An Epic Figure Caption

Wow. Just wow.

Clearly, it needs a figure to go with it.

(Tip of the cap to Jesús Cuevas Maraver, who retweeted this tweet.)

A New Paper (and a Great Meta-Acknowledgement) on the Cost of Formatting in Scientific Papers

I am very amused. :)

A Spectacular List of Errata

This is epic.

pic.twitter.com/71VmZY4I0w

— Math Facts (@FactsOfMath) October 8, 2019

(Tip of the cap to math prof.)

I Have "NoIDEA"

It turns out that there is a journal called "Nonlinear Differential Equations and Applications". The acronym it uses is "NoDEA".

I feel inspired!

I am going to start a journal called "Nonlinear Integro-Differential Equations and Applications", and its acronym will be "NoIDEA"!

— Mason Porter (@masonporter) September 18, 2019

Spot-On SMBC Comic about Scientific "Findings"

The comic-strip author this one.

Mouseover text: "Somewhere, there's a scientist reading this, wonder[ing] why I made a comic with no hyperbole."

Some scientists get all the breaks pic.twitter.com/l327NT5vFd

— Adam J Calhoun (@neuroecology) June 14, 2019

A Paper from Hell

It had to be done.

Does Scientific Reports Correspond to an Outhouse?

So, based on that analogy, does Scientific Reports correspond to a nearby outhouse? :P

Thinking of submitting to Nature, by which of course, I mean going deep into the woods to live in a cabin and never opening a laptop again.

— Amy Schwartz 🦇 (@lizardschwartz) April 10, 2019

Sometimes the Refereeing Process Actually Works :)

We had a paper just accepted to PRE, and I wanted to show it to someone who I thought may not have seen it.

Me: "Yes, we need to upload the revised version to the arXiv reasonably soon. We changed it substantially (we had a very thorough and helpful referee), so I didn't want to only point you to the old version."

Response: "I hesitated to tell you this in the first message, but I was the referee--thanks for the compliment, all the more meaningful since you didn't know!!"

As frustrating as this can all be (and it is very often indeed), sometimes the process really does work, and sometimes you end up accidentally complimenting somebody a lot instead of accidentally having egg on your face. ;)

"Network Science In Education: Transformational Approaches in Teaching and Learning"

Our book on network science in education just came out. Here are some details.

Title: Network Science In Education: Transformational Approaches in Teaching and Learning

Editors: Catherine B. Cramer, Mason A. Porter, Hiroki Sayama, Lori Sheetz, and Stephen Miles Uzzo

The book also includes my chapter about developing my undergraduate mathematics course about networks.

Referee Reports for the Watts–Strogatz 'Small World' Paper

This is a great document!

Steve Strogatz posted his referee reports (with annotations for their revision plans) about his genre-defining 1998 ‘small world’ paper with Duncan Watts.

It just goes to show that misguided, skeptical reports (see Referee 2 in the upper right) happen to the best of us.

Referee 2 was confused about the implications of the work to systems other than those studied (and possibly even to those applications)…

(The source is Steve's tweet. I posted the picture separately to orient it correctly.)

"Topological Data Analysis of Continuum Percolation with Disks"

One of my papers came out in final form today. Here are some details and a story.

Title: Topological Data Analysis of Continuum Percolation with Disks

Authors: Leo Speidel, Heather A. Harrington, S. Jonathan Chapman, and Mason A. Porter

Abstract: We study continuum percolation with disks, a variant of continuum percolation in two-dimensional Euclidean space, by applying tools from topological data analysis. We interpret each realization of continuum percolation with disks as a topological subspace of [0,1]^2 and investigate its topological features across many realizations. Specifically, we apply persistent homology to investigate topological changes as we vary the number and radius of disks, and we observe evidence that the longest persisting invariant is born at or near the percolation transition.


And to give a story, or at least the hint of the interesting relationship that I sometimes have with typesetters and editors, here is a note that I received from them while we were working on the galley proofs.

Update (8/05/18): A nice way of phrasing things is that we're in a nonassociative situation, and hyphens are a great tool to indicate exactly (and tersely) where the parentheses should be to group terms in a way that renders their meaning unambiguous. (And, naturally, if somebody makes a change in my text that I don't like, my immediate desire is to change it back.)

The Paradox of PLOS One and Scientific Reports

Whenever I see somebody bragging about getting a paper published by a trashy journal like PLOS One or Scientific Reports, I inevitably wonder whether they're being serious (but naive) or whether they're trolling people. Seriously, I can't tell.

Also, remember the mantra: FIPO (= "Fuck it. PLOS One.")

Smurfy Peer Review

Resolved: I am going to start taking inspiration from The Smurfs when I write referee reports for articles that particularly annoy me.

To wit:

"Where did the authors smurf up this idea?"

"This figure is smurfed."

"The authors might want to consider smurfing the abstract a little bit more."

Update: I know; I know: this isn't very smurfy of me.

Update 2: "A total smurf job."

XKCD: "Negative Results"

I am amused.

Scholarship: Part of the Scientific Reward System

I may have been slightly snarky. :)

Also: scholarship ;)

— DynamicalSystemsSIAM (@DynamicsSIAM) June 20, 2018

Video of my Tutorial in Paper-Writing in Applied Mathematics

Here is a video of my recent (4/20) tutorial on paper-writing in applied mathematics.

Here is the video of my tutorial on paper-writing in applied mathematics: https://t.co/uAbUatOpnS

For reasons unbenownst to me, YouTube decided to classify it as a "comedy".

Maybe that's a feature, rather than a bug?

— Mason Porter (@masonporter) May 9, 2018

You can also download the slides.

I hope that people find it helpful!

In Conclusion, Hilarity Ensues.

"Hilarity ensues." is acceptable for the Conclusions section of a paper, right?

"Title of a Paper"

I’ll soon be giving what amounts to a tutorial for my UCLA Ph.D. students, who will be embarking on writing papers, and — as I was thinking about what materials to prepare — my mind went to a dark, sarcastic place.

(Inspiration from "Title of the Song" by Da Vinci's Notebook.) pic.twitter.com/N1n3xSY6xr

— Mason Porter (@masonporter) March 15, 2018

Update: It turns out that I did this so quickly that I mixed my Oxford and UCLA affiliations. Oops.

Best. Erratum. Ever.

Because they have so many coauthors, one letter wrong in a name led to this. :)

This is quite a correction for the misspelling of one author's name by a single letter. pic.twitter.com/PJgwmETSIj

— Retraction Watch (@RetractionWatch) March 13, 2018

(Tip of the cap to Nalini Joshi, whose 'liking' of this tweet led me to find it.)

What is the Weirdest Historical/Superstitious Practice in Academia?

This is definitely it.

I saw this yesterday, but I didn't post it because the embedded tweet wasn't showing the original question. I should have taken a screenshot and posted it. :)

Publish in journals. https://t.co/U2Oiin9Hu3

— Michael Hendricks (@MHendr1cks) August 2, 2017