Quote of the Day

"I'm so happy I could strangle a mountain ox."

That was the response I got to an e-mail to a student accepting her to do a Ph.D. with me. My response: "I take it this is a 'yes'? ;)" Though of course I can't take the above as an official yes, though I think it's reasonable for me to expect to get that answer. I guess there is something to be said after all for delivering such news rather than it being done by departmental staff. (Granted, I have to deliver bad news more often than good news.)

Happy late Square Root Day!

Somehow, I needed to read this article after the fact to realize that yesterday was Square Root Day!

Please send me a reminder in 2016...

Chance Meetings

I was taking the train today for the first time in a couple of months so that I could go to Stoke-on-Trent to take a cab and head over to Keele University for a talk. The train was running late---shock!---so I ended up on a differently-configured itinerary that was leaving 30 minutes later. I was trying to find two consecutive empty seats so that I could have some space and I noticed while passing by lots of situations without such empty seats that one person seemed to look vaguely like someone I know. I didn't think much about it, though, because she has a postdoc at Brown and it was not reason it would be her. Except that it was, as she had flown in this morning for a job interview at Warwick. (Some of my readers may know who this, but I am withholding the name from a public web page for obvious reasons.) That was pretty cool! This is among my least-expected random encounters ever. (I have occasionally run into friends unexpectedly at random airports before---e.g., once in Dallas when I was making a connection---but at least they were in the right country!)

Anyway, this is my cool story for today.

Manny is staying in LA.

This was inevitable: Manny Ramirez will remain a Dodger in 2009. Thankfully, we mostly resisted the urge to bid against ourselves (which is a Scott Boras specialty).

Tales from the arXiv: It's Not Easy Being Green edition

Here is a new abstract from the arXiv:

arXiv:0903.0110 (*cross-listing*)
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 21:20:21 GMT (1127kb,D)

Title: Kermit's What-Happens-Next-Machine Reloaded
Authors: Ursula Schroeter
Categories: physics.ed-ph physics.class-ph physics.pop-ph
Comments: tricky, but feasible. 13 pages, 11 figures, + 7 pages attachments
with FORTRAN program
\\
If Kermit's What-Happens-Next-Machine had functioned, you would not have seen
much, because it would have gone too quickly. In this article it is shown that
putting up and solving the equations of motion of a seemingly simple mechanical
apparatus presents a challenging problem. The simulation can, however, be quite
instructive and also entertaining.
\\ ( http://arxiv.org/abs/0903.0110 , 1127kb)

The Dodger announcers on Andruw Jones

The Dodger announcers had a bit of a discussion about Andruw Jones during today's spring training game:

Charlie Steiner: "Let's see. Andruw Jones this spring is 1 for 7 with an infield single and 6 strikeouts."

Rick Monday: "He's in midseason form."


Comment: Ouch!


(The discussion then continued for a little while, but its start was just priceless.)

The only thing missing was a player to be named later

In a decision of amazing perspicuity, a women traded two children for a bird. $175 also changed hands, but the CNN article to which I link didn't indicate which direction the money went. All that was missing was a player to be named later.

Unintended Memes

Courtesy Kohl Gill, here is a component of a conservative Christian advertising campaign that is apparently about to backfire very badly. I approve!

I love unintentional awesomeness (and "awesomeness").

A social network possibly worth analyzing

My collaborators and I should totally mine the data from this website and go to town on it.

If one can study the social network of superheroes in the Marvel Universe (I'm pretty sure there's a published version of this, but I can't find it at the moment) or the rap star collaboration network, then I think this is fair game. :)

Disturbing google search

My web page was hit by a google search for activities for elementary aged children with the song Ride of the Valkyries.

Comment: DON'T DO IT!!!!!!!

The Drug Culture of Sports

As several sportswriters have now pointed out (I saw this recently in blog entries by Peter Gammons and Rob Neyer), the drug culture in sports isn't exactly new. Will the people crying bloody murder stop pretending that they didn't know anything? Take a look at this article, which appeared in Sports Illustrated in 1969!

