My Academic Valentine

This was my contribution yesterday.

Roses are red.
The nodes have heterogeneous degrees.
The network may be heavy-tailed;
but it's probably not scale-free.#ScienceValentine#AcademicValentine

(Technically, "The network's degree distribution may be heavy-tailed;", but that's less poetic.)

— Mason Porter (@masonporter) February 14, 2019

Academic X-Mas Bingo Board

I do very well on this Bingo board even without X-Mas!

With Christmas just around the corner, it's time to play the academia bingo. Who's going to win first this year? pic.twitter.com/UMVLgYJNBT

— Sylvain ❄️👨🏻‍🎓 (@DevilleSy) December 20, 2017

(Tip of the cap to Sabine Hossenfelder.)

'National Nobody Cares Day'

April 11th is `National Nobody Cares Day'. Yes, this really exists.

(The things I learn when listening to a baseball game... The context, unsurprisingly, is all of the rather specific days there are — several of them each day — and most of them seem rather pointless. For example, tomorrow is National Lollypop Day.)

What Happens in Canada Stays in Canada

Off to Canada for a few days! First Calgary to give a pair of talks and then Vancouver to visit friends.

(After living overseas for 9 years, I am used to not celebrating Thanksgiving. And this year of all years, I don't have the stomach to celebrate it anyway.)

National Relaxation Day

In honor of National Relaxation Day, I offer you a link to the wikipedia entry for "Relaxation (physics)". It's about time that you learned about that anyway. :) Unless, of course, you already know about it (like the physicists and many others who read this blog).

Also, according to the website Punchbowl, which appears to keep track of holidays, today is also "Assumption Day" and "Lemon Meringue Pie Day". So, if possible, find a way to combine all three. I'm just going to assume that you do that. August is "National Goat Cheese Month", so eat some of that too, and don't forget to listen to Elvis while doing so because it is "Elvis Week" (though you get to decide between Presley and Costello, even though I assume that they mean the former) and do it in a plane because it's "National Aviation Week".

OK, "Enough of that.", as George Carlin might say.

(Tip of the cap the the Dragon Con Facebook page.)

Christmas Parties and Alienation

I went to our math department's Christmas party for 5 minutes but then left because of the Christmas music. I was going to try to pretend that it was not for a specific holiday that is somebody else's and celebrate the end of term with my colleagues, but the Christmas music to go with everything else makes it impossible for me, so I felt the need to leave because it was starting to make me angry. There's just no point in staying when it makes me feel alienated and angry. (And it's not even that I don't like any Christmas songs --- there are, in fact, a couple that I like a lot --- but the whole feeling of inundation is something I can do without.)

Sorry if that's my flaw and nothing more (I know this bothers others less than me), but it remains true that this makes it so that I should leave. A holiday party isn't about feeling alienated. So it's best that I left.

I will get some more work done instead, and I'll celebrate with my colleagues another time.

And I will also calm down and return to my feelings of placidity.