Delicious LiveJournal Links for 8-26-2009

[andrewducker]

• New high-speed rail plan unveiled
  $34Bn to join London to Glasgow - via Birmingham and Manchester. 2:16 travel time rather than 4:48 as it is at the moment. I wonder if it will actually get made...
  (tags: travel UK trains)
• Multitaskers bad at multitasking
  Now there's irony for you.
  (tags: media technology attention concentration multitasking psychology)
• What determines Caster Semenya's sex?
  It is, of course, not as simple as you might think.
  (tags: sex gender genetics hormones)

Comments

[drainboy.livejournal.com]

The article on gender only helps confirm my view that gender and sexuality are jokes played on us by the gods ;)

[marrog.livejournal.com]

I love that having 'dubious' gender, or even some kind of gender disorder, is potentially an 'unfair advantage', when a muscular physique from any other randomly genetically assigned source isn't. As if to say "Well, if you're lucky enough to have a good metabolism and be naturally muscular and have good bones and joints and the natural talent for the sport, that's all fine... unless we think it has something to do with your hormone levels or you might look a bit funny Down There. Then you're out."

[andrewducker]

Absolutely.

Once we divide people up into groups X and Y anything that threatens to blur the lines gets treated as a threat rather than just part of the wonderful strangeness that surrounds us.

[drainboy.livejournal.com]

Wonderful strangeness that's within the bounds of normality we were bought up in. As soon as I hit 70 I fully intend to instantly transform into a bigot (probably via becoming a Daily Mail reader at 50).

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

I wonder if it will actually get made...

Almost certainly not. At least, not in a timespan that is relevant. Even if you take £34bn as the actual cost, rather than a finger-in-the-air, we-might-get-it-within-an-order-of-magnitude-of-this initial guess ... that's £34bn the Treasury doesn't have and probably won't for a decade or more. And even if the Government of the day was keen as mustard, and not likely to be hammered at an election in less than a year, the planning will be a nightmare of nimbyism - it's going to have to run through almost all the heavily populated parts of the country apart from Nottingham and Leeds/Bradford.

[sterlingspider.livejournal.com]

There's an interesting blurb on the multitasking study at mindhacks (which is a super neat site, by the way).