Socializing

Socialist Francois Hollande wins French presidency

Sunday Ben and I slept in, then visited the botanical gardens.  Alas, Ben discovered once we arrived at the gardens that he'd left the SIM card in his computer.  As a result, no pictures to show (this time, anyway).  It was, however, a very relaxing afternoon trip.  We came home and napped, no idea why we were so sleepy.

Today I woke up bright and early and headed out to work.  After a week I have kept up with reading the news, meditating, and blogging daily, for which I am a tiny bit proud.  I worked on my R&R for the most part of the day.  At noon we had a brownbag (my first), at which John O'Loughlin from UC Boulder presented on the practical and ethical issues of dealing with sensitive data.  He apparently had first contact with data from WikiLeaks and with Julian Assange, and was navigating issues surrounding the publication of data and replication files for projects using such data.  Though I doubt that I will ever work with sensitive data like that it was an insightful dialogue, especially with the heads in that were in the room.  Difficult questions to ponder are: what do you do if you get access to data that is classified, or secret, or even just kind of scandalous?  What if the data are purposely hidden--by, let's say, a government--but do not identify anyone in particular?  How much would you be willing to endure to publish novel--perhaps critical--findings?  

I have apparently been drafted into running in a relay race in the city on Saturday, for which some of the PRIO-ites have been training.  I agreed to run this afternoon with them, which turned out to be a 10 kilometer bike ride and a 10 kilometer run.  That was definitely not to be expected--I ran along and enjoyed it, but I was left in the dust.  Fortunately, I had a lagging companion with me.  This was my first social event since arriving.  It was interesting running and joking with a respected academic like Håvard Hegre (who is, by the way, a fast runner).  We ran on the Bygdøy peninsula, which is covered in lush forest.  It is also where the king has a summer home and farm.  Gaw-geous!  I plan to rent bikes and take Ben there soon.