"Graph-Theoretic" and "Graphical" Language in the Description of Marriages

This Onion article makes me realize that one can describe marriage laws very precisely using graph theory: allowing non-bipartite graphs, allowing hypergraphs, etc.

Clearly, the outcomes of the court cases ought to be written using graph-theoretic (or, to use a perhaps unfortunate pun, "graphical") language.

Note: I have no comment about self-edges.

Tales from the ArXiv: Microorganism Billiards

Yes, really. The idea is very interesting, and I am also amused. :)

This paper is a theoretical and computational one, but here is the first sentence of the abstract to tantalize you: Recent experiments and numerical simulations have shown that certain types of microorganisms "reflect" off of a flat surface at a critical angle of departure, independent of the angle of incidence.

A More General Set of Branching Processes Now Give Realistic Processes

Sometimes the outcome of important legislation has unintended consequences---like the fact that a more general set of branching processes than before now give realistic models of genetic transmission.

Really, all governments should determine the outcome of legislation based on what makes more mathematical models into realistic models. :)

(More seriously, I'm glad to see this approved for nonmathematical reasons.)

"Oxford Don or James Bond Villain?"

It's a game. Sometimes people play it. (Or at least I do.)

You can think of it as a variant of Prof or Hobo?

Möbius Strips: Now Apparently Three-Dimensional

Today I found out about a new paper that reports the generation of Möbius strips of optical polarization, which is very exciting. Unfortunately, the paper's abstract starts out in a very depressing manner that makes me cringe: "Möbius strips are three-dimensional geometrical structures, fascinating for their peculiar property..." Nooooooo!

Although does need three dimensions embed a Möbius strip in an ambient (extrinsic) space, a Möbius strip is a two-dimensional manifold.

(Tip of the cap to Physics Today for their Facebook post of a popular article about the new discovery. Notice the comment about the number of dimensions in the correction. In this case, the popular piece has done better than the paper's abstract.)

Fargo VHS = Treasure Map?

I just found out about the movie Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter via an advertisement for the Phoenix Picturehouse in Oxford. (It's playing on 14 April.) It has a very appealing tagline: "A jaded Japanese woman discovers a hidden copy of Fargo (1996) on VHS, believing it to be a treasure map indicating the location of a large case of money."

I so need to see this! It sounds awesome.

Update (3/19/15): Here is a trailer for the film. It looks amazing and really appealing to somebody like me who lives in a strange land. Sadly, the 14 April day seems to not be happening, but a different theatre in Oxford is showing the film on 6 April and 8 April. I can't wait to see it!

SMBC and Statistical Averages

As Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal reminds us, one needs to be very careful about only report a statistical average.

Awesome Maps!

This webpage has some really sweet maps. The US fails (epically) on the map showing which countries have not adopted the metric system and on the map of paid maternal leave. Another depressing US map is the one that depicts the highest paid public employees in each state.

My favorites include the 22 countries that Great Britain has not invaded and the most common surnames in Europe by country. The map of timezones in Antarctica is also pretty amusing. :) And the map of all earthquakes since 1898 is simply fascinating. And perhaps my #1 favorite in this collection is the map of the flow of rubber duckies, which I suppose we're allowed to assume are passive scalars? The map of the literal translation of Chinese names for places is also highly amusing.

Naturally, this collection of maps reminds me of Katy Börner's science maps.

(Tip of the cap to Maria Satterwhite.)

"Think Locally, Act Locally: Detection of Small, Medium-Sized, and Large Communities in Large Networks"

It's been a very long and stressful (and, at times, emotionally trying) day, but at least one of my papers came out in final form today. This paper is a beast. Here are the details.

Title: Think Locally, Act Locally: Detection of Small, Medium-Sized, and Large Communities in Large Networks

Authors: Lucas G. S. Jeub, Prakash Balachandran, Mason A. Porter, Peter J. Mucha, and Michael W. Mahoney

Abstract: It is common in the study of networks to investigate intermediate-sized (or "meso-scale") features to try to gain an understanding of network structure and function. For example, numerous algorithms have been developed to try to identify "communities," which are typically construed as sets of nodes with denser connections internally than with the remainder of a network. In this paper, we adopt a complementary perspective that communities are associated with bottlenecks of locally biased dynamical processes that begin at seed sets of nodes, and we employ several different community-identification procedures (using diffusion-based and geodesic-based dynamics) to investigate community quality as a function of community size. Using several empirical and synthetic networks, we identify several distinct scenarios for "size-resolved community structure" that can arise in real (and realistic) networks: (1) the best small groups of nodes can be better than the best large groups (for a given formulation of the idea of a good community); (2) the best small groups can have a quality that is comparable to the best medium-sized and large groups; and (3) the best small groups of nodes can be worse than the best large groups. As we discuss in detail, which of these three cases holds for a given network can make an enormous difference when investigating and making claims about network community structure, and it is important to take this into account to obtain reliable downstream conclusions. Depending on which scenario holds, one may or may not be able to successfully identify "good" communities in a given network (and good communities might not even exist for a given community quality measure), the manner in which different small communities fit together to form meso-scale network structures can be very different, and processes such as viral propagation and information diffusion can exhibit very different dynamics. In addition, our results suggest that, for many large realistic networks, the output of locally biased methods that focus on communities that are centered around a given seed node (or set of seed nodes) might have better conceptual grounding and greater practical utility than the output of global community-detection methods. They also illustrate structural properties that are important to consider in the development of better benchmark networks to test methods for community detection.

Unofficial subtitle: "Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Expander Graphs"

XKCD on P-Values

This new xkcd should be required reading for our new 'introduction to data analysis' module that will be available for the second-year students starting next year.

RIP Ernie Banks (1931–2015)

Baseball lost one of its all-time greats yesterday: Ernie Banks died at the age of 83. Banks, who was given the monicker "Mr. Cub", was of course also known for the phrase "Let's play two!"

Here is Banks' wikipedia page.

(I first noted the news this morning via my friend Greg Fricke's use of "#letsplaytwo" in a short post on Facebook, and I figured that that probably meant that Banks had died.)

Video of My Seminar: "Cascades and Social Influence on Networks"

Here is a video of a seminar on cascades and social influence on networks that I presented at UNAM last October.

The associated slides (or at least a set of slides that are almost exactly the same) are available on Slideshare.

Thanks to my UNAM host Carlos Gershenson for posting the video.

