The answer, according to the Facebook Data Team, is that while it depends on how you define "real," with access to the underlying data, you can pretty clearly see how much interaction actually flows across the different links. One neat thing they found (within a lot of interesting analysis) is that the amount of interaction across all your connections scales up with the number of connections you have. That is, the more friends you have, the more friends you interact with. (It can't be a linear relationship, though, since otherwise, people with 1000s of friends would be spending all of their free time on Facebook... oh wait, some people actually do that.)

2.
A related point that I've found myself discussing several times recently with my elders (some of whom I think are, at some level, alienated and befuddled by computer and Web technology), is whether Facebook (or, technology in general) increases social isolation, and thus is leading to some kind of collapse of civil society. I've argued passionately that it's human nature to be social and thus extremely unlikely that technology alone is having this effect, and that technology instead actually facilitates social interactions, allowing people to be even more social overall (even if they may spend slightly less time face-to-face) than before. Mobile phones are my favorite example of social facilitation, since they allow people to interact with their friends in situations when previously they could not (e.g., standing in line at the bank, walking around town, etc.), even if occasionally it leads to ridiculous situations like two people sitting next to each other, but each texting or talking on their phones with people elsewhere.

And, just in time to bolster my arguments, The Pew Internet and American Life Project released a study this week (also discussed in the NYTimes) showing that technology users are more social than non-technology users, and that other, non-technological trends are to blame for the apparent decrease in the size of (non-technology using) Americans' social circles over the past 20 years. Of course, access to and use of technology often correlates with affluence, so what really might be going on is that, like with nutrition, the affluent are better positioned to lead physically and socially healthy lives than the poor.

3.
Recently, for a project on evolution, I've been reading pretty deeply in the paleontology and marine mammal literature (more on that in the next post). The first thing that I noticed is how easy it is now to access vast amounts of scientific literature from the comfort of your office. Occasionally, I had to get up to see Margaret, our librarian, but most of the time I could get what I needed through electronic access. But, sometimes I would encounter a pay wall that my institutional access wouldn't allow me to circumvent.

At first, it was extremely irritating and induced open-access revolutionary spirits in me. Then, I did what I suspect many of you have done, too, which is to ask my friends at other universities to try to get access to the paper using their institutional access, and to send me a copy. On a small scale, this is like asking your friends to share individual musical tracks with you. So, naturally, the logical solution to the problem is to make a P2P sharing system for scientific papers, right? Exactly. There's apparently already such a system for mainly medical papers, but I think the time is ripe for something more ambitious. Given what's been learned about how to run a good P2P system for music, it should be pretty simple to develop a good system (distributed, searchable, scalable) for sharing PDFs of journal papers, right? I can't wait until the academic publishing industry starts suing researchers for sharing papers...

4.
If you're male, when you use a public restroom, what do you think about for those seconds while your body is busy but your mind is free to wander? Randall Munroe, of xkcd fame, apparently, thinks about the mathematics of restroom awkwardness and minimum awkward-ness packing arrangements for men using urinals. Who knew something so mundane could be so amusing?

5.
Finally, this next bit is already almost a year old, but it's just so good. Remember last year when the media when predictably bonkers over two studies, by Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler, showing that happiness and obesity were (socially) contagious? That is, if you're depressed, you can blame your friends for not cheering you up, and if you're fat, you can blame your friends for making you eat poorly. (Or, wait, maybe it's that misery loves company...?) Shortly after those studies hit the media, a wonderful followup study was published by Cohen-Cole and Fletcher. Their study used the same techniques as Christakis and Fowler and showed that acne, headaches and height are also socially contagious! If only we had the data, I'm sure social network analysis could be show that hair color, IQ and wealth are socially contagious, too. Their concluding thoughts say it all, really:

There is a need for caution when attributing causality to correlations in health outcomes between friends using non-experimental data. Confounding is only one of many empirical challenges to estimating social network effects, but researchers do need to attempt to minimise its impact. Thus, while it will probably not be harmful for policy makers and clinicians to attempt to use social networks to spread the benefits of health interventions and information, the current evidence is not yet strong enough to suggest clear evidence based recommendations. There are many unanswered questions and avenues for future research, including use of more robust empirical methods to assess social network effects, crafting and implementing additional empirical solutions to the many difficulties with this research, and further understanding of how social networks are formed and operate.

