The Onion Presents: 10 Worst Bar Mitzvahs

The Onion brings us the 10 worst Bar Mitzvahs of all time.

My favorite is number 6: Mar. 25, 1995, Stamford, CT: Aaron Wechsler fucked up the V’ahavta big time, and couldn’t pull it together for the Avot and Gevurot.

Mathematics in the Snow

These mathematical snow patterns are really awesome!

(Tip of the cap to Alan Champneys.)

Switching the Order of Sums and Integrals

I forgot to report one of my quotes from earlier this term: "... where I have switched the order of summation and integration without justifying it because I am an applied mathematician and we sometimes just do that sort of thing."

Buckaroo Banzai and the Art of Writing Papers

I'm especially proud of the following advice that I gave to one of my undergraduate students this afternoon: "You don't want to write a paper that's like the movie Buckaroo Banzai --- which ends before the punchline occurs."

Then I had to explain the movie.

P.S. Don't watch this movie. (It does have one or two amusing lines, but it's best to just get those and not see the whole movie.)

Clarification: Technically, I only did a short-short version of an explanation of the movie --- I mostly just explained that it was bad and hinted that it was a cult classic --- because there's no way to understand it anyway.

RIP Frank Jobe (1925–2014)

Dr. Frank Jobe, who pioneered "Tommy John surgery" and thereby saved the careers of hundreds of baseball players (especially pitchers, and starting with Tommy John himself), has died at the age of 88. He revolutionized baseball.

Photos from the Past

Here are 40 photographs from the past. Many of them are very interesting. My favorite picture by far of this selection is number 11.

(Tip of the cap to John Meacham. As he points out, some of these pictures were originally in color.)

Ground Quidditch

The first person interviewed in this BBC story about real-life quidditch is our very own Somerville undergrad mathematician Brigitte Stenhouse.

Pattern-Forming Pufferfish

OK, pattern-formation-ophiles: Here is an "underwater crop circle" that was created by a single pufferfish. [What? Were you thinking about the pattern on the surface of its body or something when I brought this up? :)] An example of such a geometric structure was studied in this paper, so I hope some of the pattern-formation experts find it enticing.

(Tip of the cap to I Fucking Love Science.)

Reducing the P-value One Submission to Nature at a Time

I really dig this doodle from Twisted Doodles.

Curiously, this is suspiciously close to my policy on submitting my papers to Nature. I'm just trying to reduce the p-value. Isn't that what all the good scientists do?

(Tip of the cap to I Fucking Love Science.)

Signs That it's Late Friday Afternoon and You're Exhausted: Number $x$ in a Continuing Series

Signs that it's late Friday afternoon and that you're exhausted (number $x$ in a continuing series): When you're giving a problem class and it's 5:35 pm and you're utterly convinced that you have gone overtime on the class that ends at 6pm, because you think it's after 6pm and the fact that the clock blatantly says "5:35" (though in analog) just doesn't faze you or register in any way.

And also number $x+1$: And also when you say you're going to erase the whiteboard as a courtesy to people who are using the room tomorrow morning ... which is in fact nobody because tomorrow is Saturday.

The legend continues...

Name of the Day: Socrates Brito

I was watching some of the Dodger game tonight (once I was done with yet another meeting to work on the 'multilayer networks' review article), and I noticed that the Diamondbacks have a minor league player with the delightful name of Socrates Brito.

I really hope that Socrates Brito makes the majors just because I am eager to enjoy the clever headlines that I am sure will result.

(It's not close to as cool as the 'Hu's on first' jokes from when Chin Lung Hu reached first base safely, but it will be good nonetheless.)

Geometric Sandcastles

For your visual and mathematical enjoyment, here are some nice geometric sandcastles.

(Tip of the cap to MoMath: The Museum of Mathematics.)

Famous Last Words: Circa 2006

I wrote the following comment on Arcane Gazebo's blog at 1:13 am on 29 August 2006:

"I’ve been meaning to join Facebook for a while — if for no other reason I have their data and it’s probably relevant to my analysis to actually try the site. I’ll drop you a line when I get around to joining. (Facebook gets more traffic than google, by the way. Or it did as of some time in 2005. I assume it still does.)

I am in MySpace, Orkut, and LinkedIn, but I don’t use any of them. I’ll log in when somebody requests me as a friend, but basically don’t use it. I get lots of friend-request spam from Orkut. I need to log in to change the preferences to not e-mail me when I get a new friend request.

Do you actually end up doing any social networking through these sites? (I can see their use as gloried phonebooks, but I’m curious if you use them for more than that.)

I was also thinking Facebook might be particularly useful for web-stalking. :)"



Famous last words --- uttered 2 days before I joined Facebook.

(By the way, my LinkedIn use is the same as it was then. I haven't logged into Orkut in years, and I think I logged into MySpace once or twice in the last few years because I was curious what the site looked like these days --- or maybe just for shits and giggles.)

Coral is Beautiful!

Take a look at these absolutely gorgeous pictures of coral! Wow!

(Tip of the cap to I Fucking Love Science.)

RIP Harold Ramis (1944–2014)

Harold Ramis, who is best known for his role as Egon Spengler in the Ghostbusters movies, died today after being ill for several years.

I hadn't realized this, but he also wrote/directed Caddyshack, Groundhog Day, and Analyze This. That's some seriously high-quality work!

In his honor, it's worth pointing out that sometimes you need to cross the streams.

(Tip of the cap to Scott Porter.)

