Kendall Giles

If you are going to be in the L.A. area on October 10, 2007, you might want to drop by the IPAM building at UCLA. Peter Jones has asked me to give a talk on Scan Statistics on Enron Graphs.

Technorati Tags: academia, science, technology

There will be an an event held at Virginia Tech titled "Bellerophon to Beowulf to Batman: The Image of the Hero", Wednesday, November 7, 2007, 7-9pm, in 113 McBryde Hall. Free and open to the public.

Motivating questions include: What is a hero? Has "heroism" changed? Does Buffy have anything to do with Beowulf?

It sounds like undergraduates will be presenting some of their research, followed by a faculty roundtable, including:

* Terry Papillon (Classics & Honors Program) - ancient world 
* Karen Swenson (English) - Norse sagas 
* Charlene Eska (English) - King Arthur 
* Stephen Prince (Communication) - modern pop culture 
* Kaye Graham (English) - Harry Potter and children's literature 
* LtCol. William Stringer (Corps of Cadets) - modern military 

Technorati Tags: academia, culture, living, virginia

I have put my slides online for a talk I was asked to give at IPAM today. The talk was titled "Scan Statistics on Enron Graphs", work done by Carey Priebe, John Conroy, David Marchette, and Youngser Park.

Technorati Tags: academia, technology

Snap-Apple Night, was painted by Irish artist Daniel Maclise in 1833. Supposedly he painted this after attending a Halloween party in Blarney, Ireland, in 1832. The group on the left are playing divination games, the group in the middle are playing "Snap Apple", a game where an apple is dangling from a string and people, with their arms tied behind their back, try to bite the apple. The first person who bites the coin in the apple wins. The group on the right are bobbing for apples. The caption in the first exhibit catalogue:

There Peggy was dancing with Dan
While Maureen the lead was melting,
To prove how their fortunes ran
With the Cards ould Nancy dealt in;
There was Kate, and her sweet-heart Will,
In nuts their true-love burning,
And poor Norah, though smiling still
She'd missed the snap-apple turning.
On the Festival of Hallow Eve.

Halloween is a great tradition, born in Europe and celebrated all across the world. Falling between Autumn Equinox and Winter Solstice, Halloween is significant in many ways, most notably as it marks the change in the seasons from the brightness of Summer and Fall into the darkness of Winter, and as a chance to reflect on our departed ancestors.

Upon that night, when fairies light
On Cassilis Downans dance,
Or owre the lays, in splendid blaze,
On sprightly coursers prance;
Or for Colean the rout is ta'en,
Beneath the moon's pale beams;
There, up the Cove, to stray an' rove,
Amang the rocks and streams
To sport that night;

Amang the bonie winding banks,
Where Doon rins , wimplin , clear;
Where Bruce ance rul'd the martial ranks,
An' shook his Carrick spear;
Some merry, friendly, countra-folks
Together did convene,
To burn their nits , an' pou their stocks ,
An' haud their Halloween
Fu' blythe that night.

Many other countries in Europe celebrate the traditional customs of Halloween under festivals of different names. For example, the Roman Catholic Church moved All Souls Day to the time of Halloween in order to put a Christian spin on a traditional Heathen festival (as the church has also tried to do with Yule/Christmas and Easter). And the traditional Halloween festival is also known as All Saints Day in England, Portugal, Spain, and Mexico. St. Martin's Day, Allerheiligen, and Martinmas are also names associated with the Halloween tradition.

In Scotland they hollow out turnips to use as lanterns, bob for apples, and make Dirge Loaves out of oat flour to keep the souls of the dead safe. In Ireland, there lived a man named "Stingy Jack" who was so mean that we couldn't get into Heaven or Hell, and so was forced to walk the earth for eternity carrying a turnip candle with an ember from Hell inside. Today, we carve Jack O'Lanterns to ward off the ghost of Stingy Jack.

From Italy, here is a recipe for Fave dei Morti, or Ossa dei Morti (bones of the dead), which is a type of cookie made with pine nuts, almonds, spices, flour, and sugar, and baked in commemoration of the dead. This tradition and cookie is thought to have originated from the Roman indigenous religious traditions, and co-opted by the Catholic church.

