Does money brings happiness or not

I think this is one of the oldest questions... Does money brings in Happiness? real Happiness??

So first let us question what is real happiness.. I think everyone agrees that happiness is state of mind.. we could be happy with simple running behind bike tire with a stick or with latest and greatest Wii Game... or working passionately too hard or watching TV... or may be not.. For some it could be in mountains, jungles, rivers, nature.. for some it could be in bustling city corner in Starbucks.. for some it could be 4-5 dolars income at the end of the day.. for some it could be millions of dollars of bonus.. for some it could be helping sick/elderly.. for some it could be just plain old violent games or actions.. I think everyone in this world is different and has different index or criteria for their happiness..  it all depends from where  you are coming..

One thing is common.. it will be difficult to be happy while you are hungry.. while you are cold.. or extremely warm/hot.. or don't have place to sleep (does it remind you off India's poverty line definition). you do need money.. at least some money.. generally speaking more money is considered better for so called quality of life.. So no wonder the results were inline with higher per capita GDP. Usually higher the per capita GDP of nations higher the chances of better infrastructure to support higher quality of life..

Does more money bring more happiness? Economists have been arguing over the question for decades (and everybody else has been arguing over it forever).

Economist Justin Wolfers of the Wharton School, has spent hours poring over happiness surveys from 155 countries across the globe, and he says the data is clear:

The relationship between satisfaction, these measures of well-being and measures of average income, which would be gross domestic product per capita, is incredibly robust.

In other words, more money means more happiness.

Also.. lot of it depends on whom you are asking this question and when..

Here is the podcast on NPR I am referring to...

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/03/09/134370052/the-tuesday-podcast-money-buys-happiness

Also searched google/amazon and found two contradicting books on this topic:

No problem with Genetically modified…… Mosquitos :-)

Scientists in Brazil are releasing around 3000 genetically modified male mosquitos to combat deadly decease of Dengue in one town of Brazil. Apparently these genetically modified mosquitos will mate with female mosquitos and their offspring won't survive in wilderness (they may in air conditioned homes ;-)).. What a cruel, inmosquito (oops.. inhumane) and nasty way of combatting decease and killing these mosquitos.. and supposedly saving environment from those nasty chemicals like DDT etc

I am assuming no environmentalist will have any problem with these kind of genetic modifications.. as it is going to save humans from these dangerous inhumane decease.... I think India should also try this kind of solution if they are not trying already.. or may be not..

I guess this is best example of Darwin's theory of best will survive.. may be some other species far more advanced than we can perceive (or so called Gods of the day!!) played with species millions of years back and resulted in human evolution?? Just kidding..

Everyone.. Have a great weekend!!!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00gjc19#synopsis

GM Insects:
For the first time ever, genetically modified insects have been released into the wild to target a human disease. In Brazil, scientists are releasing mosquitoes which have had their genes altered to prevent their offspring from developing and being able to bite people, and spread the disease & Dengue fever.

Neanderthal dates:
New dating techniques have been applied to Neanderthal bones from a cave in the Caucasus Mountains. The bones are 10,000 years older than was previously thought. If this is found to be the case in many more sites in Eurasia, the idea that our ancient cousins interacted and even interbred with our ancient ancestors would be very unlikely.

Io – Jupiter's turbulent moon:
Reanalysis of the data collected by NASA's Galileo orbits around Jupiter's moon Io have shown that the turbulent moon is likely to have an ocean of liquid magma under its surface. This could explain why it is the most volatile moon in our Solar System.

Meteor Impact in the end Triassic:
Scientists studying the layers of rock on the Somerset coast in the UK are looking at the evidence of a massive meteor impact which occurred 200 million years ago. Could this impact have changed the Earth's climate, making it possible for the rise of the dinosaurs?

Is it a Suicide note from Microsoft or something else..

Microsoft's recent acquisition of Skype for $8.5 billion..

Most people are saying that it is overpriced and will meet same history as eBay... hmmm.. I agree.. I don't think MS will gain anything in terms of user base.. they already have very strong user base and on hotmail and MSN messenger, which they didn't leveraged properly.. but it is still a potent force and people still use it a lot for IM needs. I still can't understand why they have to pay $8.5 billion for this kind of service.. Even if there current MSN messenger service doesn't have IP phone feature.. they can develop it and get it ready may be for few hundred million dollars considering Microsoft's size. To make it popular.. make it very easy to use.. may be embed it in browser (oops.. I meant Internet Explorer).. and then subsidize calls to US and many other countries.. may be few hundred million dollars a month.. run it for couple of years at the most and then make it paid service.. I am sure they will still spend less than one fourth of what they are paying right now upfront.. and not even sure if it will make sense to them.. I think it is somewhat like AOL situation, where they simply didn't understood on what to do with the generated cash..

Now coming back on upside..

What could be upside.. I think biggest upside could be in Targeted Advertising side if they are able to execute properly..  If they are able to link Bing with Skype on audio/video channel and start scanning conversations for keywords and based on user profile start sending good meaningful targeted advertisements.. 
This is one thing which should be able to generate immediate revenue stream for them and help them compete Google.. Once Skype becomes even more pervasive in all MS apps like IE, Office or even xbox there upside is pretty good. however, they are going to face tough competition from Google in this area who is leading charge with Android where MS failed miserably..

