[map reading] some can, some can't

What do you make of this one?

[Research] from the University of Warwick suggests that not only are straight women worse at map reading than straight males, they are also outperformed by bisexual men, gay men, gay women and bisexual women - in that order. The study looked at what's called mental rotation. This is our ability to mentally visualise an object from different perspectives.

Applied to real life, the most practical example of mental rotation is map reading, says Dr Michael Tlauka, an expert in gender differences and spatial ability from Flinders University. "This is one mental task where studies have shown that men consistently outperform women. It's not a myth at all - map reading and spatial skills in general, you'll find that men outperform women."

Well, I have two comments. Firstly, give me a heterosexual woman any day and I care not what she can and can't do. Secondly, I'm not so hot myself.

Sure I can follow a map without problems and without a map can usually find a way to a given place by some sort of radar but if I try to return - I'm lost. I lose all orientation.

I did this with four groups of girls last week, asking each to direct me from Home at the bottom of the map to the Shopping Centre at the top. Results were mixed. Certainly some girls weren't too bad but the majority confirmed the study above.

Interesting. Further reading here.

[blogfocus wednesday] midweek version

1 A triple namer, with the initial in the middle, Andrew K. Brown's Someday I Will Treat You Good is sporting a recipe for pork:

This is a Moro recipe. The skin of the loin is lightly cut at 1 cm intervals and salt put over. The flesh is rub with a mix of salt, garlic and fennel. It goes into a hot oven for 30 minutes or so and then the heat is turned down to 180 C and the pork cooks for another 25 mins per 500g. We served this with a sherry gravy, apple sauce, roast potatoes, spinach and peas.

Go to it, gastronomes.

2 J. Arthur MacNumpty is another triple namer [with the initial initial initial] and like all self-respecting bloggers, is reflecting on electoral systems:

People are starting to digest the effects of alphabetisation on the STV Council Ballot Paper, including Grant, who now wishes to be known as Grant Aardvark-Thoms. If I were him, I'd change my first name to Abraham for maximum effect, but there you go.

Anyway, people are considering if maybe it's time to change this, and randomise the order of candidates on the ballot paper. I'm not so sure about this, I think it won't actually change anything, it'll just replace an alphabetical advantage with a completely random advantage.

Others suggest having each ballot paper have the candidates in a different order. Again, I'm sceptical, as this could mean that the way someone casts a vote is determined by when they get to the polling station.

3 Longrider is in the wars over there and I can relate to his internet woes:

For the first time in my life, I sought medical advice. Normally, I just take the anti-histamine and get on with life. After a week of increasingly severe symptoms, I realised that this method was not working. That was followed by our phone line going dead.

It is at times like this when you realise just how much the Internet has become apart of your life. Notes for an article I’m planning? Backed up on-line. Banking? On-line. Shopping? On-line.

Then there was that eBay auction I had coming to an end on Sunday ... Still, despite BT telling us that the line wouldn’t be up and running until Wednesday, we have a connection, so I’m making the most of it ...

4 Is CityUnslicker getting leftist in his old age? I thought I was reading Oliver Kamm until I got into the article:

Noam is of course, near mad. A world class master of seeing evil in good and vice versa. Capable of Tony Benn catastrophic misjudgements. He shares some things in common too with Gordon Brown; such as his epic struggle against common sense.

Nonetheless he does write well and also makes good efforts to quote from sources, dubious so some are. Overall his attitude to US and UK imperialism is consistent and blind. Hezbollah and Fatah are the good guys, Ahmedinnerjacket a true man. Hugo Chavez does no wrong. Instead all the enemies are to be found at home and his world is a conspiracy of evil.

5 Tea and Margaritas brings us the important news about the Guelph masochist:

Police in Guelph, Ont., are looking for a man who allegedly approached women and asked them to kick him in the groin.

Three women reported similar incidents to police and two of the women reported the suspect was on a bicycle. The various incidents allegedly occurred over the last two months. The suspect is described as white, in his early twenties, with a brown goatee and a large gap between his front teeth.

None of the women reported injuries.

