Conference observations so far

This is a nice gathering of people, and the organizers have done a very good job.  More discussion would be nice - the program is very dense.  A few (not very serious) observations:

• I used to think that I was the only condensed matter physicist not working on graphene.  Now I realize I'm the only condensed matter physicist not working on graphene, iron pnictide superconductors, or topological insulators. 
• Chinese ring tones are different than US or European ringtones.
• One speaker inadvertently stumbled on a great, subtle psychological trick:  he used a font for most of his talk that is identical to the font (some Helvetica variant) used by the Nature publishing group for their titles and subtitles.  That font makes everything seem important :-).  He blew this aura of profundity it at the end, though, by switching to comic sans.
• The Chinese groups that have been charging on the iron pnictides must have enormous resources in terms of people and equipment - the rate at which they are cranking out material and data is remarkable.  US materials growers seem very undersupported by comparison.
  
• Laser-based angle-resolved photoemission, in its appropriate regime, is damned impressive.