The Data Fairy

I greatly prefer terms like "Data Science" and "Data Analytics" to the ubiquitous "Big Data".

"Big Data" makes me feel like you put the data under your pillow in the hope that the Data Fairy comes during the night and leaves an answer there.

The point is that there is supposed to be actual science along with the data.

(See also an older blog entry of mine as well as one to which it links.)

"The Tale of a Post Doc": A Parody of "Bohemian Rhapsody"

This parody of "Bohemian Rhapsody" waxes poetic about the life of a postdoc. It's funny because it's true. :)

PacMap Fever

PacMap, a live-action, smartphone implementation of Pac-Man, sounds so cool (simply because it appeals to my inner geek)!

Hopefully they have the 'exits' (what would that correspond to in real life?), and they damned well better have preserved the trick of being able to go through the ghosts without dying when they ever-so-briefly turn their eyes away from you. (Not that I am a snob when it comes to features of the Pac-Man games...)

(Tip of the cap to The Physics Arxiv Blog.)

Update: I just noticed that the article in Technology Review and the arXiv paper both spell "Pac-Man" incorrectly.

Mathematical Modeling Problem: Just How Many Suckers Are There Right Now?

The phrase "There's a sucker born every minute." was allegedly uttered by a famous person during the 19th century. Assuming it was true and estimating the year based on the possible people to whom the phrase has been attributed, and birth and death rates at appropriate times, estimate how many suckers occupied Earth on 1 January 2015. Be sure to state all of your assumptions explicitly and clearly.

Note: Considerations could include, e.g., whether the rate of births resulting in suckers has changed over time, whether somebody who was born a sucker must necessarily remain so, etc.

Extra credit: Derive from physical principles how many licks it takes to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop.

If you look at the Wikipedia entry, you'll see that the quote is of unknown origin and that the attribution to P. T. Barnum is apparently almost certainly wrong.

My Network Course: 2015 Edition

You can follow the escapades of my networks course on this website. Well, technically you possibly can follow only a subset of its escapades (such as what I write on the course blog and the review articles to which I link) unless you have an Oxford account, as some of the links probably want you to have an Oxford account. But this will give you some idea of what is going on.

Origin of the Word "Jam"

University of Oxford has asked a pressing question in Oxford Today. Just what is the origin of the word "jam"?

And why is this so important? (Or at least I am imagining that you are asking this question.) Well, obviously it's because of the movie Spaceballs. With the word "jam", we wouldn't have memorable quotes like the following ones:

Raspberry. There's only one man who would dare give me the raspberry: Lone Star!

Radar about to be "jammed."

Urban Bacon Network: Can I Publish my Study in an OUP Journal?

Really, Oxford University Press? What a horrifying and depressing type of censorship. (Tip of the cap to Katy Remy.) Then again, it seems that pigs are not actually banned from OUP publications, though they might not make the cut in, for example, the choice of what animals to put in a background picture sometimes. (I am bothered by that statement in the explanation in the Guardian article, though I'm glad to hear that the reported censorship was exaggerated rather than factual.)

OK, now my collaborators and I really need to analyze the shopping data set (the "Stanford Basket Data") with the urban bacon network (and also a suburban bacon network) so that we can find something scientifically interesting enough to publish. And clearly we need to submit this paper to an Oxford University Press journal.

Also, you might not want to work on topics like Graham Higman's PORC conjecture. (Thanks to Ursula Martin for passing that link along.)

Meanwhile, for your viewing pleasure, here is a visualization of the "Urban Bacon Network" from the Stanford Basket Data.

Lt. Morgan Freeman?

Today I received a spam e-mail from "Morgan Freeman", so I opened it and read the first couple of lines:

"Pardon my intrusion; my name is Lieutenant Morgan Freeman, presently I'm on active duty in Iraq. Please, I have an obscured business proposal that will be of mutual benefit to both of us."

The correct response is, of course, no response. But the second best response is "You were great in Bruce Almighty."

I didn't bother reading the rest of the long e-mail.

Momentum Sharing

I agree with xkcd: one shouldn't reveal his/her momentum to a website if one has already revealed location.

What Happens at the Joint Mathematics Meetings Stays at the Joint Mathematics Meetings

After a longer-than-expected journey, I made it to the 2015 Joint Mathematics Meetings today. I am here to cheer on our Mathematics Research Community participants for the session they've organized on network science. (Network science is the subject of the MRC.) To find details of the two-part session, go to this website and search for 'network science'.

And to use a pun that I have been waiting to use for years, the AMS is gonna' be the witness to the ultimate test of cerebral fitness.

Quote of the Day: Sweatpants Edition

Today's quote was apparently uttered about half a year ago by Christine Klymko (just after I left a room), who repeated the line today for my benefit: "On a scale from Mason Porter to Kanye West, what kind of sweatpants were they?"

Airport Liveblogging: 2015 Edition

Friday, 1/09/15, 14:30 pacific: Well, you know things aren't going well when you feel the need to liveblog from the airport.

Well, Supershuttle picked me up from my "home" in Palo Alto before the beginning of their 15 minute window (which started at 1pm). They had previously mistakenly called me a full 15 minutes before the start of the window to express annoyance that I wasn't outside, and it turns out that they meant to call somebody else.

Once I was picked up only a couple of minutes before the beginning of the window, things went smoothly on the way to SFO airport and I arrived. There was no line, which is good. Unfortunately, my 3:50 pm flight to Phoenix, from which I would head to San Antonio, was cancelled and the earliest flight I could be put on was a 12:30 am one that goes through Dallas (which is my favorite airport). I tried to do something about this, but unfortunately I was shit out of luck. I am slated to arrive in Dallas at 5:39 am and then to leave there at 9:00 am. That makes about 14 hours of airport time for me today and tomorrow, in case you're counting. I'll now miss some talks from the first day of the Joint Math Meetings that I wanted to see (especially Carl Dettmann's talk at 8am). Given that I now have an all-nighter in store, I will be in no shape for any talks tomorrow, so I think I will punt all of the talks tomorrow, except possibly for Dan Spielman's plenary at 8:30 pm (if I can stay awake that long). Maybe I'll go through the exhibition room a bit and see if I can find people I know and pick up my Project NExT dot.

