The Need for Good Item Recommendation Systems

As discussed in a recent study group paper in which I participated, the online item recommendation systems currently employed are really crappy. A major problem stems from data sparsity because people's actual preferences are determined by what is known as the "long tail," which refers to the idea of rare events (where data is quite sparse) being the most important determining factor of something. (OK, what I wrote isn't a mathematical definition. See our discussion in the paper.) For example, you can't reasonably tell very much about which Wii games I might like based on the fact that I bought Super Smash Brother Brawl because so many people bought it. (You can certainly narrow things down to the fact that I might want games for the Wii as opposed to picking a system at random.) Instead, you would need to go to one of my preferences that is much less common to indicate what my preferences actually are. Then the trouble becomes how to do this effectively because the data sparsity in such regimes makes it hard to do such things effectively. It's quite mathematically challenging. Anyway, the reason I write this now is that because of the fact that I bought Super Smash Brothers Brawl, I have just gotten an e-mail from Amazon suggesting that I might also like to purchase Onechanbara: Bikini Zombie Slayers. Um, no thanks.

Rickey Henderson and Jim Rice elected to Baseball's Hall of Fame

Well, it's official: Rickey Henderson and Jim Rice are now members of Major League Baseball's Hall of Fame. Henderson, in his first year of eligibility, was named on 94.8% of the ballots. This means that 28 of the 539 voters are morons. Rickey should have been named on every ballot. And if you don't believe me, you can just ask Rickey. Jim Rice, on the other hand, was in his 15th and final year on the ballot and joins a bunch of other great players who should need to buy a ticket to get into the Hall of Fame. So it goes.

There are also some notable names who got shut out. Mark McGwire would already be in the Hall if it weren't for the whole steroid business. He blew it. Andrew Dawson inched up to 67.0% of the vote, and he'll make it pretty soon---maybe as early as next year though more likely in 2011. Bert Blyleven is at 62.7% and should already have been elected to the Hall years ago. Blyleven isn't even a borderline case. It's ridiculous. Also not borderline is Tim Raines, who was named on a paltry 22.6% of the ballots but is also a no-doubt Hall of Famer. How do the voters not realize just how good he was? Among other things he was much better than Dawson and Rice!

On this page, you can see which players are coming up for election during the next few years. There aren't any obvious first-timers in 2010, though Roberto Alomar deserves to make it. Fred McGriff, Barry Larkin, and probably Edgar Martinez also belong in the Hall, but I think that Alomar is the only one of them with a realistic shot to make it in 2010. Larkin will eventually make it, though he could easily get screwed over like Alan Trammell (who also deserves to be elected). McGriff is an underappreciated player who belongs in the Hall, and whose stats got drowned out from the gaudy numbers of the steroids era. Sigh... Anyway, the lack of obvious first-timers next year will help Dawson and Blyleven a lot and Tim Raines a little bit. (That's why I think Dawson has a chance to make it next year.) Among the 2011 crowd, Jeff Bagwell will make it eventually, though I doubt he'll get the first-time election he deserves. Rafael Palmeiro would have been an obvious first-time choice, but he's going to be following McGwire's path in the voting. Larry Walker will get some votes, but he's another great player who isn't quite good enough for the Hall. 2012 is quite a weak year. Bernie Williams will get some votes and may ultimately be elected. Tim Salmon will get a few votes as well, but he'll never make it. The fact that we have some relatively light years coming up bodes well for Dawson and Blyleven, and maybe we can get the campaign going for Tim Raines before people forget about him the way they've done with Alan Trammell. Here is one person's list of 40 future Hall of Famers.

Finally, let's talk about Rickey Henderson some more. Here is an excellent article with several cool stories about Rickey being Rickey. Tim Kurkjian also has a few Rickey Henderson stories. I am very eagerly looking forward to Rickey's acceptance speech. And I'm not the only one, as Jim Caple has anticipated what Rickey might say. Rickey's ego was just as prominent as his performance. He was also quite a character, and I expect this his speech will reflect that.

At least he did well in roompicks

Courtesy CNN.com, one of the Freshman Congressman is sleeping on a cot in his office when he is inside the Beltway. Nice!

Sacrificing Facebook "friends" for Whoppers

I am officially amused.

Here is an article about a new Burger King promo that allows one to get a free whopper if one removes 10 Facebook "friends". That's pretty funny. (Tip of the hat to Sham Kakade, a Scurve from one of my old D & D groups.) Best. Promo. Ever.

How to Interact with Airport Security

\begin{rant}

I think I am being uncontroversial in claiming that the following should be obvious: When at an airport (or dropping someone off at the airport), don't pick a fight with airport security. I'm not saying not to be annoyed with (or angered at, insulting by, etc.) some of the bullshit or to calmly ask for appropriate clarifications. I'm just saying that one shouldn't pick a fight when one isn't provoked. Simple.

OK, so one of my family members was dropping me off at the airport on Tuesday and our car was magically chosen for a very quick inspection (to open the trunk for a very brief look to make sure that we didn't have any dead bodies or counterfeit drugs in there). Fine. My reaction would be to have preferred not to be chosen but to take it in stride. The officer asked something like "Can I took a look in the trunk?" Notice the phrasing. It wasn't quite accurate because although he phrased it as a question, there wasn't really a choice involved (unless, of course, we were willing to just leave without my being dropped off). Now there are situations in which I might be anal if somebody phrased things this way (although in conversations I really only care whether I correctly understand the intended meaning), but this would not be one of them. My relative, on the other hand, decided to (a) try to answer no, (b) ask for a clarification and---in an extremely pissy manner---comment about the illusion of choice when there isn't any because of the inaccurate phrasing, and (c) be generally obnoxious. The officer asked very politely initially, so there wasn't any provocation with attitude, etc. (I have occasionally had interactions with rather insulting border patrol people, but my standard procedure even then is to suck it up and just do whatever action I think will get me through fastest. For such things, I am always attempting to do whatever optimizes how fast I get through---so not starting fights when they don't already exist is a good example of something I might do.) After the extreme pissiness, however, the officer was justifiably annoyed and was much less kind about things. We got through, and the look at the trunk took maybe 1/20th the amount of time as the unnecessary argument. Also, if one is going to express displeasure at such stuff (which I can understand), one can do it without picking a fight! Is it really so hard to be calm and polite when something doesn't quite go one's way? Sigh...

One of these days when I am at my parents' home, I swear I'm going to find the adoption papers that they've been hiding from me all these years...

\end{rant}

Rickey Henderson won't be a unanimous Hall selection

Why? Because at least one of the voters is really lame! That's why. Look at who that guy did vote for! Matt Williams?!? That's crazy talk!

"Mathematician" named top job in a America

I just found out from an AMS press release that "mathematician" is the top job in the United States according to the Wall Street Journal.

That's what I've been saying all along. I told you so!


Here are the best and worst jobs according to the article:


The Best
1. Mathematician
2. Actuary
3. Statistician
4. Biologist
5. Software Engineer
6. Computer Systems Analyst
7. Historian
8. Sociologist
9. Industrial Designer
10. Accountant


The Worst
200. Lumberjack
199. Dairy Farmer
198. Taxi Driver
197. Seaman
196. EMT
195. Garbage Collector
194. Welder
193. Roustabout
192. Ironworker
191. Construction Worker



The article showed the top 20 and bottom 20 jobs. Most of the top jobs are typically quite academic in flavor, although I was amused by the fact that physicist (13th) ranked just above parole officer (14th). I approve!

Fuzzy Case of Positive Substance Test in Baseball

Here is an interesting case. If the article has the facts right, then it seems that Phillie middle reliever J. C. Romero is going to get suspended and lose $1.25 million for testing positive for an over-the-counter substance that the Player's Union mistakenly indicated as OK to use. Right now, it looks like both the Union and Major League Baseball are going to let him roast. Again assuming the facts in the article are correct, he's getting screwed over IMO. A fuzzy case like this was bound to happen, and it will be interesting to see how this one plays out.

