Just another reason to love Apple: newly released iPhoto ’08 makes publishing web galleries simple and the result… well, let’s just say it’s amazing. You can view the photos in a variety of ways (just choose your favorite), you can download hi-res photos for printing, and with some galleries, you can even upload your pictures to add to the mix.
Very, very cool.
I’m always intrigued to lurk around and see what types of things people are searching for. Luckily, there are some sites out there like Hitwise that make it fairly easy.
What kind of insights can be gleaned through this type of voyeurism? Good question. Try visiting Google and searching for… (Just kidding.)
A recent Time Magazine article examined the emerging use of search engines to do more than perform simple queries. Increasingly, we’re asking these tools to sort through mountains of data to answer philosophical questions (why?) and instructional ponderings (how to?) It’s the second of these that recently caught my eye.
Did you know, for instance, that over the last two years, the How To question asked most often has been “How to tie a tie?” Seriously, haven’t we gotten this down yet?
Other notables:
“How to make out?”
“How to kiss?”
“How to have sex?”
(Those seem obvious, but I might be missing something. Now I’ll have to check.)
“How to levitate?” (That’s one I’d actually like to know.)
“How to get pregnant?” (No comment.)
Regardless, it’s an interesting look at culture through our common queries, which now account for almost three percent of all searches.
I stand at the open door,
one child – exhausted – with her head on my shoulder
another burning energy and adrenaline
by endlessly circling my legs
like a kite whose string has been cut.
It’s late.
We’ve stayed too long, had too much fun,
and we all know we’ll pay for it in some measure in the morning,
but this is the very definition
of the long goodbye.
These are not “wave from the door friends”
they are “walk you all the way ‘til the sidewalk ends” friends,
and so we stand at the car, only slightly awkward,
offering hugs and thanks and promises to do this more often.
And we pause before leaving
grasping at the tenuous bonds of friendship
knowing our attention will only become more diverted over time
and these times together will certainly become more rare.
Yet they are precise, nearly priceless moments of perfection
where we strike a careful balance
between reminiscing about the past
and marveling at the future.
So even though six large men and a moving truck
have scrambled our zip codes,
we linger and we promise and we hope
because we are – after all – friends, family, and neighbors still.
Thirteen-year-olds facing jail time and sex offender label
First, the story out of Oregon about two 13-year-old boys who ran down the hallway in school swatting girls on their butts. The were marched to the principal’s office, questioned for a few hours, handcuffed and hauled off to juvenile detention where they spent the next five days. Turns out, if they’re convicted of sexual assault at their August 20 trial, they’ll face additional jail time and be required to register as sex offenders for the rest of their lives. There are far too many bizarre things in this case to repeat, so I just suggest you read this article from The Oregonian.
Patrolman sentenced to five years for defending himself
Chicago Patrolman Mike Mette was off-duty in Dubuque, Iowa, where he attended a party. At this party, he and his younger brother got into an argument with another partygoer. (This other partygoer, by the way, was 20-year-old college student Jake Gothard, who had a blood-alcohol level of .30, which would be nearly four times the legal limit in Indiana.) Gothard begins yelling at Mette, berating him for coming to the party without any women. Mette and his brother and their four friends decide to leave. Gothard follows them outside… well, here’s how the story plays out:
Gothard and his roommate began chasing Mette and the five other men, claiming they had stolen his cell phone, until they all ended up on the front lawn of Marc Mette’s house.
“Mr. Gothard approached me and told me he was going to beat the crap out of me, and he actually hit me with his two fists like this in the chest. Hit me three times. I pushed him away from me. Told him to leave. He comes back at me a fourth time and that’s when, you know, when I hit him. I hit him in the left side of the face,” said Michael Mette.
Moments later, when city police arrived on the scene, Gothard was still on the ground, having been cold cocked by Officer Mette’s right hook. When Mette and the others described what happened, Dubuque Police arrested Mette, charging him with felony assault causing serious injury.
Last week, this police officer was sentenced to five years in prison. If you can stand it, read the ABC News story.
The transcript of Steve Jobs’s Stanford commencement address was sent to me this morning as “great career advice.” I couldn’t agree more. Among the highlights:
Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.
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.
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.