Monthly Archive: October 2015

Happy Halloween. To celebrate the nation’s second largest holiday, Blog Wyrm brings you a special issue this week. It is short and sweet, just like Halloween candy – the Blog Wyrm staff is off to have some fun.

There is a well-known debate over how much language effects thought and thought effects language. This week Aristotle to Digital ponders the possibility how we wurf the web reflects how we think and vice versa.

About Comics relates a personal perspective on the rise of comics culture as reflected by the new companion event – Halloween ComicFest.

Can trade create wealth? Common Cents believes so and uses Halloween candy to make the argument.

Finally, Under the Hood presents the final form of the equations used by the controls engineer.

Enjoy!

The reason for last week’s missed deadline can finally be revealed – the Blog Wyrm staff has just spent the last week across the pond in the German city of Munich. As might be expected, some things are really nice and other make us long for home. The people are generally polite and well ordered but we were really surprised by the number of smokers. All walks of life and all demographics are seen to light up on a fairly regular basis. In this respect, it was like stepping back in time to the 1960s. In other respects, they do several things much better. Especially convenient is the way that credit card purchases are done, especially in restaurants, where the waiters bring those small devices to the table to settle the check.

Munich itself is a lovely and clean city. It has a strange but delightful mix of old-world buildings and culture grafted with the globalized reach of modern business. It is not uncommon to see American exports, like McDonald’s and Pizza Hut built into buildings that date back hundreds of years and which once formed the castles or walls for the core portion of the city.

But enough of Munich. Returning closer to home, we have a nice set of columns this week.

At the top of the list, Green Screen gives a thoughtful review of the new movie Crimson Peak. This Gothic piece by Guillermo del Toro seems to have done a lot of things the right way and Green Screen is only too happy to talk about it.

Common Cents examines the recent move by Gravity Payments’ CEO Dan Price to set a minimum salary for all his employees. Perhaps this is the long-hoped-for control experiment that will help settle the controversy over the minimum wage.

What does the new comic Negative Space have in common with the old 1988 cult classic They Live? About Comics thinks a great deal. Read to find out why.

Is it ever wrong to killer a killer? Does it matter how you do it or why? Aristotle to Digital wrestles with these questions as it examines the actions of the robust and rotund fictional detective Nero Wolfe in the case of The Red Box.

Finally, Under the Hood looks at the most favorite approximation of the controls engineer – linearization. After all, when the only tool you have is a Laplace Transform every system tends to look linear.

Enjoy!

Well… no new posts this week (other than this one). Life sometimes gets in the way and this week is one of those. No one thing is traceable as the culprit – more like the death of a thousand cuts. But… all this hectic activity is behind us and the Blog Wyrm staff will be publishing a new issue next week.

Well the chill is finally in back in the air and the leaves are starting their annual metamorphosis from verdant green to those amazing shades of yellow, gold, orange, rust, crimson, red, and brown. The Blog Wyrm staff had an opportunity to do some driving this week and what we saw was a spectacular demonstration of the subtle beauty of nature. Thousands of trees and millions of leaves pay silent, splendid homage to the wonder that is the natural world. We were left with a profound respect to the gentle but irrepressible way that life moves around us. Truly awe-inspiring.

Speaking of awe-inspiring, we would like to believe that our weekly columns are awe-inspiring but we really are just hoping that they are thought provoking and enjoyable.

Common Cents takes a long look at a doom-laden prophesy but one of the better-known economists of modern times, Lawrence Summers, and finds that he may be right about how to fix the global economy but for all the wrong reasons.

Aristotle to Digital introduces a new ongoing theme in its scope on philosophy, computing, and logic. The subject is the philosophically tricky concept of double effect. The lens through which it is examined, the detective story.

Finally, About Comics examines the curious re-launch of two of comics most famous magicians: DC’s John Constantine and Marvel’s Doctor Strange. Oddly enough, the advertising copy of both books seems to have been written by the same agency with both of them emphasizing that ‘magic has a cost’. Read and find out why?

Enjoy!

When it rains it pours. So goes the old saying and it just may have a point. After a relative dry summer, complete with desiccated, brown grass, and trees that are dropping prematurely yellow leaves well ahead of schedule, the rain is back and with a bit of a vengeance. Tropical Storm Joaquin morphed into category 4 hurricane fairly quickly and its path is still a bit uncertain as we head into the weekend. We at Blog Wyrm hope and pray for the safety and comfort of all in its path (even though we are grateful for the much needed rain).

Speaking of rain, its a good thing that there is Federally subsidized flood insurance for people who live in flood zones. Or is it? Common Cents looks at the moral hazard that such insurance can cause when the subsidy encourages people to build in places where common sense suggests you shouldn’t.

Aristotle to Digital examines the question of how time is represented. Originally defined in terms of motion, the representation of time has become, over the years, more and more abstract. Is there a point where we should abandon our notions of continuous time?

It’s off to the Baltimore Comic Con as About Comics gives the Blog Wyrm staff’s impressions from one of the bigger gatherings in the world of comic books – attracting creators, fans, and cosplayers from all over the East coast to Charm City.

Tidbits is back this week, admittedly a little worse for wear. It turns out that maybe that new job wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

Finally, Under the Hood continues on, perhaps at a snail’s pace, looking into the Laplace Transform. This week, the Laplace Transform is applied to a simple but real system of equations – the ever popular simple harmonic oscillator.

Enjoy.