Best. Baseball promo. Ever.

I just love Rob Neyer's latest blog entry.

As he writes, the Braves might want to take a look at who is actually on their roster before they start advertising their Spring Training games. Oops.

Another Caltech Media Star

I have to say that this picture of Jaideep Singh '00 in the New York Times is bloody awesome! Sweet! (Though I couldn't find either Tommy or Goodstein in the picture...)

(Tip of the hat to Jaideep for posting this link on his Facebook status.)

The Article that made Bill James Famous

Courtesy Rob Neyer's blog, here is a link to the 1981 Sports Illustrated article that made Bill James famous. It's also written by Daniel Okrent, who is a very familiar name in Rotisserie Baseball circles.

(For those of you don't know, Bill James essentially invented the science of sabermetrics, which I like to call "Jamesian statistics" (in parallel with Bayesian statistics, etc.).

Games I've recently played

Inspired by Zifnab's summary of his 2008 favorites, I'm going to belatedly blog about some games I've recently played. (Once I'm back in Oxford, I'll write an entry about some movies and plays. I have my ticket stubs there, and I plan to use those to remind myself about many of the ones I've seen. I'll also try to comment about rentals such as Annie Hall, which is a highly appropriate movie to mention if one wants to bring up good Woody Allen films. For some reason, my brother started out with Curse of the Jade Scorpion. I'll never trust his movie opinions ever again---not that I particularly trusted them before that comment.)

Anyway, here are some comments on a few games I've played in the not-to-distant past (several of which I am, of course, still playing):


N+: I had been waiting to buy N+ for the Nintendo DS since I saw this at PAX in August 2007. This was the game that excited me the most at that convention. I played this cooperatively with Lemming on his XBOX Live version, and we got through over 100 levels together. This was one of my best cooperatively video game experiences in recent memories. It was awesome how we worked together. On one particular level, we had given ourselves way too little time to get through things, so we had to rush and devise a strategy (one person drawing missile fire at appropriate times, etc.) to be able to get away with it, and even then it took several dozen attempts because we had so little leeway that even missing one jump was a killer. I also played the DS version a bunch; it seems much easier than the XBOX Live version, but that's probably partially because I developed a few skills while I was playing with Lemming. I should try making my own levels at some point---just like in Loderunner (one of the game's spiritual ancestors and the game it immediately made me think of when I first saw it).

Super Mario Galaxy: I finally started playing this a few months ago. It's extremely fun, and I like it much better than Super Mario Sunshine (which I enjoyed for a while but didn't find sufficiently different from Super Mario 64 for me to want to play it too much). I currently have 79 stars, and I plan to get a few more before I try to beat the final boss. I don't anticipate trying for all 120 stars because there are several that I think will be too much of a pain in the ass to get. Also, I don't play if I'm feeling even remotely bad (so I occasionally have really long gaps between play sessions), because this game tends to make me rather dizzy on occasion.

Zelda for the Wii: I must have blogged about this before, right? Anyway, I finished it a while back now. I still want to do the Cave of Ordeals, and one of these days I will actually be in the mood to go and do this.

Castle Crashers: I first played this at PAX 2007. There was one level that people were allowed to play, so I watched others play and then along with Lemming and two random people got most of the way through before a power outage in the exhibitors hall finished us. (Then we had another event to attend, so we didn't get back to it.) I had a lot of fun with it---it was the other game besides N+ that really struck a chord with me at PAX---but I didn't get a chance to play again until last night. Along with two of my pre-Caltech friends, we got a decent chunk of the way through the game last night. (There is a certain dragon boss which---along with falling rocks---is currently kicking our butts. The highest level among us is now 17. It's often difficult to figure out where you are during the game, but I had a lot of fun button-mashing last night.) Also, I really dig the CPR mechanism in the game and there is a lot of other humor as well.

Arkanoid DS: I bought this recently after arriving in LA. I was playing this on New Year's Eve when the clock struck midnight. Unsurprisingly, it's been spruced up from the arcade version, but its seems way too easy (especially in comparison with the arcade). I'll play some more later, and we'll see how things are at higher difficulty levels. Maybe it's just trying to balance out the ridiculous AI level in the DS version of Puyo Puyo?

Super Paper Mario: I also finished this one a while back, although I still want to do what I will call its 'Pipe of Ordeals' (a la the pipe of challenges in the previous iteration of this series) and I want to beat the Samar Guy challenge. I tried the Samar Guy challenge before and I got somewhere into the 90s before I died. Bloody Hell. That was so annoying that I haven't tried the thing again since then!

Super Smash Brothers Brawl: I played this for a while as well and then I started (finally) playing Super Mario Galaxy. I naturally still play on occasion when I have friends over, and I anticipate I'll do some more of the single-player at some point as well. I have several trophies I still want to get. I also want to do the two-player challenges at some point, and I would like to try my hand at making my own levels. Maybe I'll even play this with other people if/when I get around to connecting my Wii online again. I should also play this with my students and try to kick their asses. :) Oh, and Jigglypuff rules!

Rock Band 2: I played this when I visit Caltech in December. It seems to have taken an evolutionary step from the first game, though I definitely like the song list much better in this version of the game than in the previous one. There were many more songs in my paradigm this time around. My limited skills with the drums had eroded in my one year between playing, so I'll try to pick those up a bit during a future visit. I'd consider buying a version of this game for the Wii if customs and shipping weren't going to be such a pain to actually make it workable.

Super Munchkin: I bought this early in my visit as well. I had a chance to play with the Caltech gang over at 170 and also a bit with some of the Beverly Hills gang. It turns out that it only came out last October, so it makes sense that I hadn't actually encountered it before. My two favorite moments so far are a seriously-augmented 21st level Potted Plant---that was one dangerous beastie!---and my friend's turning himself into a woman so that the Amazon would ignore him. I'm definitely looking forward to playing this one more.


Other games that I am either playing now or soon will be playing: I'll be doing more Super Mario Galaxy once I am back in Oxford. I will also continue playing N+, Arkanoid, and Phantom Hourglass. (I have mostly played the last one of these while on the road, so I haven't gotten very far, and now I am planning to just sit down and actually finish the game. I'm currently at an annoying part that I don't have the heart to repeat more than once every few days because of how repetitive it is---I am back for my third trip in the dungeon where one has a limited time to do stuff---but I'll get past that eventually and then continue with my progress.) I also bought Samba de Amigo, which should be a nice game for when I have friends over. Finally, I bought Okami, which I will start working my way through after Super Mario Galaxy. The presence of this game may well delay my completion of Phanton Hourglass further...

I'm not sure if there are any other games I wanted to discuss here, but I haven't really had a big post about games for a while and I figured this would be a nice one to write (given that I'm not doing year-end reviews for 2008).

New to the Blogroll: Jingle Journal

I've added a link to Megan (Linnehan) Anderson's new blog. She has links to blogs by some old friends from Tech on her blog if you want to follow this graph's directed edges a bit further. (At the moment, I don't plan to link to them because I'm not particularly interested in reading about religion, recipes, or children---not that there is anything wrong with any of those things.)

Happy New Year!

It's now 2009 on the West Coast. It's just after 8am Oxford time. I was playing Arkanoid DS when the clock struck midnight.

