Not to judge a book by its first chapter but...

It's pretty rare that I come across a piece of academic literature that I find interesting yet understandable. I mean, so rare that it almost never happens. It's either, well, that abstract looks cool, but what is going on in that paper? Or, well, I can understand this, but it's actually written for middle school science education (I kid you not, that's how I learned about declination, watching flash files that were intended for middle school kids created by NOAA). 

But this spatial-temporal stats class I am in so far has a really cool book. I don't want to judge a book by its first chapter, but it's pretty cool. There's a few formulas, but a lot of it is "well, if you see these key words in a study, you know that they are probably using this kind of technique, and this is how it applies to this one really accessible example." I'll be eager to see how chapter 6, fourier transforms, is made easy. The class seems pretty alright: essentially it's how to model spatial temporal patterns without relying on regression or ordination. Some of the stuff I heard said today was fourier transforms, alternate steady states, and modulated response. I have no idea what those are. But it will be a new look for me.