Young David

Unhappy People Watch More TV

David Young — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 20:42:02 +0000

“A new study by sociologists at the University of Maryland concludes that unhappy people watch more TV, while people who describe themselves as ‘very happy’ spend more time reading and socializing. ‘TV doesn’t really seem to satisfy people over the long haul the way that social involvement or reading a newspaper does,’ says researcher John P. Robinson. ‘It’s more passive and may provide escape — especially when the news is as depressing as the economy itself. The data suggest to us that the TV habit may offer short-run pleasure at the expense of long-term malaise.’ Unhappy people also liked their TV more: ‘What viewers seem to be saying is that while TV in general is a waste of time and not particularly enjoyable, “the shows I saw tonight were pretty good.”‘ The researchers analyzed two sets of data spanning nearly 30 years PDF, gathered from nearly 30,000 adults, and found that unhappy people watch an estimated 20 percent more television than very happy people, after taking into account their education, income, age, and marital status — as well as other demographic predictors of both viewing and happiness. ‘TV can become a kind of opiate in a way. It’s habitual, and tuning in can be an easy way of tuning out.’”

Slashdot | Unhappy People Watch More TV.

Good for Nothing, Peanut-Stealing Cat

David Young — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 01:47:54 +0000

See more funny videos and TBT Videos at Today’s Big Thing.

Good for Nothing, Peanut-Stealing Cat is Today’s BIG Thing - OCT 27, 2008.

Life is for living!

David Young — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 22:43:27 +0000

xkcd - A Webcomic - Regrets

YouTube - Insane cat jump

David Young — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 03:08:47 +0000

YouTube - Insane cat jump.

Swimming with tigers - Telegraph

David Young — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 19:43:08 +0000

Maybe I should try to teach MY cats to swim?

Swimming with tigers - Telegraph

New Star Trek Movie Photos

David Young — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 20:43:07 +0000

Doesn’t Zachary Quinto make the perfect next-gen Spock? Mind you, if I didn’t know, I might think that this picture was of Sylar in Heroes…

More Star Trek Images: Enterprise Crew + Nero [UPDATED] | TrekMovie.com

Lego: The Anatomy of a Lego Minifig Is as Fascinating as It Is Spooky

David Young — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 02:58:22 +0000

Anatomy of a Lego Man

Lego: The Anatomy of a Lego Minifig Is as Fascinating as It Is Spooky

Our life in Napier

David Young — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 21:08:02 +0000

A few weeks ago, we received an invitation from the Mayor of Napier to come along to a top-secret meeting, along with a lot of other non-native Kiwis… this video was the result:

My Productivity Fetish

David Young — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 10:29:02 +0000

I’m guilty of the typical geeky “productivity fetish” - it’s an engineer’s natural instinct to try to optimize, streamline, and “debug” their lives. I stumbled across a great article which puts this productivity obsession in perspective. Here’s my favourite quote:

“Shouldn’t we be striving for productivity in an attempt to have more time for ourselves, to do the things on that other to-do list, the one we label “some day when I have time” or are we pushing ourselves to be more productive so we can have more time to work, more excuses to not play with the kids, more reasons to let dust settle on that one, really important to-do list?”

My awesome wife baked me an iPhone cake!

David Young — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 22:32:32 +0000

My amazing wife, knowing my obsession with geeky gadgets, made me this iPhone cake for my birthday.

She printed out a bunch of promotional images of the iPhone, from various angles, then painstakingly painted each button with colored chocolate (yes, you can eat the Mail icon)

Here are all the photos