Nothing and Some More

Sometimes a blurb really works: In the opener, Doe awakens to find himself stranded on an island off Seattle. His uncanny newfound abilities are soon apparent to him, however, when he is rescued by Khmers fishermen and begins to speak the sailors' language fluently. So I watched John Doe, exec produced and directed by Mimi Leder, of ER fame. It wasn't that great, although I found one idea excellent: the fact that your ranking on a search engine can be the reason you get assaulted. The second episode also has an asian reference, about VietNam.
CSI:Miami has a great intro, but I still prefer CSI. More on the friction between CSI and CSI:Miami on TvTattler
Buffy, the guidance counselor was slow to start, but the last scene really teases, since this is supposed to be the last season of SM Gellar: it frankly says "right back to the begining". Noticed the usual cliche:

You made him French! - He's smelly. And with the little mustache, he...

and I'm waiting to see how they are going to translate it.

Speaking of it, the Mysteries of Translation (via Jonathon Delacour)

Still, Allen's Marías is not quite Costa's Marías. The difference is so subtle it's hard to define: something to do with Allen's receptive American ear, something to do with Costa's uncanny ability to locate Anglo-Saxon equivalents for Latinate terms. If I were pressed, I would say that Allen's MarÌas sounds more like a Spaniard, Costa's more like a native English speaker. Which is preferable? I suppose it depends on what kind of reader you are -- or, more likely, on which translation you encountered first.

Etymologically Speaking...

Avocado: From awa guatl, a South American Indigenous word for testicle. The Spanish took this term and used to to refer to what we now call the avocado.

When in Japan, try to do as the Japanese do

Miss International (via Les Nouvelles du Japon) and Miss Pakistan got banned

Expressing shock over Noorani taking part in the contest, Tariq Janjua, the Secretary Culture, Sports and Tourism was quoted by the newspaper as saying that the government had nothing to do with "this shameful development." "We cannot allow this," Janjua said adding that such contests were in total "contrast" to the social and cultural values of Pakistan. "Our religion, Islam, also disapproves all such acts," Janjua said.

Laos: Making the Web world-wide: giving Internet access to villagers without electricity. Jhai Fundation and the Remote IT Village Project and Phonmee Internet Learning Center

Sex in the Bay Area and the Bay's 10 sexiest people (via Flutterby)

Aids in Russia

Since 1998, the number of registered HIV cases in the country has jumped almost 20-fold, from some 11,000 to nearly 200,000 in May this year. Compared with Africa, this sounds low. But the real Russian figure may be between three and ten times higher. The state health agency puts the number of infected people at 1m, some 80% of them under 30.

The Economist: Outward bound, do developing countries gain or lose when their brightest talents go abroad?

Top of the list should be making a country a good place to work. "I am always struck by how African leaders say they need the return of talent," says Mr Martin, "and yet my own students try every trick to stay, saying that they are in the wrong tribe, or do not have the right connections to get ahead." A culture where advancement depends on political affiliation rather than merit will lose bright people to societies where talent is what counts. This is particularly true in the public sector, including the universities, where professionals will stay only if professionalism counts. And countries need other attractions: Tirana's Mr Rama points out that his city did not even have a cinema until two years ago, and donors could not grasp why the lack of one was important.

Naomi Klein Gets Global

As the unofficial spokesperson for the anti-globalization movement, Naomi Klein wants everyone to quit calling it the "anti-globalization movement."
"The irony of the media-imposed label, 'anti-globalization,' is that we in this movement have been turning globalization into a lived reality, perhaps more so than even the most multinational of corporate executives," she writes. Klein and a globeful of protesters are building connections from "landless farmers in Brazil, to teachers in Argentina, to fast food workers in Italy... to migrant tomato pickers in Florida."

Dreamcast hacking: SDL is available on the DC now (via BOOB! Dreamcast Research)

Interesting usage of a blog: as a source of informal language usage, for students learning a foreign language (via SebLogging)

Better than porn: RSS!

Websense, a San Diego-based firm which provides software to monitor web habits at work, has found that news sites are proving the real internet addiction for employees.
It has to be said, of course, that most companies block access to porn sites.