Kendall Giles

I took my first real ride on my Downtube Mini folding bike over the weekend. I mentioned earlier that I had brought the folding bike with me to Los Angeles, since I wouldn't have a car while I was here.

Someone at work had mentioned that San Vincente Boulevard was a nice road to take to the beach, so I thought that would be a nice way to test out the new bike and to see some of the sights. The route I ended up taking is highlighted in purple (UCLA is in the upper right corner; Santa Monica pier is in the lower left corner).

The first task was to find San Vincente Boulevard. So I started at UCLA, headed South on Westwood Boulevard, and followed the Bike Path signs west on Wilshire Boulevard. The first ten minutes of my trip went fine.

However, my first mistake was to ride in traffic along Wilshire Boulevard. I am not a bike rider, but I knew that it is best to ride in the right-most lane. And after all, I was following the Bike Route signs. So all was fine, until I discovered suddenly that my lane, and the one to my left, turn into feeder lanes for the 405 San Diego Freeway.

Luckily, the Downtube Mini has a sharp turning radius, and after a bit of dodge and weave, I managed to get out of that situation.

Once I got west of the 405, I turned right onto San Vincente Boulevard. This was a much nicer road -- with a real bike lane, lots of nice houses, and being generally a pleasant place to ride a bike, as the following pictures show.

My second mistake was to not apply sunscreen. There is quite a bit of sun in L.A., especially at the beach. So about six miles into the trip, which put me near where San Vincente hits Ocean Avenue, I was starting to feel the heat. However, all discomfort was forgotten once I saw the view:

Note that in the second beach picture, the pier in the distance is Santa Monica Pier.

Also note that these pictures were taken from Ocean Avenue, which is on top of a small cliff, above the Pacific Coast Highway and above the beach.

However, when you have a folding bike (which weighs 24.5 pounds), cliffs are not a problem. No, I did not fall off the cliff, for once, but I did find some stairs going down the cliff. This picture is looking back after I carried my bike down the stairs and crossed the bridge over the Pacific Coast Highway:

However, by this time I realized my third mistake. On my next trip I will leave my backpack containing my laptop computer and some textbooks in my room. Evidently these sorts of things aren't really needed at the beach.

The fourth mistake dawned soon after -- riding a bike a long distance in the sun makes one thirsty and hungry.

Nevertheless, I rode my bike along the beach until I got to the Santa Monica Pier. There were the usual things one finds on a pier -- people fishing, people walking, people selling trinkets, people playing musical instruments -- though this was the first time I have seen a 9-story ferris wheel on a pier before:

My return trip was similar to my outbound trip, except that I rode back to San Vincente along Ocean Avenue instead of along the beach, so that I would not have to carry my bike, backpack, laptop, and books back up those stairs.

The round-trip was about 15 miles.

Technorati Tags: bike, culture, fitness, living, travel

OK, genealogy, and academic genealogy at that - perhaps not the most stimulating of topics.

However, thanks to the Mathematics Genealogy Project, and some curiosity, I was able to trace back my academic genealogy from my advisor, to his advisor, to his advisor, etc., all the way back until the records gave out. (Note: I did a quick initial search -- I may continue this project in the future as time permits.)

Amazingly, I was able to trace my academic heritage all the way back to 1650, to an academic ancestor named Erhard Weigel, who was a German mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher.

And here is his picture:

Below, starting with Erhard, for each person I state the name and the year of his dissertation, if it is known. A link to the appropriate Wikipedia page is also given, if I could find one. In two cases, for Joseph Liouville and Jacques Hadamard, there are two advisors.

Erhard Weigel, 1650
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Gottfried Liebniz, 1666
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Jacob Bernoulli, 1684
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Johann Bernoulli, 1694
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Leonhard Euler, 1726                
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Joseph Lagrange                     ?
       |                            |
       |                            |
Simeon Poisson                Louis Thenard
       |                            |
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           Joseph Liouville, 1835
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Eugene-Charles Catalan, 1841
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Charles Hermite                     ?
       |                            |
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Jules Tannery             C. Emile Picard, 1877
       |                            |
       |                            |
           Jacques Hadamard, 1892
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Szolem Mandelbrojt, 1923
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Hugh Daniel Brunk, 1944
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Timothy Robertson, 1966
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Edward Wegman, 1968
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Carey Priebe, 1993 (and David Marchette, 1996)
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Kendall Giles, 2007

Technorati Tags: academia, culture, science

So today I decided to make a tour around the UCLA campus.