E. Cohen-Cole and J. M. Fletcher, "Detecting implausible social network effects in acne, height, and headaches: longitudinal analysis." BMJ 337, a2533 (2008).

The short story is that the popular quality function called "modularity" (invented by Mark Newman and Michelle Girvan) admits serious degeneracies that make it somewhat impractical to use in situations where the network is large or has a non-trivial number of communities (a.k.a. modules). At the end of the paper, we briefly survey some ways to potentially mitigate this problem in practical contexts.

The performance of modularity maximization in practical contexts

Benjamin H. Good, Yves-Alexandre de Montjoye, Aaron Clauset, arxiv:0910.0165 (2009).

Although widely used in practice, the behavior and accuracy of the popular module identification technique called modularity maximization is not well understood. Here, we present a broad and systematic characterization of its performance in practical situations. First, we generalize and clarify the recently identified resolution limit phenomenon. Second, we show that the modularity function Q exhibits extreme degeneracies: that is, the modularity landscape admits an exponential number of distinct high-scoring solutions and does not typically exhibit a clear global maximum. Third, we derive the limiting behavior of the maximum modularity Q_max for infinitely modular networks, showing that it depends strongly on the size of the network and the number of module-like subgraphs it contains. Finally, using three real-world examples of metabolic networks, we show that the degenerate solutions can fundamentally disagree on the composition of even the largest modules. Together, these results significantly extend and clarify our understanding of this popular method. In particular, they explain why so many heuristics perform well in practice at finding high-scoring partitions, why these heuristics can disagree on the composition of the identified modules, and how the estimated value of Q_max should be interpreted. Further, they imply that the output of any modularity maximization procedure should be interpreted cautiously in scientific contexts. We conclude by discussing avenues for mitigating these behaviors, such as combining information from many degenerate solutions or using generative models.

(This was my first time using power tools to carve a pumpkin, and I have to say, they make it a lot easier and a lot more fun!)

Luckily, the news media, in the form of the indomitable John Oliver, were there to cover and support the efforts. (And thus these savvy protesters made it on the Oct. 1 Daily Show for about 3 seconds at the 9m11s mark; blink and you'll miss them.)

Tip to Jake Hofman and Arthur Gretton (whose photos these are).

If that's not enough hilarity about chimps vs. orangs, or, if you were really intrigued by the arguments in favor of orangs, read this.

Tip to Jake Hofman.

The ACM, with Microsoft, Google, Intel and some other organizations, managed to persuade the US Congress that Computer Science is a Good Thing(tm) and that it deserves some recognition for driving economic growth (you know, making things like medicine, movies, music, and cars) [1]. To recognize the goodness, Congress passed a resolution (H. RES. 558) to designate the week of December 7 as “National Computer Science Education Week.” [2]

The resolution, H. RES. 558, sponsored by Congressmen Vernon Ehlers (R-MI) and Jared Polis (D-CO) [3], designates the week of December 7 as “National Computer Science Education Week.” Citing the influence of computing technology as a significant contributor to U.S. economic output, the House resolution calls on educators and policymakers to improve computer science learning at all educational levels, and to motivate increased participation in computer science.

“Increasing energy efficiency, advancing healthcare, and improving communication in the digital age are just a few of the national priorities that depend on computer science, which Congress has recognized. Computer science teaches students design, logical reasoning, and problem-solving – all skills that have value well beyond the classroom,” said Rick Rashid, senior vice president of Research for Microsoft.

“Despite serious economic challenges confronting the nation, computer science-related jobs are among the fastest-growing and highest paying over the next decade,” said Alfred Spector, vice president of Research and Special Initiatives at Google, Inc. “These times require an increasing supply of diverse students exposed to rigorous and engaging computing courses at the K-12 level, and National Computer Science Education Week can help to reinforce this effort.”

Good fanfare, and good effort for sure. It's a small gesture really, but I guess it does give organizations like the ACM a hook to hang their public campaigns on. And for sure, education about computers, computer science, and their use (and abuse) in society is something the public could do with some educating on.