Manny's economic crisis is finally over.

Apparently, Scott Boras has successfully negotiated with the government to secure $20 million for Manny Ramirez. (Tip of the hat to Rob Neyer, who linked to this story on his blog.)

2nd Annual Oxford University SIAM Student Chapter Conference

The Oxford University SIAM (Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics) Student Chapter had its second annual conference on February 3rd. Despite some hurdles as the date approached---that's an inevitable thing with anything like this---everything went smoothly and it worked our superbly. The one unfortunate thing was that I had forgotten the day of it when I bought my Arlo Guthrie tickets, so I needed to forgo seeing Guthrie live and I didn't know who might want the ticket, so that was a bit of a wasted 20 or so pounds. Se la vie.

You can find out more about it on the link or read about our first annual conference in 2008 in the November 2008 issue of SIAM News.

I highly recommend starting up a student chapter at your own universities. Those of us in the Oxford chapter will of course be happy to tell you the things we did wrong so that you don't repeat our mistakes. :) (We did a few things correctly too.)

Dodgers sign Orlando Hudson

It's not quite official yet, but apparently the Dodgers are about to sign second baseman Orlando Hudson to a one-year contract. It's apparently going to cost about $4 million + incentives, so we're really taking advantage of the depressed free agent market. This is quite a good acquisition for the price.

911 Call of the Day

I'm pretty sure this is fake, but it's still pretty damn funny. Here is the 911 Call of the Day. (I found this via a link on Rob Neyer's blog.)

Caption of the Day

Today's caption occurred in this CNN article on some results that aren't particularly surprising.

The caption reads as follows: Images of women in bikinis prompted brain responses in men associated with using tools.

Also, here is the article's money sentence: New research shows that, in men, the brain areas associated with handling tools and the intention to perform actions light up when viewing images of women in bikinis.


I suppose I would be less amused if the term 'handling tools' weren't the one that was chosen by the author of the article, but I also suppose that that particular pun was too hard to keep inside.

Quote of the Day

Courtesy Rob Neyer's blog, Larry Bowa has provided today's quote: "Put that on the [expletive] dot com."

Of course, Bowa has quite a way to go before he catches up to Lee Elia or Tommy Lasorda. (Just don't ask Tommy to give his opinion about what I just wrote.)

RIP George Zaslavsky (1935-2008)

In November, the field of quantum chaos lost another of its pioneers.

In this case, it was George Zaslavsky of NYU.

I haven't found an extensive obituary online, but here is a very brief biography.

Spring (Training) is here, so it's time to start insulting Juan Pierre again

Guess who has perhaps the worst contract in the National League? That's right, it's our old friend Juan Pierre.

(Tip of the hat to Rob Neyer's blog.)

How to get high impact factors

I'm a little bit late to the game of finding out about this one, but it's pretty "awesome" and it's in my home discipline, so I'll report it now.

There is a nonlinear dynamics journal called Chaos, Solitons, and Fractals which is (shall we say) craptacular that for some reason seems to have abnormally high impact factors when compared to the other, significantly better, journals in the field. If I consider specialized journals only (so I'm throwing out anything like Nature or even PRL), there are easily half a dozen and most likely more than a dozen such journals in this area to which I would submit my stuff before I would send it to CSF. It's not even on my radar as somewhere I would bother to send it, so I always found it strange that its impact factor was so high. Everybody in the field knew it was crap, so who was citing its articles?

While of course this could have been discovered earlier (which begs the question: Why wasn't it?), it turns out that the excessive impact factor comes from a metric fuck ton of self-citations by the Editor-in-Chief, who was using this journal as a venue to publish more than 300 single-authored papers during the last 15 years. Now the Editor-in-Chief is being forced to retire. There are apparently also significant questions about his academic credentials. D'oh!

