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The most sympathetic skeptical take on it would probably be: http://m8y.org/astrology.txt
snippet...
"The rules just kind of got there. They don't make any kind of sense except in terms of themselves. But when you start to exercise those rules, all sorts of processes start to happen and you start to find out all sorts of stuff about people. In astrology the rules happen to be about stars and planets, but they could be about ducks and drakes for all the difference it would make. It's just a way of thinking about a problem which lets the shape of that problem begin to emerge. The more rules, the tinier the rules, the more arbitrary they are, the better. It's like throwing a handful of fine graphite dust on a piece of paper to see where the hidden indentations are. It lets you see the words that were written on the piece of paper above it that's now been taken away and hidden. The graphite's not important. It's just the means of revealing their indentations. So you see, astrology's nothing to do with astronomy. It's just to do with people thinking about people."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... illusion you are probably seeing.

And then there's the risks when driving at that speed. Back then, power steering was not common, there was no ABS. Tires were not as good. In a few years we'll be adding computer assisted safety features too.

Anyway, this reminds me of a bloom county strip.

http://m8y.org/bloomcounty.txt

http://m8y.org/tmp/temp.jpeg

A rough approximation of shapes, as near as I can make out from landmarks.
Sandy is larger, but, doesn't seem to be that much larger to me.

And, as noted in comment to AC, my experience of Sandy in maryland was *very* different from that of people in NJ and NY (as in, barely felt like a tropical storm in the impact on our counties in terms of power loss and damage).

They can be applied to any window w/ a key combo, and are fairly customisable.
Here's a custom one applied to Firefox, is one that preserves colours while inverting lightness.

http://m8y.org/tmp/biased-inverted-lightness.txt
http://m8y.org/tmp/inverted-lightness.txt

http://m8y.org/tmp/lightness1.jpeg http://m8y.org/tmp/lightness2.jpeg http://m8y.org/tmp/lightness3.jpeg

Arbitrary tweaks of the values. Apologies for the relative unreadableness of the script (variable reuse, bad names) was just a quick implementation of:
http://dbaron.org/log/20110430-invert-colors

To be actually usable for routine web browsing.

They can be applied to any window w/ a key combo, and are fairly customisable.
Here's a custom one applied to Firefox, is one that preserves colours while inverting lightness.

http://m8y.org/tmp/biased-inverted-lightness.txt
http://m8y.org/tmp/inverted-lightness.txt

http://m8y.org/tmp/lightness1.jpeg http://m8y.org/tmp/lightness2.jpeg http://m8y.org/tmp/lightness3.jpeg

Arbitrary tweaks of the values. Apologies for the relative unreadableness of the script (variable reuse, bad names) was just a quick implementation of:
http://dbaron.org/log/20110430-invert-colors

To be actually usable for routine web browsing.

They can be applied to any window w/ a key combo, and are fairly customisable.
Here's a custom one applied to Firefox, is one that preserves colours while inverting lightness.

http://m8y.org/tmp/biased-inverted-lightness.txt
http://m8y.org/tmp/inverted-lightness.txt

http://m8y.org/tmp/lightness1.jpeg http://m8y.org/tmp/lightness2.jpeg http://m8y.org/tmp/lightness3.jpeg

Arbitrary tweaks of the values. Apologies for the relative unreadableness of the script (variable reuse, bad names) was just a quick implementation of:
http://dbaron.org/log/20110430-invert-colors

To be actually usable for routine web browsing.

They can be applied to any window w/ a key combo, and are fairly customisable.
Here's a custom one applied to Firefox, is one that preserves colours while inverting lightness.

http://m8y.org/tmp/biased-inverted-lightness.txt
http://m8y.org/tmp/inverted-lightness.txt

http://m8y.org/tmp/lightness1.jpeg http://m8y.org/tmp/lightness2.jpeg http://m8y.org/tmp/lightness3.jpeg

Arbitrary tweaks of the values. Apologies for the relative unreadableness of the script (variable reuse, bad names) was just a quick implementation of:
http://dbaron.org/log/20110430-invert-colors

To be actually usable for routine web browsing.