Now, the 12:30 am flight is from American Airlines, and I was going to be on US Airways. I thus dragged my (overweight) luggage from Terminal 1 to Terminal 2 (which wasn't so bad, to be honest). Also, there seems to also be some issue with my outbound flight on the 14th. (Times changed, and the airlines booked me on two different flights. Like with today's flight, they had not informed me of any change by e-mail. I was booked on two different flights for the same leg of the journey. I think I have now dealt with this, based on my interactions with AA customer service.) By the way, one of the people at AA customer service was an obnoxious bitch. She scoffed at my notion of the airlines informing me by e-mail with the following comment (which was stated with utter derision and was dripping with sarcasm): "What, do you expect to be able to read your e-mail on the way to work?" Why, yes, yes I do. It's 2015, for fuck's sake. This bitch was surprised by the notion that people read e-mail all the fucking time. No, both US Airways and AA need a phone number to be able to contact me if something changes on the same day because apparently it is beyond their capabilities to send automatic e-mails for such things.

I got through security without a problem. While getting coffee at Peet's, I saw somebody waiting for a flight who looked like one of my friends. I suspect it was not her, and in any event I wasn't sure and I had enough doubt that I really didn't want to be going up to a total stranger whose flight was about to board to say 'hello'. At some point, I'll ping my friend to find out whether it was her, and presumably she'll confirm that it wasn't. (Or alternatively I'll be wrong that it wasn't her and will feel stupid for missing my chance to say 'hi'.)

So now I have my iced latte, and I guess I'll be getting much more work done today than I thought I would. And tomorrow I will be in no shape to do anything. (I am currently near Peet's next to gates 54B and 55.)

So, if you happen to be going through Terminal 1 at SFO airport today, stop by so we can hang out. I'm having a party!


Friday, 1/09/15, 14:53 pacific: PARTY IN TERMINAL 1!!!


Friday, 1/09/15, 16:07 pacific: Did I say "Terminal 1"? Oops, that was an error on my part. I did in fact start my internship here in Terminal 1, but then I walked over to Terminal 2. So... PARTY IN TERMINAL 2!!!.

Also, I unfortunately packed my camera in my check-in luggage. Terminal 2 has some cool "wormhole" sculpture-like objects that I have been meaning to photograph during my last couple of times here. Unfortunately, in those cases, I either didn't have time or had other things I wanted to do or was in a rush to get home. Now I don't have my camera handy, and I think I might get some very strange looks if I do a selfie with my laptop to snap the photograph.


Friday, 1/09/15, 17:35 pacific: Well, I have certainly gotten a lot farther on the second round of page proofs for this paper than I was anticipating today. I'll still need to iterate with my coauthors (especially the first author), but it looks like I will be able to get through my pass and circulate things to them. It was probably going to be very hard for me to get very far on this while at the JMM, so at least my current escapade should accelerate our sending this round of corrections to the journal. I am running out of steam right now, so I should probably get some dinner soon.


Friday, 1/09/15, 17:46 pacific: From the PA system a couple of minutes ago, some guy was paged with the message "Your friends are totally leaving without you if you don't get there soon."


Friday, 1/09/15, 17:49 pacific: Well, my 12:30 am flight appears to be on time at the moment. (I have no confidence in these people anymore.)


Friday, 1/09/15, 18:31 pacific: I finally tried the Japanese sushi and noodle place in this terminal. The person behind the counter was very nice. I got some beef udon soup. During my meal, I realized that I needed to call my hotel to let them know that I was arriving tomorrow instead of today because of my ordeal. I didn't want to lose my room. They are overbooked, so it's a good thing that I did this. In order to check in when I arrive instead of waiting another 5 hours before I can get a room (check-in is normally at 4pm), I may end up in the hotel around the corner. (The hotels are connected to each other and are owned by the same company.)


Friday, 1/09/15, 20:04 pacific: Well, I got through my page proofs and sent them to the lead author so that we can iterate. I thought I would have to work on this a bunch while at the JMM, but the extra time in airports has accelerated the process. Granted, once I hear back from him, I will be going over them again.


Friday, 1/09/15, 20:41 pacific: I just got some Pinkberry frozen yogurt. The flavor is white chocolate raspberry, which is better than the yogurt I have had from them before. (I tried it once or twice over the years but didn't like it.) The person behind the counter asked if I wanted a cover in case I didn't have time to finish it. Oh, I have time. Believe me.


Friday, 1/09/15, 20:55 pacific: Well, I've managed to get a few brain freezes from the frozen yogurt.


Friday, 1/09/15, 21:46 pacific: I sent some comments on trying to clarify the final points of a paper draft back to my collaborators. Being stuck at the airport is causing me to be superproductive. I suppose that means I'll be able to focus more on the JMM once I actually manage to get there and become vertical again after crashing.


Friday, 1/09/15, 21:49 pacific: I just looked over some of the comments in my Dallas airport liveblogging, and those look a lot more amusing than this one. Maybe because I am less loopy now than I was then? Or I am a much busier person and lamer than I was before? Today I am mostly just being productive. What happened to me? Or maybe it's that I am on my own and none of my friends are suffering with me this time? Terminal 2 is actually not that crowded a terminal, which is good. There have been some times when things have seemed positively desolate, though there was just a bit more activity as some people entered the terminal as they departed from an airplane.


Friday, 1/09/15, 22:10 pacific: I am now starting to feel significantly tired and grumpy. The energetic effects of the yogurt appear to have worn off, and some of the things that have occasionally bothered me during the past couple of weeks are annoying me now as the grumpiness sets in. It's funny how that works. (I'm not sure if it's ominous that the live bongo version of the song 'Psychokiller' started playing as I was finishing typing this blurb.)


Friday, 1/09/15, 22:14 pacific: The person sitting across from me seems like a douchebag.


Friday, 1/09/15, 23:35 pacific: After sitting near plugs for a while (especially one near gate 58B), it is finally close enough to the boarding time that I am sitting at my gate. I could plug my computer in, but I want to be able to put things away slightly more quickly when we finally start boarding. In the other place that I sat for a while, for a good period of time there was also a lady who seemed to be a friend of the douchebag. Even when he left, she sometimes was not paying enough attention to her surroundings, so until he came back or she started paying more attention I figured I should stay to make sure that nobody took her stuff.


Friday, 1/09/15, 23:51 pacific: We just got a chance to check in our carry-on luggage for free at the gate. I will see it again at the luggage carousel in San Antonio. It's great that I don't have to take it with me for the rest of the time my journey is in progress. Meanwhile, the guy three seats to the left of me smiled at me very creepily. Not good.