Land of Confusion

Among my more brilliant placeholder notes for my coauthors is "and I agree that it's confusing in a confusing way". Yes, definitely.

"Core-Periphery Structure in Networks"

Our theory paper on core-periphery structure in networks, which we first posted on the arXiv in February 2012, is finally out in its official published form. Here are the details about the paper, which poses the problem of algorithmic detection of core-periphery structure in a particularly nice way.


Title: Core-Periphery Structure in Networks

Authors: M. Puck Rombach, Mason A. Porter, James H. Fowler, and Peter J. Mucha

Abstract: Intermediate-scale (or "meso-scale") structures in networks have received considerable attention, as the algorithmic detection of such structures makes it possible to discover network features that are not apparent either at the local scale of nodes and edges or at the global scale of summary statistics. Numerous types of meso-scale structures can occur in networks, but investigations of such features have focused predominantly on the identification and study of community structure. In this paper, we develop a new method to investigate the meso-scale feature known as core-periphery structure, which entails identifying densely connected core nodes and sparsely connected peripheral nodes. In contrast to communities, the nodes in a core are also reasonably well connected to those in a network’s periphery. Our new method of computing core-periphery structure can identify multiple cores in a network and takes into account different possible core structures. We illustrate the differences between our method and several existing methods for identifying which nodes belong to a core, and we use our technique to examine core-periphery structure in examples of friendship, collaboration, transportation, and voting networks.

Lord Charles: Public Enemy No. 1

The Dodgers' Clayton Kershaw is the best pitcher in Major League Baseball.

As David Schoenfield writes, check out how batters did against Kershaw's curveball last year: "Batters hit .096 against it in 2013, with zero extra-base hits, zero walks and 80 strikeouts."

Holy shit! Now that's awesome.

Mathematical Symbolism

Claim: The terms "spiritually similar" and "morally equivalent" really need mathematical symbols to go with them.

Bank of Somerville: 10 Pound Denomination

Sometimes, strange things happen in our Somerville mathematics presentations --- like seeing currency from the Bank of Somerville with my picture on the 10-pound note and my colleague Quentin Miller's picture on the 20-pound note. (The reason I am on the smaller denomination is probably because I am a cheap date.)

(Thanks to Andrew MacFarlane for drawing these, and thanks to both him and Tim Camfield for an excellent presentation on paradoxes.)

Data Visualization from the Annals of History

A new exhibit at the British Library is paying tribute to scientific diagrams from the annals of history. That sounds way cool. I hope I get a chance to go.

The exhibition called Beautiful Science: Picturing Data, Inspiring Insight, opens tomorrow and closes on 26 May 2014.

This article also reminds me of Katy Börner's Atlas of Science, which I reviewed for the journal Science a few years ago.

(Tip of the cap to Iain MacMillan.)

The Lost Slumgullions of English

Tip of the cap to Jimmy Lin for thus slumgullion of language in the New York Times. Enjoy!

RIP Gerald Whitham (1927–2014)

Well, another one of the old guard from Caltech applied mathematics is gone. I found out earlier today that Gerald Whitham died on January 26th. Gerald was one of the pre-eminent early scholars in the study of nonlinear waves, which are near and dear to my heart.

I took Gerald's class AMa 98 when I was at Caltech --- that iteration of AMa 98 was the last class that he ever taught --- and that was the class that introduced me to solitons (so Whitham is the guy who showed me my first soliton). As many of you know, I have had a lot of fun in my career thinking about solitary waves (and, to a lesser extent, solitons). You can find one of those by-hand calculations in my scholarpedia entry on solitons (and related phenomena).

I was Gerald Whitham's last undergraduate advisee. This was in the sense of signing my cards so that I could take my classes --- we never worked on research together, though obviously some of his research interests rubbed off on me. He retired after my sophomore year (or at least rarely ever showed up to campus after that ... this page claims that he retired in 1998, but I think it was technically 1996), and my advisor was then switched over from Whitham to Oscar Bruno. Whenever I saw Whitham to get my card signed, he would inevitably complain about how the math department kept switching back and forth for the organization of the Math 107, 108, and 109 trifecta. (These switches occurred every decade or so, as far as I can tell. When it existed, Math 107 was a general introduction to analysis and topology, and then 108ab was analysis and 109ab was geometry. In the other form, 108abc was analysis and 109abc was geometry, where I believe that Math 107 was more or less the same as Math 108a.)

Update (2/22/14): Pasadena Star-News had an obituary for Whitham about a week ago.

Game Soundtrack: A Violin Rendition of Super Mario Brothers in Real Time

Some people are so talented that they can play the Super Mario Brothers soundtrack (overground, underground, and underwater --- and the sounds for things like coins, character death, super shrooms, etc) in real time while somebody else is playing the game. Now that is impressive!

(Tip of the cap to Jimmy Lin.)

Nobody Wants Your @!#?@! ing Sheep

Sometimes, games can "destroy friendships". Especially when sheep are involved.

(Tip of the cap to Garth Patterson.)

Well Played, Google

I wholeheartedly approve of today's Google Doodle.

Outsourcing

Yup, maybe Wile E. Coyote should have done that.

ASCII Art and its Ancestors

I mostly just looked at the pictures --- with only occasional forays into the accompanying text (partly because I am damn tired and have some other text that I want to read before I crash completely and partly because I think the pictures themselves are the best part) --- but this article on ASCII art and its ancestors is way cool. I enjoy both the art itself and the notion that people worked really hard to create it with whatever computational (or typing) medium that was available. Very nice!