They can be applied to any window w/ a key combo, and are fairly customisable.
Here's a custom one applied to Firefox, is one that preserves colours while inverting lightness.

http://m8y.org/tmp/biased-inverted-lightness.txt
http://m8y.org/tmp/inverted-lightness.txt

http://m8y.org/tmp/lightness1.jpeg http://m8y.org/tmp/lightness2.jpeg http://m8y.org/tmp/lightness3.jpeg

Arbitrary tweaks of the values. Apologies for the relative unreadableness of the script (variable reuse, bad names) was just a quick implementation of:
http://dbaron.org/log/20110430-invert-colors

To be actually usable for routine web browsing.

http://people.mozilla.com/~prouget/ie9/ie9_vs_fx4.html

And that's Firefox 4. In past year, situation has changed even further.

Hell. Let's take JavaScript. Setting aside how Microsoft if not faked, then poorly optimised to the test for SunSpider...

Here's my personal browser tests:
http://m8y.org/tmp/kraken.xhtml

Well, ran a test along your lines.
http://m8y.org/tmp/ff_mem_check.txt
Upshot:
  1 about:memory
  9955 nemo 20 0 284m 52m 26m S 0 1.7 0:01.84 firefox-bin
  1 about:memory + 50 wikipedia
  9955 nemo 20 0 659m 275m 29m S 0 9.1 0:21.29 firefox-bin
  1 about:memory
  9955 nemo 20 0 634m 118m 30m S 1 3.9 0:23.60 firefox-bin
  1 about:memory + 50 wikipedia
  9955 nemo 20 0 666m 276m 30m S 1 9.2 0:41.88 firefox-bin
  1 about:memory
  9955 nemo 20 0 642m 117m 30m S 0 3.9 0:53.81 firefox-bin
  1 about:memory + 50 wikipedia
  9955 nemo 20 0 675m 284m 30m S 0 9.4 1:11.83 firefox-bin
  1 about:memory
  9955 nemo 20 0 635m 110m 30m S 0 3.7 1:15.16 firefox-bin
  1 about:memory + 50 wikipedia
  9955 nemo 20 0 670m 278m 30m S 4 9.2 1:33.52 firefox-bin
  1 about:memory
  9955 nemo 20 0 637m 111m 30m S 1 3.7 1:36.93 firefox-bin
  1 about:memory + 50 wikipedia
  9955 nemo 20 0 672m 283m 30m S 0 9.4 1:55.41 firefox-bin
  1 about:memory
  9955 nemo 20 0 643m 117m 30m S 1 3.9 1:58.83 firefox-bin
  1 about:memory + 50 wikipedia
  9955 nemo 20 0 668m 280m 30m S 0 9.3 2:17.06 firefox-bin
  1 about:memory
  9955 nemo 20 0 655m 147m 37m S 1 4.9 2:22.03 firefox-bin
  1 about:memory + 50 wikipedia
  9955 nemo 20 0 702m 307m 37m S 0 10.2 2:41.23 firefox-bin
  1 about:memory
  9955 nemo 20 0 673m 149m 37m S 0 5.0 2:44.20 firefox-bin

Gotta say, not seeing your dramatic results...

http://arewefastyet.com/ tracks the new chrome crankshaft.

The reason the 64 bit machine (dropdown on lower left) is slower at kraken is I think crankshaft isn't 64 bit yet,

Anyway, if you look at the historical AWFY, Apple's engine has been pretty consistently on top on sunspider, the margins are pretty thin though due to the shortness of the tests, something both Firefox and Chrome complained about.

I haven't run kraken on the new crankshaft recently (where it appears it would kick ass) but I did run it a few months ago...
http://m8y.org/tmp/kraken.xhtml

That's an oooold image.
Try posting a more up to date one. Firefox is now the fastest at Sunspider on x86 and faster than Chrome on x64.

http://arewefastyet.com/

Then of course there is Kraken...
http://m8y.org/tmp/kraken.xhtml

The problem with Sunspider, and this isn't unique to Firefox, is the shortness of the benchmarks. This does penalise Firefox at bit more which pays up front in tracing a bit for gains on more complex code later. It also encourages optimising for the harness and not the test.

Kraken and v8bench are still good tests. Oh, and just to be clear, IE9pp6 does a darn good job.

Check out its performance on this checkers AI.

http://www.bailopan.net/blog/?p=822

This (extreme) approach might help.
http://m8y.org/gentoosync.txt

I know this is a joke, but let's say we somehow managed in some science fiction scenario to melt all the ice in Greenland and Antarctica.
http://m8y.org/images/world_noice.jpg
You'd end up with something like that.
You bought a bit too far inland. :)
Used this toy.
http://www.ens-lyon.fr/Planet-Terre/Infosciences/H istoire/Eustatisme/Applets/index.html