Friday, 1/09/15, 23:57 pacific: We're starting to board! Yay! (I have a 'priority' ticket, so I am guessing that I'll be boarding soon even though I have not yet been invited to board.


Saturday, 1/10/15, 06:16 central: Well, I have made it to DFW airport (about 30 min late), and now there are a couple of hours before I board the next plane. The person next to me on the SFO->DFW flight kept invading my personal space throughout the entire flight, so now I am really read to chew off heads. The bastard did things like flicking off his seatbelt such that it landed on me (twice) and was easily more than 2 inches over the armrest into my seat. His jacket was sometimes 6 full inches into my seat. Bloody Hell.


Saturday, 1/10/15, 06:35 central: Walking past certain places (like Chili's, which I think is where we ate) in this airport brings back painful memories of getting stuck overnight here in 2007. I am now sitting at my gate, because where else would I go? I'm too tired to eat much, though I got an iced latte from a Starbucks. (I passed 2 of them on the way here.) Maybe I'll get some soup from Au Bon Pain before the flight if I get a bit hungry. I also passed a couple of ads from Baylor's medical school (associated clinic?) about doing something about scoliosis if one has that. I haven't seen such advertisements before.


Saturday, 1/10/15, 06:45 central: At times like these, I sometimes notice how the volume level of my music increases as a function of time. (This is to keep the pressure low... and also to keep me awake.)


Saturday, 1/10/15, 07:22 central: I am going through some notes from one of my doctoral students. There are many ambiguities in it that make it hard to follow.


Saturday, 1/10/15, 07:25 central: It's time to listen to my disco remix of "Rubber Ducky"! (iTunes chose this song for me, but clearly that is appropriate listening fare when one is in DFW after an all-nighter.)


Saturday, 1/10/15, 08:11 central: At the entrance to the nearest men's bathroom, there is a small sign with the words "severe weather area" and a cartoon of a tornado. Clearly, it is turbulent in there...


Saturday, 1/10/15, 08:13 central: I just saw a pair of people (a couple?) wearing matching Minion shirts. Minions!


Saturday, 1/10/15, 08:30 central: My flight to San Antonio has just started boarding.


Saturday, 1/10/15, 10:10 central: I have finally made it to San Antonio. I am currently waiting for my luggage and am looking forward to getting to my hotel room and crashing for a bit.


Saturday, 1/10/15, 10:41 central: I made it to my hotel room. It is in the backup hotel, which is around the corner from the original one and is operated by the same people. (It is kind of like an overflow hotel.) This is what I was told last night would likely be necessary for me to be able to get a room before the standard 4pm check-in time at the original hotel. I'm tired and I need to rest, so that's fine. Now I just need to settle myself a bit and rest for a few hours before heading to the conference.

A Magical Land Called the 70s

Tonight, at dinner, I accidentally invented a new euphemism for death: "He went to a magical land called the 70s."

(I needed to think quickly when a child asked me a question following something I was discussing with another adult, and that was what I came up with. A couple of us had been talking about our grandfathers.)

Oxford: Beyond Limits

Yup, Oxford is lost in time and space.

Indeed.

Baseball Hall of Fame: Class of 2015

Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, John Smoltz, and Craig Biggio are in!!!

Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez are "inner circle" Hall of Famers and got huge numbers of votes and deservedly so. They both cleared 90%, and Johnson cleared 97%. (They both ought to be unanimous, but that is not how things work.) Biggio and Smoltz both got more than 80% of the vote --- at least 75% is what is required and made it easily as well. Smoltz deserves to be in the Hall of Fame but until I saw the early pre-announcement returns I didn't expect him to make it in his first year of eligibility. Biggio was in his third year of eligibility (and missed by 2 measly votes last year) and should have made it two years ago. (I am wearing my Plunk Biggio shirt today, of course.) Mike Pizza made major gains (garnering just under 70% of the vote), so I expect that he'll make it in 2016 along with Ken Griffey Jr. and maybe Trevor Hoffman. (The latter two make their debuts on the ballot next year.) Hopefully, Curt Schilling, Mike Mussina, et al will continue to make some gains. Now with Smoltz in, things should bode well for Schilling and Mussina. Jeff Bagwell and Tim Raines will likely have a more difficult time, but we'll see how things go.

You can find a couple of 2015 pre-announce ballot-counting efforts here and here.

ESPN now has a soon-to-be-expanded article on the results.

Update: The vote percentages for each player have now been posted. Surprisingly, Sammy Sosa got enough votes to stay on the ballot for 2016. I thought he was going to drop off. Nomar Garciaparra also surprisingly got enough votes to stay on next year's ballot. (Garciaparra had a superb career peak but not close to enough other good seasons to be a Hall of Famer.) Unfortunately, Tim Raines, Jeff Bagwell, Curt Schilling, and Mike Mussina didn't gain as much as the early ballot polling suggested that they might. Schilling did make a big jump, but it was smaller than it at first seemed like it would be. Raines also had a nice jump, but again it was not as large as I was hoping.

A Book on Data Culture in Industry

Snowbird alum (and data scientist galore, and a major player in such things) DJ Patil has coauthored a free online book about data culture in industry. Go take a look at it!

Tales from the ArXiv: A Poetic Opening

This paper's topic isn't my cup of tea (or, rather, coffee), so to speak, but its abstract has among the best opening sentences that I have ever seen in a scientific paper: When drinking a cup of coffee under the morning sunshine, you may notice white membranes of steam floating on the surface of the hot water.

I approve!

Update: I do actually find fluid mechanics fascinating --- and this was true even before I joined the applied math group at Oxford --- even though it is not a topic on which I have (yet) published. However, the 'cup of tea' pun still applies and absolutely had to be part of this blog entry. (Also, in general, I am fond of papers that just start with some everyday phenomenon and try to figure out what's up.)

"The Ability To Play As Bowser Has Made Our Society More Evil"

Yes, yes it has!

(Anybody who has played as Toad while somebody else was playing Bowser in the N64 version version of Mario Kart most certainly knows this very well.)

And there are some choice quotes in this article. One example is the following: "Just consider for a moment that young people under 22 years old today have lived their entire lives with Bowser as a playable character. They have known nothing else."

Where is My Damn Hoverboard!!!???!!!