The University of California, Los Angeles, or UCLA, has the largest enrollment of any university in the state and consistently ranks as one of the top universities in the world.

The campus is large (about 419 acres) and the buildings have a detailed, solid architectural style (Romanesque Revival?). As an example, the building below is the Powell Libary, which is the main undergraduate library. Interestingly, it was one of the original four buildings on campus.

In 1995, according to wikipedia, of the 36 PhD programs that were examined by the National Research Council, 11 departments made the top ten list.

Also, since 1998, no American university has had more applicants -- out of 50,732 applicants for fall 2007, 11,860 (23.38%) were admitted.

The building below is the IPAM building, or the Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics. The mission of IPAM is to serve as a collaboration center for mathematicians, engineers, and scientists to work on a wide variety of interdisciplinary problems. For example, during the summer IPAM organizes RIPS, which is a research program for talented undergraduates to solve a variety of problems for a variety of companies, such as Symantec, Pixar, and some of the national labs (LANL, LLNL, JPL).

The IPAM building, though a break from the main architectural style of the campus, was designed by noted architect Frank Gehry in the mid-1970s. Inside there is an open design with large windows that provides a lot of light and helps foster collaboration spaces for visiting researchers.

Another building that moves to the minimalist end of design is the Ronald Reagan Medical Center, below.

Finally, on my way back to my room after touring around the campus, I stopped by a small cafe for some food. Of course, I was riding my folding bike, so when I went in to order my food I naturally carried it with me.

While I was waiting for my food, this man and woman had pulled up on a large BMW motorcycle. The lady rider, in leather jacket and helmet, came into the cafe through the door as I was exiting through the door, still carrying my little folding bike. She saw it and gave me an "All right!". So either she really approved of me and my bike, or she was greatly amused -- I am not quite sure which.

Technorati Tags: academia, culture, living, science, travel

A friend gifted me with a new book: The End of the Certain World: The Life and Science of Max Born.

Max Born was a German mathematician and physicist who won the 1954 Nobel Prize in Physics, and gave to the world the foundation for quantum mechanics. I look forward to diving into this story about one of the world's best scientists.

And, just glancing at the back cover, it turns out Olivia Newton-John is his granddaughter!

Technorati Tags: academia, book, culture, science

It's tough being a bag in Los Angeles. Or at least my backpack thinks so.

Every day that I have been in Los Angeles so far I have been out walking or riding my bike. Usually I have my backpack with me, to hold my laptop, some books, and other items. My backpack is one of those padded computer backpacks---in specific, the Dell C8882 Inspiron 17" Laptop Backpack. I don't have a Dell computer though---I use the backpack to carry my Apple Powerbook 17" laptop.

For a while the backpack worked well, as it had lots of padding, held the laptop plus lots of books, had numerous pockets to hold odds and ends, and was comfortable to wear. But under extended use, especially since I have been out in Los Angeles, the backpack has not aged well. In specific, the padding in the shoulder straps has started to slide around, all the seams started looking fuzzy, like the material was wearing out, and a seam on one of the straps actually split open. So rather than be caught off-guard by a total backpack malfunction one day, far from home, I decided to look for a replacement.

My criteria: I wanted a bag that could hold my laptop, several books, and a few extra odds and ends; was waterproof (the backpack was not); and that would be comfortable and secure while walking or riding a bike. More subjective criteria included having a smaller form factor than the backpack and being more stylish. When loaded, the Dell backpack could easily knock someone over standing next to me if I turned around suddenly, and it also had a major Forrest Gump vibe going---something that doesn't compute in style-sensitive L.A.

And my wife imposed the criteria that the bag had to be less than $100.

So I headed to a large mall on Santa Monica and stopped into the Tumi store. Their T-Tech Pulse Eldridge Computer Messenger Bag seemed really nice, except that it was not waterproof (the sales lady said it is not waterproof, but that it resists water). As nice as the bag seemed, I couldn't see spending $195 for a bag that could not keep my computer dry. Plus, it was about twice my budget.

