Author Archive: BW_admin

The following incident happened some years ago. Driving home one night, I had the misfortune of pulling out of the parking lot in front of my workplace and getting between two cars that were, unbeknownst to me, ‘engaged’ with each other. Several seconds later, we were all stacked, one after the other, waiting for the traffic light to change. Suddenly, the driver in the lead car flings open her door, jumps out onto the street, and heads towards my car. Disturbed and unsettled, I just sat there wondering what to do, when she passed by me and started screaming at the driver in the car behind. The light turned green, and still the anger pored out of her. Finally, the woman got back into her car and drove off, leaving me to wait yet another cycle. That was my first, personal experience with road rage, and it’s stuck with me all that time.

Fast forward more than 15 years and I’m sad to say that I find that same irrational, fly-off-the-handle behavior now all too common on the cyber-by-ways and information superhighways of the internet and on the punditry on television and radio. Virtually every scrap of programming, be sports, or finance, or music or whatever, is peppered with snide comments, arm-chair psychoanalysis and a variety of other uncharitable behaviors. In short, as a society we seem to have become prone to what I’ll call net rage.

It is always reasonable to criticize someone’s behavior or call into question his assumptions, methods, and conclusions. In contrast, it is almost always unreasonable to call into question his motives or to assume a frame of mind. It should be permissible (although often rude) to call someone else’s idea stupid – all of us have many stupid ideas each and every day. But we should all exercise self-control before deciding to call someone else stupid. We should feel comfortable saying that someone’s notion is bad for society without resorting to the logical fallacy that the holder of the notion is bad for society. Working through the ideas we all express critically and even harshly is an important component of day-to-day life. After all, we should all be seeking the truth. Casting doubt on the goodness of the people who utter or hold ideas we don’t like is simply wrong and uncharitable. Simply put, we need to say no to net rage and yes to giving each other the benefit of the doubt.

Now onto the posts.

How stable is the chaos game? Are the patterns it so beautifully creates sensitive to changes in the algorithm? What happens if the parameters are altered or mistyped? Can nature profitably play the game in the messy, organic way she does everything? Aristotle To Digital answers these questions by employing some old-fashioned experimentation. The results may confirm your suspicions or surprise you but, in either case, they are sure to fascinate.

Respecting and learning from the past is, of course, the way to better life. As Georges Santayana said, “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” However, equally bad is clinging to the past when one should be looking and building a future. As a another great man said, “Let the dead bury the dead.” In the economic sphere of life, nowhere is this last sentiment truer than when a building is designated a historic landmark. Common Cents shows how this pernicious labeling of relics of the past stifles economic growth for the future and leads to a dead city.

Under The Hood draws to a close the general discussion of continuum mechanics and elastic motion. In this post, many of the finer points pertaining to elasticity are explored and carefully explained. This discussion serves as a capstone for the analysis of deformations and waves in elastic materials and as the natural point to begin moving towards fluid dynamics.

Enjoy!

To quote Andy Williams, it is the most wonderful time of the year. The main reason for this is that the Blog Wyrm staff has been enjoying celebrating Christmas with our family and focusing on domestic pleasures. As a result, we’ve decided to take a month off and return at the end of January with new content. See you then and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

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!

This week marks a landmark in Blog Wyrm’s history. Not only have we gotten a new column but we’ve actually gotten four new ones written by three new contributors. It’s exciting to see all of the hard work and great writing coming being contributed. So without further ado, let’s talk a little about what is in this week’s issue.

In its premiere installment, Green Screen makes a shocking statement about Quentin Tarantino: namely, that his films are overrated. Yes you heard correctly, they are overrated.

Ever try playing a fighting game (you know Street Fighter, Injustice, Marvel v. Capcom etc.) but still can’t get past button mashing? Then here comes a new column devoted to taking you to the next level. This week’s Pretzel Motion starts with the basics cause when you have mastered the fundamentals you are halfway to being a master.

Ballgame takes a look at what one man did for a university and what he means to the community as a result.

Tidbits opens sets the stage with Andy Grammer’s secretly-terrible “Honey I’m Good.”

About Comics dusts off an old format for comics books and shows how older stories were reprinted in the age before comics became mainstream.

