Ever year about 23,000 people die of infections from antibiotic resistant bacterial.
Here is a film of bacteria evolving from regular old bacteria into killer superbugs. On a coffee table size Petri dish.
You can get the story at NPR, where you will learn that
“Getting more people to understand how quickly bacteria evolve antibiotic resistance might help people understand why they shouldn’t be prescribed antibiotics. The drug resistance is not some abstract threat. It’s real.”
Not really. But it is World Suicide Prevention Day. And, one way YOU can help prevent suicides is by keeping your gun locked up, separate from the ammo, and keeping the ammo locked up as well.
Why?
Here’s why:
90% people who survive a suicide attempt do not go on to die by suicide.
Many suicide attempts occur with little planning during a short-term crisis.
50% of suicide deaths in the United States are by firearm.
Access to firearms is a risk factor for suicide.
Firearms used in youth suicide usually belong to a parent.
Reducing access to lethal means, like firearms, saves lives.
A gun in the home is 22x more likely to be used in a suicide, homicide, or unintentional shooting than for self defense.
If there is a gun in your home, keep it unloaded and locked up or with a trigger lock. Store the bullets in a different place that is also locked.
If there is a gun in your home, do not let children and teens have a key to the places where guns and bullets are stored.
If a household member becomes depressed or has severe mood swings, store the gun outside the home for the time being while you seek help!
Adapted from this source.
Laborers generally do their jobs, because if they don’t they get fired. But there are entire professions where people are not doing their jobs and the rest of us suffer.
Jacob Wetterling was abducted and murdered two and a half decades ago. The guy who did it was known to the cops then, and he had done things like this before, and those thinks were known about. There are all kinds of reasons they should have busted him even before Jacob was murdered, but they weren’t doing their job. Turns out that when you look across the country and across decades, you can find FAR more examples of cops not doing their jobs, either being outsmarted or just being lazy or who knows what, than you can find example of them doing their jobs. This Labor Day is not for them.
The press. We all love the press, and respect the press, and wouldn’t know what to do with out the press, bla bla bla. But we now understand that the wars in Iraq would have likely been avoided had the press been doing its job then. The press is now grading Donald Trump on a curve, treating his presidency in such a way that it legitimizes racism and white supremacy. That is the press not doing the sacred job they seek reference for. I suspect that if you look across history you will find lots of great examples of the press doing a great job. But there will be more examples of the press falling down on the job. If the press was really doing its job with respect to Donald Trump, Trump would have been in prison decades ago. This Labor Day is not for them.
Weather reporters. So many of them have been for so long in denial of climate science, passing on doubt to the average American, using their position of trust to spread lies. We have had a harder time pushing people and institutions in the general direction of reality with respect to climate change because of weather reporters not doing their jobs. This Labor Day is not for them.
There are exceptions to all these cases. You know who you are, and you don’t need lip service from me. You are in the game already, criticizing your colleagues. Or should be. This labor day is for you, a little. But mostly it is for the people who have jobs that if they fail at, even a little, they get fired, demoted, or abused.
So here it is. An extra day off. Use it well. Do something fun. Then get back to work or you’re fired!
The simplest project in the new book Electronics for Kids: Play with Simple Circuits and Experiment with Electricity!
The first several projects in the book involve making electricity, or using it to make light bulbs shine or to run an electromagnet. [/caption]The most complicated projects are the ones where you make interactive games using LED lights and buzzers.
Electronics for Kids: Play with Simple Circuits and Experiment with Electricity!
This is a book about how to play with electricity, not how to get a Masters Degree in electricity. In other words, any kid, the ones who seem destine for a career in electronic engineering and the ones who don’t, can get along in this book because it does not assume itself to be a building brick to a greater career. Yet the projects are interesting and informative and educational, and any kid who does a dozen of these projects is going to learn.
This kind of activity, which should involve parents for most kids, is the cure for the sense of depression you feel when you go to the toy store and look at the “science” section and everything you see is crap. Just get this book, order 50 bucks worth of parts, and get to work-fun. Then order some more parts, probably.
No kids’ book on electronics would be complete without a batter made from something you get in the produce section.[/caption]This book for kids is very kid oriented, as it should be. One of the first practical projects you build is an alarm system to keep your parents the heck out of your room. You can make a noisy musical instrument. You can make a device that makes sounds some humans can hear (the kids, likely) and some can’t (parents).
