“Helping others may be as primal a human pleasure as food or sex.” – Nicholas D. Kristof, NYTimes

In an op-ed by Nicholas D. Kristof, the act of giving is equated to food or sex in their ability to provide human pleasure. It is a post that introduces the premise of a new book titled, “The Happiness Hypothesis“, and it’s one that I can agree with.

Throughout time, people have given to help those in need. They still do, as is seen in the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti. People also give to feel good about themselves. It’s a euphoric feeling that is not only one-sided, but has benefits for the receiving end.

Kristof ties this to a humanistic need to be social and to contribute to society. It’s an old idea, but it’s always a good read.

Update – 02/13/2010

I’m in the process of reading The Happiness Hypothesis. Will post a review soon after completing it.

Years ago, I read an article that found the average number of websites a user actually visits, frequently, is six.  Recently, I’ve been thinking about that and have decided to write down my top 6 sites.

Gmail – ‘Where I enter my cloud in the sky and hop about for e-mail, chat, suggested news, and online documents. I don’t know why I don’t use iGoogle. Yes, I do. It’s the look and feel of iGoogle. Of course, I can change it, but the default Gmail settings- with a slight modification by moving my chat contact list to the right-hand side and enabling docs and calendar- is all I need. It’s simple and it works.

The New York Times – I find the front page of the New York Times to be very effective in getting me the latest news and the most popular as read by other visitors. Whether it’s educational, international, technological, political, etc. I can always find news that’s important to me. Their op-ed section also make for good reading with Friedman, Krugman, Kristof, and Dowd.

ESPN – I love sports. ESPN delivers.

VGChartz – I love video games… and numbers. VGChartz is where I go for the latest sales numbers. Sometimes, I go there for news, but I prefer IGN for video game news, even though it didn’t make it in my top 6. The news at VGChartz is sufficient.

GoNintendo – Even though I don’t play much of Nintendo-branded games, nowadays, I’m still interested in what they have in store for their key franchises. I think a lot of their third-party games on the Wii are fun and go unnoticed by the general consumer. This is where I go for my Nintendo fix.

Reddit – Recently, I’ve been annoyed with the Reddit submissions that pop up on the homepage, but I keep coming back. Visiting the site is more entertainment than intellectual but, every now and again, you can find a gem that is worth reading. I hear that subscribing to sub-reddits is better than visiting the homepage.

Those are the top 6 websites that I visit daily. Here are others that I get to once a week or, at least, once a month.

• The Economist
• Hulu
• YouTube
• IGN
• Forbes
• BusinessWeek
• Idealist
• The Chronicle

What’s your top 6?

Now that’s what I call a deal.

The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks can be bought from Wal-Mart’s online store, walmart.com. Who would’ve thought we’d get such a great price this early in the product’s life? If you haven’t purchased your copy yet, this is the time to do it. $25 shouldn’t be passed up. The site didn’t say when the sale would expire.

Update

It looks like Amazon.com has the better deal. For $25, you get the game plus free shipping.