(Tip of the cap to Jimmy Lin.)

Update (2/07/14): Tom Prescott has sent me a link to an ASCIImation page.

"Best". Figure. Ever.

Check out Figure 15b of this new paper on community detection in directed networks.

RIP Philip Seymour Hoffman (1967–2014)

Philip Seymour Hoffman was found dead in his apartment today (apparently of a heroin overdose). Hoffman was an excellent actor, and it was a virtual requirement for an indie film to include him in at least some role. (According to a rumor spread in Laemmle Theatres, some Congressman once tried to even get that made into a law.)

"Ottoman Art" and Movies

Here are a bunch of famous moves scenes cast in the style of "Ottoman art". I can't vouch for the accuracy of the artistic style (in particular, whether it is "Ottoman" per se), but these are still very cool.

(Tip of the cap to Craig Montuori.)

Beach Art

For some really awesome geometric art created on beach sand, take a look at this website.

(Tip of the cap to Greg Stolerman and Susan Schaeffer.)

The Social Status of British Cows

Patrick Stewart explains the different types of moos from cattle based on their social status. As Sir Patrick explains, bovine dialects also depend on political, environmental, and cultural conditioning.

(Tip of the cap to Meredith Alden.)

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.).

Long, Very Long, and ... What the Hell are You Doing?

Well, I guess I have a well-deserved reputation for writing very long papers.

Ernie Barreto wanted to make sure that I saw this article. I really like the terse commentary that likely ended a certain debate. It's key words are priceless. The others are excellent as well, though I had seen those before. In one of them, Michael Berry told me that his abstract of "Probably not." was "No." at some point but that he and his coauthors wanted to leave some possibility that their conclusions were wrong.

Fun Fact: Version 1 of my thesis was about 400 pages. My committee was (very understandably) not very happy with this --- among other things --- and demanded that I write version 2.0 (rather than 1.1) and that it be less than 200 pages. This was not fun at the time.

Fun Fact 2: One version of one of my papers --- the published version was much terser at 20 pages + 20 pages SOM (mostly a table) --- had a 100-page SOM at one reasonably final point, but then we decided the referees would kill us. So the version (which was desk-rejected, of course) that we sent to Nature had an SOM that was in the 60s or so, though that was regular typefacing and spacing rather than in journal-page format. [Acronym: SOM = Supplementary Online Material]

In progress now: a revision of a now 42-journal-page paper (though a review article), and new papers: a 40+ pager, a 35-pager, a pair of 32-pagers, and a few of them currently in the 20s.

(Tip of the cap to Ernie Barreto.)

"Cross-Linked Structure of Network Evolution"

A new paper of mine was published in final form today. In this paper, my coauthors and I use a structure called a "cross-link" that connects a pair of time-dependent edges based on the similarity of their temporal evolution. In our study, the time-dependent edges arise from similarity of temporal dynamics of different nodes. The basic idea is to try to tease out when sets of edges evolve separately and when there is co-evolution. In this paper, we consider time-dependent networks that we construct from time series from functional brain networks and from output of coupled Kuramoto oscillators. Here are the details of the paper.


Title: Cross-Linked Structure of Network Evolution

Authors: Danielle S. Bassett, Nicholas F. Wymbs, Mason A. Porter, Peter J. Mucha, and Scott T. Grafton

Abstract: We study the temporal co-variation of network co-evolution via the cross-link structure of networks, for which we take advantage of the formalism of hypergraphs to map cross-link structures back to network nodes. We investigate two sets of temporal network data in detail. In a network of coupled nonlinear oscillators, hyperedges that consist of network edges with temporally co-varying weights uncover the driving co-evolution patterns of edge weight dynamics both within and between oscillator communities. In the human brain, networks that represent temporal changes in brain activity during learning exhibit early co-evolution that then settles down with practice. Subsequent decreases in hyperedge size are consistent with emergence of an autonomous subgraph whose dynamics no longer depends on other parts of the network. Our results on real and synthetic networks give a poignant demonstration of the ability of cross-link structure to uncover unexpected co-evolution attributes in both real and synthetic dynamical systems. This, in turn, illustrates the utility of analyzing cross-links for investigating the structure of temporal networks.

A New Rejection Record!

Fastest. Rejection. Ever. (I wonder if this is a new world record?)

Today, Nature Communications desk-rejected our paper 2 hours and 1 minute after we submitted it.

OUCH!

Pictures and Vampires in Paris

Here are my initial pictures from Paris from today and last night. (Most of them are from today.)

Notice the Theatre du Chaos on Rue Henri Poincaré. I approve! The street is a dinky little residential street, and I was very pleased indeed to see this local theatre in one of its corner. It made me really happy.

I just noticed on Google Maps that Paris has a Vampire Museum not far from Rue Henri Poincaré. Too bad I only noticed that after walking all the way back instead of when I was there a couple of hours ago... I think there is a decent chance it's not open today anyway, but let's see if I can figure out from here when it's open. You can also find some information on another page from the Atlas Obscura website

And here is how to make an appointment to visit the museum (it's by appointment only). I have to admit that I am very tempted to do try to make one, but I would rather look around in there without talking to someone while I am doing it, so I'm likely not going to do it. This is the type of thing I'd like to go and do with a friend. :)

What Happens in Paris Stays in Paris

I am making my first ever trip to France (aside from a few hours in an airport for a layover). I am adding a new country early in 2014, and I have at least one more new country for me on the docket for this year.

