Over at MIT, there’s an interesting paper that asks the question: Does money really buy happiness. Apparently although the super-rich can be happier than the poor, the general level of happiness doesn’t appear to improve as money increases.
In effect, I wish to propose two different answers to the question “Does money buy happiness?†Considerable evidence suggests that if we use an increase in our incomes, as many of us do, simply to buy bigger houses and more expensive cars, then we do not end up any happier than before. But if we use an increase in our incomes to buy more of certain inconspicuous goods–such as freedom from a long commute or a stressful job–then the evidence paints a very different picture.
You know something? This guys right.
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Posted in Guides, Science.
By steve
– November 7, 2005
Over on 1-up.com, there’s a great rundown of the similarities between the DreamCast and Xbox 360. Of course, the fact is that even with these similarities, the Xbox 360 will be at least as successful as the Xbox, if not more so, simply because of Microsoft’s underlying strategy: If there’s a problem, throw money at it to make it go away. Where it gets interesting are some of the points the 1-up article brought up.
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Posted in Gaming.
By steve
– November 5, 2005
Some smart cookies have been beavering away at customized OpenSolaris distros for a while now, but the one that could get me to switch looks like it’s about to drop any moment now. Nexenta is a debian-derived (or is that Ubuntu-derived) GNU-Solaris implementation that looks positively peachy. I think the screenshot below summarizes my drooling and fawning.
I sincerely hope this isn’t vaporware, an Open Source Solaris distro that’s as easy to use as Ubuntu is something that I’ve been desperate to see for a long time. If Nexenta can deliver, then I’ll definately be one of the first to download it and try it out.
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Posted in OpenSource.
By steve
– November 4, 2005
Hurrah, it’s time for some links!
First up, check out these unlimited printable calendars. It seems like a good idea, but what I’d like to see is:
- Customized backgrounds (ie upload an image)
Custom start and end months for the year calendar
Ok, now we’ve got this handy collection of cheat sheets. There’s over 30 from ASCII codes to XHTML and plenty in-between. Personally, I’m quite fond of this Vi cheat sheet.
I’ve had some feedback from a few posts earlier – so expect a follow-up on FreeNX, and a guide to setting up a public access tor node sometime in the near future.
Posted in Links.
By steve
– November 2, 2005
Over at the SysInternals blog, there’s a classic example of what happens when DRM gets out of hand. It turns out that Sony have been silently installing root kits as part of their DRM strategy. The rootkit patches the kernel and silently installs a series of backdoors with coding flaws that enable anyone to hide files on your system. Removing the rootkit was awkward and annoying for Mark, a respected author on Rootkit detection.
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Posted in News, Security.
By steve
– November 1, 2005