The wheels of justice may turn excruciating slowly, but they often turn nonetheless...

Finally, whoever is policing this stuff might also want to check out a few other journals that come to mind...

(Tip of the hat to Radek Erban.)


Quick Update: Here is a an entire blog that devotes itself to compiling some of the self-promotion coming from the "retiring" Editor-in-Chief. At a glance it looks pretty comical, so now I'm going to read it a bit more closely...

Mathematical Models of Bipolar Disorder

I've blogged about this paper multiple times before---including discussions of a very snarky letter-to-the-editor that my colleague and I wrote.

The paper itself has now been assigned its official journal volume, number, and page numbers. You can find the article here.


Title: Mathematical Models of Bipolar Disorder

Authors: Darryl Daugherty, Tairi Roque-Urrea, John Urrea-Roque, Jessica Troyer, Stephen Wirkus, and Mason A. Porter

Abstract: We use limit cycle oscillators to model bipolar II disorder, which is characterized by alternating hypomanic and depressive episodes and afflicts about 1% of the United States adult population. We consider two non-linear oscillator models of a single bipolar patient. In both frameworks, we begin with an untreated individual and examine the mathematical
effects and resulting biological consequences of treatment. We also briefly consider the dynamics of interacting bipolar II individuals using weakly-coupled, weakly-damped harmonic oscillators. We discuss how the proposed models can be used as a framework for refined models that incorporate additional biological data. We conclude with a discussion of possible generalizations of our work, as there are several biologically-motivated extensions that can be readily incorporated into the series of models presented here.

Submitting abstracts versus papers to speak at conferences

There is going to be a complex systems conference at Warwick in September.

Instead of just submitting an abstract, one has to submit an entire paper in order to give a talk. The paper is up to 6 pages long if one is trying for a 20-minute talk, and it is up to 15 pages if one is trying a 40-minute talk. (One can submit only an abstract if one is trying for a poster.) This resembles CS (and presumably other engineering) conferences more than what I usually attend, where the longest required document I have seen are 2-page extended abstracts that are only marginally annoying. Although I am very interested in attending this conference, given that (1) I can present my work at equally or more prominent conferences that don't have such stringent (and, more important, time-consuming!) submission requirements and (2) conference proceedings and the like count next to nothing in mathematics, there is really no incentive at all for me to do this. (Note that if I weren't so self-motivated about writing things up anyway or if I wanted to push myself to write something up in a timetable that happened to correspond roughly to the submission deadline, then I would consider doing something like this for that reason.) It would be a waste of my time, and that's before I consider the fact that the conference may well conflict with my Examination duties at Oxford. I considered e-mailing the relevant organizer to mention this, but it's not worth it. (I have e-mailed someone involved with the conference whom I know essentially just to remark that I think it's a very bad policy if one wants to optimize the quality of a conference.) I think that part of the reason for the submission requirement is as a self-selection procedure for people who are willing to go through the major hassle, but frankly I would find it pretty surprising if lots of people aren't turned off by that whole thing. I also expect that this will lead to heavy biases in the backgrounds of the people attending in favor of people from subjects where conferences are usually like this.

If the conference doesn't conflict with Examination duties, I may show up for a bit without giving a presentation (depending, of course, on who is speaking). It's in Warwick, which is an easy train ride away.

Deviating from the Norm: Valentine's Day Edition

I'm one day late on this, but Arcane Gazebo's post reminded me of a thought I've had occasionally over the last few years and this is an appropriate time to share it:

I'm just wondering, but am I the only one who thinks it's easier to tell a Nobel Laureate that he (or she) should have shared his (or her) Nobel Prize with someone else than it is to ask someone else on a date?

Very expensive coffee

First off, I am a moron.