Tales from the arXiv: Quantum Robot edition

\\
arXiv:0812.4614
Date: Thu, 25 Dec 2008 16:31:05 GMT (161kb)

Title: I, Quantum Robot
Authors: Paola Zizzi
Categories: quant-ph
Comments: 12 pages
\\
Quantum robots, defined as mobile quantum systems with an on-board quantum computer and any needed ancillary systems, interact with other quantum systems which are part of the environment. The logic which describes quantum robots is not orthodox quantum logic, but a deductive calculus which reproduces the quantum tasks (computational processes, and actions) taking into account quantum superposition and quantum entanglement. The logical object-language cannot be viewed as the reflection of the usual classical metalanguage: a quantum metalanguage is needed. Quantum robots can, in principle, become aware of the environment, take decisions, and make experiments. In principle, quantum robots can become intelligent machines. In this case, it is believed they might learn much faster than classical machines, because of quantum speed-up. Then, quantum robots, once they will be built, might result to be those hyper-intelligent machines which will lead to the so-called technological singularity. Such a singularity might be dangerous if quantum robots become self-aware and take advantage on humans. To avoid such a problem, it would be useful to adopt a quantum metalanguage to control quantum robots in a dialectic way, that is, without lowering their capabilities by quantum measurements. A physical implementation of a quantum metalanguage might be the use of coherent states in brain signals. In this way the external agent virtually acts as he
was in a composite quantum system together with the quantum robot. This is the quantum version of non-invasive BCI (Brain-Computer Interface). In this case the observer can be considered internal by the use of a quantum metalanguage, resulting in an obviously conscious Quantum Brain-Computer.

\\ ( http://arxiv.org/abs/0812.4614 , 161kb)


Or maybe this should be called the spooooooky robot edition? (Actually, some of the papers by this author that he cited in the bibliography seem legitimate even though this paper seems strange.)

New Year's Resolution as determined by iTunes (Take 4)

Just like I did last year, the year before that, and the year before that, I am going to determine my New Year's resolution using the iTunes Oracle. It is a bit early to do this, but it's already the 31st in Oxford, so we'll just deal with the fact that it's still really early morning there.

Here is what the iTunes Oracle says about my 2009:

1. The Covering: Lisa Stansfield, Someday (I'm Coming Back)
2. The Crossing: Madonna, Nothing Fails (Jason Nevins Radio Remix)
3. The Crown: Madness, Baggy Trousers
4. The Root: David Bowie, Golden Years
5. The Past: Icehouse, Don't Believe Anymore
6. The Future: Squeeze, If I Didn't Love You
7. The Questioner: Mariah Carey, To Be Around You
8. The House: Paul Simon, Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes
9. The Inside: Neil Hannon, So Long & Thanks For All The Fish (Reprise)
10. The Outcome: John Lennon, The Ballad Of John And Yoko

Bonus song: Simon & Garfunkel, Bridge Over Troubled Water


Last year's prediction that waves would be important to me in 2008 was hardly surprising, given that I study nonlinear waves. Given my musical tastes, the iTunes Oracle has brought me yet another overwhelmingly positive prediction for this year. Apparently, the current issue involves my worrying that something or someone might be coming back and possibly stalking me. (I certainly hope not.) Also, the current problems involve nothing failing. Well that's hardly realistic! Maybe it means that there will be problems if I don't fail any of my students? Also, the best that I can achieve from how things currently are is baggy trousers, which isn't actually so bad. Some aspects of all this have arisen from my skepticism, but it sounds like I'm getting over that. What will replace it are bipolar feelings about something. (OK, you need to know the lyrics of the Squeeze song to see where that interpretation comes from.) The questions around this come from whether or not I am around whatever object or creature is in question, or perhaps they really arise from the fact that I have some Mariah Carey songs on my playlist? Other people apparently view this object or creature as somehow luxurious or possibly (if a person) as having had some sort of privileged background. My hopes for the situation are just that things will go away. (We shall see. Let's see what materializes first.) The outcome will be my railing about others (figuratively) crucifying me---also bloody likely, given how much I care about how others think. ;) And as a bonus, the Oracle ended on a rather melancholy song.

In sum, the Oracle has made about as little sense as usual. :) But it's a fun exercise nonetheless. Happy New Year!

Online Steve Strogatz Lecture on Synchronization

Courtesy the website of the Society for Industrual and Applied Mathematics, here is a online lecture on synchronization by Steve Strogatz that has been posted on the Exchange Morning Post website. I haven't watched the lecture yet, but it is intended for public audiences, and Steve is one of the most inspiring speakers I've ever watched. (By the way, as some of you know, he was on my Ph.D. thesis committee.)

Anyway, enjoy!

This is why I am "awesome"

I had another bout with awesomeness today...

I am at my parents' house and wanted to order from a local Chinese place that I really like but from which I hadn't ordered in several years.

My parents had a menu at home, but I knew what I wanted and I stubbornly just googled to find the phone number so I wouldn't have to leave my room and deal with their ill-tempered dog who would attack me (when it's not contained) if I left my room. I also didn't want to bug someone else to get the menu even though that was offered. I called the place and they no longer carried what I really liked, but it had been a few years, so I shrugged and ordered something that offered as an alternative. When they came to the door, I realized my mistake and paid a small delivery charge because this place is much farther than the other one. Ah well, at least I ordered from a place with the same name (which is apparently owned by the same people, if I understood correctly).

I'm such a champ.

(Oh, and the other place still has the menu item I really like...)

Observation of the Day

I love having a career in which many of my colleagues respond to e-mails within about 15-30 minutes of my sending them even when it's the day after Christmas, it's Friday night, and it's 8pm their time. :)

How about those Republicans?

I just read this story on CNN.com.

New to the Blogroll: Science Groks

I have added a link to the blog that goes with the Groks Science Radio Show and Podcast, which is brought to you by the creative energies of Charles ("Chuckles") Lee '96 from Lloyd House and Frank Ling '97 from Page House.

Last week, we recorded another show with a guest appearance by me. As usual, I made a few "awesome" comments. :)

2008: The Year in Review

OK, so here is my year-in-review blog entry.

I've gotten increasingly lazy about these blog entries over the past few years and, frankly, I'm not particularly interested in writing them at the moment. (They're very long, not usually that creative, and if I'm going to finish the final one in March like I did for 2007, there doesn't seem to be much point in dragging them out.)

So let me just summarize 2008 with the catchphrase of the year: And that happened!

By the way, I will still be doing my iTunes New Year's resolutions this time around, but I'll write that blog entry in a few days.

Quote of the Day

Today's quote comes from the art submission guidelines from the J!NX catalog in their solicitation (with potential monetary reward) for new t-shirt ideas:

"3. We have disabled BMP files in the art upload. If you are using MS Paint, you probably don't need to be submitting art."


Comment: I approve! (As a side note, some of you reading this may be aware of my numerous rants at students who submitted drafts of papers to me in which the figures were in .bmp format. In the MTBI REU program in particular, that a was well-known way to make me go ballistic.)

Did I mention that I hate the Yankees?

Apparently, the Yankees just signed Mark Teixeira. Fuckers.

Sliding up that hill...

Here is an awesome video (complete with Benny Hill music) of cars attempting to make it up an icy slope in Portland. It's funny in general, but if you look closely, you can find some pretty hilarious things in there. Also, some of the cars were really persistent.

Names for my children?

This comment comes from one of my former Caltech SURF students:

P.S. One last random comment--I always thought your name should be a type of beer, like a porter that you drink out of a mason jar? (I'm still working out the kinks) so I tried googling "Mason Porter" but all I could find were your websites and some mediocre folk band. Anywho, when you have children I think you should name them so that it matches with your last name, something like "Stout" or "Double" or maybe "Telly". During rotation this year I found an unused nametag at a Ricketts lunch with the name "Ernest Lee". It made me really happy.

Comment: I'm amused.

Dodgers resign Rafael Furcal

The Dodgers have apparently resigned shortstop Rafael Furcal to a three-year contract. It was reported a couple of days ago that Furcal had signed with the Braves (his original team), but apparently there were some shenanigans (on the part of his agent) involved in those negotiations.

Some words from Vin Scully

Courtesy Rob Neyer's blog, here is a short video blurb from Vin Scully in which he talks about past, present, and future.

Dali, Topology, and Catastrophe Theory

Courtesy Cat, I just found out that Dali had some connections with Rene Thom and put some catastrophe theory and topology into some of his art. In particular, he pointed out The Swallow's Tail and Topological Abduction of Europe - Homage to René Thom.

