URLs du Jour

2008-09-10

  • USA Today has a short article about Steve Jobs' presentation yesterday of new Apple stuff. I thought this was kind of cute:
    Jobs opened his remarks by poking fun at critics who said he looked so thin at the last Apple event that he was clearly ill. He smiled under a slide that said, "The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated."

    In the USA TODAY interview, he said the furor "put me in a small distinguished club … with Mark Twain, and Alfred Nobel. (Nobel's) obituary was published (while he was alive), and it's what caused him to create the Nobel Prize. We meet every other Thursday and talk about it."

    USA Today found it necessary to explain the joke:
    Nobel died in 1895.
    In case you didn't hear—apparently USA Today didn't—the Bloomberg financial newswire accidentally published a Jobs obituary a couple weeks back.

  • Lore Sjöberg continues in his fascination with creative ways to dispose of one's remains. This week he looks at environmentally-friendly methods. Example:

    Ecopod

    Even if you want to be buried in a traditional cemetery with stone angels, immaculate lawns and drunken goth teenagers, you can reduce your carbon death mask by being buried in a coffin made of post-consumer recycled material. (Particularly apt, given that you're a post-consumer.) There are a lot of options here but my favorite is the Ecopod, a recycled newspaper coffin that looks like something Steve Jobs would crawl into, only to emerge later as a huge luna moth.

    That's two items in a row that mention death and Steve Jobs. Shall we go for three?

  • Sure, why not? Here is Steve's 2005 commencement address at Stanford, in which he talks about life, love, loss, and guess what?
    When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

    Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

    Of course, that's easy for #189 on the Forbes Billionaire List to say. Doesn't make it wrong, though.

  • Speaking of Forbes, and following our entirely unintentional theme, check out their article "Five Things Steve Jobs Must Do Before He Dies". Unaccountably missing from the list: "Cancel subscription to Forbes."