Today's word is "myrmidon"

So, there's this word thing that a bunch of us are doing following Zifnab's excellent suggestion.

Today's word is myrmidon. You can find the definition here.

OK, so what to I have to say about it:

First, let's try the short and sweet version: THIS IS THESSALIA!

The second thing I'd like to say is that I am currently very actively recruiting myrmidons to do research with me as doctoral students. (Actually, that's not completely accurate, but it amuses me to write it. I certainly want loyal students, but I do want them to question me and not just take me at my word.) Bring on the dancing minions!

Master of the House (of Lords)

I was part of the Oxford contingent that had dinner at the House of Lords tonight. The dinner, which was much bigger than I thought (about 70 people attended) was hosted by Baroness Margaret Jay.

There was a small Caltech contingent at my table (which was indubitably uncoincidental); it consisted of me, a fellow Somerville faculty member (who was a postdoc at Tech), and a faculty member in chemistry who is married to a Somervillian.

Aside from that, perhaps I should just say, "What happens in the House of Lords stays in the House of Lords." Of course, based on the title of this blog entry, perhaps you already knew that?

Headline: Jose Canseco taught teammates how to cheat

Here's one from the 'duh' files: Apparently, Jose Canseco taught his teammates how to cheat. (The link to the academic paper is in a blog entry to which Rob Neyer's blog linked today.)

The economists who wrote this paper "found that a player’s performance increased significantly after he played with Canseco and found that no other baseball player produced a similar effect."

These guys might just have an Ig Nobel prize in their future...

Let's party like it's 1999...

Somerville College recently agreed on a 999-year lease of a property. This will expire when Oxford turns 1999. (For those across the pond, this year is the city's 1000th anniversary. This goes right with our previous conversations about length contraction and time dilation in the UK versus the US...) And when the lease expires, we're going to party like it's 1999!

This one's for the kids.

Lemming posted a link about stuffed internal organs. That is so awesome!

Or, if you prefer, you could buy your kids stuffed microbes.

Anyway, you have lots of choices this holiday season! (I'm just here to help.)

Guy Fawkes Night

Today was my first Guy Fawkes night. We had a fireworks display in the Somerville College quad, so I was closer to the fireworks display than I believe I have ever been. It was actually pretty spectacular.

Sadly, we didn't burn an effigy. We can't have a bonfire in the quad, so the effigy-burning will have to wait for another year... I want to burn an effigy. :)

By the way, it's worth remarking that the Brits seem to play fast and lose with some holidays (like this one). Namely, there were various fireworks displays on different days during the past week. For example, I was in London on Saturday and I saw fireworks at various points while I was taking the train back to Oxford.

I also had one of my patented awesome/"awesome" moments this evening. I was asked by one of my British colleagues if we had anything like this in the U.S. I mentioned that we had July 4th, which is Independence day [pause] --- "when we declared our independence from you guys."

A Firefighter's Theorem

Barry Cipra e-mailed me to pass along this article, which is pretty neat! (It also has a human interest story behind it.) It just appeared online in The New Yorker and should appear in the print copy next week.

(For those who recognize the name, I know Barry Cipra from mathematics conferences. He is also a Caltech alum; he was a member of Ricketts House.)

"Current predictions unreliable"

You've got to love brutal honesty.

I was walking home just now and passed by a bus stop (several of them, actually, but I only care about one of them). Instead of listing an estimated time for when the next bus would arrive, the digital announcement board simply said, "Current predictions unreliable."

I'm amused.

Things that I am

I have several affiliations during my life, so let's see what labels some of these things have given me.

Hawthorne School: At some level, this makes me a "Viking". However, I don't think the school had a nickname when I was there, so on most levels I am not one. Naturally, I was often referred to back then simply as "nerd".

Beverly Hills High School: This makes me a "Norman".

