Buffy Season One Episode Four

Cops show up finally. For two seconds. Patrolling a park, after hours. The don't get around to investigating the school where another dead body was found, however.

End Of The Season

Thought that Adam was decisively better than Kris last night, but most voters probably had made their decision on whom to vote for long since, and dialidol has it too close to call. Neither performer came to grips with "No Boundaries," both did fine on their reprise songs ("Mad World" for Adam and "Ain't No Sunshine" for Kris), though Adam's performance was richer, and Adam actually - and surprisingly - nailed "A Change Is Gonna Come" while Kris was respectable but weak on "What's Going On." On "No Boundaries" I may have slightly preferred Kris, who muffed a few of the words and strained at the high notes but seemed steadier with his mood. But "A Change Is Gonna Come" floored me, Adam powerful but restrained most of the way, and then when he let loose with the schmaltz at the end it really was a release and a resolution - as well as by subtext helping to use a black empowerment song as a gay empowerment song. ("A Change Is Gonna Come" and "What's Going On" were picked by the producer, not the performers, but even if the men had chosen the songs themselves and there were no gay overtones with Adam, I have no trouble with the idea of white guys singing those songs in this context; it's not like they're doing it on behalf of the Republican National Committee. But for the other view, see Leonard.) I liked "Mad World" even more, but we'd heard it before.

( Allison still the true talent )

Elephants need less in tank (proportionately)

A piece I love by Steven Strogatz in yesterday's online New York Times ("Math and the City"):

if one city is 10 times as populous as another one, does it need 10 times as many gas stations? No. Bigger cities have more gas stations than smaller ones (of course), but not nearly in direct proportion to their size. The number of gas stations grows only in proportion to the 0.77 power of population. The crucial thing is that 0.77 is less than 1. This implies that the bigger a city is, the fewer gas stations it has per person...

. . .

...consider the elephant or the mouse as an intact animal, a functioning agglomeration of billions of cells. Then, on a pound for pound basis, the cells of an elephant consume far less energy than those of a mouse. The relevant law of metabolism, called Kleiber’s law, states that the metabolic needs of a mammal grow in proportion to its body weight raised to the 0.74 power.

This 0.74 power is uncannily close to the 0.77 observed for the law governing gas stations in cities. Coincidence? Maybe, but probably not. There are theoretical grounds to expect a power close to 3/4.