The sales lady suggested I check out the Louis Vuitton store. They had Very Nice Things, but their $1,300 messenger bags would not fit my laptop. I am also not convinced that their bags would feel comfortable or be appropriate when riding a bike. As for being waterproof, I never got around to asking that question about these bags. I mean, I guess what I am trying to say is that someone in the market for a Louis Vuitton messenger bag would have a different set of criteria than the ones I listed above.

So, just about to give up on my quest, I happened to stop into my local bike shop and they had exactly what I was looking for.

The bag that fit all my requirements turned out to be the Timbuk2 Commute Messenger Bag:

For many years Timbuk2 has made quality messenger bags, and the Commute was designed for the professional who wants something different than the traditional boxy briefcase, and who needs a rugged and travel-friendly bag that can hold a laptop.

This bag has a ballistic nylon exterior and a molded padded back panel (shown above). The bottom is double-padded and has an extra rubberized bottom layer (not shown).

The inside has a padded compartment for the laptop (the X-Large Commute bag fits the 17" Apple Powerbook) and the bag itself is waterproof. It has a handle for convenient hand-carry and comes with a second strap to secure around the waist for when riding a bike (or running to catch a taxi).

And, though the bag retails for $120, you can likely find it for less (I did, and it met my authorized budget).

All in all, the Timbuk2 Commute is a quality bag that seems to be very durable, to be useful and stylish, and to have enough features to make the price seem more than reasonable.

Technorati Tags: academia, bike, book, review, travel

Without a doubt, the Getty Museum is one of the places every visitor to Los Angeles should see.

Jean Paul Getty (1892 - 1976) was an American who made his money by founding the Getty Oil Company. A collector of art and other antiquities, when he died his money went into the J. Paul Getty Trust, which funds and operates the Getty Museum. The museum is a part of the larger Getty Center, which operates a research institute, conservation institute, grant program, and leadership institute.

The museum contains classical:

manuscripts

furniture

art

in addition to being flanked by a 134,000 sq. ft. garden

There are many more sights to see there, but you know they did things right when half your pictures turn out to be just of the building itself.

Oh, and best of all, entrance to the museum is free -- you only have to pay for parking.

Technorati Tags: academia, culture, travel

When I found out I was going to Los Angeles for a trip, I started to despair. Not because I didn't want to go to L.A. (the stories can't all be true, right?)---rather, I wanted to be able to take a lot of pictures while I was there, and I didn't have a suitable camera.

I do have some cameras, but they were either too big and bulky, made it too difficult to get the images onto my computer, or took poor pictures. Obviously, during an extended trip, I needed something highly portable that had an easy and fast way to download the images and that took great pictures.

My problem was resolved with the Canon PowerShot SD1000 digital camera. Since I have been using it almost daily here in Los Angeles, I have found it to be one of the best cameras I have ever used.

First, the camera has a convenient and functional shape that is easily portable. Basically the camera is like the shape of a small deck of cards. The lense extends when in use, but otherwise sits protected within the camera case. Some of the other cameras I saw had strange curves or awkward protrusions that would only cause trouble when on travel.

Second, loading pictures onto my computer is trivial---I just attach the cable from the camera to my laptop and with one button press all of the new images are transferred over.

Third, the camera takes great pictures. In fact, all of the pictures taken of Los Angeles in the various blog postings on this website were taken with this camera. For example, here are some pictures I took on a recent trip to the Getty Museum.

And note --- I have no photography experience, so these pictures were me just pointing and clicking. For the experienced photographer, there are many, many features in this camera to allow almost complete customization of the picture taking process. With me, for now, just pointing and clicking works well.

For some of the technical specifications, it has a 7.1 megapixel CCD that captures enough detail for photo-quality 15x20" prints. You can use the view-finder or the 2.5" LCD to compose your shots. It also has something like 17 shooting modes, face detection, high ISO settings, 8 special scene modes, red-eye correction, 3x optical zoom, and a number of other features.

After adding a 4GB SD card, I've been completely happy with this camera.

