PAC Day 1

Everybody from our group arrived safely. But already there were grumbling of unhappiness.

Reporter 1:
During Sunday there was a special student poster session. It create a little bit of a controversy. There were lots of posters, so committee prescreened abstracts and did not visited most of the posters. Some students were not happy with that.

Unlike last PAC the welcome reception (I'm assuming this to be on Sunday evening - Zz) had alcohol for sale. Students were not happy with that either. I think the students were expecting free drinks.

Monday started with invited overview-type presentations. Vendors started setting up as well.

Reporter 2:
This morning (Monday) we were held prisoner listening to the plenary talks as the organizers decided to turn off wireless access to all the meeting rooms. Despite this, I still managed to miss most of what was said. Another notable was that this year they mixed the vendor booths and the poster sessions together. It was a bit chaotic at first but I was glad to see them treating the vendors well for once. Finally, the graduate students were happy today since they finally got the free alcohol they were waiting for, but we old timers on a budget were not as happy since there was no food.

That's nasty to turn off wireless access like that. I don't normally bring my laptop with me when I attend a talk at a conference. I figure if I don't care to listen to whatever is being presented, then I shouldn't be in the room in the first place. Just going online or doing some stuff while someone else is talking just doesn't sit right with me. Still, I certainly do not want to force this onto everyone and cut off the wireless access.

Zz.