Justin Shenk

Two articles about science cafes, written in 2004. These events really are a lot of fun, especially if you were raised on PBS or series like the Cosmos.

A night out in a bar is all the more enjoyable if you can digest some science too. That’s the lesson of a growing movement whose character may be local but whose reach is potentially global — and at a small cost.

via The rise of cafe culture : Article : Nature.

The Denver café, organized by University of Colorado immunologist John Cohen, performs another social function: “I know that people have got together after meetings,” he says. “So when people come in alone, we carefully direct them to potential partners.”

via Pop science pulls in public as cafe culture goes global : Article : Nature

What’s next, science hook-ups?

I’m looking for new venues to host the San Antonio Science Cafe.

Previous cafes were at Ruta Maya, which is now closed , Old Town Helotes Bar and Grill, and Lion & Rose Pub and Restaurant. Radius Cafe seems cool, if we can coordinate around their choir events during the week.

On another note, Liberty Bar has my favorite Ethiopian coffee and I need to find out what brand it is. Mmm…

Al Jaffee’s fold-ins for Mad magazine, from the 1960s to the present, in interactive form.

via Fold-Ins, Past and Present – Interactive Feature – NYTimes.com.

Mmm.. I can’t wait to try this recipe from NPR. Did all the public radio listeners out there contribute to the pledge drive?

via NPR’s How Low Can You Go $10 Meals – Farfalle With Potatoes | Mamaliga.

An awesome new site – AcademicEarth.org – joins the library of MIT’s OpenCourse videos in providing education to all. I can’t help seeking out the fiery literature of the 60’s:

When [Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters] came to Vietnam Day at the Berkeley campus, Kesey addressed assembled people and he  said turn your back on the war and say, “F*ck it”. These were a group of people that were intent on doing something to stop the war, and this was Kesey’s  response. That moment for me embodies this tension, right at the the center of the 1960’s, the tension between counter cultural self-development and an ethos of play, drop out, tune in… Essentially, leave the institutional life of America, that means school, government, politics, and create disorder, and do that as a way of finding what’s true of yourself, do it in the company of others, it had this communal aspect for sure. [...] Ken Kesey is looking for that internally directed, playful response to the oppressive order of the word, and then there’s this political response. Pynchon lets us see both, and he’s parodying both responses in this novel, and in this sense, this novel is very much of its time.

Amy Hungerford – Yale / English

Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49

via Academic Earth – Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49.

What a great show. How can you not side with the poor little orphans?
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