I am going to Paris to visit Vittoria Colizza at EPIcx Lab.

Headline: Food Banks Attract Poor People

Apparently, some church in Winnipeg didn't get the memo. D'oh!

LinkedIn Fail

LinkedIn Fail: Today I got an e-mail notice suggesting that I should congratulate one of my connections on a professional milestone: "[first name] [last name] is celebrating 7 years at [Institution of Higher Learning]"

Dear LinkedIn: You do realize that that means that this person is still a graduate student at that place, right?

For what it's worth, I would laugh at this out of sheer perversity even if that anniversary were mine.

I ♜ This!

Apparently, about 🎁 percent of Americans suffer from synesthesia. Who knew?

Additional Translation Fails

Translating can be hard, and sometimes things don't quite go right. You can find many of the signs from the above website in one of my previous posts. However, many of the "new" ones are also glorious. It's hard to say which are my favorites in the new list, because several of them are awesome. For example, 'soup for sluts' and a fire extinguisher being labeled as hand grenades are simply excellent! (Those are both on the other list as well.)

(Tip of the cap to Iain Macmillan.)

Pictures of a Bubble Freezing

Here are some pictures of a bubble as it freezes. Awesome!

(Tip of the cap to I Fucking Love Science.)

20 Years Ago Today

Today is the 20th anniversary of the Northridge earthquake, which occurred during my senior year in high school.

It was early morning. I heard the neighborhood dogs all go nuts, then felt everything and saw a wall-covering bookshelf spew many of its books, and was very happy that it occurred while I was in bed instead of next to the bookshelf.

Then I went back to bed.

It's All in the Name

Some scientists have names that reflect what they study. A recent one to make a public appearance is K. Cheeseman, who just published a paper on cheese-making fungi. In this vein, I should also point out that one of my Somerville College colleagues is Charlotte Potts, who studies Etruscan and Italic archaeology and art.

1981 News Report on The Internet

Long before the internet was for porn, the "two to three thousand" residents of San Francisco who owned home computers had the chance to download text from newspapers.

Anyway, watch this old news report from 1981 on electronic newspapers. It is awesome in several respects.

(Tip of the cap to Elizabeth Leicht.)

RIP Russell Johnson (1924-2014)

Russell Johnson, who starred as The Professor on Gilligan's Island, has died at the age of 89.

I briefly tried to find via Google a commercial that Johnson did a couple of decades ago in the guise of The Professor. (At some point in the commercial, he becomes rather indignant: "First they take me out of the theme song and now this!")

Claymation Video for "Re: Your Brains"

Here is a really cool claymation video to go along with the song "Re: Your Brains".

Dodgers Sign Kershaw to 7-Year Contract Extension!

The Dodgers have signed Clayton Kershaw to a very lucrative 7-year contract extension. Yay! Kershaw is the best pitcher in Major League Baseball, and I am very glad that he'll be ours for quite a while. (Given how long-term contracts --- especially to pitchers --- can blow up in a team's face, check back with me on this in a few years. For now, though, I am happy.)

New 2014 Hall of Famers

The Baseball Hall of Fame announcement has now occurred, and Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and Frank Thomas have made it to the Hall! They are richly deserving, and they join the richly deserving trio of managers (Bobby Cox, Tony La Russa, and Joe Torre). Also note the distinctively Braves-themed set of inductees, and it is nice to see Cox, Maddux, and Glavine go in together.

It looks like Biggio didn't quite make it this year (despite estimates based on 'exit polls' that he would be just over the 75% bar). Lame. Incredibly lame. We'll see what the percentages look like once those are out. From the exit polls, I know that at least one person didn't vote for Maddux, which is also incredibly lame.

A couple of hours ago, I wrote the following comments on Buster Olney's most recent article that focuses on the Hall of Fame, performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs), etc.

(1) The big increase for Bagwell (and others) from year 1 on the ballot to year 2 presumably includes a significant effect of many people distinguishing between a "first-ballot HOFer" and merely "an HOFer". People can argue about whether there should be such a distinction --- I think it's a reasonable one --- but many writers do seem to vote that way, so that is an important factor when considering subsequent increases in vote percentages. That effect can only occur once.

(2) I am fine with known PED users being in the Hall, but I would like a statement of it (if there is hard evidence) on their plaques. For example, McGwire's case (which would admittedly be more clear cut than most in this respect) could include a sentence "Admitted to using ... in [year he admitted it." That way, these people are in the Hall as part of history, and the uglier part of their history is _also_ being documented. Visitors to the Hall will read this and can judge the player for themselves. The Hall can --- and should --- be used to inform.


Update: As reported in this article, Biggio fell only 0.2% shy of being elected. Given the number of voters, this should imply that he missed by only 1 or 2 votes. I guess he'll get in next year, but (a) ouch and (b) he should already have been elected in his first year of eligibility. After Biggio, it looks like the next highest candidate was Mike Piazza with 62.2% of the vote (though he was projected to be in the high 60s based on an exit poll that had tabulated just over 1/3 of the estimated HOF ballots). Jack Morris was at 61.5% in his 15th and final year on the ballot. I'm glad he didn't make it, as he doesn't deserve to be in the HOF, and his tally presumably went down because the HOF ballot is exceptionally crowded this year. A crowded ballot is a continuing theme of HOF elections that won't go away any time soon.

