At least according to a decades long study involving thousands of people.  Check it out at New Scientist here:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16194-happiness-spreads-like-the-plague.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news

Wnat to be happy? Forget money - start building your social network!

Love, love is a verb
Love is a doing word
Fearless on my
breath

Gentle impulsion
Shakes me makes me lighter
Fearless on my breath

Teardrop on the fire
Fearless...

Night, night of matter
Black flowers blossom...

Teardrop on the fire

-Liz Fraser
(from Massive Attack's album Mezzanine)

Earlier this week I learned that John Bristol, a friend for years in the PDF community had been killed in a motorcycle accident. He was run off the road by someone in a car. The day before that, my cousin's eldest son was hit by a car while riding his motor scooter. He's in intensive care, but is expected to live. This same young man was found in a ( Read more... )

So various people have asked me to blog about my recent marriage to illusion grl. What can I tell ya, it's great! Illusion girl has commented at great length about our honeymoon, so I really feel I have nothing to add there. It was fun except for the bit with the car keys. Although she feels (she's sitting here as I write censoring encouraging my ( Read more... )

Well, most of you who know me know that I enjoy occasional episodes of atrial fibrillation. Had another one earlier this week, which bought me a two day stay in the local emergency room. Funny, they kept talking about admitting me, but never quite did. This was okay with me, as I had a private room in the ER (how the f**k do I make that happen next ( Read more... )

Saw this on /. and thought I'd pass it along, the "Lego of Gadgets"  home page

From their products page.
"For example, with BUG, you can easily assemble and program a GPS + digital camera device that automatically publishes geo-tagged photos as a web service. Integrating with an online photo-sharing service like Flickr is only a few more ( Read more... )

Back on Nov 5th, 
( Read more... )

So I just finished my first week at a new job, working for a software company that makes tools for Java and ,Net developers. I'm tired but extremely excited. This is certainly the most interesting company I've ever worked for. As a "Java Evangelist" (praise the code?) I'll be blogging (not here) attending conferences, and strong-arming developers ( Read more... )

So while 
( Read more... )

Recent research has discovered an area of the brain which, when stimulated, creates the sense of an otherworldly presence, sometimes divine, sometimes demonic, sometimes neither. Well, no wonder its so hard to photograph ghosts. What one makes of this, of course, has a lot to do with what one believes about the existence of God(s) in the first ( Read more... )