Even Japan has a festival, called o-bon (pronounced like "oh bone") where the spirits of their ancestors are invited back into the homes - in rural areas they even sweep a path from the gravesites to the home, where the spirits are welcomed with 'welcoming fires'. There are also dances and other festivities, as well as getting together with family.

So while it may not be called "Halloween" in Japan, the spirit of the tradition is very similar. Most countries have strong spiritual traditions that recognize that, during certain times of the year, the "veil" between our world and other worlds, between this life and the afterlife, becomes very thin, allowing for certain, um, transitions, and sometimes disturbances, to occur. During those certain times of the year we are more apt to hear the floor creak unexpectedly, or see something out of the corner of our eye. Or we might even get an unexpected chill when walking outside at night. It could be a departed ancestor trying to reach across the veil to a family member, or it could be something else entirely...

So have a Happy Halloween, eat a candy apple, drink some cider, bob for apples, wear an interesting costume, think of your ancestors, protect yourself from Stingy Jack, and prepare for the coming Winter.

Oh, and don't forget to say "BOO!".

Technorati Tags: culture, living, religion, spirit

Before you get too excited, no, it is not a museum of hammers. When I first saw the museum in Los Angeles' Westwood area, I thought how great to have a museum on hammers - battle hammers or maybe even Thor's Hammers!

Alas, that was not the case, but you should visit it anyway if you are in the area. The Hammer Museum houses some of the art collected by the late Armand Hammer, who was an American industrialist (no, Armand Hammer did not create the Arm and Hammer baking soda). He collected art his entire life, and amassed a very large collection. This museum displays some works from his collection and rotates through other exhibitions. On Thursdays there is free admission, so this is a prime time to visit.

From Hammer's private collection, we saw paintings by French 19th century masters, other European master paintings, and 18th-20th century American artists. There were van Goghs, Monets, a Rubens, and very nice Rembrandts, including Rembrandt's Juno and Portrait of a Man Holding a Black Hat.

There was also an exhibition of 17th-19th century advertisements called broadsides that depicted showings like Toby the sapient pig, a dulcimer player with no arms, the real-life Tom Thumb, and fortune telling ponies.

There was also a modern art media exhibition showing, for example, a guy pushing a block of ice through a city until it melted.

There are many events held at the museum throughout the year, and the museum itself is managed by UCLA.

Technorati Tags: academia, culture, living, travel

No doubt, by now you have heard about the fires ravaging Southern California at the moment -- having consumed an estimated hundred thousand acres so far. By Monday, hundreds of thousands of half a million people had fled or been ordered to evacuate their homes [this is now the largest internal evacuation since hurricane Katrina].

In September I drove through Malibu, admiring the homes there. One home in particular was built like a castle. Today, that castle home is ashes. Many of the movie stars live in Malibu, and so folks like singer/actress Olivia Newton-John and director James Cameron have had to evacuate.

The satellite image above is from NASA and shows how quickly the fires grew yesterday, October 21, 2007.

Planes flying into L.A. from Sacramento had to pass through a massive layer of dark smoke. The captain of the aircraft warned passengers that the smoke they smell is outside the plane and that their plane was not actually on fire.

And though the media is fixated on Malibu, with all the Hollywood stars, San Diego is thought to be in much worse shape.

Below is a map someone created showing the current fires. I am in Los Angeles, the spot in the ring of fire.

More up-to-date information on the fires can be found here http://calfire.blogspot.com/.

From BoingBoing: San Diego Union Tribune fire blog, KPBS on twitter, Red Cross "Safe and Well" list.

Technorati Tags: living, travel

One of my friends is a falconer, and so I got to see some of her raptors up close.

A Saker Falcon.

A Goshawk.

A Harris Hawk.

Technorati Tags: culture, living

Here is a picture from the Tahoe National Forest, which is in Northern California (thankfully not on fire) about an hour north-east of Sacramento.

You can click on the image to get a larger view.

Technorati Tags: travel

Mike Shea has a really good review of his initial impressions of the new Apple operating system, Leopard.

I never heard of anyone who looked forward to Vista the same way those Apple folks looked forward to Leopard. They made a lot of money at that store yesterday and they did it by building an OS that people wanted, even if it didn't jump way ahead of what OSX could do before. Apple learned that people need to like their computers, not just use them. This is why few people give a damn about Vista or even hate it while Apple fanboys will line up for blocks to buy Leopard.

Technorati Tags: technology