I somehow managed to lose 50 pounds from my wallet while getting coffee this morning. I think it fell out while I was paying, but I don't know for sure. I found out when I took out my wallet to pay for something this afternoon and noticed that the bills I needed to use weren't there. I find that pretty embarrassing, though that feeling was dominated by my feeling annoyance---especially because the same thing happened last Sunday night. I had thought that the money from my wallet was absconded when my jacket was in the cloak room of University College, but now it seems like it was instead earlier that day at the same coffee place. Of course, I don't know for sure whether the money (and a couple of frequent-customer cards and similar things) fell out while I was being stupid and was taken, but I'm really annoyed that this has now happened on consecutive weekends. Grrrr.... I need to be more careful.

National Science Foundation report on Complex Systems

As reported on SIAM's website, the National Science Foundation has just released a report called Foundations for Complex Systems Research in
the Physical Sciences and Engineering.

I glanced through it very briefly and provide a link to it here as a service to my fellow scientists studying complex systems.

I didn't look at the report closely enough to make too many comments other than to mention that some of the example focal problems reflect biases of the authors of the report (no surprise there) with which I don't entirely agree.

Friday the 13th is made for birthday parties

I have a history of success celebrating my birthday on Friday 13th during years in which it is feasible, and so it was yesterday.

Even though the celebration was in Oxford, we actually had 4 Lloydies (and a 5th needed to cancel at the last minute), with class years ranging from 1996 to 2008. My non-Techer friends very kindly put up the our occasional conversation devolvement, and of course it's always interesting when my present meets up with some of my past.

We didn't do anything special. We basically just hung out, but that's all I wanted anyway.

Biological Transformers

I love the analogy being used in a new Caltech press release: Caltech Scientists Discover Self-Regulating Molecular "Transformers" Control the Intracellular Delivery of Proteins.

More than meets the eye, indeed!

A Brief Comment about Somerville's Website Blocking

Unfortunately, Somerville College in Oxford blocks certain websites. That's really annoying as a matter of principle, but I am especially annoyed by what I just found out: That websites are blocked if they are classified as "tasteless." WTF? That's not for them to decide!

(For what it's worth, what I wanted to take a look at was a webcomic that looked like it would be interesting. It wasn't my personal website that was blocked or anything, so I'll continue to happily make my snarky remarks.)

I was planning not to blog on another steroids scandal, but...

I told myself that I wouldn't blog about the whole A-Roid thing (sorry, but I can't help snickering about the new nickname), but former Major Leaguer Doug Glanville has made an excellent point in his New York Times opinion piece, and I think that is worth bringing up. Namely, the 2003 tests---i.e., the one that A-Rod failed---were agreed legally by the players as a litmus test to try to gauge just how rampant performance-enchancing-drug abuse was in the sport. It was the massive failure (over 100 players) on those tests that led to the testing system currently in place. One of the conditions for those tests was that all results were supposed to be anonymous and without that stipulation that testing would not have taken place. So, while A-Rod gets skewered for being caught (and don't think for a second that he's the last big name who will get similarly skewered---one shouldn't be surprised to see any name!), let's also remember that basic privacy rights associated with anonymous testing are also being breached here. Why is this issue getting lost?

(Tip of the Cap: I found out about Doug Glanville's article from Rob Neyer's blog.)

Tales from the ArXiv: Superballs!

Here is a intriguing new paper that just got posted on the arXiv preprint server.

Title: Optimal Packings of Superballs

Authors: Yang Jiao, Frank Stillinger, Sal Torquato

Abstract: Dense hard-particle packings are intimately related to the structure of low-temperature phases of matter and are useful models of heterogeneous materials and granular media. Most studies of the densest packings in three dimensions have considered spherical shapes, and it is only more recently that nonspherical shapes (e.g., ellipsoids) have been investigated. Superballs (whose shapes are defined by |x1|^2p + |x2|^2p + |x3|^2p <= 1) provide a versatile family of convex particles (p >= 0.5) with both cubic- and octahedral-like shapes as well as concave particles (0 < p < 0.5) with octahedral-like shapes. In this paper, we provide analytical constructions for the densest known superball packings for all convex and concave cases. The candidate maximally dense packings are certain families of Bravais lattice packings. The maximal packing density as a function of p is nonanalytic at the sphere-point (p = 1) and increases dramatically as p moves away from unity. The packing characteristics determined by the broken rotational symmetry of superballs are similar to but richer than their two-dimensional "superdisk" counterparts, and are distinctly different from that of ellipsoid packings. Our candidate optimal superball packings provide a starting point to quantify the equilibrium phase behavior of superball systems, which should deepen our understanding of the statistical thermodynamics of nonspherical-particle systems.


