The Purdue Theory of Mind Conference

Mon, Nov 5, 2007

Is where I spent my weekend, and it was a good conference, filled with smart, friendly* people discussing interesting things. Smaller conferences seem to be much better, ceteris paribus.

Further experiments with my laptop seem to indicate that it may have been a hardware failure, though I’m not about to absolve Vista until more facts are known. I anticipate learning much about Gateway’s customer service in the next few days and do not wish to color the experience with the dread reason suggests.

I may have made some minor progress in convincing people that computational models of mind have some relevance to literary interpretation, or at least that the idea should not be dismissed immediately as unsound syncretism.

*I usually write down unusually ghastly instances of pretentious, snobbish, or generally arrogant behavior at conferences for future reference and amusement and came away this time with only a few superciliates, as I call them.