Tales from the arXiv: Online and Offline Gangs

Here is a new paper--just posted on the arXiv preprint server--by one of my collaborators that you might find interesting:

Title: Human group formation in online guilds and offline gangs driven by common team dynamic

Authors: Neil F. Johnson, Chen Xu, Zhenyuan Zhao, Nicolas Ducheneaut, Nicholas Yee, George Tita, Pak Ming Hui

Abstract: Quantifying human group dynamics represents a unique challenge. Unlike animals and other biological systems, humans form groups in both real (offline) and virtual (online) spaces -- from potentially dangerous street gangs populated mostly by disaffected male youths, through to the massive global guilds in online role-playing games for which membership currently exceeds tens of millions of people from all possible backgrounds, age-groups and genders. We have compiled and analyzed data for these two seemingly unrelated offline and online human activities, and have uncovered an unexpected quantitative link between them. Although their overall dynamics differ visibly, we find that a common team-based model can accurately reproduce the quantitative features of each simply by adjusting the average tolerance level and attribute range for each population. By contrast, we find no evidence to support a homophilic version of the model, nor does conventional time-aggregated network analysis help unravel the dynamics.


Based on the format of the paper, it may have been submitted to Nature or Science.

History Repeats Itself

I was googling myself and found a December 2008 article about Christmas cards that some little kids had made in an art class. The reporter asked the kids who they were going to give their cards to and other things like that. And then came the following indication that perhaps history repeats itself.

The reporter asked one particular student about who he was going to give his cards to. Here is what the article says about how he reacted:

Mason Porter, 7, hadn't thought that far ahead. He was too busy thinking about what he wants for Christmas.

"I want a Nintendo," he said. "My brother broke mine."


If you substitute the specific names of the video game systems involved, that could have been me (especially the way I was back then)! Wow!

What happens in the Greater LA Area stays in the Greater LA Area

I am flying home to Los Angeles tomorrow and will be splitting my time between Caltech and Beverly Hills to visit friends, family, and collaborators. I arrive tomorrow evening and my plan for Sunday is to hang out with friends and eat meat.

Ooh.... Matlab is a place on Earth!

Over twenty years ago Belinda Carlisle insisted that Heaven is a Place on Earth.

Maybe that's true, but thanks to a tidbit of information I just received from my collaborator Peter Mucha, I have just found out that Matlab is also a place on Earth. (Come on: You know you want to record this parody.) I approve!

I can't wait until the long-awaited Where in Bangladesh is Carmen San Diego? game finally comes out! (It will presumably be before this game does.)

This just totally rocks.

Money, Money, Money

I recently got some money to continue my research on network analysis in U.S. Congressional networks. This grant, which comes from the McDonnell Foundation's complex systems initiative, is joint with James Fowler of UC San Diego's political science department. The funds are awarded in units of Boeing stocks.

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.

BCS Declares Germany Winner of World War II

Courtesy Justin Howell, the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) has declared Germany to be the winner of World War II. You know, this wouldn't have happened if they had used random walkers instead.

Dodgers sign Mark Loretta

It's not exactly world-breaking news, but the Dodgers have apparently signed free agent Mark Loretta. Loretta is a solid spare part who knows how to get on base and can play all over the infield. He should no longer be an everyday player (though he had a couple of excellent seasons as a starter back in the day), but as a part-timer and occasional platooner he's a good player to have around. Also, he's one of the best baseball players ever whose last name is a woman's first name.

There is an article on epsn.com that seems to be about the Dodgers general manager claiming that C.C. Sabathia wants to play for us. Ladies and gentlemen, this means it's a slow news day. We'll see if that changes. Baseball's winter meetings are going on right now, after all, so something interesting could happen.

Update: The Dodgers have apparently resigned Casey Blake to a 3-year deal. I approve! (By the way, you can use this as a hint to try to figure out the rest of the woman's-first-name-as-last-name all-star team.)

Spread of Acne, Headaches, and Height in Social Networks?

One of my collaborators, James Fowler, has been in the news lately (yet again!) for his work on the Framington Heart Network. This time, he and his collaborator Nicholas Christakis (who is an excellent speaker and a nice guy, by the way) have looked at the spread of happiness in social networks. They previously published papers about the spread of smoking (and non-smoking) and obesity in these networks. (I was thanked in the obesity paper, as I had read and commented on a draft of it a year before the final version came out. When Nicholas gave this talk, I loved how the obesity level of a person was indicated by the radius of the corresponding node.)

One thing I just found out by taking a look at improbable.com is that another relevant study, that gives a warning about the dangers of overinterpretation, appears in the same issue of the British Medical Journal. As improbable.com states, it's highly amusing that the journal issue includes [a] strange juxtaposition of a study and a study mocking it. You can read the BMJ's editorial here.

The social networks literature from the social science side of things is extremely interesting, but one thing that I do see in a lot of that research is a tendency towards overinterpretation. My side of the scientific literature has its own set of faults, and in all of these cases, it's good to be reminded about these dangers now and then. We all need to make sure to keep our feet on the ground. (By the way, I am in no way denigrating the study. I think that it's a very nice piece of social network analysis. I'm just pointing out the need for vigilance and the excellent point also made by the other paper.)

I couldn't find a link to get this individual blog entry from improbable.com, so I have copied the text below:

Much excitement in the news about a study just published in BMJ (British Medical Journal):

“Dynamic spread of happiness in a large social network: longitudinal analysis over 20 years in the Framingham Heart Study,” James H Fowler and Nicholas A Christakis, BMJ 2008 337: a2338. The conclusion: “Peoples happiness depends on the happiness of others with whom they are connected.”

Which, of course, is a causal conclusion.

But lesser attention appears to have been paid to another study published simultaneously in the same issue: “Detecting implausible social network effects in acne, height, and headaches: longitudinal analysis,” Ethan Cohen-Cole and Jason M Fletcher, BMJ 2008;337:a2533

They found that a friend´s acne problems increased one’s own acne problems, a friend’s headaches increased one’s own headaches, and a friend’s height increased one’s own height. Given the first two, it seems one is better off without friends.

Their conclusion: “Researchers should be cautious in attributing correlations in health outcomes of close friends to social network effects, especially when environmental confounders are not adequately controlled for in the analysis”

Now see the first study again.

The same issue of BMJ also contains an editorial that gives further insight into this strange juxtaposition of a study and a study mocking it.

CNN article on Oxford and Cambridge admissions questions

CNN has posted an article on Oxford and Cambridge admissions questions. Personally, I think the following one is pretty awesome:

"How would you poison someone without the police finding out?"

There is a video version of the report that also has some interesting questions. Some of them are definitely pretty weird. Questions I have used and plan to use won't be discussed in this spot, but let's just say that I can be pretty evil. (This year I'm not interviewing anyway, which is why I can fly home this Saturday.)

Joe Gordon elected to Baseball's Hall of Fame

The Baseball Hall-of-Fame Veterans' Committee has elected former Yankee second baseman Joe Gordon to the Hall of Fame. They probably did this because the Yankees are underrepresented in the Hall.

The results of the regular ballot (which, notably, includes Rickey Henderson) will be announced in January. I'll make two points here: (1) Bert Blyleven better fucking make it this year. I know I rant about this every year, but it's criminal that he's not in the Hall yet! (2) I am really looking forward to Rickey's acceptance speech (and I bet he is too).

Mobiüs Transformations Revealed

In November, the Notices of the American Mathematical Society published an article by mathematicians Douglas Arnold and Jonathan Rogness describing how they made their fantastically successful YouTube video called Mobiüs Transformations Revealed. (The article shares the video's title.) The video has now been viewed by 1.5 million people, becoming an inspiring and absolutely stellar success in mathematical education. (It was this effort that inspired me to contact the editor of Chaos to convince him--successfully--to put the video portion of the Nonlinear Science Gallery that the journal runs on YouTube. Unsurprisingly, there haven't been close to 1.5 million viewers in this case, but the more YouTube is used for creative endeavors in scientific education, the better!)

Greg Maddux to Announce Retirement

I'm sorry to have to report this, but I have just read a headline on ESPN.com that Greg Maddux will shortly hold a news conference to announce his retirement.

