It's been pretty good so far. I've sold a few books, and I have a couple of leads on new book projects. Because of the structure of this conference, with everyone in the talks, and because my table is right outside the auditorium where the talks are taking place, I get to listen to all the sessions. It was really neat listening to people like John McCarthy, Marvin Minsky, and Ray Solomonoff talk. Some of the other people were pretty interesting, too. Peter Norvig's talk about how AI has influenced Web search and how Web search has influenced AI was probably my favorite. I either didn't pay attention long enough or I hadn't heard of Google Trends. It shows how many times people searched for a particular term since the beginning of 2004, and it correlates some of the spikes to events in the news. It also shows what cities and regions are searching for those terms most. It's very interesting that the searches for "artificial intelligence" are the highest in India and Pakistan. I think playing with Google Trends could be a huge time sink.

Heading out pretty soon for a reception where the original conference attendees (five of them are at this conference) reflect on the original conference, followed by dinner. Another full day tomorrow, and then a mostly full day on Saturday. I hope to be heading home by 5:00 or so on Saturday, but it will depend on how things flow. I have the feeling that a number of people might wait until the very end of the conference to buy books. I just hope it doesn't take me as long to get back as it did to get here. Between rush-hour traffic and heavy rain, it took me a little more than 3.5 hours instead of the expected 2.5.