Author Archives: Anton

a perverse incentive in customer service

Posted on Tuesday, 2009 July 14 by Anton

Awhile ago I worked out that, if you want to watch a different disc every evening using Netflix, your quota (the number of discs you have out at a time) needs to be at least five: three for the mail … Continue reading →

Posted in cinema, economics | Leave a comment

where’s my fix?

Posted on Friday, 2009 July 10 by Anton

For two or three years I was never without a supply of navel oranges, because the Australian (or before that Chilean) crop came in just as the California crop was ending; but the antipodean goodies have not (yet) shown up … Continue reading →

Posted in economics, food, me!me!me! | Leave a comment

Nero Wolfe and the Drones Club

Posted on Sunday, 2009 July 05 by Anton

P. G. Wodehouse and Rex Stout were contemporaries and friends, I recently learned. The opening pages of Stout’s Champagne For One read like a Bertie Wooster story: an acquaintance known as Dinky, feigning laryngitis, rings to beg that the narrator … Continue reading →

Posted in prose | 1 Comment

I watch stuff

Posted on Sunday, 2009 July 05 by Anton

I’ve been relatively quiet here since I stopped listing my Netflix rentals. I could do that some more.

Posted in cinema | 1 Comment

an international art

Posted on Thursday, 2009 June 18 by Anton

In the opening scene of Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation, a Hungarian Jew plays a Japanese impersonating a German, speaking English in Arabia.

Posted in cinema | Leave a comment

rejecting the cult

Posted on Monday, 2009 June 08 by Anton

Sheldon Richman (with help from Paddy Chayevsky) nails Memorial Day.

Posted in militaria | 4 Comments

polytopes

Posted on Sunday, 2009 June 07 by Anton

Dr. Richard Klitzing lost his webhost, so I took custody of his polytope pages.

Posted in mathematics | Leave a comment