Children to be Named Later (Best. Erratum. Ever.)

The excellent new book by Kiss, Miller, and Simon on epidemics and networks also has an erratum that is one of my all-time favorites. (See their website of errata.)

In fact, I think this error is a feature of the book, rather than a bug (especially given that I automatically think of Paul Erdős). By the way, the book itself is awesome, so go take a look at it. Here is a screenshot of the erratum.

(Tip of the cap to my Ph.D. student Yacoub Kureh for pointing this out to me in our meeting today. This erratum is an instant classic.)

Let's Vote on the Baby's Gender!

CNN.com, you're doing it wrong!

Tales from the ArXiv: Baby Names and Random Walks

Well, how about that: using things like PageRank and other random-walk algorithms to come up with baby names. It's crazy, but I kind of dig it. :) Also, I these somebody wants an Ig Nobel prize (in Peace?)...

You can try it for yourself at the Nameling website.

A Mathematical Name

Another one of my former students just became a father. As he writes, Kallisti Lemma [last name] was born at 11:41 PM CST on December 6, 2012 weighing in at 9 lbs 5 oz and 22 inches long.

Notice the middle name. It compelled me include the following sentence in my response: If/when Kallisti gets a younger sibling, presumably the middle name is going to be "Theorem"? Apparently, other people have suggested names like "Corolloary" and "Proposition" for future siblings.

The story behind the name is very cool. The mathematics connection is there and that was one reason why my former student really liked it, but it started from a honeymoon in Greece, the original name of Santorini being Kallisti (which means "the loveliest"), and the name "Lemma" (which in Greek means "something received, such as a gift") from a section on antiquated names from a book of names. (My former student's name apparently likes antiquated names.)

Anyway, I think this is extremely cool!

Unbaby.me

I just found out about the Unbaby.me website, which allows one to replace baby pictures in Facebook feeds with pictures of awesome stuff. This is tempting. Very, very tempting.

(Tip of the cap to the New York Times.)

Best. Shirts for Twin Babies. Ever.

The parents of these twin babies are awesome! I approve!

What's in a Name?

Here is an interesting article on cnn.com about baby naming rules in different countries.

Demotivational Poster of the Day: Retort!

I love the retort even more than I love the original poster. I approve!

My (brand new) namesakes

I was doing a quick google search for myself to see if anything interesting would come up, and I just saw this doozy.

Apparently, Friday was the 8-month anniversary of the birth of twins boys named "Mason" and "Porter". There is something seriously wrong here.

I have a bit of an urge to post a comment on that blog entry, but these people are completely random and I'm leaning towards the fact that they wouldn't appreciate it, so I won't do it. Still, this is weird. It would have been even cooler if that family had triplets and the third kid was named "Alexander". Nevertheless, I am clearly going to have to add their birthday as a day that I celebrate regularly.

By the way, there's no word on what these twins think of American television.