Seriously, where is my damn hoverboard???!!!???.

Update: Also see this article. (Tip of the cap to Jonathan Adams for the article.)

The Complete Papers of Isaac Newton

For those of you who think we scientists can be a bit (or very) obsessive or even a bit nuts, keep in mind that we're just taking after our founding parents. For example, consider Isaac Newton.

And I bet that I'll leave more than 10 million words before I'm done. :)

(Tip of the cap to MoMath.)

Do You Believe in Research Grants?

Yes? Well, these days it's kind of like believing in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.

(Tip of the cap to Andrea Bertozzi.)

Delusions of Grandeur

I like today's SMBC, possibly because it makes fun of physics students. :)

Citizens Demand Goofy Batting Stances

Yes! Yes we do!

Choice quote from the article: "I want to see more batters standing at the plate looking like complete fucking idiots before they take a cut."

Epidemics on Networks: A Pun

Here it is: "Those infection dynamics are pathological, so we can ignore them."

Statistically Significant Truths

It's probably good that Thomas Jefferson didn't know about p-values. :)

Doug Fister Wins Points for Awesomeness

Yup, this gesture by Doug Fister was awesome (even though it was Starbucks). Way to go!

Snow Fractals (and Some Beach Invaders)

Simon Beck produces some fantastic fractal art in the snow. I also really like the scene from the game Space Invaders that he drew on a beach.

You might also remember that I blogged briefly about some other beach art in January.

(Tip of the cap to whoever posts for The Museum of Mathematics on Facebook.)

Headline: Cambridge University Press Breaks Google Scholar

Congratulations, Cambridge University Press! You have broken Google Scholar. I noticed that a paper of mine (Wymbs et al., Neuron, 2012) suddenly went from 40 citations to 70 in one Google-Scholar update. No other paper jumped so crazily this time, so I ruled out an algorithm update. It turns out that there is a recent 'target article' in Behavioral and Brain Sciences that includes much invited 'open peer commentary'.

One comment cited us, but each comment/article has a separate DOI even though they all link to the same .pdf file. 30 instant citations.

Now I wonder how much BBS inflates their impact factor by doing this... (Important note: this effect can easily be an unintended byproduct. I am just pointing out that it does indeed appear to be such a byproduct of how the website has organized the article and its associated comments. I am making no comments whatsoever about anybody's intent, because I have no idea about that.)

I am amused. (Also horrified.)

Awesome Statues

Many of these statues are really awesome!

I have seen two of these in person (to my recollection). I have seen the one outside of the Tate Modern museum in London. It is decent, but I don't consider it spectacular. I have also seen the one in Wroclaw, Poland. Despite it's name of "The Monument Of An Anonymous Passerby", I think of it as zombies rising up from the ground. (Wroclaw also has that whole thing with the many small statues of gnomes. One can play the game of seeing how many of the gnome statues one can find around the city.) Also, note that statue #25 is in Oxford. I have not seen it in person, and I don't remember even hearing about it before.

(Tip of the cap to George Takei.)

"♪ Ooo Shanga Day" And Fruit Falling From the Sky

I was walking peacefully back to my place when, while passing under a tree, I got bonked on the top of the head by a rather large fruit-pinecone hybrid (whatever it is called). Ouch! Isn't this only supposed to happen in cartoons?

Naturally, I responded by looking up at the sky and shaking my fist in indignation. (And maybe I also spoke a bit of Simlish, but I'm not sure.)

"Modernized Space Camp Allows Kids To Simulate Frustration Over Lack Of Funding"

I'm not sure how I missed this article in May, but The Onion wins again. Sadly, something similar also seems to apply to people who dream of academic careers in science. :(

"SKIES App Aids Learning in Caltech Classrooms"

I want to congratulate my friend and classmate Julius Su (of capacitor fame, among other things) for his awesome innovations that are helping education at Caltech. He is also doing some excellent outreach efforts.

I am looking forward to when he's famous, so I can tell my many Julius stories to a wider audience. (Capacitors --- and counting to 1 and occasionally perhaps toilet paper or predicting the number somebody is thinking of by looking into their eyes --- will of course play an important role.) Julius is already very much one of the legends of Caltech, and his innovations in education are going to make a huge contribution to the world (and are already making major contributions at Caltech and among local students).

Eigenvalue Diplomacy

Credit goes to Craig Montuori for the title of this blog entry.

As you have probably heard, Cuba and the US are going to normalize ties. Aside from political stuff, do you know what's really cool about this? Now I have an additional awesome pun to use when I write papers on weighted networks. (One way for the US and Cuba to normalize ties is just to divide by the size of the tie with the largest value.)

As the Napkin Turns

I think I am in the middle of a sitcom again: I put my coffee and associated napkins on the counter while washing my hands. The air from hand-dryer was pretty strong, and it blew a napkin right over the face of the person at the sink next to me. (Thankfully, he took it rather well.)

Maths and Stat

Brits (and Aussies) say "maths", but Americans and Canadians say "math".

Let's call the whole thing off, though before that you can read about it in Slate.

It's a bit weird that Americans saying "math" but also saying "stats" never came up in the article.

2015 Inductees to Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

The 2015 inductees for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame have been announced. They include Green Day (in their first year of eligibility), Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Lou Reed (for his solo work), and others.

"Fight-Club Nodes"

First rule of fight-club nodes: You do not talk about fight-club nodes.

RIP Sy Berger (1923–2014)

Baseball card pioneer Sy Berger, who is credited as the co-designer of the 1952 Topps baseball cards, died today.

What Happens in Philadelphia Stays in Philadelphia

I am about to start phase 3 of my northeastern swing. This evening, I will be flying to Philadelphia to visit my friend and former Oxford colleague Sandra González-Bailón at University of Pennsylvania. (I'll be giving a DiMiNet seminar at Penn.)

And, since I'll be in Philadelphia, clearly I should have an epic tweet battle with the band Mason Porter.

Goats in a Tree

At the recommendation of yesterday's speaker Nina Fefferman (of the clan that mathematicians know well), I searched on YouTube for goats that flock in trees. As she promised, this is indeed pretty damn cool!

And don't forget about fainting goats.

One of my Somerville students once fainted in the middle of explaining a problem at the whiteboard when I discussed "narcoleptic goats" in the middle of a tutorial. (The marker slid along the whiteboard with a descending streak and everything. He was ok, thankfully; this was definitely one of the all-time classics.)