Just look at these Hall-of-Fame numbers. Greg Maddux was an absolute pleasure to watch. He was an artist on the mound, and I'm glad to be able to say that he spent a short amount of time pitching for my team. I know he's not what he used to be, but I was hoping he'd stick around for another year so that I could continue watching him pitch.

I have two important things to say to close this entry:

(1) Maddux finished with more wins than Roger Clemens, and I am very pleased about this.

(2) Not that Maddux will ever read this (and this is a ridiculous cliche), but thanks for the memories! This is simply an irreplaceable player who I got a lot of pleasure in watching over the years.

End of Term!

I had my last tutorials of the term today, and now that my lecture and tutorial teaching for the term are both over, I feel like an incredible load has been lifted. I still have some admin to do, but that falls off the table as well with the end of Week 8. (We count the term of term by the week number. The main weeks are 1-8, but Week 0 usually has a lot of work and Weeks 9 and 10 often do. This time around, most of the non-research stuff is done for me. I have seen people refer to labeled weeks as low as -3 and as high as 13.) In celebration, I had a party at my flat tonight.

Now I'm going to concentrate on some paper-writing and research. I'll be mark up a student's draft tomorrow---she's writing her first journal article with us (this is a three-headed monster DPhil advising team) and she just finished the rough draft---and I also have other papers at stages where I am going directly through LaTeX files. (My student's paper is not yet at that stage.) Physical Review Letters just bounced one of my papers without review because it apparently doesn't count as physics (except for the fact that it is). My vote is to attempt to submit it to PNAS instead (with only adjusting things for the format and to add the type of polished cover letter that this venue requires), but we'll see what my coauthors think.

Additionally, when I did my last asymptotics lecture of the term on Tuesday, I got applause from my audience. Many students at Oxford will applaud their lecturers for classes that they feel are well-taught. Thus far (with my admittedly-limited sample size), I always get applause when I teach the asymptotics course and I never get applause when I teach any other course. I'll keep you posted on whether this trend continues.

Tracking Diseases Using Web Search Engines

Courtesy Nick Jones, here is a commentary on a very cool new article on using web search engine data to see trends such as influenza outbreaks before other indicators (such as the stuff from the CDC) can catch it. This is a sweet application of network science!

Random Walker Rankings: The Blog

As many of you know, Peter Mucha, Thomas Callaghan and I produced the random walker ranking system for ranking college football teams several years ago. Here are our 2008 rankings right now.

In order to open discussion with people who read the project's web page, we are adding a Random Walker Ranking blog. Naturally, I have added this to my blogroll.

The Physics of Networks

My collaborator Mark Newman just published a very nice expository paper called The Physics of Networks in Physics Today. Newman's paper gives a big-picture introduction to networks, and I highly recommend reading it.

Here is a blurb from the article that relates to some of the stuff on which I have been working:

The development of methods for finding communities within networks is a thriving sub-area of the field, with an enormous number of different techniques under development. Methods for understanding what the communities mean after you find them are, by contrast, still quite primitive, and much needs to be done if we are to gain real knowledge from the output of our computer programs.

One of the things on which I have been concentrating has been the attempt to do something with communities after you find them. In particular, I think that my Facebook paper makes a really nice contribution in this direction.

I approve!

What do you think of the name Citi/Taxpayer Field for the Mets' new ballpark? I wholeheartedly approve of it!

In case you don't click on the link, two New York politicians want the name above instead of Citi Field because the billions of dollars in federal aid that Citigroup is getting.

All the Quotes You Ever Wanted

Courtesy a link Ken Kharma posted on Facebook, here is an "amusing" website called The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks that collects "pictures" of signs with "head-scratching" quotation marks. It's not as cool as Sad Guys on Trading Floors, but some of the pictures are pretty damned funny.

Tales from the arXiv: the SLAP technique

The following abstract makes me giggle:


arXiv:0811.3409
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2008 20:39:04 GMT (1009kb)

Title: Coherent Patterning of Matter Waves with Subwavelength Localization
Authors: J. Mompart, V. Ahufinger, G. Birkl
Categories: quant-ph
Comments: 5 pages, 5 figures
\\
We introduce the Subwavelength Localization via Adiabatic Passage (SLAP)
technique to coherently achieve state-selective patterning and addressing of
matter waves. The SLAP technique consists in coupling two partially overlapping
and spatially structured laser fields to three internal levels of the matter
wave yielding state-selective localization at those positions where the
adiabatic passage process does not occur. We show that by means of this
technique matter wave localization down to the single nanometer can be
achieved. We analyze in detail the potential implementation of the SLAP
technique for nano-lithography with an atomic beam of metastable Ne* and for
coherent patterning of a two-component 87Rb Bose-Einstein condensate.
\\ ( http://arxiv.org/abs/0811.3409 , 1009kb)

Mike Mussina has decided to retire

Mike Mussina has just decided to retire from baseball after winning 20 games in a season for the first time in 2008. Next stop: Cooperstown, NY.

Dr. Porter Goes to Washington

Subtitle: What happens inside the Beltway stays inside the Beltway.

I just arrived in Washington DC about an hour ago for the 2008 Sigma Xi Annual Meeting & Student Research Conference. I am giving a plenary talk at this meeting as a prize lecture for the Sigma Xi Young Investigator Award that I got for 2008 (though it's not been close to a year since I was told I won the 2008 prize). I will be giving a general talk on communities in networks, and the bulk of the audience (or at least a very large percentage of the audience) will consist of undergrads from all fields. I am hence going to need to make this very general, and that also means I am going to need to make some new slides. (Because I've been so busy lately, I haven't yet had a chance to start preparing this talk at all aside from gathering the old .ppt talks from which I'll draw some of the slides.) Ideally, organizing this talk can also help me write a layperson's article on networks and communities in networks, though I'm planning to write my survey article on the topic first. (The survey article will be for a general audience of mathematicians.)

When I was here, I also noticed that a Society for Neuroscience meeting was occurring in the same hotel. I then e-mailed Steve Van Hooser to see if by chance he was here. I wasn't too off-base, as he responded immediately and let me know that he had just landed back in Rayleigh-Durham from his flight from here. He gave two posters at this hotel this morning. It would have been nice to see him.

Dustin Pedroia wins American League Most Valuable Player award

In a scattered vote, Dustin Pedroia has won the American League's Most Value Player award.

This is the last of the 2008 baseball awards to be announced, and the Hot Stove League (referring to all the offseason trades and free agent shenanigans) is already in full swing. Stay tuned.

Albert Pujols wins National League Most Valuable Player award

The National League MVP results were announced today, and Albert Pujols won for the 2nd time. Pujols was the correct selection, though a lot of people who garnered a lot of support really should have gotten much less than they did. The pundit predictions that Pujols would (deservedly) win the award because those other folks would pretty much split a lot of voting is pretty much what happened (though I think Pujols ended up with more first-place votes than the pundits predicted).

The number of pirates seems to have gone up.

I keep seeing all these recent news reports about pirates, and I can't help thinking that maybe global warming isn't as serious a problem as I previously thought. Maybe it's just me...

Who says I'm not abrasive!?!

Bruce Charlton, a Reader in Psychology at University of Newcastle, published an article called "Why are scientists so dull?" in Oxford Magazine (5th week, MT 2008, issue 281). I couldn't find a link to it online, so I hope I can add that later. I just sent an extremely sarcastic response letter to the magazine's editor. It would be easier to "appreciate" [ :) ] my response if you read the original article first, so maybe I'll be able to find a link to it later. The article, by the way, refers to our dullness both in terms of being boring ("But we were never being boring.") and in terms of being stupid because extreme intelligence is apparently (in his view) selected against by the sheer years of training we're required to have to get a permanent position. (While I don't agree with that conclusion, he does have a valid point that many really smart people leave academia because it's such a pain in the ass to go through what it takes to get a permanent position.) Anyway, here is my snide response:


I read with great interest Dr. Charlton's essay about why scientists are so dull. While my successful perseverance through countless years of postgraduate and postdoctoral training indubitably indicates that I am too dim-witted to grasp his subtler points, I think I can manage enough coherent thoughts to figure out at least some of the points he's trying to make. For example, I assume based on his essay that his home field of psychology has no trouble hiring practitioners (or at least essayists) who are "awkward" and "abrasive" and perhaps does not have the unfortunate circumstance of encompassing too many people who are saddled with the unconscionable "personality attributes of conscientiousness and agreeableness?" Of course, my IQ is probably so low that I might be completely missing his point.

