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Remember that scene when Gavin Belson compared people today vilifying billionaire to Nazi-era jews? I just learned later that that scene was inspired by mimicked a real life event. Silicon Valley (that is the TV series) has tons of satire materials of Silicon Valley (the place). But not only that, the TV series also manifests in Weissman score, actual compression algorithm, and even Hooli XYZ. So much for life imitates art.

When I 'reviewed' Attack of the Unsinkable Rubber Ducks (maybe not so much a review as a bait to talk about something else), I wrote this:

...the idea that someone can set a university chair without anyone bother to check the proposed scholar's academic record sounds really stupid to me. It would work only in pre-Google-Scholar, heck, probably in pre-Google time.

Sometimes ago I started re-reading Ben Goldacre's Bad Science and stumbled upon Patrick Holford. Why, I just realised he could be real-life Easy Mather. Patrick Holford is a self-declared nutritionist (and Goldacre pointed out that there's no other kind) who was appointed Visiting Professor at Teesside University. Although the appointment was at School of Social Sciences and Law, who would bother read the fine print these days when they're too busy purchasing supplement pills? Ben Goldacre also has ranted about this guy in his blog.

Holford's appointment was in 2007. That was also the year Attack of the Unsinkable Rubber Ducks was first published.

Bonus: Chris also found out the genuinley impossible phenomenon in the book was no longer impossible.