Tip to Tanya Berger-Wolf.

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[1] Thankfully, they didn't mention that computer science and computers have also produced massive amounts of wasted time, the estimation of which never ceases to amuse me. (If you'd like to estimate it for yourself, try this.)

[2] In a fit of gender-neutrality (something Computer Science is not known for), the date was chosen to honor Grace Hopper, who wrote the first compiler and helped invent the indispensable COBOL, in addition to being a Rear Admiral in the Navy, and having a Naval destroyer named after her.

[3] Incidentally, I was very happy to discover that Mr. Polis represents the 2nd District of Colorado, and he'll be my representative once I move to Boulder next summer.

We are all connected (ft. Sagan, Feynman, deGrasse Tyson & Bill Nye)

Tip to Cris Moore.

Appointments begin Fall 2010. As a current postdoc, I can tell you that SFI is an exceptionally good place to spend a few years doing research. It's not for everyone, but if you do your best work in unstructured environments, have a good nose for asking fundamental questions, and are comfortable working in a highly interdisciplinary environment, then it's hard to beat the freedom and resources SFI provides.

This year's deadline is November 2.

The Santa Fe Institute (SFI) will be selectively seeking applications for Omidyar Fellows for 2011, starting in the Fall of 2010. Fellows are appointed for up to three years during which they pursue research questions of their own design and are encouraged to transcend disciplinary lines. SFI’s unique structure and resources enable Fellows to collaborate with members of the SFI faculty, other Fellows, and researchers from around the world.

As the leader in multidisciplinary research, SFI has no formal programs or departments and we accept applications from any field. Research topics span the full range of natural and social sciences and often make connections with the humanities. Most research at SFI is theoretical and/or computational in nature, although some research includes an empirical component in collaboration with other institutions. Descriptions of the research themes and interests of the faculty and current Fellows can be found at http://www.santafe.edu/research/.

Benefits: The compensation package includes a competitive salary and excellent health and retirement benefits. As full participants in the SFI community, Fellows are encouraged to invite speakers, organize workshops and working groups, and engage in research outside their fields. Funds are available to support this full range of research activities.

Requirements: SFI is known for its catalytic research environment and applicants must demonstrate the potential to contribute to this community. Candidates must have a Ph.D. (or expect to receive one by September 2010), an exemplary academic record, and a proven ability to work independently. We expect a demonstrated interest in multidisciplinary research and evidence of the ability to think outside traditional paradigms.

Applications:Applications are welcome from candidates in any country. Successful foreign applicants must acquire an acceptable visa (usually a J-1) as a condition of employment. Women and minorities are especially encouraged to apply. SFI is an equal opportunity employer.

TO APPLY: View the full position announcement and application instructions at www.santafe.edu/education/fellowships-postdoctoral.php. Application due by November 2, 2009. For further information, email ofellowshipinfo@santafe.edu.

This is a little extreme, but to be honest, scientists also love to extrapolate, and some of what they say is not much better than this...

(thanks xkcd)

I like this.

(tip to onegoodmove)

The appointment starts in the Fall of 2010, which gives me another year to finish out my postdoc at the Santa Fe Institute, and, more importantly, to finish up a lot of the projects that I've started here on topics like macroevolution and the mathematics of terrorism. So, come Summer 2010, it'll be goodbye postdoc, and hello responsibility! Wish me luck!

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[1] Oh yeah. I'm getting married, too!

The Harvard Political Networks Conference

11 June -- 13 June 2009 at Harvard in Cambridge, MA

Organizers: James H. Fowler and David Lazer

Bomb disposal teams were called in and a nearby pub evacuated after water company engineers mistook a Monty Python film prop for a hand grenade. After nearly an hour of examination by bomb experts, they counted to three. No more. No less. Three was the number they counted, and the number they counted was three. Four they did not count, nor two, except to proceed to three. Five was right out. Once the number three had been reached, being the third number, they declared that the grenade was actually a copy of the "Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch" used in the film Monty Python And The Holy Grail. A police spokeswoman confirmed that the device was a toy and that it had been no danger to the public.

(tip to /.)