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Not Everyone Defines Happiness the Same Way
Happiness may be a cultural construct. While Americans tend to think of it as wearing a big smile and enjoying one's self, according to a team of researchers writing in the Journal of Happiness Studies, "in North American cultural contexts, happiness tends to be defined in terms of personal hedonistic experience and personal achievement, whereas in East Asian contexts happiness tends to be defined in terms of social harmony."
Dehydration Brings Down Your Happiness
Staying hydrated doesn't just make it easier for you to tackle a physical task—it boosts your mood so you perceive it as more manageable. In one study, researchers found that dehydration led subjects to view a task as more difficult than those who were fully hydrated, impacting their reported levels of wellbeing and happiness.
California Has A Bunch of Happy Cities
According to WalletHub's "Happiest Cities in America" ranking, some of the happiest cities in the country are in California. The most happy city on its list, scoring 79.89 based on emotional and physical wellbeing, community, environmental factors, and more, is Fremont, with the Silicon Valley hub of San Jose taking the number-three spot. Irvine came in at number eight, and Huntington Beach stole the number-nine position.
-- I don't believe Silicon Valley is in any happy city category
The Dakotas Are Pretty Happy, Too
According to the WalletHub survey, North and South Dakota are home to some pretty happy places as well, with the city of Bismarck, North Dakota, coming in second on the list. Fargo, North Dakota (despite it's dour cinematic roots) came in sixth, and Sioux Falls, South Dakota, was slated at number seven. A big part of their high rank may relate to income and unemployment in the states, with Bismarck and Fargo respectively holding the number-one and number-two spots for that particular factor. And for more on which cities have the most inherent joy, meet The 100 Happiest Cities in America.
Hawaii Is the Happiest State
But when looking at states as a whole, Hawaii takes the top spot, according to WalletHub, with the highest levels of emotional and physical well-being of any of the states measured. It's followed by Utah, Minnesota, North Dakota, and California, respectively.
Detroit Isn't Too Happy
Of the 182 cities that WalletHub ranked, Detroit landed dead last on its list, with just 28.65 points, due to its lack of emotional and physical wellbeing and job opportunities.
The Least Happy State is West Virginia
At the very bottom of WalletHub's list of happiest states is West Virginia, with dismal rankings in all three main categories. The state is also home to two of the lowest-ranked cities on the Happiest Cities List: Huntington (180) and Charleston (177).
Yes, it is time to party.
Hope Dustin joins us tomorrow with surprises.
Let me quickly add a few facts about Linux, the OS that many of us prefer to have for our development needs. I am sure you didn't know many of these. Stay tuned!
LINUX FACTS
The Linux kernel version 6.5-rc5 has about 36 million lines of code in it. The kernels in 2018 had about 20,323,379 lines of code.
LINUX FACTS
Linux very nearly wasn’t called Linux! Linus wanted to call his “hobby” project “FreaX” (a combination of “free”, “freak” and “Unix”). Thankfully, he was persuaded otherwise by the owner of the server hosting his early code, who happened to prefer the name “Linux” (a combination of “Linus” and “Unix”).
LINUX FACTS
Though he wrote 100% of the first Linux release less than 1% of the latest kernel release includes code written by Linus Torvalds. The guy isn’t slacking though; Linus is now kept busy managing and merging code written by other developers.
LINUX FACTS
Linux is used by every major space programme in the world, including NASA and the ESA. Private space companies like SpaceX also leverage it, with the latter having completed 65 space missions (and counting) with the assistance of a fault-resistant Linux system in their powerful Falcon 9 rockets.
LINUX FACTS
Talking of the wider universe, there are actual asteroids in actual space named after Linux and Linus Torvalds — whether space geek or tech geek, it seems we geeks like to stick together!
LINUX FACTS
Tux, the Linux mascot, is a penguin, but have you ever wondered why it’s a penguin? The answer depends on who you ask: Linus recounts a story in which he was bitten by an angry penguin, infecting him with a (made-up) disease called “penguinitis”. Others say its selection was due to Linus’ fondness for the animal and/or its unsuitability as a corporate logo.
LINUX FACTS
Linux totally dominates supercomputers. As of 2018 100% of the world’s 500 fastest supercomputers run Linux. Impressive!
LINUX FACTS
There are over 600 different Linux distributions out there, in 2023. This includes minor and major versions and independent ones. How many of these have you tried till now?
LINUX FACTS
The Linux development community is incredibly active. Changes to the kernel were merged at an average rate of 7.8 patches per hour over the past 15 months, according to numbers crunched by the folks at the non-profit The Linux Foundation (who pay Linus’ salary).
LINUX FACTS
Early Linux development took place on the MINIX operating system, leading Linus to adopt a file system layout similar to Minix for his fledgling project. It didn’t last; proving inefficient, Linus later replaced it with the ‘Extended file system’, better known as ext, versions of which are still in use today.
LINUX FACTS
Linux 1.0, was released on March 14, 1994, more than three years after Linus’ initial announcement. It featured 176,250 lines of code. Version 2.0 followed in 1996.
LINUX FACTS
Linux runs on everything, from smartphones and servers to submarines and space rockets. Talking about smartphones running Linux, do check out Ubuntu Touch which is officially supported on many smartphones. More details - https://devices.ubuntu-touch.io/
LINUX FACTS
Steve Jobs offered Linus Torvalds a job in 2000, on the condition that he stopped development on Linux. Linus (thankfully) declined.
LINUX FACTS
Steve Jobs and Microsoft then understood what they had to do - if you can't beat them, join them. Microsoft that famously tried to ‘extinguish’ the project in the late 90s and early 2000s now leverages Linux in its server business. It even contributes to kernel development!
LINUX FACTS
Talking of contributions, Google, Intel, Huawei, Samsung, Red Hat, Canonical and Facebook are among the top contributors to Linux kernel development in recent years.
LINUX FACTS
Linus, the guy behind Linux, was born in Finland, a bilingual country, and considers Swedish to be his “mother tongue”. He says he’s often “uncomfortable” speaking in English because of pronunciation differences, but prefers to read eEnglish books.
LINUX FACTS
It may be the biggest free software project now (see #1) but when the very first kernel was released back in 1991 it was made up of a comparatively minuscule 10k lines of code. And, today, we are at about 36 million lines, as I said in the first fact.
LINUX FACTS
Following a rejig of its development and release schedules, a new version of the Linux kernel is now released every 66 days or so, with new point releases appearing regularly in-between.