My dinner with Bora.

i-a66c5302c326ec60d11a485d17f08791-MosserLobby.jpg

I got a chance to have dinner with Bora last night in San Francisco on the eve of his job interview with PLoS ONE. This gave us the opportunity for a free-wheeling discussion about the potential of new technologies to change the ways scientists communicate with each other (and with non-scientists), the ways that conversations (and drawing people into them) aren't coupled too tightly to the fancy technical thingies (the "aps") that carry them through cyberspace, the ways that interfaces and functionality can exert subtle influences on the ways people interact with ideas and with each other, and all sorts of other issues pedagogical and blogospheric. There were also a number of gratuitous references to "framing" and "memes".

PLoS arranged for Bora to stay at The Mosser (in whose lobby we are pictured above). It's one of those great small hotels that San Francisco has a bunch of, and the lobby feels like something out of a classic movie.

As I hit the "publish" button, Bora will be starting his action-packed day with the PLoS folks -- wish him luck!

More like this

Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon put up a post about gender essentialism that starts by citing this post at Mixing Memory on how people's representations of homosexuality affect their attitudes toward homosexuality. Because Chris's post cited my two posts (initially sparked by Jessica's post at…
The Newsweek cover story is on recent efforts to create life in the laboratory, and of course they call this "playing God". Haven't they got the message yet? "Playing God" is where you do absolutely nothing, take credit for other entities' work, and don't even exist — scientists don't aspire to…
Three days ago, ScienceBlogs did something it hasn't done before. ScienceBloggers were given screener DVDs of a new movie by one of our own, Randy Olson of Shifting Baselines. The movie was Sizzle: A Global Warming Comedy, and the idea was to get as many of us as possible to review the movie and…
Today I have to be very, very careful, because Liz Allen is the person who hired me for PLoS and is my immediate supervisor. This means, in PLoS terms, that we work great as a team, talk on the phone a couple of times per week and exchange approximately five gigazillion e-mails every day, enjoying…

Has the elder sprog developed a crush on Bora? She is, after all, at the age where girls develop crushes on anything passably human, grownup, and male. They are, after all, just starting to grow beyond the limits of the family, and getting ready for the world outside. (A wracking time for parental nerves it is.)

Hey Thanks! It was so great to meet you again. That duck curry was fantastic! I hope we get to meet again VERY soon....