HOLY FUCKING SHIT YOU GUYS! THE MACHINE QUESTION SYMPOSIUM!

[wolven7]

This came in the email, today:

Damien,
Congratulations, your submitted abstract has been selected for inclusion in the poster session at AISB/IACAP 2012 World Congress in Birmingham, UK from 2-6 July 2012. Currently we do not have exact dates for the poster session, but this information will be provided shortly.

You should now begin working on a draft of your full paper and plan to get the document to us by 15 May 2012. We ask that all papers be in AISB format and submitted as ?camera ready?. Please send us your completed document as PDF by the due date of 15 May 2012.

This first version of your paper will be published in the conference proceedings and distributed to all participants at the congress. You will retain copyright over this publication. We also plan to solicit and publish revised articles in a dedicated issue of an academic journal after the event. The exact publication will be discussed during the symposium, but we welcome communication on this now.

Please access the symposium web site http://machinequestion.org/symposium for additional information about the meeting and links to related sites. Registration and accommodation information can be found at http://events.cs.bham.ac.uk/turing12/registration.php Please note that AISB/IACAP will accept early registration up to 1 June 2012. After that date, we expect registration rates to increase significantly.

Please contact David Gunkel ([Email Redacted]) and/or Joann Bryson ([Email Redacted]) with any inquiries, concerns, or comments.

Thank you again for your interest in the symposium, and we look forward to meeting you in Birmingham.

David J. Gunkel
Joanna Bryson"

I AM FREAKING OUT SO GOD DAMNED HARD RIGHT NOPWERAFSDFA SFSFASDCFASEDFA sdfsdcva AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Gotta... Breathe.. Figure out... How... Gonna get... to Birmingham, UK...

*Faints*

[EDIT 12.23am--- First look at Expedia finds a round trip for two comes to about $3,000. *vomits.*]

Comments

[erynn999.livejournal.com]

How fabulous! The expense is scary, yeah, but I bet you're going to be made of about a million kinds of awesome. Most excellent good luck to you.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Thank you, Erynn! I really appreciate that :)

[sinvokasha.livejournal.com]

I'd imagine you could get funding from your department or something. I am a sessional instructor too, and I keep getting funding to go to conferences that I'm not even presenting at. And I get the impression people who are actually giving papers are WAY higher priority for receiving conference funding. I'm guessing you've already thought of this, but I'd suggest talking to your department head or department manager/admin/etc. for info.

Also: Congrats. :)

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the tip. It reminded me that i'd seen a deartment posting about travel guidelines, just this past week. I've sent an e-mail asking about specifics.

And thanks!

[mrvi.livejournal.com]

Hah. I knew you'd get over here this year somehow.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

I had a feeling, m'self ;)

[crossbonesdj.livejournal.com]

I know that Virgin Atlantic and British Airways are doing some deals right now. The biggest issue you are going to have is that it's near the Olympics...which means higher fares to the UK.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the Olympics bit is my main issue, so far as both travel and potential accomodation.

Thanks for the tip on Virgin and BA; I'll have to check them out.

[oletheros.livejournal.com]

july is never a good time to fly to europe - everyone else is doing it, which means that demand drives the price up. although it does look like there's a direct flight from atlanta to birmingham, so that cuts out a lot of extraneous travel expenses.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

This is very true. Moreso this year.

I'm hoping that Birmingham will be far enough outside the radius of Olympic Nonsense to keep it from being too bad.

[catvincent.livejournal.com]

SHit - I just realized that in theory, that's the week I move house! Let you know closer to the time.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

I really hope we can figure something out.

[opalblack.livejournal.com]

Remember that England is very small. The drive from, say, Manchester (which is usually cheap to fly into) is only an hour or so, so compare fares to airports other than Brum. Don't fly in to any of the London airports if you can possibly prevent it, as they have the highest taxes.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

This is true. I won't have to go to London, all things being equal, and I should be able to get kind of close to Birmingham...

But, one way or another, we shall see. :)

[cailement.livejournal.com]

agreed with the above. Don't just look at expedia, check orbitz, and priceline too. Don't fly into London, and if you can afford the time, 2 leg flights are usually hundreds of dollars cheaper each way.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Yeah, like I said, that was just the first round of checking. So many more to check, and hotel stuff to find...