Update 2: The website above now has the vote totals. It looks like there were 571 ballots in total. Based on that, Biggio missed by 2 votes. Jeff Bagwell, Tom Raines, and many others unfortunately saw their percentages go down (presumably due to the crowded ballot). Rafael Palmeiro failed to achieve the 5% mark to remain on the ballot next year. Sammy Sosa received enough votes to remain on the ballot in 2015. Next year will be Don Mattingly's 15th and final year on the ballot. I believe that his largest vote total was in his 1st year, and his support has been going down since then. He did have a few brilliant years, but injuries curtailed his performance and cut his career very short, and he doesn't deserve to be enshrined in the Hall.

One Does Not Simply Walk Into Los Angeles

Not only does nobody walk in LA, but it also seems that one does not simply walk into Los Angeles: a climate model applied to Middle Earth has found that Mordor's climate is basically like that of Los Angeles.

(Tip of the cap to Physics Today.)

It's Official: Hell Has Frozen Over

Yup, that's right: Hell has frozen over because of the polar vortex that is sweeping (part of) the nation. Perhaps that's because it's in Michigan?

(Tip of the cap to Andy Sayer.)

Rodman Vs. Kim: One on One

The java mini-gam, Rodman Vs. Kim: One on One is just too funny. It has a combination of snarky commentary and allusion to a game from bygone times that I simply love. (I never did like that old game or its sequel, but I am highly amused by the reference to it amidst the current basketball diplomacy. I just find this whole thing to be bizarre more than anything else.)

(Tip of the cap to Travis Hime.)

Epigenetics and Enhanced Brain Connectivity from Reading a Good Book

These are actually from two separate series of studies --- and the former technically is referring to a single study --- but they have in common that they're both really interesting and both with strong connections to neuroscience (which of course has tons of cool things up its sleeves).

Epigenetics sounds like science fiction, and it includes behavioral epigenetics, which refers to genetic experiences that an animal (including humans) can have based on experiences of their ancestors. (You may be interested in the wikipedia entry on epigenetics.) It is also easy to see why this is a controversial subject.

Meanwhile, it was demonstrated in a recent study that brain connectivity (in the resting state) can increase for 5 days after reading an engaging novel. The popular article to which I have linked indicates that "function" increases, but it is a leap to go from the conclusion of increasing connectivity (which one can measure, e.g., using tools from network analysis) to that of increasing function. I only looked at the paper very briefly, but from a scientific perspective I am currently much more comfortable claiming the former than the latter. Note, however, that this is very consistent with loads of anecdotal evidence and what many people have claimed about their own reading experiences for a very long time. I view it as somewhat akin to exercise and do think the strong form of the big-picture conclusion to be pretty damn likely (and the result is both sensible and intuitive), but the bar for scientific comfort naturally must be very high (and obviously is much higher than what intuitively I believe to be valid).

(Tip of the cap to Stephen Heise for neurological tips on reading a good book and to Susan Baldry Dole --- Stephen's friend on Facebook --- for posting the link to the popular article on behavioral epigenetics.)

Weighed Random-Number Generators, Sports Commentary, and Dungeons & Dragons

Yup, there is a lot of truth to this xkcd.

I probably blogged about this xkcd panel before, but anyway here it is again. On a slightly related note, take a look at Slate's coverage of Aaron Clauset's (and collaborators) recent work on sports.

(Tip of the cap to MoMath [The Museum of Mathematics].)

Demotivational Poster... Now With Actual Demotivation

This Demotivational Poster is not only brilliant, but (unlike most posters on the Demotivational Poster site) it includes actual demotivation.

Caltech Strikes the Rose Bowl... Again

Caltech has struck the Rose Bowl again in a prank that also harkens back to the classic Hollywood sign prank of 1987.

On this website, Caltech highlighted several of the most famous pranks in its history (as compiled by the Legends I, II, and III books).

What Happens in the Bay Area Stays in the Bay Area

I have made it to Sunnyvale, where I am staying with friends. I'll be hanging out with several of my peeps who live in various parts of the Bay Area! (And there will also be gaming!) Huzzah!

Charmin: Always an Asgardian

I love this ad for Charmin toilet paper. Too bad it got pulled so quickly...

(Tip of the cap to the Demotivational Poster blog.)

A Fun Scientific Name (And Other Similarly Fun Names)

Death match: Macaca fuscata fuscata versus Yo Yo Ma versus Boutros Boutros Ghali. And, yes, I am thinking of a certain Seinfeld soundbite right now. A certain album by The Police also came to mind.

Some scientific disciplines get so many of the fun names...

My Undergraduate Lecture Course on Networks

My lecture course on networks makes its debut as an undergraduate course in our new term (Hilary Term 2014).

I have some more information to include, but I am going to try to ignore such things for another week or so, but I have included a hyperlink to the official course synopsis. Normally, I would use a title like "Useful Links" for relevant websites, but for this course it's going to have to be "Useful Out-Edges". That's just the way it is.

By the way, I previously taught this module as an ad hoc course (2 years ago) and also for Masters students (last year). This term marks its debut as part of the undergraduate curriculum. 38 students are enrolled in my course, which is quite a strong debut (most debut courses only have a handful of students). I'll try not to ruin their lives.

The Importance of Being Curious

One of the attendees of Dynamics Days 2014 (I am not at the conference) posted a picture of one of the speaker's slides. This slide is paraphrasing Richard Hamming and has the following three questions: (1) What are the important problems in your field?; (2) What important problems are you working on?; and (3) Why are the answers to (1) and (2) different?


