Grammatical Paraphernalia and the Original Guardian

This — the debut of The Guardian — is interesting for many reasons, including its comma density and other grammatical paraphernalia.

(Tip of the cap to Sam Howison.)

"Women, Mathematics, and the Periodical Tradition in Britain: or a History of Women Rocking Math from the Beginning"

Jacqueline D. Wernimont has written a very cool blog post about The Ladies' Diary.

Here is a quote from her post that describes the publication venue:

"One way to look at it is as a chimeric text with the head of an almanac, the body of a literary-mathematical periodical, with commonplace wings and a tail of recipes. It is fantastic.

Without question, it is the first mathematical periodical in Britain and it was designed explicitly for women and was published as such for more than five generations."

Very cool!

(Tip of the cap to Rachel Levy.)

Today's Theme Song: "Should I Stay or Should I Go"

The UK had the vote on Brexit today, and there is an obvious theme song (and a clash of opinions too!).

I posted it on Facebook this morning, and Mariano Beguerisse Díaz subsequently tweeted about it. (We had already discussed the apt theme song several weeks ago, so I knew what I wanted to post this morning for quite a while.)

I am including Mariano's tweet in this post.

The official soundtrack of this day, courtesy of The Clash https://t.co/qFrRAxqxt4 Cc @masonporter #Brexit

— Mariano Beguerisse (@marianobegue) June 23, 2016

Update: The UK has voted to leave the European Union.

The Great British Public Toilet Map

In case, you are in the UK and want to find the nearest public toilet, ESRC just retweeted the tweet that I embed below. (I am glad that the ESRC is around to tell me where to find a nearby toilet. This is genuinely good, but I also can't help feeling a certain sense of irony.)

.@GBToiletMap from @RCA helps people find 10000+ UK loos #T4GToiletMap https://t.co/gG7DlvSgd9 #WorldContinenceWeek pic.twitter.com/gG0DbpjoZT

— GB Public Toilet Map (@GBToiletMap) June 20, 2016

Clocks and Bombs

I like this picture.

And, obviously, I am very much in favor of people developing their scientific skills (e.g., by making their own clocks). I'm a theorist, and practical things were never my forte, but so many of my Caltech peeps got their start this way.

Utilitarian Judgements

Today's SMBC is highly amusing. Also, it hits close to home. :)

"As You Are No Doubt Aware..."

Here is what appears to be a Britishism: "As you are no doubt aware" means something like "I think you missed this really obvious point (you moron)."

Wales versus Scotland: Fight!

PLoS One has an interesting new paper on community detection. It just got published today.

It's abstract includes one of the best sentences ever: "We also quantify the effects of partitioning, showing for instance that the effects of a possible secession of Wales from Great Britain would be twice as disruptive for the human network than that of Scotland."

Suddenly, Welsh pride goes way up. And they owe it to all to community detection.

Moving time scale

I have started dealing with various things --- making sure I get my work permit in order, getting overdue medical shots, asking about banking information, and so on.

Anyway, I have just been told that I should expect my stuff to arrive in Oxford roughly 6 weeks (maybe 4 if I'm really, really lucky) after it's picked up.

I was thinking of having it picked up around 2 weeks before I leave and then not having it for 4 weeks across the pond (I'll bring an extra suitcase with clothing or something), but then during those two weeks I won't have a tv to watch Dodger games. I'm just going to have to borrow one.

Having to start dealing with my move a bit already is making my I'm-going-to-miss-my-friends feelings kick in even more.