Although soldering is done, it is minimal and, frankly, can probably be avoided by using alternative techniques. But really, it is not that hard and one should not be too afraid of it.
A lot of the projects use and develop logic circuits. Kids actually love logic circuits, I think because they end up rethinking a bit about how tho think about simple relationships. And, it is good to know this stuff.
Unlike many electronic kits you can buy (which can be quite fun and educational in their own right) this approach does not rely on ICs (integrated circuits) that produce magical results with poorly described inputs and hookups. There are some basic ICs, including gates, an inverter, flip flops, and a timer. These are very straight forward circuits that are mostly (except the timer) really just very fancy switches.
The web site that goes with Electronics for Kids: Play with Simple Circuits and Experiment with Electricity!
Many of the parts, including a breadboard, LEDs, hook up wires of various kinds, and pretty much all the resistors, capacitors, etc. etc. can also be used with the more sophisticated Arduino projects, should you end up going in that direction.
This is a really fun book. If you have a kid of the right age (maybe from six to 12, with 100% adult involvement under 10 years) get it now, secretly, get some parts, and work your way through several of the projects. Then, make it (and the parts) a holiday present. Then look really smart.
This chapter-end section give you an idea of the level of the projects. There is a lot of stuff in here. All doable, but it will take a while to get through it all. [/caption]Here is the overview table of contents (the book is much more detailed than suggested by this top level TOC):
PART 1: Playing with Electricity
Chapter 1: What Is Electricity?
Chapter 2: Making Things Move with Electricity and Magnets
Chapter 3: How to Generate Electricity
PART 2: Building Circuits
Chapter 4: Creating Light with LEDs
Chapter 5: Blinking a Light for the First Time
Chapter 6: Let’s Solder!
Chapter 7: Controlling Things with Circuits
Chapter 8: Building a Musical Instrument
PART 3: Digital Electronics
Chapter 9: How Circuits Understand Ones and Zeros
Chapter 10: Circuits That Make Choices
Chapter 11: Circuits That Remember Information
Chapter 12: Let’s Make a Game!
Appendix: Handy Resources
Our latest Ikonokast Podcast is up; an interview with agriculture and ecology expert Emily Cassidy!
Organic vs. industrial, GMO vs GnMO, Food vs. Fuel, how to regulate (or not) farming. All of it.
Using executive power, Governor Mark Dayton, recognized as one of the best governors in the US, has laid out protections for pollinators in Minnesota.
The Minnesota Department of Agriculture is ordered to implement recently developed recommendations related to neonicotinoid pesticides. Potential users must demonstrate a real need for the products, and use them properly. This and other state agencies will coordinate and develop a Pollinator Protection Team to develop and implement statewide goals, and keep track of things. The Governor created a Committee on Pollinator Protection to advise the Governor and state agencies, including experts on conservation, agriculture, etc.
The use of pesticides on public land will be reviewed and adapted to be more pollinator friendly. This also applies to landfills, transportation related lands, and other state government run properties. There will be no neonicotinoid pesticide products of an kind used in certain state facilities, and other uses will be seriously limited.
The objective is to cut down on pesticide use in a way that does minimal damage to agriculture, and to enhance pollinator health.
“Bees and other pollinators play a critical role in supporting both our environment, and our economy,” said Governor Dayton. “This order directs state government to take immediate action to alleviate the known risks that pollinators face. It also will create a new taskforce to study the issues impacting pollinators and recommend long-term solutions.”
I note that some of the press coverage goes ahead to make the claim that there will be opposition to this plan. But there isn’t any visible opposition to the plan. Perhaps it would be better to wait until some materializes before reporting that it exists. Looking at you, Star Tribune.
If so, I have a recommendation for you.
We recently sold our old house and bought a new one, and moved.
The main reason we did this: to get closer to Amanda’s place of work. We managed to turn a commute that ran from 35 minutes to 1.5 hours (on really bad winter days) each way to one short enough that Amanda will usually bike, with about a five or six minute drive on non-biking days. Probably a ten minute drive on the worst winter days.
The main reason we did this now rather than a couple of years ago: our house was under water thanks to the GB Economic Crisis. In fact, we weren’t sure if we could sell the house at anything but a loss now. And, since we were trying to move into what is at present the best school district in the state (where Amanda happens to teach), the chances of finding a place to move to were somewhere between slim and none. And slim just left town after killing none.
