Happiness is U shaped

And if you are at the bottom of the U, you should be on MySpace.

A recent study (led by Andrew Oswald from Warwick University in Britain, and David Blanchflower of Dartmouth College) found that happiness follows a U-shaped curve in which people are happy in their 20s and get miserable in their 40s, and start looking up again beginning in their 50s, and if they live to be 70+, and happen to be physically well, they tend to be as happy as they were in their 20s. Remarkably, this is universal: the study surveyed 2 million people in 80 countries - and the U shape was observed in 72 of those countries.

The explanation of this is, at the moment, purely speculative. It goes like this: in the 40s people hit the traditional "mid-life crisis" - mortality sinks in, health fades, reality hits home in careers, finally they realize their lofty dreams aren't going to be realized, etc. And then, they get used to it. And if they live to be older and are healthy, they see how they fare better than their peers who are either sick or dead. Survivor bias may also be at play - the miserable die early, leaving the happy-go-lucky to hog all the senior discounts.

Another recent study found that size does matter, when it comes to one's social network. Recovery after a surgery - in terms of the severity of the pain experienced, the duration of recovery and the amount of pain meds needed - was found to be considerably better in cases where the patient had more people to call close friends.

You may not think of MySpace as the place where your "true" friends are. But (I heard Dr. Deal Edell say this), if one's body and brain think that's real, it'll work for them.

decision stress

I hate decisions. Especially about the small stuff. And about the important stuff. Especially, if I have to make them.

For example, take, eating out. the euphoria about not having to do the dishes vanishes in a few milliseconds - when you start trying to decide where you wanna go. Very soon you start thinking, let's just eat the left-overs (and throw away the dishes)

When i was single, a few of us used to go out for dinner every night. We used to go the same place and eat the same stuff, every single night. It made perfect sense then, it makes perfect sense now!

I have been reading the rather old and out-of-fashion book "Future Shock". Some of the stuff in there is still relevant. The section about decision stress in particular.

From “Future Shock” by Alvin Toffler

…life is a blend of programmed and non-programmed decisions. Rational behavior always includes an intricate combination of routinization and creativity. Routine is essential… because it frees creative energies for dealing with the more baffling array of new problems for which routinization is an irrational approach.

When we are unable to programme much of our lives, we suffer.“There is no more miserable person than one for whom the lighting of every cigar, the drinking of every cup, the beginning of every bit of work are subjects of deliberation.” For unless we can extensively programme our behavior, we waste tremendous amounts of information processing capacity on trivia.

Amen.

Now, I cant decide if this post should end here, or I should say something clever to close. Boss walks by: decision made simple ;)

YouTube will bring real democracy, bring down tyrants, clean up politics, defeat evil corporations..

Consider these two examples:

VP Cheney in 1994: says that invading Iraq would create a quagmire in this video on YouTube.






Transcript:

> Do you think US or UN forces should have moved into Baghdad?

No.

> Why not?

Because, if we had been to Baghdad we'd have been all alone... it would have been a US occupation of Iraq... Once you got to Iraq, took it over, took down Saddam Hussein's government, what are you going to put in its place? That's a very volatile part of the world, and if you take down the central government, you can easily see pieces of Iraq fly off - a part of eastern Iraq, the Iranians would like to claim... in the north you've got the Kurds; if the Kurds break loose and join the Kurds of Turkey, then you've threatened the territorial integrity of Turkey; it's a quagmire if you go that far... how many dead Americans was Saddam worth? the answer was not very many, and I think we got it right.


Al Gore criticizes President Bush Sr. for being soft on Saddam, and claims Saddam had WMDs in this 1992 video.






Summary: There is ample evidence (from CIA, defense dpt., commerce dept. etc.) that Iraq has been deeply involved in developing/procuring WMDs (nuclear, chemical and biological), that Iraq has been supporting terrorism. Bush ignored all this, mis-led the American people, and was hell-bent on pursuing a policy of helping Saddam's regime financially... The "theory" that Iraq's behavior could be modified by just economic sanctions is highly flawed. That wouldn't work anyway because Bush has consistently looked the other way when Saddam has been engaging in all this atrocious behavior.

Now, depending on your level of cynicism or naivete, you might be shocked or say "yeah, politicians are hypocrites. what's the news in that?".

What got me a bit excited, however, is the very fact that we can see these clips now, with very little effort or cost. Thanks to the internet, it's now possible for a motivated individual to dig up such then-vs-now pieces and share with thousands for almost no cost. Sure this medium can be exploited and manipulated by the powerful, can be used for propaganda, etc. The net effect will still be that it'll be possible for the small guy to poke his finger in the big bad guy's face. Is that great for democracy or what?!

I was half kidding about bringing down tyrants and defeating evil corporations, but only half kidding!

Brave New World

Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

Brilliant! Far ahead of its time. We can see how this novel has inspired so many other novels and movies.

The World is Flat, and that's boring

The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century - Thomas L Friedman

This books could have been written in one magazine article, and it would have been readable in that case. In the form this rather laborious book, it gets monotonous and a bit irritating. But there are some nice anecdotes and details about stuff like how supply chains work, etc., which just about make sure it's not a total waste of time beyond the first few pages. Overall, I learned some new things, but it was far from entertaining, mainly because of the verbosity and repetition.

