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Well summer is winding down. Yes, we said it. Summer is coming to a close. Yes, yes, yes, we at Blogwyrm are quite aware that the end of summer coincides with the autumnal equinox in late September. But whenever you have to contemplate heading back to school, summer is starting to be over. Whenever pre-season football is starting up and reminders to renew your fantasy league are being sent, summer is winding down. Whenever new fall fashions in both clothes and TV schedules are being tossed at you left and right in advertising, summer is calling it quits.

Despite that somber note, Blog Wyrm will continue to offer fun columns to fill out what remains of this all-too-short season.

About Comics takes a look at the story construction process of Alan Moore. Known for his work on Swamp Thing, the Watchmen, and the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Moore is certainly creative. How does he frame his stories? Read and find out.

The most well known American bike racer is now just another athlete to use drugs. So how did we get here? We take a look back to the rise and fall of one of America’s favorite athletes in this issue of Ballgame>/a>.

Yes, Scott Lang, it is too late to change the name, because Ant-Man currently has a well-deserved place in the public eye. This week’s Greenscreen takes a brief look at what makes Ant-Man and Marvel so successful.

If you’re trying to close the distance in a match in a fighting game, odds are you’ll have to deal with projectiles whose sole purpose are to keep you away. If it’s the other way around, you’ll have to learn how to use projectiles of your own to keep them away as best as you can. This week’s Pretzel Motion examines both perspectives and gives a brief primer on different varieties of projectiles.

Enjoy.

Well the Blog Wyrm staff is on its annual visit to Otakon. For those who don’t know, Otakon is one of the largest anime conventions in the United States. As a gathering of people with similar interests, Otakon is quite impressive. Its sheer size and pageantry is amazing. But what strikes us at Blog Wyrm is the diversity in people. Different races, nationalities, economic status, genders, and types of people participate by the thousands. Generally, everyone gets along quite politely and respectfully and the biggest ‘conflicts’ occur over matters of taste and aesthetic.

This week, Blog Wyrm continues with its contribution to respectful sharing of views and opinions.

Part four of the ongoing About Comics series examines The Wicked + The Divine. This modern comic stand somewhat in contrast to the earlier approaches examined in that there is a greater emphasis placed on the style of the page rather than the substance of the story.

Love the outdoors? Out looking for a new hobby? Try your hand at geocaching. Don’t know what that is? Take a look at this week’s Ballgame and found out about this growing hobby.

Shaken, not stirred. James Bond defined a film genre back in the day, but that day has long since passed. Or has it? Mosey on over to Greenscreen and read about Kingsman, a fresh and exciting take on the gentleman spy. It’s got it all: action, comedy, romance, Samuel L. Jackson, and, of course, martinis.

The post-grad life is hard. Dead-end minimum wage jobs, career applications up to here, and few prospects on the horizon. Tidbits narrates the process (humorously, we hope) with some of Jack’s personal experiences and observations.

Enjoy!

We at Blog Wyrm are deeply saddened by the violent incidents that have happened in South Carolina and in Tennessee. Our thoughts and prayers go out to all the family and friends involved, who are grieving and in pain. Our thoughts are also constantly with those families who are effect by violence but who are not noticed on the public stage. These are the victims of the ‘slow and steady’ pace of violence rather than those involved in the ‘big events’. It saddens us that many residents in the poorer sections of the large cities live with these type of events on a day-to-day basis without even the comfort that the rest of the country is aware of their plight. That’s the bad part. The good part is that we can change this. To paraphrase Shakespeare, the fault lies not in our media outlets but in us. If we consumed the media in a much more reasonable way and demanded substantive coverage rather than shocking fluff, real change might actually be affected.

Anyway, this week Blog Wyrm continues to bring informative and columns without the big media hype.

Part three of the ongoing About Comics series examines how Neil Gaiman built his award-winning Sandman comics. In contrast to the EC-method, Gaiman’s approach is much more writer-centric.

In a fighting game, your attacks take up real space in the game. Often times, people get wrapped up in the longer range attacks without considered whether or not it’s safe to use those moves. This week’s Pretzel Motion is a primer on spacing, the footsies-related concept of where to position yourself on the ground and when to use your best attacks.

Enjoy!