Comment: But if they want to do something really cool, they'll climb to the top of the tallest building on campus and drop all of the superballs from there. (Not that I got this idea from anything I've seen before or anything...

How Precioussssssss....

Thomas Woolley has pointed me to a link called The Kh(aX)n Machine that has generalized the Kh(aX)n construction for any letter one might want repeated in a google search.

For example, here are the results for Preciou(sX).

Here is my previous post.

More Fun with Non-Newtonian Fluids

I've posted about non-Newtonian fluids at least once before (but not for quite a while, I think).

Here is a really awesome video of a non-Newtonian fluid on a speaker cone at www.techeblog.com. (Tip of the hat to Jing Xu for pointing out this link.)

Herbert Simon is awesome.

Really, that's about all I want to say, although it's worth point out that he studied preferential attachment long before it was "discovered" (as some scientists might suggest) in the 1990s and he published a paper with amazingly modern views on complex systems and hierarchical organization in 1962. (Tip of the cap to Renaud Lambiotte for pointing this paper out to me.) Here is his wikipedia page.

Can we please just sign Adam Dunn?

Why in Hell are we bothering with Manny Ramirez's posturing?

As I wrote when we first signed him, I was very pleased when the Dodgers traded for Manny but I felt that we should let him walk away as a free agent because of course he'd eventually become a distraction. I wouldn't mind having him back for 1 or 2 years, but anything more than that would be stupid.

Additionally, we can just get Bobby Abreu or (especially) Adam Dunn for half the price (per year) that we've already offered Manny, and either one of them (especially Dunn!) would give us a good bat and relegate Juan Pierre to the bench. Manny and his agent (Scott Boras, who we have previously established is evil) are trying to get us to bid against ourselves. Boras certainly has done that successfully several times before (see: Andruw Jones), but thankfully it looks like it won't be happening this time. Let's just sign Dunn and a pitcher and save some money for mid-season pick-ups.

Is Jenny at home?

I just can't resist this story, which has an extremely cool twist in it.

First of all, I simply love the idea of somebody named Jenny giving out the number 867-5309 at bars to guys she doesn't like. However, it's pretty awesome that she eventually called the number to see who was at the other end of the line and then the two of them ended up dating for a while. I am not usually into human interest stories, but that's pretty damn cool!

This number has become a timeless source for jokes. (For example, it was used rather successfully at Pax in 2007.)

Web Form Submission Amusement

I think that sometimes I am easily amused or that my mind spends occasional moments in the gutter.

I just submitted a very sweet poster for the Nonlinear Science Gallery at the 2009 APS March Meeting, and the code letter sequence to make sure that I am a human was "poopu". [[Giggle]]

On the subject of the Nonlinear Science Gallery, there is one particularly interesting rule change that occurred either for 2008 or 2009. (I'm pretty sure it was for 2008, but I didn't submit anything last year, so I can't say for sure.) Namely, all videos are now required to be silent, which means that my 2007 entry that had The Ride playing (on infinite repeat for 3 days while the exhibitor hall was open) won't be able to be duplicated. I can, however, proudly say that the published version of that video (to which I've linked in the past), which is also available on YouTube, includes the soundtrack.

Citizens demand more snow!

Apparently, the UK is having its heaviest snowfall in 18 years.

