Advisory Board Room

...but actually somewhere else... So what's going on? The short version is that this is a goodbye post. The long version goes a little like this: 1. For a while now, I've been using twitter, primarily as a place to highlight interesting things. It has more or less replaced my blogging output. These tweets are often science-y, visual in nature, and with (of course) the occasional dose of Chewbacca. However, it soon became obvious to me that I should start blogging again so that such things could be compiled: more so because I'm a big fan of using these odd snippets to segue into…

Nominee #1: Karl Iagnemma Nominee #2: Chris Ware Nominee #3: Richard Powers Nominee #4: Dava Sobel She's been a science news reporter for The New York Times, a freelance science writer for a good dozen magazines, and author of several successful books. Oh yes, she has her own webpage ("a science writer's site"). She was the editor of one of those "Best Science Writing of the Year" things a few years back. And, cutting right to it, Longitude (1995) and Galileo's Daughter (1999) alone merit her nomination. She has a new book, The Planets (2006), that I've not read. And I'll level with you…

"When we don't know what we are after, we risk passing it over in the dark." -- Three Farmers on their Way to a Dance Nominee #1: Karl Iagnemma Nominee #2: Chris Ware Nominee #3: Richard Powers Richard Powers, like the other nominees, is a creative ambassador in the broadest and most noble sense. He goes beyond false distinctions between humanities, sciences, arts, culture, and whatever else. He transcends the need to be labeled as one or another. Stephen Burt at Slate notes the same thing: "After reading Powers, C.P. Snow's once-famous complaint about the "two cultures"--scientists and…

Nominee #1: Karl Iagnemma Nominee #2: Chris Ware Well, it was great to finally meet Ben (and Janet, John, John, and Steve) a couple weeks ago, when there was a PSA/HSS/4S conference in Vancouver. Ben and I had a chance to talk about science, writing, academia, the election, life, unicorns, the usual sorts of things, and during which, Ben set me on track with the idea of forming the World's Fair Advisory Board. Anyway, I'd like to nominate Chris Ware, because I think it would be wonderful to play with someone who can elicit so much from the combination of calculated imagery and sparce text…

The World's Fair's popularity has skyrocketed over the past few months, and all the more so in the post-Puzzle Fantastica Era. (Data: We have readers almost every single day now. Sometimes even more. Recent problems at the Sb server may have been our fault. Point made.) We've been brought by these circumstances to issues of governance, and we are now taking recommendations for members of our forthcoming Advisory Board. First up: Karl Iagnemma. Some might argue that Dave and I wish we were Karl Iagnemma. I might argue that. Dave might not. Dave is Dave. But I'm of diffracted identity,…