D:Reaming of the Future

A rare treat for us this morning: I (Annie) was going into London for work, so I got to accompany Chris on his daily commute. I'm not really sure he appreciated me being there - I wasn't conforming to the silent, grumpy commuter stereotype...

While he headed into the office, my commute continued in a more fun way than usual: I took the Emirates Airway (cable car) across the Thames towards ExCeL. Such a great way to get to work!

I was at the ExCeL conference centre for a day's technical conference, looking at future technologies. There were various great speakers as part of the keynote, including the IT Director of Lotus F1 (which Chris was very jealous about, it being his team) and the original creator of classic computer game "Elite", soon to be released as an amazing new version. This new game has data from a large portion of the known galaxy - and so you can explore our real solar system from many angles. Fabulous.

The space theme continued with this last guest speaker, Professor Brian Cox. I'm not his number 1 fan, but he does explain concepts incredibly well. He went through Newtonian Physics, General Relativity and Particle and Quantum Physics in a way that a lay audience could understand. It reminded me of the really engaging parts of my Physics degree - the universe is an amazing place. And just a few hours later that day, I was so proud to see that the little robot Philae, having travelled for 10 years, was clinging on for all its worth to a comet in space.  Well done, little one.

The rest of the day was more down to earth technology advances - interesting nevertheless. I bumped into a number of people I knew which is always lovely at these things. And of course, I stopped by the Lotus F1 stand to admire the car and inquire about technical jobs... ;)

I staggered home with sore feet and a full head...

It's a high ISO, very zoomed image - but it had to be Prof. Cox today really. Things can only get better!