This week’s Under the Hood begins an in depth look at the applications of Lie series to solving differential equations. Could it be that there is a ‘linear-looking’ method that solved nonlinear problems?

Common Cents offers a public service announcement for all those journalists who are confused about the debate on trade currently wending its way through the halls of government and shows that if you just apply yourself, you can understand the various Ts that are bandied about.

Aristotle to Digital brings home the bacon with not one but two English philosophers who made significant contributions to our modern mode of scientific thought. How many degrees of separation are they from Kevin? Hmmm…..

Enjoy

I suppose that if Blog Wyrm were a young woman, we would be thinking about holding a party and would be shopping for cars. If it were an NCAA men’s basketball team, we would be swelling with college pride, looking forward to a doubling of admission applications and burning cars, sofas, and mattresses in the street. Well Blog Wyrm is none of these things but 16 issues is still an awesome achievement and a reason to celebrate – although we won’t be burning anything.

When launched, Image Comics was a prepubescent’s dream: big muscles, big breasts, big guns, big action and no story. Things have change in the past twenty years as discussed in this week’s About Comics.

What do language, metaphor and Star Trek have in common? Come read Aristotle to Digital and find out.

The calculus of variations is a rich body ot techniques that has untied many disparate fields of study. Sadly the notation is often fractured by sloppy presentations. Under the Hood tries to set things right.

Contrary to popular belief, capitalists are not limited to business owners, bankers, and Wall Street wolves. Common Cents talks about what capital is and how there is a little bit of capitalist in each and everyone of us.

Enjoy!

The Blog Wyrm staff have always been fond of the unusual and quirky.  This should come as no surprise considering our tongue-in-cheek nature and our eclectic subject matter. So in celebration of our quirkiness and the fact that our fourteenth issue is coming out on Friday the 13th, we thought we would focus on the word ‘Fortnight’. Fortnight comes from old English where it literally means fourteen nights. A popular unit of speed, the furlong per fortnight, is a blazingly fast, if you are snail. At that speed, it would take only a short 21 minutes to cross, from left to right, a typical 8.5×11 sheet of paper. Quirky enough for you or perhaps too quirky? In any event, let’s get on to the columns.

The January jobs report is in. The economy has been producing new jobs at a good rate. So why did the unemployment rate go up and what should the Fed do about it? Common Cents has some answers.

About Comics finishes the backstory of our favorite Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. with a look at Skye’s very huggable and lovable father – Calvin Zabo – and looks ahead to what the future may hold for her in the Marvel cinematic universe.

Aristotle to Digital takes a random walk through thoughts on the use of uncertainty, statistics and probability in everyday life.

Ever been on a merry-go-round and things look different because you were going around in a circle? Well Under the Hood explains how to describe what you see and we promise it won’t make you sick.

Enjoy!

Welcome to our second issue.  The posts this week are a bit longer.  Perhaps too long as it was a real effort getting them all out the door.  Nonetheless we did it.  This week we have an article on the three best ways to screw up a comic story in About Comics, We explore some philosophical implications of object orient programming in Aristotle to Digital.  Common Cents features a discussion of a provocative question concerning wealth. Finally, Under the Hood discusses applications of the Helmholtz theorem to the physical understanding of the Maxwell’s equations.  Quite the eclectic mix! Let no one say we don’t deliver on our tagline.

Happy Halloween and welcome Autumn!  While it is true that each season ushers in changes and the promise of things to come, Autumn has a particular flavor all of its own.  Lots of interesting and exciting things happen in the fall months.  Kids begin to really buckle down in school. The leaves change color and the weather has a mind of its own.  Lazy summer months fade into memory as bustling activities and preparations for the coming Winter take place.

It seems appropriate that this time of change ushers in a bold experiment on our part – our blogzine.  What is a blogzine? To us it is more than a blog or a set of blogs.  It is a collection of columns, launched on a weekly basis every Friday, with a common look and feel that is designed to make you feel like you are reading a magazine.  But unlike the ‘professional’ media outlets our blogzine covers items near and dear to us, which are off the beaten track and hopefully interesting to you.  We look forward to reading your comments and your feedback.