Preview: Baseball in July in Korea

I am going to be in Seoul from 20-31 July 2013 for a big statistical physics conference. Besides doing some exploration, to which I am eagerly looking forward, I also plan to go and see at least one baseball game and perhaps more. I was talking the last couple of days about possibly seeing Chan Ho Park pitch one last time for old time's sake. Unfortunately, he announced his retirement from Korean baseball today. (There is a press conference scheduled for tomorrow.) I'm still going to have a lot of fun, though!

RIP Marvin Miller (1917-2012)

Marvin Miller has died. He was the first representative of the Major League Baseball Players Association, and he ought to be enshrined in the Hall of Fame. You can read more about him in his Wikipedia entry.

The Humans Suspect Nothing

This demotivational poster is wonderful.

(This one is also really amusing.)

Journal of Complex Networks Now Accepting Submissions

Oxford University Press's new journal, Journal of Complex Networks, is now accepting submissions!

I am on the editorial board. :) So submit to us!

(Tip of the cap to Ernesto Estrada, our Editor in Chief. While the web interface to submit is being worked out, submissions can be e-mailed directly to him.)

Oxford Workshop (July 2013) on Time-Dependent Networks

On 8-9 July 2013, we're having a workshop on time-dependent and multiplex networks at University of Oxford. We're holding this in the Mathematical Institute and are funded by EPSRC. I am organizing this workshop in collaboration with Sang Hoon Lee.

Fluid Dynamics and Penguin Huddling

Recently published in the journal PLoS One is a mathematical model for penguin huddling that takes some inspiration from fluid dynamics. I know the third author (Arnold Kim), who I met when I interviewed for a faculty position at UC Merced in 2005 (and of whom I had heard before then).

(Tip of the cap to whoever does the posts for American Physical Society on Facebook.)

The Proverbial Thesis Committee

I love this issue of PhD Comics showing a stereotypical PhD thesis committee.

I'm not actually any one of these stereotypes, and I read every word of all theses I examine.

I hope to grow up to be a guru someday, though. Mmmmm... cookies.

(Tip of the cap to Mariano Beguerisse Díaz.)

Absolutely Legendary

I decided to check what Google Books felt are the most similar books to Legends of Caltech III: Techer in the Dark. Some of them make sense, but others are a bit surprising. The following books were on the first page:

Lectures on Physics: Exercises by Feynman (yay!)

Legends of Caltech (of course)

Proceedings [Volume 1] of the National Academy of Sciences (ok, I can go with that)

The Brotherhood of Eternal Love: From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture (I actually know why that is there ... something to do with "Lloyd grade")

and ... Mentally Incontinent (wait... what?)



P.S. Wait until the movie comes out!

Irony: Part N

I suppose I ought to appreciate the irony of several birds dive-bombing me while I am marking ballistics problems on my students' dynamics homework.

(But, really, I am annoyed that I now need to wash my jacket and take a bath. The first bird already forced that, but after the second and the positive feedback loop that might be occurring, I just needed to escape inside.)

I ought to design a homework problem based on this, though...

'Heroes of Science' Action Figures

Sadly, these 'Heroes of Science' action figures are not real. I also don't agree with some of the choices, but let's not quibble.

(Tip of the cap to I Fucking Love Science.)

Giving the Finger in Binary

This is how to use a binary representation to give people the finger.

2012 Most Valuable Player Awards

The 2012 Major League Baseball Most Valuable Player Awards have now been announced.

Buster Posey won the National League MVP in a landslide, and his victory is richly deserved.

Miguel Cabrera won the American League MVP in a landslide over Mike Trout, who should have won. Lame, just lame. (It wasn't as large a landslide as in the NL, but Trout was the best player in the AL by a large margin this year, so the voters simply blew it.)

2012 Cy Young Awards

The results of balloting for the 2012 Major League Baseball Cy Young awards have now been announced.

David Price won the award in the American League by just 4 measly points over Justin Verlander. (Jered Weaver finished 3rd.) This was the closest AL Cy Young race since 1969, when there was a tie. Here is the complete rank-ordered list for the award.

R. A. Dickey, whose name sounds like he should be an author, won the National League Cy Young Award and became the first knuckleball pitcher to win a Cy Young award. Clayton Kershaw of the Dodgers, who pitched just as well as he did in his 2011 Cy Young season but didn't have the run support to get a gaudy win-loss record, finished a distance second (and was barely ahead of Gio Gonzalez, who finished third). Here is the complete rank-ordered list for the award.

Alcohol Under the Microscope

I mean that literally, by the way! The other side of the link has absolutely gorgeous pictures of various alcoholic drinks under a microscope. Some people drink alcohol; I just like it when it produces pretty pictures. (Way to go, chemists!)

(Tip of the cap to I Fucking Love Science.)

Stop Saying That!

ESPN's show "NFL Kickoff" decided to have a "Prince Bride"-themed episode.

(Tip of the cap to David Blau.)

Gutted Fish

Yup, the Miami Marlins sure treat their fans well.

In an unexpected Blockbuster --- did you see what I did there? --- the Miami Marlins have conducted another major fire sale: they are sending Jose Reyes, Josh Johnson, Mark Buehrle, John Buck, and Emilio Bonifacio ("just about any player making money") to the Toronto Blue Jays for a couple of the Jays' top prospects and the dreaded Yunel Escobar (and possibly more, according to the ESPN article). Wow!

It now looks like every team in the AL East except for the Red Sox are going to be interesting next year. It would be really refreshing to see both the Yankees and the Sox at the bottom of that division!

2012 Major League Baseball Managers of the Year

Davey Johnson and Bob Melvin have been named the 2012 Managers of the Year in the National League and American League, respectively.

The 20 "Most Influential" Scientists

Well, I'm not sure I actually agree with this list of the 20 most influential living scientists, but I will point out that 2 of them are in the same department as I am (University of Oxford's Mathematical Institute), and---if I not mistaken---not even a single person on this list is at Cambridge (aka, The Other Place). Booyah!

(Tip of the cap to whoever does Facebook posts for the American Mathematical Society.)

Update: In addition to what Justin has pointed out in the comments, Milana Gitaric reminds me that Stephen Hawking is at Cambridge. Well, he is easy to overlook. :)

2012 Baseball Rookies of the Year

Well, here's a complete shock: Mike Trout was the unanimous selection for 2012 American League Rookie of the Year. He also deserves the Most Valuable Player award, though I suspect that that will go to Miguel Cabrera Instead.

As I write this, I haven't yet seen an announcement for the National League Rookie of the Year, but I think that announcement will be coming very soon (tonight).

Update: As stated in the article to which I linked above, Bryce Harper has been named the National League Rookie of the Year. This is also the correct choice. 2012 was a very strong year for rookies, and these two players are particularly young (especially Harper) and particularly awesome. I'm really looking forward to watching them a lot more in the coming years!

The Neuroscience of Speed Dating

Caltech researchers have used speed-dating experiments to identify which parts of the brain are involved in making snap judgements.

This is really cool, but if the test subjects were Caltech undergrads, then I'm afraid that the whole experiment might have to be thrown out. :)

(Tip of the cap to whoever does Facebook posts for California Institute of Technology.)