I reject what appears to be intended by the speaker's take-home message on that slide.

Here is my two-part answer to question (3):

(a) You should work on what damn well interests you --- forget about whether it's important. If both are true, great! But you work on whatever interests you.

(b) From a practical perspective, you make progress where you have ideas of how to make progress. If that includes what you consider to be the most important problems, so much the better.

Grants can fund important problems, but not every problem one works on is funded by a grant. To me, science is about pursuing things for curiosity, and I need no other reason for choosing what problems I work on.

"A Method Based on Total Variation for Network Modularity Optimization Using the MBO Scheme"

One of my papers just came out in final form. Here are the details.

Title: A Method Based on Total Variation for Network Modularity Optimization Using the MBO Scheme

Authors: Huiyi Hu, Thomas Laurent, Mason A. Porter, and Andrea L. Bertozzi

Abstract: The study of network structure is pervasive in sociology, biology, computer science, and many other disciplines. One of the most important areas of network science is the algorithmic detection of cohesive groups of nodes called "communities." One popular approach to finding communities is to maximize a quality function known as modularity to achieve some sort of optimal clustering of nodes. In this paper, we interpret the modularity function from a novel perspective: we reformulate modularity optimization as a minimization problem of an energy functional that consists of a total variation term and an l_2 balance term. By employing numerical techniques from image processing and l_1 compressive sensing --- such as convex splitting and the Merriman-Bence-Osher (MBO) scheme --- we develop a variational algorithm for the minimization problem. We present our computational results using both synthetic benchmark networks and real data.


The really cool thing about this paper is what it does for "technology translation". We reformulate the modularity quality function in a way that relates it to compressive-sensing-like problems. One can thereby adapt methods from the latter to use for modularity optimization. One of the best compliments that we have received about this paper thus far occurred right after posting it on the arXiv: Somebody from the image-processing community told us that our paper was written in a language such that he could finally understand what people were doing with graphs. Given the goals of the paper, that was exactly what I wanted to hear!

My Research is Magically Delicious!

One of these years, I am going to have the opportunity to include something like this in one of my papers:

"In Fig. 1, we show plots for parameter values a = 1 (pink hearts), a = 2 (yellow moons), a = 3 (orange stars), a = 4 (green clovers), a = 5 (blue moons), and a = 6 (purple horseshoes)."

And rest assured that I will do this.


(For those of you not in the know, this comes from the cereal Lucky Charms.)

Update: As Rachel Gray points out, I swapped the ordering of orange and yellow. As John Baker points out, the blue marshmallows at the time were diamonds rather than moons. It's good to get things straight now so that the published version is accurate. :)

Dogs Have a Preferred Pooping Orientation

Yup, you read that correctly: apparently, dogs prefer to take a dump in roughly a north-south orientation. It's science --- and also a strong contender for an Ig Nobel Prize.

(Tip of the cap to Julius Su.)

Isaac Asimov's 1964 Essay on Life in 2014

In 1964, Isaac Asimov wrote about life in 2014 via a visit to the 2014 World's Fair. His predictions were rather good on several counts.

(Tip of the cap to Maria Satterwhite.)

Happy 2015!

I hope that you and yours have a happy and healthy 2015!

Oh wait... is it too soon? ;)

"NSA Vanilla"

In the latest installment of 'Here's the straight line; you provide the joke', we have the following situation:

Coffee Bean has a powder with the label "NSA Vanilla". As you can see on this website, there is a secret ingredient that goes by the name of "NSA Powder". I wonder if it's anthrax?

New UK Knighthoods

The new UK knighthoods have been announced in the New Year's Honours lists.

One of the recipients is my zoologist coauthor (and Somerville colleague) Marian Dawkins, who was honored for "services to Animal Welfare". Clearly, it must have been our joint work on cow synchronization that put her over the top. :) Yeah right. (My other two papers with Marian are another one on cow synchrony and a recent one on dominance relationships in animals.)

Another of the recipients is my Mathematical Institute colleague Frances Kirwan, who was named a DBE for "services to Mathematics".

Major congratulations!

Costume of the Year

Newly retired pitcher Roy Halladay went to 1980s-themed costume party... dressed as Jamie Moyer. Now that's a big win!

(Tip of the cap to whoever posts for MLB on Facebook.)

Baseball Battery Anagrams

I am reading Jayson Stark's strange-but-true account of the 2013 baseball season, and I simply love the following baseball battery anagram:

From Diane Firstman: When Jason Castro caught Jarred Cosart in Houston, they made anagram history, if not baseball history -- joining Matt Nokes and Randy Nosek as the only catcher-pitcher anagram duos ever to mess with both the alphabet and the box scores.

Now that is awesome!

Subtitles: A Legal Requirement of Popular Biographies

Or, in longer form, Subtitles: A Legal Requirement of Popular Biographies (even when we're completely out of clever ideas)

Or how About: Author: Because Somebody Actually Wrote The Book You Had To Read In High School

I am thinking of this because Somerville College's Senior Common Room has a copy of this book, because the potential consumers needed to be reminded that William Golding is the dude who wrote Lord of the Flies. (To be fair, I also remembered the book title but not the author.)

What Are We Waiting For?

At Peet's Coffee a day or two ago, I asked an old man if he was in line, as I didn't want to accidentally skip ahead of him.

He answered me that "No, I'm waiting for Godot."

