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{Friday, April 27, 2007}

 
I decided to do a little ego-pumping this morning to get me going. So I went and looked up my Neuron paper in the ISI citation index, and then looked up the impact factors of all the journals my paper has been cited in. It's been cited 28 times:

ImpactJournal (times cited)
20.95 Nature Reviews Neuroscience (3)
14.67 PLOS Biology
14.30 Neuron (4)
10.23 PNAS
9.78Annual Review of Psychology
9.16Trends in Cognitive Sciences
8.57Current Opinion in Neurobiology
7.56Journal of Neuroscience
5.29Neuroimage (6)
5.00Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B
4.53Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
4.50Psychological Science
4.12Neuropsychologia
3.58Cortex
2.30Brain Research
2.00Neuroreport (2)


Of course, most of these citations are people saying I'm wrong. :-)

That's okay. I know the truth. :-p

posted by Miles 9:46 AM

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{Thursday, April 26, 2007}

 
Okay, after I just posted, when I clicked "view blog", talksinmaths came up, but so did an obnoxious, big pop-up ad. I think my brother had mentioned something about this before. If you see this as well, can you leave me a comment below? Even better, if you can look at the source code, or otherwise figure out how I can make it stop, that would be much appreciated!

posted by Miles 8:29 AM
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You know you've been spending a little too much time in front of your computer when you notice your mouse-clicking finger is fatigued . . . after a night's sleep, when you first sit down in your office in the morning to start working.

But: I will get this thesis done, damnit!


I got a nice jolt of positive feedback this morning from my advisor, after she read my second paper (of the three constituting the thesis):
This is a gorgeous paper -- my favorite as well.

I've made some suggested changes, mostly with the view that it's better to let other people tell us how elegant this is, etc. But not much. It's just so so so pretty already.

bravo!
:-)

Definitely helped me feel like I really am going to make it . . .

posted by Miles 8:07 AM

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{Friday, April 20, 2007}

 
A compendium of minor league baseball stats - mostly for my own use, but maybe it will be of use to someone else, too.

Minor League Statistical Leaders

Pitching Leaders:

Batting Leaders:

Also, if anyone out there knows how to automate grabbing this kind of data, pipe up; I'd love to combine all the data and see the leaders amongst all minor leaguers, regardless of level.

posted by Miles 11:23 AM

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{Friday, April 06, 2007}

 
My brother came up with a list of "middle names" for all of the presidential candidates, that's pretty entertaining. Highlights include:

Rudy "Dear Evangelicals, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, You Don't See The Drag Video Online, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, Nor The Bit About Living With A Couple Gay Guys, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, Also I'm Not Corrupt, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11" Giuliani.

Tom "I Hate Mexicans" Tancredo.

Duncan "I Hate Mexicans More Than Tancredo" Hunter.

<digression>

I've gotta go search youtube for "Giuliani in drag" . . . hold on.

Whoa:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IrE6FMpai8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sCKPC8bTsA&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lb2y1IM17sM&NR=1

I did not know that about Mr. Giuliani. Pretty cool. You know, George Bush is loosening up a lot in his second term . . . I wonder if someone could talk him into dressing up as a woman at some point.

</digression>

Anyway, the "middle name" that popped to mind for me was:

Mitt "Sweet Jesus, Mormons know how to raise money" Romney



Like, aren't you the slight bit curious what percentage of his money has come from Mormon folks, even if unsolicited? Is this bigoted of me to even suggest?

Googling it, the NY Times beat me to it by two days:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/03/us/politics/03money.html?_r=1&ref=politics

And then there's this article apparently from the Boston Globe, though I found it on what seems to be a mormon-friendly, Salt Lake City newspaper's site; it goes into Romney's strategy & planning concerning fundraising amongst & through Mormons:

http://webserver.desnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,650200100,00.html

It's technically illegal for a church itself to "advocate on behalf" of a specific candidate, so they kind of tip-toe around it . . . I wonder if this will become the subject of smear attacks (re: "illegal" fundraising tactics) at some later point in the campaign.

Actually, even if he doesn't win the nomination, he might be a lock as the vice-presidential candidate, because Mormons would still contribute in droves. What the heck would happen if there were a Giuliani-Romney ticket? Could the Republicans win Massachusetts and New York? Could they lose the South to the Democrats over Giuliani being a transvestite and Romney being a Mormon (which seems to be least palatable to evangelicals)?