Caltech: I am a "Techer" by virtue of being a student there and a "Lloydie" by virtue of being a member of Lloyd House. As a Caltech student, I am also a "Beaver". I was "Lord of Kaos" (UCC of Kaos alley) during two terms of my senior year, so while it was mostly my minions ("Ready, normal people?!?") who were called "Kaons", one could also add that label here at some level. Let's not worry about positions I held (such as "Tech Editor"), as that's a different kind of label. As a postdoc at Tech, I was the mascot for the women's table tennis team. There has to be a label associated with that, right?

Cornell: I am a "Cornellian" by virtue of being a student at Cornell. Also, being a member of the Center for Applied Mathematics (CAM) makes me a "CAMster". (Yes, that's really the label that was used. I don't know if it's still in use, but this particular label is "awesome" and may well have mecifully fallen into disuse as a result.)

Georgia Tech: Because of Georgia Tech's mascot, I am a "Yellowjacket" (which I believe is not technically a hornet but is close enough to explain certain... um... 'experiences' I've had with hornets in recent years).

MSRI: I don't think I had any labels there, but I figured I should point out that the facetious pronciation of MSRI is "misery".

Oxford: I am an "Oxonian" by virtue of being affiliated with the University and a "Somervillian" by virtue of being a member of Somerville College. I don't know of any labels I get from being in OCIAM. Perhaps we should come up with one? Does anybody have any suggestions?

Professionally: On the scientific end, I am a "mathematician", "applied mathematician", "physicist", "dynamicist", "complexity scientist", and (as Frank Moon once annoyingly called people who study nonlinear dynamics) "chaotian". In terms of my job, I am a "University Lecturer" (our name for 'assistant professor'), "Tutor" (or "Tutorial Fellow"), "teacher", "mentor", "advisor", "researcher", and "scientist". In more literary areas, I am a "journalist" (from my days with The California Tech, "writer" (I have published a non-scientific book, after all), "satirist", "expositor", and "blogger".

Personally: Hmmm... I don't really think we should really get into that here. :) I'm sure the peanut gallery will have contributions to make.

Baseball Award Predictions

It didn't take long for baseball's "Hot Stove League" (referring to the rumors and wheeling-and-dealing of the offseason) to make major headlines.

Here are my predictions for who will win the major awards in Major League Baseball as well as my opinion of who should win. You can check out baseball stats here.

Let's start with the National League.

Manager of the Year: Clint Hurdle of the Rockies will win and should win.

Rookie of the Year: Troy Tulowitzki of the Rockies will win, but Ryan Braun should win (by a nose). In truth, I wouldn't be unhappy with either result. Braun gets serious demerits for defense and he didn't start the year in the Majors, but his overwhelming offensive numbers are enough to make up for this in my mind.

Cy Young: This award begins and ends with Jake Peavy. Nobody else is even close. Honorable mentions go out to Brandon Webb, John Smoltz, and Brad Penny.

MVP: Jimmy Rollins will win the award, but I don't think he should. (Note that if teammate Chase Utley hadn't gotten injured, then he likely would have been the best man for the award. In my mind, he was definitely the best choice at the time he got injured.) I would vote for David Wright with Matt Holliday taking second place on my list. (Holliday has an outside shot of winning.) Honorable mentions go to Holliday, Prince Fielder, Chase Utley (even with the injury), and Chipper Jones (who also gets knocked a bit from missing time with injuries), Albert Pujols (in his so-called "off year"), Miguel Cabrera, Hanley Ramirez, and Rollins. (I think Rollins would barely make my top 10, by the way. He had a fantastic year, but lots of people had better ones.)


Here are my thoughts on the American League:

Manager of the Year: Joe Torre (for both who it will be and who it should be). Seriously. And he wouldn't be the first Manager of the Year who was with a different team the next year. I believe the last time it happened was with Joe Girardi (!) of the Marlins, who was fired both unofficially and officially. (He and his bosses didn't get along at along.) I would have considered picking the Mariners manager, but they had more than one skipper this year.