So I responded in deadpan with "You're probably going to be waiting for a very long time."

He didn't answer. I hope he at least appreciated that I got the reference. (In retrospect, I think a Petty-themed "The waiting is the hardest part." would have been better, but timing is everything when it comes to wit.)

Spectacular Abandoned Haunting Grounds

This list (and, especially, the accompanying pictures) of abandoned places --- which might be haunted (who knows?) --- is really awesome. The explorer in me wants to set sail right now!

Of course, there is a glaring omission. My old Caltech apartment ought to have been included. Criminal.

(Tip of the cap to Maria Satterwhite.)

A Brief Note on Bratty Children and Their Bratty Parents

There ought to be a special place in Hell reserved for people who seem to be perfectly content with their children bothering strangers in a cafe (e.g., ones who are trying to work) just so they can scroll through the messages on their phone.

I don't need to be distracted with a child crashing into my leg with the bicycle that he's riding indoors.

Believe it or not, I actually like children and can be very good with them, but at least tell your brat when this happens that he's not supposed to do this! That's why the kid is a brat.

(OK, I'll stop now.)

2013 Darwin Awards

The 2013 Darwin Awards have now been (proverbially) handed out. There are some big "winners" here, but I think I like #9 the best just because I can emphathize with the criminal's level of frustration.

(Tip of the cap to Bonnie Harland.)

The Physics of Ants

Apparently, a collection of fire ants can act either as a fluid or as a solid. Check out the video in the New York Times article to which I just linked. It's way cool.

(Tip of the cap to whoever posts for APS Physics on Facebook.)

Update (12/21/13): As Jimmy Lin points out, you can also make some really cool sculptures by pouring molten aluminum down anthills. Seeing this makes me want data from Anthill Art to complement our study of a rabbit warren in this paper. Notice that the depicted fire ant colonies have a much more complicated network structure than the carpenter ant colonies.

"Limit Order Books"

Our review article on limit order books finally has official page numbers and all that, so I am finally going to blog about it. Here are the details of the article.

Title: Limit Order Books

Authors: Martin D. Gould, Mason A. Porter, Stacy Williams, Mark McDonald, Daniel J. Fenn, and Sam D. Howison

Abstract: Limit order books (LOBs) match buyers and sellers in more than half of the world's financial markets. This survey highlights the insights that have emerged from the wealth of empirical and theoretical studies of LOBs. We examine the findings reported by statistical analyses of historical LOB data and discuss how several LOB models provide insight into certain aspects of the mechanism. We also illustrate that many such models poorly resemble real LOBs and that several well-established empirical facts have yet to be reproduced satisfactorily. Finally, we identify several key unresolved questions about LOBs.

"No, Mr. Bond. I Expect You to Die."

Here is a new article in British Medical Journal (which, in a KFC-like move, appears to now use the branding of simply BMJ) that estimates James Bond's level of alcohol consumption and discusses the possible effects on his health and sexual prowess/proclivity.

(Tip of the cap to Easter Eggs in Scientific Papers.)

New Members of Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame has announced which artists and others will be inducted in 2014. It includes luminaries like Peter Gabriel, Nirvana, Cat Stevens, Kiss, Hall & Oates, and others.

Predictions for the Future (Circa 1900)

Here are some predictions for the future that were published in Ladies' Home Journal in 1900. Some of the predictions were spot on (or even not ambitious enough), but we haven't yet thrown out a certain three letters from the English alphabet, and that's a good thing for those of us who like to play Scrabble...

(Tip of the cap to Ellie [Park] Pattie.)

Some "Awesome" Exam Answers

Here are several exam answers that are both awesome and "awesome". Well, many of them have both qualities. I have seen a few of these before, but some of them are new. Enjoy!

(Tip of the cap to Aubri Hendrick.)

Gangs of Crabs

When you go to the beach, be careful about gangs of crabs. (One of our referees for this paper seems to be a crabby dude and suggested that we should bring up empirical evidence from animals like crabs. If for no other reason, we should add such comments to the paper just because of the jokes that it will enable.)

(Tip of the cap to I Fucking Love Science.)

The Hokey Pokey Clinic

It is "A place to turn yourself around". I love it!

Creepy Logos

Some organizations really just don't get it.

Let's consider London Transport, who in 2002 gave the 'Secure beneath watchful eyes' advertising campaign. You know: in the land of infinite CCTV cameras (which one never looks at the same way again after reading The Atrocity Archives)? And then you've got these Big-Brotherish mascots from the 2012 summer Olympics. Really, England?

Not to be outdone (though I think this is slightly less creepy than the above examples), the National Reconnaissance Office now brings us their 'Nothing is Beyond Our Reach' campaign --- complete with Cthulhu (I mean octopus). Really, America?

I get that countries do bloody annoying and invasive things. But they could at least be more self-aware about it...

(Tip of the cap to Justin Howell.)

Pancake Art

Here is some very cool pancake art. This includes some very scientific pancakes (e.g. a Lorenz attractor), which isn't a surprise given that the creator is a math teacher. (I have an odd feeling of deja vu that I might have posted a link to this pancake art a while ago, but I am doing it now anyway.)

(Tip of the cap to I Fucking Love Science.)

Roy Halladay Announces his Retirement

This took me by surprise: Roy Halladay is signing a 1-day contract with the Blue Jays and retiring today. This took me by surprise.

