But Christakis and Fowler say their findings show that the gamble of increased sociability pays off, for a surprising reason: Happiness is more contagious than unhappiness. According to their statistical analysis, each additional happy friend boosts your good cheer by 9 percent, while each additional unhappy friend drags you down by only 7 percent. So by this logic, adding more links to your network should — mathematically — add to your store of happiness. “If you’re at the center of a network, you are going to be more susceptible to anything that spreads through it,” Fowler said. “And if happiness is spreading more reliably, then on average you’re going to be catching happy waves more often than you catch sad waves.”
Month: September 2009
Love To A Monster – Okkervil River
I was on a serious Okkervil River bender yesterday and it hasn’t stopped yet. This song came as a bonus track on the album The Stage Names
We want the airwaves
Where’s your guts and will to survive
And don’t you wanna keep rock & roll music alive
Mr programmer I got my hammer
And I’m gonna smash my, smash my radio
We want the airwaves
We want the airwaves
We want the airwaves, baby if rock is gonna stay alive
-Joey Ramone
Radio was a magical thing when I was a kid. I remember listening by the dial and waiting for my favorite song to come on the radio so I could try to record it on to a cassette tape.
There are still a few great stations out there (KEXP, KFOG, Indie 103.1 and a some others). But these days traditional radio seems to be fading away. It’s been years since radio has turned me on to new music.
Earlier this year, I was bumming that Boston radio was so tired and worn out. At the time I sent out this tweet:
I remember when wbos was decent. Now they are just long in the tooth. Wish theyd broadcast the hypem popular or radio http://bit.ly/QLBj
I thought that was a good idea at the time and I still do.
Fast forward a few months and I read this morning that CBS is going to let Last.fm power a number of their radio stations. And here’s why they are doing it:
It’s an interesting notion, to create one centralized station consisting of the top-rated and most popular stuff on Last.fm, because the whole idea behind web radio is that you don’t have to listen to what everyone else is listening to. On the other hand, Last.fm’s charts will surely do a better job of finding interesting music than the robots in charge of other radio stations will ever find.
That’s exactly right. I’m looking forward to see how this works out.
I still hope that WBOS ditches their current worn out playlists and turn over the airwaves to the Hype Machine. That would be sweet.
Death or Glory – The Clash
If I had to pick my favorite 10 albums of all time, London Calling would be on that list. Hard to believe it came out in thirty years ago.
Should we take a harder line? Force people to prove citizenship in emergency rooms? That’s illegal, for good reason. Make verification requirements so onerous that not a single illegal immigrant slips through? Very expensive, and not smart. It would be highly likely to snag deserving citizens — like old people who don’t have their original birth certificates. And besides, we’ve tried that: A House oversight committee reviewed six state Medicaid programs in 2007 and found that verification rules had cost the federal government an additional $8.3 million. They caught exactly eight illegal immigrants.
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Derek Jeter passed Gehrig’s record tonight. Fantastic. Class act all the way.
(Source: http://www.youtube.com/)
Rooting for Android
Plenty of folks ruled out Google’s Android when it first shipped with Tmobile G1. The biggest problem was the G1 hardware & form factor.
G1 by niallkennedy via flickr
Frankly, it was disappointing. Plus the number of 3rd party apps were limited to say the least.
Much of that has changed. I’m seeing more and more entrepreneurs and developers building Android apps. Many of these apps are coming out before Blackberry or Palm and in some cases even ahead of the iPhone.
And now we are seeing better looking Android powered phones. That will certainly increase volume and developers are going to pay even more attention. Plus, Google doesn’t 
block 3rd party apps like Apple does. (i still believe that apple is going to drop their gatekeeper role with iphone apps in the near future).
I’m looking forward to getting my hands on some of the new Android powered phones this fall.
I’m rooting for Android.
- Motorola Cliq Gallery and Impressions [Cliq] (gizmodo.com)
- CrunchDeals: T-Mobile myTouch 3G for $99 (crunchgear.com)
Let’s not confuse non-compete agreements with trade secret agreements
As many folks know, I am strongly against employee non-compete agreements. Unfortunately, such agreements are the status quo in the State of MA and are widely used & enforced. I believe they stifle innovation and are simply unfair (for more info check out the Open Competition blog).
People that are in favor of maintaining employee non-competes often intentionally or sincerely confuse non-compete agreements with other agreements such as non-solicitation agreements (NSA) or non disclosure agreements (NDA).
To be clear: employee non-compete agreements are very different than NSAs or NDAs.
I believe in NSAs and NDAs. I believe those agreements are important and they serve to protect the vital interest of the company and their intellectual property. Companies own those things but they certainly don’t own their employees.
At this time there is a lawsuit between Zynga and Playdom related to these issues. The allegation states that former Zynga employees stole documents and solicited Zynga employees amongst other things. (note: I am not a shareholder of either company and I don’t have any insider knowledge).
Essentially Zynga believes those employees broke their NSA and NDAs. Plus, theft of documents is simply property theft which is also addressed by law. It’s illegal.
If those complaints are accurate then Zynga has every right to protect their interests here. And I would do that as well
But let’s not confuse non-competes with other agreements. They are different story.
- Revised Noncompete Legislation Doesn’t Go Far Enough (xconomy.com)
Papa Was a Rodeo – The Magnetic Fields
Great song (if you like this be sure to check out the Bright Eyes version too)
Vapours – Islands
New album set to drop in a few weeks. Here’s a title track from the record. Can’t wait to hear the rest.