Rookie of the Year: Dustin Pedroia will and should win. Honorable mentions go to Brian Bannister and Daisuke Matsuzaka.

Cy Young: C.C. Sabathia should win, but I suspect that Josh Beckett will win. (I can't ignore the 40 extra innings that Sabathia pitched...) Honorable mentions go to Beckett, John Lackey, Fausto Carmona, and Dan Haren, and Johan Santana. Erik Bedard was having a great year before his season ended with an injury. Also, take a look what Santana did in his so-called "off year." Most pitchers would kill for a season like that (personally, I would kill for a Nobel Peace Prize), and his record was basically the product of bad run support and lots of games against Sabathia and Carmona (and being somewhat less dominant than usual, though still extremely good).

MVP: Alex Rodriguez. Duh. He will and should win. It won't be quite unanimous, though, as I expect Maggio Ordonez to pick up a couple of first place votes. Honorable mentions go out to Ordonez, Vladimir Guerrero, Carlos Pena, David Ortiz (in his so-called "off year" ... do people even realize there are more things going on offensively than the sheer number of home runs?), and Jorge Posada.



Also, I'd like to make a quick point about defensive stats. Advances in examining defense have progressed to the point where one can analyze defense much more intelligently than one could before. You can find some simple defensive statistics here. You can see, for example, that Derek Jeter had the worst range among all American League shortstops this year. He also had the worst zone rating among AL shortstops by a huge margin. (The differential between Jeter and the second worst shortstop with that metric was about the same between that second worst shortstop and the middle of the pack. With range factor, one only goes about 1/3 of the way of the pack, but Jeter also lags way behind even the second to last person here.) And yet, Jeter keeps winning gold gloves for basically two reasons: (1) He gets a lot of publicity because of his offense and (2) he gets a lot of publicity because he's a Yankee (and has a lot of idiots like announcer Michael Kay blindly espousing his virtues). I would probably give this Glove Glove to Juan Uribe, but Orlando Cabrera would also be a good choice. But not Derek Jeter, who is basically an immobile brick wall masquerading as a shortstop. (Don't get me wrong. Jeter is a fantastic offensive player who plays hard and will deservedly get a spot in the Hall of Fame. But he's a shitty defensive shortstop, and it's absurd that he's getting Gold Gloves.)

The Calculus of Religion

I mean this literally. Take a look at this notice that one of my friends (Arcane Gazebo) found on the windshield of his car yesterday.

Joe Torre is now the Dodger manager.

Well, here's a big surprise: Joe Torre is the new Dodger manager.

This wasn't exactly a well-kept secret...

I think Torre is an excellent choice as skipper and while I think there were good reasons to let Grady Little go (no, he wasn't technically fired, but he was seriously pushed out the door and he was going to be fired if he didn't resign), especially the fact that he completely lost his clubhouse, the manner in which this was handled lacked class. Frankly, I would like my team to handle things in a more appropriate manner. They should have leveled with Grady Little (just like they should have leveled with former broadcaster Ross Porter -- no relation).

Circumstances notwithstanding, I am extremely pleased to have Joe Torre as our new manager.

Blocked!

All of a sudden, I can't access my blog's web page from my laptop in Somerville because somehow my page is now of some type that the built-in page blocker doesn't let me access.

I have no idea why that's happening, but hopefully I'll be able to figure out how to change that soon.

I'd like to actually be able to respond to some comments.

Over 900 e-mails in October...

I sent over 900 e-mails this month. (A decent number of them were pleasure e-mails.)

This isn't my record, but it is my most in a while. The other months that reached these epic proportions included enormous numbers of messages pertaining to the Legends of Caltech book that Autumn Looijen and I wrote. (Writing Legends + teaching courses + research = lots of e-mail. Now we can add College business to that particular equation.)

I really should be going to bed instead of writing this.

Werewolves of Oxford

Tonight was Halloween.

I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada milkshake at G & D's. And his hair was perfect!

