Monthly Archive: December 2014

Issue 8! It’s hard to believe that in the past 8 weeks, we’ve put out 32 columns on a wide variety of topics and had fun doing it. After this issue, we are going to take a well-deserved two week vacation, with new material resuming on Jan 9th of 2015. But enough about the future, let’s discuss this week’s offering.

About Comics finishes the two part discussion on how to put technology to work for a comic collection with a detailed presentation of a Microsoft Access database that organizes and cross references over 8000 individual publications. Musings on epistemology and murder mysteries are the subject in this week’s Aristotle to Digital where philosophical ideas from Aristotle and Kant meet the modern detective stories of Poe, Christi, Stout, and Eco. Common Cents presents an unflinching view of the state of today’s labor market, which may just be the grinch that will steal Christmases to come. Rounding out the field in Under the Hood is the most detailed and careful discussion of the Schrodinger and Heisenberg pictures in quantum mechanics of which we are aware.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and may God Bless! See ya in back here on Jan 9th. Enjoy!

Well to quote Andy Williams, it’s the most wonderful time of the year.  And as the Christmas quickly approaches and the hectic and frantic pace seems to increase, we at Blog Wyrm are continuing to put out our columns for your enjoyment.  In this week’s blogzine, we have an even mix of thought-provoking items and how-to articles.

Ever wonder how you might put modern technology to use to organize your comic collection? Well look no further than the current entry in About Comics where a simple approach to using a modern relational database is covered in an easy-to-understand fashion. A new type of Turing test is proposed in Aristotle to Digital and the reader is left to consider if the law is actually intelligent. Common Cents discusses a current spat between the government and the taxi drivers in New York City and how it serves as a microcosm for examining the role of government regulation. And to close things out, Under the Hood takes a small detour to talk about Greens functions in their own right as clever ways of solving inhomogeneous differential equations.

Enjoy!

Its hard for the Blog Wyrm staff to believe but the year is coming to an end as we slide into December.  It is amusing to us, and perhaps to you, to note that the etymology of the name ‘December’ has its root in ‘decem’ which is Latin for ten.  The month of December was originally the tenth month of the Roman year until July and August were popped into the calendar to commemorate Julius and Augustus Caesar.  We guess that old saying ‘it is good to be the king’ has some truth to it after all.

Anyway lets talk about this weeks blogzine.  Issue 6 offers a host of interesting articles.  About Comics asks the question as to whether anyone at Marvel is listening or reading their own stories about the Mad Titan Thanos.  We at Blog Wyrm doubt it and would like to make a general appeal that Starlin and only Starlin be allowed to write about ‘The Big T’.  The notions of scientific provability and falsification are explored in Aristotle to Digital, where black swans and misplaced faith play a central role.  The Prisoner’s Dilemma makes the first of what will be many appearances in Common Cents.  Interesting in its own right, its application to social dilemmas is even more fascinating. Finally, the idea of what makes a Greens function out of a quantum propagator is presented in Under the Hood.  It is amazing what a difference a Heaviside step function can make.

Enjoy!