PTSD

Hooray!

I can blog about work and television, because tonight Numb3rs* gave a little mini-lecture on Social Network Analysis. Two, actually. One as an introduction, and one as an application of the theory. Cool stuff, and there was also some fun discussion that turned into an example of policy resistance and the law of unintended consequences.

Not that anyone called it that in the episode. "A person doesn't become violent because you talk to them..." Well, not intentionally.

Clearly, the television FBI people haven't had a lot of contact with systems theorists. That's too bad, because Charlie would be cute trying to build a system dynamics model of, well, anything. David Krumholtz could give the chickens, eggs, and roads lecture,** and I'd still watch.

But back to the fun theory bits. It wasn't a bad description of SNT, for a thirty-second blurb. It was certainly more organized and to the point than my recent foray into guest lecturing (more on that later, and on why I must never again be allowed free rein in a classroom with six chalkboards and a projector.)

Agent Colby Granger is somehow able to be both uber-buff and a nerd. Why don't I know anyone like that? Am I hanging out with the wrong crowds? The actor has an environmental engineering degree from MIT, so clearly such Supermen exist. Maybe they all live in California.

Where was I? Oh, right.

Most "Hey, I could show this episode in a class" moment:*** seeing Charlie Eppes try to explain the use of SNA to the old codger cranky former FBI agent who came back to help with the case. Followed closely by a thing with a rubik's cube that didn't sound much like standard network analysis, but was still nifty as all get out. It was all sort of like watching WeberMan in action.

Only David Krumholtz has better hair.

(Let's be honest, he's got better hair than almost anyone I've ever seen. I've certainly never met a real academic with that kind of fantastic lockage. With the publishing and teaching requirements most professors have, I'm impressed that most many a few of them manage to match their socks, let alone get a haircut.)

Yeah, I think that's all the theory you're going to get for a Friday night. I'm supposed to be at a party at dc9, after all. And I would be, but every time I turn my head in my new glasses, I feel dizzy. And I've still got that unfortunate tendency to fall down at random moments. I'm a bit of a chaotic oscillation at the moment.

A final point:**** one of the characters went to find Charlie after she looked on the internet and found out that sometimes he worked with his brother. Wonder which site she went to?)

* What? You say you've never heard of Numb3rs? Well, read this and then go buy yourself a tv.

** It's a simple way to explain reinforcing and balancing feedback loops. One of my favorite parts of Business Dynamics, actually.

*** I could make this a whole class, because there's an episode from the first season about influenza, and one from earlier this season about complexity theory. Not that I've been looking for connections or anything.

**** Hey, we could turn this into a regular series, so that we can talk about pop culture and still sound like geeks by linking every reference to something that we also sit at a conference and argue about. Or not.

posted by Elizabeth @ 10:18 PM