Elevator Action

The elevator problems in Oxford's new Mathematical Institute have gotten so severe that one of the building's denizens has tried to come up with a helpful mathematical model of the problem... according to rumor, while actually stuck in the elevator...

We moved into the building at the boundary of August/September 2013. Is this really that hard to solve? I wonder what Arrowsmith would say about this problem?

(Tip of the cap to Philip Maini.)

Brutally Honest Referee Comments

Here are some occasionally amusing and often harsh referee comments from submissions to scientific journals. I have been both on the giving and receiving end of such things, such as the following gem that one of my papers was subjected to earlier this year.

One of my PNAS referees wrote the following in the last line to summarize his/her review: "The results here represented a substantial step backward in terms of value and sophistication from the many published analyses that have already been published in Korean and/or English."

(The referee never provided any example paper or author, and we were blown off by PNAS when we requested to have a name or reference as a starting point. We looked very thoroughly both before and after the submission to PNAS, and we could never find any such paper. At the end, though, our story has a happy ending: our paper is now happily residing in PRX, which is PNAS-level but for physics specifically.)

(Tip of the cap to Joshua Bodyfelt.)

Update (12/14/14): Here are a few more harsh comments from referees. A couple of these are amusing, but overall they aren't as good as the ones above.

What Happens in Pittsburgh Stays in Pittsburgh

I am now in the proverbial (and dreaded) phase two of my northeast swing. Today, I made it to Pittsburgh for the workshop Advances in Discrete Networks. I was thinking about saying something about continuous networks --- possibly in an indiscreet way --- but I only will sort of do that. I did, however, create a special slide for my talk just for this occasion. My talk is the first scientific presentation of the conference, so I figure I should set the right tone. :)

Update 12/12/14: Here is my special slide, which I created specifically for the occasion.

Terry Tao and Paul Erdős: Awesome 1985 Picture

This article on recent important advances in gaps between consecutive prime numbers has an absolutely awesome picture from 1985 that shows Paul Erdős and Terrence Tao (who was then 10 years old) discussing mathematics as equals. I love this picture.

(Tip of the cap to whoever posts for Physics Today on Facebook.)

Quote of the Day: The Volume of My Text

The following was pointed out by e-mail by my collaborator Peter Mucha, who is not my department chair: "During my time as a department chair, I received roughly 20K *work-related* (e.g., not personal and not spam) emails each year... Mason occasionally accounts for just over 2K of those himself."

Headline: Dodgers Go Apeshit

Wow, the Dodgers seem to have gone totally apeshit today: 3 trades today, and it looks like we're about to sign a starting pitcher (Brandon McCarthy, which is ok, as long as we don't expect him to be more than an average #4 starter... I'd rather get James Shields). These moves help somewhat, I think, but the outfield logjam is alive and well. I suspect we're not done.

It started with the news that we acquired Jimmy Rollins from the Phillies. We then traded Dan Haren and Dee Gordon to the Marlins for some prospects and a reliever. We then traded the main one of those prospects (Andrew Heaney) to the Angels for Howie Kendrick. We're also apparently close to signing starting pitcher Brandon McCarthy to a 4-year deal.

All of these stories have broken within the last few hours (and have delayed my bedtime).

Update (12/11/14): And now we have traded Matt Kemp to the Padres along with about $31 million of his salary and catcher Tim Federowicz. In return, we will receive catcher Yasmani Grandal and pitchers Joe Wieland and Zach Eflin.

Update (12/11/14): I think we have improved our team a good deal with these moves, and we sold high on Kemp. Kemp gave us some good years (and a couple of excellent ones), but the renewed offensive output he showed last year is counteracted to a nontrivial degree by his poor defense and he is rather brittle in terms of his ability to stay on the field (in stark contrast to his former ironman days). I would rather dump Ethier at this point, but Kemp had some value, and that trade with the Padres was a very good one. We have a glut of outfielders, and they are going to pay the majority of the cost for his waning years. We also have improved at several other positions and have acquired a decent number of prospects, who we can either use to keep building for subsequent years or can trade for a premium pitcher (Cole Hamels comes to mind). This is called "Moneyball with money". Jayson Stark summarized the Dodgers moves very well in his recap of Baseball's Winter Meetings. (Why is it "Winter Meetings" instead of "Winter Meeting" anyway?)

"Directed Evolution of the Full Professor"

Easter Eggs in Scientific Papers has pointed out a gem this time. It is a farcical abstract for a paper called "Directed Evolution of the Full Professor". Read the whole fake abstract; it's awesome! Here is one of the sweet parts:

"Assistant professors that displayed such proteins (so-called ‘stressed-out’ mutants) were then fused to the M13 coat protein, displayed on phages and passed over a friend and family members column to identify those that were incapable of functional interactions. These were called ‘full professors’. Although these mutants arose independently, they shared striking phenotypes. These included the propensity to talk incessantly about their own research, the inability to judge accurately the time required to complete bench work, and the belief that all of their ideas constituted good thesis projects."

Test Your Strength: Millikan Library and Lloyd Gong Edition

Yes, really. I am very amused.

Tales from the ArXiv: Text "Reuse" Edition

Paul Ginsparg was telling me about this project (now published in PNAS) at dinner when I visited Cornell in February 2013. In looking at this article, you should think about flags such as "substantial text overlap with article xxxx.yyyy by other authors" that we see on the arXiv.

Also, I like the use of "reuse" in quotes in the paper, especially in the first sentence of the abstract.

Oxford's Mathematical Bake-off

Oxford had a mathematical bake-off a couple of weeks ago. Here are some pictures of the contestants (well, of what they baked, technically).

Previously, I showed you my student Flora Meng's multilayer-network cakes.

Update: And, of course, there is Puck Rombach's frosting-embedded visualization (i.e., cake) of the Zachary Karate Club network.

RIP Ralph Baer (1922–2014)

Ralph Baer, the inventor of the first home video game console (and also of the toy Simon), has died at the age of 92. Baer has been called "The Father of Video Games".

What Happens in Boston Stays in Boston

My northeastern trip (Boston, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia) starts this morning with a flight (through Philly) to Boston, where I'll be visiting the Center for Complex Network Research at Northeastern University. I'll be giving a talk in CCNR on Monday, and I'll give an applied math seminar on Tuesday.

