Speaking of the Black Rock… I have a good theory for how it wound up a mile or two inland. In 1883 Krakatoa exploded in Indonesia, and it spawned tsunamis so large that water went several miles inland on many islands in the South Pacific. That’d be the right time frame, anyway. If there was dynamite on that ship, that would place it in the latter half of the 19th century at the earliest.
Any research on the name " Desmond"? What’s the matter with you dopers, there were pages on Ethan, Locke, Shepherd…?
I doubt any of those pages appeared the first week the character was shown.
Nemo, Babe, it’s been days since our “Brother Desmond” has appeared on the Dopers Favorite show, there are pages of “Official Lost Questions and Links” We dopers even have our own Lexicon about the show. I was just surprised about no research on the name that is all. 
Except that Jack identified his dead father in the Sydney morgue.
Well, we don’t know how he died yet, do we? I mean, the official word is that he drank himself to death, but something must have happened. He was bad, but he didn’t look “Leaving Las Vegas” bad in Sawyer’s flasgback.
Why is everyone so sure that the dynamite came with the Black Rock? It may have even come with Rousseau’s crew, and they just stashed it in there before it got old and dangerous.
Somebody up-thread had the derivation of the name, but I can’t be arsed to find it. Besides, isn’t Desmond Ex Machina good enough for you? 
I can be arsed to, silenus.
Did anyone else notice how emotionally involved Jack was in Sarah’s care? Remember that he didn’t know her at this point and as a surgeon surely sees many difficult cases. It seemed odd to me, but perhaps he gets that way with all his cases.
The prevailing theory on at least one other board is that is may be a reference to Irish marxist and communist scientist John Desmond Bernal, considered a “pionner in social studies of science or ‘science of science’”.
They went out of their way to illustrate that his bedside manner before Sarah was clinical almost to the point of inhumanity.
Well, unusually insensitive, anyway.
Not sure if this has been mentioned yet, I just re-watched the first 5 minutes again.
I noticed when Desmond was doing chin-ups that the laundry detergent on top of the washing machine was definitly a “new-style” liquid detergent bottle. Something that you would only have been able to buy the last 5 or so years.
And because of that, I think we can assume that the washer and dryer are new. So that means he must have been a recent addition to the island, or getting supplies on a somewhat regular interval.
Also, has anyone atempted to figure out what he typed on the keyboard a la “Sneakers”?.
MtM
Also, the garbage can was one of those new-style $200 ones that were described in another thread. So he was being supplied with new stuff somehow.
As for what he typed,I read somewhere that he typed in “the numbers,” although that wasn’t clear to me.
So, on the computer in the hatch, did you guys notice the prompt?
>:
Tilt your head to the right, and it’s clearly a frowny-face (almost angry-face) emoticon. This is a bad bad program he’s runnning…
I noticed the same thing on re-watching. Also, the dish detergent has a flip-top lid, which is a recent trend. If it was a 70s one, it would have one you pull up (like this)
If Desmond is in cahoots with the Others/pirates as some have speculated, the anachronisms can be written off as having been given to him after being pilfered from shipping…
I’m going to make a few predictions and will spoiler box them just in case no one wants to read them. But I have no inside info, and am just making my educated guess of what will happen in the next few episodes based on the writers’ track records:
In Episode 2.2, we will see little if any of what happens next inside the hatch. Instead, the focus will shift to the raft survivors. The folks in the caves won’t see The Others, since The Others went after Walt. But, at least one of the raft survivors, probably Mike, will make it back to the encampment. At the end of Episode 2, or beginning of 3, one or two of the raft survivors will wash up on shore on another part of the island and discover the tail section survivors. They will consist of Tequila girl and Rose’s husband plus a few more.
At this point, I’m assuming that this is a continuing experiment/project, so Desmond is being supplied by the government/evil corporation behind it. So he may be simply ordering stuff from Amazon.com or even the Sears catalog.
But it seems Dell doesn’t deliver…
D’oh! :smack: A perfectly reasonable explanation.