Monthly Archive: April 2016

This issue marks a change in Blog Wyrm. As a two-person staff, putting out new content every week has been fun and challenging. We are really proud of what we’ve accomplished, but four long columns a week in addition to this short summary haven’t left a lot of time for other pursuits. So, for the foreseeable future, Blog Wyrm will be coming out once per month – on the last Friday of each month. Thus the philosophic observer is free to say that this issue is either the last of our weekly series or the first of our monthly. Regardless of which interpretation is preferred, the same core columns will still be there (as well as the occasional guest slots) but at a more relaxed pace for putting content together. The additional time will be devoted to some new projects that may eventually find their way here.

Can there really be too much of a good thing? You bet! And economists know just how to describe when enough becomes too much in dry and boring terms that really drive home why their trade is often called the dismal science. This week’s Common Cents shows just how these dour social scientists do it and why.

The 80’s are often credited as a magical time. Widespread peace and prosperity, great clothes and hairstyles, and a sea change in entertainment and music. Comics were no different. There were a host of new ideas for just what makes a superhero. Join About Comics as it takes a look at one of the most iconic and dysfunctional of these – The Badger.

Under the Hood continues to look at plasma wave phenomena. Simple waves in cold plasmas is the starting point. Don’t know what any of that means? Then read on and find out.

Aristotle to Digital finishes its three-part examination of propositional calculus by asking, can propositional calculus save your life? The answer is a resounding yes, especially if you are stuck in a dungeon trying to hunt a Wumpus.

Enjoy!

An interesting discussion circulated the Blog Wyrm offices this week that is worth sharing. It was about so-called one hit wonders. It started with an overheard, snide remark about how pathetic one hit wonders were. The Blog Wyrm staff reflected on this rudeness and crafted this response. We should be so lucky as to have ever written a single hit song. And to any who deride one hit wonders we at Blog Wyrm respectfully ask just what remarkable thing you have done. That isn’t to say that we all shouldn’t shake our heads at the arrogant attitudes that sometimes spring from having a hit song – simply that we should not diminish the accomplishment just because the accomplisher is acting like an ass.

As an interesting side note, one of us remarked on an analysis once heard on the radio. The commentator was actually pointing out that it is likely far worse to be a two hit wonder than either a one hit wonder or an established artist with many hits. In the latter case (say the Rolling Stones), the entire catalog speaks to the lasting accomplishment of a group of artists who consistently could deliver. In the former case, the notoriety of the one hit wonder (say Rick Astley) has some lasting power (e.g. Rickrolling). The two hit wonder benefits neither from the novelty nor the consistency.

But you, dear reader, can certainly benefit from this week’s articles.

Ralph Waldo Emerson is credited with saying that “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of a little mind.” The operative word in that quote is ‘foolish’ and the operative wisdom is determining when doggedness transitions to foolishness. Unfortunately, it has often been the case in comics to dismiss the desire for consistency as a fanboy’s foolishness. About Comics disagrees.

Most of us dread using public restrooms. They are usually less than pristine in their cleanliness. But what is the best method for promoting cleanliness and what connection does this question have with economics? Read the current installment Common Cents to see how uncertainty in the market place and the Paper Towel Wars go hand-in-hand.

Plasma is often called the fourth state of matter. This curious situation of side-by-side coexisting charged fluids leads to strange collective behavior not seen in the more terrestrial examples of solid, liquid, and gas. This week, Under the Hood begins a look at wave phenomena in plasmas by looking at the formalism bases on Maxwell’s equations for the fields and the Lorentz force law for the particles.

Aristotle to Digital continues its three part examination of propositional calculus. This week’s focus is on formal proofs and how much easier it is to logically prove things when words aren’t in the way.

Enjoy!

Okay… this will be two weeks in a row where the Blog Wyrm staff has something to say about sports in the United States. Now don’t misunderstand, we actually aren’t huge sports fans but there is no doubt that professional athletic competition is a big component of American life. There is also no doubt that the two busiest times of the sporting year are early fall and middle spring, so there is a lot that can be said. But this week’s comment is more a matter of marketing and timing than one of actual sport. We find it hard to fathom the idea of how hockey, which, on the surface, is a ‘winter sport’, can persist well into the spring and can even overlap nearly into the summer. It just seems strange to be seeing the Stanley Cup finals in June. We watch from time-to-time each year but we still find it strange. Oh well!

