Issue 19 – Highs and Lows

The weather has finally grown pleasant enough that light jackets and coats can be left in the closet and sweaters need be worn only inside when the air conditioning is too high. The grass is lush, birds are out singing, and school is winding down. Nature seems to be a waxing toward a luxurious summer. And yet the world is filled with such brimming pockets of turmoil that its hard to feel any peace.

This general blending of highs with lows is reflected in this weeks offering in Blog Wyrm.

Common Cents examines some of the more unsettling notes from the economy of late. While not the most cheerful reading, the points raised here are important and ignoring the problems in both the structure of the economy and in our thinking about it is not going to make them go away.

The mood gets considerable lighter in Under the Hood. The intriguing and sometimes frustrating conveyor belt problem is the gateway to a more rigorous understanding of systems with variable mass and how momentum and energy conservation can be applied in more complex situations.

An exciting idea about the logic, computation and nature fills this week’s Aristotle to Digital. Is the Universe a Universal Turing Machine and, if so, what are the implications.

Finally, we close out this week with a fun look at Wanda and Pietro Maximoff. Better known as the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, movie audiences around the world have been tantalized by these new Avengers. About Comics fills in their fictional history straight from the comic books from which they sprang.

Enjoy!