With a lot of population and geographic population distribution data out there today, Outrider has created a nuclear blast simulator where you can nuke any place you like, with one of four nuclear weapon types! The idea is not to be morbid, or take out any aggression here. Just to be aware of what nuclear war could entail.
Author: Digital Citizen
Good or Bad Idea, Giving Lottery Tickets to Homeless People as a Random Act of Kindness?
One of the rewirements I’m supposed to do in this Week 3 of the Science of Well-being course I’m taking is to build connections by talking to people I don’t know (i.e. starting conversations with strangers) and doing random acts of kindness (RAKs). Now, RAKs aren’t hard to find. Most people would give you examples like buying someone this or that, likely someone you don’t know, in some situation like the person in front of you or behind you in the coffee line. Those are fine, but for someone with Signature Strength of Creativity being #1, Curiosity being #2 and Judgment (aka Analysis) being #7 of 24 Character Strengths, who believes things are more meaningful if “earned” through a little more work, this buying of generic stuff was “too easy”.
GI Joe and Average Joe Fallacies (Science of Well-being Course Week 2)
The videos and content in Week 2 of the Science of Well-being course mostly focused on dispelling misconceptions we have about happiness. Professor Laurie Santos talked a lot about, and referenced studies to back her point, how a lot of things we perceive will make us happy, or sad should we not get it, don’t have nearly the impact we think they have. That’s because our intuition for predicting happiness is terrible! Professor Santos didn’t frame it in the following way, but it seemed to me our intuition for what would make us happy is very much based in the amygdala that’s the emotional centre, and reptilian part, of our brain that’s old, more animal-like and limited. Emotional intelligence, as a concept, is the ability to control this amygdata with the rest, and more rational part, of the brain, the part that knows waiting 20 minutes for 2 marshmallows instead of taking 1 now will bring you greater benefits when you are as young as 4 years old. That was the key to the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment that showed having delayed gratification as a trait in a 4 year old who first starts to think, is a better predictor of success in life compared to any other tests like SAT scores, education attainment, BMI, etc. That animal instinct suggesting what might make us happy is a very simple and basic form of processing that gets predicting happiness, and especially lasting happiness, all wrong.
Using My Signature Strengths (Science of Well-being Course Week 1 Optional Rewirements)
The Science of Well-being course had an optional rewirement assignment of using one’s Signature Strengths each day for the week. From my identification and analysis of MY Signature Strengths, along with notes on how to boost these strengths, and a little time to think about how I’d go about it, here’s my report on what I did.
My Repurposed Twitter Account for Innovation
Let’s get one thing clear right away, I am no fan of Twitter. It has a lot of usefulness, yes, but I don’t think the garbage on it is worth the usefulness in a net benefit kind of way. However, I recently saw two uses for it related to my work which I decided to capitalize upon, without engaging in the rest. I consider it anti-social media, if you will… using social media in a public, but non-engaging way.
Digital Citizen 