P.S. While it's hard for me to make unbiased comments about the quality of my science, I can assure Dr. Charlton -- as I hope my letter indicates -- that I am capable of offering no shortage of abrasiveness. I'd also like to think I'm pretty damned interesting, but I'll let other people decide that one. I haven't bothered to provide any evidence of that here, but then I suppose that's just something else that Dr. Charlton and I have in common?

Sincerely,

Mason A. Porter
University Lecturer
Oxford Centre for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
Mathematical Institute

T-shirt of the day (epic fail)

No really, this is a t-shirt about an epic fail.

The shirt is ok; I'm basically blogging about it because I really like the term 'epic fail'. I've been spreading this term around here, along with other phrases I like such as "tool".

Bad Math Joke

We're currently having a bad math joke thread (with pretty frequent e-mails) on the Project NExT list. My contribution was basically to provide a link to an article that appeared a few years ago in Notices of the American Mathematical Society that collected a bunch of them.

Most of the jokes in the current thread have been bad and a few of them have been so horrible that they've made me groan, but here is a slightly reworded one that I actually really like:

Question: How can you tell that a guy is a topologist?

Answer: He can't tell his ass from a hole in the ground, but he can tell his ass from two holes in the ground.

My home precinct is lame.

I'm so ashamed.

I'm looking at today's issue of Beverly Hills Weekly and found the following statement in their article about how various Beverly Hills precincts voted in the recent US election:

"Precinct eight, which includes Hawthorne School, voted 256 to 191 [in favor of McCain]."

I went to Hawthorne School for nine years (Kindergarten through 8th grade). Unless I am seriously mistaken, that means that's my home precinct. Lame! Moreover, we apparently have a history of lameness:

"In 2004, seven precincts largely in the north (3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 16, 46) voted for President George W. Bush in the presidential
election over Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry.

Thankfully, precinct 8 voted against Proposition 8, so maybe there is some hope for them.

Cliff Lee wins American League Cy Young award

In a completely unsurprising announcement, Cliff Lee has won the American League Cy Young award.

It's worth noting, however, that one can make a reasonable argument that Roy Halladay (who finished second in the balloting) actually had a better season.

Biographies of Women Mathematicians

Here is a list of biographies of women mathematicians that has been compiled at Agnes Scott College. The biographies are written by former students of the college.

Here is another set of biographies of mathematicians that I have occasionally examined since I was in grad school. I never remember the website, so I always find it via a quick googling, and today's fortuitous accident was finding the other biography list of which I was previously unaware.

Tim Lincecum wins National League Cy Young award

Tim Lincecum has won the National League Cy Young award. This honor was richly deserved, and Lincecum is absolutely a pleasure to watch pitch. He's going to be one of the best for a very long time.

Evan Longoria and Geovanny Soto win Rookie-of-the-Year

Unsurprisingly, Evan Longoria of the Tampa Bay Rays and Geovanny Soto of the Chicago Cubs won the 2008 Rookie-of-the-Year awards hands down.

The thing I want to know is how Edinson Volquez , who is not even eligible for the award based on having too much prior Major League experience, managed to get votes! Sure, Volquez had a fantastic season. But he pitched too much in the Major Leagues before 2008 to be a rookie. I don't know if the writers in question think the specific rules should be changed or just didn't know that Volquez isn't actually a rookie. Shouldn't the votes for him get automatically nullified?

"Stick" joins National Toy Hall of Fame

In very important news, the stick has become one of three new inductees into the National Toy Hall of Fame. The full list of members includes the Atari 2600, Silly Putty, Monopoly, Scrabble, G.I. Joe, and Cardboard Box.

The CNN article praised the stick as "a universal plaything powered by a child's imagination." (I would argue that it can also be powered by an adult's imagination, but let's not go there---though that kind of makes it even more universal...)

I have joined the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists (LFHCfS)!

In news of extraordinary importance, I have joined the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists! In life, one needs to have at least a few important accomplishments, and this is about the best that I've managed so far...

The Community Structure Limerick

By semipopular demand (of just a few people, most of whom are in the humanities), I hereby present The Community Structure Limerick:

When detecting a network’s communities,
Try not to do it with impunity.
For it is not enough
To stop with that stuff.
Be sure to think about functionality.


It took me an hour to write this (and I really should have been working on other parts of the talk), and I note that I did not sacrifice any accuracy in my talk's conclusions to present them in limerick form. (That's why I have a slant rhyme with the first line. Had I made it singular, I would have lost some accuracy.)

For the network science folks out there, I spent a bit of time trying to find a good way to end a line with modularity, but I decided that both the poem and message worked better than it did in any of the ways I was able to incorporate it.

What happens in Limerick stays in Limerick

I am writing this from a very nice hotel in Limerick, Ireland. (This is my first time in Ireland.) I will be giving a talk on community detection tomorrow at the University of Limerick, and I will be presenting my conclusions in limerick form. (Also, to this day, I can't see or hear the word "limerick" without thinking of Kerry Ryan's limericks at Lloyd House dinners or, especially, her announcing it with a screeching yell of "I have a limerick!")

Bring on the Fireworks

There are several reasons for celebration today.

On the familial side, my brother Adam turned 40 today (using decimal numbers). This round number is definitely worth a blog entry.

The official fireworks tonight were in honor of Guy Fawkes night, and like last year we had them in the Somerville quad. As I wrote last year, it's absolutely incredible to have fireworks in one's own backyard like this.

There were apparently also fireworks right after McCain's concession, but I was fast asleep and it didn't wake me up. After some conversations today, it became evident that the parties last night were in large part because of the expected outcome. The consensus over here is best summed up by a comment from one of my colleagues (which I am paraphrasing slightly because I can't remember the exact wording) during those conversations: "This election was a big victory for worldwide democracy." The general reaction here was one of elation, and that was from people from all sorts of cultural and world origins.

The one thing that seems to have gone wrong is the Prop 8 business in California, though I guess it's not officially sunk yet. (Hello, People? Others should be able to boink whomever they want and get the same legal benefits because it doesn't hinder your life in any way! Let them be!.)

Republicans are out of there!

Barrack Obama got his expected victory and the House of Representatives and Senate will also both be under Democratic control. It's about fucking time that the Republicans are out of the White House!

Here's an appropriate song to celebrate the occasion.

2008 Election Cartograms

Mark Newman, one of my coauthors, is again posting cartograms for the election. At the moment, the site has his educated guesses for who is winning what, but as things progress, the cartograms will include actual results (and, eventually, will give the results by district).

Video Introduction to Network Science

Here is a link to a BBC documentary about network science. I haven't watched it yet, so I can't tell you whether it's any good.

Foot-in-Mouth Disease

I need to keep my mouth shut.

This morning, something that I intended only as a marginally snarky comment came across as a bitter hatred (that I don't feel, by the way). The reason I suspect this was because of the shocked reaction of the others in the room, when the worst I thought I'd get was people disagreeing and thinking the joke was stupid. (Well, I'm sure they think that as well.) Then I spent some more time during the day going back over how the phrasing actually came out, and I can see what the unintended interpretation was. Clearly, I critically failed my perform check. I decided that attempting a real-time explanation would only dig a deeper hole, so I at least had enough thought processes going to quit while I was "ahead". So that's why I'm writing this. The one consolation I have is that many people who are still close friends of mine have had visibly similar reactions to my comments on occasion. (Still, I feel like this was a bit of a kender saying 'Oops!' moment.)

Let's see if I do better on my charisma check next week.

