Scott's Blog

Thank you google, now Google Earth (aka keyhole) is free!. I talked about it before . I'm over here at -43.9,-19.92. I played with it a bit today. It's even better than before. Not only is more covered but it has the roads and the names of the roads as well. Now it's really easy to find where you live. And as you can imaging the search works quite well too. Even better, it can show the names of roads and restaurants and the like. Unfortunately, the coverage in Brazil is less than ideal, but it's better than it was in November.

On the podcast Coverville I got my song request "Give Me Love" by George Harrison sung by the Brazilian singer Marisa Monte . I also had a previous request ("It's the end of the world as we know it", sung by Great Big Sea originally by R.E.M.) that got played but was attributed to someone else (Moira from Japan). Coverville 103.mp3 Coverville 95.mp3

Last Friday I got the aquarium and it's installed in the wall. Looks good but needs some woodwork done around it to complete the look. Here's a list of photos on flickr. Here are some specifications: 100cm*60cm*60cm (10mm thick) => 360 litres (95 gallons) 300 W heater 2 kg CO2 canister 3x95W coralife VHO lights EHEIN 2217 Canister filter A special substrate for plants

ABSTRACT?Large epidemiological studies of almost an entire population in Scotland have found that intelligence (as measured by an IQ-type test) in childhood predicts substantial differences in adult morbidity and mortality, including deaths from cancers and cardiovascular diseases. These relations remain significant after controlling for socioeconomic variables. One possible, partial explanation of these results is that intelligence enhances individuals? care of their own health because it represents learning, reasoning, and problem-solving skills useful in preventing chronic disease and accidental injury and in adhering to complex treatment regimens. Here is the full article (in PDF) I find this interesting and may be a reason that intelligence has increased steadily over time. This is called the Flynn effect , where the global IQ seems to rise about 3 percent per decade at a fairly steady rate. Some say that the opposite should happen, that parents with higher IQs often have fewer...

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

This is way too cool . It's an optical I've never seen before called Rapid Colored Afterimage. The image is a set of magenta spots which dissapear to gray. But if you stare at it, the gray becomes a green spot. Stare some more and the purple spots begin to dissappear, leaving only the green.

Go is an interesting Chinese (and Japanese) game, sort of like chess or checkers. I found a great introductory site with nice Java programs to show you the rules and strategies interactively. The game looks simple to learn, but difficult to master, like most good games.