But, we had excellent real estate agents working with us, and that made a huge difference. This blog post is, in fact, part of my thanks for and endorsement of Erik and Toby Nordin. They generally work as a team, and Erik was at the time the licensed agent (though Toby just became one as well), while Toby was the marketing guru. The Nordins work for Engle & Völkers, an international company that has recently moved into the Twin Cities area, and for which Amanda’s sister, Alyssa, works.
Erik and Toby gave us advice on what to do to get our house ready for sale. We followed their advice carefully, and rather than having to lose money on the sale, we walked away with a nice bit of cash. We sold the house in just over 24 hours after putting on the market, though it is a bit unfair to say that; the eventual buyers actually saw the house just a few hours into the process, but there was a bidding thing among the six or so offers we got.
Erik took us out to look at houses a few days after we sold ours. Twice. We found the house we wanted to buy with two bouts of searching. We know a few other people in our area that have moved recently, and most took weeks or months. One could argue that we are not picky, but see above: we were looking for an affordable place a bike ride from the top high school in the state, in a very fancy suburb.
(It turns out that Plymouth Minnesota has a sort of workers neighborhood right by the City Center. Erik knew about it, and showed us a couple of places here.)
Erik and Toby provided or organized all the necessary services and held our hands through every step. Their management of MLS data was excellent. They had great advice on anything you can imagine an agent can provide advice on. You need to know that I’m a person who normally does not like, trust, or have a whole hell of a lot of respect for most real estate agents. I was, after all, raised by one, and I’ve seen the sausage being made. Erik and Toby (and S-I-L Alyssa, and I suspect Engel & Völkers generally) are real professionals. If all agents and brokers were held to their standards a lot of people in the business would have to be looking for work elsewhere.
I’ve told our story to a handful of people who either just did the same thing, or who were in the process, and nobody has had an experience that went as smoothly, as successfully, and as quickly as ours. I attribute this to three things. A bit of random luck (maybe 10% of the outcome accounted for by this), a lot of hard work on our part, getting our place ready to sell (though it was fundamentally in great shape), and a huge amount of excellent work by Toby and Erik
So, thank you Toby and Erik.
I should also mention that Engel & Völklers, in the tradition of many European countries, is both a great place to work (so I hear) and does a lot to “give back” to the community. For example, they are a major supporter of the Special Olympics.
I had been utterly unengaged with with TV about the time that I met this particular cute girl, and she told me that she love the West Wing and watched it every week. There was, if I recall correctly, one more episode showing in the penultimate season, and we watched it together. I liked it.
We then watched, mainly via Netflix DVD rental, but also, borrowing her parent’s Season Five DVD’s, the entire rest of the show prior to the beginning of the final season, Season 7. Then we watched Season 7 together. It was great.
Eventually, two things were to happen. One is that I re-watched the entire series from beginning to the end. The other is that I married that girl. Not necessarily in that order.
I know that if you are reading this, and you are not a Turkish hacker, or a science denier come to harass me, you also love the West Wing.
My daughter Julia and I typically quasi-binge-watch (it takes us months) a particular TV show. We had finished off The Walking Dead, and Bones, and old favorite, had gone stale on us. (No deeply disturbing psychotic killers on the horizon, as far as we could tell.) So I tried out the West Wing on her, and she liked it. We plowed pretty quickly through the first couple of seasons, but there has been very little TV watching lately.
Then, I heard about The Wet Wing Weekly. This is a podcast by Joshua Malina and Hrishikesh Hirway. Josh Malina played Will Bailey on the West Wing, and has done a number of other famous roles in productions such as Sports Night and Scandal. Jrishikesh Hirway is a super fan of The West Wing, who is a musical artist and expert podcaster.
So, here’s what you do. You watch one episode of the West Wing. Start with the Pilot. Then you listen to the Podcast.
Warning: So far, at least two of the Podcasts have not been about a specific episode. These were great podcasts, but if this is your first time watching the West Wing, avoid them for now because they are full of spoilers. The main episodes of #TWWW do not include spoilers. They are very careful about that.
Malina and Hirway analyze and discuss the episode you just watched. Malina has worked extensively and intensively with West Wing creator Alan Sorkin, and Hirway carefully researches each podcast, so their commentary is penetrating, interesting, and apt. Also, the podcast is expertly edited so it is very smooth.
