Dagstuhl side trip
Last Updated: December 6, 1999
I went to Dagstuhl for the Geometric Design workshop. I took a
train from Amsterdam to Mainz, changed trains in Mainz, and arrived
in Neubrücke. From there, a conference shuttle bus took us to the
conference center.
Train ride to conference
I took the train from Amsterdam to Neubrucke, with a change in
Mainz. The ride was mostly uninteresting, but the to Mainz is
along the Rhine (which appeared to be flooding when I went by).
Parts are quite scenic, with several castles along the part just
south of Koblenz.
The Conference Center
The conference location is remote. It's in the moutains, and there
aren't many people around. The conference center has two parts.
They call the old part a castle, even though it clearly isn't.
However, it's an interesting building to explore, with lots to
look at. The new building oddly enough is designed like a castle.
There is a circular "tower" in the center where the talks are
held (and they have a library and computer room). This tower
is surrounded by a "wall", which is really a section of "hotel"
rooms.
Just behind the conference center are
the ruins of the old Dagstuhl castle, which is worth a look.
The Conference Walk
The
conference organized a walk one afternoon. Most of the attendees
went. They walked us to a pub where we had cake, etc. Aftwards,
a group of five of us lagged the main group. We went down a dirt
road, through some woods. When we got to the main road, we couldn't
see the main group. No problem, one of our group knew how to go.
15 minutes later we were back at the conference center. The place
was deserted. Where was the other group? About 1 hour later they
arrived. Apparently, when they came out of the woods, they turned
the other way (the wrong way) and got lost.
The Disaster talk
Michel Bercovier gave a talk in which two of a speaker's worst
nightmares were realized. He put his talk on his PC, and plugged
it into the projection system. It didn't work. Since his talk
was first, the session chair rescheduled it second and had the
second speaker talk first. Bercovier went to talk to the technician
during this time, and came back to try again. Again he plugged in
his PC. Again it didn't work. So the chair rescheduled him to be
the third and last talk. This time, Bercovier came back with the
technician, who plugged the PC into the AV equipment himself. Again,
it didn't work. The AV guy got a second projector which they knew
worked with Bercovier's PC and set it up.
And the second projector worked with Bercovier's PC. But now
fonts were poor. So they fiddled with fonts for 5 minutes
before finding one Bercovier was happy with. And so the talk
began, and Bercovier goes to his second slide and encounters
the second problem: there is no second slide. He checks the
file: it's corrupted. Fortunately he has a backup. Alas, it's
a 0 length. He does a system search, finding nothing.
Becovier's talk was rescheduled for the next day, at which time
he gave it without any problems.