As summer deepens and the temperatures climb, the Blog Wyrm staff begins to long for some lazy days outside, around the pool, goofing off, and wasting time. As a result, we will be switching to a more laid-back schedule until early September. During our summer hiatus, only a few of our columns will be posting weekly (About Comics and Pretzel Motion). Others are taking the summer completely off (Aristotle to Digital and Common Cents) and others will be on a irregular schedule (Ball Game, Green Screen, Tidbits, and Under the Hood).

About Comics takes a long hard look at the creative method of the famous EC publication line. The process they used back in the 1950s centered around the creative output of one man – Al Feldstein. Read all about his method.

Is mandatory drug testing a good idea? Using Bayes Theorem, Aristotle to Digital shows that even in the best of circumstances, the probability of a innocent person coming under an unwarranted cloud of suspicion is pretty high.

What do cooking, rocks, Broadway plays, and Marxism all have in common? They are essential ingredients in Common Cents‘s light-hearted exploration of just how the value of a good or service should be determined.

Fighting game fans are in luck, as Pretzel Motion is posting 2 articles this week! The first provides a video example of the concept of rushdown, as demonstrated by Eddie, the infamous top-tier fighter that has reigned supreme over the Guilty Gear series since the early 2000s. The second article introduces aerial combat and explains why it’s such a huge risk compared to staying on the ground while fighting. If you’ve ever wondered why fighting game veterans tell new players not to jump, this is the article for you.

Under the Hood closes out its analysis of Lie series with a numerical analysis of the convergence of the expansion applied to the pendulum to the exact answer.

Enjoy!

Well it is that time of year again when we celebrate what makes the United States such an amazing country in which to live. Yes the Fourth of July does commemorate the Declaration of Independence – the launching of a fledgling experiment in self-governance in the face of tyranny and of uncertainty. This aspect alone should be worth remembering at this time of year. But there is also another aspect of the Declaration of Independence that is worth noting. The founders and framers added the line ‘… that all men are created equal.’

In a world that rewards a constant keeping-up-with-the-Jones attitude and which asks constantly “what have you done for me lately”, it is easy to think that all of us aren’t created equal. Certainly some of us are stronger than others, or smarter, or richer. Only a moron could fail to see that we aren’t equal – if the definition of equal is limited to the idea that we should be equal in outcomes or accidents of birth. But what the founders meant is that we are all equal in fundamental dignity, in deserving respect, and in being entitled to certain inalienable rights. We at Blog Wyrm are grateful for their wisdom and their courage and for giving all us such a wonderful place to live.

Blog Wyrm could not exist without the structure that these men risked all they had to make a reality. So this patriotic edition of Blog Wyrm is dedicated to them.

There are a lot of books out there purporting to help you make your own comic and to give the secrets that the pros use. Are they really saying the same thing? About Comics begins a comprehensive review of these works.

This week’s Aristotle to Digital discusses the real power of Bayes theorem; the ability to link cause and effect in a meaningful way.

Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are the current cause celeb but does it make good economic sense to shun these man-made organics? Common Cents presents some evidence that suggests that you should think twice before joining the witch hunt.

As you may know, the goal of any fighting game is to defeat your opponent, and the most effective way of doing that is by getting on the offensive. Building on the previously-explored concept of taking advantage of an opening in an opponent’s strategy, Pretzel Motion introduces the concept of rushdown, or limiting the opponent’s options and trying to bait their unsafe reversals while still staying safe yourself.

This week’s Under the Hood applies the Lie series to the problem of the pendulum. An exact solution exists in terms of elliptical integrals. How close does the Lie series come? Read and find out.

Enjoy!

Things seem to be a bit strange today. As the Blog Wyrm staff got together this evening there seemed to be a general consensus that the world was slight off balance. All of us saw strange driving incidents – cars come at us on the wrong side of the yellow line, people trying to passing where no lane existed, trucks tearing mirrors off cars, and so on. Then there is the general weirdness in the news – killers on the loose in New York and running parts of what once were coherent nations in the Middle East. Being a Friday, our immediate knee-jerk reaction centered around Friday the Thirteenth but of course the date is wrong. That is until someone pointed out that the 26th is the 13th times two. So maybe we are seeing a double-strength case of that ‘bad-luck day’.

