Blog
Bioreactor Landfills
One of the more interesting anaerobic processes is the breakdown of municipal solid waste in landfills. I grew up not far from what we called Rumpke Mountain, the sixth largest landfill in the United States. Landfills typically require venting because anaerobic processes consume the solid waste within the landfill, producing
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Meiji Land Reforms and Modernization
An open question in history is why Japan was able to successfully modernize following Commodore Perry’s “opening of Japan.” In a recent discussion of this, I proposed that three reasons drove Japan’s success. First is the adoption of free-market economics. Following the Meiji Restoration in 1868, the Emperor implemented market
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My Orbit Population Model at JSM
I am happy to say my paper was accepted for the 2018 Joint Statistical Meetings in Vancouver. Actually, I think JSM accepts all papers. That’s not the point right now. This paper, “Forecasting Artificial Earth Satellite Populations,” builds several models for predicting how many satellites will be in different orbit
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Shrinky Dinks for Custom Tokens, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Little Pony
Several months back, Chase and I were at a Pokémon TCG prerelease. I do not recall which prerelease it was, but it was at Alternate Worlds way out in Cockeysville. While there, Chase saw a Star Wars book and asked me about it. See, the only thing he loves more
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Errata for Computational Methods for Numerical Analysis
Well, CMNA has been out for nine months and I got my first notice of mistakes in the text. There are three, related mistakes in the section on evaluating formulae and were caught by Vahab Khademi. I have now posted an errata sheet on the CMNA page and will keep
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Intermediate Algebra, Spring 2018
Well, I may be running a campaign for delegate right now, but I still am teaching mathematics, because that’s just what I do. I am teaching an intermediate algebra class this term. At UMUC, this class is MATH 012, and it is not taught for college credit, but instead for
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Summary of Expected Climate Change Effects on Howard County
Howard County is largely insulated from the most dramatic effect of global climate change, sea level rise. Howard County has no coastal border and is sufficiently inland and above sea level that even substantial sea level rise will not touch Howard County’s land. However, it borders Anne Arundel and Baltimore
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