathroom with no function other than to provide a place to stub your toe.

Originally published on my old blog site.

So, I am sure the world is waiting to know what I thought of it; actually, it’s very good. Although it is long, it does not feel flabby like the last book. It is by far the darkest of the books, with familiar object and characters dying off left, right and centre — it’s clear that she does not want to leave any possibility of a follow up. The plot is fast and thick. As previously, she starts fast, then slows for the middle, then speeds up again. I though that she managed to tie up all the loose ends rather well, with her rapid style mostly covering up the technobabble (or whatever the magical equivalent is).

I’m glad she’s managed to pull it off. With the combination of Harry Potter and Northern Lights, we seen two epic serials released. I am sure that they will be read for many generations to come, but only we will be lucky enough to have had the anticipation of waiting for the new books as they arrive.

Originally published on my old blog site.

Spent today walking around the Prata, out as far as the stadium, then back to Lassallestraße. The day was clear, perhaps slightly too warm, but really nice despite this. Good to spend time relaxing before the flight.

Vienna airport needs to get it’s signs sorted out though. The restrictions all state that you can items bought on the transit can be taken on the planes, but then they put security other side. It’s not a surprise really that people get annoyed with these restrictions when their signs are wrong. Now I have to fly without water. Hopefully, I won’t get ill.

Originally published on my old blog site.

Having been in Vienna for a week, I thought I would comment on the food. In general, it’s very good. I can’t point my finger at a single bad meal (although several inappropriate ones — more later). The most common kind of food that I eat was Italian. As a world cuisine, it has the advantage of being the least offensive to all concerned. Both resturants that we tried were good; one of them managed to achieve a feet that I would have not believed possible and cooked a meal which might just have had too much garlic (gnocchi in garlic, chilli and olive oil). I eat Austrian food twice. One resturant mostly served boiled cow; here, I had Chanterelle mushrooms in white sauce which were nice, although the meal needed more variation. The other was for the conference dinner — queues were long, everything was meat, with the exception of fried, battered vegetables. The wine was not very good either. I think beer would have worked better for a meal consisting largely of bones. In general, conference meals were good though, although occasionally dull. The salads were really nice, although they kept running out. I guess the Viennese eat these as garnish, and served them in quantities appropriate for this.

The two highlights, though, were the the bakeries. I had croissant and coffee everyday. The coffee was rich, strong and without bitterness, while the croissants were delicious. The only exception here were the two breakfasts I had in the Ibis Hotel where I was staying; the croissant were stale and tasteless. And, finally, last night we found a Japanese. Not the greatest I’ve ever been too, but it hit the spot. The food was pleantiful, cheap and well cooked. I ended up having a second main meal, although we split it between two of us.

Originally published on my old blog site.

Finally, ISMB is coming to an end. The database and ontologies track had a couple of interesting talks, with Suzi Lewis’ being the day before. To finish off, I am in a Open Science meeting — rather smaller than I thought it would be, but this might be because it was not very well attended, but then it’s at the end of the conference.

Not a bad conference, but too long as always.

Originally published on my old blog site.

Been to a number of tourist traps over the last few days, so here are my opinions.

Zoo: well, lots of sad animals in small cages. They should shut this, move it 20 miles outside town, run a shuttle bus and give the animals more space.

Palm and Cactus House: there were really good and fun to walk around. Smaller than either Edinburgh or Kew, but still good.

State Opera House: it’s okay. It is basically a confusing mix of styles, with lots of twiddly bits on. In the end, we only went there because of the rain, so I can’t really complain.

Originally published on my old blog site.