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Technorati Tags: review, technology, travel

The Secret History of the Sword: Adventures in Ancient Martial Arts, by J. Christopher Amberger

An amazing treasure-house of anecdotes, accountings, and historical musings on sword play across the generations and cultures. Its loose presentation style lends it to reading in frenetic bursts. I really enjoyed his commentary and analysis of fencing training and combat arts. One criticism is that he's not very strong on pre-Renaissance swordsmanship or history. But his pre-Renaissance discussion is just at the beginning of the book and that can be quickly skimmed -- the rest of the book is great.

Technorati Tags: book, culture, fitness, martial arts, review

If you are in need of a technical book or magazine, or several, you can probably do no better than to visit Opamp Technical Books, near Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles.

Inside are a number of aisles stacked floor to ceiling with used and new scientific and technical books of all topics, including software development, security, electronics, building codes, medicine, operating systems, CAM, writing, leadership, programming, business, and a whole lot more.

During a visit, prepare to spend an hour or more in browsing pleasure.

Technorati Tags: book, science, technology, travel

The Vikings were some of the best sailors, ship-builders, and explorers the world has known.

The remains of a Viking warship was found in 1962, and has been rebuilt using traditional Viking tools and building methods by a dedicated team.

From the BBC news article, The return of the Viking warship:

More than 7,000 iron rivets, 2,000m of rope and 300 ancient Danish oaks were used in the reconstruction. After four years of painstaking work, the Sea Stallion from Glendalough was launched on 4 September 2004.

Now, the team behind the project wants to know whether the reconstruction is capable of making the kind of journeys the Vikings once undertook. To find out, the ship is being taken over 1,000 miles (1,600km) across the North Sea to Orkney and on to Dublin.

UPDATE: You can follow a diary of the voyage at the BBC site.

Here is probably the best way to hide your iPod or iPhone from theft---disguise it as a Microsoft Zune:

Ever wanted to watch a book being made? Here is a link to a short movie of a paperback book being printed and bound.

And just because this is where you go a lot when in Los Angeles:

Technorati Tags: book, culture, living, travel

I've long been an admirer of Edward Tufte's design books, especially The Visual Display of Quantitative Information.

It was with this book that he became famous as a guru of Information Design, partially for his analysis of Charles Joseph Minard's infographic of the disastrous 1812 invasion of Russia by France.

He concentrates on detailing how to make graphics that present information clearly and succinctly, while avoiding common design problems. He gives examples throughout history of good designs and bad designs, and explains why they are so. As someone who went to business school, and who sat through too many business meetings, it is clear to me that too few people are familiar with Tufte's work.

From an interview with Tufte, here is how he got started on the path of Information Design:

In the mid-1970s, while at Princeton, I gave a statistics course to a dozen journalists who were visiting the school. I thought "Well, journalists have to know about statistical graphics...", so I prepared a collection of readings, with a section on statistical graphics. The literature was thin, grimly devoted to explaining use of the ruling pen and to promulgating "graphic standards" indifferent to sensible quantitative reasoning. Soon I started writing up some ideas about my growing collection of graphics. Then John W. Tukey, the phenomenal Princeton statistician, suggested that we give a series of joint seminars. Tukey had opened up the field in the mid-1960s, as his brilliant technical contributions made it clear that the study of statistical graphics was intellectually respectable and not just about pie charts and ruling pens. This focused my mind, since I had to talk for two hours every other week to the students in front of John Tukey! The seminar proved reassuring: I had something to say. Those seminars led to my first book, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, and changed my life, all to the good.

Graphics Press

From a Wired article about Tufte's thoughts on PowerPoint:

PowerPoint is a competent slide manager and projector. But rather than supplementing a presentation, it has become a substitute for it. Such misuse ignores the most important rule of speaking: Respect your audience.

From an interview with Tufte on NPR:

Far too often, he says, the bells and whistles of PowerPoint are used as a crutch by people who don't have anything to say. "If your words aren't truthful, the finest optically letter spaced typography won't help," he says. "And if your images aren't on point, making them dance in color in three dimensions won't help."

His new book, Beautiful Evidence, is out and I've just received it. Like his other books, the craftsmanship and attention to detail just in the quality of the binding, pages, and artwork are things of beauty.

Technorati Tags: academia, book, review

On the southeast corner of the UCLA campus lies the Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden. On seven acres, this oasis contains tropical and sub-tropical plants from all over the world.