The West Wing Weekly Podcast often, nearly weekly, has a guest, often a star of the show, or someone else involved. Sorkin may someday be a guest on the podcast.
The conversation on #TWWW is cumulative. Ideas and concepts are developed over time, and terminology evolves. You could jump in any time, but to get the full effect, start at the beginning. And always watch the episode, then the podcast.
There is a web site, here, and comments are allowed on each podcast. Interesting information (AND SPOILERS SO BE ALERT) pops up in the discussion section, including corrections or expansions on what was discussed. You’ll see some of these comments coming. For example, in one episode of The West Wing, The President notes that “The era of big government is over.” The moment I heard that on the show, I was reminded of President Clinton saying the same thing, and also, that this was a reference to President Reagan, almost a bit of pandering to his supporters in Congress, and yet another demonstration of Democrat’s fruitless efforts to pretend like the two parties can talk to each other. Malina and Hirway noted the phrase, seemed perplexed by it, and clearly did not remember Clinton’s words. But the commenters fixed that!
One of the things Malina notes that I should pass on now, is that he watches the West Wing episodes with closed captions turned on. He does this for various reasons, but the result is that sometimes you pick up on dialog that one might otherwise miss, like in the case shown in the image above. If you are listening only, the words shown here in the CC are overtalked by another actor, and easy to miss. In other cases, the words that come out of the actor’s mouth and the words on the screen are simply different, in a way that really does look like a change in the dialog has happened, some last minute editing of the script.
Hey, if you are going to rewatch, or re-rewatch, or even re-re-rewatch, a TV show then listen to a podcast about each episode, then you are operating at a level where these details matter.
I watch the West Wing on Netflix, but you can also get the entire show on DVD
And, if you are interested in what your grandmother was up to when she was little, pick up a copy of When My Grandmother Was a Child: 9
This is a blog rant. But first, a bit of blog appreciation to the select number of individuals who suggested to us that the Shark was the best vacuum cleaner for us, in a recent Facebook Discussion.
I have to say, that when I saw S.H. suggest the Shark, I figured that the chances were pretty high that we would end up with a Shark, S.H. has always given me the very best advice on everything.
Anyway, the main point of comparison for us was between various models of the Dyson and various models of the Shark. Side by side they ended up being pretty similar but the Shark actually has some better specs, and is way way cheaper. I’d rank the following vacuum cleaners in order as specified:
Shark Rotator Powered Lift-Away TruePet (NV752) for about $350
Shark Rotator Pro Lift-Away Vacuum (NV501) for about $180
Shark Navigator Lift-Away Professional (NV356E) for about $145
Dyson DC50 Ball Compact Animal Upright Vacuum Cleaner, Iron/Purple – Corded for about $350
I should add that we had ruled out a canister, but the Shark that we got actually can be a canister if you want it to be.
Now, where to buy it? On line would be smart, and the links above actually go to Amazon. But we decided to get the machine at a nearby store for various reasons. So we went first to Sears, then to Macy’s, and here is how they compared:
I have no idea if this will be of interest to this community of science oriented and smart readers, but a group called The Republicans is having a big convention this week.
Here’s the basic schedule:
Mon 18 July 1:00 PM EST: Convention Opens
Tue 19 July 5:30 PM EST: Resume convention
Wed 20 July 7:00 PM EST: Resume convention
THU 21 July 7:30 PM EST: Resume convnetion.
Funny how every day they start a bit later.
Here are some of the speakers expected to attend. This information is culled from the NYT.
At CSPAN
Florida attorney general who had an interesting conversation on CNN with Anderson Cooper after the Orlando massacre. Like this:
Collins is the first woman to command a space shuttle mission. Why is she speaking at the convention of the anti-science party that would just as soon shut down NASA?
Here is the only info I could find addressing that, from SpaceNews:
Collins, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel who has publicly criticized the way the Obama administration canceled NASA’s Constellation return-to-the-moon program, is scheduled to speak July 20, the day before Donald Trump, the GOP’s presumptive nominee, is due to give his acceptance speech.
…
In February, she testified at a House Science Committee hearing on long-shot legislation that aims to restructure NASA’s management by, in part, creating a board of directors to choose a NASA administrator who would be given a 10-year term. Currently, NASA administrators are nominated by the White House, confirmed by the Senate and serve at the pleasure of the president.
