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!