6 The Spine shows its usual class in this piece on Tony Lookalikes:

‘It was good while it lasted…’ So says Tony Badger, who, for the last ten years, has been the UK’s top Tony Blair lookalike. ‘I guess I was born with a golden face,’ smiles the 53 year old steam train enthusiast and part-time lingerie model from Kent.

‘Only I’ve had to make it more golden over the years to keep pace with Tony’s tan. That’s been the most difficult part of the job. From one week to the next, we never knew what colour he’d be. One day he’d be a Bermudan beige and the next a shade of Moroccan coffee.’

7 An exciting blogger who has come to a number of fellow blogger's attention, Vorzheva, the Spanish Pundit, who is right on the front line of Spanish politics, opposing the terrorists and bringing the latest news. If you are a serious blogger and are interested in world news from the horses' mouths, this is a must:

The Government should know that, the more he attacks the FORO ERMUA, the bigger will be our strength.

If in the end this felony is achieved and they impose the sanction, FORO ERMUA will appeal the citizens to have enough funds to pay it and will dedicate the rest to make stronger the citizen’s movilization against the ignominous process of dialogue, cession and pact with the terrorist band ETA.

A band that has already 900 deaths in their backs, thousands of hurt people, dozens of thousands of menaced and hundred of thousands of displaced ...

Please excuse the English - Vorzheva is Spanish and this is a fair job of bringing us the news.

8 Will, of a General Theory of Rubbish, replete with communist red star and full Marxist arsenal, might consider me the first up against the wall, come the revolution. It was he who penned the testimonial in my sidebar and grateful I am for it. Strangely, I'm with him in this post:

Palestinian Surgeon General's Warning: Cigarettes, like liberal democracy, may be hazardous to your health. Pregnant women should not smoke, as It could damage the health of a future martyr. Also, Benson & Hedges™ brand cigarettes are manufactured in Western facilities where they may come into contact with infidels and/or Jews. Thus, avoid at all costs and smoke some sub-standard shite like what you would buy in The Barras for at least a third of the cost.

Next time is Saturday, readers. Between now and then, please give us the Categories you'd like to see competed in, in the Blogpower Awards.

Wulf's Web Den coming up on Saturday. Cheers, comrades.

[wednesday quiz]ten more for your delectation

On this sizzling hot day, how many can you get this time:

1 Who do the Italians call Topolino?

2 How many counters does a player start with in Backgammon?

3 Parnassus was the sacred mountain home of the muses and of which Greek god?

4 After how many years marriage do you celebrate your Emerald wedding anniversary?

5 Europeans are familiar with A-4 size paper. What is the area of A-0 paper?

6 In Roman numerals, what is the letter M with a bar over it?

7 Who is Bibendum better known as?

8 Which later famous actress won the 1936 'Miss Hungary' title but had to give it up because she was under 16?

9 Where would you find together a verso and a recto?

10 You know that bigamy is having a second marriage partner. What is digamy?

Answers here.

[pommygranate] at that difficult stage

Pommygranate actually seems to have taken the lead in the Aussie poll [104] over his next rival [89].

Colin Campbell and the Englishman - I can't find any link to vote in their poll. Wish they'd tell me.

So, as Pommy's the only live "awarder" we know of at this moment, slip over, if you would and place a vote for him.

Colin referred to "vote stuffing" and he's right in one sense but in another, one plays the game according to the rules and if the rules allow you one vote a day, we'd be crazy not to do it.

Anyway, my vote today's been placed.

Now, I simply didn't know about Colin and the Englishman so I think we need some sort of central blogger who collates and announces these things. If you are in an award, simply contact him. What do you think?

[china] wrath of the dragon

Not content with killing their citizens with lightning:

Saturday, May 26, 2007

Lightning has killed 56 people in China this year, 17 more than the same period last year, Yu Rucong, deputy chief of the China Meteorological Administration, said on Friday. Another 65 people were injured, 26 more than in the previous year.