What we trust is not strange is the fine crop of articles for this week.

Sound argumentation and clear reasoning is based on a disciplined and careful application of definitions and rules – the use of a logical system. This week, Aristotle to Digital begins a three part examination of one such logical system known as the propositional calculus. Despite its relative simplicity, this system possesses some powerful applications to artificial intelligence.

About Comics returns to the craftsmanship theme this week with an annotated summary of the recent ‘how-to’ publication by Mitch Gerads. Gerads is the artist on The Sheriff of Babylon and his step-by-step creation process has some interesting nuggets.

Elon Musk is a heck of a salesman and there is no doubt that the Tesla is an example of the wonders of modern engineering, but can electric cars really save the environment. Common Cents‘s economic analysis of electric cars and solar power suggests otherwise.

From day-to-day common applications to statistics to the most abstruse theories of spacetime and quantum mechanics, the Gaussian family of integrals seem to be everywhere. Part of their charm is their broad applicability, part of it is that they are tractable. This week’ Under the Hood shows just how tractable and easy they are to work with.

Enjoy!

It’s a bit hard for those of us at Blog Wyrm to believe, but baseball’s opening day has come. Once again, the Boys of Summer are taking the field, tempting us with a lazy day spent in the park, watching America’s past time. Memories of Harry Carey and ‘Take Me Out to the Ballgame’ have come flooding back. The only fly in this all-American ointment is the prospect of snow in various baseball-playing regions. Perhaps we should wait a bit longer before calling them the Boys of Summer.

But you, dear reader, need not wait any longer for this week’s columns.

Can 11 lines of code really bring down computing on a global scale? Surprisingly the answer is yes. Even more surprising is the notion that it isn’t at all clear who really owned those 11 lines and who should. Come read about digital economics in the real world in this week’s Common Cents.

Death Face Ginny to some, daughter of Death to others, Ginny can be quite deadly. About Comics reviews the good and the bad of the ongoing Image series Pretty Deadly.

Expressing the angular velocity in the principal axis frame is one of the central elements of analyzing the motion of a rigid body. However the computation is complex and the usual presentations are confusing. Under the Hood offers a straightforward way that is conceptually clean and understandable.

Sometimes quite a lot can be packed into a small space. This week’s column in Aristotle to Digital, brief though it is, offers some profound thoughts on the question of knowing and uncertainty.

Enjoy!

Here at Blog Wyrm we have an editorial policy of gentleness. We don’t shy away from a well supported opinion but we try not to criticize unnecessarily. We don’t avoid controversy but we don’t try to titillate or provoke. We believe that it is better to propose than to oppose. Nonetheless, there are times when deviation from the rule is needed. And this is one such time.

Put bluntly, we hate April Fools pranks. The whole concept annoys us and we don’t get it. Where in the social contract did we agree that for one day, each year, people have the license to lie, trick, and make trouble for us for no reason other than the perverse joy they receive from being able to say ‘Ah! I really got you’. Pathetic.

Thankfully, our columns this week are neither pranks nor pathetic but rather pithy and priceless.

Each of us uses the basic notions of time and space each and every day. Whether just being able to reach out to grab something we want or using a GPS-navigation system to avoid traffic at rush hour, we employ frames of reference so routinely that we probably don’t even think about them – but we should. As this week’s Aristotle to Digital shows, precise definitions for these basic concepts are hard to pin down but the effort is worth it. In trying to do so, we can learn a lot about frames of reference and how we can know and explain our individual points-of-view.

Adult coloring books are all the rage. About Comics presents a fun idea making your own. All you need is a smart phone (or digital camera or a scanner), some photo-editing software, and some of those DC Showcase or Marvel Essentials black-and-white reprint volumes.

Anytime you hear the latest news from the Large Hadron Collider, somewhere in the article, the energy of the accelerated particles is listed, in units of thousands, millions, billions, and so of electron volts. But just what does this mean and how fast are these little chunks of matter actually moving? Under the Hood explains it all in loving detail.

Central to any analysis of economics is the good – the basic unit of production, consumption, and transaction. Some people want to but them while others want to sell them. But all goods are not created equally. Common Cents shows that much like that famous westerns, good divide up into the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Enjoy!