This note gives a simple cocycle-theoretic proof of the Verdier hypercovering theorem. This theorem approximates morphisms $[X,Y]$ in the homotopy category of simplicial sheaves or presheaves by simplicial homotopy classes of maps, in the case where $Y$ is locally fibrant. The statement proved in this paper is a generalization of the standard Verdier hypercovering result in that it is pointed (in a very broad sense) and there is no requirement for the source object $X$ to be locally fibrant.

This note shows that any set of cofibrations containing the standard set of generating projective cofibrations determines a cofibrantly generated proper closed model structure on the category of simplicial presheaves on a small Grothendieck site, for which the weak equivalences are the local weak equivalences in the usual sense.

The usual constructions of classifying spaces for monoidal categories produce CW-complexes with many cells that, moreover, do not have any proper geometric meaning. However, geometric nerves of monoidal categories are very handy simplicial sets whose simplices have a pleasing geometric description: they are diagrams with the shape of the 2-skeleton of oriented standard simplices. The purpose of this paper is to prove that geometric realizations of geometric nerves are classifying spaces for monoidal categories.