New Hall of Fame Managers

Today, this year's version of the committee formerly known as the Veterans Committee elected Bobby Cox, Tony La Russa, and Joe Torre to Major League Baseball's Hall of Fame. All three former managers were elected unanimously, and all three of them richly deserve this honor.

There are others who were considered this time around that also deserve a spot in the Hall of Fame, but they will have to wait a few years (during the next time that candidates from the "Expansion Era" are considered).

Update (sort of; 12/10/13): Roger Angell has finally won the Hall of Fame's J.G. Taylor Spink Award for baseball writing. About damn time.

Research Assessment Exercises and Frameworks are Stupid

Well, that is not exactly a controversial statement among the crowds that I usually walk --- but anybody from the UK government reading this ought to take heed! --- but you'll be interested to read about this in the context of newly minted Nobel laureate Peter Higgs. He is an extreme case, but it still illustrates an important point: we should be allowed to do our bloody work instead of wasting our damn time with this nonsense!

(Tip of the cap to Kevin Hickerson.)

You Know What Comes Next: Civilization Edition

I braced myself when I saw this, because I knew what was coming...

This Page Will Self-Destruct in 5 Seconds...

Yes, really.

"Mathematical Formulation of Multilayer Networks"

The final version of the our (i.e., the PLEXMATH team's) article on a mathematical formalism for multilayer networks is now available from Physical Review X. You can find a popular summary of this work on their website. Here are some of the main details of the paper.

Title: Mathematical Formulation of Multilayer Networks

Authors: Manlio De Domenico, Albert Solé-Ribalta, Emanuele Cozzo, Mikko Kivelä, Yamir Moreno, Mason A. Porter, Sergio Gómez, and Alex Arenas

Abstract: A network representation is useful for describing the structure of a large variety of complex systems. However, most real and engineered systems have multiple subsystems and layers of connectivity, and the data produced by such systems are very rich. Achieving a deep understanding of such systems necessitates generalizing "traditional" network theory, and the newfound deluge of data now makes it possible to test increasingly general frameworks for the study of networks. In particular, although adjacency matrices are useful to describe traditional single-layer networks, such a representation is insufficient for the analysis and description of multiplex and time-dependent networks. One must therefore develop a more general mathematical framework to cope with the challenges posed by multilayer complex systems. In this paper, we introduce a tensorial framework to study multilayer networks, and we discuss the generalization of several important network descriptors and dynamical processes—including degree centrality, clustering coefficients, eigenvector centrality, modularity, von Neumann entropy, and diffusion—for this framework. We examine the impact of different choices in constructing these generalizations, and we illustrate how to obtain known results for the special cases of single-layer and multiplex networks. Our tensorial approach will be helpful for tackling pressing problems in multilayer complex systems, such as inferring who is influencing whom (and by which media) in multichannel social networks and developing routing techniques for multimodal transportation systems.

USB Cable Theory of Sexual Education

SMBC Comics presents the USB cable theory of sex ed. Yes, really.

P.S. This turns out to not be today's panels, so perhaps I posted this before? (I'm getting a feeling of deja vu on this one.)

Maybe I have posted this before? I'm getting a feeling of deja vu on this one. :) [Yes, that was a cheap joke.]

What The Reviewers Say

Reviewer #2 concludes in his/her final sentence: "The results here represented a substantial step backward in terms of value and sophistication from the many published analyses that have already been published in ..."

Ouch. Yes, not only does this referee not like our paper, but we have devalued the work that already exists. (To give some context, let me point out that reviews of Tom Lehrer's work have included comments such as "Mr. Lehrer's muse is not fettered by such inhibiting factors as taste.", "More desperate than amusing", "He seldom has any point to make except obvious ones", and "Plays the piano acceptably".) We will survive to improve the paper and submit it to another journal.

Well, at least there are also comments that we can use to make our paper better when we submit it somewhere else.

Dodger Broadcasting Changes

I didn't catch this news when it came out, but the Dodgers have dumped Steve ("Psycho") Lyons and Eric Collins from their broadcasting team. Lyons is an atrocious broadcaster, and we employed him for way too long. Nomaaaaaah Garciaparra is joining our broadcasting crew, and we're trying to recruit Orel Hershiser. I would love for Hershiser to return to the Dodgers as a broadcaster.

In other baseball news, the Nationals fleeced the Tigers in acquiring Doug Fister. Really, what were the Tigers thinking? Meanwhile, the Nationals' starting rotation is rock solid.

Mason Porter: International Man of Mystery

Apparently, the French bureaucracy uses the word "mission" for things like my trip to Paris to give a seminar on my research.

"I'm sending you in attachment 2 documents that you should fill in to open your mission for the visit..." (...) "The policy here requires to ask you to please purchase your travel ticket(s), for which you will be refunded at the end of the mission..."

That's me, alright: Mason Porter, International Man of Mystery (formerly "International Phenomenon").

(I am accepting this mission, of course! Indeed, I am very much looking forward to it.)

What Happens in Brussels Stays in Brussels

Today I am flying to Brussels, where tomorrow we have our first-year grant review for our three-year PLEXMATH grant. I will return to Oxford tomorrow night, and then I (thankfully) don't have any flights until I return to the US on 20 December.

Some Unusual Areas of Research

This interesting article has some interesting mini-profiles on some people who are pursuing areas of study that are a bit off of the beaten track.

(Tip of the cap to Mariano Beguerisse Díaz.)

A Rough Day at the Office

The dude in this animated GIF must have had a rough day at the office.