Our paper, "The Great Chains of Computing: Informatics at Multiple Scales," was on the schedule Monday morning. Kevin delivered the 20 minute talk while James and I sat in the audience, keeping track of the time for Kevin and applauding enthusiastically every time he mentioned the word "Informatics." The overall reaction was very positive. Props to Kevin for giving the best presentation of the conference. Clear, articulate and on time. Being on time alone should warrant a special award. He should receive another special award for the rare presentation that didn't resort to reading directly from the PowerPoint slides.

In America we eat with small shovels. Sometimes we just pick up the whole damn cheeseburger and stuff it in out mouths. In China, I observe, they eat with sticks. Yes, sticks. Eating with sticks is widely regarded as a good way to limit the quantity of your food intake. You avoid even more calories if, like me, you refuse to eat things with the heads still attached. Later today, however, I will violate all my own rules by trying the Peking Duck.

NOTE: I discovered that Peking Duck is not served with the head or any bones.

China. A country with a population of over 1.3 billion people. So far I've counted only a few million, but that was mostly in the hotel and around the conference site. Later today we head for the heart of Beijing, when we switch hotels. We also plan to visit the Beijing Summer Palace in the morning.

Does anyone know the pantomime hand gestures for "We are checking out tomorrow morning at 10 AM. Can we leave our luggage here until 2 PM?" No? We didn't either, and surprisingly the small Chinese-English translation iPhone app I downloaded last week wasn't much help. I know the international gesture for "luggage" and "2" but that didn't seem to carry enough information to make our point. (I think I'll use two additional pieces of luggage I inadvertently purchased to carry home more souvenirs.) We'll try again this morning, when we check out, hoping there is an English speaking desk clerk. I might also check Google for a translation. Ironic, isn't it?

More to come.