Testifying alongside former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin — a Bush administration appointee who stepped down when President Barack Obama took office in January 2009 — Collins told the committee she and NASA colleagues were “shocked” by the administration’s 2010 decision to cancel Constellation, saying the timing of the decision, so close to the shuttle’s 2011 retirement, left the agency with few options.
“I believe program cancellation decisions that are made by bureaucracies behind closed doors, without input by the people, are divisive, damaging, cowardly and many times more expensive in the long run,” she testified.
Obama’s April 2010 decision to cancel Constellation and direct NASA to send its Orion crew exploration vehicle to an asteroid instead of the Moon followed months of public debate about the future of the U.S. human spaceflight program by a presidential commission. That commission, led by former Lockheed Martin chairman and CEO Norman Augustine, concluded that Constellation was unsustainable and should at least be revamped.
Some background on Fallin’s politics, from her Wikipedia article:
Fallin was criticized for bias after ordering state-owned National Guard facilities to deny spousal benefits (including the provision of identification cards that would allow them to access such benefits) to all same-sex couples.
Under Fallin, Oklahoma has pushed for increased use of lethal injection as a means of ending life in capital punishment, Fallin pushed strongly for the execution of convicted murderer Clayton Lockett to proceed in spite of the lack of tested drugs to use for lethal injection… Lockett’s execution was attempted on April 29, 2014, but was abandoned when he could not be sedated and was left writhing in pain. Lockett died 43 minutes later of a heart attack. Fallin appointed a member of her staff to lead the investigation into the botched execution….
Fallin was a supporter of a controversial Ten Commandments monument that had been erected on the Oklahoma State Capitol grounds in 2012.
During her term as governor, Fallin has signed 18 anti-abortion measures into law. In April 2015, Fallin signed into law a measure banning a common second-trimester abortion procedure, except when necessary to save the life of the woman. In May 2015, Fallin signed into law a measure that tripled the mandatory waiting period in Oklahoma for an abortion, extending it to 72 hours. The measure also included other anti-abortion provisions.
…
Fallin is part of a group of Republican governors who have said that they will refuse to comply with Environmental Protection Agency regulations to reduce carbon emissions and combat climate change.
…
In April 2014, Fallin signed into law S.B. 1023, which prohibits cities in Oklahoma from establishing citywide minimum wages or sick-leave requirements….
In May 2015, Fallin signed into law a measure prohibiting Oklahoma local governments from enacting local bans on oil and gas drilling. …
In April 2015, Fallin signed into law a measure that expanded charter schools statewide
Some background on Ernst culled from Wikipedia:
Constitutional and federal issues[edit]
Ernst has proposed eliminating the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Education, and the Environmental Protection Agency
Ernst has expressed her support for allowing law-abiding citizens to “freely carry” weapons but abide by rules against carrying in public buildings like schools.
Ernst co-sponsored resolutions concerning state nullification of federal law. One such bill asserted that Iowa could ignore any federal laws which “are directly in violation of the Tenth Amendment”…
… said that Obama had “become a dictator”, and that if he acted unconstitutionally, he should face the proper repercussions as determined by Congress, “whether that’s removal from office, whether that’s impeachment.” …
… opposes the federal minimum wage…
On the subject of global warming, Ernst has stated: “I don’t know the science behind climate change, I can’t say one way or another what is the direct impact from whether it’s manmade or not”, and believes that any regulatory role by the government to address it needs to be “very small”…
warned … a 1992 United Nations voluntary action plan for sustainable development, could force Iowa farmers off their land, dictate what cities Iowans must live in, and control how Iowa citizens travel from place to place….
… Ernst indirectly endorsed Paul Ryan’s partially privatized Medicare model … supports replacing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act…
… co-sponsored a failed bill to amend the Iowa constitution to have marriage legally defined as between one man and one woman. She opposes same-sex marriage.
… voted for a fetal personhood amendment in the Iowa Senate in 2013 and has said that she would support a federal personhood bill.
Whatever
African American Jamiel Shaw Sr., who’s son was “killed by an undocumented immigrant” will speak. Darryl Glenn, running for Colorado Senate may speak. Highly conservative former football player Tebow may speak, as well as “ultimate fighter” Dana White.