My new D & D character

I've been playing in a 3.5 edition D & D game since the new school year started.

I am playing a (necessarily) lawful neutral goblin druid/monk. I currently have 2 levels of druid and 1 level of monk. I am only 5 xp from 4th level, so I have a decision to make.

I impressed a ghostly paladin with my massive fortitude, my massive will, and my lawful neutralness. (The party consists of me + a bunch of elves, and my character is by far the most disciplined of the lot. This shocked the ghostly paladin, given my race's reputation.) My saves are quite excellent. (I rolled well with my stats, but not anywhere close to my kobold that I played in Doug's one-shot, for which my rolls were absolutely insane.) I don't have huge attacking power (thankfully, my companions take care of that), but the combination of produce flame, flurry, and casting spells through my riding dog animal companion (on whom I ride into battle; I decided to go that route because goblins have crazy bonuses to ride and other relevant skills for that direction) is actually quite potent.

Quote of the Day (another one)

After an unintentional bit of "awesomeness" in a paper I refereed today, I think I might have to replace the previous quote of the day. This whole situation started because of an unfortunate substitute for the word "data". Here is the quote:

"For many cases a localized date breaks up into a finite collection of solitary waves."

Indeed! I couldn't have said it better myself!

Quote of the Day

I love this quote, which I heard from one of the guests on "Real Time" with Bill Maher: "George Bush is a guy who was born on third base and thought he hit a triple." That is exceptionally well-phrased.

Quote of the Day

Today's quote comes from last Thursday's issue of Oxford Student, one of the two weekly student magazines here. In an article about the apparently-controversial new interview training (which includes a video example) for Oxford tutors, Professor Alan Ryan (Warden of New College) stated:

If mathematicians were admitted on personality it would be the end of the mathematical world. Students can be shy, awkward, even pick their noses in tutorials, we are really interested in their brains.

First, I seriously need to invite this guy to a party at my place. Second, I think I might have to drum up the troops on this one. Third, not a single student of mine has ever picked his or her nose in tutorials.* I'll grant that there is some truth behind this guy's comments, but he's the head of an Oxford College, so I am a bit surprised at his lack of discretion and some response is clearly merited. (I think I'll solicit my Somerville students for their opinions about what to include in a sarcastic response and reward the person who gives me the most amusing comment with a seat as my guest on High Table.)

* As far as I know.

Meanwhile, in the same issue of Nature...

Tn the same issue of Nature as Steve Van Hooser article was an awesome article about how unrolling tape can produce X-rays! Here is a popular article about the research. I think these researchers might have Ig Nobel Prizes in their future... (And their findings are just fucking cool!)

Negative-Time Blogging

I noticed that Blogger was having a bit of an issue with my 1:14 post for a while because it insisted that that was a pending post and didn't publish it immediately. That made me realize that we were about to turn back the clocks, and I guess Blogger wasn't yet in tune with the time change. I did eventually get the post to actually show up and now that it's 1am again, I figured I should do some negative-time blogging.

Is the US going to fall back in a few hours? Here's hoping for that not happening for a couple of weeks so that the remaining World Series games can start an hour earlier local time...

Also, I need to figure out a local place to do a negative-time run next year.

Update: Ah, bloody Hell! Is there no easy way to have both the time-stamp and the ordering I want? Fail!

Caltech Friends in Nature

As has happened pretty often by now, another of my friends from Caltech has gotten an article published in Nature. In this case, the big winner is Steve Van Hooser. (Van Hooser? But I just met her! --- Note: I know the joke is really bad on the surface, but I'm actually alluding to something very specific with it that only a few of my readers have a chance to get. In fact, I'm alluding to two things from back in the day. A few people have a chance to get the first, and you'll have to remember another Caltech friend's old web page to get the other one.) Congrats!

The Sabermetrics of Health Care

Steve Van Hooser posted (an Facebook) a link to an interesting opinion article. This piece, which was published yesterday in the New York Times, was co-authored by Newt Gingrich, John Kerry, and (Oakland Athletics general manager) Billy Beane. Their point is a simple one: Let's use more statistical evidence to support the canonical reliance on 'expert opinions' (analogous to scouts) that essentially just call things as they see them. What one really needs is both of these things. (Yes, the US Health Care system was just compared to teams like the Baltimore Orioles that spend a lot of money but don't get very much for them. Or, to put it another way, our Health Care system has done a lot of things that are morally equivalent to overpaying for stiffs like Andruw Jones and Juan Pierre. It's an obvious observation, but I never really framed it using precisely that analogy before. Clearly, I should have.)

A recent tribute to the original "Enjoy the Silence" music video

The alternate version of the music video for Coldplay's 2008 song "Viva la Vida" was specifically meant as a nod to the Enjoy the Silence music video. I approve! ("Enjoy the Silence" is one of my favorite songs of all time, and its music video is one of my favorite music videos of all time.) The Coldplay song is actually pretty good too.

It's coming!

That's right, friends: A new Depeche Mode album is slated to be released on April 20th, 2009. There will also be a world stadium tour to promote the album, including a performance in London. Hell yes!

In the meantime, I am going to order David Gahan's second solo album.

Violent Chess Claymation

David Fang posted an awesome video of violent chess claymation on Facebook. I especially like the first fatality!

(Yes, it is fair to think of Battle Chess.)

Inspiring Research Papers

The title of this blog entry can purposely be read in multiple manners.

In this case, I am referring to an article published earlier this year that apparently drew some inspiration from one of my 2006 articles.

At any rate, this is the only article of which I am aware that cites one of my papers in its abstract, so I figure I should highlight it in this spot. I found out about the paper a while back, but I am only blogging out about it belatedly because I don't have anything particularly interesting to blog about today and it's been a few days since I posted anything. (Things have been quite hectic the last few days.)

The paper's title is: Onset of diffusive behavior in confined transport system

The authors are: Owen G. Jepps, Carlo Bianca, and Lamberto Rondoni

The abstract is: We investigate the onset of diffusive behavior in polygonal channels for disks of finite size, modeling simple microporous membranes. It is well established that the point-particle case displays anomalous transport, because of slow correlation decay in the absence of defocusing collisions. We investigate which features of point-particle transport survive in the case of finite-sized particles (which undergo defocusing collisions). A similar question was investigated by Lansel, Porter, and Bunimovich [Chaos 16, 013129 (2006)], who found that certain integrals of motion and multiple ergodic components, characteristic of the point-particle case, remain in “mushroom”-like systems with few finite-sized particles. We quantify the time scales over which the transport of disks shows features typical of the point particles, or is driven toward diffusive behavior. In particular, we find that interparticle collisions drive the system toward diffusive behavior more strongly than defocusing boundary collisions. We illustrate how, and at what stage, typical thermodynamic behavior (consistent with kinetic theory) is observed, as particle numbers grow and mean free paths diminish. These results have both applied (e.g., nanotechnological) and theoretical interest.

Picture of the Day

Here's the picture. You provide the caption.

(Tip of the cap to Jenny Fang, who posted this picture on Facebook. Part of me thinks it's fake, but it does seem to be on a legitimate BBC news website... Maybe Photoshop + hacking? Another theory that has been espoused is that BBC used a photo that it thinks is real but was photoshopped. Then there's the theory of the photo actually being real.)

Here's one (though one can get much, much worse): "I am sooooo hungry."

Look Around You -- Maths

My student Neil Lees pointed me to an awesome video on YouTube called Look Around You - Maths. This video is (a) awesome, (b) "awesome", and (c) because of it's style really brings back the memories of some of the videos I used to watch in high school. In fact, points (a) and (b) rely heavily on (c).

Neil also mentioned that Look Around You -- Water is supposed to be really good, but I haven't watched that one yet.

Wait 'til Next Year

The Dodgers fell to the Phuckin' Phillies last night. That gave us a 3-1 loss in the National League Championship Series. (I think the fact that I own a stuffed Phanatic must have been bad karma.)

