Conference Trips, Memoirs from the Land of Suits and Ramen, Tue, 05 Nov 2013 | written by Simon
Simon with Eva at a City in Asia, Japan

This was the first conference I’ve been to where everything started and ended on time. Every single talk. Wow.
There were a few interesting talks, a few that would be interesting if they weren’t delivered in the most sleep-inducing manner, and a few boring or somewhat embarrassing ones. The usual. Mine was of the first kind, I hope. The issues raised were pretty interesting: the ethical relevance of actions in virtual worlds; issues related to automated warfare; ethical treatment of intelligent robots; human-machine hybrids; ecological reasons to encourage non-procreative and alternative relationships… I asked the author of this last one if he could give his talk again to my parents, he gave me his card.
Yes, this is sake and shochi in plastic jars. Yay.
Totoro Smile!
I met some people, rubbed some shoulders, had some good talks, some decent free food. Conference stuff. I hope it will get useful at some point, and hey, it’s my first time presenting something that’s not aesthetics and it went well.
There weren’t particularly many Japanese people at the conference, very international crowd. The campus looks beautiful in autumn. In the evenings we had some good time with Kazu, his flatmates, and shochi. Time to move on.