Ohio is an “open carry” state which allows gun owners to carry them in plain sight. People have been exercising this right around the site of the Republican convention…Strangely, in the area around the convention, “tennis balls, metal-tipped umbrellas or canned goods” are prohibited. But AR-15s or other firearms are not. But now, the Cleveland Police Union has made an emergency request to suspend open carry for the duration of the Republican convention.
There is usually a convention bump. Four years ago, the bump thing was interesting (see this post).
Here is the starting point for this year’s bump-tracking:
Will Trump pass Clinton in polls after the convention?
Today’s speakers include but are not limited to:
Which of these speakers will end up in a Trump cabinet, and in what position?
Apparently it is a thing, tough I’m not sure what it all means.
Will convention delegates be playing Pokemon Go during the convention?
Did the turtles give permission to the RNC to play their song? @FloandEddie #RNC2016
— Greg Laden (@gregladen) July 18, 2016
Cleveland Gun Rights Rally on RNC Eve Fails to Draw Crowd
LOL GOP
NBC covers it here.
The Republicans seem bent on entering a major war in the middle east. Or somewhere.
Also, they are calling for the end of the Geneva Convention. They seem to prefer the “war criminal” method of “defending ourselves.”
Who are all these anti-war war mongering republicans?
I just watched all the clips from last evening’s coverage, mainly on MSNBC. Here is what happened.
Bla bla bla BENGHAZI! Bla bla bla bla bla BENGHAZI!!! Bla Bla. Bla Bla Benghazi BlaH! Bla bla bla bla bla BENGHAZI!!! Bla Bla. BENGHAZI!!! Bla Bla. Bla bla bla BENGHAZI! Bla bla bla bla bla BENGHAZI!!! Bla Bla. Bla Bla Benghazi BlaH! Bla bla bla bla bla BENGHAZI!!! Bla Bla. BENGHAZI!!! Bla Bla. BENGHAZI!!! Bla Bla. BENGHAZI!!! Bla Bla. Bla bla bla. BENGHAZI!!! Bla Bla. BENGHAZI!!! Bla Bla. Bla bla bla. Bla Bla. Bla Bla Benghazi BlaH! Bla bla bla bla bla BENGHAZI!!! Bla Bla. BENGHAZI!!! Bla Bla. Bla bla bla BENGHAZI! Bla bla bla bla bla BENGHAZI!!! Bla Bla. Bla Bla Benghazi BlaH! Bla bla bla bla bla BENGHAZI!!! Bla Bla. BENGHAZI!!! Bla Bla. Melania Trump Plagiarizes Michele Obama.
Then, this morning, I watched and listened to news and social media to see what impacts the RNC had. And this is what we have:
So, that’s how it went!
Here is the moment on MSNBC when Melania Trumped Benghazi:
Wow.
And, continuing:
How to not get caught plagiarizing!
I just came across this and realized it was essential to tell you about it. Or, maybe, I’m the last person to learn of it.
Exploding Kittens: A Card Game About Kittens and Explosions and Sometimes Goats
Apparently …
Exploding Kittens is a card game for people who are into kittens and explosions and laser beams and sometimes goats.
In this highly-strategic, kitty-powered version of Russian Roulette, players draw cards until someone draws an Exploding Kitten, at which point they explode, they are dead, and they are out of the game — unless that player has a Defuse card, which can defuse the Kitten using things like laser pointers, belly rubs, and catnip sandwiches. All of the other cards in the deck are used to move, mitigate, or avoid the Exploding Kittens.
Created by Elan Lee (Xbox, ARGs), Matthew Inman (The Oatmeal), and Shane Small (Xbox, Marvel), Exploding Kittens is the most-backed Kickstarter project ever, and the most-funded game in Kickstarter history.
Apparently, there is also Exploding Kittens: NSFW Edition (Explicit Content)
Am I the last person to now about this?
Anyway, happy Catturday!
Manga is the Japanese sounding but not used so much in Japan term for a form of cartooning art that has its roots from before World War II but that emerged in its common form during the post war Occupation period. Early used in political cartooning, Manga style drawing is now used for a wide range of expression, and has a place in illustrating a wide range of products, read by Japanese citizens of all sorts and ages. Outside of Japan, Manga is the starting point for the wildly popular Anime style of expression, which of course brings us to…
Pokeman go
But, we are not here to talk about Pokeman go. We are here to talk about Regression Analysis.
No Starch Press has been producing Manga Guides for some years now. They cover many area of math, science, and technology. (I’ve provided a list below.)