"Husband Arrested for Attacking his Wife with a McChicken Sandwich"

Life imitates The Onion, apparently: A man was arrested for attacking his wife with a McChicken sandwich. (Read the story. Its bizarreness doesn't stop with the headline.)

This follows on from my hearing about one person stabbing somebody with a squirrel a couple of days ago.

Also, this guy seems like a complete bastard, which you can also see from the headline but which you'll see even more from the story. (His wife is also pregnant, for example.)

Major Props to Baseball Journalist Keith Law!

I first heard about this from my high school classmate Jeremy Booth, and now IFLS is reporting about the Twitter discussion between baseball journalist Keith Law and Curt Schilling. Major props to Keith Law for his science advocacy!

Ocellated Turkey

Wow, the ocellated turkey is really pretty!

(Tip of the cap to IFLS.)

What Happens at Santa Fe Institute Stays at Santa Fe Institute

So far, my flight is delayed 2 hours and 25 minutes (and counting), but hopefully I will end up in Santa Fe by the end of the day. I am going to a workshop at Santa Fe Institute (SFI) on Dynamics of and On Networks.

This is my first visit to SFI --- it's certainly taken long enough --- and also my first visit to New Mexico.

Emotional-Support Pig

Make sure, when you are on a flight, that your emotional-support pig doesn't become disruptive. Yes, really.

Snarky One-Line Descriptions of Countries

Some of these one-liners are pretty damn funny (and some of them are also pretty damn true). I would put the one that describes my country in both categories, by the way. Also, some countries that are seemingly easy targets were (surprisingly) spared from the snark.

(Tip of the cap to Taha Yasseri.)

Advice for Young Scholars

Thanks to Aaron Clauset for anonymizing --- and otherwise editing for public consumption --- the notes from the first of our four panel discussions of advice for young scholars (both within and outside of academia).

The panels were held at the kick-off meeting of the Mathematics Research Community on "Network Science" from almost half a year ago. We framed things with a focus on mathematics, computer science, and networks, but you'll see that most of these things apply much more broadly than that. Please spread this widely, pass along to your research groups and colleagues, etc.

Part 1: the faculty market

Part 2: balancing work and life

Part 3: doing interdisciplinary work

Part 4: grants and fundraising


Finally, here is a a copy of the notes for all four panels.

Note (11/27/14): I will add the links to parts 2–4 once Aaron posts them.

Update (12/03/14): Parts 2–4 are now posted.

"Pragmatism is Not Welcome in This Classroom!"

I think the comic strip itself is meh, but I wanted to include my source for the following quote: Pragmatism is not welcome in this classroom!

I am so stealing that phrase.

Peacock Spider Dances to YMCA

This peacock spider is "dancing" to the song 'YMCA'. It's pretty damn amusing.

Animals Who Look Like Celebrities

Sometimes, animals look like celebrities. (Some of these pictures are awesome.)

(Tip of the cap to George Takei.)

Men's Urinals and Antiferromagnetic Equilibria

In the men's room, there is an understanding: you space as far apart from each other as possible at urinals. Not doing so, or when some gaps must be filled, leads to frustration --- not just in real life but also in the sense of spin models from statistical physics.

The stable equilibrium in this case is most definitely the antiferromagnetic one.

(Also, you are not supposed to talk. Ever.)

Update: Aaron Clauset reminds me of the related discussion and mathematical formulation in xkcd.

Top Song Requests: Funereal Edition

What? Funeral homes won't play "Another One Bites the Dust" at funerals on account of bad taste? (Here is a discussion of the top requested songs along with a few that funeral homes refuse to play.)

Lame.

I would refuse to be buried in a place that doesn't allow me to have that song.

What Happens at Arizona State University Stays at Arizona State University

I am at the airport, waiting for my flight to Phoenix for my visit to Arizona State University. I have seen a draft of my schedule. They're going to work me hard, and it's going to be fun!

The Consequence of Calculating Annular Areas in Calculus

Well, or at least the consequence of making successful scientists feel bitter about it, as told by Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.

Multilayer Network Gelatin Cakes

My student Flora Meng made some multilayer network gelatin cakes.

Her efforts were part of the recently mathematical bake-off that was held by the Mathematical Institute at University of Oxford. (I am sure I will have more pictures to post soon enough.) I've included a picture of one of Flora's desserts in the post, and you can click on the link for two other pictures that will allow you to see the rest of Flora's handiwork.

"Cookies" Comes After "Ten"

The spam-protection question below is ambiguous. (It turned out that they were assuming that I should enter an integer.)

"Female Promiscuity Prevents Infanticide, Leads to Bigger Balls"

This vignette about a new paper in Science (see the intriguing article title in the title of my blog entry) is really interesting. It's basically an escalation of war in the proverbial battle of the sexes.

"Mad Sociology"

I love today's SMBC!

Its caption: "I'm sorry, but mad sociology is not a real mad science."

2014 Major League Baseball Most Valuable Player (MVP) Awards

The 2014 Most Valuable Player (MVP) Awards were a clean sweep for Los Angeles and Orange County: Clayton Kershaw of the Dodgers was named the National League MVP, and Mike Trout of the Angels won the American League MVP in a unanimous vote (thereby becoming the youngest ever unanimous MVP). Trout should also have won the AL MVP Award in 2012 and 2013 (and he also had even better seasons in those years than in 2014), and Kershaw became the first pitcher to win the NL MVP since Bob Gibson in 1968 and the first pitcher to win an MVP since Justin Verlander in 2011. I neglected to mention this in yesterday's posts about the Cy Young Awards, but apparently Kershaw is the first pitcher ever to post the lower ERA in the Major Leagues in 4 consecutive Major League. Clayton Kershaw is the best pitcher on the planet.

The full ballots for MVP will shortly be listed on this page. As I write this, the full rankings for the Cy Young, Rookie of the Year, and Manager of the Year awards are on the page. (These rankings include the total number of votes and the number of first-place votes, but they don't precisely tabulate the total number of votes for places other than first.)

What Happens in the Research Triangle Stays in the Research Triangle (2014 Edition)

I have now made it to North Carolina. I am visiting two thirds of the vertices in the proverbial Research Triangle: first UNC Chapel Hill and then NCSU. I'll give a couple of seminars (on two very different topics) and will do some work with some of the usual collaborators.

