Scientific conferences are now happening inside World of Warcraft. That should help with travel costs, but on the downside it’s harder to get smashed and wake up in a competitor’s hotel room*.
***
(*) Seriously, the bar is the most underrated part of a conference. Sex isn’t even an essential point – I missed out on that part, but I did get propositioned once, for a postdoc job. Both of us were Dan Rather plus eight (i.e., not sober) and we’d had one of those free-ranging, loopy scientific conversations that can’t happen in front of a poster or during the Q&A after a talk. That’s also why small conferences are more productive than the mega-attendance kind – most of the important people all go to the same bar.
dbrown
WTF are you babbling about? This is the weirdest post you have made.
Zifnab
I don’t know how sober you are, but I don’t even log in until I’m Grol Grumsmash plus 3.
Tim F.
I’m talking about scientific conferences. I didn’t mean for the post to be that gnomic to people who haven’t been to those, but I guess it could have come out that way.
Adam
Out of the Frying Pan: A Quantitative Evaluation of the Heat Index of Lord Ragnaros
GeoRockstar
Bar schmoozing. Even better when you’ve been to the same conference so many years in a row that you know who will be in which bar and at what time. In San Francisco during our Mega, the geologists heavily favor Annabel’s as a starting point, but quickly find themselves either at the top floor of the Marriot (important people who will pay too much for a martini) or the Golden Bear (heavy with grad students who love beer).
buford puser
Re the role of the bar at scientific conferences: This is so true; I generally don’t go to any but friends’ presentations anymore, just skim the abstracts book & email anyone who looks interesting asking for a copy of the paper.
This frees up valuable time for sitting in the bar, where anyone worth talking to will gravitate.
dnA
WoW > crack cocaine
Andrew
I’d say that the conference is the overrated bar of the bar trip.
Andrew
er, part of the bar trip
dnA
Hey, what if we hold our next presidential debate in World of Warcraft? It can’t be worse than the last one.
horatius
Haha. Noobs!! I can haz eeeevil Planz for yooz!!! I’ll break up the conference. I’ll use my 1337 Level 70 Pally (Bubble Hearth FTW) to lure one of ’em dragons to the conference and WTFPWN the entire conference.
Muahahahahahahahahahahah
dbrown
I’m still confused – I haven’t attended a scientific conference (in any field) for five or six years but world of warcraft? Are you saying a few friends and grad students’ talk on-line after a conference or that scientific conference’s occur in these games (speakers, topics, question & answers etc.)?
My last conference I even got a chance to ask Sir Roger Penrose (how’s that for name dropping?) a question about black-hole – gravity well information exchange and I never thought to get such an opportunity my whole life but such can occur in an on-line D&D game …?
Aside: he agreed with me that my approach using the results of the Bell theorem would account for information exchange (impossible by relativity) with the universe outside the event horizon but not impact his approach … this impacted the conference but on-line?
Krista
Man, I wish we could have our conferences online. It’d save us a fortune.
ThymeZone
I’m drunk too.
Great psot.
Reverend Spooner
So, you got laid at a science conference?
Blue Raven
Science conferences and science fiction conventions don’t sound very far removed from each other, but this is not that surprising.
Ninerdave
Hasn’t this been happening in Second Life for quite some time?
buford puser
As someone who’s done a lot of drinking with both groups, I’m here to tell you the phrase “party like a rock star” should really be “party like a bench scientist”.
Halteclere
A cousin to a science conference is an industry trade show. The trick is to become friends with some people of other companies in attendance that aren’t quite competitors but could become partners in the future. Then hit the expensive restaurants and bars – people from one company expense it one night, people from another company expense it another night, etc. Everyone eats and drinks like kings, but only have to justify one night’s expense report!
Ninerdave
Come to think of it, I want to see them have their conferences on a PvP server in the Red Ridge Inn.
qwerty42
Geeze, this could really alter SPSS, SAS, Oracle and Share conferences.
Darkrose
Hmm. The problem with doing that in City of Heroes is that the server lag would kick you out too often. Also, given the variety of the costume options (including the boob size slider), I really don’t think anyone needs to see what a bunch of science nerd guys would come up with.
jnfr
Yeah, I connect that sort of thing to Second Life. Fewer undead there.
LiberalTarian
Damn. I have definitely been to the wrong scientific conferences. :o(
Adam
Bill O’Reilly Griefs Democratic Raid; Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Illidan): “LIEK OMG WTF”