Cl4rity

gdgt Live and Engadget Live are taking place tomorrow night in NYC, and it's free to attend if you register via Eventbrite (assuming it isn't sold out). You should check it out. There are a lot of cool people to meet there.

I was wondering the same myself, but at any rate, neither would pay his rent. However, I am curious because I know a few travel bloggers out there who make a decent amount of money on their blogs, as well as getting lots of trips paid for by companies like Expedia and Orbitz and other travel companies and agencies.

I don't believe it's that easy for most people.

I've never heard that quote before, and as sad as it is, it's a pretty damn good one. Honestly, prior to his suicide, I didn't really know much about Aaron Swartz, and I certainly had no idea that the U.S. prosecuted this harshly for what seems like a mild/minor crime.

No prob. I'm late in responding (busy at CES) but good stuff!

For the record, I love Boston. It's so peaceful and quiet there on non-game days! Ha! And it is a thousand times cleaner than New York City.

I really have no stance on this (in that I don't side with Aaron or the prosecutors in the case), because I don't have all the facts. Some of you may say that that is a stance, but I just don't see it that way. I am aware, however, that what I'm about to say may be considered controversial given the nature of how this case is being reported--and how it's being responded to.

Whenever we have shootings like the one in Newtown, we talk about gun control and mental health care. There is always that talk about mental health care. But when someone commits suicide, regardless of cause, those same mental health advocates are nowhere to be found. Why?

There are hundreds, maybe even thousands of people who have it worse than Aaron Swartz did, but they don't go killing themselves. Some people lose their spouses and children in house fires, along with all of their belongings. They spiral into depression, lose their jobs, go back to living with friends or family, see nothing but bleak prospects and they ultimately pull out of it. Others lose their fortunes and things they've spent their lives working for, a few of them do commit suicide, like the ones after the 2008 financial collapse, but some don't. There are people who commit crimes and know they face stiff prison sentences, like life sentences or death penalties, but they don't kill themselves.

I could go on and on about how much worse it is for people in third-world countries, for those who don't know where their food and clean water are going to come from day in and day out. I could go on about the people who are brutally bullied, day in and day out.

Many of these people, some in arguably worse condition than Aaron Swartz was in prior to his death, don't kill themselves. So when we're faced with a case like Swartz's, why are we so quick to find someone to blame?

Yes, prosecutors were overreaching and giving him hell, but they didn't kill him. He killed himself. Hell, there are people who are currently serving long or life sentences in prison who are innocent of the crimes brought against them, but they're fighting and hoping from within their cells. Many of them are not committing suicide.

All I'm trying to say is it takes a lot more than a prison sentence, 6 months or 50 years, to get most people to kill themselves. And yet hardly anyone is talking about mental health care.

Well, of course it's going to come as a big shock coming from Boston, because I don't consider Boston to be a "big city." I was born and raised in Los Angeles, I lived in San Francisco for a while, and now I live in New York City--Brooklyn, specifically. Much of what you said applies to New York, too.

I don't agree with the weather thing. I've been to Boston where it was 60 during the day and in the low 30s at night, and San Francisco will never, ever get as cold as Boston does during the winter. Hell, it doesn't even really snow in SF except for a few weird flukes in the past.

Rent, cost of living, etc. is the same in NYC, too, which is fast becoming a startup city.

Does anyone have a mirror? The site or its contents seem to be down or unavailable.

As another commenter says, it helps the bullshit detector. Why know why anything works? If we just follow advice blindly, it may do us no good.

Your line of questioning is all wrong. You said, "I would posit that there is not a single person who read that blog post and thought 'gee, I should laugh more often because it has all these health benefits!'"

Therein lies the flaw in your thinking. You don't read something like this and think you should laugh more just for the sake of laughing and its health benefits. Instead, you'd read something like that, understand WHY laughter has those benefits, and then make an effort to put yourself in situations where you'd be more relaxed and open to laughter, like hanging out with funny friends or taking a date to a comedy club.

In fact, you answered your own question: Why do we need to know why laughter improves health? Is it because laughter helps cope with stress?

BOOM. You answered your question.

Maybe that's one of the reasons, but if you dig deeper, maybe there are more. Then once you begin to understand how and why certain behaviors and situations affect our lives, you can adjust accordingly. Maybe you don't need to laugh all the time if you understand that laughter is primarily a coping or stress-reduction mechanism. Maybe you can go do other activities that have the same effects.

You need to think about this stuff differently.

It's my opinion that you can't make the assertion that the Nexus 4 is faster than the iPhone 5 by feel. Some people feel like their cars or motorcycles perform better after an oil change and a car wash, but it's psychological. Otherwise, I guess the rest of the article is interesting because it just proves that these "Why I switched" articles are never going to die for whatever reason.

In 2008: "Why I switched from BlackBerry to iPhone" In 2009: "Why I switched from iPhone to give webOS a shot" In 2010: "Why I switched to Windows Phone from iOS" In 2011: "Why I switched to Android from iPhone" In 2012: "Why I switched from X to X because it doesn't even matter anymore"

I get that it gives perspective on the differences between platforms and devices, but these pieces can only be so narrow because it's only one person's perspective.

I happen to like Eric Barker's work, so I'm going to defend it. Judging by your response, you just read the subheadings and not the supporting text that accompanied them. If you did, you'd see links to the research that supports these "generic" pieces of advice.

It's not enough to know that exercising and laughter will improve your health, but you need to know why--the stuff that Barker puts on his site or on Wired is research-based. It isn't just garbage from link bait sites like pickthebrain.com.