Politics can definitely make for good entertainment, at times. Maybe Harrison Ford will run.


posted by Miles 11:50 AM

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{Wednesday, April 04, 2007}

 
After watching the NCAA Championship game with Francis, the other night, I read Bill Simmons' take on the game, and felt compelled to respond. He actually answers a lot of reader queries in mailbag columns, so maybe I'll even get a response. :-p

Here's what I wrote him:

Bill, in your April 3 column you noted that Florida had 5 players projected as top-10 (Noah, Brewer, Horford) or second-round (Green, Richard) picks. I know he's one dimensional, but Lee Humphrey absolutely shoots the lights out and clearly already has NBA 3-range, so why isn't he considered potential NBA material, as a Steve Kerr type specialist? While watching that game didn't you find yourself thinking, every time Humphrey drilled a 3, "Oh, man, that was a dagger!" In the first half, Ohio St. went on a 7-1 run to close within 2 with about 5 minutes left in the first half, and then Humphrey hit a stopper three; Ohio St. never closed the lead to less than 5 the rest of the game. With 9 minutes left in the game, Ohio St. went on a 5-0 run to bring a 14-point deficit back under double-digits; bang, Humphrey stops the momentum with a dagger 3. Anyway, maybe it's reading too much from a few clutch performances (6-12, 4-8, 4-8 and 4-7 on threes in the '06 & '07 final four games), but . . . damn, the kid is just Money. If I were an NBA coach I'd sure want him on my bench, ready to come into the game when my team's down by 3 with 4 ticks on the clock, and in that role he'd be a heck of a lot more useful than most of the DNP regulars cluttering NBA rosters.

Also, on a far more important note, the funding finally came through to make my postdoc at RPI official. Woo-hoo!


Switching back to a far less important note, allow me to introduce the 2007 model of the Ragin' Rhinos: (my keeper-league fantasy baseball squad)

Active:

C: Chris Ianetta (COL)
1B: Albert Pujols (STL)
2B: Chase Utley (PHI)
SS: Miguel Tejada (BAL)
3B: Miguel Cabrera (FLA)
OF: Jason Bay (PIT)
OF: Chris Young (ARI)
OF: Scott Podsednik (CHW)
DH: Jim Thome (CHW)
SP: Johan Santana (MIN)
SP: Ben Sheets (MIL)
SP: Greg Maddux (SD)
SP: Doug Davis (ARI)
SP: Adam Eaton (PHI)
SP: Edgar Gonzalez (ARI)
RP: Jorge Julio (FLA)

Bench:

OF: Matt Kemp (LAD)
OF: Josh Hamilton (CIN)
RP: Jonathan Sanchez (SF)
RP: Octavio Dotel (KC)
SP: Roger Clemens (Unsigned)

On the Disabled List:

OF: Carlos Quentin (ARI)
SP: Freddy Garcia (PHI)
SP: Bartolo Colon (CLE)
SP: Pedro Martinez (NYM)
SP: Francisco Liriano (MIN)

In the Minors:

OF: Adam Lind (TOR)
SP: Mike Pelfrey (NYM)
SP: Tim Lincecum (SF)
SP: Micah Owings (ARI)
SP: Scott Elbert (LAD)

Huh . . . only in writing this down did I realize how tilted my team is towards the NL: 22 of 30 players. Anyways, that's the team. With Clemens, Colon, & Martinez stashed away until later, and loads of young new talent with high upside (Ianetta, Young, Quentin, Hamilton, Kemp, Pelfrey, Lincecum) it's a team that I clearly built with the playoffs in mind. I don't expect my team to lead the ZHL (Zen Holist League . . . okay, keep it clean, kids) in regular season total points, as it has the last three years, but I think I should be really strong come September. If everyone's back in action, I'll be able to run out a pitching rotation of Santana, Sheets, Clemens, Martinez, Garcia, Colon, & Maddux, to go with my all-world Pujols-Utley-Tejada-Cabrera infield. Not bad.

Oh, and my crop of rookie "flyers" includes four (Hamilton (2 votes), Lincecum (1), C. Young (5), & Pelfrey(2)) who were picked by 10 different members of ESPN's panel of 17 experts to win the NL rookie-of-the-year.

posted by Miles 10:24 AM

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