The most recent Manga Guide is The Manga Guide to Regression Analysis
This book presents the story if Miu, a young woman who is having some trouble understanding regression analysis. But she has a love interest to inspire her, and a brilliant coworker to guide her, and with these motivations and tools embarks on a learning journey to grasp such concepts as how to calculate the regression equation and check it’s accuracy, how to use correlation coefficients, test hypotheses, conduct analyses of variance (and analysis of variance is mathematically identical to a regression analysis), predict odds ratios, and do a few parametric statistics to boot.
This is the book that a graduate student who needs to know regression, but is not in a highly mathematical field and skipped college Statistics, will read, learn from, and later claim belongs to his younger brother. Or, that a science-oriented non scientist who is tired of glossing over the statistical parts of the science she reads can use to get up to speed. Or, that a business person or political junkie who wants to use basic regression tools to spot trends or predict primary outcomes might find helpful.
I think that Manga is a medium that many people relate to and find comfortable, and for such individuals, all of the Manga guides, to various math and science concepts, are great. If you have a high school student in your life who is facing a stats course, this is a good gift. Even though the book focuses on Regression, you should know that regression analysis incorporates, or in some way relates to, the vast majority of statistical techniques. When I’ve taught or tutored graduate level stats, and I learned this from the famous Mark Pagel, I’ve always focused on regression because it is very intuitive, yet powerful, and touches on everything. In other words, if you are going to learn one advanced statistical technique, make it (multiple variable) regression.
Interestingly, The Manga Guide to Regression Analysis
An appendix provides a guide to using Excel to do regression analysis.
Other Manga Guides
<li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1593274408/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1593274408&linkCode=as2&tag=grlasbl0a-20&linkId=8f4446517c41182a25c30bd7d6bddb42">The Manga Guide to Physiology</a><img src="//ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=grlasbl0a-20&l=am2&o=1&a=1593274408" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /></li>
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Barack Obama, Justin Trudeau and Enrique Peña Nieto, have made a joint announcement. As reported by NPR:
President Obama and his counterparts from Canada and Mexico are preparing to unveil an ambitious new goal for generating carbon-free power when they meet this week in Ottawa.
The three leaders are expected to set a target for North America to get 50 percent of its electricity from nonpolluting sources by 2025. That’s up from about 37 percent last year.
Aides acknowledge that’s a “stretch goal,” requiring commitments over and above what the three countries agreed to as part of the Paris climate agreement.
The news reports and press information about this event note that the US currently produces about a third of its energy from non fossil fuel sources. Mexico produces less than 20% of its power this way, and Canada is at about 81%. A big part of this shift will involve shutting down coal plants and expanding wind and solar. However, this mix, as well as the proposed 50% of “clean energy,” may include biofuels, which are very limited in their effectiveness in combating climate change, Nuclear, which is diminishing in its importance, and possibly “carbon capture” which is not an energy source and not likely to have much impact because it essentially doesn’t work at any meaningful scale because of physics.
So, we will need to see some clarification in this area.
Two related, but contrasting, items on Brexit.
The climate change connection to Brexit is unclear and mostly negative. It is simply true that we benefit from international unity when addressing a global problem, and the EU is a powerful forward looking entity that could address climate change more effectively than the collection of individual nations in the EU otherwise might. With the UK out of the EU, AGW may be somewhat harder to address.
Or, maybe not so much. The EU is still only one entity among several dozen, so having this small shift may not be that big of a deal.
But the Brexit-Climate Change link with respect to intergenerational politics is important and interesting. Dana Nuccitelli nails this down writing in The Guardian. See the graph above.
Dana talks about the similarity of difference across generations in attitudes about Brexit as well as climate change, and shows how these patterns, similar in both cases, are tied to the phenomenon of “intergenerational theft.” The ascending generation prefers expansion, ballooning of economic systems, putting off dealing with long and even medium term consequences. The younger generation takes it in the neck.
The problem is of course that younger generations will have to live with the consequences of the decisions we make today for much longer than older generations. Older generations in developed countries prospered as a result of the burning of fossil fuels for seemingly cheap energy.
That’s all true and important.
But I was also interested to hear President “No Drama” Obama’s remarks on Brexit. He sees this a more of the pressing of a pause button on a process that is not going to be stopped, and less of a cataclysm.
Is he right? Or is he just trying to put off panic?
Here are his remarks:
What do you think?