h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Went to a couple of events yesterday. http://www.cam.ac.uk/festivalofideas/
The Festival started a few years ago as an arts/humanities counterpart to the Cambridge Science Festival, which has been established for a long time. They are both opportunities for the general public (and children in particular) to get a taste of what is going on in the university, and very enjoyable they are too.

Yesterday I went to a talk by Richard Sennett (Professor of Sociology, New York University and LSE) on 'The Left in crisis - what is next?'. He was very interesting on the contrast between what he calls the social Left and the political Left, and his experiences at the Wall Street and St Paul's occupations.

The second event was a panel of speakers on 'Why do languages die?'. The most interesting one (unfortunately he was on first, and was rather neglected in the final Q&A) was Dr Stephen Pax Leonard, who has spent a year living in Northern Greenland, documenting the language of the Innugguit (Polar Eskimos) - basically devising a written system for a previously oral language. It's a fantastically complex system with 8 cases, and over 40 affixes, giving rise to hugely long words.

In between, I went into the office and did a bit of work on our applications.

Today I'm planning (after the Sunday lunch club) to go the ScienceXchange - put on by a group of people who are trying to start a permanent science centre in Cambridge.

Next instalment:

Went to *very* interesting lecture after work today. 'Adventures of a Palaeolinguist'. A Classicist talking about a couple of ancient texts which he had deciphered as different parts of his research. His PhD was about Greek and Armenian (and he learned Armenian for the purpose!).