Watch Steve Jobs Inspirational 2005 Stanford University Commencement Speech

With the passing of Steve Jobs this afternoon, I thought it would be appropriate to post the following.  On June 12, 2005, he gave the commencement speech to the graduates of Stanford University.  Months before, he publicly battled a rare form of pancreatic cancer.  That day, however, this billionaire who had never himself benefited from a college degree, revealed three personal stories from his life.  These stories make you think about yourself and your place in the world, and inspire you to do great things.

If you haven't seen this video, I encourage you to take the next 15 minutes to view it.  It will be the best 15 minutes you have spent today.  I must warn you though, there is a segment of the speech where Jobs talks about facing death.  In light of today's events, it made watching the video somewhat hard to watch.



One final note:  Steve Jobs was notoriously famous for keeping his private life private.  It is unknown as to the true nature of the latest illness that caused him to resign as Apple's CEO in August.  Many speculate that he had a recurrence of the pancreatic cancer, but it was never disclosed.  His cause of death may ultimately never be known.

His family did release the following statement this evening,

"Steve died peacefully today surrounded by his family. 

"In his public life, Steve was known as a visionary; in his private life, he cherished his family. We are thankful to the many people who have shared their wishes and prayers during the last year of Steve's illness; a website will be provided for those who wish to offer tributes and memories. 

"We are grateful for the support and kindness of those who share our feelings for Steve.   We know many of you will mourn with us, and we ask that you respect our privacy during our time of grief."

Apple.com on October 5, 2011.

Earth Day 2011

Earth Day has sort have lost it's impact over the last couple of years.  Environmentalism has as a whole, in fact.  A large percentage of the population think the concept of global warming is a farce and believe in the myth of "clean coal".  Some in Congress even want to do away with the Environmental Protection Agency.

I was trying to think of a video that inspired me when it came to this great little planet we call Earth.  I came up with two.  They are both from Matt Harding, a video game developer for Pandemic Studios, that decided in 2003 to start traveling the world until the money that he had saved up had run out.  A friend of his videotaped him doing a corny dance on the streets of Vietnam, and 'Where the HELL is Matt?' was born.  Using 'Lullaby' from Deep Forest as his backing track, he put together a montage of clips of himself dancing in various locations during 2003 and 2004.



In 2006, he was approached by Stride gum to do another video.  This time he traveled to 39 countries on 7 continents.



Matt went back to the executives at Stride in 2008, with an idea for a third video.  Not so much focus on his silly dancing, but more on the people that he meets along the way.  For some reason, maybe it's the music, maybe it's seeing people from so many different cultures, this one tugs at my heart.



Years after seeing these videos for the first time, one word comes to mind when describing them:  inspirational.  We live in such a beautiful and amazing world.  I hope you enjoyed the videos as much as I did.