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Saturday, 2004 January 24, 13:15 — cinema

bang for the what?

A curiosity in “Whatever Happened to George Foster?”, an episode of Danger Man: Drake fans a handful of US currency, showing several tens and twenties and one single. The single (alone) is obviously fake: the cartouche in the visible corner is all wrong.

Tuesday, 2004 January 20, 18:57 — cinema

fantasy astronomy

Funny blunder in Buffy, episode “What’s My Line” (2:9-10). Drusilla’s ritual needs to be at new moon; but as the sun is setting, she says, “The moon is rising.” (The new moon rises and sets with the sun.) [Later: In the same episode, Spike says “full moon”. So maybe I misheard elsewhen. Later still: I did not mishear; others have commented on the discrepancy.]

In the next episode, “Ted” (2:11), we see a blackboard in Jenny Calendar’s classroom – covered with snippets of BASIC code. Perhaps her brief possession by the demon Eyghon left its mark.

In “Bad Eggs” (2:12): Why does Sunnydale High have a room full of axes and hoes? Admittedly my school was small and didn’t have a lot of common hi-skool features (e.g. football), but I think I’d have learned by now if mining equipment were such a feature. — Also I’m fairly sure the word bezoar is misused.

Saturday, 2004 January 17, 19:50 — blogdom, language

bookmark

Bloggy goodness at Languagehat.

Saturday, 2004 January 17, 10:54 — me!me!me!, neep-neep

creaking computers

Argh. My Linux box’s HD has somehow gone too corrupt to boot (or reinstall). I guess I need to find data-recovery service.

Meanwhile I’m using my old Mac – too old for MacOS X, and therefore too old for Mozilla. I’m stuck with Netscape 4.5, which cannot digest Unqualified Offerings.

Later: I got a new disk, installed Linux on that, and copied my old stuff over; the rot apparently did not affect the content.

Thursday, 2004 January 15, 21:57 — economics, sciences

QotD

Quoth the ever provocative Brian Micklethwait:

Evolutionary Biology is a bandwagon with too much momentum for a few clapped out Marxists to halt it, and if the Evolutionary Biologists decide that Hayek matters, he matters.

Prediction: in twenty years time most of the biologists will be better economists than most of the economists.

Thursday, 2004 January 15, 14:55 — bitterness

the grind

Had a job interview today. Filled out yet another tedious application, waited another ten minutes, and quickly learned that what they want ain’t me.

I get so tired sometimes.

Monday, 2004 January 12, 18:20 — humanities

my home away from home

As you may know, the .nu in this site’s address [before 2011 Mar 28] refers to Niue: one of a number of tiny states – most of them in the Pacific Ocean – that bring in the odd shilling by renting out name-space. (When I wanted a domain, Niue happened to be cheapest.)

Now it appears that its link to reality may become even more tenuous.

Niue’s status as a nation is under question after the cyclone that hit the tiny Pacific nation, causing more than $50 million damage.

In the aftermath of the storm, some island leaders are calling for a return to New Zealand governance, and expect the population to fall from about 1200 native Niueans to an unsustainable 500 people.

Such a drop would likely render the nation unviable. Niue currently receives $8m in aid a year from New Zealand . . . .

One wonders how often that “nation” became “unviable” during its first thousand years of habitation; and in what sense a “nation” so dependent on foreign charity is considered “viable”, whatever its size.

2011: The link is dead; the story has been copied here and there, e.g. Sophont blog.

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