... they are now executing their government ministers:

Tuesday, May 29th, 2007

China has sentenced the former head of the State Food and Drug Administration to death after he was convicted of corruption, state media has reported. Zheng Xiaoyu was sentenced after being found guilty of taking bribes and dereliction of duty, state Xinhua news agency reported.

Zheng, 62, who was sacked in 2005 after seven years in the job, could have his sentence reduced on appeal. He was expelled from the Communist Party earlier this year. The death sentence is unusually harsh for such a senior figure, says the BBC's Quentin Sommerville in Shanghai. Last month Zheng was accused of accepting more than 5m yuan ($650,000) in bribes to approve hundreds of drugs.

Thirty-one other people were also alleged to have been involved in the scandal, including Zheng's wife, Liu Naixue, and his son, Zheng Hairong. The sentence comes amid a food safety scandal that has hit Chinese manufacturers. Two company managers have been detained, accused of adding melamine to food additives. US inspectors allege this led to the death of a number of cats and dogs after they ate contaminated pet food.

The Chinese seem to like execution as a penalty and they do so much of it that some years back they decided to take it to the streets:

March 13 2003

China is equipping its courts with mobile execution vans as it shifts away from the communist system's traditional bullet in the head, towards a more "civilised" use of lethal injection.

Intermediate Courts of the southern province of Yunnan were issued with 18 new execution vans on February 28 and a court official said some have already been used.

"We cannot tell you how many executions so far, otherwise you could work out from the daily rate how many we carry out," the official said.

Chinese authorities keep execution numbers a secret, but Western human rights monitors believe it is about 15,000 a year, more than the rest of the world's judicial executions combined.

Living in China. Let's pack our bags and emigrate now.

[late note] hope you're coping too

Sorry for the lack of posting and visiting but there were reasons:

1] Internet problems which I hope are fixed.

2] The heat. Allow me to explain:

Someone said it was 38 degrees today but I can't see it, more like 34 or so max and now about 29.

Still, it was death stuff out there because it was mixed in with car and industrial fumes. This city is at the stage cities in the west were in the 50s/60s - belching bad air and congested, before the era of EPA and road systems.

You can always tell when it's acceptable because the ladies bask in it if it's all right. Today they were lying around outstretched, with tongues lolling out the sides of their mouths.

My personal situation is better than most - here is where my apartment comes into its own - it misses the late afternoon sun and what with the airconditioner wall unit and two 19 litre water bottles, there's less to complain of.

However, having been out in the poisoned soup today meant I just crashed when I got home and now it's nearly midnight and no chance of Blogfocus.

3] There is a word here 'rukavoditel', meaning literally 'hand driver'. Every 5th course student is, at this moment, going before the Commission to present dissertations and every one of them has a personal 'trainer'.

Two girls have me and I've been pretty bad with them, timewise. I've left it till very late to deal with the matter and now we're having to meet everyday and do a lot of it by e-mail in the evening.

Hence the other reason for the lack of posting. I myself also have to prepare a detailed report on each of them and I haven't done it yet. The big plan is to get all this done tomorrow and then run a...

Blogfocus Wednesday

...tomorrow evening, in place of Tuesday and Thursday. Thanks to regular readers who have visited today. I have all the comments still to answer and if you're a fellow blogger, you'll be the first I visit tomorrow evening.

[warning] internet connection dropping out

Can't get internet for more than five minutes - keeps dropping out. That is, it won't even dial-up. I know you'll say buy a new super-duper system but I have to buy a new car and repair the flat before that. So the blog will have to struggle along with what it's got for now.

[that's it] we've had enough

Ladies and gentlemen, some of us have had enough of it! Do you remember this, the reason why we formed in the first place?

So, time to do our own and there's a Cunning Plan:

The Annual Blogpower awards

Let's make them scathing as well as sycophantic. Let's run the whole gamut of categories we could vote for on someone - best "animal blog", "blog with the shortest posts" and so on. Let's think big and include the MSM in this thing. Let's allow everyone, not only Blogpowerers, to join in. Blogpower will just be the host.

