The Wayback Machine is an archive of the Internet started in 1996. Everyone knows you can search for anything on the Internet, but we often think that if you “take down” that website or remove that offensive post that it disappears….not so. If it is caught by the Wayback Machine you can reread it forever, long after you realize you were just an ill-informed ignorant jerk.
Here is the archive of my website. Of course, all the content is still on this site since I have already archived my old posts here, but it is interesting nonetheless. I know everyone realizes how quickly the Internet moves, but as a reminder take a look at the orginial Hotmail page or the Netscape Home Page. They look silly.
Also, I read three really interesting articles on happiness, one of my favorite subjects. The first one is about the hedonic set point and our potential ability to reset it. It mentions a few topics that I think about alot: that people are not necessarily hardwired to be happy, that self-hypnotism/auto-suggestion can alter our hedonic set point, and that cognitive dissonance is a way of life for many people. (FYI: The hedonic set point is a person’s baseline level of happiness.)
The second is about people’s tendency to revert back to their hedonic set point regardless of extreme positive or negative events, the importance of social networks to happiness, how increasing GDP isn’t increasing our levels of satisfaction, and how people living in the slums of Calcutta are happier than their counterparts in the US who are not starving and diseased.
The third is a brief interview with a Christian researcher coming out in favor of gay marriage because he says marriages makes people happier and more well adjusted, regardless of sexual orientation. Here is an excerpt:
Science & Spirit: In your studies of happiness, have you found any groups of people who are happier than average?
David Myers: Happiness is about equally available to people of any age, gender, or race. Income increases beyond what
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