Comments on: More Fun with Manga

By: Sara E. Mayhew

Sara E. Mayhew — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 08:54:03 +0000

Science and manga are pretty much my two favourite things! Though, I’m a manga creator, more than a reader. It’s great to see manga being used as a teaching tool. Though my work doesn’t attempt to teach actual science facts, my goal is to create stories that promote critical thinking and contain charaters who are role models as good skeptics. Legend of the Ztarr is my manga series that I’m currently working on to do this.

I’m going to have to check out these manga guides!

By: Chris

Chris — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 03:31:17 +0000

Bah! Grammar check fail! Time to go to bed!

By: Chris

Chris — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 03:29:57 +0000

I feel stupid for doing a spell check, or a grammar check!

Of course I “programmed” my embroidery software for my embroidery machine (it is a numerical controlled machine for embroidery… a home version of the type you in some shopping malls for custom T-shirt and hat embroidery). Go into any store selling sewing machines, and you will be shown these machines. I’m cheap… I got in under the price of a good used car.

Also, I saw the “Girl Genius” people at Sakura-Con. It is an interesting world which is very steam-punk.

By: Chris

Chris — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 03:19:43 +0000

Brian, is there any chance “No Starch” would have a booth at our local anime/manga con, Sakura-Con (sakuracon.org)? Did they have one at Comic-Con? That is where I met the “Girl Genius” folks (of course, they are local to us).

There are several of these cons through-out the year (like Comic-Con and Dragon-Con, only smaller and specifically geared towards manga/anime).

I just spent the weekend in a hotel room with my teenage daughter and her friend for Aki-Con (akicon.org). I had to because I am an indulgent mother, and she is under the age of 16. But I think I would love it if I could come away from one of those weekends with the Manga Guide to Something Useful!

(Okay, to be truthful… my daughter’s love of anime made her check out the videos from the library while in elementary school. She and a friend would watch them in Japanese with English subtitles. When she started Japanese in 7th grade she found it easy… as a 10th grader she still finds it easy!. Next year she plans to take AP Japanese, and then start to learn French. She has also learned how to sew her own costumes, along with having her drawing skills inspired by manga. So manga/anime has been a good thing. The upshot is that we both have DeviantArt accounts, mine is SewUntalented and she is delimit-insanity.)

PS: For those who have trouble with calculus… here it is in a nutshell: The derivative is the slope of the line, and the integral is the area under the line — the rest are just pesky but important details. The weirdest detail being that there is one number where the derivative is itself, that being “e” (named after Euler). It is a wonderful number. One weird thing about that number is that if you take the equation for finding periodic interest of a bank loan to a ridiculous degree… the answer is the number that matches “e.” It is really cool. See Maor, Eli; e: The Story of a Number. In my former life as a structural dynamics engineer I most often used e^i(theta)=cos(theta) + i sin(theta). (the superscript hyperlink did not seem to work, bummer, it is Euler’s Formula… if my daughter and I make it to the next TAM, I hope to have a T-shirt with that formula on it!… I’ve prgrammed into my embroidery software… nerd mom who sews!)

By: kabol

kabol — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 05:27:26 +0000

calculus – bright colors – death and destruction by giant flying robots (well, the BEST anime has that, i dunno what this manga has…)

what’s not to love?

By: Nexus

Nexus — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 18:39:46 +0000

This actually sounds fun. I wish that I had had some sort of guide like that in High School, when calc was the bane of my existence.

By: MadScientist

MadScientist — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 12:34:25 +0000

I’ll definitely look through if I see either of those books in a shop. I doubt I’ll be giving up my volumes of calculus by Courant and John though; I’ll be shocked if I ever see a better calculus text.

By: Patrick S.

Patrick S. — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 01:17:05 +0000

I guess all I needed to do was click on the link in the article to get my answer – been a long week – have a good weekend all!

By: Patrick S.

Patrick S. — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 01:13:45 +0000

I need to look into these types of guides. I am trying to read “The Singularity is Near” and the science behind the book is sometimes over my head. I wonder if they make these types of guides for physics and other science related topics as well.

By: stargazer9915

stargazer9915 — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:32:59 +0000

A question I think all of us are asking