But in person, he is much more like a down-to-business mechanical engineer, with a bone-dry wit and habit of diverting conversations deep into arcana.
Although the play is not deep, it certainly is diverting in the production directed by Michael Barakiva, who stages the action so swiftly and cleverly that audience members are unlikely to realize how glib it all is until they are in the parking lot.
There is a main 11,233MW hydroelectric plant at Belo Monte that will house 18 turbines, a secondary much smaller 233MW plant at the 7km barrage across the river in Pimental and a deep canal to divert water from one to the other.
Another company, called OilFresh, has developed nano-ceramic inserts that are put into restaurant deep-fryers to divert oxygen and prevent the oil from clumping.
Beyond their short-term budget gaps, some states have deep structural problems, like insolvent pension funds, that are diverting money from essential public services like education and health care.
To minimize the leaching of nitrate, Jacks et al. (1999) suggested a) painting latrine ventilation tubes black to increase daytime ventilation rates; b) increasing the pH of latrine contents to increase ammonia volatilization; c) sealing pits to prevent nitrate leaching and promote denitrification; and d) diverting urine for use as a fertilizer for deep-rooted crops.
Barrier-fracturing is a novel idea that involves modifying the flow profile and diverting the displacing fluid by placing a fracture with essentially zero permeability deep into the reservoir.
European laws that oblige Britain to invest heavily in renewables are diverting resources away from CCS, says Judith Shapiro, an industry spokesperson.Yet the government is digging deep to make sure its latest efforts pay off.
If companies capitulate to the pressure to play politics, they'll be diverting corporate resources away from hiring and innovation at the worst possible time: a deep and possibly double-dip recession.
And, around the diverting games of I-spy-Naipaul in The Last Word, the novel also contains deeper reflections on the businesses of writing, reading and biography, and their fate in what may be a post-literary culture.