I took a pleasant walk through the garden over the weekend, and plan to return, since it is a restive spot that calls for quiet meditation and attention to nature amid the city jungle of Los Angeles.

Technorati Tags: living, travel

Paul Erdös was (1913-1996) a Hungarian-born mathematician known for being prolific (about 1,500 papers with about 510 co-authors) and eccentric. As to the latter, he spent most of his life traveling from place to place, staying in the homes of colleagues. Most of his possessions fit into his suitcase, and after staying a few days he would move on to the next colleague, for another few days of collaboration.

In this way, Paul demonstrated that science is a social enterprise. Research is conducted and papers are published through clusters networked scientists working together. In fact, Paul is known for research in random graph theory with Alfred Renyi (the latter is also known for saying that "a mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems").

Because of Paul's research and behaviors, we was a bit of a star in the scientific community. Then, and perhaps more so today, it is popular to calculate one's Erdös Number, which is basically a way of measuring the publication distance between one person and Paul Erdös.

For example, someone who co-authored a paper with Paul would have an Erdös Number of 1, and there are about 510 people with this Erdös Number. Someone who wrote a paper with a co-author of Paul Erdös would have an Erdös Number of 2, etc.

Note that having a small Erdös Number is something that many people take quite seriously.

Currently, my Erdös Number is 4 (which also happens to be the Erdös Number of Bill Gates), and I also happen to have 4 separate publication paths to Paul, each of length 4.

The Erdös Number Project is organized to study research collaborations, and contains a large amount of information about collaboration research, information about Paul Erdös, and even allows you to calculate your own Erdös Number. This project is a subset of a much larger field of study on random graphs, clustering, the structure of the Internet, computer networks, data analysis, and social networks. If you have ever heard someone say "It's a small world!!!" or have ever played the game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, then in a sense all this research about the structure of networks is about explaining this small-world phenomenon.

A quote from the book Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means perhaps summarizes the intense interest in the Erdös Number and the structure of networks:

The very existence of the Erdös Number demonstrates that the scientific community forms a highly interconnected network in which all scientists are linked to each other through the papers they have written. The smallness of most Erdös Numbers indicates that this web of science truly is a small world.

Technorati Tags: academia, book, culture, science

For an increasing number of people, that answer is yes.

Facebook is a (free!) online social networking site that allows you to have a "profile" where you display contact and other information of interest that you want other people to see. You can link to other people you know that are also on Facebook and you can see their updates and messages in your profile. In a way, it is like a digital Rolodex --- at an instant, you can see a quick summary of the messages and information about people that are important to you.

Via Josh Catone @ readwriteweb.com:

"Facebook IS the internet portal of 2007." - Jeff Pulver

"Facebook could easily become the Microsoft Windows of tomorrow." - Duncan Riley

"No matter how you look at it Facebook is the one. Right now." - Robert Scoble

"Facebook will reach 50 million, then 100 million, then 200 million users, and beyond." - Paul Allen

"Last time an inward looking ecosystem caught the imagination of developers, it was Windows 95, the defining moment for Microsoft. The winner of that movement: Microsoft." - Om Malik on the Facebook platform

"There's a chance that someday, Facebook will be the preferred place to read this blog because of all the social apps that will be built around it." - Fred Wilson

The idea is similar to the old networking sites like Friendster or Myspace. But there are several reasons why Facebook is the current place to be in the online world. First, there is this idea of what networks you belong to. With Myspace, anyone can join, but with a low barrier to entry, there was a lot of noise for small bits of useful signal. However, Facebook raises the bar of entry to a requirement that you belong to a particular network.

Originally started at Harvard, Facebook grew to more universities, then to companies, and finally now anyone can join if they have links to an appropriate network. I joined the Johns Hopkins network because I am an alumni of Johns Hopkins University. Now that I am on the Johns Hopkins network, I can see the 15,580 other members on that network. This allows me to stay in close contact with classmates and professors who went there. Since I am also a Virginia Tech alumni, I am able to join the Virginia Tech network and visit with the 44,996 other Virginia Tech members. And so on for all universities you may go to or went to. As you interact with more people, your network will grow.

