conferences

First day of the Scottish summer school here (SUSSP 65) in rainy-sunny-rainy-sunny-rainy St. Andrews, Kingdom of Fife.

The structure of the workshop is really good: everyone stays in the same dorm, eats meals together, goes to lectures together. It's very conducive for lots of interaction. Much better than say APS, where there are thousands of people and you have to fend for yourself in a big city.

My one complaint is that the ratio of working problems to listening to lectures is to low (in fact, it's 0 so far). Too often smart people spend all their time talking instead of allowing their audience do some of the work. But with 80 students, I recognize it's a hard format for group work.