I like living in a place with 4 seasons. The variety of temperatures and weather conditions, the choices in clothing and style, the distinct changes in length of day and cultural outlook – all these things add a flavor to life. Unfortunately, this winter is not cooperating. Or said better, it hasn’t discovered itself and its identity. Will it or won’t it get cold and stay there or get mild and stay there. There doesn’t seem to be much hope in that. Rather the weather has been much like a yo-yo, first up, then down, and then back up again. Pick a motif and go with it I say. Oh well, at least the weather has not seen fit to visit a disaster on my home.
And despite these minor annoyances, we at Blog Wyrm are back for new issues in a new year.
Its a common experience to find a business article in which a brick and mortar retailer is reported to be having problems because of online competition. The way many of these articles read, its only a matter of time for the last of these archaic institutions finally have the good sense to call it quits. Common Cents argues that such a day will never come because brick and mortar establishments have plenty of competitive advantages.
In what way do video game user interfaces give us insight into natural language and the interplay between how ideas are expressed and what those ideas mean? Well if you’ve played a PC-based game that has been ported to a game console, there is a treasure trove of exactly that kind of insight, provided you know how to look at it in the way that Aristotle to Digital does.
Under the Hood continues its look at how vector calculus maps into the language of differential forms. This week’s installment tackles that annoying piece of vector calculus – those pesky identities involving div, grad, and curl and more than one vector field.
Finally, About Comics takes a moment to celebrate the contributions of Jim Shooter to the comics industry. Perhaps no modern figure is as maligned or misunderstood as that man from Pittsburgh is and its about time he got some kudos for the good things he accomplished.
Enjoy!