Conferences, conferences everywhere. Mathematics degree or no long-forgotten mathematics degree, I don’t know a power-law from a cheese sandwich, and I’ll tell you, all these conferences and symposia and self-congratulatory bloggeriffic circlejerkathons lately, unfailingly dotted with laptop-lugging constellations of the Usual fat-end-of-the-comet Suspects, these cadres of neo-imagineering big-brained rent-a-pundits traipsing around telling everyone how breathtakingly important and revolutionary it all is… well, sometimes it just seems a little forced to me, and more than a little reminiscent of the frenzied bandwagonesque me-too (and the gimme-gimmes) of the leadup to the collective technojizz and detumescence and smoking rubble of the fin-de-siecle bubble. Just trade ‘revenue streams and ROI calculation’ for ‘creative renaissance and DIY journalism,’ and everything old smells new again.
–Emptybottle.org : A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants.