Monday, December 3, 2012

San Francisco - AGU Part 1

Todays dinner was the tandori mixed grill at a Indian-Pakistani restaurant near the hotel. The lamb and chicken were pretty good though the fish didn't translate very well to this recipe or cooking method. There was way too much food for me as I only managed about half of the serving. Too bad there isn't a fridge in the room.

Todays AGU sessions were pretty interesting and covered a wide range of topics. One presenter talked about the diminishing thickness of the arctic ice pack and was asked to speculate on when it will melt completely. He said over half of the models said pre-2050 but the current number thrown around these days is 2030 due to the fact that it isn't linear but seems to be accelerating. There were two hours of sessions just on historic data collected over the years in Barrow. One of the presenters was a biologist from Barrow and talked about bowhead whale populations and how well they have recovered. There are about 15,000 and the population is growing at about 3.5% per year. He even gave a plug on how nice of a place it is to raise a family as he has been working there for 35 years. It was a great opportunity to meet many of the researchers I have worked with over the years again. There are more Barrow posters being presented in Moscone South tomorrow morning starting at 8:00

I still haven't made it to Union Square as todays sessions didn't get over until 6:30 and it's been a long day...

From a Google Image search - ABC news
One more thing. On the flight between Seattle and San Francisco, the person sitting next to me was wearing what I would guess to be a prototype of Google glasses. It looked just like the one in this photo except the frame was black. There was a little retangular screen and a camera next to his right eye. He quickly took them off and stuffed it into his messenger bag while sitting down. He just said that it was a miniature computer screen but wouldn't show it to me or tell me anymore about it. I think that it was tethered to his android phone as he also had an iPhone 5 that he was using for standard smartphone activities such as Facebook, texting and email.

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6 comments:

  1. TrobairitzDecember 4, 2012 at 7:20 AM

    Sounds like spy glasses to me. Secret spy glasses. You never know what can come out of Seattle, lol.

    The Indian/Pakistani place sounds yummy even if the fish was a little fishy.

    I bet the talks on the arctic ice cap and whales were really interesting. Maybe not for everyone, but I find those types of topics compelling. It is nice to learn what is happening and see how things are changing.

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    1. RichardMDecember 4, 2012 at 10:38 AM

      I was surprised to see them. I had heard about the Google project but hadn't expected to see anyone actually using them. Supposedly, one of the "killer apps" is using them for face recognition. I.e. you see someone you've met before and their name appears to pop up over their head. I can use that as I have a hard time with names.

      The fish was actually worse than fishy. There are literally thousands of talks as well as many thousands of posters sessions during the week and it is impossible to even touch an very many of them. I went to the climate change talks yesterday since I knew several of the presenters.

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  2. VStar LadyDecember 4, 2012 at 12:29 PM

    Richard I find it frightening to think the ice packs will be melted within 38 years, but totally believable as the temp here today set a record high. I could use the Google glasses to help with names - except I would need glasses to read such a small screen:)

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    1. RichardMDecember 4, 2012 at 12:47 PM

      Even worse is the more common date of 2030 being thrown around is only 18 years away. Not that far away. One of the talks yesterday was about the Black Guillemots at their breeding site on Cooper Island where their food source while nesting is dependant on the sea ice. These are interesting times....

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  3. Martha December 4, 2012 at 7:00 PM

    We always read about those "other" people who were around to experience major events in human history...somebody has to be here, so why not us? Maybe we are them.

    I made some turkey curries recently, but nothing that special. You're in food heaven city right now. : ^ )

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    1. RichardMDecember 4, 2012 at 9:05 PM

      Some pretty scary stuff if we are to believe the science. There were other talks today about sea level rising due to melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. Unlike the polar ice cap, these are actually above sea level and would add a significant amount of water to the ocean. The polar ice cap and the Antarctic ice shelves are floating so they don't have an effect on sea level.

      You're right, San Francisco is food heaven. I don't think that there is a bad restaurant around.

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