At least we won one postseason series this year, but we have more work to do. I hope we don't resign Manny because while Happy Manny is awesome, he will eventually become Petulant Manny, which would provide a major distraction. Also, our money would be better spent elsewhere---like on CC Sabathia (to thrown out one name at random).

I hope the Rays beat Boston and then win the whole thing, but my heart is now broken and thinking about 2009.

New year and new students

Last week was "Week 0" of "Michaelmas Term" (fall term... in U.S. language, we're on the 'quarter system'). Somerville's awesome new mathematics students arrived, and we tried to give them a bit of a preview of what they're in for in the first formal dinner ("Fresher's dinner") and the ice cream/cookies/setup tutorial meeting the next day. Today they each had their first tutorial sessions with me, so if they didn't know what they were in for before, they sure as Hell are now. ;) I think they went quite well, and hopefully the feeling was mutual.

Today was what I believe (and hope!) will be my roughest teaching day of the entire year. I am teaching a course that has 6 hours of lecture this week that counts for an entire half course. Yesterday, I taught two of those hours as well as an hour of asymptotics. Today I taught an hour of asymptotics, three hours of tutorials, and two hours from the aforementioned half course. I taught the last 5 hours consecutively, with only a 5 minute break to walk from Somerville to the Mathematical Institute. I am now brain-dead.

Naturally, I made lots of snarky comments in my tutorials and my lectures. I think that's why my students like me. :) Spending time with me is sort of an experience in its own sake---maybe not one that most want to duplicate, but an experience nonetheless.

Tomorrow I have an Examiner's meeting and a Governing Body meeting, but at least I won't have to talk very much. I need the rest.

New Game: Finding Constellations in Economic Graphs

In these days of financial crises and universal brouhahas, I think we should adapt our old practice of finding patterns in stars to discovering similar constellations in economic graphs.

For example, here you can see something like The Big Dipper.

Maybe this can be a new meme?

(Or perhaps we should just use the iTunes Oracle to determine economic policy?)

One of my best blackboard slip-ups ever?

In the latest installment of 'the mouth is faster than the chalk,' I managed in B568a (intro to applied math and mathematical modelling) to [correctly] say "Assumption: No spatial dependence" but write "Assumption: No assumption" on the board. (In the British applied mathematics community, such things are known Colemanballs. They work kind of like "House quotes.")

There must be something deep contained in that statement. Surely. If nothing else, one should appreciate what I wrote for its metaphysical content.

Lord British in Space

You don't believe me? Just take a look at this article.

Mathematics and Voting

As this article by Donald Saari in the April 2008 issue of the Notices of the American Mathematical Society eloquently discusses, one can uses mathematics to examine the arbitrary brokenness of voting rules.

Here is the abstract: The mathematical analysis of voting systems, and of aggregation rules in general, shows that they can yield paradoxes as well as preferences. In this article, featured here for Mathematics Awareness Month, the author explains what kind of problems can arise and how they can be mathematically understood.

Saari has written numerous articles and multiple books on the topic, and this particular expository piece is a good place to start. (Notice that I'm a bit late in writing this post... )

Maybe Jesus was a Shark?

You don't believe me? Just take a look at this article on cnn.com.

I'd love to put a jumping the shark joke here, but I just can't think of one at the moment and the Dodgers are now batting.

WTF of the Day

Apparently, an Ohio inmate tried unsuccessfully to get out of a death sentence using a too-fat-to-execute argument.

Alternative lyrics for "Take On Me"

Courtesy Lemming--who got it from Jonathan (who got it from... Agnes?), here is video for "Take on Me" with some alternate lyrics. I approve! That video also included a link to a brief spoof of the video from Family Guy. Once again, I approve!

As many of you know, "Take On Me" is on the short short list of my favorite songs ever, and it's music video is also on the short short list of my favorite music videos ever. (I have harped on it on many occasions.)

Also, one of my Somerville colleagues talked about how "stuck in the 80s" was for me to use Pine---this from somebody who has absolutely no clue just how apt his comment truly was! :) Slowly but surely, I'm making my presence felt here...

2008 Ig Nobel Prizes

The 2008 Ig Nobel prizes were recently announced.

The Nobel Prizes thus far haven't been overly interesting this year (though I suppose I have a bit of partiality towards physics nobel in honor of spontaneous symmetry-breaking that went to Nambu and two others), but thankfully I can proudly announce that Charles Spence, one of my Somerville College colleagues, is one of this year's Ig Nobel laureates! (One of last year's was L. Mahadevan, an applied mathematician who visits Oxford's applied math group a lot.) Here is the citation for his Ig Nobel prize in Nutrition:

NUTRITION PRIZE. Massimiliano Zampini of the University of Trento, Italy and Charles Spence of Oxford University, UK, for electronically modifying the sound of a potato chip to make the person chewing the chip believe it to be crisper and fresher than it really is.
REFERENCE: "The Role of Auditory Cues in Modulating the Perceived Crispness and Staleness of Potato Chips," Massimiliano Zampini and Charles Spence, Journal of Sensory Studies, vol. 19, October 2004, pp. 347-63.

Congratulations!

Tales from the arXiv: a new attitude

\\
arXiv:0810.0827
Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2008 14:23:21 GMT (227kb)

Title: Sine function with a cosine attitude
Authors: A. D. Alhaidari
Categories: quant-ph
Comments: 11 pages, 4 color figures
Journal-ref: J. Phys. A 41, 175201 (2008)
\\
We give a revealing expose that addresses an important issue in scattering
theory of how to construct two asymptotically sinusoidal solutions of the wave
equation with a phase shift using the same basis having the same boundary
conditions at the origin. Analytic series representations of these solutions
are obtained. In 1D, one of the solutions is an even function that behaves
asymptotically as sin(x), whereas the other is an odd function, which is
asymptotically cos(x). The latter vanishes at the origin whereas the derivative
of the former becomes zero there. Eliminating the lowest N terms of the series
makes these functions vanishingly small in an interval around the origin whose
size increases with N. We employ the tools of the J-matrix method of scattering
in the construction of these solutions in one and three dimensions.
\\ ( http://arxiv.org/abs/0810.0827 , 227kb)


I just like the idea of a sine function with a cosine attitude...

Ranking universities using polytopes

Courtesy Peter Mucha, here is an article in Science News covering a new arXiv paper by Peter Huggins and Lior Pachter that uses polytopes to examine the US News and World Report rankings of US universities. (Some of you may be aware that Lior Pachter is yet another Techer. He was a Rudd, who I believe graduated in 1994. He's currently on the faculty at UC Berkeley and is one of the pioneers in the new field of "applied algebraic statistics." Actually, algebraic statistics is pretty much a new field of mathematics even before one considers applications.)

One of the ideas I've been bouncing around for several years is the idea of using network science to rank universities. One of these days I'll do that... (My current ranking system project, by the way, involves ranking baseball players using the bipartite graph of pitcher-batter interactions. My collaborators and I don't have any results yet, but stay tuned...)

Dodgers sweep Cubs to win NLDS!

As you can see from this article, the Dodgers swept the Cubs in the National League Division Series to advance to the National League Championship series against either the Brewers or the Phillies (probably the Phillies). Sweet! This is the first postseason series that we've won since 1988, when we won it all! Go Dodgers!

(Of course, the bad side of things is that the games are on so late at night---especially the last two, which started after 3am my time---that it's hard for me to actually watch it. I caught about 2/3 of the first game and otherwise I needed to rely on the box scores. I was feeling too sick to push myself and stay awake, so I hope I can get better soon so that I can screw up my sleeping schedule a bit and catch some of the games.)

2008 Random Walker Rankings

They're baaaaaaack.

By now, I assume that most of you know that this ranking system is for NCAA American Football. You can see how our systems (RW and RWFL) are doing on Kenneth Massey's comparisons page.

OJ finally found guilty

As you can see from this article on CNN.com, the justice system has finally found OJ Simpson to be officially guilty of something.

(Whenever I see comments about OJ and 'guilty', I always think of the old menu at Caltech's Coffeehouse...)