The Multiplex Social–Slayage Network of Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Here is the multiplex social–slayage network of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

The Buffy social network: slayage and love links. https://t.co/xwQ0DoKpAG

— Peter Sheridan Dodds (@peterdodds) March 11, 2018

This figure is definite fodder for talks. Also, if somebody sets up the adjacencies, we should compute some centrality and versatility measures.

What's a Rouge Wave?

I managed to sneak one of the all-time best lines from Buffy/Angel into the tweet below.

At first, I accidentally, introduced the typo "rouge", but I managed to change the tweet before anybody could reply with "What's a rouge wave?" Naturally, this inspired the title of this post.

Rogue Wave Hunters: Wind-generated waves in ring-shaped water tanks can spontaneously yield behemoth waves: https://t.co/4QSaR0MsSl

— DynamicalSystemsSIAM (@DynamicsSIAM) April 7, 2017

"GER... ARG"

As Dave Relyea has pointed out: For all Buffy fans: The world cup final has a scoreboard, and it reads: "GER... ARG".

I approve!

What Happens in Silwood Park Stays in Silwood Park

This evening, I'll be taking the train (and, apparently, replacement bus service) to Ascot to get myself over to Imperial College's Silwood Park campus for environmental fluctuations, recovery, and resilience of biological networks, which is part of their program on Grand Challenges in the Ecosystem and the Environment (GCEE).

Take a look at a a map of the local area, which covers Silwood, Windsor Park, and Maidenhead. Based on the names of some of the places on this map, it looks like I'm going to be pretty close to a Hellmouth. Also, this map is a great example of how awesome the Brits can be sometimes with their naming conventions. It would be pretty damn awesome, for example, if "Cheapside" has evolved to be a posh, expensive location filled with luxurious mansions. ("Unfortunately, I can't afford to live in Cheapside.")

Update: I have reached the center for population biology that Imperial College has at their Silkwood Park campus, and there are rabbits all over the place here. There is something right with the world.

What happens at Dragon*Con stays at Dragon*Con

I have arrived in Atlanta. My first Dragon*Con in 6 years starts tomorrow morning!!! 3.5 solid days of gaming and geekery starts morning!!! (That's right. For once, I am actually taking a proper holiday.) Stay tuned for some *awesome* pictures!

My hotel is near where I used to live, and seeing my old apartment complex upon walking out of the metro station felt very weird.

I have pre-registered for 2 games, though I might skip out on one of them because it starts at 10 pm on Sunday, and Monday after the Con ends I will need to prepare my slides for my cow synchronization talk at Georgia Tech on Tuesday. (Once Dragon*Con ends, I am going to switch to my academic visit mode, and I didn't get a chance to make too many of these slides yet, and this is an all-new talk.) The one I will definitely do is the 3.5 D & D adventure called "Into the Nexus" (which is based on the Weis/Hickman series of books on which you think it's based). The one I might not do is in a system called "Spirit of the Century". The adventure seems very cool, but I'm not keen on getting home at 3am on Monday. I'm also going to play in The Cheesegrinder, of course! My pseudodragon monk, who is immune to just about everything (though an anti-magic field would get rid of some of the immunities temporarily, as only some are due to race and monkhood) but can hardly do any damage at all, is ready to go. I finished 2nd overall 6 years ago, and the key is survivability, so we'll see how things go. In making this character, I had to actually look up weapon damage adjustments for tiny creatures! (And, yes, the characters are supposed to be cheesy too.)

As always, I'm also looking forward to the dealer room, the exhibit hall, and the art gallery. I didn't have a digital camera the other two times I attended Dragon*Con, so I expect to take tons of cool pictures. Lots of people will dress up in their finest geekery, so there is also great pleasure even in just sitting down, having some coffee, and people-watching. Plus I have several Firefly, Buffy/Angel, and Star Trek autographs that I'll try to procure. (And I'll try to get pictures taken with these people of course.)

Bring it on.

(By the way, these 3.5 days off constitute a tie for my longest vacation in about 3 years---well, it's tied with the 3.5 days off in a row that I took during my Shanghai trip.)

Life Imitates Weird Science (and Buffy)

Every so often there's a news story that reminds us how life sometimes imitates the things we see in movies and television.

Well, this time around life seems to be imitating Weird Science (and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, if you prefer), as a Japanese inventor has built his own girlfriend.

Money quote: She has all senses except for smell.

Money quote #2: Aiko actually means "love child" in Japanese but the software engineer denies he has created the robot for sex.


As some of you will no doubt recall, this didn't exactly work out well for the character in Buffy. We'll see what happens in this case.

Has the world frozen over?

You know what happened today?

I actually received my reimbursement check from Charter, which overcharged me when I cancelled my service effective last October first. (This is separate from the summer fiasco, which sadly never got resolved in my favor.) The stamp on the envelope is dated February 20th, but the check is dated something like October 30th of last year for some reason. (Part of me thinks that the bank is going to insist that the check has expired when I try to deposit this... That would certainly fit in with the Charter motto.)

Other things: Joss Whedon did something rather evil in the credits towards the end of season 6 of Buffy. (I don't want to give spoilers, so I'll leave my comments for private discussions or later blog entries.) Also, the "Supersymmetry" episode of Angel made my heart warm and fuzzy with certain things (like mentioning Ed Witten and Brian Greene by name and referring to them as the Nomar Garciaparra and Sammy Sosa of string theory) but it also annoyed me in numerous respects by getting just about the entire physics and journal publishing atmosphere dead wrong. On a completely separate note, I have some teaching stuff I want to rant about. That will also have to be part of a private conversation.

Fact of the Day (I get my kicks above the waistline, Sunshine!)

As most of you reading this know, the character of Giles in the show Buffy is played by Anthony Head. The last name is a bit of an odd one (IMO) and it occurred to me a few minutes ago that I know of only one other person with that last name --- Murray Head, the singer of One Night in Bangkok, which is only one of the best songs ever.

Following this whim, I just looked both of them up without really expecting that they have anything to do with each other. As it turns out, however, they're brothers. Awesome!