Tag Archives: Manga Guide

Manga Guide to Microprocessors: Excellent tech graphic novel

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It has been a long time since I’ve written any machine or assembler code, and it is a rare day that I hand construct a logic circuit using transistors. But it is comforting to know that these skills and the knowledge associated with them still reside in some form or another in the world of microprocessors.

The Manga Guides published by No Starch Press and written by a wide range of authors manga-based graphic novels on diverse topics in science, math, statistics, and technology. I’ve reviewed several here (see this post for a partial list of some of the other guides). And the newest entry to this growing and rather large and excellent library is The Manga Guide to Microprocessors by Michio Shibuya, Takashi Tonagi, and Office Sawa.

This book is really thorough, packing in piles of details about computers, focusing on the microprocessor level technology but covering a lot of related things as well such as memory and data storage and programming, with a whole section on controllers.

But this information is embedded in a story, as is the case with all the Manga guides.

This is the story of Ayumi, a master chess player who is beaten by a computer. She engages with the computer’s programmer, Kano, in a quest to learn all she can about her nemesis.

The book has three modes. One is a standard manga graphics novel sequence of frames with the main story. That is most of the book. The other is a more detailed conversation between iconic versions of the protagonists, in which detail that would be difficult to easily convey in pure cartoon form is gone over. The third is a retrospective or detailed section at the end of each chapter which is lightly illustrated, text heavy, and serves to contextualize the previous material.

I strongly recommend this book.

Here is what the various modes look like:

Most of the book looks like this.

Some of the book looks like this.

The Manga Guide to Regression Analysis

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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 by Shin Takahashi and Iroha Inoue.

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 is a great introduction, but it is not confined to basic regression. The material in this book takes you through a number of different ways to do regression, and will bring you to the point where you should be able to understand and swap in any of the numerious alternative modeling approaches that are out there and available in various statistical packages.

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>

<li><a  href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1593271964/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1593271964&linkCode=as2&tag=grlasbl0a-20&linkId=be50acdd1e7c35d849b4be4ef737e580">The Manga Guide to Physics</a><img src="//ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=grlasbl0a-20&l=am2&o=1&a=1593271964" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /></li>

<li><a  href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1593271972/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1593271972&linkCode=as2&tag=grlasbl0a-20&linkId=28ebb6187119eafa087f3e9b6ce7b5d7">The Manga Guide to Electricity</a><img src="//ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=grlasbl0a-20&l=am2&o=1&a=1593271972" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /></li>

<li><a  href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1593274130/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1593274130&linkCode=as2&tag=grlasbl0a-20&linkId=f2cf04b8bb7fdfbd96d8e432f21b8cb5">The Manga Guide to Linear Algebra</a><img src="//ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=grlasbl0a-20&l=am2&o=1&a=1593274130" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /></li>

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<li><a  href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1593272766/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1593272766&linkCode=as2&tag=grlasbl0a-20&linkId=79434e52a8a220d5f62b3fd5550290e3">The Manga Guide to Biochemistry</a><img src="//ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=grlasbl0a-20&l=am2&o=1&a=1593272766" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /></li>

<li><a  href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1593271948/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1593271948&linkCode=as2&tag=grlasbl0a-20&linkId=afadb72bd949b447e7236436eafdaa32">The Manga Guide to Calculus</a><img src="//ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=grlasbl0a-20&l=am2&o=1&a=1593271948" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /></li>

<li><a  href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1593271905/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1593271905&linkCode=as2&tag=grlasbl0a-20&linkId=a34cafdd58d40c57ec354e4493808d42">The Manga Guide to Databases</a><img src="//ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=grlasbl0a-20&l=am2&o=1&a=1593271905" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /></li>

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