However, I went to grad school at Cornell, and this is nothing compared to what I saw repeatedly every winter over there. It's nice to have snow in my backyard and, amazingly, I am actually have fond nostalgic feelings for Ithaca. That tends to happen when I see snow, because I'd like to be in some real snow for a couple of days every so often just so I can play around in it. I've seen some people work hard to gather up snow for snowball fights, but it still takes some effort to get that going. Our plenary speaker for tomorrow's SIAM Student Chapter Conference may have to cancel, though I hope he'll be able to make it.

Anyway, I've now witnessed the biggest UK snowfall in 18 years and the highest-magnitude UK earthquake in about 25 years, and they are both quite small with respect to my respective experiences in Ithaca and Los Angeles.

Citizens demand more snow! (Note that it has already correctly been pointed out that I'm not a citizen.)

P.S. Yes, it is true that I am itching for a snowball fight. Come get some!

Running the Numbers

Courtesy Aaron Clauset, here is a link to some very cool art by Chris Jordan. Jordan's display, called Running the Numbers: An American Self-Portrait is meant to make an emotional point by combining art with statistics of our extravagant, wasteful lifestyle. And maybe that will work, but my reaction to the pictures mostly start and end with the fact that they're really pretty. (It helps a lot that I like fractal-like things.) The constitution one is pretty damn funny, by the way.

I suppose I am supposed to have a larger emotional response, but that was never my thing (as both personality tests and, more importantly, people who know me can attest).

Note (2/8/09): I apparently forgot to put a title on this blog post when I originally wrote it. I have now corrected this.

Tax Dollars at Work

Courtesy Yalda Sharif, here is a brief (roughly 45 second) news report that is both "awesome" and awesome. (I couldn't find a non-Facebook link for this video, so if somebody has one that I can post here so that I can pass that along, that would be great.)

Not more than two physical forces in nature

The October 2008 issue of Physics Today had an awesome article, in which physicist Lawrence Krauss discussed a hoax article that he submitted to Physical Review Letters claiming that he had found a new, overlooked force of nature. In contrast to what we typically see nowadays, the editors of PRL showed that they had a sense of humor and fired right back, responding with several fake referee reports (one for each force of nature). Both the hoax article and the referee reports were reprinted in Physics Today.

Here is the abstract for the Physics Today article:

When I was a young assistant professor at Yale University in 1986, a great deal of interest was aroused by a paper that had appeared in Physical Review Letters (E. Fischbach et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 56, 3, 1986). The paper argued that a reanalysis of data from the famous Eötvös experiment provided evidence for a force that violated the equivalence principle—the equivalence between inertial and gravitational mass. While many people were skeptical of that result, I reacted with surprise to the notion that the paper had survived the refereeing process, which at the time had very strict self-imposed requirements of general interest, importance, and validity.

I loved the following line from the Editor's response (that contained the referee reports): "Although all advise publication (after some revision) the Editors, in their usual arbitrary and capricious manner, do not come to this conclusion."

I approve!

Friendships in Baseball's Minor Leagues

Courtesy Rob Neyer's blog, here's a very nice post by baseball player Randy Newsom at Dugout Central about the intensity and often fleeting nature of friendships in baseball's Minor Leagues. The movie Bull Durham has a lot to say about this as well. (For that matter, so does the Major League series of movies, though there are certain important differences between the minors and the majors here in terms of a collection of people struggling level by level without having the major stars around.)

What's on your iPod?

Maybe it has military secrets?

This is wrong on so many levels

Occasionally, I find interesting things with boredom-inspired google searches. Here is the latest curiosity. The page is an eBay listing for a yearbook from my sophomore year in high school.

I have a very good guess of who the seller is (given the user id). Part of me is amused, and part of me thinks it's kind of pathetic to attempt to hawk an old high school yearbook with a minimum bid of 10 dollars. (To say nothing of thinking that the phrase "Mason Porter, the famous Oxford University mathematics professor, is pictured in a sophomore portrait." will actually help sell the yearbook.)