So, here's the agenda:

1] One of us - me - cobbles together possible categories this week, based on either your suggestions in Comments or by e-mail to james higham at mail dot com. [Some people prefer to e-mail their thoughts.]

This plan of categories is presented in a new Blogpower post this Friday evening, June 1st, 21:00 London time, for your perusal and comment strictly for 24 hours.

2] On Saturday evening, June 2nd, at 21:00, London time, the categories are then presented in concrete at Blogpower and nominations invited for each category.

Nominations are welcome from the whole sphere, based on either your suggestions in comments or by e-mail to james higham at mail dot com. Anyone, not just Blogpowerers, are invited.

Each of you put something on your site [including all our non-BP friends out there] advertising that we are accepting nominations for one week, until the following Saturday evening. We must show we are not a closed shop - that this is the only truly international representative poll of its kind.

3] Nominations close on Saturday evening, June 3rd, at 21:00, London time and James gets down to work preparing a series of separate freepolls, inviting the whole sphere to vote.

4] On Sunday, June 4th, at 15:00, these freepolls are posted at Blogpower and then we'd like an onslaught of advertising on your sites, inviting everyone to come in and vote. I'll e-mail all my contacts to vote and hopefully you'll do the same.

5] On Sunday, June 11th, at 15:00, the freepolls are closed and I spend my last free Sunday, before my personal blog hiatus, writing up the results for posting, although these will be patently obvious from the running tallies anyway.

That's the plan to break the secretive pre-selection and non-representativeness of the usual Blog Awards. Your comments are invited.

Vote Pommygranate, Colin and the Englishman

Pommygranate's in some sort of antipodaean blogpoll just now. Could you get over there and give him a click?

UPDATE AND APOLOGY

I think I've made a huge mistake here and misled everyone. You see, late last evening, very tired, I went over to Pommygranate and there was a beleagured appeal. I didn't check it through but immediately saw one of our Blogpowerers in trouble, clicked on his link and saw him in a list and no one else we knew.

Hence the rallying cry to vote for him.

However, this morning I was posting on Blogpower, scrolled down and saw this on Colin Campbell's post:

Featured this time are Pommygranate and myself, along with some other Bloggy Aussies and the Englishmans take on nude car washes in Brisbane.

Penny dropped that perhaps this was the SAME poll as Colin and the Englishman and hence Colin's anguished:

For a libertarian, this is unmitigated ballot stuffing. That with envelopes of cash, we have the potential for a rorted election. All this in the cause of supporting our libertarian friend.

To which I, thinking Colin was only kidding, replied:

Unmitigated ballot-stuffing - all hail to corruption, Colin and I voted for him as a fellow blogpowerer, not as a Zambesi Liberation Force supporter or Golden Labrador Owners club nominee or whatever.

Now, in the light of what I know - that in this poll were also Colin and the Englishman, I'm looking for a giant hole to fall down and end my misery. Oh, woe is me! What have I done?

OK, to repair this, I'm heading over to Colins's and the Englishman's sites now to find out how I can register votes for them.

The question is, will you join me and visit these boys and give them your vote too?

UPDATE UPDATE:

Now it gets even more confusing. Lord Nazh and Pommygranate inform us that the polls are separate and anyway, I can't find anywhere on their sites to vote for them - no link. Can someone set me straight on this thing?

[obsession] 3rd chapter is up

The 3rd Chapter is uploaded for those kind souls who've been following the plot so far.

Click on the pic here for the book and then I find it easier to scroll a little down the sidebar and use the Blog Archive link for the chapter. Each page then has a "Home" link.

My main criticism and the reason it took 12 years to finish writing this book whilst the next one, Lemmings, took only two months, is that the first two and a half chapters are a bit slow and I simply didn't know how to speed them up.

I had to establish a fairly mundane, routine existence for the couple, in order for Miss Heathrow to come in and turn it all upside down. It does hot up near the end of Chapter 3 but the first flight from danger comes only in Chapter 4 and the first body doesn't appear until Chapter 5.

The first sex of an R rated kind only comes in Chapter 4. Actually, I like Chapter 4 a lot.