January 14, 2004

» ... which some of these people might do well to remember

Wired 8.03: It's Good to Be King

Until a more precise term comes along, one might as well call Talossa a micronation. Micronations, also known as counternations and ephemeral states, consist of one or more people united by the desire to form and/or inhabit an independent country of their own making. All micronations have governments, laws, and customs; the main distinguishing factor is whether their citizens want to establish a physical home country and seek international recognition, or whether, as is the case with Talossa, they're happy just to pretend.

» ... and the unfortunate reality

SUNDAY STAR TIMES - STORY : New Zealand's leading news and information website

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.

» The theoretical virtues of small countries

Economist.com | Economics focus

Its importance has grown in the past half-century, as old political empires have disintegrated: more than half the world's countries now have fewer people than the state of Massachusetts, which has about 6m.

» The IRC Bible

IRC BIBLE

* Jehova has left #Eden
* Serpent has joined #Eden
Pssst! he said you can't eat the fruit?
Yeah, so?
lol, u wont die, eat a fruit!
* Eve munches
You eat too, Adam, or I won't go down on you
mmm-kay
* Adam munches
OMFG WERE NEKKID!!!1
NOOO, WTF!
I feel so drrrty
lmao
* Jehova has joined #Eden

» The mathematics of literature

Studying Literature by the Numbers

In some ways, Mr. Moretti's quantitative method is simply the latest in a long line of efforts to make literary criticism look more like science. From Russian formalism in the 1920's to New Criticism in the 1950's and structuralism and semiotics in the 1960's and 70's, the discipline's major movements share a desire to portray literature as a system governed by hidden laws and structures whose operations it is the critic's job to reveal. But in its formal renunciation of individual texts â?? and, more provocatively, of reading â?? Mr. Moretti's approach, at least as he sketches it in New Left Review, is conceivably more radical than anything his predecessors dreamed up.