But there are also networks for companies too (i.e., if you work for Microsoft you could join the Microsoft Facebook network, etc.), there is an option of joining via the "no network" for those who want to join but do not have a regular network point of entry, or you can be invited. With this networking concept, Facebook allows you to limit who gets to see the information on your profile. For example, I could limit my profile information to be limited to the Virginia Tech network, and anyone on the Virginia Tech network could see my profile, send me a message, view my friends and groups I belong to, etc. Or I could limit my profile information to just my friends, or to everyone.

For example, there is a quote about Facebook above by Robert Scoble. Who is Robert Scoble? Well, he is the author of Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers and has one of the most popular blogs on the Internet. In Facebook he is also my friend, and I see just by looking at my profile that currently:

Robert is reading reports from WordCamp in SF. I am staying home to do chores, jealous of those that are there.

I do not have to go to his profile to see that information---quick status updates are flashed to my profile for my friends so that I can quickly and easily get the information sent to me that may be interesting or useful.

Another reason Facebook is growing is that they have an "open platform," meaning that anyone can write applications to the Facebook API. The other networking applications are closed systems, meaning that only the employees of those networking site companies write the applications. But with Facebook's open API, the world is now writing and porting applications that work within the Facebook framework.

As examples of some of the applications, I can embed a Stock Quote widget into my profile so that I can monitor how much money I am making/losing, or maybe To-Do list and calendar applications to keep me on schedule. There are games I can play, I can keep track of over 200,000 different bands to find out where they are coming to play in my area, and I can watch videos, listen to audio, monitor newsfeeds, share recipes, or just draw pictures. All these creative and useful applications are available, for free, for anyone to embed on their profile.

So, are you on Facebook? If not, you might want to check it out. It is like having your address book, Outlook contacts list, calendar, television, and messaging system all in one spot. Will Facebook ever be replaced? Signs point to yes, since people will move to the new thing if the new thing provides more benefits and features than the old thing. But for now, Facebook is the thing.

You can visit my public profile and add me as a friend, if you like.

Technorati Tags: culture, technology

Viking treasure found in Britain!

"We were astonished when we finally discovered what it contained."

The ancient objects come from as far afield as Afghanistan in the East and Ireland in the West, as well as Russia, Scandinavia and continental Europe.

The hoard contains 617 silver coins and 65 other objects, including a gold arm-ring and a gilt silver vessel.

Dr Jonathan Williams, keeper of prehistory in Europe at the British Museum, said: "[The cup] is beautifully decorated and was made in France or Germany at around AD900.

"It is fantastically rare - there are only a handful of others known around the world. It will be stunning when it is fully conserved."

There are many responsible approaches countries can do to help decrease dependence on polluting petroleum products and move a country's industries and population to a more sustainable lifestyle.

Italy has answered this noble challenge by...banning ties:

"Taking your tie off immediately lowers the body temperature by 2 to 3 degrees Celsius," the ministry said in a statement. "Allowing a more sensible use of air conditioning that yields electricity savings and protects the environment."

However, Italy's tie-makers aren't taking this well:

"Italy confirms that it is a strange country," Flavio Cima said in a letter to financial daily Il Sole 24 Ore under the headline: "I, tie maker, am responsible for global warming".

"We can now happily continue with our lifestyle, using cars, consuming fuel, heating and cooling our homes at leisure. On one condition: we should not wear a tie while we do so," he wrote.

Remember, all you need to do is write.

Josh Catone over at Read/WriteWeb has posted a self-publishing toolkit---how to write and publish a novel.

Follow his approach, using 100% online tools, and you will have something, guaranteed. His best idea is to check out the National Novel Writing Month as a strong motivator to get yourself writing, and Sitepoint, where you can take bids on your novel's book cover designs, for example.

Finally, sometimes you just never know what you are going to see when you look outside your bedroom window.

Technorati Tags: academia, book, culture, living, religion, spirit

A friend has gifted me with a new book: Are We Rome?: The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America.

Recently published, this book takes the reader on a tour of the last several thousand years, specifically analyzing the comparisons between the United States and Rome---as cultures and as models for nations. The arguments advanced by the author, Cullen Murphy, who was the editor of The Atlantic magazine and is now the editor of Vanity Fair, seem to be thoughtfully put together, rather than the alarmist and shallow chatter so often heard on talk radio and in Washington D.C.

So, I am definitely looking forward to reading this!

Technorati Tags: academia, book, culture, living, review