I took advantage of their free events invitation to attend a presentation and panel called "Say it with Pictures: Visual Science Communication." I love theories (and practices!) of envisioning information, and invited scientist and fun person Drew to join me. The content was not at all what either of us expected, but it was nevertheless interesting and an intellectually and creatively stimulating evening, including scientific artists, the Director of Morrison Planetarium and Science Visualization at the California Academy of Sciences, wrote and directed the Academy’s three award-winning fulldome planetarium features, and the public affairs officer for NASA's planet-finding Kepler Mission based at NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, and my favorite speaker/presenter: Joe Hanson—PhD, biologist, host/writer of the PBS Digital Studios web series "It's Okay To Be Smart", and creator of the award-winning blog of the same name.
He showed us a clip of this webisode, in which the Drake Equation is applied to finding a suitable romantic match for a single woman in New York City.
After which I got to buy him a beer and chat a bit. (And got some cred for being Ellen Hardcastle's uncle.) I was excited to ask him if we could apply the Fermi Paradox to explain why the girl in the video lesson was still single.
God I love nerd humor. And nerds.
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