Actually, I didn't go out at all for Halloween. (For people across the pond, G & D's is the local ice cream place that I frequent. I often see other Somervillians there, and I have run into a couple of my students there on multiple occasions. As I told one of them, we're going to make Somerville the hip place in Oxford to study mathematics.) I played some Vampire today (which is appropriate), I went to our first event for OCIAM's Masters students (where I had one of my patented "Mason moments," as Carlos Torre used to call them... it was actually pretty classy and it helped get the right point across, so the strategy and its concomitant [very] pointed question that I asked the speaker seemed to work pretty well), and then I've spent most of the day and night marking assignments in preparation for my tutorial session assignments tomorrow. (The marking and the Governing Body meeting, which is the other main thing I did today, are absolutely mind-numbing.) Actually, I still have one problem left to mark, but I am taking a break from it. I also ending up not having a proper dinner tonight, although I did grab a couple of pieces of fruit in the SCR during my last break an hour ago. (Have I yet mentioned here that two of my students have absolutely awesome first names? Well, one of the names is "merely" cool and the other is spectacular.)

I'm going to need to show my students what a phase plane is even though they don't officially learn it until next year. It will help them understand some of the dynamics stuff they're doing a lot better, and I think giving them this kind of preview is good anyway.

Oh, and if you don't know the allusion in the title, you should look at this web page. (Also, if you've never heard the title track to this album, then you owe it to yourself to listen to it. I really appreciate the sense of humor in that song! In fact, I really like several of the songs on this album --- I never previously realized that all of these songs actually come from the same album.)

Update on finances and possessions

I just got paid by both Somerville and the Mathematical Institute, so I actually have money now.

Actually, I have a decent bit in my UK account because having free rent, free utilities, and free food removes the need for a lot of the spending I used to have. Now I can safely buy my Alison Moyet and Van Morrison tickets without worrying about how much money is left in my bank account.

Also, I found out to today that my stuff --- which previously got delayed to arriving on 10/28 in the UK --- is now slated to arrive in the London on 11/02/07. It will then need to clear customs, which is supposed to take about 5 working days, and then it should finally arrive at my doorstep in Oxford.

It's a good thing, too, because I am going to host a games night at my flat for the Somerville mathematics students I am tutoring. There will be games, and there will be ice cream. You have to love that... (Also, I know at least some of the OCIAM faculty want to come over and play with the Wii, so I also plan on having a games night for them and some of the folks from Somerville who are my age.)

I've been meaning to post my baseball award prediction blog entry, but I'm tired and want to read a bit for pleasure, so I'm going to punt that. Because of the massive amount of marking I'll be doing tomorrow, I am very unlikely to post this entry then. Anyway, stay tuned...

Dodger manager Grady Little resigns

Amidst rumors of being fired imminently and Joe Torre taking over, ESPN's breaking news has reported that Grady Little has resigned as manager of the Dodgers. I'm guessing that Torre will become our new manager (which I would welcome), but let's see how things go...

(By the way, if the new Dodger manager is smart, he'll try to convince Orel Hershiser to become our new pitching coach.)

Seinfeld metaphor of the day

You can find the Seinfeld metaphor of the day at this website. (I saw this link on Rob Neyer's blog.)

In other news, I still have to finish preparing my talk for tomorrow. I shouldn't have spent all that time thoroughly looking through one of my 2007 SURF student's papers. I really need to be less accomodating when they wait to the last minute on these things... Commenting on their papers when I need to prepare my slides is not what I should be doing at 1am.

Pictures from the road

Courtesy Charles Lee, here is a picture that he and some friends took on a recent road trip.

Wow. That's spectacularly "impressive"... I am extremely amused!

And I definitely appreciate the Blues Brothers reference...

Optical illusion of the day

Take a look here for the optical illusion of the day.

I've, of course, encountered this particular type of illusion many times, but I think it's just fantastic for it to occupy the entire facade of a building.

(I found this image on the MAA website.)