The auction is apparently going to close within the next day (if it doesn't get recycled), so if the link doesn't show what I've described, I hope my words above will prove sufficiently amusing.

Great Britain is a very strange country.

Great Britain is a very strange place. Just consider some of the location names you can find around here. I couldn't make this stuff up.

I remember having a discussion with (Mike)^2 a year ago during my first visit home from the UK. I pass a town called Maidenhead on the train between Oxford and London, and Mike pointed out mountains (I think it was mountains) called something like Greater Cockup and Lesser Cockup.

Tip of the hat to Justin Howell for sending along this blog entry that linked to the New York Times article above. (Also, I agree with the blogger that this is the: Best. New York Times. Article. Ever.)

Comment on "Bifurcation Analysis of Parametrically Excited Bipolar Disorder Model"

A while back, I blogged about a letter to the editor a collaborator and I wrote regarding a paper that was suspiciously similar to our work. Here is the published version of that letter. Notice the snarkiness at the end. Here is my old blog entry.

By the way, I don't remember if I blogged about this previously, but the ending ended up being a happy one: Because of this whole business, the previously-unpublished article by my collaborators and me (which had been on the arXiv preprint server since 2003) has now been accepted by the very same journal that published the article that raised our ire.

OSCAR Nominations (2009)

Here are this year's OSCAR nominations.

I've seen very few of the films that have been nominated (fewer than the past couple of years), so I'm going to forgo my usual fearless predictions this time around.

Tonight I am planning to see the long-awaited (for me) third film in the Underworld series. I wonder if I'll be the only one in the theatre? :)

Hmmm... I guess being a math professor is not so hot after all.

Or rather, according to a Crooked Timber blog post that Justin Howell passed along to me by e-mail, it's the mathematics professors who aren't all that hot.

At least we beat the chemists.

Jeff Kent to announce retirement from baseball

ESPN is now reporting that LA Dodger Jeff Kent will announce his retirement from baseball tomorrow. Next stop: Cooperstown.

This is the latest in a continuing installment of blog entries in which I seek to expand the baseball knowledge of network scientists everywhere (well, and everyone else too). Just wait until my paper on baseball networks comes out. (The current plan is to submit in spring.)

Recent Annoyances

In honor of George Carlin, here are a couple of things that piss me off:

1. Weekly seminar announcements in the form of .xls attachments with 5 pages (one for each day). This now appears to have been fixed. (I complained loudly that I wanted to receive this information in the main text of an e-mail.)

2. The following keeps happening over and over again with numerous different people: When I schedule a meeting involving N > 2 people and I cc the relevant people, I want the response to include them because their preferences/opinions are also necessary. Is 'reply to all' so hard? (I understand if somebody forgets on occasion, but why is this so widespread?)


Notice that (1) annoyed me immensely with just one occurrence, whereas (2) required multiple occurrences in quick succession to really get on my nerves.

Wikified Classmates

I now know of two of my fellow Beverly High classmates [in this case, people who I actually know] from the class of 1994 who have been wikified. (Maybe there are more, but I just found out about the second one today.)

I went to both Beverly High and Hawthorne elementary school (since 1st grade, if I remember correctly) with Dina Rae (though I know her as "Dina Franks"). I went to Beverly High with Saba Soomekh, whose sister Bahar has also been wikified. I took classes with Saba, but I don't remember whether I met Bahar (maybe I did), who has appeared in MI: III (among other films).

Then, of course, there is also Angelina (who I mever met, though my collaborator JP Onnela can tell you at least one story about her; she was one year ahead of me in school and apparently left after sophomore year) and this person (whose family lived a block away from mine and whose brother is the one who first taught me how to throw a frisbee).

So much for my sordid past. At least I can have second-order fame through the people I know.

House construction using bananas?