2014 Major League Baseball Cy Young Awards

Clayton Kershaw of the Los Angeles Dodgers (yay!) has won the 2014 National League Cy Young Award --- I know: it's shocking! :) --- and is only the 9th pitcher in Major League history with three or more Cy Young Awards! It is also no surprise that he won unanimously. Kershaw, who, by the way, is the best pitcher on the planet, is also only 26 years old. This is Kershaw's third Cy Young Award in the last four years. (He finished second in the other year.) Hopefully, Kershaw will be awarded the National League Most Valuable Player Award tomorrow.

The American League Cy Young Award had a much less obvious outcome, and Corey Kluber of the Cleveland Indians is the winner. He finished just ahead of Felix Hernandez of the Seattle Mariners.

I plan to post the complete voting results later.

Update (11/13/14): You can find the rankings for the Cy Young Awards on this page. (These rankings include the total number of votes and the number of first-place votes, but they don't precisely tabulate the total number of votes for places other than first.)

No Radioactive or Stable Isotopes Allowed!

Apparently, neither radioactive nor stable elements (nor any "materials of any kind that have been used with isotopes") are allowed in Jennings Hall at Ohio State University. I took a picture as proof.

2014 Major League Baseball Managers of the Year

Matt Williams of the Washington Nationals was named the National League Manager of the Year, and Buck Showalter of the Baltimore Orioles was named the American League Manager of the Year.

Update (11/13/14): You can find the rankings for the Manager of the Year Awards on this page. (These rankings include the total number of votes and the number of first-place votes, but they don't precisely tabulate the total number of votes for places other than first.)

Labeling Fails and Other Classic Job Fails

This compilation includes some rather classic failures. (The fact that only a few of them are present per page and one has to click the 'next' button many times is annoying, so I could nail the website designer for giving us a decidedly modern form of failing.)

(Tip of the cap to George Takei.)

The Art of Proofreading

Sometimes, authors, referees, and editors really need to do a better job of proofreading text. D'oh!

2014 Major League Baseball Rookies of the Year

No surprises here: Jose Abreu won the American League Rookie of the Year unanimously, and Jacob DeGrom was named the National League Rookie of the Year.

This article lists the number of votes received by other rookies in the two leagues, but it doesn't (yet) show it cleanly as a table, and I am not sure if it conveys all votes earned by all players.

Update (11/13/14): You can find the rankings for the Rookie of the Year Awards on this page. (These rankings include the total number of votes and the number of first-place votes, but they don't precisely tabulate the total number of votes for places other than first.)

What Happens in Columbus Stays in Columbus (Take N)

I am heading over to Columbus, Ohio for the Nth time. (That is the only city in Ohio that I have ever visited, and I have been there several times because of the math department and the Mathematical Biosciences Institute.) I am up way too early because my flight is not a direct one, and I'll be taking one short leg of the triangle and then the hypotenuse. I'll be visiting Marty Golubitsky at The Ohio State University to discuss things like networks and bifurcations. It should be fun!

Visualizations of Street Networks

These visualizations of street networks are gorgeous. The coloring is based on orientation.

(Tip of the cap to Dave Relyea.)

University of Oxford's Dates of Reckoning

Yup, you got that right: University of Oxford's calendar is described in terms of "Dates of Reckoning".

I hope I survive! Or, to quote a certain movie: "You have been weighed, you have been measured, and you have been found wanting. In what world could you possibly beat me?"

Here is a convenient Wikipedia entry.

On a more serious note, I am looking up our calendar because I am trying to estimate the date of the exam for my networks module. I have been invited to give a plenary talk in Singapore, and I am trying to figure out how easily I can manage to accept the invitation. (It's really frustrating that our teaching structure requires me to do this and not just accept immediately, though this is too good an opportunity to pass up --- so I'll just need to be available by phone at an odd hour if it becomes necessary.)

2014 Gold Gloves

The 2014 Major League Baseball Gold Glove awards for fielding excellence were announced today.

The finalists for Baseball's major awards were also announced today. Hopefully Clayton Kershaw will get both the National League Cy Young award and its Most Valuable Player award.

This Article Made Me Itch

IFLS has published a fascinating article about a new paper in the journal Neuron concerning why scratching an itch gives temporary relief but then makes the itch worse. I wish, though, that they had used the phrase "itching question" instead of "burning question". :) Reading this article made me itch more, by the way.

Play Classic Arcade Games in Your Web Browser

OK, this is seriously sweet: now we can play classic arcade games in Web browsers. More than a decade ago, I downloaded a MAME emulator for my Mac and scoured the Web for a bunch ROMs to try to find lots of my old favorites (and some other games that I wanted to try or retry). Now all I need to do is get some proper controllers, and I'll play some of these games again. The main reason I didn't play these games that much after I initially downloaded them is that the proper experience requires the proper controllers. (Also, downloading things from those websites involved a lot of whack-a-mole and presumably downloading additional things that one really didn't want.) I should go and get one. :)

2014 'Dance Your Ph.D.' Contest Winners

The biology finalist was the overall winner of the 2014 Dance Your Ph.D. Contest. I didn't finish watching it because it wasn't amusing me (although it did look very sophisticated.)

I like the winner in chemistry. (It's pretty amusing.) I haven't tried watching the others.

One of these years, my group needs to submit an entry to this contest...

(Tip of the cap to the Improbable Research blog.)

My Blog Entry for Oxford University Press about "Multilayer Networks"

Here is a blog entry that I wrote for Oxford University Press to accompany a review article on multilayer networks by my collaborators and me.

There are also tutorial slides (from a 3-hour tutorial I gave at NetSci 2014) to help guide people through the review article.

Manlio De Domenico, Alex Arenas, and I also have developed software for analysis and visualization of multilayer networks. (There is also an article about our software.)

And if you want to learn more about multilayer networks, we're holding a workshop in July 2015 at the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems in Dresden, Germany.

(As a brief correction, "interaction oscillators" in the article should read "interacting oscillators". I didn't catch that typo until reading the published version of my blog entry a few minutes ago.)

Wikipedia Page for "Crackpot Index"

I was inspired by a recent e-mail sent to me (and, apparently, many other Oxford academics) to look up the Wikipedia page for Crackpot Index. Under its "See also" section is a link to the Wikipedia page for List of amateur mathematicians. That's not nice!

Peacocks and Philosophers

I really love SMBC's comparison of peacocks and philosophers in the context of doing something that is not evolutionarily advantageous.