I too got the invite, to the 11th Birmingham-Nottingham Extragalactic Workshop - 1st Announcement on "Semi-analytic models - are we kidding ourselves?"
Great title. Great topic. Nice lineup.
A workshop I'd truly like to be at. But I won't 'cause it conflicts with other obligations.
On a different note, driving through small town America this weekend, I saw a billboard ad for a new sub-urban McMansionish development.
The ad offered people a one year "mortgage holiday" if they'd buy and move in - the glimpse from the highway did not tell me if this was a genuine "free year" or if they were offering 0% negative amortization option, with the unpaid interest adding to the principal - the former would be a deal, the latter catastrophic for the buyer.
But, I did catch the motive - to let people buy and move, and have a full year to sell their old house without having to carry double mortgage payments.
On other random topics, the Incoherent Ponderer ponder the rarity of mid-career moves in physics.
My perception is that this is more common in the liberal arts and social sciences, I don't know if the difficulty of moving research groups is a barrier in the natural sciences, or if it is just that a lot of mid-career moves are actually head fakes.
De Long has a fascinating entry on one of the stupidest ideas I have ever heard - a Massachusetts proposal to tax the capital of educational institutions that are "too rich" - I worry about the slowly forming superleague of universities with diverging endowments, but taxing charitable capital is dumb.
Although if Harvard must move to a better climate, it should be to somewhere with decent skiing - bland is not better!
UC Sunnydale?! Oh, that UC Sunnydale - getting hard to keep count.
Y-Ranter on 3rd Generation warfare... - since I am doing gratuitous random links.
I saw George Johnson's appearance on Colbert the night he was on - while grading... - it is good to be reminded why I am a theorist.
For obscure reasons I am very intrigued by the Q Pontiff's post on classical probability and reality