Finally, there's a good use for bananas (which, as far as I'm concerned, are vile monstrosities that should be utterly wiped from the face of the planet). Namely, as this CNN weather report from Minnesota shows, they can be used to hammer nails if it gets cold enough. Nice! (The video also has a bubble demo. I'd be interested in seeing a version of that that works as well as advertised.)

This entry is dedicated to the locals who think it's actually cold in Oxford right now. I admit it's a bit nippy, but I've lived in Upstate New York, and what we're getting right now is much warmer than it is over there right now.

Abstract MadLib

Courtesy Aaron Clauset, here is an Abstract Matlab that Jorge Cham drew for a recent installment of Ph.D. comics.

It looks eerily familiar, both with respect to stuff I've read and with respect to stuff I've written. For shits and giggles, you might want to compare this with the abstract I posted in the blog entry right before this one.

Dissipative Solitary Waves in Granular Crystals

My third paper in Physical Review Letters was officially published yesterday.

Title: Dissipative Solitary Waves in Granular Crystals

Authors: R. Carretero-Gonzalez, D. Khatri, Mason A. Porter, P. G. Kevrekidis, and C. Daraio

Abstract: We provide a quantitative characterization of dissipative effects in one-dimensional granular crystals. We use the propagation of highly nonlinear solitary waves as a diagnostic tool and develop optimization schemes that allow one to compute the relevant exponents and prefactors of the dissipative terms in the equations of motion. We thereby propose a quantitatively accurate extension of the Hertzian model that encompasses dissipative effects via a discrete Laplacian of the velocities. Experiments and computations with steel, brass, and polytetrafluoroethylene reveal a common dissipation exponent with a materialdependent prefactor.


In English, the point of this paper is as follows: The common model for the dynamics of granular crystals (otherwise known as chains of beads) is a conservative model. It's not that anybody thinks that other effects aren't relevant; rather, nobody knows how to incorporate them correctly, and it's a not a simple matter of getting something mechanistic through measurement of response curves. Trying to get a correct first-principles derivation of effects such as viscoelasticity and plasticity in order to improve the state-of-the-art models is a difficult and important endeavor. A few papers have recently appeared that insert an ad hoc dissipation term based on a linear dashpot (i.e., using a basic dx/dt type of term, as one sees in textbooks for damped harmonic oscillators), and our paper uses fitting between numerics and experiments to show that this is bounded away from being correct. (The exponent for a [dx/dt]^m type term appears to be around m = 1.75 to get the best fit to the amount of dissipation one actually sees experimentally.) Of course, our paper is not a first-principles by any stretch of the imagination. What we are now doing in this direction is to look at (1) highly plastic situations (by basically firing bullets at the chain of beads to obtain large irreversible deformations) and (2) highly viscoelastic situations in order to examine "limiting cases" to try to improve the prevailing conservative model there. We will then do the same type of fitting as in the just-published paper and ideally we'll get a sensible term that we can try to obtain with a derivation by generalizing some relevant papers that propose some functional forms that have some chance of being reasonable but haven't yet been tested in the lab for these systems.

KH(Ax)N for x = 1, ..., 100

Courtesy Lemming comes this awesome link, which shows a plot of the number of Google search results for "KH(Ax)N" (I assume the quotes aren't actually in the Google search) as a function of x. Observe the broad spike between about 35 and 50 compared to the numbers outside this range.

This seriously needs to be repeated for "PRECIOU(Sx)" for x = 1, ..., 100...

Dodgers release Andruw Jones!

The Dodgers have just officially released Andruw Jones. It's been well-known for a while they we'd be jettisoning him, but it's still great to see him officially gone. Now we just need to also get rid of Juan Pierre, and then there will be even more cause to celebrate!

By the way, I thought the move was stupid from the moment we made it, though I didn't predict it would fail as epically as it did.

Andruw: Please close the door on your way out!

Introducing the Pizza Patch

Check out the patch that the Mets are including on their uniform sleeves in 2009. Now that's amazingly "awesome"! (Tip of the hat to Rob Neyer's blog.)

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!