Fooling Around in April

This entry from CafePress is a big win. (Tip of the hat to Heather Dean.)

In a Facebook post, Tears For Fears announced a new collaboration with Kid Rock.

As usual, there are also some appropriate papers on the arXiv. I noticed one on my own that just isn't funny, so I'm ignoring it. But Kevin Hickerson and Physics Today found A Necro-Biological Explanation for the Fermi Paradox, which has been submitted for publication in The Necronomicon.

My former colleague Lew Lefton from Georgia Tech was on the receiving end of a joke this year. (Tip of the cap to the School of Physics at Georgia Tech.)

For those with some time on their hands, there is the Google Maps Pokemon Challenge.

The Guardian also included a report about a curious and symmetry-breaking outcome of Scottish independence. (Tip of the cap to Cecilia Mascolo.)

Here is a summary of fake products from a few tech companies. (Tip of the hat to Sham Kakade.)

The White House got into the action with a President's Council on Beards. (Tip of the cap to whoever posts for MLB on Facebook.)

Depeche Mode has an April Fool's Day prank with new t-shirt designs with lyrics on them, but this joke was really lame.

Update (4/04/14): I'm posting this belatedly, but here is a summary of some of the April Fools Day pranks from various tech companies and some others. I like the one from CERN. :)

Update (4/04/14): NPR's prank was brilliant. (Tip of the cap to Lada Adamic.)

Data Availability

As Aaron Clauset writes thoughtfully (as usual), PLoS journals have a new policy on the public availability of data sets for papers published in their journals.

I have written a comment on his entry that should appear in a while (once Aaron has a chance to take a look at confirm that I'm not a robot spammer, etc.).

Sacrificing Privacy in Order to Referee a Paper?

Maybe I am just in an ornery mood this morning, but I don't think I should have to sign an annoying web privacy policy when I am being asked to provide my services for free to a journal. Here is part of what I wrote to the editor who had the misfortunate to ask for my refereeing services (and to get my name wrong, for that matter):

"The JStat website forces one to actively agree to an insidious 'privacy' policy to use it. (This is the first page one gets when logging in.) Refereeing is something academics do as a service and I am content to do my duty just like everyone else, but I am not going to sign such a policy in order to do it. I have signed such things in other contexts, but that is when I am receiving the service --- not providing it. Accordingly, please do not ever ask me to referee a paper again. I suggest recommending to the journal that they change how they do things."

The interesting thing is that if I ever submit there, then I suppose I would be agreeing to it, but now I am going to think twice if I ever consider submitting there. (I'm not saying I won't do it, but I would think harder about it than I would have otherwise.)

(And, while you're at it, get off my damn lawn!)

By the way, the offending journal is Journal of Statistical Mechanics. Maybe it's just how they presented this that really irked me? The other journals probably all have something like this as well.

2012 Summer Olympics: Epic Mascot Fail

I hadn't been paying attention to the Olympics --- because, really, who the fuck cares about that nonsense (except for ping pong, of course) --- but this article (posted by Alexander Morisse on Facebook) shows a picture of one of the twin Olympic mascots. And I'll be damned: it looks like a cartoony CCTV camera. That's actually rather apt for this country, especially since I can't even fathom what a large cartoony queue would look like. But really, England? You actually want to brag about the fact that you invade people's privacy beyond belief? Sheesh...

(That said, it would be nigh impossible to sink beneath the official mascot low point that Atlanta gave the world for the 1996 Summer Olympic Games. But London certainly has done it's best to try, hasn't it?)

National Data Privacy Day

Tomorrow is apparently National Data Privacy Day.

Good luck with that.

(Tip of the cap to whoever does the postings for Mathematics Awareness Month.)

Community Structure, Web Cams, and Online Privacy

Here is an interesting new article about how network analysis can help invade privacy. And you know what the biggest cited culprit is? That's right: computation of community structure (which, as many of you know, is something I work on).

And, of course, I noticed when reading this that one of the linked pieces of evidence had a bad characterization of what modularity values indicate good community structure.

This is a good article, and when the author writes that ideas about network communities can be used to glean information people don't disclose, he is talking "community structure" in the technical sense. (And, yes, computing community structure can give one a very good idea about information that has not been revealed based on information in one's community that has been revealed. See, e.g. this paper of mine.)

Now I better read the final 6 pages of that Masters-dissertation draft. I keep avoiding finishing this...

(Tip of the cap to Peter Mucha.)

De-Anonymizing Social Networks

Here is interesting but scary study on how to de-anonymize social network data. It's cool, powerful, and frightening.

Note additionally that there are multiple sides to the implications of such methods: Besides pure privacy issues, there are also the privacy issues that are conjoined with the increasing number of anonymized data sets that are being analyzed by scientists like me.

I was planning not to blog on another steroids scandal, but...

I told myself that I wouldn't blog about the whole A-Roid thing (sorry, but I can't help snickering about the new nickname), but former Major Leaguer Doug Glanville has made an excellent point in his New York Times opinion piece, and I think that is worth bringing up. Namely, the 2003 tests---i.e., the one that A-Rod failed---were agreed legally by the players as a litmus test to try to gauge just how rampant performance-enchancing-drug abuse was in the sport. It was the massive failure (over 100 players) on those tests that led to the testing system currently in place. One of the conditions for those tests was that all results were supposed to be anonymous and without that stipulation that testing would not have taken place. So, while A-Rod gets skewered for being caught (and don't think for a second that he's the last big name who will get similarly skewered---one shouldn't be surprised to see any name!), let's also remember that basic privacy rights associated with anonymous testing are also being breached here. Why is this issue getting lost?

(Tip of the Cap: I found out about Doug Glanville's article from Rob Neyer's blog.)

Update on invasion of privacy

Courtesy Justin, here is some information on some very scary US Customs policies.

Comment: Way to go, guys! Friends, I think we're in the process of witnessing the slow, painful fall of an empire. (In fact, I can very easily picture President Bush in the White House playing a fiddle.)

Sigh... I guess I ought to get my laptop back first before I worry about it being seized unfairly at the border. Though apparently, it's anything that can be seized for no reason whatsoever. Maybe I ought to be more careful about my "unpatriotic science"?

Big Brother is Listening to you (and your musics)

Courtesy Christopher Voyce, here is a nice new invasion of privacy that is apparently under active discussion.

Comment:: Fuck you and the horse you rode in on! (Customs is supposed to protect people from things that are dangerous, not prevent them from drowning out obnoxious young children who sing the Fanta theme song for the bloody entirety of a six-hour long flight!)

Addendum: Writing "musics" was a typo, but it reminds me of a certain cat meme (and also whence it came), so I'm going to go with it. I meant to type "music", however. Damn governments have me all riled up... (not to mention the stress from my computer issues... my Mac passed its harddrive test, so we'll see how DiskWarrior does in a couple of days).