River Out Of Eden

River Out of Eden : Darwinian View Of Life

This was my first Dawkins (I discovered this book 8 years ago, read half of it and forgot about it. I dug it up again last week and read it through). What a shame - I have spent all these years in ignorance :(

Very educational, very entertaining and extremely readable.

This is really 5 essays on evolution in the form of a book. To be sure Dawkins builds on the ideas developed in the first chapter in the later ones, but still each can stand on its own.

The first chapter lays down the basics about the nature of DNA and it's propagation (DNA's digital nature, how heredity works, etc.)

The second discusses the "out of Africa" theories of human evolution. The discussion of the Mitochondrial Eve is fabulous.

The third chapter's purpose "is to destroy the argument that complicated contrivances have to be perfect if they are to work at all" - a favorite position of creationists. Brilliantly argued. Case closed!

The fourth chapter is the best: "God's Utility Function" - what's the "designer" of life (on Earth) maximizing? It can't be the "greatest good for the greatest number" - clearly there are lifeforms hurting other lifeforms for the purpose of simply existing. Or is he trying to maximize David Attenborough's TV ratings?! More serious questions like, "it makes no economic sense in many species for the sex ratio to be 50%, when a majority of males simply consume resources and have no role to play in reproduction. why have they not been selected out?" Read the book to get the answers :) It's worth it.

To me, the last chapter is the least best; I admit I rushed through it a bit. Dawkins tries to come up with a generalized receipe for the evolution of intelligent life on any given planet - in terms of the thresholds that need to be crossed to achieve that. It's a little hard to follow. May be I'll re-read it soon.

Faith Starts Where You Stop Thinking?

Yesterday I was stopped in front of Namasthe Plaza (Indian Grocery Store in Sunnyvale) by an ISKON volunteer. She was a dimunitive white lady of 52 (her information). She started off trying to get us to pick up a book on Krishna (and offer a "donation" in return.) Another volunteer saw my pregnant wife and swooped in on her with a couple of Baby Krishna books.

After we had brushed off the initial baits, the little old lady went to the next gear, and produced a thicker, more serious looking book titled Krsna. She declared it was a required book for any one who wants to combat the stresses of materialistic existence and wants to go beyond the cycle of life, and stuff like that.

At that point, I lost a bit of my patience, and started off saying "You should realize that, being from India, we have been exposed to this stuff a lot...." And so started a short debate that quickly accelerated in full fledged battle of beliefs.

At some point she said something like "you are going to be a father, and you would be failing in your duty if you do not equip your child with this knowledge of life and the soul...". I got ticked off and told her I disagreed, and that it's good for someone only if they buy into it. It boils down to "faith", I said. She agreed, but went on to say, thousands are benefitting from the knowledge of Krishna all over the world; this is being taught in leading universities all over the world; people who have a higher taste seek this.

Wow, wait a minute! Higher Taste?

I was tempted to say, people of lower intelligence seek this stuff, but that would have been foolishness.

Anyway, I said, faith is that point where you choose not to think anymore, or you can't think anymore. (Implying, I have some distance to go before I give up thinking and trying to figure 'it' out.) I don't think she understood. But, I think I was on to something there.

Got to think about that one!

when canned/frozen fruit is better than fresh

Dr. Dean Edell: fruit/vegetables harvested to be sold fresh have to be plucked before they reach prime. however, fruits for canning/freezing can get closer to full ripeness before being harvested.

but the diff. are small. instead of nit-picking, just each some fruit - in whatever form!

The confusing world of Digital Video

My first deliberate foray in to the Digital Video jungle happened this weekend, after our Seemandham (Hindu Baby Shower). Thanksfully, I didn't have to go through the agony of having to decide which Camcoder to buy - thanks to my brother's wedding gift 4 years ago, which is surprisingly still not obsolete.

I spent a few hours googling and reading internet forums and tutorials, and learnt a bit. But it is still a very confusing jungle to navigate, especially if your attention span is not good. And since my memory is not very good either, I thought I'll record my new-found knowledge here before it slowly evoporated away.

Some basic facts:

1. all camcoders today are digital - they store the video and audio data in digital format, in a miniDV tape, mini DVD, a hard-disk or a flash memory.

2a. miniDV is a magnetic tape medium, on which data is stored digitally. the data rate is roughly 25 mbps. intra-frame compression is used, but not inter-frame compression (not sure about this)

2b. mini DVD is the same format as a regular DVD, just a smaller size (so less capacity?). the data in a DVD is stored using the MPEG-2 format, with bitrates in the range 5 to 10 mbps. intra and inter-frame compression are used.

3. video transfer from a miniDV camcoder to a PC (over USB or FireWire) is a real-time "capture". so, unless the transfer interface (USB/FireWire) has enough bandwidth and the PC is fast enough, data-loss can occur (mostly in the form of dropped frames). this is not like transferring files from a CD to a hard drive, where slower interface/hardware just results in longer time of transfer. put differently, transferring 60 minutes of video from a miniDV camcoder to a PC takes exactly 60 minutes - no matter how fast or slow the hardware is.

The Urge To Be Teacher

I assume it's fairly common among men (perhaps among women too) at some point in their lives to want to be a teacher. It's an urge to help the younger generation, to show them the way, to give back to the society, etc.

But I wonder if it's really a manifestation of another common wish - to go back in time and meet one's younger self, and give some real good advice! Something to ponder...