Well, it's been 3 weeks since we got off the plane (do you miss me yet?), and I figured I'd give a general status report, along with some observations on life down under.
Work is fairly laid back for me - I spend about half my time researching and writing papers that have been back-logged for a couple years, and the rest of the time I kibbutz (sp?) on the various research projects around here. I gave a technical talk on Gaea this week, and many people here are excited about it. A major set of projects here deals with data analysis and visualization support for the mining industry, and we see a lot of overlap between their vision and the Gaea vision. People in the division are quite friendly - many have loaned us furniture, kitchenware, etc. for the year, which has made settling in much easier. Most of the technical staff is white, male, and from Australia or the U.K. There are a few foreign visitors like myself, and they seem to be quite open towards funding overseas people. There is a quasi-required tea break on Monday mornings, which sort of forces people to interact (they provide sweets as incentives), and a Happy Hour on Friday afternoon (the fridge is stocked with beer). I've had long discussions with perhaps half of the research staff thus far, trying to get a feel for all the work going on. Contrary to the title of the program (Visualization), much of the work taking place is far removed from pure graphics - they are interested in distributed processing, data modeling, object-orientation, spatial data analysis, color hardcopy technology, parallel algorithms, and a wide range of other topics. Certainly enough to keep me occupied.
CSIRO is 75%government funded and 25%industry funded, so a good percentage of projects either have industrial sponsors or are earmarked for future interactions with industry. The government encourages industry collaboration by providing grants specifically to be shared by industry and CSIRO. They do similar grants for universities as well. The U.S. would do well to follow this strategy, I think. There are lots of interdisciplinary projects within CSIRO as well - with 36 divisions covering all walks of life they manage to do quite a bit. They employ around 2500 people in Canberra alone, Though the division of information technology probably only accounts for 50 of those people. Projects are run in sort-of industry fashion, with budgets, deadlines, monthly and semi-annual reports, etc. They cover visitors under petty cash! I get paid $500a week, in cash, on whatever day I happen to remember to stop by the treasurer's office. Very informal.
Canberra is an interesting city. The climate is fairly temperate, though it can get hot in the summer, I hear. Low temperatures are about freezing - they never get snow and the roads stay in great shape. Because it never really becomes winter, there are always plants and trees in bloom - many people even have cactus plants in their yards. Besides colorful plants, there are a wide variety of colorful birds which hang out year round. Parrots are about as common as pidgeons, with lots of variety in color. Magpies are also quite common, and also tend to have the prettiest songs of all the birds. As we haven't gotten out of the city yet, we haven't had a chance to encounter much other native fauna, though we went to a zoo last weekend and got to feed some kangaroos and monkeys. Nathan loved that! The city is sort of hierarchical in design (it was, after all, a totally designed city of this century) - there are 4 main centers, and each center is made up of 10 to 20 little suburbs. Each center has a major shopping area, and each suburb has a set of shops. Everywhere you go are parks, with soccor/rugby fields in most of them. There is no feeling of congestion, even though there are 250,000 people in the city. Buildings are limited to about 8 floors, as nothing is permitted to be taller than the Parliament House structure.
Virtually all homes are sort-of ranch styles, with no basements. Very little central heating, either, which makes some mornings a bit brisk. Houses are not designed for extreme heat or cold - it is rare to find a place with any insulation at all (though I've seen new houses being advertised with an amazing R4.0 in the ceiling!). One unusual aspect of Australian life which I've noticed is that everyone's mailbox is different. It seems that the culture promotes a do-it-yourself mentality, and rather than go out and buy a mailbox, people design and build their own out of whatever material is handy. Some are quite elaborate and stylish, while others are no more than a few boards nailed together. The other unusual mail-related phenomena is that one can avoid getting junk mail by simply putting a sign on your mailbox which says "no junk mail". Seems to simple, but it works.
Entertainment seems to center on sports - most kids, especially boys, are involved in 3 or 4 organized sporting activities, and even though there are only 5 T.V. stations (cable is being hotly debated), at least one is showing some sort of sports at any given time. I've sort of learned the rudimentary rules to rugby (football with no padding, no forward passing, and no resting) and cricket (baseball which can last 5 days per game, where the pitcher runs up to a line, throws the ball with arm straight, bouncing in front of the batter, who then may or may not hit it, but remains at bat until he pops out or lets the ball hit one of 3 sticks in the ground behind him - get it?). T.V. is fairly popular, with several U.S. shows arriving intact (the Simpsons, Home Improvement, Oprah) or with Australian versions (Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, Funniest Home Videos).