Well there may be bad luck in the air but there is good luck what we have to offer today.

Censorship and free speech are once again the subject of About Comics. Central to any discussion of these topics must be a commitment to the truth, which the CBLDF seems to be making take a back seat to sensationalism these days.

What do Christmas lights, Occam’s razor, some basic computations, and an Episcopalian minster all have in common? Bayes theorem, that’s what. Read all about it in this week’s Aristotle to Digital.

Are you passionate about a sport? Passionate enough to step out of the limelight and take a swing at coaching? Ballgame shows just how rewarding that experience can be.

What to stimulate the economy then how the wholesale destruction of an US city. Sounds crazy doesn’t it? But it only differs in size not in principle from what a lot of people have suggested. Don’t think it could be true? Try seeing for yourself in Common Cents .

Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan are all monsters of epic size who have found fame (and fortune?) on the big screen. But it took a more modern movie to introduce the Japanese name for these creatures – Kaiju – to the US public. Come join Green Screen as it examines just what makes Pacific Rim such a cool movie.

Round 1, Fight! The match begins. Your hands are trembling as your arcade stick sits on your lap. You think to yourself, “How on God’s green earth am I supposed to beat this guy? He’s been wailing on me for the past 20 games or so, and I have no clue how to find an opening in him!” You’re not alone in this struggle. Most people who play fighting games arrive at this stage and quit out of frustration. Pretzel Motion can’t guarantee that you’ll get good at fighting games anytime soon, but it hopes that this week’s article, which discusses how to put your foes at a disadvantage in a match, can point you in the right direction in terms of how you think about the structure of all fighting games.

The Kepler problem – one of the most famous, important, and thornier of the class of problems with exact solutions. Its nonlinearity makes it much more difficult to solve than textbook linear problems like the harmonic oscillator. This week’s Under the Hood continues its in depth look Lie series by seeing how the great Norwegian’s method fairs against Johannes’s problem.

Enjoy!

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 summer is really and truly here now that the temperatures are pushing the mid-nineties and the humidity is a making each day an adventure in sweating. That said, it is nice to see lots of sunshine for a change and, now that schools are out and graduations are a thing of the past, perhaps there will be some time to unwind during the dogs days that lie before us.

Despite the heat (or maybe because of it – its easier to write inside when its muggy outside), we have a nice set of columns this week.

The final act the initial story arc in Big Trouble in Little China closes out the very fun three-part review in this week’s About Comics.

Owing in part to American Pharoah’s win at Belmont last Saturday and in part to the very weird holding pattern of the stock market these days a small discussion of the finer points of being a bookie are discussed in Common Cents. Find out how to make book and run a hedge fund in one easy lesson.

Plato introduced the concept of the ideal form to Western Philosophy and so changed the way we think about… well, thinking. So what would he say to a discussion of errors and uncertainty in modern science and engineering? Aristotle to Digital explores this hypothetical situation and finds that the answer is rather hard to come by.

Think your intuition is strong enough to explain just how field energy flows in a variety of situations? Under the Hood puts it to the test and ends up Poynting to a way to better understand Maxwell’s equations.

Enjoy.

Well our brief hiatus is now over and the events outside of our control seem to have been resolved favorably. New posts are coming out for our usual columns and new recruitment is underway for several new additions in the weeks to come. Things seem to looking up.

So exactly why do we teach what we do in the classroom and what use is it anyway? On the surface, these types of questions may seem uncouth and uncivilized but its about time someone asked them – and Aristotle to Digital is just the place to start.

What do Arthritis and Moral Hazards have in common? Read this week’s Common Cents to find out how the medical profession passes its risk on to the captive consumers that we all are.

The second act of the Big Trouble in Little China shows up in the ‘Hell of a Thousand Blog Posts’ (Chinese have a lot of hells) and/or in this week’s About Comics.

Under the Hood puts Mister Maxwell and his famous equations under the bare bulb to interrogate just where the charge, energy, and constraints were on the night in question..

Enjoy!

Well… we don’t like to accept it but life does get in the way. This week we at Blog Wyrm were overcome by circumstances out of our control and we simply didn’t have time to bring new columns out.

Count on us delivering new material next week.