So, time will tell if it was intelligent or desperate decision by MS.. As of now it looks little expensive.. but then couple of billion dollars are just change for MS and last priority for MS at this time.. they have much bigger things to worry about..

Google Music Service

Seems to be great service from users perspective. Only cache is now, Google will know your music likes and also your listening habits perfectly fine. Though personally I won't mind as long as it gives me ability to listen to my music anywhere on any device. Seems to be great service to me.. I am fine with they also making some money on top of it as it has to be win-win.. I hope they will give 6-8 GB storage like they give it to Gmail.. not like 1 GB for Picasa.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2385118,00.asp

Should we legalize Drugs?

Are we able to prevent drugs consumption by making it illegal? Who has really benefitted from drug illegalization? All the drugs will be cheaper by at least by factor of thousand if they were legal. That means that drugs will be easily sold as over the counter in pharmacies and many more shops in some kind of brands or specifications!!! Very bad situation!!! right..

That also means, no money for drug dealers, corrupt police/Politicians or any one else who is currently benefitting from it. All the money which is currently made by middlemen like gangs, traffickers, police etc would stay in legal hands. Actually it will simply vanish. On top of it, amount of money we spend on prevention could be utilized to educate masses and may be on proper medical care.

Question is.. Are economic benefits worth taking chances of few additional 100Ks more drug addict?

Actually biggest argument against legalization of drugs is that even one innocent life is worth keeping it illegal. Even one life getting spoiled due to legal drugs addiction is worth saving. I agree with both of them. Question is.. Are more lives are saved or lost due to illegal status of drugs? Are we able to prevent lifes of innocent people getting spoiled because of drugs?

In my view societies are loosing more lifes because of illegal status of drugs. I agree that there is no defined way of measuring if-but-else statements about it. As to my best of knowledge these drugs have been illegal right from beginning of normal human evolution.

Are their any examples of any country or state where drugs are legal.. I heard it is almost legal in Amsterdam.. What are the stats in there.. Is every kid who goes to high school is drug addict? I don't think so. What can we learn from these kind of examples if et all they exist...

They say that drug consumption is in-elastic.. means that whatever happens, if some one takes drug they will need it whatever the price of it may be. if price goes high, they will some how manage to arrange that high amount for it.. and this is the problem as it leads to high rate of petty crimes which leads to new petty criminals. Once these petty criminals are caught and they go to jail they turn to be hard core criminals... and ultimately leads to higher amount of bigger crimes..

Despite all these pro-legalization thoughts I still feel shaken by the fact that what will be society look like with legal drugs.. I have kids and I can't imagine them going to grocery store or pharmacy and getting drugs.. just like today's kids try to get Alcohol. At the same time not every kid go out and try to get alcohol.. Lot of it depends on parenting, society and the values kids get. If we and kids can determine and use judgement on alcohol kind of things.. why can't we be left to use same judgement on drugs.. Especially when they can save tens of thousands of lives of innocents..

I think we had enough of this non-sense and time has come to decide about these issues. We need to re-structure our laws and align them with new realities.. 

Osama Gone.. What next?

Entire US is celebrating demise of Osama. Whereas lot of people in Middle-East are still wondering if he really is dead or not.. To me, most surprising thing was that he was living lavishly rather than hiding..  where as we were all thinking that he is hiding in mountain region of Pakistan or Afganistan. He sure lived like royal in that mansion. I am sure he must have got help from Pakistani Military and or Intelligence. I think Pakistani government did enjoyed his stay as they got billions of dollars of US aid in the name of fighting the war against terrorism along with US.

Okay.. we are done with Osama chapter. Now what? Does it help or make matter worse. Will we be able to get hold of Al-Qaida or it may result in more animosity towards West and US in particular. One thing is sure.. we can't attack any other country in the name of getting Osama. However, in my view we will see many more foot soldiers for Al-Qaida.. Definition of Terrorist and Freedom fighter is very context sensitive and changes based on who is telling the story.. I don't think other than good education in middle-east (objective science based education, rather than religious) anything else can help this situation..  That too will take long time.. In the mean time US and west has to change their attitude towards rest of the world and think more of parters rather than only looking from financial point of view.

Everyone wants to live happily and want to live.. nothing is more important than life at least own life for an individual.. I can only hope that we have better world tomorrow and more peaceful world!!

Best argument to continue research on God Particle

I was listening to podcast about AMS shipment to International Space Station. All that science is off course good.. We will hopefully be able to capture or get glimpse of God Particle in Space.. We couldn't get it on our earth or even at CERN. So now we have to go to space :-(

It is costing whooping $2 billion (USD). Which is enormous cost for such a silly thing which we are not even sure if it exists. In $2 billion, we can do so much for our schools, remove poverty in so many areas and so many things.. Why waste it on this pursuit which we are not even sure if it exists..

However, I heard the best argument in favor of 2 Billion USD ever.. It is equal to just two days of our spending in Afghanistan. Come on now.. after listening to this argument I am up for more spending on these so called silly things.. No Problema.. If we can waste so much there why not use it for these silly science.. where.. if we are lucky we may be able to get some breakthrough.. on top of it, it will emply 600 scientists for years!!!

Here is summary and link if you are interested in reading more about it...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00g6102#synopsis

Analysing Cosmic rays from ISS
The Endeavour space shuttle is delivering the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer to the International Space Station. The complex and expensive scientific experiment - AMS - will analyse the ultra-high-energy cosmic rays, look for anti-matter and evidence for dark matter.