New Year Misc.

[zotz]

Firefox is annoying me severely. Ff2 is probably not going to be any better.

Anyway - happy new year, everyone. Several of you have commented on last year having been a bit of a trial. I hope this year's much better - including the ones who had a good year, of course.

The Guardian today has an interesting interview with James Flynn, of the interesting "Flynn effect" - the observation that raw IQ scores have been rising by about three points per decade across the industrialised world for more than the last century. This, of course, is now a well-established result, regardless of what pessimists, eugenicists and Daily Mail leader writers will tell you.

I also came across this page again - pictures of the world's largest diesel engines. Work safe, of course, although if you're prone as me to bursts of impressed profanity when you're surprised, then be warned.

Comments

[technotom.livejournal.com]

I also came across this page again - pictures of the world's largest diesel engines.

Ooh!! Oooo!!! Aaaaaahh.. I almost came. Look at the size of the crankcase! And those ludicrous conrods.

108,920 hp at 102 rpm

Pah. Feeble. My 2.0 pinto pushes out 110 bhp @ 5500rpm. Oh hang on, that's not a decimal point, it's a comma.

Yep. I've just soiled myself.

[rdi.livejournal.com]

"Canada was just too boring."

Well, it was pre-Trudeau...

[spudtater.livejournal.com]

It's a trick! It's actually a normal-sized engine being built by Lilliputians.

[princealbert.livejournal.com]

Wait till they get the thought control working on Firefox:

[lsur.livejournal.com]

There's something about an engine that's bigger than a house. One of the nice things about living on the coast is the sound of marine engines as they glide into harbour, about 3m from the riverside.

*impressed*

[casilda.livejournal.com]

What don't you like about Firefox, it's the bees knees! :)

[zotz]

A memory leak, occasional unpredictable crashes, and an odd bug that involves opening links in a new page, unasked, with no nav bar and no ability to fill in forms. Apart from that it's fine.

I may use Opera more until it's sorted out.

[rdi.livejournal.com]

Depending on your needs, you mind find Flock interesting. I've been using it of and on over the past few months (main browser on laptop, secondary on desktop) and have had generally good experiences with it.

[zotz]

I did use an early version. It seemed fine, but Opera's already installed and working well.

[johnnyrandom.livejournal.com]

That's a mighty impressive engine, and no mistake.

I'll make do with a 7.2 Hemi stuffed inside a '68 Dodge Charger, though. Can you believe nobody bought me one for Xmas? Tight bastards!

[zotz]

The space shuttle's main engines apparently deliver 37 million horsepower.

[steer.livejournal.com]

It's amazing how few people know about the Flynn effect. There have been one or two studies hinting that it has stopped or reversed in some countries.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Which countries?

[steer.livejournal.com]

Denmark and UK. However, this does remain to be confirmed.

[zotz]

I saw vague reports about Britain, but I hadn't heard about Denmark. Interesting.

[steer.livejournal.com]

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V9F-4G7DXTD-3&_user=126317&_handle=C-WA-A-WU-WU-MsSWYWW-UUA-U-U-WU-U-U-AADUBADYWV-AAZDYEYZWV-AYVABYUUV-WU-U&_fmt=summary&_coverDate=09%2F30%2F2005&_rdoc=18&_orig=browse&_srch=%23toc%235897%232005%23999609995%23602497!&_cdi=5897&view=c&_acct=C000010338&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=126317&md5=296995c4ad175a9b6349070cc6b5715e

Note dodgy scale for fig 1.

[zotz]

I can only see the abstract, but thank you. It's interesting. I may be able to see more next week - I will probably be in a rather good research library while I'm down.

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

Happy New Year!

[zotz]

Thank you. And yourself. It's been windy here,, as you probably heard.

I'll be down south next week, incidentally.

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

Down South? Where and when? It'd be good if I could actually see you for once.

[zotz]

I'll be at my sister's in London, but a trip out somewhere would be easy enough if people were going to be anywhere in particular.

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

Well I'll be around this weekend, and possibly Tuesday morning of next week as well, if you feel like meeting up in Cambridge, or even venturing to Suffolk.

Next weekend I may go down to Southampton to scope out some properties, assuming I've got more idea of when I'm likely to be moving.

[zotz]

Ah. I'm not down until Monday and I'll be busy during the days. I'll quite possibly be down again before too long, though.

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

No worries. It might be easier to meet up when I'm more settled anyway.

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

Jim Flynn teaches political science at the university I work for (and have my degree from).

[zotz]

Not bad. A friend of mine was telling me about getting physics lectures from Prof Higgs, of the boson. The main point he remembered was that the guy's top was so tight he could see his nipples from the back of the lecture theatre.